Sitation Semantics and Semantic Induction

Gregers Koch
Dept. of Computer Science (DIKU)
Copenhagen University
Universitetsparken 1
DK-2100 Copenhagen Denmark
gregers@diku.dk 


  Here we shall discuss  two problems concerning the handling of
 Situation Semantics in computers [1,2,3]:

  1) the problem of how to perform automatic translation from natural
     language texts to situation schemata (or similar representations),

  2) the problem of how to perform automatic logical interpretation
     of the semantics of the situation schemata.

 We shall present some tentative solutions to these two problems.
 The solutions build on intensive application of our methods for
 automated semantic induction [4,5,6,7]. This approach will be compared
 to an alternative approach by Mark Johnson and Martin Kay [9].
 Many of the details of such a comparison may be found in a recent
 article [10].
 

 [1]: J.E. Fenstad et al., Situations Language and Logic, Reidel, 1987.

 [2]: K. Devlin, Situation Theory, 1991.

 [3]: R. Loukanova, Solving NL ambiguities in Situation Semantics, 1995.

 [4]: G. Koch, Linguistic data-flow structures, 293-308, in [8].

 [5]: G. Koch, 602-16, S. Ohsuga et al., Inf. Modell. & Knowl. Bases, IOS '92.

 [6]: G. Koch, abstract, CLIN Workshop, Eindhoven 1996.

 [7]: G. Koch, abstract, CLIN Workshop, Nijmegen 1997.

 [8]: C.G. Brown et al. eds., NL Understanding & Log. Progr., North-Holl. '91.

 [9]: M. Johnson & M. Kay, Semantic abstraction and anaphora, COLING 1990.

 [10]: G. Koch, 373-80, P. Jorrand et al., eds., AIMSA'94, World Scientific.