1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910974241003321

Autore

Androutsopoulos Ion

Titolo

Exploring time, tense, and aspect in natural language database interfaces / / Ion Androutsopoulos

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia, : J. Benjamins Pub., c2002

ISBN

9786612161933

9781282161931

1282161938

9789027297471

9027297479

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (317 p.)

Collana

Natural language processing ; ; v. 6

Disciplina

415

Soggetti

Grammar, Comparative and general - Temporal constructions - Data processing

Grammar, Comparative and general - Verb - Data processing

Computational linguistics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-291) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Exploring Time, Tense and Aspect in Natural Language Database Interfaces -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Linguistic data and an informal account -- Chapter 3: The TOP meaning representation language -- Chapter 4: From English to TOP -- Chapter 5: From TOP to TSQL2 -- Chapter 6: The prototype NLITDB -- Chapter 7: Related work and directions for further research -- References -- Index -- Appendix A: TOP to TSQL2 translation rules -- Natural Language Processing.

Sommario/riassunto

Advances in temporal databases make it increasingly easier to store time-dependent information, creating a need for facilities that will help end-users access this information. In the context of natural language interaction, significant effort has been devoted to interfaces that allow database queries to be formulated in natural language. Most of the existing interfaces, however, do not support adequately the notion of time. Drawing upon tense and aspect theories, temporal logics, and temporal databases, this cross-discipline book examines relevant



issues from the three areas, developing a unified theoretical framework that can be used to build natural language interfaces to temporal databases. The framework features an HPSG mapping from English to a formally defined meaning representation language, and a corresponding mapping to a temporal extension of the SQL database language. The book is accompanied by a freely available prototype interface, built according to the framework, and implemented using Prolog and ALE. This is the first in-depth exploration of the notion of time in natural language database interfaces. It will be particularly interesting to researchers working on natural language interaction, tense and aspect, HPSG, temporal logics, and temporal databases, especially those who wish to learn about time-related issues in other disciplines.