Simultaneous Amalgamation - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 158

(ii) signature

V

(iv) surface realization

V

1
John

2 3 4 5−6

.

N N

tried to__read a__book

For language production, the indirect reconstruction of content based on the
LA-hear derivation 8.4.1 must be complemented by a direct construction based
on nonlanguage recognition and the LA-content grammar defined in 8.2.1.
This may be illustrated by the following scenario:
John and Mary are on a train in quiet conversation. At a station stop the train car is suddenly
stormed by a large group of excited eleven-year-olds, making further talk impossible. Later
Mary reports John's reaction as John tried to read a book.

The point is: How does Mary obtain the nonlanguage content required as input
for this particular act of language production?
Let us replace Mary by an artificial agent, called AA. To obtain the content
presented in 8.4.4, AA must apply its nonlanguage recognition to the raw data
provided by the scene described. The purpose is to (i) establish the nodes John,
try, read ,and book as N, V, V, and N proplets, respectively, and (ii) to correctly
establish the relations N V between them.

In 8.1.2 the search space of peripheral cognition (4.3.2) has already been
reduced substantially with notions from central cognition. The burden on non-
language recognition created by the ambiguities of the unordered {N, V},
{A, V}, and {V, V} input pairs (8.1.3) may be reduced further by utilizing
the existing selectional constellations between relevant classes of concepts.
This is the topic of the following section.

/ V, V \ V, a n d N \

8.5 Selectional Constellations of Elementary Signatures

In infinitive content constructions, the relevant classes of concepts are the core
values (i) in the matrix verb proplet and (ii) in the verb proplet of the infini-
tive. The class of matrix verbs like try , for example, may be established by
enumerating the possible object constructions:

8.5.1 Tr y CLASS INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

1. nominal object: John tried a cookie.
2. one-place infinitive object: John tried to sleep.