tailieunhanh - Báo cáo khoa học: "PROSPECTS OR PRACTICAL NATURAL LANGUAGE SYSTEMS"

As the author of a "practical" NL data base q u e r y system, one of the suggested topics for this panel is of p a r t i c u l a r interest to me. The issue of what hurdles remain before NL systems become practical strikes p a r t i c u l a r y close to home. %s someone with a more pragmatic view of NL processing, my feeling is, not surprisingly, that we already have the capability to construct practical ~:L systems. | PROSPECTS FOR practical natural language systems Larry R. Harris Artificial Intelligence Corporation Newton Centre Mass. 02159 As the author of a practical NL data base query system one of the suggested topics for this panel is of particular interest to me. The issue of what hurdles remain before NL systems become practical strikes particulary close to home. As someone with a more pragmatic view of NL processing my feeling is not surprisingly that we already have the capability to construct practical l systems. Significant enhancement of existing manmachine communication is possible within the current NL technology if we set our sights appropriately and are willing to take the additional effort to craft systems actually worthy of being used. The missing link isn t a utopian parsing algorithm yet to be discovered. The hurdles to practical NL systems are of a much more conventional variety that require as Edison said more perspiration than inspiration. It should be clear that none of my remarks conflict with the obvious fact that NL research has miles to go and that there are innumerable unresolved issues that will continue to require research beyond the foreseeable future. Our understanding of NL has merely scratched the surface and it is fair to say that we don t even understand what all the problems are muchless their solution. But by using the powerful techniques that have already resulted from NL research in extremely restricted micro-worlds it is possible to attain a high enough level of performance to be of practical value to a significant user community. It is these highly specialized systems that can be made practical using the existing technology. I will not speculate on when a general NL capability will become practical nor will I speculate on whether the creation of practical specialized systems will contribute to the creation of a more general capability. The fact that there is a clear need for improved man-machine communication and that current .