RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline

Adarsa Sivaprasad; Barkavi Sundararajan; David M. Howcroft

RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline

Adarsa Sivaprasad, Barkavi Sundararajan, David M. Howcroft

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Abstract

The NLG pipeline of Reiter and Dale has long served as the foundational framework for data-to-text system design and evaluation. However its relationship to modern generative architec- tures remains underexplored. In this conceptual analysis, we argue that Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) constitutes a collapsed and partially reconstructed instantiation of the classical NLG pipeline, using it to identify failure modes of RAG around context faithfulness and retrieval non-determinism.

Anthology ID:: 2026.retroeval-main.5
Volume:: Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Natural Language Generation Evaluations
Month:: June
Year:: 2026
Address:: Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Editors:: Saad Mahamood, David M. Howcroft, Kees van Deemter, Simone Balloccu, Adarsa Sivaprasad, Barkavi Sundararajan, Alberto Bugarín Diz, Jose María Alonso-Moral
Venue:: RetroEval
SIG:: SIGGEN
Publisher:: Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:: 33–38
Language:
URL:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.retroeval-main.5/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):: Adarsa Sivaprasad, Barkavi Sundararajan, and David M. Howcroft. 2026. RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline. In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Natural Language Generation Evaluations, pages 33–38, Aberdeen, United Kingdom. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):: RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline (Sivaprasad et al., RetroEval 2026)
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PDF:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.retroeval-main.5.pdf

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@inproceedings{sivaprasad-etal-2026-rag,
    title = "{RAG} as a collapsed {NLG} pipeline",
    author = "Sivaprasad, Adarsa  and
      Sundararajan, Barkavi  and
      Howcroft, David M.",
    editor = "Mahamood, Saad  and
      Howcroft, David M.  and
      van Deemter, Kees  and
      Balloccu, Simone  and
      Sivaprasad, Adarsa  and
      Sundararajan, Barkavi  and
      Bugar{\'i}n Diz, Alberto  and
      Alonso-Moral, Jose Mar{\'i}a",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Natural Language Generation Evaluations",
    month = jun,
    year = "2026",
    address = "Aberdeen, United Kingdom",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.retroeval-main.5/",
    pages = "33--38",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-436-1",
    abstract = "The NLG pipeline of Reiter and Dale has long served as the foundational framework for data-to-text system design and evaluation. However its relationship to modern generative architec- tures remains underexplored. In this conceptual analysis, we argue that Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) constitutes a collapsed and partially reconstructed instantiation of the classical NLG pipeline, using it to identify failure modes of RAG around context faithfulness and retrieval non-determinism."
}

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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline
%A Sivaprasad, Adarsa
%A Sundararajan, Barkavi
%A Howcroft, David M.
%Y Mahamood, Saad
%Y Howcroft, David M.
%Y van Deemter, Kees
%Y Balloccu, Simone
%Y Sivaprasad, Adarsa
%Y Sundararajan, Barkavi
%Y Bugarín Diz, Alberto
%Y Alonso-Moral, Jose María
%S Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Natural Language Generation Evaluations
%D 2026
%8 June
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Aberdeen, United Kingdom
%@ 979-8-89176-436-1
%F sivaprasad-etal-2026-rag
%X The NLG pipeline of Reiter and Dale has long served as the foundational framework for data-to-text system design and evaluation. However its relationship to modern generative architec- tures remains underexplored. In this conceptual analysis, we argue that Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) constitutes a collapsed and partially reconstructed instantiation of the classical NLG pipeline, using it to identify failure modes of RAG around context faithfulness and retrieval non-determinism.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.retroeval-main.5/
%P 33-38

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Markdown (Informal)

[RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline](https://aclanthology.org/2026.retroeval-main.5/) (Sivaprasad et al., RetroEval 2026)

RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline (Sivaprasad et al., RetroEval 2026)

ACL

Adarsa Sivaprasad, Barkavi Sundararajan, and David M. Howcroft. 2026. RAG as a collapsed NLG pipeline. In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Natural Language Generation Evaluations, pages 33–38, Aberdeen, United Kingdom. Association for Computational Linguistics.