16,043 research outputs found
Learning Fault-tolerant Speech Parsing with SCREEN
This paper describes a new approach and a system SCREEN for fault-tolerant
speech parsing. SCREEEN stands for Symbolic Connectionist Robust EnterprisE for
Natural language. Speech parsing describes the syntactic and semantic analysis
of spontaneous spoken language. The general approach is based on incremental
immediate flat analysis, learning of syntactic and semantic speech parsing,
parallel integration of current hypotheses, and the consideration of various
forms of speech related errors. The goal for this approach is to explore the
parallel interactions between various knowledge sources for learning
incremental fault-tolerant speech parsing. This approach is examined in a
system SCREEN using various hybrid connectionist techniques. Hybrid
connectionist techniques are examined because of their promising properties of
inherent fault tolerance, learning, gradedness and parallel constraint
integration. The input for SCREEN is hypotheses about recognized words of a
spoken utterance potentially analyzed by a speech system, the output is
hypotheses about the flat syntactic and semantic analysis of the utterance. In
this paper we focus on the general approach, the overall architecture, and
examples for learning flat syntactic speech parsing. Different from most other
speech language architectures SCREEN emphasizes an interactive rather than an
autonomous position, learning rather than encoding, flat analysis rather than
in-depth analysis, and fault-tolerant processing of phonetic, syntactic and
semantic knowledge.Comment: 6 pages, postscript, compressed, uuencoded to appear in Proceedings
of AAAI 9
Uniform Representations for Syntax-Semantics Arbitration
Psychological investigations have led to considerable insight into the
working of the human language comprehension system. In this article, we look at
a set of principles derived from psychological findings to argue for a
particular organization of linguistic knowledge along with a particular
processing strategy and present a computational model of sentence processing
based on those principles. Many studies have shown that human sentence
comprehension is an incremental and interactive process in which semantic and
other higher-level information interacts with syntactic information to make
informed commitments as early as possible at a local ambiguity. Early
commitments may be made by using top-down guidance from knowledge of different
types, each of which must be applicable independently of others. Further
evidence from studies of error recovery and delayed decisions points toward an
arbitration mechanism for combining syntactic and semantic information in
resolving ambiguities. In order to account for all of the above, we propose
that all types of linguistic knowledge must be represented in a common form but
must be separable so that they can be applied independently of each other and
integrated at processing time by the arbitrator. We present such a uniform
representation and a computational model called COMPERE based on the
representation and the processing strategy.Comment: 7 pages, uses cogsci94.sty macr
SCREEN: Learning a Flat Syntactic and Semantic Spoken Language Analysis Using Artificial Neural Networks
In this paper, we describe a so-called screening approach for learning robust
processing of spontaneously spoken language. A screening approach is a flat
analysis which uses shallow sequences of category representations for analyzing
an utterance at various syntactic, semantic and dialog levels. Rather than
using a deeply structured symbolic analysis, we use a flat connectionist
analysis. This screening approach aims at supporting speech and language
processing by using (1) data-driven learning and (2) robustness of
connectionist networks. In order to test this approach, we have developed the
SCREEN system which is based on this new robust, learned and flat analysis.
In this paper, we focus on a detailed description of SCREEN's architecture,
the flat syntactic and semantic analysis, the interaction with a speech
recognizer, and a detailed evaluation analysis of the robustness under the
influence of noisy or incomplete input. The main result of this paper is that
flat representations allow more robust processing of spontaneous spoken
language than deeply structured representations. In particular, we show how the
fault-tolerance and learning capability of connectionist networks can support a
flat analysis for providing more robust spoken-language processing within an
overall hybrid symbolic/connectionist framework.Comment: 51 pages, Postscript. To be published in Journal of Artificial
Intelligence Research 6(1), 199
Left Inferior Frontal Activations Depending on the Canonicity Determined by the Argument Structures of Ditransitive Sentences: An MEG Study
To elucidate the relationships between syntactic and semantic processes, one interesting question is how syntactic structures are constructed by the argument structure of a verb, where each argument corresponds to a semantic role of each noun phrase (NP). Here we examined the effects of possessivity [sentences with or without a possessor] and canonicity [canonical or noncanonical word orders] using Japanese ditransitive sentences. During a syntactic decision task, the syntactic structure of each sentence would be constructed in an incremental manner based on the predicted argument structure of the ditransitive verb in a verb-final construction. Using magnetoencephalography, we found a significant canonicity effect on the current density in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) at 530–550 ms after the verb onset. This effect was selective to canonical sentences, and significant even when the precedent NP was physically identical. We suggest that the predictive effects associated with syntactic processing became larger for canonical sentences, where the NPs and verb were merged with a minimum structural distance, leading to the left IFG activations. For monotransitive and intransitive verbs, in which structural computation of the sentences was simpler than that of ditransitive sentences, we observed a significant effect selective to noncanonical sentences in the temporoparietal regions during 480–670 ms. This effect probably reflects difficulty in semantic processing of noncanonical sentences. These results demonstrate that the left IFG plays a predictive role in syntactic processing, which depends on the canonicity determined by argument structures, whereas other temporoparietal regions would subserve more semantic aspects of sentence processing
Incremental Interpretation: Applications, Theory, and Relationship to Dynamic Semantics
Why should computers interpret language incrementally? In recent years
psycholinguistic evidence for incremental interpretation has become more and
more compelling, suggesting that humans perform semantic interpretation before
constituent boundaries, possibly word by word. However, possible computational
applications have received less attention. In this paper we consider various
potential applications, in particular graphical interaction and dialogue. We
then review the theoretical and computational tools available for mapping from
fragments of sentences to fully scoped semantic representations. Finally, we
tease apart the relationship between dynamic semantics and incremental
interpretation.Comment: Procs. of COLING 94, LaTeX (2.09 preferred), 8 page
Planning ahead: How recent experience with structures and words changes the scope of linguistic planning
The scope of linguistic planning, i.e., the amount of linguistic information that speakers prepare in advance for an utterance they are about to produce, is highly variable. Distinguishing between possible sources of this variability provides a way to discriminate between production accounts that assume structurally incremental and lexically incremental sentence planning. Two picture-naming experiments evaluated changes in speakers’ planning scope as a function of experience with message structure, sentence structure, and lexical items. On target trials participants produced sentences beginning with two semantically related or unrelated objects in the same complex noun phrase. To manipulate familiarity with sentence structure, target displays were preceded by prime displays that elicited the same or different sentence structures. To manipulate ease of lexical retrieval, target sentences began either with the higher-frequency or lower-frequency member of each semantic pair. The results show that repetition of sentence structure can extend speakers’ scope of planning from one to two words in a complex noun phrase, as indexed by the presence of semantic interference in structurally primed sentences beginning with easily retrievable words. Changes in planning scope tied to experience with phrasal structures favor production accounts assuming structural planning in early sentence formulation
- …