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NL-KR Digest Volume 02 No. 50
NL-KR Digest (6/02/87 21:12:12) Volume 2 Number 50
Today's Topics:
Seminar - Finite State Phonology - Karttunen
Conference - Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge
Conference - CFP: CSCSI-88 (Canadian AI Conference)
The Synthesizer Generator
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Date: Thu, 28 May 87 13:21 EDT
From: Rich Thomason <THOMASON@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - Finite State Phonology - Karttunen
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS TALK
Co-Sponsored by the CMU Center for Machine Translation
and the University of Pittsburgh Linguistics Department
Speaker: Lauri Karttunen (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center)
Title: "Finite-State Phonology"
Time: 1:00 PM, Monday, June 8
Place: 326 Cathedral of Learning, Univ. of Pittsburgh
ABSTRACT
The majority of studies in computational linguistics has been concerned
with the "high" end of linguistic theory: syntax and semantics. Very
little interesting work has has been done in areas of morphology and
phonology. This situation is now rapidly changing as a result of the
discovery (due to Ronald Kaplan and Martin Kay) that phonological rule
systems can be modelled by finite-state transducers. This has led to
the development of efficient techniques for word recognition and
generation and to the emergence of a new area of collaboration between
linguistics and computer science.
Phonological rules are commonly written as ordered rewrite rules of the
type: A --> B / C __ D "A is realized as a B between C and D."
Although the formalism gives the impression that such rules are
computationallly very powerful, Kaplan and Kay have shown that the
traditional interpretation of the notation is such that phonological
rule systems actually can be modelled by finite-state transducers.
Because two transducers can always be combined to a single machine by
composition, a sequence of ordered rules of any size can in principle be
modelled by a single transducer. Such a transducer expresses the
constraints between the representation of words in the lexicon and their
realization as actual forms in text or speech.
In this talk, I will discuss Kimmo Koskenniemi's "two-level" rule
formalism and the principles by which the phonological rules are
converted to finite-state transducers. The compiler that I have
developed, in collaboration with Kaplan, Koskenniemi, and Kay, is a
"smart" one in that it implements a number of important linguistic ideas
such as the "Elsewhere Principle." This principle dictates that, when
two rules are in conflict, the more specific rule takes priority; in
other words, exceptions win over generalizations.
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Date: Mon, 20 Apr 87 19:03 EDT
From: VARDI%ALMVMA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: Conference - Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge
Call for Papers
The Second Conference on
THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF REASONING ABOUT KNOWLEDGE
March 6-9, 1988, Monterey, California
The 2nd Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about
Knowledge, sponsored by the International Business Machines
Corporation and the American Association for Artificial
Intelligence, will be held March 6-9, 1988, at the Asilomar
Conference Center in Monterey, California. While traditionally
research in this area was mainly done by philosophers and
linguists, reasoning about knowledge has been shown recently to
be of great relevance to computer science and economics. The aim
of the conference is to bring together researchers from these
various disciplines with the intent of furthering our theoretical
understanding of reasoning about knowledge.
Some suggested, although not exclusive, topics of interest are:
Semantic models for knowledge and belief
Resource-bounded reasoning
Minimal knowledge proof systems
Analyzing distributed systems via knowledge
Knowledge acquisition and learning
Knowledge and commonsense reasoning
Knowledge, planning, and action
Knowledge in economic models
You are invited to submit ten copies of a detailed abstract (not
a complete paper) to the program chair:
Moshe Y. Vardi
IBM Research
Almaden Research Center K53-802
650 Harry Rd.
San Jose, CA 95120-6099, USA
Telephone: (408) 927-1784
Electronic address: vardi@ibm.com, vardi@almvma.bitnet
Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of significance,
originality, and overall quality. Each abstract should 1)
contain enough information to enable the program committee to
identify the main contribution of the work; 2) explain the
importance of the work - its novelty and its practical or
theoretical implications; and 3) include comparisons with and
references to relevant literature. Abstracts should be no longer
than ten double-spaced pages.
Program Committee:
J. Barwise (Stanford University)
P. van Emde Boas (University of Amsterdam)
H. Kamp (University of Texas at Austin)
K. Konolige (SRI International)
Y. Moses (Weizmann Institute of Science)
S. Rosenschein (SRI International)
T. Tan (University of Chicago)
M. Vardi (IBM Almaden Research Center)
The deadline for submission of abstracts is August 31, 1987.
Authors will be notified of acceptance by November 1, 1987
(authors who supply an electronic address might be notified
earlier). The accepted papers will be due by December 15, 1987.
Proceedings will be distributed at the conference, and will be
subsequently available for purchase through the publisher.
We hope to allow enough time between the talks for private
discussions and small group meetings. In order to ensure that
the conference remains relatively small, attendance will be
limited to invited participants and authors of accepted papers.
Support for the conference has been received from IBM and AAAI
for partial subsidy of participants' expenses; applications for
further support are pending.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 87 15:06 EDT
From: Bob Woodham <woodham%ubc.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Conference - CFP: CSCSI-88 (Canadian AI Conference)
Canadian Artificial Intelligence Conference
C S C S I - 8 8
Edmonton Convention Centre
Edmonton, Alberta
June 6 - 10, 1988
CSCSI-88 is the seventh biennial conference on Artificial Intelligence
sponsored by the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of
Intelligence/la Societe canadienne pour l'etude de l'intelligence par
ordinateur (CSCSI/SCEIO). The 1988 conference will be held in Edmonton in
conjunction with Graphics Interface '88 and Vision Interface '88.
Contributions are requested describing original research results, either
theoretical or applied, in all areas of Artificial Intelligence research.
The following areas are especially of interest:
Knowledge Representation Robotics
Perception (Vision, Touch, Speech) Knowledge Acquisition and Maintenance
Natural Language Understanding Cognitive Modelling
Expert Systems and Applications Social Aspects of AI
Reasoning (Formal, Qualitative) Architectures and Languages
Learning Applications
All submissions will be refereed by a Program Committee. Authors are
requested to prepare full papers of no more than 5000 words in length and to
specify in which area they wish their papers to be reviewed. All papers
must contain a concise statement of the original contribution made to
Artificial Intelligence research, with proper reference to the relevant
literature. At the time of submission, authors must indicate if the paper
has appeared, or has been submitted, elsewhere. Failure to do so will lead
to automatic rejection. Figures and illustrations should be professionally
drawn. Photographs, if included, should be of publication quality. All
accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. As a
condition of acceptance, the author, or one of the co-authors, will be
required to present the paper at the conference.
The international journal, Artificial Intelligence, has offered a best paper
prize for the conference. Selection of a best paper will be done by the
Program Committee.
Three (3) copies of the paper due: October 31, 1987.
Notification of acceptance or rejection: February 1, 1988.
Camera ready copy due: March 28, 1988.
Send papers and other correspondence to:
Nick Cercone Bob Woodham
School of Computing Science Department of Computer Science
Simon Fraser University University of British Columbia
Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6 Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5
CANADA CANADA
(604) 291-4277 (604) 228-4368
nick@lccr.sfu.CDN woodham@vision.ubc.CDN
sfulccr!nick@ubc-vision.UUCP woodham@ubc-vision.UUCP
woodham@ubc.CSNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 87 11:35 EDT
From: Tim Teitelbaum <synrels%gvax.cs.cornell.edu@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: The Synthesizer Generator
[Forwarded from AIList]
Introducing the Synthesizer Generator:
a tool for creating editors
Thomas Reps Tim Teitelbaum
Computer Science Department Computer Science Department
University of Wisconsin Cornell University
Madison, WI 53706 Ithaca, NY 14853
1. What is the Synthesizer Generator
The Synthesizer Generator is a tool for creating editing
environments for complex objects. The editor designer
prepares a specification that includes rules defining a
language's abstract syntax, context-sensitive relationships,
display format, and concrete input syntax. From this
specification, the Generator creates a full-screen editor
for manipulating objects according to these rules.
2. Who might want to use the Synthesizer Generator?
The Synthesizer Generator can be used by researchers who
need to construct an editing environment for objects that
can be described by a grammar. The Generator has been suc-
cessfully used to create a Pascal editor with full static
semantic checking, editors for C and Fortran 77, and many
editors for program verification and proof editing. It has
also been used to construct WYSIWYG editors for right-
justified text and mathematical formulae.
Using the Synthesizer Generator is much faster than
producing a hand-crafted editor, just as using a compiler
compiler is faster than writing a compiler. The Generator
maintains abstract representations for objects and incor-
porates algorithms for propagating context-sensitive infor-
mation through the objects being manipulated. It also pro-
vides the many mundane features that any editor must have,
such as binding of key sequences to generic commands, creat-
ing and manipulating buffers for edited objects, multiple
windows, etc., that would otherwise distract the editor
designer from his primary interest. The relative ease of
generating editors makes the Generator ideal for prototype
development and experimental use.
3. Are there serious applications beyond program editors?
Applications of the Synthesizer Generator are not limited to
editors for programming languages. At Cornell the Generator
is being used to implement environments for formal reasoning
that allow users to interactively construct proofs. Proofs
are represented as trees whose nodes correspond to inference
rules, while proof correctness is represented by context-
sensitive constraints between the nodes of the tree. Two
approaches to building such environments have been investi-
gated: in one the environment designer hand-tailors a Syn-
thesizer specification for a particular formal system [Reps
and Alpern]; in the other, the Synthesizer Generator is used
to implement an environment for defining formal systems that
allows a user to interactively define a particular logic and
to conduct formal reasoning in that logic.
[Reps and Alpern] Reps. T. and Alpern, B. "Interactive Proof
Checking," Eleventh POPL, 1984, 36-45.
4. How does it work?
The Synthesizer Generator is particularly well suited for
creating editors that enforce the syntax and static seman-
tics of objects that can be described in a particular
language. Each object to be edited is represented as a con-
sistently attributed derivation tree. When these objects
are modified, some of the attributes may no longer have con-
sistent values; incremental analysis is performed by updat-
ing attribute values throughout the tree in response to
modifications. If an editing operation modifies an object
in such a way that context-dependent constraints are
violated, the attributes that indicate satisfaction of con-
straints will receive new values; thus, these attributes can
be used to annotate the display in order to provide the user
with feedback about the existence of errors.
Editor specifications are written in the Synthesizer
Specification Language (SSL), which is based on the concepts
of a term algebra and an attribute grammar, although certain
features are tailored to the application domain of
language-based editors.
The Synthesizer Generator has two components:
a) a translator that takes an SSL specification as input,
and produces grammar tables as output, and
b) an editor kernel that consists of an attributed-tree
data-type and a driver for interactively manipulating
attributed trees; the kernel takes input from the key-
board and executes appropriate operations on the
current tree.
A shell program handles the details of invoking the transla-
tor and producing a language-based editor from the resulting
tables.
5. How to get a copy of the Generator
The Generator is written in C and runs under Berkeley UNIX
on VAX computers, Sun workstations (using SunWindows), and
the IBM PC/RT. Porting to other versions of UNIX is
straightforward. We are in the process of porting the Gen-
erator to XWindows. Editors generated with the Synthesizer
Generator will work on any crt terminal described in the
UNIX termcap database. A keyboard description file speci-
fies the layout of special function keys used by the gen-
erated editors. The distribution, which is available for
$200.00, consists of:
a) Source and object code for the SSL translator and edi-
tor kernel.
b) A collection of demonstration editors and their specif-
ications, including a Pascal editor with full static-
semantic checking and several proof editors.
c) A copy of The Synthesizer Generator Reference Manual.
6. References
The Synthesizer Specification Language is described in:
Reps, T. and Teitelbaum, T. The Synthesizer Genera-
tor. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN
Software Engineering Symposium on Practical Software
Development Environments, Pittsburgh, Penn., Apr.
23-25, 1984. (Appeared as joint issue: SIGPLAN No-
tices (ACM) 19, 5 (May 1984), and Soft. Eng. Notes
(ACM) 9, 3 (May 1984), 42-48).
A complete manual is available:
Reps, T. and Teitelbaum, T. The Synthesizer Genera-
tor Reference Manual. Department of Computer Sci-
ence, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, August,
1985.
A description of the theory underlying the Generator may be
found in:
Reps, Thomas W. Generating Language-Based Environ-
ments, The MIT Press, 1984.
To request further information about acquiring a copy of the
system, please respond with the name of your organization and
your postal address to
ARPA: synrels@gvax.cs.cornell.edu
UUCP: {rochester, allegra}!cornell!synrels
Bitnet: synrels@crnlcs.Bitnet
USMail: Prof. Tim Teitelbaum
Synthesizer Generator Distribution
Dep't of Computer Science, Upson Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
USA
We will send you the terms of the distribution and copies
of the distribution agreement.
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End of NL-KR Digest
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