Andrew Potter, PhD

• Associate Professor

  • Computer Science & Information Systems

  • University of North Alabama

• Previously

  • Southern New Hampshire University

  • Randnew, LLC

  • Sentar, Inc.

  • Intergraph, Corp

  • General Digital Industries, Inc

  • University of Alabama in Huntsville

• Brief Bio

I have recently retired as Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of North Alabama (UNA). Before joining the faculty at UNA, I taught at Southern New Hampshire University for several years. Although I'm no longer teaching, my research agenda remains active, as indicated below. 

Before that... I worked in industry for over 30 years, where I acquired tons of experience in software development, systems analysis, business development, organizational leadership, and life in general. 

And before that... I thought I was going to spend my life as an academic librarian. 

All great fun. I'm happy now doing what I'm doing, following my bliss, and helping others as they seek to follow theirs.

• Some Recent Publications

• • Potter, A., & Lindsey, C. (2025). Breaking ties: Some methods for refactoring rst convergences. In M. Alam, A. Tchechmedjiev, J. Gracia, D. Gromann, M. P. d. Buono, J. Monti, & M. Ionov (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (pp. 233–242). Naples, italy.

Among the set of schemata specified by Rhetorical Structure Theory is a pattern known variously as the request schema, satellite tie, multisatellite nucleus, or convergence. The essential feature of this schema is that it permits multiple satellites to attach to a single nucleus. Although the schema has long been considered fundamental to RST, it has never been subjected to detailed evaluation. This paper provides such an assessment. Close examination shows that it results in structures that are ambiguous, disjoint, incomplete, and sometimes incoherent. Fortunately, however, further examination shows it to be unnecessary. This paper describes the difficulties with convergences and presents methods for refactoring them as explicit specifications of text structure. The study shows that convergences can be more clearly rendered not as flat relational conjunctions, but rather as organized expressions of cumulative rhetorical moves, wherein each move asserts an identifiable structural integrity and the expressions conform to specifiable scoping rules.  

• • Potter, A. (2024). An Algorithmic approach to analyzing rhetorical structures. In M. Strube, C. Braud, C. Hardmeier, J. J. Li, S. Loaiciga, A. Zeldes, & C. Li (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Discourse (CODI 2024) (pp. 1-11). Association for Computational Linguistics. 

Although diagrams are fundamental to Rhetorical Structure Theory, their interpretation has received little in-depth exploration. This paper presents an algorithmic approach to accessing the meaning of these diagrams. Three algorithms are presented. The first of these, called Reenactment, recreates the abstract process whereby structures are created, following the dynamic of coherence development, starting from simple relational propositions, and combining these to form complex expressions which are in turn integrated to define the comprehensive discourse organization. The second algorithm, called Composition, implements Marcu’s strong nuclearity assumption. It uses a simple inference mechanism to demonstrate the reducibility of complex structures to simple relational propositions. The third algorithm, called Compression, picks up where Marcu’s assumption leaves off, providing a generalized fully scalable procedure for progressive reduction of relational propositions to their simplest accessible forms. These inferred reductions may then be recycled to produce RST diagrams of abridged texts. The algorithms described here are useful in positioning computational descriptions of rhetorical structures as discursive processes, allowing researchers to go beyond static diagrams and look into their formative and interpretative significance.

• • Potter, A. (2024). Hiding in plain sight: Span nodes as first-class objects in RST. Paper presented at the Beyond Words: Theoretical, Experimental, and Computational Approaches to Language, Contexts, and Modalities, Gothenburg, Sweden.

This short paper provides a close examination of a largely ignored feature of RST diagrams, a feature once referred to by O’Donnell as span nodes. It is shown that these span nodes perform as functional precedence operators within an analysis, and that they are essential to the ability of RST diagrams to articulate discourse processes. It is further argued that, common claims to the contrary, rhetorical structures should be viewed, not as a top-down hierarchical diagrams, but from the bottom up, as witnessed by following the relational arrows. Span nodes are integral features of the discourse process. Their placement within diagrams is strategic to the process specification.

• • Potter, A. (2023). An algorithm for Pythonizing rhetorical structures. In S. Carvalho, A. F. Khan, A. O. Anić, Blerina Spahiu, J. Gracia, J. P. McCrae, D. Gromann, Barbara Heinisch, & A. Salgado (Eds.), Language, data and knowledge 2023 (LDK 2023): Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (pp. 491-504). Vienna, Austria: NOVA FCSH - CLUNL. 

Diagrams produced using Rhetorical Structure Theory can be both informative and engaging, providing insight into the properties of discourse structures and other coherence phenomena. This paper presents a deep dive into these diagrams and shows how an RST analysis can be reconceived as an emergent process. The paper describes an algorithm for transforming RST diagrams into Pythonic relational proposi­tions and applies it to a set of RST analyses. The resulting expressions are isomorphic with RST diagrams as well as machine processable. As executable specifications of discourse structure, they support scalable applications in applied and theoretical studies. Several sample applications are presented. The transformation process itself suggests an alternative to the traditional view of rhetorical structures as recursive trees. The construction of coherence is shown to be a bottom-up synthesis, wherein discourse units combine to form relational propositions which in turn rendezvous with other relational propositions to create increasingly complex expressions until a comprehensive analysis is produced. This progressive bottom-up development of coherence is observable in the performance of the algorithm.

• • Potter, A. (2023). Text as tautology: an exploration in inference, transitivity, and logical compression. Text & Talk, 43(4), 471-503. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/text-2020-0230 

Rhetorical structure theory (RST) and relational propositions have been shown useful in analyzing texts as expressions in propositional logic. Because these expressions are systematically derived, they may be expected to model discursive reasoning as articulated in the text. If this is the case, it would follow that logical operations performed on the expressions would be reflected in the texts. In this paper the logic of relational propositions is used to demonstrate the applicability of transitive inference to discourse. Starting with a selection of RST analyses from the research literature, analyses of the logic of relational propositions are performed to identify their corresponding logical expressions and within each expression to identify the inference path implicit within the text. By eliminating intermediary relational propositions, transitivity is then used to progressively compress the expression. The resulting compressions are applied to the corresponding texts and their compressed RST analyses. The application of transitive inference to logical expressions results in abridged texts that are intuitively coherent and logically compatible with their originals. This indicates an underlying isomorphism between the inferential structure of logical expressions and discursive coherence, and it confirms that these expressions function as logical models of the text. Potential areas for application include knowledge representation, logic and argumentation, and RST validation.

• • Potter, A. (2022). Inferring Inferences: Relational propositions for argument mining. In Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics (Vol. 5, pp. 89-100). The Society for Computation in Linguistics. 

Inferential reasoning is an essential feature of argumentation. Therefore, a method for mining discourse for inferential structures would be of value for argument analysis and assessment. The logic of relational propositions is a procedure for rendering texts as expressions in propositional logic directly from their rhetorical structures. From rhetorical structures, relational propositions are defined, and from these relational propositions, logical expressions are then generated. There are, however, unsettled issues associated with RST, some of which are problematic for inference mining. This paper takes a deep dive into some of these issues, with the aim of elucidating the problems and providing guidance for how they may be resolved.

• • Potter, A. (2020). The rhetorical structure of Modus Tollens: An exploration in logic-mining. In A. Ettinger, E. Pavlich, & B. Prickett (Eds.), Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics (Vol. 3, pp. 170-179). SCiL. 

A general method for mining discourse for instantiations of the rules of inference would be useful in a variety of NLP applications.  The method described here has its roots in Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST).  An RST analysis of a rule of inference can be used as an exemplar to produce a relational complex in the form of a nested relational proposition.  This complex can be transformed into a logical expression using the logic of relational propositions.  The expression can then be generalized as a logical signature for use in logic-mining discourse for instances of the rule.  The focus in this paper is on modus tollens and its variants, but the method is extensible to other rules as well.

• • Potter, A. (2019). Reasoning between the lines: A logic of relational propositions. Dialogue and Discourse, 9(2), 80-110. 

This paper describes how Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) and relational propositions can be used to define a method for rendering and analyzing texts as expressions in propositional logic.  Relational propositions, the implicit assertions that correspond to RST relations, are defined using standard logical operators and rules of inference.  The resulting logical forms are used to construct logical expressions that map to RST tree structures.  The resulting expressions show that inference is pervasive within coherent texts.  To support reasoning over these expressions, a set of rules for negation is defined.  The logical forms and their negation rules can be used to examine the flow of reasoning and the effects of incoherence.  Because there is a correspondence between logical coherence and the functional relationships of RST, an RST analysis that cannot pass the test of logic is indicative either of a problematic analysis or of an incoherent text.  The result is a method analyzing for the logic implicit within discursive reasoning. 

• • Potter, A. (2019). The rhetorical structure of attribution. In A. Zeldes, D. Das, E. M. Galani, J. D. Antonio, & M. Iruskieta (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Discourse Relation Parsing and Treebanking (DISRPT2019) (pp. 38-49). Association for Computational Linguistics. 

The relational status of Attribution in Rhetorical Structure Theory has been a matter of ongoing debate. Although several researchers have weighed in on the topic, and although numerous studies have relied upon attributional structures for their analyses, nothing approaching consensus has emerged. This paper identifies three basic issues that must be resolved to determine the relational status of attributions. These are identified as the Discourse Units Issue, the Nuclearity Issue, and the Relation Identification Issue. These three issues are analyzed from the perspective of classical RST. A finding of this analysis is that the nuclearity and the relational identification of attribution structures are shown to depend on the writer’s intended effect, such that attributional relations cannot be considered as a single relation, but rather as attributional instances of other RST relations.

• • Potter, A., McClure, M., & Sellers, K. (2010). Mass collaboration problem solving: A new approach to wicked problems. In W. W. Smari & W. McQuay (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2010 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (pp. 398-405). IEEE. 

• • For a more complete list of my publications, as well as PDFs for most of them, check out my page in Google Scholar

Also I have put some things on substack: https://substack.com/@anpotter

• Education

  • PhD, Information Science. Nova Southeastern University, 2007.

  • MLS, Library Service. University of Alabama, 1982.

  • MAS, Administrative Science. University of Alabama in Huntsville, 1980.

  • BA, English Lit., Philosophy, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 1976.