The Core Language Engine

The Core Language Engine presents the theoretical and engineering advances embodied in one of the most comprehensive natural language processing systems designed to date. Recent research results from different areas of computational linguistics are integrated into a single elegant design with potential for application to tasks ranging from machine translation to information system interfaces. Bridging the gap between theoretical and implementation...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262011263
• ISBN13: 9780262011266
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Bradford Book
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Yes, this book is still relevant to aspiring NLP researchers

Yes, a lot has happened since this book was written--statistical grammars, grammar induction, constraint-based grammars, not to mention that whole web thing. No matter. This book is still a valuable stepping stone on the path to NLP nirvana, and everyone who aspires to do research in NLP should come to grips with it. Why? Because it presents what is really the example par excellance of a unification-based grammar, the core language engine. This is really the first attempt which had any sucess at all to "scale up" nlp techniques to create a system which isn't just another toy. As such, it is one of a very very few descriptions of what it is like to build a BIG program in a logic programming language. Is this a book which points the way to future reasarch? Well, the authors have pretty much "exhausted the search space" of unification grammars here. Both their potential and their painful limitations have been plummed, and are on display here. But even though the time of unification grammars has passed, the lessons learned in the construction of the Core Language Engine represent, IMHO, a signature achivement, and real ground gained towards the goal. Moreover, the spirit of this research lives on. For a bang-up-to-date discussion of where this stream of research has lead, check out Blackburn & Bos's book "Representation and Inference in Natural Language".