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Newsletter July 25, No. 38
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Subject: Newsletter July 25, No. 38
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From: csli@csli.stanford.edu
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Date: Wed 24 Jul 1985 17:04:56-PDT
C S L I N E W S L E T T E R
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July 25, 1985 Stanford Vol. 2, No. 38
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A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
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CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR *THIS* THURSDAY, July 25, 1985
12 noon CSLI Lunch
Ventura Hall ``Algebraic Semantics and the Logic of Programs''
Conference Room Irene Guessarian, University of Paris VII
(Abstract on page 1)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Talk
Ventura Hall ``Abstract Semantic Algebras: Theory and Practice''
Conference Room Peter Mosses, Computer Science Dept., Aarhus University
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
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CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR *NEXT* THURSDAY, August 1, 1985
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall No TINLunch this week
Conference Room
2:15 p.m. CSLI Talk
Ventura Hall ``Realism and Antirealism in Cognitive Artificial
Conference Room Intelligence''
David H. Helman, Department of Philosophy, Case
Western Reserve University
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
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ABSTRACT OF THIS WEEK'S CSLI LUNCH
``Algebraic Semantics and the Logic of Programs''
Thursday, July 25, 12 noon, Ventura Conference Room
We will present the basic ideas of algebraic semantics. The
overall goal is to describe and prove properties of programs in the
nicest possible way. The algebraic way consists in first
characterizing a program by an infinite tree, which is an object in
some free algebra. We then give the semantics of programs using
algebraic tools which are well-known. After that, we can introduce
progressive constraints on the free algebras, in a modular way, in
order to model the properties of programs. In so doing, we will
relate algebraic semantics to logics of programs, mainly equational
logics. Finally, we will show an application to an equational and
complete proof system for the IF-THEN-ELSE. --Irene Guessarian
Page 2 CSLI Newsletter July 25, 1985
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ABSTRACT OF NEXT WEEK'S CSLI TALK
``Realism and Antirealism in Cognitive Artificial Intelligence''
Ventura Conference Room, Thursday, August 1, 2:15 pm
In the philosophy of mind, one controversy between realists and
antirealists concerns the semantics of sentences embedded in attitude
reports. Antirealists believe that the interpretation or reference of
a sentence embedded in an attitude report is a psychological state of
the agent who is the subject of the attitude report. Realists believe
that the interpretation or reference of a sentence is a state of the
world and not a state of mind, whether or not the sentence is embedded
in an attitude report.
In this paper, I show how these two semantic analyses may be
associated with different theories of mental representation in
cognitive artificial intelligence. Realists in cognitive artificial
intelligence describe the mind by supposing that agents partially
represent objects' law-like interactions. Antirealism does not,
perhaps, constitute a single well-defined research strategy in
cognitive artificial intelligences. We may, however, certainly count
as antirealists those researchers in cognitive artificial intelligence
who attempt to simulate mental processes by means of procedures which
mirror tenets of associationist psychology. I argue that acurate
computational models of mind must contain elements from both realist
and antirealist research programs. --David Helman
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PIXELS AND PREDICATES
``Pixels `n' Predicates for Menus `n' Mice''
Henry Lieberman, MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
AI Center, Room EK240, SRI International
Wednesday, July 31, 3:00 pm
User interfaces using menu commands, pointing devices, and direct
manipulation of graphical objects constitute a new kind of ``visual
language'' for communicating with computers. What are the basic
building blocks, or ``visual morphemes'' of this new language?
The building blocks supplied by most languages for programming
graphical user interfaces deal mainly with the lowest level of this
visual language: drawing graphical objects such as lines and text,
reading the coordinates of pointing devices. These predicates are too
close to the pixel level to permit rapid construction of modular
interfaces. The next step up is to explicitly represent graphical
representations of manipulable objects, actions the user can perform,
and styles of interaction.
An analogy with interpreters for conventional programming languages
shows how an interpreter can be written for a language of actions
performed by selecting menu commands, operating on arguments obtained
by pointing at graphical objects on the screen.
[This week the meeting is at SRI's AI Center, Room EK240, 333
Ravenswood Ave, Menlo Park which is 1 mile north on El Camino from
Stanford University, turn right on Ravenswood, past first light, go in
driveway on right, ask receptionist for more directions.]
Page 3 CSLI Newsletter July 25, 1985
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INTERACTIONS OF MORPHOLOGY, SYNTAX, AND DISCOURSE
``Morphological Structure of Kunparlang Verbs''
Summary of the meeting on July 18
At the meeting, Carolyn Coleman presented the results of some of
her research on the morphological structure of Kunparlang verbs.
Kunparlang verbs are extremely complex morphologically. They
cross- reference Subject and Object functions, incorporate nominal
roots, use `applicative' derivational morphology, carry modal,
directional and aspectual affixes, and inflect for Tense and Mood.
There are two levels of hierarchical morphological structure,
(i) The stem, which carries all morphology having compositional
semantics.
(ii) The lexical base, which caries all semantically idiosyncratic
morphology.
Kunparlang verbs undergo two types of reflexive operation which
have a partially complementary distribution and which have different
semantic effects on the verbs to which they apply. With the first
reflexive operation the reflexive subject is always an Agent; with the
second the reflexive subject is always a Theme. The second reflexive
operation also has incohative and mediopassive readings as well as the
reflexive reading. Both reflexivizing operations are derivations that
apply at the level of the lexical base; given that they have the same
morphological status, there is a problem of how to semantically
characterise them in a manner that will clearly show the semantic
similarities and differences between them. --Carolyn Coleman
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CORRECTION
Rich Cower, the new Computing Director for CSLI, will start August
12 not August 1 as announced last week.
Page 4 CSLI Newsletter July 25, 1985
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PROGRAM FOR THE WORKSHOP ON FINITE STATE MORPHOLOGY
Ventura Hall, Trailor Class Room
July 29-30, 1985
For more information please contact Lauri Karttunen (Karttunen@sri-ai)
at (415)859-5082.
Monday, July 29
9:30 Lauri Karttunen ``Issues in Finite State Morphology''
10:30 Ronald Kaplan ``Phonological Rules and Finite-state
Transducers''
11:30 Kimmo Koskenniemi ``Compilation of Automata from
Two-level Rules''
2:00 John Bear ``Implementing Two-level Phonological Rules
Directly''
3:00 Edward Barton ``Complexity of Two-level Morphology''
4:00 Demonstrations by Bear, Karttunen, and Koskenniemi
Tuesday, July 30
9:30 Kenneth Church ``Morphological Stress Decomposition and
Stress Assignment for Speech Synthesis''
10:30 William Poser ``Locality Constraints on Phonological Rules''
11:30 Michael Bateman ``ATEF: A Finite State Model for Morphological
Analysis''
2:00 Mark Johnson ``Acquisition of a Restricted Set of
Phological Rules''
3:00 Martin Kay ``Two-level Morphology with Tiers''
(Discussant: John McCarthy)
4:00 Demonstrations by A. Golding, M. Johnson
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