Prosodic processing and its use in Verbmobil

We present the prosody module of the VERBMOBlL speech-to-speech translation system, the world wide first complete system, which successfully uses prosodic information in the linguistic analysis. This is achieved by computing probabilities for clause boundaries, accentuation, and different types of sentence mood for each of the word hypotheses computed by the word recognizer. These probabilities guide the search of the linguistic analysis. Disambiguation is already achieved during the analysis and not by a prosodic verification of different linguistic hypotheses. So far, the most useful prosodic information is provided by clause boundaries. These are detected with a recognition rate of 94%. For the parsing of word hypotheses graphs, the use of clause boundary probabilities yields a speed-up of 92% and a 96% reduction of alternative readings

Robust Grammatical Analysis for Spoken Dialogue Systems

We argue that grammatical analysis is a viable alternative to concept spotting for processing spoken input in a practical spoken dialogue system. We discuss the structure of the grammar, and a model for robust parsing which combines linguistic sources of information and statistical sources of information. We discuss test results suggesting that grammatical processing allows fast and accurate processing of spoken input.Comment: Accepted for JNL

Improving parsing of spontaneous speech with the help of prosodic boundaries

Parsing can be improved in automatic speech understanding if prosodic boundary marking is taken into account, because syntactic boundaries are often marked by prosodic means. Because large databases are needed for the training of statistical models for prosodic boundaries, we developed a labeling scheme for syntactic-prosodic boundaries within the German VERBMOBIL project (automatic speech-to-speech translation). We compare the results of classifiers (multi-layer perceptrons and language models) trained on these syntactic-prosodic boundary labels with classifiers trained on perceptual-prosodic and purely syntactic labels. Recognition rates of up to 96% were achieved. The turns that we need to parse consist of 20 words on the average and frequently contain sequences of partial sentence equivalents due to restarts, ellipsis, etc. For this material, the boundary scores computed by our classifiers can successfully be integrated into the syntactic parsing of word graphs; currently, they improve the parse time by 92% and reduce the number of parse trees by 96%. This is achieved by introducing a special Prosodic Syntactic Clause Boundary symbol (PSCB) into our grammar and guiding the search for the best word chain with the prosodic boundary scores

Improving parsing by incorporating "prosodic clause boundaries" into a grammar

In written language, punctuation is used to separate main and subordinate clause. In spoken language, ambiguities arise due to missing punctuation, but clause boundaries are often marked prosodically and can be used instead. We detect PCBs (Prosodically markedClauseBoundaries) by using prosodic features (duration, intonation, energy, and pause information) with a neural network, achieving a recognition rate of 82%. PCBs are integrated into our grammar using a special syntactic category "break" that can be used in the phrase-structure rules of the grammar in a similar way as punctuation is used in grammars for written language. Whereas punctuation in most cases is obligatory, PCBs are sometimes optional. Moreover, they can in principle occur everywhere in the sentence due e.g. to hesitations or misrecognition. To cope with these problems we tested two different approaches: A slightly modified parser for word chains containing PCBs and a word graph parser that takes the probabilities of PCBs into account. Tests were conducted on a subset of infinitive subordinate clauses from a large speech database containing sentences from the domain of train table inquiries. The average number of syntactic derivations could be reduced by about 70 % even when working on recognized word graphs

International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini's opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom's incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications

International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini\u27s opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom\u27s incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications

International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini's opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom's incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications