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The meanings of natural language sentences may be represented as compositional logical-forms. Each word or lexicalised multiword-element has an associated logicalform representing its meaning. Full sentential logical-forms are then composed from these word logical-forms via a syntactic parse of the sentence. This thesis develops two computational systems that learn both the word-meanings and parsing model required to map sentences onto logical-forms from an example corpus of (sentence, logical-form) pairs. One of these systems is designed to provide a general purpose method of inducing semantic parsers for multiple languages and logical meaning representations. Semantic parsers map sentences onto logical representations of their meanings and may form an important part of any computational task that needs to interpret the meanings of sentences. The other system is designed to model the way in which a child learns the semantics and syntax of their first language. Here, logical-forms are used to represent the potentially ambiguous context in which childdirected utterances are spoken and a psycholinguistically plausible training algorithm learns a probabilistic grammar that describes the target language. This computational modelling task is important as it can provide evidence for or against competing theories of how children learn their first language. Both of the systems presented here are based upon two working hypotheses. First, that the correct parse of any sentence in any language is contained in a set of possible parses defined in terms of the sentence itself, the sentence’s logical-form and a small set of combinatory rule schemata. The second working hypothesis is that, given a corpus of (sentence, logical-form) pairs that each support a large number of possible parses according to the schemata mentioned above, it is possible to learn a probabilistic parsing model that accurately describes the target language. The algorithm for semantic parser induction learns Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) lexicons and discriminative probabilistic parsing models from corpora of (sentence, logical-form) pairs. This system is shown to achieve at or near state of the art performance across multiple languages, logical meaning representations and domains. As the approach is not tied to any single natural or logical language, this system represents an important step towards widely applicable black-box methods for semantic parser induction. This thesis also develops an efficient representation of the CCG lexicon that separately stores language specific syntactic regularities and domain specific semantic knowledge. This factorised lexical representation improves the performance of CCG based semantic parsers in sparse domains and also provides a potential basis for lexical expansion and domain adaptation for semantic parsers. The algorithm for modelling child language acquisition learns a generative probabilistic model of CCG parses from sentences paired with a context set of potential logical-forms containing one correct entry and a number of distractors. The online learning algorithm used is intended to be psycholinguistically plausible and to assume as little information specific to the task of language learning as is possible. It is shown that this algorithm learns an accurate parsing model despite making very few initial assumptions. It is also shown that the manner in which both word-meanings and syntactic rules are learnt is in accordance with observations of both of these learning tasks in children, supporting a theory of language acquisition that builds upon the two working hypotheses stated above.

Improvements in robot autonomy are changing human-robot interaction from low-level manipulation to high-level task-based collaboration. When a robot can independently and autonomously executes tasks, a human in a human-robot team acts as a collaborator or task supervisor instead of a tele-operator. When applying this to planning paths for a robot's motion, it is very important that the supervisor's qualitative intent is translated into aquantitative model so that the robot can produce a desirable consequence. In robotic path planning, algorithms can transform a human's qualitative requirement into a robot's quantitative model so that the robot behavior satisfies the human's intent. In particular, algorithms can be created that allow a human to express multi-objective and topological preferences, and can be built to use verbal communication. This dissertation presents a series of robot motion-planning algorithms, each of which is designed to support some aspect of a human's intent. Specifically, we present algorithms for the following problems: planning with a human-motion constraint, planning with a topological requirement, planning with multiple objectives, and creating models of constraints, requirements, and objectives from verbal instructions. These algorithms create a set of robot behaviors that support flexible decision-making over a range of complex path-planning tasks.

This paper is about an implemented natural language interface that translates from English into semantic net relations and from semantic net relations back into English. The parser and companion generator were implemented for two reasons: (a) to enable experimental work in support of a theory of learning by analogy; (b) to demonstrate the viability of a theory of parsing and generation built on commutative transformations. The learning theory was shaped to a great degree by experiments that would have been extraordinarily tedious to perform without the English interface with which the experimental data base was prepared, revise, and revised again. Inasmuch as current work on the learning theory is moving toward a tenfold increase in data-base size, the English interface is moving from a facilitating role to an enabling one. The parsing and generation theory has two particularly important features: (a) the same grammar is used for both parsing and generation; (b) the transformations of the grammar are commutative. The language generation procedure converts a semantic network fragment into kernel frames, chooses the set of transformations that should be performed upon each frame, executes the specified transformations, combines the altered kernels into a sentence, performs a pronominalization process, and finally produces the appropriate English word string. Parsing is essentially the reverse of generation. The first step in the parsing process is splitting a given sentence into a set of kernel clauses along with a description of how those clauses hierarchically related to each other. The clauses are hierarchically related to each other. The clauses are used to produce a matrix embedded kernel frames, which in turn supply arguments to relation-creating functions. The evaluation of the relation-creating functions results in the construction of the semantic net fragments.

[EN] In this thesis, the problem of multilingual spoken language understanding is addressed using graphs to model and combine the different knowledge sources that take part in the understanding process. As a result of this work, a full multilingual spoken language understanding system has been developed, in which statistical models and graphs of linguistic units are used. One key feature of this system is its ability to combine and process multiple inputs provided by one or more sources such as speech recognizers or machine translators. A graph-based monolingual spoken language understanding system was developed as a starting point. The input to this system is a set of sentences that is provided by one or more speech recognition systems. First, these sentences are combined by means of a grammatical inference algorithm in order to build a graph of words. Next, the graph of words is processed to construct a graph of concepts by using a dynamic programming algorithm that identifies the lexical structures that represent the different concepts of the task. Finally, the graph of concepts is used to build the best sequence of concepts. The multilingual case happens when the user speaks a language different to the one natively supported by the system. In this thesis, a test-on-source approach was followed. This means that the input sentences are translated into the system's language, and then they are processed by the monolingual system. For this purpose, two speech translation systems were developed. The output of these speech translation systems are graphs of words that are then processed by the monolingual graph-based spoken language understanding system. Both in the monolingual case and in the multilingual case, the experimental results show that a combination of several inputs allows to improve the results obtained with a single input. In fact, this approach outperforms the current state of the art in many cases when several inputs are combined. / [ES] En esta tesis se aborda el problema de la comprensión multilingüe del habla utilizando grafos para modelizar y combinar las diversas fuentes de conocimiento que intervienen en el proceso. Como resultado se ha desarrollado un sistema completo de comprensión multilingüe que utiliza modelos estadísticos y grafos de unidades lingüísticas. El punto fuerte de este sistema es su capacidad para combinar y procesar múltiples entradas proporcionadas por una o varias fuentes, como reconocedores de habla o traductores automáticos. Como punto de partida se desarrolló un sistema de comprensión multilingüe basado en grafos. La entrada a este sistema es un conjunto de frases obtenido a partir de uno o varios reconocedores de habla. En primer lugar, se aplica un algoritmo de inferencia gramatical que combina estas frases y obtiene un grafo de palabras. A continuación, se analiza el grafo de palabras mediante un algoritmo de programación dinámica que identifica las estructuras léxicas correspondientes a los distintos conceptos de la tarea, de forma que se construye un grafo de conceptos. Finalmente, se procesa el grafo de conceptos para encontrar la mejo secuencia de conceptos. El caso multilingüe ocurre cuando el usuario habla una lengua distinta a la original del sistema. En este trabajo se ha utilizado una estrategia test-on-source, en la cual las frases de entrada se traducen al lenguaje del sistema y éste las trata de forma monolingüe. Para ello se han propuesto dos sistemas de traducción del habla cuya salida son grafos de palabras, los cuales son procesados por el algoritmo de comprensión basado en grafos. Tanto en la configuración monolingüe como en la multilingüe los resultados muestran que la combinación de varias entradas permite mejorar los resultados obtenidos con una sola entrada. De hecho, esta aproximación consigue en muchos casos mejores resultados que el actual estado del arte cuando se utiliza una combinación de varias entradas. / [CA] Aquesta tesi tracta el problema de la comprensió multilingüe de la parla utilitzant grafs per a modelitzar i combinar les diverses fonts de coneixement que intervenen en el procés. Com a resultat s'ha desenvolupat un sistema complet de comprensió multilingüe de la parla que utilitza models estadístics i grafs d'unitats lingüístiques. El punt fort d'aquest sistema és la seua capacitat per combinar i processar múltiples entrades proporcionades per una o diverses fonts, com reconeixedors de la parla o traductors automàtics. Com a punt de partida, es va desenvolupar un sistema de comprensió monolingüe basat en grafs. L'entrada d'aquest sistema és un conjunt de frases obtingut a partir d'un o més reconeixedors de la parla. En primer lloc, s'aplica un algorisme d'inferència gramatical que combina aquestes frases i obté un graf de paraules. A continuació, s'analitza el graf de paraules mitjançant un algorisme de programació dinàmica que identifica les estructures lèxiques corresponents als distints conceptes de la tasca, de forma que es construeix un graf de conceptes. Finalment, es processa aquest graf de conceptes per trobar la millor seqüència de conceptes. El cas multilingüe ocorre quan l'usuari parla una llengua diferent a l'original del sistema. En aquest treball s'ha utilitzat una estratègia test-on-source, en la qual les frases d'entrada es tradueixen a la llengua del sistema, i aquest les tracta de forma monolingüe. Per a fer-ho es proposen dos sistemes de traducció de la parla l'eixida dels quals són grafs de paraules. Aquests grafs són posteriorment processats per l'algorisme de comprensió basat en grafs. Tant per la configuració monolingüe com per la multilingüe els resultats mostren que la combinació de diverses entrades és capaç de millorar el resultats obtinguts utilitzant una sola entrada. De fet, aquesta aproximació aconsegueix en molts casos millors resultats que l'actual estat de l'art quan s'utilitza una combinació de diverses entrades. / Calvo Lance, M. (2016). A Strategy for Multilingual Spoken Language Understanding Based on Graphs of Linguistic Units [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/62407

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / David A. Gustafson / Natural Language understanding over a set of sentences or a document is a challenging problem. We approach this problem using semantic extraction and an ontology for answering questions based on the data. There is more information in a sentence than that found by extracting out the visible terms and their obvious relations between one another. It is the hidden information that is not seen that gives this solution the advantage over alternatives. This methodology was tested against the FraCas Test Suite with near perfect results (correct answers) for the sections that are the focus of this paper (Generalized Quantifiers, Plurals, Adjectives, Comparatives, Verbs, and Attitudes). The results indicate that extracting the visible semantics as well as the unseen semantics and their interrelations using an ontology to reason over it provides reliable and provable answers to questions validating this technology.

abstract: Since the advent of the internet and even more after social media platforms, the explosive growth of textual data and its availability has made analysis a tedious task. Information extraction systems are available but are generally too specific and often only extract certain kinds of information they deem necessary and extraction worthy. Using data visualization theory and fast, interactive querying methods, leaving out information might not really be necessary. This thesis explores textual data visualization techniques, intuitive querying, and a novel approach to all-purpose textual information extraction to encode large text corpus to improve human understanding of the information present in textual data. This thesis presents a modified traversal algorithm on dependency parse output of text to extract all subject predicate object pairs from text while ensuring that no information is missed out. To support full scale, all-purpose information extraction from large text corpuses, a data preprocessing pipeline is recommended to be used before the extraction is run. The output format is designed specifically to fit on a node-edge-node model and form the building blocks of a network which makes understanding of the text and querying of information from corpus quick and intuitive. It attempts to reduce reading time and enhancing understanding of the text using interactive graph and timeline. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Software Engineering 2018

In our thesis we explore the Automatic Question/Answer Generation (AQAG) and the application of Machine Learning (ML) in natural language queries. Initially we create a collection of question/answer tuples conceptually based on processing received data from (virtual) sensors placed in a smart city. Subsequently we train a Gated Recurrent Unit(GRU) model on the generated dataset and evaluate the accuracy we can achieve in answering those questions. This will help in turn to address the problem of automatic sensor composition based on natural language queries. To this end, the contribution of this thesis is two-fold: on one hand we are providing anautomatic procedure for dataset construction, based on natural language question templates, and on the other hand we apply a ML approach that establishes the correlation between the natural language queries and their virtual sensor representation, via their functional representation. We consider virtual sensors to be entities as described by Mihailescu et al, where they provide an interface constructed with certain properties in mind. We use those sensors for our application domain of a smart city environment, thus constructing our dataset around questions relevant to it.

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