Showing papers on "Natural language published in 1968"

Mathematical structures of language

Abstract: This book attempts to show how one can arrive at an abstract system which characterizes precisely natural language. This is done by taking the data of language and finding within the data such relations as can be organized into a suitable model. The problem here was not to find a broad mathematical system in which the structure of language could be included, but to find what relations, or rather relations among relations, which is an interpretation of the model, can do the work of natural language.

Aspects of language

Abstract: Aspects of language , Aspects of language , کتابخانه دیجیتالی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی و خدمات درمانی شهید بهشتی

Language and symbolic systems

Abstract: 1. Language and the study of language 2. Phonetics 3. Phonemics 4. Vocabulary and grammar 5. Meaning 6. Change in language 7. Languages of the world 8. Writing 9. Language and life 10. Languages in contact 11. Language technology 12. Symbolic systems Suggested further readings Index.

Phonetic Symbolism in Adult Native Speakers of English.

Abstract: Three studies using adult native speakers of English are reported. Each study asked subjects to label elliptical or triangular figures of different size with a CVC trigram. It was the purpose of these studies to obtain evidence in support of the " phonetic symbolism " hypothesis. Subjects agreed about the relationship between vowel sounds and the size of figure regardless of shape. The sound /a/ was more often chosen for large figures while /i/ was more often chosen for small. A less striking but discernible trend was observed for the labelling of figures with vowel sounds. It was tentatively concluded that, for English speakers, there do exist unrecognized yet consistent bases for relating sounds and visual stimuli.

The theory of languages

Abstract: Let ~ be a finite set of symbols, or alphabet. Define ~* to be the set of all finite length strings of symbols in X, including ~, the string of length 0. A language is a subset of X*, for some alphabet ~. Clearly, the natural languages and programming languages are languages in the formal sense. The theory of languages is concerned with the description of languages, their recognition and processing. A language may contain an infinite number of strings, so at the least, one needs a finite description of the language. Particular types of finite descriptions will yield useful properties of the languages they define, especially when the class of languages they define is "small" (i.e., not every language of conceivable interest is described). If C is the class of languages defined by a certain type of description, one would like to know whether membership in C is preserved under various operations. One would like to know that the languages in class C could be recognized quickly and simply, especially if one were attempting to develop a compiling system for a language or languages in C. Also useful are characterizations of languages in C, so one can tell easily if a given language is in class C. Finally, one wants algorithms, if they exist, to answer certain questions about the languages in C, such as: "Is string w in language L?" In this article, we will give the principal methods of describing languages and the principal results concerning each method.

An on-line question-answering systems with natural language and pictorial input

Abstract: Various approaches have been employed in the design of question-answering systems with natural language input. An excellent survey of such systems can be found in Simmons.1 A more recent and critical survey of data-retrieval systems prepared by Kasher points out what he considers to be some of the major weaknesses of previous work. One of the problems cited by Kasher is the difficulty of dealing with the inherent ambiguity of natural language. In this paper we will propose a technique for dealing with syntactic ambiguity that involves the use of a restricted semantic universe of discourse. The universe of discourse is defined by means of a graphic display console. We will show by means of an example taken from the area of electrical circuits how this technique can be used to resolve syntactic ambiguity.

A natural language compiler for on-line data management

Abstract: During the past few years there has been a rapid advance in the technology of time-sharing systems and software to permit quick access to large files of structured data. This has led to a growing interest in communicating with computer files directly in a natural language such as English. The natural language systems described in the literature are largely small-scale research vehicles dealing with small data bases of restricted subject scope. Giuliano (1965), among others, has questioned the generalization of these systems to wider universes of discourse. Developments in this area have been reviewed by Simmons (1966), and by Bobrow, Fraser and Quillan (1967). In contrast, the work in on-line data management has been more concerned with the efficient organization of structured data to allow for quick access and maintenance of large volumes of formatted information [see the reviews by Kellogg (1967), Climenson (1966), and Minker and Sable (1967)].

A computational model of verbal understanding

Abstract: The long-term goal for computational linguistics is to increase our understanding of linguistic and conceptual structures and to formally describe them so that computers can deal effectively with natural languages in such applications as question answering, stylistic and content analysis, essay writing, automated translation, etc. The eventual realization of this goal requires not only a satisfactory model of linguistic structures, but also models for verbal understanding and verbal meaning. In this paper we outline a theory and a model of verbal understanding and describe Protosynthex III, an experimental implementation of the model in the form of a general-purpose language processing system. The effectiveness of the model in representing the process of verbal understanding is demonstrated in terms of Protosynthex III's capability to disambiguate English sentences, to answer a range of English questions and to derive and generate meaning-preserving paraphrases.

Utilization of contextual constraints in automatic speech recognition

Abstract: The use of contextual constraints in speech recognition has been contemplated by many authors. This paper describes a system under development which will perform correction of errors made in a phonemic recognizer by comparison of the received phoneme sequence with the syntax and dictionary of "the language being spoken. The language syntax is stored in a relatively efficient manner, being essentially in Backus-Naur Form. The error correction procedure can best be described as a sequential decoding on the tree of syntax generated by the tables, as traversed by a syntactical parser. The system is currently being implemented in a form such that it will recognize a "spoken FORTRAN" language. Some initial results of its application to certain error-containing inputs are described.

Generation of a 1000-word vocabulary for a pulse-excited vocoder operating as an audio response unit

Abstract: The IBM 7772 Audio Response Unit provides standard digital computers with audio-response capability. Vocabulary words and/or sentences are stored in the random-access digital memories of the computer. The coded voice requires 2400 bits per second, and is reconverted into audio by the 7772 audio response unit, which is the synthesizer part of a pulse-excited channel vocoder. It will be shown that the same unit may contain several synthesizers, and thus may answer to several inquiries at the same time, thanks to a multiplexing of the coded voice in the central processing unit. The units are delivered with a 1000-word basic vocabulary in the American English language. To ensure a sufficient level of quality to the synthetic voice, special care must be paid to the vocabulary preparation. The paper will present solutions to problems encountered during vocabulary preparation, especially concerning speaker selection, recordings of words, digitization, quality improvement by software techniques, and message composition. This vocoder is being used with languages other than American English, and with male and female voices. Based on this experience, a comparison will be made between the various languages that have already been processed.

Dictionary of English Language Traffic Terms

Abstract: A list of English language terms related to the handling of traffic, which are in use by manufacturers and users of communication systems, is provided The list was prepared by the Nomenclature Committee of the International Teletraffic Congress and represents current usage rather than an adopted standard

A Natural Language Programming System for Text Processing

Abstract: A " basic English" to enable editors, writers, librarians, educators, and others to instruct computers to perform mechanical text processing conveniently has been defined (see Tables II to V for partial summary). It has been given the name SNAP (Stylized Natural Procedural) language for reference. A processor that executes procedures expressed in a subset of this language has worked for some months on several computers. It was used successfully last semester by 40 students with humanities background, in a graduate course in the School of Library Service of Columbia University, for elementary mechanized library and documentation tasks. The processor for the larger subset of the language shown in Tables II to V now works, and is being applied to several practical problems. The processor for the full language is being completed. A SNAP procedure consists of a succession of well-formed English sentences of a few simple types. Most of these begin with imperative verbs that are concerned with input and output operations, and with the manipulation of strings of characters, numbers, and arrays of strings and numbers. Conditional sentences begin with IF. Several constructions that extract and concatenate portions of strings and lists of strings are used in the objects of SNAP sentences. The SNAP processor is written (apart from specialized input-output routines) in FORTRAN IV. It deals directly with some 25 "built-in" verbs, and will allow the user to define further verbs by subroutines that are also written in SNAP.

Men, machines, and languages

Abstract: Men communicate with each other by natural language and with machines by computer language. Building a bridge between these forms of communication has proved difficult, possibly because of misunderstandings about the nature and use of each kind of language. This article points out that until people succeed in storing in a computer considerable areas of human experience, they are not likely to make a computer interact usefully with natural language.

Problem-solving procedures for efficient syntactic analysis

Abstract: : The main purpose of this report is to present a logical framework in which the syntactic analysis problem can be represented. This framework originates from previous work on problem-solving procedures for theorem proving. Procedures for syntactic analysis are represented as reduction procedures where a problem undergoes a sequence of nested transformations that result in a set of simpler subordinate problems whose solution implies the solution of the original problem. The representation of the syntactic analysis problem provides a unifying basis for expressing a variety of syntactic analysis procedures, both existing ones as well as new, proposed, procedures. Such a common basis contributes to a better understanding and systemization of the programming of syntax-directed compilers and of other translators whose source language is a context-free fragment of natural language, e.g., some 'question-answering' systems. A useful concept of computational effort is defined, and it is used as a guide for the formulation of new efficient procedures. Heuristic procedures for syntactic analysis are suggested. Some features of these procedures are relevant to the design of advanced syntax-directed translators. (Author)

Computable and Uncomputable Elements of Syntax

Abstract: Publisher Summary Syntax of a language tries to find the general rules of paraphrasing, the general rules of consequence, and the general rules of constant semantic changes in the language These general rules will use some general concepts, grammatical categories, and their combinations The attempts to formulate the syntax of a natural language indicate a far greater degree of complexity The syntax of a language of mathematics seems computable There is a decision procedure for the well-formedness of a string of symbols And there is a decision procedure that assigns the proper structure to any well-formed string—ie, to any formula so that the set of all formulas for that language is recursive and the set of the structures assigned to the formulas is recursive No syntax can be expected to enumerate recursively all commonly known sentences, which are implicitly used in referentials Syntax, however, can to some extent find out what sentences were implicitly used for the referentials of given texts Syntax and semantics merge The use of a language presupposes the facts that are too trivial or too well known to be stated, though they are used for more involved locutions The facts must be supplied independently of the syntactic theory, and they constitute the recurrent anchorage of the theory in empirical linguistic data