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An Intelligent Question-Answer System over Natural-Language Texts

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AETA 2018 - Recent Advances in Electrical Engineering and Related Sciences: Theory and Application (AETA 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 554))

Abstract

The success of automated reasoning techniques over large natural-language texts heavily relies on a fine-grained formal analysis of these texts. While there is common agreement that the analysis should be hyperintensional, most automatic reasoning systems are still based on intensional logic. In this paper, we introduce a hyperintensional system of reasoning and answering. We apply Tichy’s Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL) which comes with a procedural (as opposed to truth-conditional) semantics. Our goal is to analyse empirical questions that come attached with a presupposition.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for instance, [9, 15,16,17, 22].

  2. 2.

    For details on non-equivalence of narrow-scope vs. wide-scope negation with respect to negating propositions that come attached with a presupposition, see [6].

  3. 3.

    See, for instance, the questioning toolkit, The Educational Technology Journal, vol. 7, no. 3 (1997), http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html [retrieved on July 27, 2018].

  4. 4.

    We leave aside the question whether the truth of all the presuppositions of S a sufficient condition for S is having a truth-value. It seems that if S is undefined, we might deduce that it is so because there is a presupposition of S that is not true. Yet, we are hesitant to draw this conclusion, since the logic of because is much more complicated. For details, see [18, 21].

  5. 5.

    See, for instance, [7, 11, 12].

  6. 6.

    The idea of replying by negated presupposition if the presupposition is not true was first proposed by M. Číhalová and presented in [1].

  7. 7.

    See, for instance, [7].

  8. 8.

    Hajičová in [8] argues that the analysis of topic-focus articulation is a semantic rather than pragmatic issue. For logical analysis of sentences with topic-focus articulation see [3].

  9. 9.

    For a TIL analysis of tenses see [2, 5, 20].

  10. 10.

    Alternative questions known from questionnaires are a more general case. They presuppose that at least one of the alternatives is the case. For this reason, there is often the alternative ‘other’ or ‘none of the above’, in case none of the alternatives offered applies.

References

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, project no. GA18-23891S, Hyperintensional Reasoning over Natural Language Texts, and by the internal grant agency of VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, project no. SP2018/172, Application of Formal Methods in Knowledge Modelling and Software Engineering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, FEI, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 17. listopadu 15, 708 33, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Marie Duží & Bjørn Jespersen

  2. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 13, 3512 BP, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Bjørn Jespersen

Authors
  1. Marie Duží
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  2. Bjørn Jespersen
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Correspondence to Marie Duží .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, VŠB-TUO, Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Republic

    Ivan Zelinka

  2. Department of Electronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, VŠB-TUO, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Pavel Brandstetter

  3. International Cooperation, Research and Training Institute, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

    Tran Trong Dao

  4. Department of Automatic Control, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Vo Hoang Duy

  5. Department of Mechanical Design Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea (Republic of)

    Sang Bong Kim

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Duží, M., Jespersen, B. (2020). An Intelligent Question-Answer System over Natural-Language Texts. In: Zelinka, I., Brandstetter, P., Trong Dao, T., Hoang Duy, V., Kim, S. (eds) AETA 2018 - Recent Advances in Electrical Engineering and Related Sciences: Theory and Application. AETA 2018. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 554. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14907-9_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14907-9_17

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