Meaning for people
- What do we mean when we say semantics has both a 'internal' and an 'external' aspect?
- What does the contrast of 'dog house' vs. 'fire house' demonstrate about semantic interpretation?
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Meaning for computers
- Give a 'computerese' definition of semantics.
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Ontology
- What is an ontology?
- Name two basic ontological categories
- Once we've put a formalism for producing more complex categories out of primitives, we have a _________________ semantics, which like its syntactic counterpart can generate an infinite number of meanings.
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Roles
- Use likely-sounding role names to describe a schema for the class of events described by the word 'wash'. Use the verb primitives 'cause' and 'go'.
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Rules and Inference
- Give an example of a semantic constraint for the event described by the word 'drink'.
- Give an example of a rule of inference we'd associate with the event described by the word 'eat'.
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Inheritance
- Let's say we've used Jacobs and Rao's role inheritance scheme to define a commercial transaction. Then we create a descendant of that to represent the experience of going to the supermarket. Which role would the [cashier] descend from? Why?
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Classes and Instances.
- What is the type/token distinction?
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Knowledge representation
- In addition to an explicit set of facts (predicates) which describe a given situation, what must we have in order to 'fill in the gaps'?
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