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NL-KR Digest Volume 02 No. 40
NL-KR Digest (5/13/87 11:46:42) Volume 2 Number 40
Today's Topics:
Abstracts of Memoranda in Computer and Cognitive Science
From CSLI Calendar, May 7, No. 27
Natural Language Processing, panel discussion
Product Announcements:
Machine Usable Dictionaries.
Announcement of availability of new Prolog system
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 May 87 16:38:24 MDT
From: yorick%nmsu.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Abstracts of Memoranda in Computer and Cognitive Science
ABSTRACTS OF
MEMORANDA IN COMPUTER AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Computing Research Laboratory
New Mexico State University
Box 30001
Las, Cruces, NM 88003.
Wilks, Y. (1985), Machine Translation and Artificial Intelligence:
Issues and their Histories, MCCS-85-29.
The paper reviews the historical relations, and future prospects for
relationships, between artificial intelligence and machine translation. The
argument of the paper is that machine translation is much more tightly bound
into the history of artificial intelligence than many realize (the MT origin
of Prolog is only the most striking example of that), and that it remains, not
a peripheral, but a crucial task on the AI agenda.
Dorfman, S.B. & Wilks, Y. (1986), SHAGRIN: A Natural
Language Graphics Package Interface, MCCS-85-48.
It is a standard problem in applied AI to construct a front-end to some formal
data base with the user's input as near English as possible. SHAGRIN is a
natural language interface to a computer graphics package. In constructing
SHAGRIN, we have chosen some non-standard goals: (1) SHAGRIN is just one of a
range of front-ends that we are fitting to the same formal back-end. (2) We
have chosen not a data base in the standard sense, but a graphics package
language, a command language for controlling the production of graphs on a
screen. Parser output is used to generate graphics world commands which then
produce graphics PACKAGE commands. A four-component context mechanism
incorporates pragmatics into the graphics system as well as actively aids in
the maintenance of the state of the graph world.
Huang, X-M (1986), A Bidirectional Chinese Grammar
in A Machine Translation System, MCCS-85-52.
The paper describes a Chinese grammar which can be run bidirectionally, ie.,
both as a parser and as a generator of Chinese sentences. When used as a
parser, the input to the grammar is single Chinese sentences, and the output
would be tree structures for the sentences; when used as a generator, tree
structures are the input, and Chinese sentences, the output. The main body of
the grammar, the way bidirectionality is achieved, and the performance of the
system with some example sentences are given in the paper.
Slator, B.M., Conley, W. & Anderson, M.P (1986), Towards an Adaptive
Front-end, MCCS-85-54.
An adaptive natual language interface to a graphics package has been
implemented. A mechanism for modelling user behavior operating over a
script-like decision matrix capturing co-occurrence of commands is used to
direct the interface, which uses a semantic parser, when ambiguous utterances
are encountered. This is an adaptive mechanism that forms a model of a user's
tendencies by observing the user in action. This mechanism provides a method
for operating under conditions of uncertainty, and it adds power to the
interface - but, being a probabilistic control scheme, it also adds a
corresponding element of nondeterminism.
A hidden operator experiment was conducted to collect utterance files for a
user-derived interface development process. These empirical data were used to
design the interface; and a second set, collected later, was used as test
data.
Fass, D. (1986), Collative Semantics: An Approach to Coherence,
MCCS-85-56.
Collative Semantics (CS) is a domain-independent semantics for natural
language processing that focusses on the problem of coherence. Coherence is
the synergism of knowledge (synergism is the interaction of two or more
discrete agencies to achieve an effect of which none is individually capable)
and plays a substantial role in cognition. The representation of coherence is
distinguished from the representation of knowledge and some theoretical
connections are established between them. A type of coherence representation
has been developed in CS called the semantic vector. Semantic vectors
represent the synergistic interaction of knowledge from diverse sources
(including the context) that comprise semantic relations. Six types of
semantic relation are discriminated and represented: literal, metaphorical,
anomalous, novel, inconsistent and redundant. The knowledge description
scheme in CS is the senseframe, which represents lexical ambiguity. The
semantic primitives in senseframes are word-senses which are a subset of the
word-senses in natural language. Because these primitives are from natural
language, the semantic markerese problem is avoided and large numbers of
primitives are provided for the differentiated description of concepts
required by semantic vectors. A natural language program called meta5 uses
CS; detailed examples of its operation are given.
Ballim, A. (1986),
The Subjective Ascription of Belief to Agents,
MCCS-85-74.
A computational model for determining an agent's beliefs from the viewpoint of
an agent known as the system is described. The model is based on the earlier
work of Wilks and Bien(1983) which argues for a method of dynamically
constructing nested points of view from the beliefs that the system holds.
This paper extends their work by examining problems involved in ascribing
beliefs called meta-beliefs to agents, and by developing a representation to
handle these problems. The representation is used in ViewGen, a computer
program which generates viewpoints.
Ballim, A. (1986)
Generating Points of View,
MCCS-85-68.
Modelling the beliefs of agents is normally done in a static manner. This
paper describes a more flexible dynamic approach to generating nestings which
represent what the system believes other agents believe. Such nestings have
been described in Wilks and Bien (1983) as has their usefulness. The methods
presented here are based upon those described in Wilks and Bien (ibid) but
have been augmented to handle various problems. A system based on this paper
is currently being written in Prolog.
Semantics and the Computational
Paradigm in Cognitive Psychology
Eric Dietrich
MCCS-87-83
There is a prevalent notion among cognitive scientists and philosophers of
mind that computers are merely formal symbol manipulators, performing the
actions they do solely on the basis of the syntactic properties of the symbols
they manipulate. This view of computers has allowed some philosophers to
divorce semantics from computational explanations. Semantic content, then,
becomes something one adds to computational explanations to get psychological
explanations. Other philosophers, such as Stephen Stich have taken a stronger
view, advocating doing away with semantics entirely. This paper argues that a
correct account of computation requires us to attribute content to
computational processes in order to explain which functions are being
computed. This entails that computational psychology must countenance mental
representations. Since anti-semantic positions are incompatible with
computational psychology thus construed, they ought to be rejected. Lastly, I
argue that in an important sense, computers are not formal symbol
manipulators.
Multiple Agents and the Heuristic Ascription of Belief.
Yorick Wilks and Afzal Ballim
MCCS-86-75
A method for heuristically generating nested beliefs (what some agent believes
that another agent believes ... about a topic) is described. Such nested
beliefs (points of view) are esential to many processes such as discourse
processing and reasoning about other agents' reasoning processes. Particular
interest is paid to the class of beliefs known as \fIatypical beliefs\fR and
to intensional descriptions. The heuristic methods described are emboddied in
a program called \fIViewGen\fR which generates nested viewpoints from a set of
beliefs held by the system.
Pronouns in mind: quasi-indexicals and the ``language of thought''
Yorick Wilks, Afzal Ballim, & Eric Dietrich
MCCS-87-92
The paper examines the role of the natural-formal language distinction in
connection with the "language of thought" (LOT) issue. In particular, it
distinguishes a realist-uniform/attributist-uniform approach to LOT and seeks
to link that distinction to the issue of whether artificial intelligence is
fundamentally a science or engineering. In a second section, we examine a
particular aspect of natural language in relation to LOT: pronouns/indexicals.
The focus there is Rapaport's claims about indexicals in belief
representations. We dispute these claims and argue that he confuses claims
about English sentences and truth conditions, on the one hand, with claims
about beliefs, on the other. In a final section we defend the representational
capacity of the belief manipulation system of Wilks, Bien and Ballim against
Rapaport's published criticisms.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 6 May 87 16:33:06-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@CSLI.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: From CSLI Calendar, May 7, No. 27
Tel: (415) 723-3561
[Excerpted from CSLI Calendar]
The CSLI seminar for Thursday, 14 May, will not be held because
Stanford University will be celebrating the centennial of its
cornerstone laying.
WORKSHOP ON VERBAL DEPENDENTS
23-24 May, Ventura Hall
Tentative Program
Saturday:
10:00
David Perlmutter: "Can Unaccusativity Be Reconstructed in
Thematic/Semantic Terms? Evidence from Italian and French"
10:45
David Dowty: "Thematic Roles as Defaults"
11:30
Jane Grimshaw: "The Structure of Argument Structure"
12:15
Beth Levin:"-er Nominals as a Test for Argument Structure"
1:00
Lunch Break
2:30
William Croft: "Case Marking and the Semantics of Mental Verbs"
3:15
Paul Kiparsky: "Linking in Experiencer Verbs"
4:00
Annie Zaenen: "Psych-Verbs in Dutch"
8:00
Party
Sunday:
10:00
Len Talmy: "Verbal Satellite Systems Compared Across Languages"
10:45
Cleo Condoravdi: "Malayalam Causatives Revisited"
11:30
Joan Bresnan & Jonni Kanerva: "Locative Inversion"
12:15
Lunch Break
2:00
Alec Marantz: "Quirky Case and the Theory of Paradigm"
2:45
Lori Levin: "Nonnominative Subjects and Tests for Subjecthood"
3:30
Robert Van Valin: "Semantic Role Hierarchies and Grammatical
Relations in Icelandic"
For information: contact:
Annie Zaenen
CSLI
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
e-mail addresses:
Zaenen@csli.stanford.edu or
Zaenen.pa@Xerox.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue 12 May 87 17:53:20-PDT
From: Marcelo Hoffmann <HOFFMANN@KL.SRI.COM>
Subject: Natural Language Processing, panel discussion
Natural Language Processing - Panel Discussion
Date: May 21, 1987, 7:00 P.M.
Location: Foothill College, Appreciation Hall, Room A61
(right next to the theater, next to the front stairs)
Panelists: Jerrold Ginsparg, or John Manferdelli founders of
Natural Language Products, Berkeley, CA
Gary Hendrix, Founder and VP Advanced Technology
Symantec Inc.
Ray Perrault, Director of NLP, AI Center
SRI International
Dan Flickenger, Manager NLP Project, HP Labs
Hewlett Packard
Organized by the local AI committe of the IEEE,
Admittance is free
------------------------------
From: Mike Wilson <mdw%vax-d.rutherford.ac.uk@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Date: Tue, 12 May 87 19:08:31 -0100
Subject: Machine Usable Dictionaries.
ADVERTISEMENT - if this is too commercial for you don't read it.
** Machine Usable Dictionaries. **
The Oxford Text Archive is one of the specialist facilities supported by
the Oxford University Computing Service for the use of scholars.
The Archive has over 750 machine usable texts which it distributes for
research purposes. Among these are several machine usable and machine
readable dictionaries.
Two of these may be of particular use to researchers in Artificial
Intelligence, Computer Science, Cognitive Science and Psychology.
The Computer Usable version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
prepared by Roger Mitton at Birckbeck College, London. This is available
as two files listing 38205 and 68742 words, with their pronunciation,
detailed syntactic information and verb patterns.
The MRC Psycholinguistic Database, Machine Usable Dictionary: Version 2
prepared by Michael Wilson at the SERC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,
Oxon. This is available as a dictionary file and two access programs. The
dictionary file contains 150837 words (115331 different strings), giving 26
linguistic/psycholinguistic properties for subsets of these. These
properties include part of speech, written and spoken word frequency,
imagability, concreteness, Meaningfulness, phonetic transcription and status
of usage. The dictionary was designed to be used to select stimuli for
psycholinguistic experiments, but it may be used in other ways.
To obtain copies of texts a signed order form (containing a declaration
that the texts will be used for private scholarly research only) and
prepayment must be sent before any materials can be distributed.
A flat fee of 5 pounds sterling is charged for each text ordered. In addition,
there is a charge to cover media and postage, currently 15 pounds per tape (or
diskette) within Europe, or 25 pounds per tape (or diskette) outside Europe.
The number of texts that can fit on one tape varies greatly, according to
the format used to write the tape as well as the size of the text.
Further information about ordering the dictionaries is available from:
Oxford Text Archive
Oxford University Computing Service
13 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 6NN
U.K.
Messages and enquiries sent by electronic mail are welcomed. The Archive
has an account on the British Joint Academic Network (JANET), which also
has connections to EDUNET (ARPANET), EARN (BITNET, NORTHNET) etc ...
The JANET address for electronic mail is: ARCHIVE@UK.AC.OX.VAX3
From ARPANET try: ARCHIVE%UK.AC.OX.VAX3@CS.UCL.AC.UK
From EARN/BITNET try: ARCHIVE%UK.AC.OX.VAX3@UK.AC.RL.EARN
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 08 May 87 12:19:01 +1000
From: munnari!mulga.oz!jas@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Announcement of availability of new Prolog system
John Shepherd
Department of Computer Science,
University of Melbourne, CSNET: jas%mulga.oz@australia
Parkville, 3052, ARPA: jas%mulga.oz@seismo.css.gov
AUSTRALIA UUCP: ...!munnari!mulga!jas
Announcement:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Subject: Academic Release of NU-Prolog System
Version 1.1 of the NU-Prolog system is now available for release to
academic institutions (schools, colleges, universities).
NU-Prolog is a second generation Prolog system which incorporates a
number of important advances in Logic Programming implementation.
NU-Prolog was implemented as part of the Machine Intelligence Project+
in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Melbourne.
It is the successor to Lee Naish's successful MU-Prolog system and
attempts to move Prolog closer to the ideals of Logic Programming by
allowing the user to program in a style closer to first order logic.
In addition, it provides substantial performance gains over interpreted
systems such as MU-Prolog.
NU-Prolog has the following features:
* compiles Prolog programs into machine code for an enhanced version
of the Warren abstract machine (implementing the delay/coroutine
style of programming of MU-Prolog)
* incorporates a database system based on superimposed codeword
indexing which can store general Prolog terms in external databases
for fast retrieval by NU-Prolog programs; the database system
makes use of the superjoin algorithm to perform efficient join
operations
* uses "when" declarations (the successor to MU-Prolog's "wait") to
control the execution of NU-Prolog programs according to the
availability of data
* implements a large set of built-in predicates, including many Quintus
Prolog predicates; most DEC-10/Edinburgh/MU-Prolog library predicates
are available through compatibility libraries
The NU-Prolog system contains the following major components:
* "nc", the NU-Prolog compiler
* "np", a simple interpreter-style interface which implements the
standard Edinburgh Prolog style debugging facilities and has a
sophisticated query language for accessing external database
predicates
* "nac", a program for adding control information to NU-Prolog programs
written in a purely logical style
* "nit", a program for reporting common errors in NU-Prolog programs
(cf. Unix/C's "lint")
NU-Prolog runs under Unix System V and Berkeley BSD Unix 4.?. It has
been implemented on the following machines: Elxsi 6400, Vax 11/780,
Perkin Elmer 3240, Sun workstations, Pyramid 98x, Integrated Solutions
Workstations. The system comes complete with a manual and all source
code. The preferred distribution medium is 1/2" tape, Unix tar-format
at 1600bpi. There is a A$400.00 fee to cover distribution costs.
In order to obtain a copy of the system, you must first complete a
licence agreement with the University of Melbourne. Licences can be
obtained by contacting:
NU-Prolog Distribution
Department of Computer Science
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria, 3052
AUSTRALIA
or
CSNET: mip%munnari.oz@australia
ARPA: mip%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov
UUCP: ...!munnari!mip (maybe, mip@munnari.uucp)
ACSnet: mip@munnari.oz
The system will be demonstrated at the Fourth International Conference
on Logic Progrmaming in Melbourne later in May.
+ The Machine Intelligence Project has been
assisted in the development of NU-Prolog by:
the Commonwealth Department of Science,
the Australian Research Grants Scheme,
the University of Melbourne and
Pyramid Technology, Aust.
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
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