Abstract
This paper describes discourse processing inKing Kong, a portable natural language interface.King Kong enables users to pose questions and issue commands to a back end system. The notion of a discourse is central toKing Kong, and underlies much of the intelligent assistance thatkong provides to its users.kong's approach to modeling discourse is based on the work of Grosz and Sidner (1986). We extend Grosz and Sidner's framework in several ways, principally to allow multiple independent discourse contexts to remain active at the same time. This paper also describesKing Kong's method of intention recognition, which is similar to that described in Kautz and Allen (1986) and Carberry (1988). We demonstrate that a relatively simple intention recognition component can be exploited by many other discourserelated mechanisms, for example to disambiguate input and resolve anaphora. In particular, this paper describes in detail the mechanism inKing Kong that uses information from the discourse model to form a range of cooperative extended responses to queries in an effort to aid the user in accomplishing her goals.
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Judith Schaffer Sider received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Linguistics and Cognitive Science from Brandeis University. Since 1987 she has been a member of the technical staff at the MITRE Corporation, where she works on King Kong, the natural language interface under development there. The joint research with John D. Burger described in this volume reflects some of her work in the areas of cooperative responding and plan recognition.
John D. Burger is a Project Leader at the MITRE Corporation and an instructor at Boston University. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Carnegie Melon University. His research interests lie in the fields of natural language processing and intelligent multimedia interfaces. The joint work with Judith Schaffer Sider described in this volume reflects his interest in making use of discourse models in practical intelligent interfaces.
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Sider, J.S., Burger, J.D. Intention structure and extended responses in a portable natural language interface. User Model User-Adap Inter 2, 155–179 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01101862
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01101862