The dimensions of the DAMSL annotation scheme are mostly independent however there are a few dialog phenomena that form distinct patterns across the dimensions and should be annotated consistently. Acknowledgments and accepts are one such phenomenon. If an utterance is labeled as an acknowledgment but not an accept then it must be labeled as Communication Management at the Information Level dimension because it signals hearing/understanding of the message but says nothing about its content. If an utterance is an accept (and by definition an acknowledgment) then it should be labeled with the same Information Level as its antecedent as shown in the examples below:
Task utt1: u: take the boxcars to Corning Task,Accept(utt1) utt2: s: okay
Task-Management utt1: u: let's work on the oranges plan first
Task-Management,Accept(utt1) utt2: okay
Comm utt1: u: I'm turning up the microphone so I can hear you
better
Comm,Accept(utt1) utt2: s: okay
Other utt1: u: that noise is the telephone next door
Other,Accept(utt1) utt2: s: okay
(assuming the telephone had nothing to do with the dialog)
Check questions are a second phenomenon that forms a distinct pattern across two types of labels. Check questions such as the example below are similar to yes/no questions but can be answered with words such as ``right'', ``okay'' in addition to ``yes'' and ``no''. The questions ask for confirmation of a fact, so unlike standard questions their Statement tag is Other-statement instead of none. Check questions are labeled Other-statement instead of Assert because the speaker is asking for confirmation, not trying to change the belief of the addressee. The speaker does not think the claim has already been made; if it had they would not need to ask for confirmation. Responses to check questions are both answers and asserts. The pair of a check question and a positive answer also resembles an accepted assert (such as shown in utterances utt3 and utt4) so a positive answer to a check question should also be labeled as an accept. Note, if utt3 is said with the proper intonation then it can be a check question as well.
Info-Request, Assert utt1: u: and it's gonna take us also an hour to load
boxcars right
Answer,Accept(utt1) utt2: s: right
Assert utt3: u: and it's gonna take us also an hour to load boxcars
Accept(utt1) utt4: s: right
Note, in general answers to questions are always asserts. Words such as ``okay'' and ``right'' when not answers are not asserts. However responses that make a claim about the world are asserts. This even includes responses such as ``that's right''.