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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 146
AIList Digest Sunday, 28 Oct 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 146
Today's Topics:
Report - CSLI Description,
Linguistics - Indic Interlingua & Evolution & Shastric Sanscrit,
Seminars - Knowledge and Common Knowledge & Gestalt Tutorial &
AI and Real Life
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Date: Wed 24 Oct 84 18:33:02-PDT
From: Dikran Karagueuzian <DIKRAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Institute Description - CSLI
[Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.]
NEW CSLI REPORT
Report No. 16, ``The Center for the Study of Language and Information,'' has
just been published. It describes the Center and its research programs. An
online copy of this report can be found in the <CSLI> directory in the file
``Report-No-16.Online.'' In addition to this report, the <CSLI> directory
contains other valuable information about the Center and Turing. To obtain
a printed version of Report No. 16, write to Dikran Karagueuzian, CSLI,
Ventura Hall, Stanford 94305 or send net mail to Dikran at Turing.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 84 20:06:59 pdt
From: weeks%ucbpopuli.CC@Berkeley (Harry Weeks)
Subject: Indic interlingua.
If I recall correctly, the continuing colloquy on Sastric Sanskrit was
motivated by the desire for a natural interlingua for machine trans-
lation. Pardon my ignorance, but I do not see the efficacy of trans-
lating a language first into something like Sastric Sanskrit with its
concomitant declensional, conjugational and euphonic complexity, then
from there into the target language. Are not less complex (and less
verbose) formalisms more appropriate, not being weighted with aesthe-
tic amenities and cultural biases? If Sastric Sanskrit is otherwise
being offered as a paradigm for such a formalism, a more detailed in-
sight into its grammar is needed.
Another facet of the colloquy is its focus on ambiguity in the rela-
tionship of semantic elements (viz. words) in sentences. There is
also the problem of determining unambiguously the meaning of a word,
when in natural languages words often have more than one meaning de-
pending on context. Is Sastric Sanskrit unique in its vocabulary as
well as its grammar that each word has but one precisely circumscribed
meaning, and how eclectic and deep is this vocabulary? Certainly the
professed unequivocality of the syntax is an aid to determining mean-
ings of the words whose interrelationship is thus well defined, but
it would seem preferable not to rely on context or on clumsy defining
clauses in an interlingua.
As an aside on ambiguity being requisite for a literature in a lan-
guage, I might profer two opinions. A great writer is often charac-
terized by his ability to mold sentences which have an uncommon flui-
dity and expressivity -- would an unambiguous language allow such
freedom? Great poetry invokes thoughts and emotions which defy written
expression through the use of rhythm and juxtaposition of disparate
images through words set in defiance of strict grammatical precepts.
Further, the beauty of prose or poetry lies in good part in the use
of ambiguity. Especially in poetry, distilling many emotions into
a compact construction is facilitated by ambiguity, either semantic
or phonetic. The beauty of poetry is a very different one from the
beauty of logic or mathematics.
Harry Weeks
(Weeks@UCBpopuli)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 84 10:06 EDT
From: Tim Finin <Tim%upenn.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: language evolution
Marcel Schoppers (AIList Digest V2 #143) seems to suggest that certain
dialects (e.g. those which include "Why he be leavin'?" and "He ain't goin'
nowhere") are the result of forces which SIMPLIFY the grammar of a language:
".. my own theory is that the invasion of a language by foreign cultures,
or vice versa, has a lot to do with how simple a language becomes:
cross-cultural speakers tend to use only as much as absolutely necessary
for them to consider themselves understood."
The analyses that I have seen show that such dialects are just as complex,
linguistically, as the standard dialect. They are just complex in different
ways. As I understand it, simplified PIDGIN languages quickly evolve into
complex CREOLE languages - all it takes is one generation of native speakers.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Wed 24 Oct 84 23:23:56-PDT
From: Bill Poser <POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: linguistics
I would like to respond to several linguistic questions discussed
recently. First, in response to Rick Briggs re-assertion that Shastric Sanskrit
is a natural language, his claim that there was a literature written in it
and that it was in use for over three thousand years is simply irrelevant.
The same could perfectly well be true of an artificial language. There is
literature written in Esperanto, an artificial language which is also used
for scientific communication. It is perfectly possible that Esperanto will
remain with us for thousands of years. But we all know that it is an artificial
language. What makes it artificial is that it was consciously designed
by a human being-it did not evolve naturally.
This leads to the question of whether Shastric Sanskrit is a natural
language. It looks like it isn`t. Rather, it is an artificial language
based on Sanskrit that was used for very limited purposes by scholars. I
challenge Rick Briggs to present evidence that (a) it was in use for anything
like 3000 years; (b) that anyone ever spoke it; (c) that even in written form
it was used extensively at any period; (d) that it was not always restricted
to scholars just as mathematical language is today.
There has also been some speculation about the historical development
of languages. One idea presented is that languages evolve from morphologically
complex to morphologically simple. This is just not true. It happens to be
true of a number of the Indo-European languages with which non-linguists are
most familiar, but it is not true in general. Second, someone claimed that
the languages of "aboriginal people" (I assume he means "technologically
primitive") are complex and badly organized, and that languages evolve
as people become technologically more advanced. This was a popular idea
in the early nineteenth century but was long ago discarded. We know of no
systematic differences whatever between the languages spoken by primitive
people and those spoken by technologically advanced people. There is no
evidence that language evolves in any particular direction.
Finally, Briggs mistakenly characterizes linguists as prescriptivists.
That is quite false. In fact, the prescriptivists are mainly English and
Literature people or non-academics like William Safire. Linguistics is
non-prescriptive by definition since we are interested in describing what
occurs in natural language and characterizing the possible natural languages.
Finally (here comes a minor FLAME), why don't you guys read some
serious Linguistics books or ask a linguist instead of posting ignorant
speculation about linguistic issues? Some of us do Linguistics for a
living and there is extensive technical literature on many of these
questions. If I want to, say, know about algorithms I don't sit
around guessing. I look it up in a book on algorithms or ask a computer
scientist.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 1984 00:09 PDT
From: KIPARSKY@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Subject: Even "shastric" Sanskrit is ambiguous
Take the example "Caitra is cooking rice in a pot". It is ambiguous in
both Sanskrit and English as to whether it is the rice that is in the
pot, or Caitra himself. Clearly the "shastric" paraphrase "There is an
activity subsisting in a pot..." doesn't resolve this ambiguity. That
can only be done by distinguishing between subject- and object-
oriented locatives (which, incidentally, some natural languages do).
The reason why the Sanskrit logicians' paraphrases don't make that
distinction is that they follow Panini in treating locatives, like all
other karakas, simply as arguments of the verb. In general, shastric
paraphrases, though certainly very explicit and interesting, are by no
means an "unambiguous language". What they make explicit about the
meanings of Sanskrit sentences is limited by the interpretations
assigned to those sentences by the rules of Panini's grammar. This
grammar introduces only such semantic categories as are needed to
account for the distribution of Sanskrit grammatical formatives. So
shastric paraphrases wind up leaving some of the ambiguities of the
corresponding ordinary Sanskrit sentences unresolved.
This sentence and its shastric paraphrase are ambiguous in other ways
as well, namely with regard to aspect ("cooks" or "is cooking"), and
definiteness ("the pot" or "a pot"). These categories don't play a
role here though they do in other areas of Sanskrit. E.g. the
generic/progressive distinction is important in derived nouns, where
English in turn ignores it: Sanskrit has two words for "driver",
depending on whether the activity is habitual/professional or not; a
shastric paraphrase might make the distinction explicit for such nouns.
The prevalence of this logicians' system of paraphrasing should not be
exaggerated, by the way. There is no evidence of it having been around
for anything like 3000 years(!), and it is not, to my knowledge, used in
any "literature" other than technical works on philosophy.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 84 10:28 EST
From: Kurt Godden <godden%gmr.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: reply to schoppers@xerox
'United States "English", being the lingo of the melting pot,
will probably change faster than most.'
The historical linguists tell us that in fact when groups of speakers physically
move and establish a new language group, as has happened here in the US, that
the 'new' language dialect actually changes more slowly than the original
language group, in this case British English. As simple evidence, witness the
fact of the diverse English dialects in the British Isles versus the far more
homogeneous regional dialects in the US. There is also textual evidence from
poetry (rhythm, etc) showing that present day American English has preserved
the patterns of Middle English and early Modern English whereas present day
British English has changed.
-Godden@gmr
[Note that he availability of national radio and television broadcasts in
this century may be altering the evolution of modern dialects. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 25 Oct 1984 15:54-EDT
From: AHAAS at BBNG.ARPA
Subject: Seminar - Knowledge and Common Knowledge
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.]
There will be an AI seminar at 10:30 AM Friday November 2, in the
3rd floor large conference room. Abstract follows:
Knowledge and Common Knowledge In Distributed Environments
Yoram Moses, Stanford University
Knowledge plays a fundamental role in distributed environments. An
individual in a distributed environment, be it a person, a robot, or a
processor in a network, depends on his knowledge to drive his
decisions and actions. When individuals' actions have an effect on one
another, it is often necessary that their actions be coordinated. This
coordination is acheived by a combination of having a predetermined
common plan of some kind, and communicating to expand and refine it.
The states of knowledge that are relevant or necessary in order to
allow the individuals to successfully carry out their individual plans
vary greatly according to the nature of the dependence of their plans
on the actions of others.
This work introduces a hierarchy of states of knowledge that a system may
be in. We discuss the role of communication in ``improving'' the system's
state of knowledge of a given fact according to this hierarchy. The
strongest notion of knowledge that a group can have is Common Knowledge.
This notion is inherent in agreements and coordinated simultaneous actions.
We show that common knowledge is not attainable in practical systems, and
present a variety of relaxations of common knowledge that are attainable
in many cases of interest. The reationship between these issues and
communication and action in a distributed environment is made clear through
a number of well known puzzles.
This talk should be of interest for people interested in distributed
algorithms, communication protocols, concurrency control and AI. This work
is joint with Joe Halpern of IBM San Jose.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 84 15:56:32 pdt
From: chertok@ucbcogsci (Paula Chertok)
Subject: Seminar - Gestalt Tutorial
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Fall 1984
Cognitive Science Seminar -- IDS 237A
SPEAKER: Steven E. Palmer, Psychology Department and
Cognitive Science Program, UC Berkeley
TITLE: ``Gestalt Then and Now: A Tutorial Review''
TIME: Tuesday, October 30, 11 - 12:30
PLACE: 240 Bechtel Engineering Center
DISCUSSION: 12:30 - 2 in 200 Building T-4
ABSTRACT: I will present an overview of the nature and
importance of the Gestalt approach to per-
ception and cognition with an emphasis on
its relation to modern work in cognitive
science. First I will discuss the nature of
the contribution made by Gestalt psycholo-
gists in the historical context in which
they worked. Then I will trace their influ-
ence on some current work in cognitive sci-
ence: textural segmentation (Julesz, Beck &
Rosenfeld), Pragnanz (Leeuwenberg, Palmer),
soap-bubble systems (Marr & Poggio,
Attneave, Hinton), and global precedence
(Navon, Broadbent, Ginsberg).
Beginning with this talk, the Cognitive Science Seminar will periodically
present tutorials as a service to its interdisciplinary audience. Each
tutorial will review the ideas in some research area for workers outside
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 84 15:17:33 EDT
From: "Martin R. Lyons" <991@NJIT-EIES.MAILNET>
Subject: Seminar - AI and Real Life
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND REAL LIFE
"Artificial Intelligence and Real Life", a talk by Paul Levinson of The
New School for Social Research, will be one of several topics discussed as
part of the Second Colloquium on Philospohy and Technology. The event is
co-sposored by the Media Studies Program of the New School for Social Research
and the Philosophy & Technology Studies Center at the Polytechnic Institute of
New York. The talk will be held at the New School's 66 W. 12th St. Building,
NYC, Monday November 12th, at 8pm, and the general public is invited.
Admission is free.
I am passing this info on for Paul Levinson, the aforementioned speaker.
He can be reached directly at this site as:
Lev%NJIT-EIES.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA or
@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA:Lev@NJIT-EIES.Mailnet
Please do not address inquiries to me, as all the info I have is above.
MAILNET: Marty@NJIT-EIES.Mailnet
ARPA: Marty%NJIT-EIES.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
USPS: Marty Lyons, CCCC/EIES @ New Jersey Institute of Technology,
323 High St., Newark, NJ 07102 (201) 596-2932
"You're in the fast lane....so go fast."
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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