In the Beginning was Information
6KezkB
6KezkB
- No tags were found...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
weak” <strong>was</strong> translated into Russian and <strong>the</strong>n translated back. The result<strong>was</strong> “The vodka is strong, but <strong>the</strong> steak is bad.”Joseph Weizenbaum of <strong>the</strong> Massachusetts <strong>In</strong>stitute of Technology (Boston,USA) wrote a program called ELIZA in which he ignored linguistic analyses,but employed a fixed answering schema thought to be sufficientlyrefined. The only result obtained, <strong>was</strong> an understanding of language that<strong>was</strong> totally unrealistic. This program looked for certain words or wordsamples in <strong>the</strong> expressions of <strong>the</strong> input text, and selected suitable answersfrom a set of stored sentences or sample sentences. If, for example, a sentencecontaining <strong>the</strong> word “mo<strong>the</strong>r” is entered, <strong>the</strong>n <strong>the</strong> system looks for astandard sentence in which this word occurs and responds with: “Tell memore about your mo<strong>the</strong>r.” Most of <strong>the</strong> entered words are ignored by <strong>the</strong>program, but in spite of this, a very extensive background library isrequired for dealing with <strong>the</strong> large number of possible sentences that canbe formulated by a person to give <strong>the</strong> impression of conversing with him.Conclusion: The problem of enabling a computer to deal with natural languageis still unsolved and will never be resolved. It is not possible to modela comprehension of semantic categories (e. g. metaphors, idioms,humour, and exaggerations), unmentioned intentions and convictions of <strong>the</strong>speaker, or emotions and motivations, for a computer. Human abilities likecommon sense, intelligence, and creativity cannot be simulated mechanically,because <strong>the</strong> intelligent use of language includes observation, thought,and actions. Even <strong>the</strong> best programs used for speech processing do notknow what <strong>the</strong>y are talking about, in <strong>the</strong> truest sense of this expression.Computer programs which would really be able to imitate language comprehensionand perform correct translations fail as far as <strong>the</strong> following areconcerned:– Comprehension of meaning: A program cannot “understand” semanticrelationships, nei<strong>the</strong>r can it link <strong>the</strong>m with one ano<strong>the</strong>r.– Grammatical analysis: When translating text, a grammatical analysis isrequired initially. A program which analyses some text without consideringits meaning will not be able to analyse numerous sentencescorrectly.– Language usage depends on its context: The meaning of a sentencecannot be found by adding <strong>the</strong> meanings of single words. What ismore, <strong>the</strong> meaning of single words depends on <strong>the</strong> context in which<strong>the</strong>y appear.– Language employs background knowledge: Each and every sentence isrooted in a specific frame of reference and it can often only be understoodin terms of a knowledge of this background.– The richness of a language resides in poetic turns of speech and in itsmetaphors. These occur much more frequently in everyday speech than221