Prolog and Natural-Language Analysis

Logic programming, an important new method of compute programming resulting from recent research in artifucial intelligence and computer science, has proved to be especially appropriate for solving problems in natrual-language processing. Prolog and Natural Language Analysis provides a concise and practical introduction to logic programming and the logic-programming language Prolog both as vehicles for understanding elementary computational linguistics and as tools for implementing the basic components of natural-language-processing systems. Throughout, the specific concepts and techniques are given rigorous theoretical justification and are demonstrated with working programs that show how Prolog can be used to solve actual problems in syntax, parsing, and semantic intepretation.These examples culminate in a simple working natural-language question-answering system written in Prolog. Extensive bibliographic notes point the reader to related research and further reading.Fernando C.N. Pereira is a senior computer scientist at SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence Center and a consulting professor at Stanford University. His research on Prolog and natural-language processing underlies much recent work in logic grammars.Stuart Shieber is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information and a computer scientist at SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence Center. His research on unification-based grammar formalisms bridges logic programming and linguistic theory.