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Showing papers on "Natural language understanding published in 1977"


Journal ArticleDOI
W. A. Woods1
TL;DR: The use of natural language to manipulate data retrieval and display capabilities to enable a decision-maker to obtain a grasp of an overall situation in the face of an overwhelming availability of low level data.
Abstract: For many years, I have been pursuing a long-range research objective in the area of natural language understanding for man-machine communication, an objective that I share with many of my colleagues. The objective is to develop the capability for people to interact directly in fluent natural language with a computer system for support of some decision making task they are involved in. Specifically, I am concerned with the use of natural language to manipulate data retrieval and display capabilities to enable a decision-maker to obtain a grasp of an overall situation in the face of an overwhelming availability of low level data. Such a system must give concise answers to specific high-level questions posed by the decision-maker within a small number of seconds in most cases.

24 citations


Proceedings Article
Yorick Wilks1
22 Aug 1977
TL;DR: The paper discusses the incorporation of richer semantic structures into the Preference Semantics system: they are called pseudo-texts and capture something of the information expressed in one type of frame proposed by Minsky (q.v.), but are in a format, and subject to rules of inference, consistent with earlier accounts of this system of language analysis and understanding.
Abstract: The paper discusses the incorporation of richer semantic structures into the Preference Semantics system: they are called pseudo-texts and capture something of the information expressed in one type of frame proposed by Minsky (q.v.). However, they are in a format, and subject to rules of inference, consistent with earlier accounts of this system of language analysis and understanding. Their use is discussed in connection with the phen­ omenon of extended use: sentences where the semantic preferences are broken. It is argued that such situations are the norm and not the exception in normal language use, and that a language under­ standing system must give some general treatment of them.

19 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: ELI, the English language interpreter for the SAM story understanding system at Yale, is a model of language understanding using productions that limits the number of productions that have to be manipulated with expectations.
Abstract: ELI, the English language interpreter for the SAM story understanding system at Yale, is a model of language understanding using productions. Productions are useful because they are flexible, but this flexibility means more work has to be spent controlling and manipulating them. ELI limits the number of productions that have to be manipulated with expectations. Expectations are constraints generated by frame structures that have been built by previously executed productions. Only productions that satisfy existing expectations are used.

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An APL package is presented which gives a fuzzy set semantics for a limited English-like language (in which red-orange is near to red and so on), in a manner which is convenient for reference.
Abstract: Winograd used a toy world called BLOCKS for his famous "natural language understanding" system SHRDLU. In this world all distinct objects are equally distinct: a red-orange block is no closer to being a red block than to being a black block; and a rather large block is no closer to being a large block than to being a small block. This paper presents an APL package which gives a fuzzy set semantics for a limited English-like language (in which red-orange is near to red and so on), in a manner which is convenient for reference: the system accepts instructions in the form of simple indicative sentences, and demonstrates its "understanding" by indicating the block which is the intended referent. The work is based on the principle of maximum meaningfulness" and is robust, in the sense that small changes in the instructions or in the state of the world do not disturb it.

7 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 May 1977
TL;DR: A comparative study of two syntactic models used concurrently in this experiment : a classical top-down model and a generalized bottom-up, island-driven model are presented and the generalization of this model to natural language understanding system is discussed.
Abstract: The Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition Group in Nancy is developing the MYRTILLE System for recognizing and understanding sentences in artificial and natural languages. A model for the oral control of a telephone exchange with an artificial language was proposed and described at ICASSP 76. In this paper, we first present a comparative study of two syntactic models that we have used concurrently in this experiment : a classical top-down model and a generalized bottom-up, island-driven model. Then, we discuss the generalization of this model to natural language understanding system (e.g. for the oral consultation of a data base). Such a generalization involves a very different structure, which is described in details.

7 citations


01 May 1977
TL;DR: An expectation-based system, Noun Group Processor (NGP), for parsing English noun groups into the Conceptual Dependency representation is described, capable of handling a wide range of sentences of considerable complexity.
Abstract: : An expectation-based system, Noun Group Processor(NGP), for parsing English noun groups into the Conceptual Dependency representation is described The system is a part of ELI (English Language Interpreter) which is used as the front end to several natural language understanding systems and is capable of handling a wide range of sentences of considerable complexity NGP processes the input from left to right, one word at a time, using linguistic and world knowledge to find the meaning of a noun group Dictionary entries for individual words contain much of the program's knowledge In addition, a limited ability for the handling of slightly incorrect sentences and unknown words is incorporated

4 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
S. Ohsuga1
01 Dec 1977
TL;DR: A system capable of answering the questions presented in a natural language with a sophisticated algorithm by which natural language understanding, database processing and procedure generation-execution to the problems specified by the natural language are well combined is discussed.
Abstract: A system capable of answering the questions presented in a natural language is discussed. The system is provided with a sophisticated algorithm by which natural language understanding, database processing and procedure generation-execution to the problems specified by the natural language are well combined. As the major problems occurring in the system, a representation of knowledge, the deductive algorithm, an information net and a method for evaluating ambiguity of information are dealt with.

3 citations


Proceedings Article
22 Aug 1977