Parsing as an energy minimization problem. Selman, B. & Hirst, G. Adriaens, G. & Hahn, U., editors. Parallel natural language processing, pages 238–254. Ablex Publishing, Norwood, NJ, 1994.
abstract   bibtex   

We show how parsing can be formulated as an energy minimization problem. We describe our model in terms of a connectionist network. In this network we use a parallel computation scheme similar to the one used in the Boltzmann machine and apply simulated annealing, a stochastic optimization method. We show that at low temperatures the time average of the visited states at thermal equilibrium represents the correct parse of the input sentence.

Our treatment of parsing as an energy minimization problem enables us to formulate general rules for the setting of weights and thresholds in the network. We also consider an alternative to the commonly used energy function. Using this new function, one can choose a provably correct set of weights and thresholds for the network and still have an acceptable rate of convergence in the annealing process.

The parsing scheme is built from a small set of connectionist primitives that represent the grammar rules. These primitives are linked together using pairs of computing units that behave like discrete switches. These units are used as binders between concepts represented in the network. They can be linked in such a way that individual rules can be selected from a collection of rules, and are very useful in the construction of connectionist schemes for any form of rule-based processing.

@InBook{	  selman1,
  author	= {Bart Selman and Graeme Hirst},
  chapter	= {Parsing as an energy minimization problem},
  editor	= {Geert Adriaens and Udo Hahn},
  title		= {Parallel natural language processing},
  address	= {Norwood, NJ},
  publisher	= {Ablex Publishing},
  year		= {1994},
  pages		= {238--254},
  abstract	= {<P> We show how parsing can be formulated as an energy
		  minimization problem. We describe our model in terms of a
		  connectionist network. In this network we use a parallel
		  computation scheme similar to the one used in the Boltzmann
		  machine and apply simulated annealing, a stochastic
		  optimization method. We show that at low temperatures the
		  time average of the visited states at thermal equilibrium
		  represents the correct parse of the input sentence.</p> <P>
		  Our treatment of parsing as an energy minimization problem
		  enables us to formulate general rules for the setting of
		  weights and thresholds in the network. We also consider an
		  alternative to the commonly used energy function. Using
		  this new function, one can choose a provably correct set of
		  weights and thresholds for the network and still have an
		  acceptable rate of convergence in the annealing
		  process.</p> <P> The parsing scheme is built from a small
		  set of <I>connectionist primitives</I> that represent the
		  grammar rules. These primitives are linked together using
		  pairs of computing units that behave like discrete
		  switches. These units are used as binders between concepts
		  represented in the network. They can be linked in such a
		  way that individual rules can be selected from a collection
		  of rules, and are very useful in the construction of
		  connectionist schemes for any form of rule-based
		  processing.</p>}
}

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