Xref: utzoo sci.lang:3164 comp.lang.misc:2018
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!oberon!cit-vax!kevin
From: kevin@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Kevin S. Van Horn)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Syntactical *definition* of English
Message-ID: <8379@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 20 Oct 88 17:56:42 GMT
References: <726@wsccs.UUCP> <6946@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: kevin@cit-vax.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 17

In article <6946@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> budd@mist.UUCP (Tim Budd) writes:
>Such efforts more or less met with utter and complete defeat in the late 
>50's and 60's.  Indeed so much so that some people working in understanding
>English (such at the folks at Yale), almost totally abandoned any
>notion of syntax, and proceeded with just a semantic analysis of
>utterances.  So I fear your quest will be a futile one; the best you
>can hope for is a grammar for a rather stilted and minimal subset of 
>English.

I think that Fred Thompson, of the Caltech C.S. Dep't., would not
entirely agree with this statement.  His work is in natural-language
interfaces and, though recognizing its limits, he has managed to do
quite a bit using a syntax-based approach.  The person who originally
asked about this may want to write Dr. Thompson, at Caltech 256-80,
Pasadena, CA 91125.

Kevin S. Van Horn