Computer Interpretation of Natural Language Descriptions (Ellis Horwood Series in Artificial Intelligence) - Hardcover
Synopsis
This description of how a computer program can build up an internal model of a world described in natural languages concentrates on questions involving the timing of this process. It attempts to determine how a natural language text conveys meaning, and to what extent it is possible to build up a gradual understanding as the book progresses. This approach avoids local ambiguity, providing a system which can use its knowledge of the world effectively to guide interpretation. The author considers the interpretation of pronouns, plural phrases and the simple uses of quantification in the light of a system which can represent and reason about objects which are only partially specified. The work, written to make good various practical and theoretical difficulties with existing computer models of language understanding, illustrates theoretical ideas by means of a computer program which understands simple mechanics problems stated in English.
It provides a treatment of definite reference evaluations as a distributed process based on constraint satisfaction by filtering; and analyzes the partial information about references that a reader can extract from various indefinite and plural referential noun phrases."synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
