Equipment Model and Its Role in the Interpretation of Noun Phrases

摘要

This work is part of PROTEUS (PROto-type TExt Understanding System). The objective is to understand short natural language texts. Our texts as present are CASualty REPorts (CAS-REPs) which describe failures of equipment installed on Navy ships. For natural language understanding systems designed for domains including relatively complex equipment, it is not sufficient to use general knowledge about this equipment. We show problems which can be solved only if the system has access to a detailed equipment model. We discuss the structure of such models in some detail and, in particular, the mixed static/dynamic nature of the model. As an illustration, we describe parts of a simulation model for an air compressor. Finally, we demonstrate how to find referents in this model for noun phrases.