By Robert M. Schwarcz, John F. Burger, Robert F. Simmons
Communications of the ACM,
March 1970,
Vol. 13 No. 3, Pages 167-183
10.1145/362052.362058
Comments
The question-answering aspects of the Protosynthex III prototype language processing system are described and exemplified in detail. The system is written in LISP 1.5 and operates on the Q-32 time-sharing system. The system's data structures and their semantic organization, the deductive question-answering formalism of relational properties and complex-relation-forming operators, and the question-answering procedures which employ these features in their operation are all described and illustrated. Examples of the system's performance and of the limitations of its question-answering capability are presented and discussed. It is shown that the use of semantic information in deductive question answering greatly facilitates the process, and that a top-down procedure which works from question to answer enables effective use to be made of this information. It is concluded that the development of Protosynthex III into a practically useful system to work with large data bases is possible but will require changes in both the data structures and the algorithms used for question answering.
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