The purpose of this symposium is three-fold:

This paper presents extensions to the work of Bobrow and Webber [Bobrow & Webber 80a, Bobrow & Webber 80b] on semantic interpretation using KL-ONE to represent knowledge. The approach is based on an extended case frame formalism applicable to all types of phrases, not just clauses. The frames are used to recognize semantically acceptable phrases, identify their structure, and, relate them to their meaning representation through translation rules. Approaches are presented for generating KL-ONE structures as the meaning of a sentence, for capturing semantic generalizations through abstract case frames, and for handling pronouns and relative clauses.

Consul and CUE are two systems that combine to support an interface to interactive computer services that is integrated across a variety of interface methods. Consul is an experimental natural language interface system designed to be customized to a set of specific interactive computer services: electronic mail, personal calendar, word processing, etc. CUE is a window- and object-based run-time support environment for interactive services with a command language, pointing device and menu interface. Using the Consul/CUE interface, the user sees a single system that is capable of handling a wide variety of input in a completely uniform service environment. The success of the combined system derives from a large knowledge base formalizing facts in the interactive service environment in an artificial intelligence network structure.

There are certainly many reasons. One is the attractiveness of our most abstract theories. They are widely presented and receive the most scholarly attention. The popular and technical press contributes by pub1~cizing our w~]der claims and broadest hopes. ~imilar]y, the press oversells our current systems, leading more careful observers to wonder even about these. Finally, mechanizing the understanding of natural language ~s very difficult. We can not hope to achieve many of our goals in the near future. Making do with the technology now available is very frustrating. All this contributes to we the members of the field gravitating to theorizing and small laboratory studies. We are choosing to focus on the £uture rather than the present. There is a real danger in this state of affairs. The build up of public and institutional expectations without a corresponding emergence of useful systems will produce a counter reaction. We have seen it before. To this day, machine translation research in the United States has not completely recovered. There is more need than ever~ there is more technology than before, word processing and computer typesetting have changed the price equation, but it is stilS not considered wise to be associated with MT. We can not let this sort of reversal happen to us again. Fortunately, we need not.

Article Free Access Share on An improved heuristic for ellipsis processing Authors: Ralph M. Weischedel University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware University of Delaware, Newark, DelawareView Profile , Norman K. Sondheimer Software Research, Sperry Univac, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania Software Research, Sperry Univac, Blue Bell, PennsylvaniaView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACL '82: Proceedings of the 20th annual meeting on Association for Computational LinguisticsJune 1982 Pages 85–88https://doi.org/10.3115/981251.981271Online:16 June 1982Publication History 8citation179DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations8Total Downloads179Last 12 Months30Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

The need to improve and simplify interactive computing svstems has led to the study of the human factors of these systems. Out of these studies and a general interest in ease of use has come a variety of guidelines and techniques for improving human-machine interfaces. Some of the most important. techniques allow a user to obtain assistance automatically while using a computer svstem. An introduction to the problems, methods, and results in human factors and user assistance for interactive computer systems are provided in this paper and this issue.

No abstract available.

As interactive users find conventional methods of training and documentation inadequate, designers are providing systems with online reference information, descriptions of valid input, elaboration of error messages, and explanations of a system's behavior. This paper describes some existing commercial systems that offer online assistance and more experimental approaches by the research community. The following material was originally presented at the SIGSOC conference on Easier and More Productive Use of Computing Systems. An extended version will appear in a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Volume SMC-12, March/April, 1982), and is reprinted here with the permission of the IEEE.Online user assistance is now offered on commercial systems and is the subject of investigation in experimental settings. It is difficult to compare the advantages and limitations of different approaches because they vary along many dimensions and because there is no commonly accepted terminology. A grouping of these dimensions into major categories is a necessary first step towards more empirical evaluations. The major software-related features of online assistance appear to fall into four categories:• access method -- the way users can construct or enter requests for assistance;• data structure -- the manner in which different portions of assistance information are related to each other;• software architecture -- how assistance requests and their responses are communicated among a user, an operating system, application programs, and the assistance database; and• contextual knowledge -- how much information is retained about the assistance environment, including the user, the application, and the tasks being performed.

Article Free Access Share on Ungrammaticality and extra-grammaticality in natural language understanding systems Authors: Stan C. Kwasny The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio The Ohio State University, Columbus, OhioView Profile , Norman K. Sondheimer Sperry Univac, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania Sperry Univac, Blue Bell, PennsylvaniaView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACL '79: Proceedings of the 17th annual meeting on Association for Computational LinguisticsJune 1979Pages 19–23https://doi.org/10.3115/982163.982170Published:29 June 1979Publication History 15citation341DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations15Total Downloads341Last 12 Months14Last 6 weeks5 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF