Developing Natural Language Interfaces: Processing Human Conversations

Suereth, Russell

ISBN 10: 0079130178 ISBN 13: 9780079130174

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1997

Synopsis

A book/CD-ROM showing programmers and software developers how to build software that provides basic conversation processing and how to incorporate sophisticated language processing capabilities in any Windows-based application. The first half of the book provides a foundation for language processing, and later chapters discuss special features. Each chapter contains an example program with complete description and analysis. The accompanying CD-ROM contains examples in VBA and ANSI C. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

From the Back Cover

At last, practical help for programmers and developers working at the forefront of language processing. A computer's ability to communicate using ordinary conversational English used to be the subject of abstract theoretical tomes. Not any longer, thanks to this highly practical guide. Developing Natural Language Interfaces shows programmers and developers how to actually build the software that provides basic conversation processing. It also describes, step by step, how you can incorporate more sophisticated language processing capabilities. No matter what Windows-based application you're working in, this book delivers the programming code and easy-to-follow examples you need to take that quantum leap from graphical interfaces. In fact, each chapter contains an example program with a complete description and analysis. And the accompanying CD-ROM includes all examples referred to in the book in both VBA (Visual Basic for applications) and ANSI C, which can be used with any C or C++ compiler and on a multitude of operating systems. Well-illustrated with numerous tables and figures, this book provides clear and implementable discussions of such key topics as: Incorporating sufficent knowledge about grammar into a conversation processor. Resolving the potential problems that may arise from ambiguous, incomplete, or inconsistent meanings. Defining sentence elements, identifying phrases, and including idioms and synonyms. Converting long run-on sentences into more easily recognizable forms. Reading characters and sentences from a text file, and identifying themes. For practical answers to these and mnay other common natural language processing questions-and as a hands-on tool for the development of the most versatile and easiest-to-operate natural language programs-this trail-blazing book is without equal.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0079130178
• ISBN 13: 9780079130174
• Binding: CD-ROM
• Number of pages: 312