Simultaneous Amalgamation - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 148

The LA-content grammar modeling simultaneous amalgamation must allow
us to connect nodes in any derivation order. This is in contradistinction to the
strictly time-linear derivation order of (i) LA-hear for the derivation of order-
free content from language input, (ii) LA-think for the incremental activation
of content, (iii) inferencing for the derivation of new order-free content, (iv)
LA-speak for the derivation of surfaces from order-free content, and (v) LA-
act for the derivation of nonlanguage action. The (vi) LA-content grammar
maps free-order 3 nonlanguage recognition input into order-free content: 4

8.1.4 I NTERACTION OF FIVE COGNITIVE PROCEDURES

(i) external language

surface (input)

(iv) external language

surface (output)

time−linear time−linear

order−free content

time−linear

free−order time−linear

(vi) (ii) navigating

(iii) inferencing

(v) external non−language

external non−language

input output

The free-order LA-content grammar (vi) is constrained insofar as it uses only
N, A, and V as nodes, analyzed as three basic kinds of proplets, and only
four kinds of connections, “ ,” resulting together in only 16

elementary semantic relations of structure (i.e., those listed in 7.6.4 and 7.6.5).

/ ,” “ \ ,” “ | ,” and “ −

8.2 Formal Definition of LA-Content

Like all LA-grammars, LA-content defines a Start State ST S , a set of rules, and
a Final State ST F . The 16 rules of LA-content realize the 16 elementary sig-
natures of 7.6.4 and 7.6.5. A rule consists of two proplet patterns for matching
input and two proplet patterns for deriving an elementary signature as output.
An output differs from the input in that the output has a prn value and the core
values have been cross-copied. 5

3 The term “free-order” is applied to the steps of a recognition procedure, while “order-free” is applied
to items to be stored in the content-addressable memory of a Word Bank. Formally, a free-order
recognition procedure based on an LA-content grammar can be easily narrowed into a procedure
following a certain order, including partial orders. Thus, modeling an order, such as the saccades in
the visual recognition of the mammal, may be accommodated.
4 The assumption of an order-free content seems to agree with the SemR level of the Meaning-Text
theory (MT) proposed by Zholkovskij and Mel'chuk (1965). An order-free level is also used in some
Dependency Grammars, e.g., Hajicová (2000).