NL Understanding with a Grammar of Constructions

We present an approach to natural language understanding based on a computable grammar of constructions. A construction consists of a set of features of form and a description of meaning in a context. A grammar is a set of constructions. This kind of grammar is the key element of MINCAL, an implemented natural language speech-enabled interface to an on-line calendar system. The architecture has two key aspects: (a) the use of constructions, integrating descriptions of form, meaning and context into one whole; and (b) the separation of domain knowledge (about calendars) from application knowledge (about the particular on-line calendar).