A survey of the impact of current linguistic research on computer applications

Special logics for representing the semantics of domains peculiar to human language have been developed, and formal syntax research has been enriched by a substantial number of linguistically sound, formally specified grammatical theories that reflect a declarative rather than procedural approach to grammar and which embody the flexibility of information location afforded by unification. These theories have been investigated for their weak generative capacity, the complexity of their parsing, and the ways in which grammatical rules or principles can be embedded in actual parsers, developments which promise to impact greatly on the future of practical natural language processing systems. The impact of this research on knowledge representation and formal language theory is surveyed.<>