dupa

Author Topic: syntax and semantics  (Read 9271 times)

lycha

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
syntax and semantics
« Reply #15 on: May 09, 2003, 11:22:27 am »
hello don,
i wondering if hal is able to recognize semantic relations between words. some bots use wordnet for dealing with hyponyms, hypernyms, antonyms, meronyms etc.. which strategy does hal use?
thanks + regards
 

Don Ferguson

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
    • http://www.cortrapar.com
syntax and semantics
« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2003, 03:36:43 pm »
Hi Lycha,

Good to hear from you!

Robert Medeksza is also aware of the databases such as the one you describe.  The databases allow a word to be categorized as part of speech, and act as a sort of super-thesaurus, providing all the categories of related words, and lists of those words.

Zabaware is planning to use such a database in the upcoming 5.0 release (which is turning out to have QUITE a lot of new features!) to give Hal at least two new abilities:

1.  The ability to substitute synonyms into sentences when paraphrasing the user, remembering old subjects, and constructing new sentences, thus increasing variety.

2.  The ability to identify the prominent idea, subject, or thesis of a remark, in order to categorize it better in Hal's databases for future retrieval.

As you know, many words depend on context both for meaning, and for what part of speech they represent. Consider the word "fast."  You can be fast friends, have a fast car, glue something fast to the wall, fast for a day to lose weight, and be in fast company.

Hal already has routines to sometimes infer part-of-speech and meaning from sentence position (as described in postings above), so I foresee Hal continuing to use those routines, and gradually utilizing the new databases more and more, as better and better ideas occur to Hal's developers.

Great question!  Have a terrific day!

Sincerely,

Don
Don Ferguson
E-mail: fergusonrkfd@prodigy.net
Website: www.cortrapar.com
Don's other forum posts: http://www.zabaware.com/forum/search.asp?mode=DoIt&MEMBER_ID=274

Don Ferguson

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 303
    • View Profile
    • http://www.cortrapar.com
syntax and semantics
« Reply #17 on: December 09, 2003, 02:31:05 am »
Hello Lycha,

You were working on a thesis paper or such, about chatterbots and Ultra-Hal.  If you see this posting, give us a hello and tell us how the paper turned out!

Best regards,

Don
Don Ferguson
E-mail: fergusonrkfd@prodigy.net
Website: www.cortrapar.com
Don's other forum posts: http://www.zabaware.com/forum/search.asp?mode=DoIt&MEMBER_ID=274