1973 student paper award. An alogorithm for generating structural surrogates of english text

Abstract

This paper describes the development and application of an algorithm which generates non‐linear representations of English text. The algorithm uses the results of a syntactic analysis system and a set of rules which prescribe linkages to generate a graph of a sentence. The shape of these graphs corresponds to the syntax of the sentence; the labels correspond to the vocabulary of the sentence and the edge types correspond to case grammar roles. The sentence graphs can then be interconnected at common nodes and analyzed according to common edges. Preliminary experimentation has yielded promising results. It appears that the algorithm produces a representation of English text which could be quite useful in automatic language processing.

A model and a metalanguage for research on psychological counseling.

“…Researchers there have developed and implemented a computerized structural language (i.e., a "metalanguage") for the rapid analysis of natural-language texts. Results as of this writing (Strong, 1974;Rush et al, Note 4;Young, Note 6) have had immediate practical application to the automated indexing and abstracting of documents and to language instruction (Aid, 1972). What these researchers have done is to construct a computerized, structural language according to a stringent and explicit set of rules (i.e., an algorithm), which translates natural language into that of structure.…”

“…The present article concerns how the counselor and client communicate by means of their natural-language practices and how such practices may provide both with a knowledge of their relationship and provide the client with a change-in-state. Our endeavor builds on prior theoretical and empirical work in case-grammar theory (Chafe, 1970;Cook, 1969;Fillmore, 1968; Cook, Note 1, Note 2, Note 3), phenomenological sociology (Garfinkel, 1963(Garfinkel, , 1967Schutz, 1964Schutz, ,1967aSchutz, , 1967b, computer and information science (Pepinsky, 1974;Strong, 1974;Rush, Pepinsky, Landry, Meara, Strong, Valley, & Young, Note 4;Patton & Fuhriman, Note 5), and the social psychology of the psychological laboratory experiment (Patton & Pepinsky, 1971;Pepinsky & Patton, 1971).…”

Affectivity of task, rehearsal time, and physiological response.

“…1-32) has suggested, the written texts of such utterances may be analyzed grammatically to reveal their "surface" and "deep" structural properties. Automated parsers of connected prose discourse are becoming available to make that kind of analysis rapidly and accurately (e.g., Pepinsky, 1974;Rush, Pepinsky, Landry, Meara, Strong, Valley, & Young, 1974;Strong, 1974;Winograd, 1972;cf. Abelson, 1974, on "computational psycholinguistics").…”

A metalanguage for systematic research on human communication via natural language

“…Clauses and their constituent subsets are thus postulated t o exist as both tagmemic and case defined attributes in our conception of a structural language corresponding t o English language texts. As described more fully elsewhere (61,72,85), this concept has determined both a set of computer programs and an algorithm for implementing their use. These additional and essential features of a metalanguage, comprising a (38-43, 72, 85).…”