A System to Process Dialogue: A Progress Report

Abstract

This is a progress report on work toward and English language interface for expert systems. A framework for handling mixed-initiative English dialogue in a console session environment is discussed, with special emphasis placed on recognition. The ideas presented here are being implemented in a prototype system called Susie Software, which is embedded in the OWL system. OWL is currently under development in the Automatic Programming Group at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. We are using OWL to explore the problems of constructing expert systems, and for Susie Software the domain of expertise is programming. In the Susie effort to date, major emphasis has been placed on the construction of a computational model for the structural aspects of English dialogue; it is this structural model that will be discussed.