Burghard B. Rieger:
In: Kornwachs, K./Jacoby, K. (eds.): Information. New Questions to a Multidisciplinary Concept. (Proceedings of the 125th E.W.-Heraeus-Foundation-Seminar on Interdisciplinary Models of Information, Technical University Cottbus 1994), [Systems Theory Series], Berlin (Akademie) 1996, pp. 285-315
Other than the clear-cut realistic division between information processing systems and their surrounding environments employed sofar in models of natural language understanding by machine, it is argued here that a semiotic approach based on an ecological understanding of informational systems is feasible and more adequate. Characterizing such systems' performance in general and the pragmatics of communicative interaction by real language users in particular, a critical evaluation of cognitive approaches in knowledge-based computational linguistics together with the seminal notions of situation and language game are combined to allow for a procedural modelling and numerical reconstruction of processes that simulate the constitution of meanings and the interpretation of signs prior to any predicative and propositional representations which dominate traditional formats in syntax and semantics. This is achieved by analysing the linear or syntagmatic and selective or paradigmatic constraints which natural language structure imposes on the formation of (strings of) linguistic entities. A formalism with related algorithms and test results of their implementation are produced in order to substantiate the claim for a model of a semiotic cognitive information processing system (SCIPS) that operates in a language environment as some meaning acquisition and understanding device.
HTML FormatPDF Format (393 Kb)
PostScript (2.6 Mb)