"Representation of Meaning in Multilingual Systems"
Ontology Design
Ontology: (There are a variety of
definitions for this term). A set of meanings.
In formal language theory,
we define a language to be a set of sentences.
An ontology could be thought of
as the corresponding set of semantic interpretations.
Design criteria:
1. Useful in serving the purpose
of the system
2. Based upon a small set of component
ideas the combine effectively
(simplicity,
orthogonality)
Important sub-ontologies should cover:
time (days, dates, minutes,
hours, absolute and relative)
space (places and relationships
among them)
people (names, relationships)
events (transportation, visitation,
communication)
modes (narration, thinking, dreaming)
communication (parties to a message)
attitude (happy, sad)
metalanguage (definitions of new
elements)
Interplay of Visual and Semantic
Representations
Visual representations offer "language-free" suggestions of semantics.
Computational objects can have both an appearance (visual) and an internal semantics (the behaviors defined by the methods associated with the objects).
The two get mixed up (in beneficial ways) when the behaviors cause visual changes, as in animations.
Some objects can be defined using
a combination of visual and textual features.
e. g., a person can be described
using a face image (visual) and a name (textual).
Additional definition can be effected
by posing predicates using frames.
Translation from Internal Representations
to Natural Language
The internal semantics is concrete and can, in principle, be translated into any language without any increate in ambiguity.
Primary challenges involve designing the translation mechanisms to be simple and efficient, yet reasonably effective in handling a variety of natural languages.
A number of the trickier parts of language generation -- handling verb tenses, for example, can be taken care of some extent by providing means to establish sub-narratives with distinct time frames, and then sticking to present-tense literal translations.
Language extensibility while striving
for orthogonality, full semantic support, and complete translation ability
is an interesting and difficult challenge.
Demonstrations
Representation of transportation events.
Representation of dates and time
Representation of thinking via sub-narratives
Introducing new people and places
Representation of space with the containment relation
Representation of travelling groups, visitation, and side trips
Representation of dreaming with
nested sub-narratives
Research Questions
Can an entire general purpose language with concrete computer semantics and animation be successful?
How can language extension be designed to permit a diverse group of people to cooperate on a single, good version of the language?
How can new "words" be created from
existing words and yet have concrete meanings that are more than the sum
of the parts?
Last modified: October 26, 1998
Steve Tanimoto