Understanding natural language about multiple eventualities and continuous eventualities
The main task that this thesis deals with is the provision of a comprehensive analysis concerning a meaningful subset of English and developing a computational implementation that is able to show understanding of this language subset, in part via limited visualisation. There is a well accepted analogy that says that eventualities exist in time, in ways that are similar to how objects exist in space. This analogy is used as a framework to investigate in detail those activities that are the eventuality analogue of plural and mass objects - multiple instances of an activity, or continuous occurrence of an activity respectively. These are called extended activities. We examine the ways in which natural language is used to describe these kinds of activities, and discuss ways in which the meanings of such language can be represented. We concentrate on language that is in the form of instructions, and discuss the special relationship between instructions and activities. Using the idea that some of our understanding of language comes from the context within which the language is being understood, we identify those parts of language about extended activities that are independent of context and indicate the places where
Rock, Sheila
Understanding natural language about multiple eventualities and continuous eventualities. The main task that this thesis deals with is the provision of a comprehensive analysis concerning a meaningful subset of English and developing a computational implementation that is able to show understanding of this language subset, in part via limited visualisation. There is a well accepted analogy that says that eventualities exist in time, in ways that are similar to how objects exist in space. This analogy is used as a framework to investigate in detail those activities that are the eventuality analogue of plural and mass objects - multiple instances of an activity, or continuous occurrence of an activity respectively. These are called extended activities. We examine the ways in which natural language is used to describe these kinds of activities, and discuss ways in which the meanings of such language can be represented. We concentrate on language that is in the form of instructions, and discuss the special relationship between instructions and activities. Using the idea that some of our understanding of language comes from the context within which the language is being understood, we identify those parts of language about extended activities that are independent of context and indicate the places where
natural_language multiple continuous main task deal provision comprehensive_analysis concern meaningful subset english develop computational implementation able show language subset part via limited visualisation well accept analogy say exist time way similar object exist space analogy use framework investigate_detail activity analogue plural mass object multiple instance activity continuous occurrence activity respectively call extended activity examine_way natural_language use_describe kind activity discuss way meaning language represent concentrate language form instruction discuss special_relationship instruction activity using idea language come context_within language understood identify part language extend activity independent context indicate place