Showing papers on "Natural language published in 1971"

Procedures as a representation for data in a computer program for understanding natural language

Abstract: : The paper describes a system for the computer understanding of English. The system answers questions, executes commands, and accepts information in normal English dialog. It uses semantic information and context to understand discourse and to disambiguate sentences. It combines a complete syntactic analysis of each sentence with a 'heuristic understander' which uses different kinds of information about a sentence, other parts of the discourse, and general information about the world in deciding what the sentence means.

Method using a programmed digital computer system for translation between natural languages

Abstract: A computerized translation method with universal application to all natural languages is provided. With this method, parameters are changed only when source or target languages are changed. The computerized method can be regarded as a self-contained system, having been developed to accept input tests in the source language, and look up individual (or sequences of) textwords in various dictionaries. On the basis of the dictionary information, sequences of operations are carried out which gradually generate the multiplicity of computer codes needed to express all the syntactic and semantic functions of the words in the sentence. On the basis of all the codes and target meanings in the dictionary, plus synthesis codes of such meanings, translation is carried out automatically. Procedures which generate and easily update main dictionaries, idiom dictionaries, high frequency dictionaries and compound dictionaries are integral parts of the system.

A net structure for semantic information storage, deducation and retrieval

Abstract: This paper describes a data structure, MENS (MEmory Net Structure), that is useful for storing semantic information stemming from a natural language, and a system, MENTAL (MEmory Net That Answers and Learns) that interacts with a user (human or program), stores information into and retrieves information from MENS and interprets some information in MENS as rules telling it how to deduce new information from what is already stored. MENTAL can be used as a guestion-answering system with formatted input /output, as a vehicle for experimenting with various theories of semantic structures or as the memory management portion of a natural language question-answering system.

Of language knowledge, apes, and brains.

Abstract: Man's language ability is due to a more general, deep-seated cognitive ability characteristic of the species. It is argued that man's ability for mathematical thinking is a product of the same species-specific form of cerebration as language. The basis for mathematical constructs seems to be contained in the basis for language constructs; apparently, for every mathematical notion there is a homologous one in the sphere of language, the former always being more restricted and well defined than the latter. Mathematical ability may therefore be regarded as a special case of the more general ability that also generates language, and this point is further emphasized by certain similarities in the formal structure of mathematics (arithmetic in particular) and language. Taking advantage of the commonalities between language and arithmetic, it is possible to use the latter to illustrate important general characteristics of the former. The insights gained are relevant to biology at large, and to comparative zoology and neurology in particular. The zoologist who wishes to compare animal communication with language must know what the nature of language is-how (or whether) one might analyze it into components. He must know what might constitute a primitive or simple language. It is shown that the irreducible elements of the two systems under study (language and arithmetic) are processes (i.e., processes of “relating,” or simply “relations”) and that these processes combine into interrated systems. The systems have ontogenetic histories that might, perhaps, furnish a criterion for the notion of simplicity. We do not yet know what might be a homologous phylogenetic “cousin” of the basic human ability under consideration; howerver, we should expect it to be “homeomorphic” to the human system if it is derived from a common ancestral ability. Homeomorphic mapping is therefore the most reliable criterion so far for phylogenetic relatedness. By characterizing language and arithmetic simultaneously (in order to get at their common biological foundations) it is also possible to sharpen up the questions that the student of language should put to the neurophysiologist. The quest for innovation or differences in brain processes and functions now appears to be the primary one, whereas a description of structural changes in the human brain would be of interest only insofar as this would elucidate how brain functions might have become modified by them.

Theories of language acquisition.

Abstract: Prior to the advent of generative grammar, theoretical approaches to language development relied heavily upon the concepts ofdifferential reinforcement andimitation. Current studies of linguistic acquisition are largely dominated by the hypothesis that the child constructs his language on the basis of a primitive grammar which gradually evolves into a more complex grammar. This approach presupposes that the investigator does not impose his own grammatical rules on the utterances of the child; that the sound system of the child and the rules he employs to form sentences are to be described in their own terms, independently of the model provided by the adult linguistic community; and that there is a series of steps or stages through which the child passes on his way toward mastery of the adult grammar in his linguistic environment. This paper attempts to trace the development of human vocalization through prelinguistic stages to the development of what can be clearly recognized as language behavior, and then progresses to transitional phases in which the language of the child begins to approximate that of the adult model. In the view of the authors, the most challenging problems which confront theories of linguistic acquisition arise in seeking to account for structure of sound sequences, in the rules that enable the speaker to go from meaning to sound and which enable the listener to go from sound to meaning. The principal area of concern for the investigator, according to the authors, is the discovery of those rules at various stages of the learning process. The paper concludes with a return to the question of what constitutes an adequate theory of language ontogenesis. It is suggested that such a theory will have to be keyed to theories of cognitive development and will have to include and go beyond a theory which accounts for adult language competence and performance, since these represent only the terminal stage of linguistic ontogenesis.

Some relations between predicate calculus and semantic net representations of discourse

Abstract: Networks can be used to represent syntactic trees of the semantic relations that hold between words in sentences. They can be alternately symbolized as association lists or conjoined sets of triples. A semantic net represents a sentence as a conjoined set of binary predicates. An algorithm is presented that converts a semantic network into predicate calculus formalism. The simpler syntax of semantic network representations in contrast of ordinary predicate logic conventions is taken as an argument for their use in computational applications. Descriptive Terms: Semantic networks, Predicate logic, Natural language, Computational linguistics, Association lists.

The converse natural language data management system: current status and plans

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of research in progress in which the principal aim is the achievement of more natural and expressive modes of on-line communication with complexly structured data bases. A natural-language compiler has been constructed that accepts sentences in a user-extendable English subset, produces surface and deep-structure syntactic analyses, and uses a network of concepts to construct semantic interpretations formalized as computable procedures. The procedures are evaluated by a data management system that updates, modifies, and searches data bases that can be formalized as finite models of states of affairs. The system has been designed and programmed to handle large vocabularies and large collections of facts efficiently. Plans for extending the research vehicle to interface with a deductive inference component and a voice input-output effort are briefly described.

New Scales for the Assessment of Language Development in Young Children

Abstract: The Reynell Developmental Language Scales (R.D.L.S.) were developed in response to a clinical need at a center for handicapped children. They are designed for the separate assessment of different aspects of language development over the age range one to five years. The scales are based on the normal pattern of language development. They were developed with handicapped children and then standardized on a sample of 636 non-handicapped children in southeast England. Three scales are described; Verbal Comprehension A, which requires no speech; Verbal Comprehension B, which requires neither speech nor hand function; and Expressive Language, which includes separate sections on language structure, vocabulary, and content.

A computerized language analysis system

Abstract: The Computerized Language Analysis System (CLAS) described in this paper is a general-purpose computer system that can perform standard statistical tests on natural language texts as well as print a concordance or index of all the words of that text or a specified subset of these words. It was developed from a simple concordance generating program on the belief that since the computer had already separated the text into its constituent words, it might as well do some statistical and semantic operation on this text to aid the scholar in his research. The standard concordance has long been used to aid scholars in their research of important literary works. Authorship studies are improved by using more than concordance data, e. g., type/token data, sentence and verbal segment statistics, and word rank/frequency data. The mechanical aspects of a writer's style, whether he is a literary giant or a college freshman, are also amenable to analysis by computer. Couple with this statistical analysis some rudimentary semantic analyses and we are moving toward a legitimate computer approach to essay evaluation. By combining statistical and semantic analyses one also has the basic data for content analysis. When the computer is used as an aid to scholarly research in natural language texts, its primary usefulness is its ability to select and display specified information. This saves the researcher countless hours of exhausting busy-work. Though the computer is most often thought of in terms of its use in concordance generation and information retrieval processes, a little creativity on the part of the researcher allows him to take a general-purpose computer system and have it display information that is more crucial to his research than either of the above may be. The present system, CLAS, is a first attempt at such a general-purpose system. It is constantly undergoing change as we find new ways to look at natural language texts. Looking forward to the extended use of photoelectric input devices, we have written our programs to operate on the natural language text, using only conventional spacing and punctuation as information sources. The text is keypunched with a variable length identifier preceding each line of text. This identifier is then used in the index and concordance

Languages for defining sets in arbitrary algebras

Abstract: This paper presents a self-contained and more elementary treatment of our mathematical theory of the syntax and semantics of language developed in [W-1] and [ W-2]. It applies this theory to the definition of subsets, and operators on subsets of the carrier of algebras. We show how regular and context-free sets of strings, recognizable sets of trees, and recursively enumerable (r.e.) sets of natural numbers or strings can be defined in a "natural" algebraic manner which defines "similar" types of sets for arbitrary algebras. We employ our mathematical framework to develop semantic and syntactic normal form theorems which explicate the relationship between different languages which define the same classes of sets and operators. We also investigate the relationship between our languages and the earlier work of Mezei, Eilenberg and Wright [M-W], [E-W] and the work of Eilenberg and Elgot [E-E].

The function of semantics in automated language processing

Abstract: This paper is a survey of some of the major semantic models that have been developed for automated semantic analysis of natural language. Current approaches to semantic analysis and logical inference are based mainly on models of human cognitive processes such as Quillian's semantic memory, Simmon's Protosynthex III and others. All existing systems and/or models, more or less experimental, were applied to a small subset of English. They are highly tentative because the definitions of semantic processes and semantically structured lexicons are not formulated rigorously. This is due mainly to the fact that it is unknown whether a unique, consistent hierarchization of the semantic features of language is possible.However, the models described are significant contributions to an unexplored field called semantics. The progressive development of a sophisticated, semantically based system for automated processing of natural language is a realistic goal. It should not be neglected, despite the fact that it is difficult to predict when this goal will be achieved.

How features resolve syntactic ambiguity

Abstract: Ambiguity is a pervasive and important aspect of natural language. Ambiguities, which are disambiguated by context, contribute powerfully to the expressiveness of natural language as compared to formal languages. In computational systems using natural language, problems of properly controlling ambiguity are particularly large, partially because of the necessity to circumvent parsings due to multiple orderings in the application of rules.Features, that is, subcategorizations of parts-of-speech, constitute an effective means for controlling syntactic ambiguity through ordering the hierarchical organization of syntactic constituents. This is the solution adopted for controlling ambiguity in REL English, which is part of the REL (Rapidly Extensible Language) System. REL is a total software system for facilitating man/machine communications. The efficiency of processing natural language in REL English is achieved both by the detailed syntactic aspects which are incorporated into the REL English grammar, and by means of the particular implementation for processing features in the parsing algorithm.

Finding the conceptual content and intention in an utterance in natural language conversation

Abstract: The conceptual dependency analyzer described in the first IJCAI (8) has been modified so as to function more conceptually with less reliance on syntactic rules. In order to have an analyzer be conceptually driven, it is necessary for the system to know what it is looking for. That is, it must make predictions as to what can follow conceptually at any point in the analysis. This paper discusses the extension of conceptual prediction to include predictions based on context and the structure of the memory model that operates with the analyzer. Such predictions make use of relations between conceptual actions and the implications of those actions. This enables the conceptual analyzer to discover not only the conceptual content of an utterance but also the intention of that utterance in context. We are concerned with the extraction of the conceptual content both explicit and implicit in an utterance in order to analyze effectively in an interactive conversational situation.

The Use of Case Grammar in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Abstract: The use of case frames of verbs as a control for the teaching of vocabulary items has a number of distinct advantages over other concepts. The case frames associated with a particular vocabulary item or with a particular semantic class would be the same in the native and the target language (English). This would have the advantage of allowing the student to see how his language is the same as the target language. It would also enable the materials to be situationally as well as structurally controlled, and allow the students to use conceptual (as well as syntactic) clues in learning new vocabulary items.