Parsing in Dialogue Systems using Typed Feature Structures

The analysis of natural language in the context of keyboard-driven dialogue systems is the central issue addressed in this paper. A module that corrects typing errors and performs domain-specific morphological analysis has been developed. A parser for typed unification grammars is designed and implemented in C++; for description of the lexicon and the grammer a specialised specification language has been developed. It is argued that typed unification grammars and especially the newly developed specification language are convenient formalisms for describing natural language use in dialogue systems. Research on these issues is carried out in the context of the Schisma project, a research project of the Parlevink group in linguistic engineering; participants in Schisma are KPN Research and the University of Twente. The aims of the Schisma project are twofold: both the accumulation of knowledge in the field of computational linguistics and the development of a natural language interfaced theatre information and booking system is envisaged. The Schisma project serves as a testbed for the development of the various language analysis modules necessary for dialogue systems.