Semantic interpretation and ambiguity. Hirst, G. Artificial intelligence, 34(2):131–177, March, 1988. abstract bibtex A new approach to semantic interpretation in natural language understanding is described, together with mechanisms for both lexical and structural disambiguation that work in concert with the semantic interpreter.
ABSITY, the system described, is a Montague-inspired semantic interpreter. Like Montague formalisms, its semantics is compositional by design and is strongly typed, with semantic rules in one-to-one correspondence with the meaning-affecting rules of a Marcus parser. The Montague semantic objects—functors and truth conditions—are replaced with elements of the frame language FRAIL. ABSITY's partial results are always well-formed FRAIL objects.
A semantic interpreter must be able to provide feedback to the parser to help it handle structural ambiguities. In ABSITY, this is done by the ``Semantic Enquiry Desk,'' a process that answers the parser's questions on semantic preferences. Disambiguation of word senses and of case slots is done by a set of procedures, one per word or slot, each of which determines the word or slot's correct sense, in cooperation with the other processes.
It is from the fact that partial results are always well-formed semantic objects that the system gains much of its power. This, in turn, comes from the strict correspondence between syntax and semantics in ABSITY. The result is a foundation for semantic interpretation superior to previous approaches.
@Article{ hirst31,
author = {Graeme Hirst},
title = {Semantic interpretation and ambiguity},
journal = {Artificial intelligence},
volume = {34},
number = {2},
month = {March},
year = {1988},
pages = {131--177},
abstract = {<p>A new approach to semantic interpretation in natural
language understanding is described, together with
mechanisms for both lexical and structural disambiguation
that work in concert with the semantic interpreter. </p><p>
<small>ABSITY</small>, the system described, is a
Montague-inspired semantic interpreter. Like Montague
formalisms, its semantics is compositional by design and is
strongly typed, with semantic rules in one-to-one
correspondence with the meaning-affecting rules of a Marcus
parser. The Montague semantic objects---functors and truth
conditions---are replaced with elements of the frame
language <small>FRAIL</small>. <small>ABSITY</small>'s
partial results are always well-formed <small>FRAIL</small>
objects. </p><p> A semantic interpreter must be able to
provide feedback to the parser to help it handle structural
ambiguities. In <small>ABSITY</small>, this is done by the
``Semantic Enquiry Desk,'' a process that answers the
parser's questions on semantic preferences. Disambiguation
of word senses and of case slots is done by a set of
procedures, one per word or slot, each of which determines
the word or slot's correct sense, in cooperation with the
other processes. </p><p> It is from the fact that partial
results are always well-formed semantic objects that the
system gains much of its power. This, in turn, comes from
the strict correspondence between syntax and semantics in
<small>ABSITY</small>. The result is a foundation for
semantic interpretation superior to previous
approaches.</p>},
download = {http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/Hirst-semInt-88.pdf}
}
Downloads: 0
{"_id":{"_str":"534282740e946d920a001b81"},"__v":4,"authorIDs":["545761622abc8e9f3700033e"],"author_short":["Hirst, G."],"bibbaseid":"hirst-semanticinterpretationandambiguity-1988","bibdata":{"bibtype":"article","type":"article","author":[{"firstnames":["Graeme"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Hirst"],"suffixes":[]}],"title":"Semantic interpretation and ambiguity","journal":"Artificial intelligence","volume":"34","number":"2","month":"March","year":"1988","pages":"131–177","abstract":"<p>A new approach to semantic interpretation in natural language understanding is described, together with mechanisms for both lexical and structural disambiguation that work in concert with the semantic interpreter. </p><p> <small>ABSITY</small>, the system described, is a Montague-inspired semantic interpreter. Like Montague formalisms, its semantics is compositional by design and is strongly typed, with semantic rules in one-to-one correspondence with the meaning-affecting rules of a Marcus parser. The Montague semantic objects—functors and truth conditions—are replaced with elements of the frame language <small>FRAIL</small>. <small>ABSITY</small>'s partial results are always well-formed <small>FRAIL</small> objects. </p><p> A semantic interpreter must be able to provide feedback to the parser to help it handle structural ambiguities. In <small>ABSITY</small>, this is done by the ``Semantic Enquiry Desk,'' a process that answers the parser's questions on semantic preferences. Disambiguation of word senses and of case slots is done by a set of procedures, one per word or slot, each of which determines the word or slot's correct sense, in cooperation with the other processes. </p><p> It is from the fact that partial results are always well-formed semantic objects that the system gains much of its power. This, in turn, comes from the strict correspondence between syntax and semantics in <small>ABSITY</small>. The result is a foundation for semantic interpretation superior to previous approaches.</p>","download":"http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/Hirst-semInt-88.pdf","bibtex":"@Article{\t hirst31,\n author\t= {Graeme Hirst},\n title\t\t= {Semantic interpretation and ambiguity},\n journal\t= {Artificial intelligence},\n volume\t= {34},\n number\t= {2},\n month\t\t= {March},\n year\t\t= {1988},\n pages\t\t= {131--177},\n abstract\t= {<p>A new approach to semantic interpretation in natural\n\t\t language understanding is described, together with\n\t\t mechanisms for both lexical and structural disambiguation\n\t\t that work in concert with the semantic interpreter. </p><p>\n\t\t <small>ABSITY</small>, the system described, is a\n\t\t Montague-inspired semantic interpreter. Like Montague\n\t\t formalisms, its semantics is compositional by design and is\n\t\t strongly typed, with semantic rules in one-to-one\n\t\t correspondence with the meaning-affecting rules of a Marcus\n\t\t parser. The Montague semantic objects---functors and truth\n\t\t conditions---are replaced with elements of the frame\n\t\t language <small>FRAIL</small>. <small>ABSITY</small>'s\n\t\t partial results are always well-formed <small>FRAIL</small>\n\t\t objects. </p><p> A semantic interpreter must be able to\n\t\t provide feedback to the parser to help it handle structural\n\t\t ambiguities. In <small>ABSITY</small>, this is done by the\n\t\t ``Semantic Enquiry Desk,'' a process that answers the\n\t\t parser's questions on semantic preferences. Disambiguation\n\t\t of word senses and of case slots is done by a set of\n\t\t procedures, one per word or slot, each of which determines\n\t\t the word or slot's correct sense, in cooperation with the\n\t\t other processes. </p><p> It is from the fact that partial\n\t\t results are always well-formed semantic objects that the\n\t\t system gains much of its power. This, in turn, comes from\n\t\t the strict correspondence between syntax and semantics in\n\t\t <small>ABSITY</small>. The result is a foundation for\n\t\t semantic interpretation superior to previous\n\t\t approaches.</p>},\n download\t= {http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/Hirst-semInt-88.pdf}\n}\n\n","author_short":["Hirst, G."],"key":"hirst31","id":"hirst31","bibbaseid":"hirst-semanticinterpretationandambiguity-1988","role":"author","urls":{},"metadata":{"authorlinks":{}}},"bibtype":"article","biburl":"www.cs.toronto.edu/~fritz/tmp/compling.bib","downloads":0,"keywords":[],"search_terms":["semantic","interpretation","ambiguity","hirst"],"title":"Semantic interpretation and ambiguity","year":1988,"dataSources":["n8jB5BJxaeSmH6mtR","6b6A9kbkw4CsEGnRX"]}