ABSTRACT
A natural language interface for relational databases has been utilized at AT&T Bell Laboratories as the natural language component of the DARPA ATIS common task. This is a part of a larger project that consists of incorporating a natural language component into the Bell Laboratories Speech Recognizer.The commercially available system used in this project was developed by Natural Language Incorporation (NLI), in particular by J. Ginsparg [Ginsparg, 1976]. We relate our experience in adapting the NLI interface to handle domain dependent ATIS queries. The results of this allowed the exploration of several important issues in speech and natural language:1. the feasabilitiy of using an off-the-shelf commercial product for a language understanding front end to a speech recognizer,2. the constraints of using a general-purpose product for a specific task.
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- Bates, M., R. Robrow, S Boisen, R. Ingria, D. Stallard, "BBN ATIS System Progress Report - June 1990", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, 125--126, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvannia, June 1990.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
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- Moore R., D. Appelt, J. Bear, M Darymple, and D. Moran, "SRI's Experience with the ATIS Evaluation", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, 147--150, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvannia, June 1990.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
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- NLI Developer's Reference, Natural Language Incorporated, Berkeley, California, 1990.]]Google Scholar
- Norton L. M., D. A. Dalh, D. P. McKay, L. Hirschman, M. C. Linebarger, D. Magerman, and C. N. Ball, "Management and Evaluation of Interactive Dialog in the Air Travel Domain", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, 141--146, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvannia, June 1990.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pieraccini R., E. Levin, and C. H. Lee, "Stochastic representation of conceptual structure in the ATIS task", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, Asilomar, California, June 1991.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ward W., "The CMU Air Travel Information Service: Understanding Spontaneous Speech", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, 127--129, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvannia, June 1990.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zue, V., J. Glass, D. Goodine, H. Leung, M. Phillips, J. Polifroni and S. Seneff, "Preliminary ATIS Development at MIT", Proc. DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop, 130--135, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvannia, June 1990.]] Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- The use of commercial natural language interface in the ATIS task
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