[Edu-sig] CP4E: Programming for Fun => Python for Journalists and Couch Poatatoes?

[fred@ontosys.com]

On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 03:31:12PM -0400, Jason Cunliffe wrote:

> Just as Kirby and others have been developing their math-oriented Python
> curriculum, what do you think the potential is for programming natural language
> and literature for fun.
> I may be crazy, but just imagine...
> 
> Python for Journalists
> - In this class we take newspaper and TV news and [try to] translate them into
> Python.

I don't know about translating into Python, but I'd love to have an
application that would parse arbitrary English sentences and produce a
corresponding sentence diagram.  Another interesting possibility is to
translate English text into Contextual Graphs (per Sowa).

What is the (noncommercial) state of the art in automated parsing of
natural language text?  Is a project like this feasible, or does it
need a Cyc-like knowledge base to disambiguate words based on context?

-- 
Fred Yankowski      fred@ontosys.com           tel: +1.630.879.1312
OntoSys, Inc	    PGP keyID: 7B449345        fax: +1.630.879.1370
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