A knowledge engineering approach to natural language understanding

This paper describes the results of a preliminary study of a Knowledge Engineering approach to Natural Language Understanding. A computer system is being developed to handle the acquisition, representation, and use of linguistic knowledge. The computer system is rule-based and utilizes a semantic network for knowledge storage and representation. In order to facilitate the interaction between user and system, input of linguistic knowledge and computer responses are in natural language. Knowledge of various types can be entered and utilized: syntactic and semantic; assertions and rules. The inference tracing facility is also being developed as a part of the rule-based system with output in natural language. A detailed example is presented to illustrate the current capabilities and features of the system.