A goal-directed production system for story understanding

Using knowledge to make inferences is a crucial aspect of natural language processing. While the notion of a script has been useful in this regard, other forms of knowledge are also needed. In particular, knowledge about goals and knowledge about stories is crucial for story understanding. The understander must know what types of goals characters in a story can have so as to be able to interpret their behavior. Knowledge about the point of a story is needed to direct the understanding process. These forms of knowledge can best be applied by means of hierarchical production system.