Accession Number:

ADA061269

Title:

Intelligent CAI: An Author Aid for a Natural Language Interface.

Descriptive Note:

Technical rept.,

Corporate Author:

BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC CAMBRIDGE MASS

Personal Author(s):

• Burton,Richard R.
• Brown,John Seely

Report Date:

1978-08-01

Pagination or Media Count:

59.0

Abstract:

One of the major stumbling blocks for an intelligent instructional system is the lack of a natural means of communication between the student and the computer. This report addresses the problems of using natural language English as the communication language for advanced computer-based instructional systems. The instructional environment places requirements on a natural language understanding system that exceed the capabilities of all existing systems. These requirements include 1 efficiency 2 habitability 3 tutorial capability and 4 the ability to exist with ambiguity. The notion of semantic grammar is presented as a paradigm for organizing the knowledge required in the understanding process that permits efficient parsing. In addition, semantic grammar aids the habitability by providing insights into a useful class of dialogue constructs, and permits efficient handling of such phenomena as pronominalizations and ellipses. The need for a better formalism for expressing semantic grammars is met by the use of Augmented Transition Networks ATN. The ability of the ATN-expressed semantic grammar to satisfy the above stated requirements is demonstrated in the natural language front-end for the SOPHIE system. Author

Descriptors:

• *MAN COMPUTER INTERFACE
• *COMPUTER AIDED INSTRUCTION
• *NATURAL LANGUAGE
• STUDENTS
• SEMANTICS
• TEACHING METHODS
• PROBLEM SOLVING
• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• PARSERS
• ENGLISH LANGUAGE
• COMPREHENSION

Subject Categories:

• Humanities and History

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE