Báo cáo khoa học: On-Line Semantic Analysis of English Texts

This paper describes the use of an on-line system to do word-sense ambiguity resolution and content analysis of English paragraphs, using a system of semantic analysis programmed in Q32 LISP 1.5. The system of semantic analysis comprises dictionary codings for the text words, coded forms of permitted message, and rules producing message forms in combination on the basis of a criterion of semantic closeness. All these can be expressed as a single system of rules of phrase-structure form. In certain circumstances the system is able to enlarge its own dictionary in a real-time mode on the basis of information gained...
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Báo cáo khoa học: "On-Line Semantic Analysis of English Texts" [Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics, vol.11, nos.1 and 2, March and June 1968] On-Line Semantic Analysis of English Texts* by Yorick Wilks, Pembroke College, Cambridge This paper describes the use of an on-line system to do word-sense am- biguity resolution and content analysis of English paragraphs, using a system of semantic analysis programmed in Q32 LISP 1.5. The system of semantic analysis comprises dictionary codings for the text words, coded forms of permitted message, and rules producing message forms in com- bination on the basis of a criterion of semantic closeness. All these can be expressed as a single system of rules of phrase-structure form. In certain circumstances the system is able to enlarge its own dictionary in a real-time mode on the basis of information gained from the actual texts analyzed. referring to is a procedure for getting a computer to do1 . Introduction what human beings do naturally when they read orIn this paper I describe a system for the on-line semantic listen, namely, to interpret each word in a text in oneanalysis of texts up to paragraph length. It was pro- and (usually) only one of its possible senses. So, andgrammed and applied in Q32 LISP 1.5 to material of again in British English, anyone reading I must taketwo sorts: newspaper editorials, and passages of philo- these letters to the post just knows that the sense ofsophical argument. The immediate purpose of the analy- post in question is post as a place for depositing mailsis was to resolve the word-sense ambiguity of the texts: and not either of the two other senses distinguishedto tag each word occurrence in the texts to one and only earlier.one of its possible senses or meanings, and to do so in An ambiguity-resolution system would be of somesuch a way that anyone could judge the outputs success interest within computational linguistics even if it workedor failure without knowing the coding system. on a purely ad hoc basis, since word ambiguity is proba- The system analyzes text up to paragraph length, bly the problem holding up the achievement of reliablesince I follow a working hypothesis that many word- mechanical translation. However, the present system issense ambiguities cannot be resolved within the bounds essentially one for the representation of the content ofof the conventional text sentence; there simply isnt texts. Its use as an ambiguity-resolution procedure, de-enough context available. So, for example, if someone scribed here, is some test of its ability to represent textsreads, in British English at least, Ill have to take this for subsequent interrogation as part of a more generalpost after all, then he does not know, without more information system since representing content usefullycontext, whether he is reading about an employment involves disambiguation essentially. Any attempt tosituation or one concerned with the purchase of garden- represent the content of I suppose Ill have to take thising equipment. If that sentence were analyzed, by any post must be prepared to store different representationsambiguity resolution system, as part of a larger text, we for the two major interpretations of that sentence I dis-would expect as a report on the word post either post tinguished earlier. Once a representation has been as-as a job or post as a stake, depending on the larger signed by any method, then an ambiguity resolution fortext of which this example sentence was a part. the words of the text can be read from it, and the cor- When I call this process of tagging words ambiguity rectness or otherwise of the resolution is some test of theresolution, I do not mean that the words of real texts adequacy of the original representation. That is whatare usually ambiguous, that a reader cannot decide the present system does at this stage: it simply outputs awhich of their meanings or senses are meant. If a word tagging of each text word to one and only one of its ...