A unification-based, integrated natural language processing system

Abstract This paper presents a natural language processing (NLP) system called LINK. LINK is unification-based, and incorporates and extends many features which have been emerging from other NLP research in recent years. In particular, the notions of autonomous syntax and compositional semantics long staples of NLP systems, have been replaced by a grammar which is much more complex, semantics-oriented, and more reliant on idiomatic constructions; and a semantics which is noncompositional. Processing, also, has been changed from the traditional syntax-driven approach, to an approach which relies much more heavily on semantics and domain knowledge, presented in a semantic net. As a result, LINK is able to efficiently process ungrammatical sentences, as well as nonliteral constructions such as methphor and metonymy. These tasks have been difficult for more traditional NLP systems.

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