Showing papers on "Natural language published in 1973"
TL;DR: Students of language, especially psychologists and linguistic philosophers, have long been attuned to the fact that natural language concepts have vague boundaries and fuzzy edges and that, consequently, natural language sentences will very often be neither true, nor false, nor nonsensical.
Abstract: Logicians have, by and large, engaged in the convenient fiction that sentences of natural languages (at least declarative sentences) are either true or false or, at worst, lack a truth value, or have a third value often interpreted as ‘nonsense’. And most contemporary linguists who have thought seriously about semantics, especially formal semantics, have largely shared this fiction, primarily for lack of a sensible alternative. Yet students of language, especially psychologists and linguistic philosophers, have long been attuned to the fact that natural language concepts have vague boundaries and fuzzy edges and that, consequently, natural language sentences will very often be neither true, nor false, nor nonsensical, but rather true to a certain extent and false to a certain extent, true in certain respects and false in other respects.
1,284 citations
04 Jun 1973
TL;DR: The Lunar Sciences Natural Language Information System is a research prototype of a system to deal with this and other man-machine communication problems by adapting the machine to the conventions of ordinary natural English rather than requiring the man to adapt to the machine.
Abstract: The advent of computer networks such as the ARPA net (see e.g., Ornstein et al.) has significantly increased the opportunity for access by a single researcher to a variety of different computer facilities and data bases, thus raising expectations of a day when it will be a common occurrence rather than an exception that a scientist will casually undertake to use a computer facility located 3000 miles away and whose languages, formats, and conventions are unknown to him. In this foreseeable future, learning and remembering the number of different languages and conventions that such a scientist would have to know will require significant effort---much greater than that now required to learn the conventions of his local computing center (where other users and knowledgeable assistance is readily available). The Lunar Sciences Natural Language Information System (which we will hereafter refer to as LUNAR) is a research prototype of a system to deal with this and other man-machine communication problems by adapting the machine to the conventions of ordinary natural English rather than requiring the man to adapt to the machine.
249 citations
TL;DR: Sentence qualifier markers, like those indicating interrogation and negation, are placed before verbs in consistent VO languages, after verb in consistent OV languages as mentioned in this paper, which enables us to identify other sentence qualifiers, like potential, desiderative, and reflexive.
Abstract: Sentence qualifier markers, like those indicating interrogation and negation, are placed before verbs in consistent VO languages, after verbs in consistent OV languages. This placement principle permits us to identify other sentence qualifiers, like potential, desiderative, and reflexive. It also provides means for distinguishing qualifier markers from congruence as well as deixis markers. Moreover, it has morphological and phonological implications, leading to so-called agglutinative structure. Besides contributing to our understanding of linguistic structure, this principle enables us to clarify some problems in the historical development of languages.*
206 citations
TL;DR: The present purpose is to foster studies which model grammatical transformations as mappings on trees (equivalently, labeled bracketings) and investigating questions of current linguistic interest, such as the recursiveness of languages generated by transformational grammars.
186 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that despite massive language loss, globally aphasic patients retain a rich conceptual system and at least some capacity for symbolization and primitive linguistic functions.
162 citations
DOI•
01 Dec 1973TL;DR: The Lunar Sciences Natural Language Information System (LUNAR) as discussed by the authors is a research prototype of a system to deal with this and other man-machine communication problems by adapting the machine to the conventions of ordinary natural English rather than requiring the man to adapt to the machine.
Abstract: The advent of computer networks such as the ARPA net (see e.g., Ornstein et al.) has significantly increased the opportunity for access by a single researcher to a variety of different computer facilities and data bases, thus raising expectations of a day when it will be a common occurrence rather than an exception that a scientist will casually undertake to use a computer facility located 3000 miles away and whose languages, formats, and conventions are unknown to him. In this foreseeable future, learning and remembering the number of different languages and conventions that such a scientist would have to know will require significant effort---much greater than that now required to learn the conventions of his local computing center (where other users and knowledgeable assistance is readily available). The Lunar Sciences Natural Language Information System (which we will hereafter refer to as LUNAR) is a research prototype of a system to deal with this and other man-machine communication problems by adapting the machine to the conventions of ordinary natural English rather than requiring the man to adapt to the machine.
155 citations
01 Aug 1973
TL;DR: The paper describes the way in which a Preference Semantics system for natural language analysis and generation tackles a difficult class of anaphoric inference problems (finding the correct referent for an English pronoun in context).
Abstract: The paper describes the way in which a Preference Semantics system for natural language analysis and generation tackles a difficult class of anaphoric inference problems (finding the correct referent for an English pronoun in context): those requiring either analysis (conceptual) knowledge of a complex sort, or requiring weak inductive knowledge of the course of events in the real world. The method employed converts all available knowledge to a canonical template form and endeavors to create chains of non-deductive inferences from the unknowns to the possible referents. Its method of selecting among possible chains of inferences is consistent with the overall principle of "semantic preference" used to set up the original meaning representation, of which these anaphoric inference procedures are a manipulation.
04 Nov 1973
TL;DR: The construction of "good" natural language vocabularies is described, and methods are given for improving the vocabulary by transforming terms that operate poorly for retrieval purposes into better ones.
Abstract: Natural language query formulations exhibit advantages over artificial language statements since they permit the user to approach the retrieval environment without prior training and without using intermediaries. To obtain adequate retrieval output, it is however necessary to emphasize the good terms and to deemphasize the bad ones. The usefulness of the terms in a natural language vocabulary is first characterized in terms of their frequency distribution over the documents of a collection. The construction of "good" natural language vocabularies is then described, and methods are given for improving the vocabulary by transforming terms that operate poorly for retrieval purposes into better ones.
TL;DR: The authors comparer l'apprentissage de Panglais par des enfants anglais avec l'approach of the meme Iangue par des adultes etrangers.
Abstract: Lcs comparaisons entreprises entre l'apprentissage de la iangue maternelle et celui de langues etrangeres ont ete, jusqu'ici, basees plus sur des considerations theoriques que sur des experiences de faits concrets. Deux experiences realisees pour comparer l'apprentissage de Panglais par des enfants anglais avec l'apprentissage de la meme Iangue par des adultes etrangers sont decrites. La premiere comparaison concerne l'imitation et la comprehension de propositions relatives, la deuxieme la comprehension de structures profondes. Les analogies constatees amenent l'auteur a conclure qu'il n'y a jusqu'ici aucune preuve süre que l'apprentissage d'une deuxieme Iangue par l'adulte se realiserait d'une maniere radicalement differente de l'evolution linguistique de l'enfant.
TL;DR: The first systematic attempt to apply the logician's methods of formal syntax and semantics to natural language was made by Montague as discussed by the authors, whose work on English, as represented in Montague (1970a, (1970b), (1972), represents the first systematic application of the logicians' approach to natural languages.
Abstract: Richard Montague’s work on English, as represented in Montague (1970a), (1970b), (1972), represents the first systematic attempt to apply the logician’s methods of formal syntax and semantics to natural language. With few exceptions,1 linguists and logicians had previously been agreed, although for different reasons, that the apparatus developed by logicians for treating the syntax and semantics of artificially constructed formal languages, while obviously fruitful within its restricted domain, was not in any direct way applicable to the analysis of natural languages. Logicians seem to have felt that natural languages were too unsystematic, too full of vagueness and ambiguity, to be amenable to their rigorous methods, or if susceptible to formal treatment, only at great cost.2 Linguists, on the other hand, emphasize their own concern for psychological reality, and the logicians’ lack of it, in eschewing the logicians’ approach: linguists, at least those of the Chomskyan school, are searching for a characterization of the class of possible human languages, hoping to gain thereby some insight into the structure of the mind, and the formal languages constructed by logicians appear to depart radically from the structures common to actual natural languages.
TL;DR: The various types of inferences which can be made during and after the conceptual analysis of a sentence are defined, and a functioning program which performs these inference tasks is described.
TL;DR: It is suggested that linguists consult nonlinguists as to the acceptability of exemplars, which illustrate the rules proposed, as a check that those rules reflect the formal structure of the common language being described.
Abstract: Modern transformational grammarians, using only their own intuitions as the basic data for rule construction, may not be analyzing the common, natural language of the speech community. Do native speakers share the intuitions of linguists? One hundred and fifty exemplar sentences from 6 linguists' articles were presented to 43 linguistically naive and 22 linguistically nonnaive native speakers. Native speakers agreed among themselves as to the acceptability or unacceptability of 80% of the sentences. Subjects shared intuitions with linguists in only a half of the exemplars. It is suggested that linguists consult nonlinguists as to the acceptability of exemplars, which illustrate the rules proposed, as a check that those rules reflect the formal structure of the common language being described.
TL;DR: Automatic resolution of ambiguities from natural language text is investigated and, by use of the learning technique, disambiguation may be achieved with virtually no a priori decisions.
Proceedings Article•
20 Aug 1973TL;DR: A program is described that accepts natural language input and makes inferences from it and paraphrases of it and the Conceptual Dependency framework is the basis of this system.
Abstract: A program is described that accepts natural language input and makes inferences from it and paraphrases of it. The Conceptual Dependency framework is the basis of this system.
15 Oct 1973
TL;DR: A class of naturallanguage grammars is formalized and the sentence-recognition problem is shown to be polynomial-hard although the languages are context-sensitive, and new language-theoretic characterizations are given.
Abstract: Complexity of sentence recognition is studied for one-way stack languages, indexed languages, and tree transducer languages The problem is shown to be polynomial-complete in each case A class of naturallanguage grammars is formalized and the sentence-recognition problem is shown to be polynomial-hard although the languages are context-sensitive The proofs give new language-theoretic characterizations of the set of satisfiable propositional formulas and the set of prepositional tautologies
01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: Almost everyone agrees that at the present time the semantics of natural languages are less satisfactorily formulated than the grammars, even though a complete grammar for any significant fragment of natural language is yet to be written.
Abstract: The search for a rigorous and explicit semantics of any significant portion of a natural language is now intensive and far-flung — far-flung in the sense that wide varieties of approaches are being taken. Yet almost everyone agrees that at the present time the semantics of natural languages are less satisfactorily formulated than the grammars, even though a complete grammar for any significant fragment of natural language is yet to be written.
Book•
01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: The author examines the development of Montague Semantics as a form of the Suppes Semantics with applications to the Problem of the Introduction of the Passive Voice, the Tenses, and Negation as Transformations in Transformational Languages.
Abstract: I. Grammar.- 1. Sentence Stress and Syntactic Transformations.- 2. The Acquisition of Phonology and Syntax: A Preliminary Study.- 3. A Syntactical Analysis of Some First-Grade Readers.- 4. A Computational Treatment of Case Grammar.- 5. Identifiability of a Class of Transformational Grammars.- 6. On the Insufficiency of Surface Data for the Learning of Transformational Languages.- 7. Nonfiltering and Local-Filtering Transformational Grammars.- II. Semantics.- 8. Grammar and Logic: Some Borderline Problems.- 9. Comments on Hintikka's Paper.- 10. The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English.- 11. Comments on Montague's Paper.- 12. Comments on Montague's Paper.- 13. Mass Terms in English.- 14. Comments on Moravcsik's Paper.- 15. Comments on Moravcsik's Paper.- 16. Comments on Moravcsik's Paper.- 17. Reply to Comments.- 18. The Semantics of Belief-Sentences.- 19. Comments on Professor Partee' s Paper.- 20. Comments on Partee's Paper.- 21. Semantics of Context-free Fragments of Natural Languages.- 22. Representation of the Montague Semantics as a Form of the Suppes Semantics with Applications to the Problem of the Introduction of the Passive Voice, the Tenses, and Negation as Transformations.- III. Special Topics.- 23. On the Problem of Subject Structure in Language with Application to Late Archaic Chinese.- 24. Comments on Cheng's Paper.- 25. Some Considerations for the Process of Topicalization.- 26 Late Lexicalizations.- 27. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.
04 Jun 1973
TL;DR: This paper relates security of data records in computerized retrieval systems and data banks with Shannon's information-theoretic treatment of secrecy systems for natural language messages in communication systems.
Abstract: The problem of providing privacy and security in retrieval systems falls into two rather modern disciplines: information theory and computer science. In this paper the concern is primarily with the former, i.e., how to relate security of data records in computerized retrieval systems and data banks with Shannon's information-theoretic treatment of secrecy systems for natural language messages in communication systems. In doing so, it is useful to establish first the analogy between retrieval systems and certain communication channels.
TL;DR: The authors suggest that prereading studies should be expanded to welcome the imaginative contribution of students as they begin to say something in a foreign language and free us from feeling that we are "taking time" from the book when we give students time and freedom to tell their own ideas in their new loose-fitting language.
Abstract: details was not to tell you how pre-reading should be taught, but to suggest that prereading studies be expanded to welcome the imaginative contribution of students as they begin to say something in a foreign language I want to free us from feeling that we are "taking time" from the book when we give students time and freedom to tell their own ideas in their new loose-fitting language At the same time vocabulary aimed at a specific reading or listening assignment gives the teacher a handle by which he can guide and control the conversation toward disciplined language development The time spent reacting to the word list with students is the central activity and emphasizes studying to express their reactions to words and pictures in a second language Anyone talks willingly about himself; he may talk fluently if his expression is valued as an end in itself When students contribute to the development of the central theme of class discussion and are kept aware of the significance of their contributions, they will surely progress more rapidly to mature use of the language and will maintain interest in learning the language instead of taking a