REPRESENTING KNOWLEDGE IN IDEALIZED ENGLISH

LEXIKOS HAS PROTOTYPED COMMON LISP SOFTWARE ABLE TO SYSTEMATICALLY FIND, MODEL, AND RELATE THE CENTRAL TOPICS OF WELL-FORMED ENGLISH TEXT, THEN RECORD THIS DATA IN A MODULAR WAY THAT LETS OTHER SOFTWARE MAKE USE OF IT. THE FOUNDATION OF OUR APPROACH IS A KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION FORMALISM ABLE TO ENCODE THE SEMANTICS OF ENGLISH WORD MEANINGS AND PHRASES. IT BLENDS FRAMES AND RULES UNDER A MESSAGE PASSING SCHEME, UNDER CONVENTIONS DIRECTLY RELFECTING THE APPARENTLY AD HOC NATURE OF ENGLISH PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES. THE LINGUISTIC CONVENTIONS USED IN OUR FORMALISM MAKE IT NOVEL, GENERAL, POWERFUL, AND ELEGANT. WITH IT, ANYTHING DESCRIBED IN SIMPLE ENGLISH CAN BE MAPPED INTO ISOMORPHIC LISP DATA AND READILY INCORPORATED INTO A HIERARCHICAL, NETWORK-LIKE DATA BASE, EVEN ON SMALL HOST MACHINES IN THE IBMPC CLASS. THIS KIND OF DATA BASE WILL DIRECTLY MEET THE GOALS OF THIS SBIR TOPIC. WE PROPOSE TO DESCRIBE OUR FORMALISM IN DEPTH, EXPLAIN OUR IMPLEMENTATION OF IT, GIVE CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF ITS CURRENT APPLICATIONS, AND DEFINE THE WORK STILL NEEDED TO REFINE IT INTO PRODUCTION-QUALITY UTILITY SOFTWARE.