An on-line question-answering systems with natural language and pictorial input
L. Stephen Coles · 1968
Various approaches have been employed in the design of question-answering systems with natural language input. An excellent survey of such systems can be found in Simmons.1 A more recent and critical survey of data-retrieval systems prepared by Kasher points out what he considers to be some of the major weaknesses of previous work. One of the problems cited by Kasher is the difficulty of dealing with the inherent ambiguity of natural language. In this paper we will propose a technique for dealing with syntactic ambiguity that involves the use of a restricted semantic universe of discourse. The universe of discourse is defined by means of a graphic display console. We will show by means of an example taken from the area of electrical circuits how this technique can be used to resolve syntactic ambiguity.