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Commonsense Reasoning in and Over Natural Language

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Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3215))

Abstract

ConceptNet is a very large semantic network of commonsense knowledge suitable for making various kinds of practical inferences over text. ConceptNet captures a wide range of commonsense concepts and relations like those in Cyc, while its simple semantic network structure lends it an ease-of-use comparable to WordNet. To meet the dual challenge of having to encode complex higher-order concepts, and maintaining ease-of-use, we introduce a novel use of semi-structured natural language fragments as the knowledge representation of commonsense concepts. In this paper, we present a methodology for reasoning flexibly about these semi-structured natural language fragments. We also examine the tradeoffs associated with representing commonsense knowledge in formal logic versus in natural language. We conclude that the flexibility of natural language makes it a highly suitable representation for achieving practical inferences over text, such as context finding, inference chaining, and conceptual analogy.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Hugo Liu & Push Singh

Authors
  1. Hugo Liu
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  2. Push Singh
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. KES International, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, EC1V 4PY, London, United Kingdom

    Mircea Gh. Negoita

  2. Centre for SMART systems Engineering Research Centre, University of Brighton, BN2 4GJ, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, UK

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Knowledge Based Intelligent Engineering Systems Centre, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095, SA, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Liu, H., Singh, P. (2004). Commonsense Reasoning in and Over Natural Language. In: Negoita, M.G., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems. KES 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3215. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30134-9_40

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30134-9_40

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23205-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30134-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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