Programming Language Techniques for Natural Language Applications

It is easy to imagine machines that can communicate in natural language. Constructing such machines is more difficult. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how declarative grammar formalisms that distinguish between abstract and concrete syntax make it easier to develop natural language applications. We describe how the type-theorectical grammar formalism Grammatical Framework (GF) can be used as a high-level language for natural language applications. By taking advantage of techniques from the field of programming language implementation, we can use GF grammars to perform portable and efficient parsing and linearization, generate speech recognition language models, implement multimodal fusion and fission, generate support code for abstract syntax transformations, generate dialogue managers, and implement speech translators and web-based syntax-aware editors. By generating application components from a declarative grammar, we can reduce duplicated work, ensure consistency, make it easier to build multilingual systems, improve linguistic quality, enable re-use across system domains, and make systems more portable

Developing an enriched natural language grammar for prosodically-improved concent-to-speech synthesis

The need for interacting with machines using spoken natural language is growing, along with the expectation that synthetic speech in this context sound natural. Such interaction includes answering questions, where prosody plays an important role in producing natural English synthetic speech by communicating the information structure of utterances. CCG is a theoretical framework that exploits the notion that, in English, information structure, prosodic structure and syntactic structure are isomorphic. This provides a way to convert a semantic representation of an utterance into a prosodically natural spoken utterance. GF is a framework for writing grammars, where abstract tree structures capture the semantic structure and concrete grammars render these structures in linearised strings. This research combines these frameworks to develop a system that converts semantic representations of utterances into linearised strings of natural language that are marked up to inform the prosody-generating component of a speech synthesis system.ComputingM. Sc. (Computing

Predicate conjoining in Hadiyya: a head driven PS grammar

In examining certain structures of the East Cushitic language Hadiyya, this thesis, in keeping with recent trends, adopts a mono-stratal framework, framed in terms of the mathematical operation of Unification; namely Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Chapter 1 is devoted to an exposition of the model employing situation semantics. Chapter 2 discusses the categories of noun, noun phrase, and verb. The discussion centres on the basic morphological categories of Person, Number, Gender and Case, and the variety of verbal forms which are relevant to an appreciation of following chapters, and a tentative (partial) feature system is set out. Chapter 3 deals with the mono-clausal sentence, briefly expounding basic sentence types, with the focus of the chapter on the issues of subcategorisation, constituent order, "pro-drop", and agreement. Several revisions of the formalism are proposed, and a general goal formulated. Part II deals with nexus mechanisms. First is a short chapter, 4, on canonical coordination as it occurs in Hadiyya, in which an attempt is made to formalise resolution rules, and a broader, cross-linguistic look is taken at the categories of Person, Gender and Number in coordinate phrases. Some of Hadiyya's other lexical connectors are also briefly considered. In the two final chapters, both subordinative and coordinative systems are reviewed, and these chapters provide an end-focus to the study. Chapter 5, discusses the adverbial clause, and the complementation system, while Chapter 6 covers clause chaining/ serialisation, switch reference, and the encoding of simultaneous events, in which agreement and control questions are addressed. A short final chapter brings together some of the major theoretical suggestions arising.

A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF OLYMPIC ELIGIBILITY, VALUES, AND AUXILIARY RULES

This dissertation examines whether or not the rules governing participation in the Olympic Games facilitate the attainment ofthe values and ideals associated with the Olympic Games. Compared to the constitutive and regulative rules of sport, little critical analysis has been done on sports’ auxiliary rules concerning who can compete and under whatconditions. Whilerestrictionsonentriesarewarrantedtoensurethesizeofthe Olympic Games does not grow to include an unmanageable number of competitors, some rules that limit eligibility appear to be more unfair and discriminatory than others. Utilizing a mixed ethical framework, which focuses on rule-consequentialism and the moral concepts of equality, justice, and moral desert, through a liberal feminist lens, this dissertation examines the moral acceptability o f current Olympic eligibility rules. Four components are common among many conceptions of Olympism. The four aspects include: 1) an emphasis on fairness and fair play, 2) expectations of equality and non-discrimination, 3) a focus on ethical behaviour, and 4) the belief that the Olympic Gamesoffereducationalprospectsforyouthsworldwide. Athematicanalysisofthe Olympic Charter and a representative sample ofrulebooks ofthe International Federations (IFs) rendered six themes of rules that restrict eligibility to compete at the Olympic Games: 1) sex and gender; 2) anti-doping; 3) citizenship; 4) behaviour and dispute resolution; 5) uniforms and competitive attire; and 6) age limits. Each theme was critically analyzed to determine if the rules restricting eligibility are morally acceptable or unacceptable and in need o f revision. Through a comparative analysis of the Olympic ideals and the eligibility rules of participation it was determined that auxiliary rules set by the IOC and IFs both hinder and m facilitatethepursuitoftheOlympicideals. Severalimposedauxiliaryrulespertainingto an athlete’s eligibility to compete at the Olympic Games are in opposition to the goal of promoting equality, fairness, ethical behaviour and education through sport. The most pressing inequities stem from rules that restrict women from competing in a program of events equitable to the men’s program and rules that violate athletes’ rights to autonomy and privacy

Modeling Human-Robot-Interaction based on generic Interaction Patterns

Peltason J. Modeling Human-Robot-Interaction based on generic Interaction Patterns. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University; 2014

Modellierung natü̈rlicher Dialoge im Kontext sprachbasierter Informations- und Steuersysteme

Current spoken dialogue systems are often criticised because they lack natural behaviour. In this thesis, a model to facilitate the development of user-friendly dialogues for information and control systems (e.g. travel-booking or smart room control systems) is created in order to address this problem. This also includes a study about the users' preferences, the classification of utterances according to intention and answer type and the development of a dialogue engine that can process dialogues based on this model. The developed model describes the dialogue flow and the combination of questions, answers and the resulting actions. Features like mixed initiative, open-ended questions, subdialogues and adaptable phrasings of system utterances lead to more natural dialogues and increase the usability of dialogue systems while linguistic datatypes, abstract question descriptions in connection with answer types and language generation methods enormously facilitate the definition of such dialogues for the developer. The separation of dialogue model and dialogue engine makes possible the reuse of base functionalities und prevents the mixing of execution logic and dialogue knowledge. The engine contains dialogue acts to classify user utterances and to prevent ambiguities as well as language understanding modules to identify the user's goal. In addition, it infers the next dialogue step under consideration of the specified dialogue behaviour. By implementing the Natural Dialogue System (NADIA), that runs the XML-based model, the functionality is proven.Aktuelle Sprachdialogsysteme haben oftmals den Ruf unnatürlich und nutzerunfreundlich zu sein. In dieser Dissertation wird diese Kritik adressiert und ein Modell zur einfacheren Entwicklung von nutzerfreundlichen Dialogen realisiert. Der Fokus liegt hierbei auf Informations- und Steuersystemen (z.B. Reisebuchungs- oder Raumsteuerungssysteme). Das entwickelte Dialogmodell beschreibt den Dialogablauf und somit das Zusammenwirken von Fragen, Antworten sowie den resultierenden Aktionen. Es trägt durch Fähigkeiten wie gemischter Initiative, offenen Fragen, Subdialogen sowie adaptierbaren Formulierungen von Systemäußerungen zu natürlicheren Dialogen bei und erhöht so die Nutzbarkeit von Dialogsystemen. Linguistische Datentypen, abstrakte Fragebeschreibungen in Verbindung mit Antworttypen sowie Sprachgenerierungsverfahren vereinfachen die Definition solcher Dialoge dabei enorm. Die Trennung zwischen Dialogmodell und Dialogengine ermöglicht die Wiederverwendbarkeit von Basisfunktionalitäten und verhindert die Vermischung von Ausführungslogik und Dialogwissen. Die Engine beinhaltet Dialogakte zur Klassifizierung von Nutzeraussagen und zur Vermeidung von Ambiguitäten, Module zum Sprachverstehen und leitet außerdem den nächsten Dialogschritt anhand der Definition des Dialogverhaltens ab. Durch die Implementierung des Natural Dialogue System (NADIA), welches als Dialogengine das XML-basierte Modell ausführt, wird abschließend die Funktionsfähigkeit nachgewiesen

A Model of Natural Language Dialogue

In this thesis I have a threefold purpose. Firstly, I will attempt to argue that the individual utterances agents make in natural language dialogue stem from specific beliefs, goals, and plans and that these interlock with those of other agents in the production of dialogue. I suggest that agents utilise syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and contextual knowledge in this process. Furthermore, that these elements contribute to the utterances speakers make and hearers interpret in the pursuit of their individual goals, and cannot be treated separately. I will suggest that utterances, being intentional behaviour, are sub-components of plans to achieve specific communicative purposes. Following from this, I will present a descriptive model showing how the beliefs and goals of agents contribute to the composing of a logical form for an utterance prior to its syntactic representation. It is suggested that the logical form of an utterance, is composed of elements relating to the agent's beliefs and goals, and includes pragmatic and contextual elements and that these are present prior to the utterance being made and predispose the choice of eventual syntactic components. I do not attempt to model the syntactic form of the utterances but limit the model of the agents to a display to each other of their logical forms and show how these might be interpreted and elicit responses from the hearer in furtherance of their goals. My third purpose is to present a hand-simulated process of this model, to demonstrate how a particular dialogue might be constructed by two agents. This is attempted by ascribing a set of beliefs to them and providing them with specific goals. In the final chapter, the achievements and inadequacies of this research are summarised, and possible improvements and developments suggested in the context of current and future directions

Modelling Incremental Self-Repair Processing in Dialogue.

PhDSelf-repairs, where speakers repeat themselves, reformulate or restart what they are saying, are pervasive in human dialogue. These phenomena provide a window into real-time human language processing. For explanatory adequacy, a model of dialogue must include mechanisms that account for them. Artificial dialogue agents also need this capability for more natural interaction with human users. This thesis investigates the structure of self-repair and its function in the incremental construction of meaning in interaction. A corpus study shows how the range of self-repairs seen in dialogue cannot be accounted for by looking at surface form alone. More particularly it analyses a string-alignment approach and shows how it is insufficient, provides requirements for a suitable model of incremental context and an ontology of self-repair function. An information-theoretic model is developed which addresses these issues along with a system that automatically detects self-repairs and edit terms on transcripts incrementally with minimal latency, achieving state-of-the-art results. Additionally it is shown to have practical use in the psychiatric domain. The thesis goes on to present a dialogue model to interpret and generate repaired utterances incrementally. When processing repaired rather than fluent utterances, it achieves the same degree of incremental interpretation and incremental representation. Practical implementation methods are presented for an existing dialogue system. Finally, a more pragmatically oriented approach is presented to model self-repairs in a psycholinguistically plausible way. This is achieved through extending the dialogue model to include a probabilistic semantic framework to perform incremental inference in a reference resolution domain. The thesis concludes that at least as fine-grained a model of context as word-by-word is required for realistic models of self-repair, and context must include linguistic action sequences and information update effects. The way dialogue participants process self-repairs to make inferences in real time, rather than filter out their disfluency effects, has been modelled formally and in practical systems.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Account (DTA) scholarship from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London