CS B552 Knowledge-Based Computation

Homework 3: Conceptual Dependency Theory

Due Date: Mon, Feb 13, 11:59pm.

Assignment Goals

Learning how to use conceptual dependency theory for knowledge representation.

Assignment tasks

Represent the following sentences in conceptual dependency theory representations, using the Lisp-like form illustrated in class.  These examples involve some subtle questions.  Be sure to have a rich representation, following the principle of making explicit the underlying actions in the event, rather than simply translating the sentence. 

To test your representation, “translate” it back into English, and see if someone who saw only the translation, and was not doing any inferencing, would get the full meaning of what was conveyed by the initial sentence.  If not, refine your representation.  Some of these will require thinking hard about how to express the sentence and using multiple primitives.   

If you see aspects of the representation as a close call between alternatives, include a brief explanation of why and why you resolved the choice as you did.

1.    Mary looked at the book and noticed the title.

2.    Mary listened to the radio and yelled out the headlines to Sue. (Be sure to do a full representation of the acts needed to represent this.)

3.     Fred got yelled at for bumping into Joe.

4.    Fred got sick.

5.    Sally ordered a hamburger from the counter-person at McDonald’s.  (Try to represent this richly, but be careful to restrict yourself to information conveyed by the sentence (the “but” test described in class may be helpful), except for making the assumption of a verbal order.  You should use at least 5 CDs (note that some of these could be nested, with a CD filling a slot in another CD).  You may simply state the CD acts involved; you do not need to include causal connectives.)

Come up with your own reasonable representation for any non-actions (physical objects, etc., to which you need to refer), in a form similar to CD.  Keep in mind the principles of good knowledge representation discussed in class, but we recognize that there are many ways those could be represented.

Resources

For additional information on conceptual dependency and examples beyond those presented in class, see the brief summary by Kurt Eiselt (starting with “An Alternative Semantic Representation”).   Chapter 2 of Inside Computer Understanding, to be on reserve at the Chemistry library, has a nice description as well (a reserve request was submitted on Feb 1).

Submission

The assignment will be submitted electronically, on Canvas. Please keep backup copies of all submitted files until you have verified the grade received.