A Causal Model Application to a Cultural Heritage Sentence Analysis

Abstract

In this paper we will approach a cultural heritage sentence focusing on its causal content with the aim of providing a causal graph that, once pruned using bayesian techniques, schematically shows in an abbreviated way the essential content of the sentence for a non-specialist or general audience. For that purpose, the paper develops the following story line. We begin by noting the frequent controversies around heritage and its prosecution when discrepancies emerge. Next, we analyze a Spanish legal sentence about cultural heritage focusing on its causal structure and lexicon. In this respect, relevant aspects of causality are discussed both from a logical and a lexical point of view, which makes it possible to extract from the text of the judgment those sentences that are causally most salient. Differences between causality of physical and law facts are also cleared. Finally, a causal graph is depicted from the selected set of causal phrases of the sentence and a Bayesian analysis is applied to separate effective causes from the spurious ones for understanding the judge’s verdict, concluding the usefulness of the causal analysis with the aim to grasp the factual and evidentiary contents of a sentence about heritage.