For some time, it has been clear that students who are tutored generally learn more than students who experience classroom instruction (e.g., Bloom, 1984). Much research has been devoted to identifying features of tutorial dialogue that can explain its effectiveness, so that these features can be simulated in natural-language tutoring systems. One…

Despite a strong tradition of viewing "coded equivalence" as the underlying principle of linguistic semiotics, it lacks the power needed to understand and explain language as an empirical phenomenon characterized by complex dynamics. Applying the biology of cognition to the nature of the human cognitive/linguistic capacity as rooted in the…

Finite-state methods are finding ever increasing use among linguists as a way of modeling phonology and morphology and as a method for manipulating and modeling text. This paper describes a suite of very simple finite-state tools written by the author that can be used to investigate this area and that can be used for simple analysis.

Discussion of information handling tools focuses on natural language processing and linguistically-based techniques that help improve retrieval performance. Topics include difficulties in information retrieval, including poor questions and ambiguous words; phrase detection; disambiguation; automatic categorization; entity extraction; concept…

Reports on the use of an electronic dictionary to research and develop a large-scale language database that will help computers process and understand natural languages, and will greatly contribute to future developments in information science. Also discusses the need for and uses of linguistic and world knowledge databases. (JMV)