Coreference in simplified German

In this paper, we analyse coreference annotation of the German language, focussing on the phenomenon of simplification, that is, the tendency to use words and constructions that are assumed to be easier perceived, understood, or produced. Simplification is one of the tools used by language users in order to optimise communication effectively. We are interested in how simplification is reflected in coreference in two different language products exposed to the phenomena of simplification: simultaneous interpreting and Easy German. For this, we automatically annotate simplified texts with coreference. We then evaluate the outputs of automatic annotation. In addition, we also look into quantitative distributions of some coreference features. Our findings show that although the language products under analysis diverge in terms of simplification driving factors, they share some specific coreference features. We also show that this specificity may cause annotation errors in simplified language, e.g. in non-nominal or split antecedents.