THE TEACHABLE LANGUAGE COMPREHENDER: A SIMULATION PROGRAM AND THEORY OF LANGUAGE
Abstract
The Teachable Language Comprehender (TLC) is a program designed to be capable of being taught to 'comprehend' English text. When text which the program has not seen before is input to it, it comprehends that text by correctly relating each (explicit or implicit) assertion of the new text to a large memory. This memory is a 'semantic network' representing factual assertions about the world. The program also creates copies of the parts of its memory which have been found to relate to the new text, adapting and combining these copies to represent the meaning of the new text. By this means, the meaning of all text the program successfully comprehends is encoded into the same format as that of the memory. In this form it can be added into the memory. Facts and reading abilities may be taught to the program as needed. This information is generalized in TLC and hence a single addition can often provide a large increment in TLC's effective knowledge of the world, and in its overall ability to comprehend text. The program's strategy is presented as a general theory of language comprehension.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 1969
- Accession Number
- AD0687746
Entities
People
- M. R. Quillian
Organizations
- BBN Technologies