Evtailments and Accessing Facts nrform Frame System
ArLthony S. Maida · 1984
This paper: 1) describes the structure of a uni- form frame system; 2) shows how entailments can be computed within the system; and, 3) shows how con- tingent facts that are related to a concept can become accessable as a function of how deeply the meaning of that concept is processed. The system is called Uni- Frame and differs from slot-filler frame systems pri- marily in its commitment to uniformly representing all concepts and to maintaining a representation which is semantically well knit. I. INTRODUCTION This paper describes the structure of a uniform frame system, showing how entailments can be com- puted within the system, and how contingent facts that are related to a concept can become accessable as a function of how deeply the meaning of that concept is processed. The system is called Un'Wrame and differs from slot-filler frame systems primarily in that it does not use slots. Instead it places emphasis on four desireable characteristics in a knowledge representation. They are: 1) The uniformity of the formalism; 2) The semantic coherence of the conceptual structures represented in the formalism; 3) Whether new concepts are defined by differentiat'mg them from existing concepts; and, 4) Whether the representation allows for a variable depth of processing of concepts depending on the contextual situation. We will describe each of these dimensions in turn.