COMMUNICATION

By:
Sunpreet Kaur
1306662
Overview
Communication as Action
Types of Communicating Agents
A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English
Syntactic Analysis (Parsing)
Definite Clause Grammar (DCG)
Augmenting a Grammar
Semantic Interpretation
Ambiguity and Disambiguity
A Communicating Agent
Summary
Introduction
Communication is the intentional exchange of information
brought about by the production and perception of signs drawn
from a shared system of conventional signs.

Most animals employ a fixed set of signs to represent messages
that are important to their survival: food here, predator nearby,
approach, withdraw.

Humans, just as many other animals, use a limited number of
signs to communicate (smiling, shaking hands)

Introduction
Humans has developed a complex, structured system of signs,
known as language, that enables us to communicate most of
what they know about the world.

Although there are other uniquely human attributes, such as
wearing clothes and watching TV, Turing created his test based
on language because language is closely tied to thinking, in a
way these other attributes are not.

Communication as Action
Speech Act:
The action available to an agent to produce language
includes talking, typing, sign language, etc.
Speaker - An agent that produces a speech act
Hearer - An agent that receives a speech act

Why would agents choose to perform a speech act?
To be able to:
Inform, Query, Answer, Request or Command, Promise,
Acknowledge and Share
Communication as Action
Transferring Information to Hearer:

Inform:
each other about the part of the world each has explored, so other
agent has less exploring to do. Ex. Theres a breeze in 3 4.
Answer:
questions. This is a kind of informing. Ex. Yes, I smelled the
wumpus in 2 3.
Acknowledge:
requests and offers. Ex. Okay.
Share:
feelings and experiences with each other. Ex. You know, that
wumpus sure needs deodorant.


Communication as Action
Make the Hearer take some action:

Promise:
to do things or offer deals. Ex. Ill shoot the wumpus if you let me
share the gold.
Query:
other agents about particular aspects of the world. Ex. Have you
smelled the wumpus anywhere?
Request or Command:
other agents to perform actions. It can be seen as impolite to
make direct requests, so often an indirect speech act (a request
in the form of a statement or question) is used instead. Ex. I
could use some help carrying this or Could you please help me
carry this?
Difficulties with Communication
Speaking:

When is a speech act called for?
Which speech act, out of all the possibilities is the right one?
Nondeterminism

Understanding:

Given ambiguous inputs, what state of the world could have
created these inputs?

Fundamentals of Language
Formal Languages: Languages that are invented
and are rigidly defined. A set of strings where each
string is a sequence of symbols taken from a finite
set called the terminal symbols.
Lisp, C++, first order logic, etc.

Natural Languages: Languages that humans use
to talk to one another.
Chinese, Danish, English, etc.
Component Steps of Communication
Three steps take place in the speaker:
Intention: S want H to believe P
Generation: S chooses words W
Synthesis: S utters the words W

Four steps take place in the hearer:
Perception: H perceives W
1
(ideally, W = W
1
)
Analysis: H infers that W
1
has possible meanings P
1
, , P
n

Disambiguation: H infers that S intended to convey P
i
(ideally,
P
i
= P)
Incorporation: H decides to believe P
i
(or rejects it if it is out
of line with what H already believes)

Models of Communication
Encoded Message Model:
Speaker encodes a proposition into words or signs. The hearer
then tries to decode this message to retrieve the original
proposition. The meaning in the speakers head, the message that
gets transmitted, and the interpretation that hearer arrives at are
all the same, unless there is noise during communication, or an
error in encoding or decoding occurs.
Situated Language Model:
Created because of limitations on the encoded message model.
The meaning of the message depends on both the words, and the
situation.
Ex. Diamond refers to one thing when the subject is jewelry,
and a completely different meaning when the subject is baseball.
Types of Communicating Agents
Communicating using Tell and ask:
Agents share a common internal representation language
Agents are capable of communicating without any external
language at all

Communicating using Formal Language:
Agents make no assumptions about each others internal
language
Agents share a communication language that is a subset of
English
Tell and Ask
Communication with Tell and Ask
Percepts Actions Percepts Actions
Reasoning Reasoning
KB KB
Agent A Agent B
TELL(KB
B
, P) TELL(KB
A
, P)

ASK(KB
B
, Q) TELL(KB
B
, Pit(P
A1
) At(P
A1
,[2,3], S
A9
))
Formal Language
Percepts Actions Percepts Actions
Reasoning Reasoning
KB KB
Agent A Agent B
Language
Language
Formal Grammar for a Subset of English





Lexicon: List of allowable vocabulary words.

Noun -> stench | breeze | glitter | nothing | wumpus | pit | pits | gold | east |

Verb -> is | see | smell | shoot | feel | stinks | go | grab | carry | kill | turn |

Adjective -> right | left | east | south | back | smelly |

Adverb -> here | there | nearby | ahead | right | left | east | south | back |

Pronoun -> me | you | I | it |

Name -> John | Mary | Boston | Aristotle | Article -> the | a | an |

Preposition -> to | in | on | near | Conjunction -> and | or | but |

Digit -> 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Formal Grammar for a Subset of English
NP -> Pronoun
-> Noun
-> Article Noun
-> Digit Digit
-> NP PP
-> NP RelClause

RelClause -> that VP

VP -> Verb
-> VP NP
-> VP Adjective
-> VP PP
-> VP Adverb


PP -> Preposition NP

Grammar:

S -> NP VP
S -> S Conjunction S
Parsing Algorithms
There are many algorithms for parsing
Top-down parsing
Starting with an S and expanding accordingly
Bottom-up parsing
Combination of top-down and bottom-up
Dynamic programming techniques
Avoids inefficiencies of backtracking
Bottom-up Parse (example)
function BOTTOM-UP-PARSE(words, grammar) returns a parse tree
forest words
loop do
if LENGTH(forest) = 1 and CATEGORY(forest[1]) = START(grammar) then
return forest[1]
else
i choose from {1LENGTH(forest)}
rule choose from RULES(grammar)
n LENGTH(RULE-RHS(rule))
subsequence SUBSEQUENCE(forest, i, i+n-1)
if MATCH(subsequence,RULE-RHS(rule)) then
forest[ii+n-1] [MAKE-NODE(RULE-LHS(rule) , subsequence)]
else fail
end
forest subsequence rule
The wumpus is dead
Article wumpus is dead
Article Noun is dead
NP is dead
NP Verb dead
NP Verb Adjective
NP VP Adjective
NP VP
S
The
wumpus
Article Noun
is
dead
Verb
VP Adjective
NP VP
Article the
Noun wumpus
NP Article Noun
Verb is
Adjective dead
VP Verb
VP Verb Adjective
S NP VP
Definite Clause Grammer (DCG)
Problems with Backus-Naur Form (BNF)
Need meaning
Context sensitive
Introduction of First Order Logic
BNF First Order Logic
S NP VP NP(s
1
) /\ VP(s
2
) S(Append(s
1
,s
2
))
Noun stench | (s=stench \/ ) Noun(s)
DCG Notation
Positive:
Easy to describe grammars
Negative:
More verbose than BNF
3 Rules:
The notation X Y Z translate as Y(s
1
) /\ Z(s
2
) X(Append(s
1
, s
2
,).
The notation X word translates as X([word]).
The notation X Y | Z | translates as Y(s) \/ Z(s) \/ X(s), where Y
is the translation into logic of the DCG expression Y.
Extending the Notation
Non-terminal symbols can be augmented
A variable can appear on RHS
An arbitrary logical test can appear on RHS
DCG First Order Logic
Digit(sem) sem { 0 sem 9 }
Number(sem) Digit(sem)
Number(sem) Number(sem
1
) Digit(sem
2
)
{sem = 10 sem
1
+ sem
2
}

(s=[sem]) Digit(sem , s)
Digit(sem , s) Number(sem , s)
Number(sem , s
1
) /\ Digit(sem , s
2
) /\
sem = 10 sem
1
+ sem
2

Number(sem , Append(s
1
, s
2
)
Overgeneration
Simple grammar can overgenerate
Ex: Me smells a stench.
To fix we must understand
Cases of English
Nominative - subjective - I
Accusative - objective - me
New Rules
Use of Augmentation
S
NP(case)

VP
PP
Pronoun(Subjective)

Pronoun(Objective)






NP(subjective) VP |
Pronoun(case) | Noun | Article Noun
VP NP(Objective) |
Preposition NP(Objective)

I | you | he | she |
me | you | him | her |
Changes needed to handle subjective and objective cases
S
NP
s
Np
o
VP
PP
Pronoun
s
Pronoun
o








NP
s
VP |
Pronoun
s
| Noun | Article Noun
Pronoun
o
| Noun | Article Noun
VP NP
o
|
Preposition NP
o
I | you | he | she |
me | you | him | her |
Verb Subcategorization
Now have slight improvement
Must create a sub-categorization list
Verb Subcats Example
give [NP , PP]
[NP , NP]
give the gold in 3,3 to me
give me the gold
smell [NP]
[Adjective]
[PP]
smell a wumpus
smell awful
smell like a wumpus
is [Adjective]
[PP]
[NP]
Is smelly
is in 2 2
is a pit
believe [S] Believe the smelly wumpus in 2 2 is dead
Parse Tree
S
NP
VP([])
VP([NP])
VP([NP,NP]) NP NP
Pronoun Pronoun Article Noun Verb([NP,NP])
You give me the gold
Semantic Interpretation
Semantic Interpretation: Responsible for combining
meanings compositionally to get a set of possible interpretations
Formal Languages
Compositional Semantics: The semantics of any phrase is a
function of its subphrases
X + Y
We can handle an infinite grammar with a finite set of rules
Natural Languages
Appears to have a noncompositional semantics
The batter hit the ball
Semantic interpretation alone cannot be certain of the right
interpretation of a phrase or sentence
Semantic Interpretation
Semantics as DCG Augmentation
The same idea used to specify the semantics of numbers
and digits can applied to the complete language of
mathematics

Exp(sem) > Exp(sem
1
) Operator(op) Exp(sem
2
) {sem = Apply(op, sem
1
, sem
2
)}
Exp(sem) > ( Exp(sem) )
Exp(sem) > Number(sem)
Digit(sem) > sem { 0 sem 9 }
Number(sem) > Digit(sem)
Number(sem) > Number(sem
1
) Digit(sem
2
) { sem = 10 sem
1
+ sem
2
}
Operator(sem) > sem { sem +,,,}}
The Semantics of E
1

Semantic structure is very different from syntactic structure.
We use an intermediate form called a quasi-logical form
which uses a new construction which we will call a quantified
term.
every agent -> [" a Agent(a)]

Every agent smells a wumpus
$ e (e Perceive([" a Agent(a)], [$ w Wumpus(w)],Nose) During(Now, e))
Pragmatic Interpretation
Through semantic interpretation, an agent can perceive a string
of words and use a grammar to derive a set of possible
semantic interpretations.

Now we address the problem of completing the interpretation
by adding information about the current situation
Information which is noncompositional and context-
dependant
Pragmatic Interpretation
Indexicals: Phrases that refer directly to the current situation
I am in Boston today.

Anaphora: Phrases referring to objects that have been
mentioned previously
John was hungry. He entered a restaurant.
After John proposed to Marsha, they found a preacher and got
married. For the honeymoon, they went to Hawaii.

Deciding which reference is the right one is a part of
disambiguation.
Ambiguity and Disambiguation
The biggest problem in communicative exchange is
that most utterances are ambiguous.

Squad helps dog bite victim.
Red-hot star to wed astronomer.
Helicopter powered by human flies.
Once-sagging cloth diaper industry saved by full dumps.
Ambiguity
Lexical Ambiguity
a word has more than one meaning
Syntactic Ambiguity (Structural Ambiguity)
more than one possible parse for the phrase
Semantic Ambiguity
follows from lexical or syntactic ambiguity
Referential Ambiguity
semantic ambiguity caused by anaphoric expressions
Ambiguity
Pragmatic Ambiguity
Speaker and hearer disagree on what the current situation
is.
Local Ambiguity
A substring can be parsed several ways.
Vagueness
Natural languages are also vague
Its hot outside.

Disambiguation
Disambiguation is a question of diagnosis.

Models of the world are used to provide possible
interpretations of a speech act.
Models of the speaker
Models of the hearer

It is difficult to pick the right interpretation because
there may be several right ones.


Disambiguation
In general, disambiguation requires the combination
of four models:
the world model
the mental model
the language model
the acoustic model

Natural language often uses deliberate ambiguity.
Most language understanding programs ignore this
possibility
Disambiguation
Context free grammars do not provide a very useful
language model.

Probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs)
each rewrite rule has a probability associated with it

S > NP VP (0.9)
S > S Conjunction S (0.1)
A Communicating Agent
How does this all fit in to an agent that can
communicate?
Start with the wumpus world robot slave.

Extend the grammar to accept commands
Go east
Go to 2 2

Identify the kind (i.e, command or statement) of
speech as part of the quasi-logical form.
A Communicating Agent
Rules for commands and statements
S(Command(rel(Hearer)) > VP(rel)
S(Statement(rel(obj)) > NP(obj) VP(rel)

Rules for acknowledgements
S(Acknowledge(sem)) > Ack(sem)
Ack(True) > yes
Ack(True) > OK
Ack(False) > no


Summary
Agents send signals to each other using a speech act.
All animals use some conventional signs to communicate, but
humans use language in a more sophisticated way that enables
them to communicate much more
Formal language theory and phrase structure grammars are
useful tools for dealing with some aspects of natural language
Communication involves
three steps by the speaker
intention, generation and synthesis
four steps by the hearer
perception, analysis, disambiguation and incorporation
Summary
The encoded message model of communication says that a
speaker encodes a representation of a proposition into
language, and the hearer decodes the message to uncover the
proposition
The situated language model states that the meaning of a
message is a function of both the message and the situation in
which it occurs.
Augmenting a grammar allows us to handle many problems
Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) is an extension of BNF that allows
for augmentations
There are many algorithms for parsing strings.
I.e. bottom up, top down, combination, and dynamic
Summary
Pragmatic interpretation takes the current situation into
account to determine the effect of an utterance in context

Disambiguation is the process of deciding which of the
possible interpretations is the one that the speaker intended to
convey.
The End