The construction of natural language interfaces to computers continues to be a major challenge. The need for such interfaces is growing now that speech recognition technology is becoming more readily available, and people cannot speak those computer-oriented formal languages that are frequently used to interact with computer applications. Much of the research related to the design and implementation of natural language interfaces has involved the use of high-level declarative programming languages. This is to be expected as the task is extremely difficult, involving syntactic and semantic analysis of potentially ambiguous input. The use of LISP and Prolog in this area is well documented. However, research involving the relatively new lazy functional programming paradigm is less well known. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of that research.

An important criterion for any artificial intelligence program is its capability to communicate with the external world. One common form of communication is by the use of a natural language, specifically English. When provided a sentence, it is important for the program to understand the intention of the given sentence which is an important first step for a program to perform logical reasoning. In this paper, we discuss two components of the grammar that affects the understanding of a sentence: role and control. These two components represent the knowledge that teaches how to use the language to express a thought. We describe in detail what needs to be learned for each of these components for three major grammar terms: noun phrase, declarative sentence, and forms-of-be verb. We then show how to use them to create a declarative thought corresponding to a given declarative sentence that uses a forms-of-be verb. Finally, we show what needs to be learned by the program so that the declarative thought can be understood correctly based on exactly what is involved in the subject and the predicate of the given sentence. Object-Oriented paradigm is used to analyze the problem and design the solution to attack the problem. 1

The construction of natural-language interfaces to computers continues to be a major challenge. The need for such interfaces is growing now that speech-recognition technology is becoming morereadily available, and people cannot speak those computer-oriented formal languages that are frequently used to interact with computer applications. Much of the research related to the design and implementation of natural-language interfaces has involved the use of high-level declarative programming languages. This is to be expected as the task is extremely difficult, involving syntactic and semantic analysis of potentially-ambiguous input. The use of LISP and Prolog in this area is well documented. However, research involving the relatively-new lazy functional-programming paradigm is less well known. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of that research.

An important requirement for any artificial intelligence program is its capability to understand what has been communicated to it. How does the program recognize all the potential effects when it is given a declarative sentence involving an action? There are three major bodies of knowledge that need to be learned. The first body of knowledge is the English grammar. The second body of knowledge involves each individual action. The last body of knowledge acts as a bridge between the English grammar and actions. This knowledge teaches the program how to use the learned grammar to express a thought about an action. In this paper, our program uses this knowledge to understand the intention of a given declarative sentence that uses an action verb. We will discuss what is involved in the learning for each of these bodies of knowledge and illustrate how to use them to understand a given sentence. Specifically, we discuss in detail on how the effects caused by an action referenced in a declarative sentence are recognized. Understanding the intention of a sentence, especially a sentence involving cause and effects, is an important first step for a program to perform logical reasoning. Object-Oriented paradigm is used to analyze the problem and design the solution attacking the problem. 1

Communication using a natural language is an important requirement for any artificial intelligence program. This paper first defines clearly the purpose of the communication problem, and presents its three sub-problems. The first sub-problem is to learn the grammar of the natural language English in order to teach to and store it effectively within the program. The second sub-problem is to parse a given sentence and translate it into a thought for the program to understand and carry out the intention of the sentence. The third sub-problem is to use the learned natural language to produce a valid sentence given an internal thought. In this paper, we describe what we use in our program to represent a subset of the English grammar and our initial effort in implementing the parsing of an English sentence. Object-Oriented paradigm is used to analyze the problem and design the solution to attack the communication problem. It provides an important first step in achieving intelligent communication between a computer and human. AN OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH IN