Transportable natural language interfaces for taxonomic knowledge representation systems

Abstract

e) Institu t f u r P rogram m stru k tu renu n d D a ten organ i s a tion Uni v ersit at K a rlsru h e, W{7500 Karlsru h e, Germ any Appeare d in the pr oce e di ngs of t he Ni nt h IEEE C o n f e r e n c e o n A r t i c i a l I n t e l l i g e n c e f o r A p p l i c a t i o n s Or l ando, Fl or i da, Mar ch [1][2][3][4][5] 1993 A general approach is presented f o r bui l di n g t r a n sport a bl e nat u r a l l a n guage i nt e r fa c es f or q u est i on a n swering syst ems based o n a KL-ONE-l i ke knowl e d ge represent a t io n . A n exampl e s y stem ,Y A K R, i s d escri bed: T h e Y A K S k n o w l e d ge represent a t io n o f c o n c ept sa n d r el at io n s i s a n n o t a t e d w i t hm i n i m a l s y n t a c t i ci n f o rm at io n t o generat eas e m a n t icc a sefram e g r a m m a r w i t h i n h eritance o f c a ses. T he generat e d g r a m m a r d i r e cts a case f r a m e p a rser, whi c hp r o c esses w r it t e nin p u t i n t oinstant ia t e d c a sefram es. These i nstant ia t ia t io n s a r e e asily translat e d i n t ok n o w l e d ge base queri es. The s a m e m et hod i s a p p l i c a bl e to ot h er object-orient e d k n o w l e d ge bases and o t h er parsing t e chni q u es.The o ri gi nal cont r ib u t io n o f t h i sw o rk is to show a n a p p r o a ch wi t h w h i c h n a t u r a l l a n guage i nt e r fa c es can w i t h l o weort be adapt e d t o w o rk wi t ha n y n ew knowl e d ge base: Whi l e m o st ot h er system s r e qui r e a c o m p l e t e m o d el of t h e d om a i nf o r t h e n a t u r a l l a n guage i nt e r fa c e k n o w l e d ge represent a t io n , w e d eri ve most of t h i si n f o rm at io n f r o m t h e a p p l i c a t io n 's knowl e d ge base. T hi st e chni q u e r e d uc es t he a m o u n t o f w o rk needed t o c r e a t et h e i n t e r fa c e t oa b o u t a d d i t i o n a l 1 5 p ercent a f ter bui l d i n g t h e k n o wl e d ge base for t h e a p p l i c a t io n kernel .AI topic: knowledge acquisition, k n o w le d g e representation, n a tural l a n g u a g e i n terface Language/Tool: Unix ,C ++ Status: im p le m entation c o m p le t e ,e v a lu a tion i n p rogress Eort: about 4 p erson y ears Im p act: quic k d evelopment o f restrictednatural l a n g u a g e in terface for certain classes of k n o w le d g e-basedapplic a tions ( 1 5 % a d d it io n a l k n o w le d g e a cquis it io n w o rk). IntroductionThe r e haveb e e ns e v e r a la t t e m p t st oc r e a t en a t u r a l l a n g u a g e i n terfaces for databases [15, 10, 5 ] of these natural language int e r f a c e st t r a n s p o r t a b l e ,t h a ti s ,t h e y domai ns by changi ng de pe nde nt knowl e nal dat ab e