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From: randyg@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Randy Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: English grammar (was Re: In layman's terms.)
Message-ID: <530@iscuva.ISCS.COM>
Date: Thu, 28-May-87 12:31:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: iscuva.530
Posted: Thu May 28 12:31:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 07:42:14 EDT
References: <13263@watmath.UUCP> <1116@houdi.UUCP> <529@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <6264@shemp.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: randyg@iscuva.UUCP (Randy Gordon)
Distribution: na
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA
Lines: 43
Keywords: English, Backus-Naur Form, syntax.
Summary: Freudian slip, (*blush*), Arrgh, NLP books reference


*Sigh*, when I make an unconcious slip, its a doozy, aint it?

It was my third try at getting it past the article eater, and I mistyped.
OF COURSE its semantics more than syntactics...

ANyhow, some of the better intros:

THe best of the current crop seems to be Introduction to Natural Language
Processing by Mary D Harris. It is clear, well written and at a beginners level.
(approximately equivalent to a Scientific American article). C 1985, Reston.

Everyones mentioned Conceptual Structures, Information Processing in Mind and
Machine by J.F. Sowa. For some reason, I get a headache when I read it, which
is unfair since it is a very well written book, and appears to be easy.

Schank emits books at the speed of a turbo prolog compiler, and they are ALL
readable. If you are into Lisp (for which I pity you) then an rather old book,
Inside Computer Understanding, five programs plus minatures, Is about the
nicest intro to Conceptual Dependency around. It has very thorough
explanations plus programs written in pre common lisp. If you ignore the
instructions on how to implement primitves that are probably already supplied
by your Lisp (such as the MAp??? functions, the programs are easy to implement.


Wilensky has done some rather nice work, such as UC, a smart help unix
consultant natural language processor I have been dying to get my hands on,
and the PEARL, PAM, PANDORA class of programs. He has a new book out,
Planning and Understanding, A computational approach to human reasoning,
Addison Wesley, that I am just starting to read, but looks like a
fascinating example of the forefronts of the science.

I have been waiting FOREVER for Terry Winograds 2nd volumn of his Language
as a Cognitive Process, which does a wonderful, if slightly uneven job
of explaining syntax in his first volume. Its an excellent reference if
you are reading someone elses paper and trying to figure out what they
are talking about when they discuss some obscure grammar problem.


These should get you started. 


Randy Gordon, "No relation to the Idiot who spoonerized the previous message"