Re: Why is NLP such a hard topic?

OK then, "perfect" NLP will require a set of rules that predicts violations
of rules....

Saying that people 'violate' rules through sarcasm, irony, or what have you
places blame on the subject and not the engineer.  Sorry, wrong answer.

If the question is 'why is NLP such a hard topic' a simple answer is that
humans are incredibly complex.

C'mon, take a longer view of things.  It took over 200 years for capacitors
and batteries to become integral parts of cell phones.  Humans have been
researching NLP for what, 50 years?  Don't be so arrogant and impatient.
This will take time, money, more efficient hardware processors, research,
and new discoveries.  In the meantime, look for practical applications of
what does exist.  Before the cell phone there was the telegraph.  Before the
positronic brain there needs to be the spam filter.

Besides, if NLP were solved today, what would you do tomorrow?  Enjoy the
ride.


"Matthew Purver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Rod Davison wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 09:24:17 +0100, Niki Estner wrote:
> >
> > Question:  Why is NLP a hard topic?
> > Answer: Because natural language is a a rules based system where users
> > don't follow the rules.
> >
> > Seems odd, but you have to understand that language is a social
phenomena.
>
> well, no, according to my rules, it's a social phenomenON. But as you so
> rightly point out, users don't follow the rules :-D
>
> actually, I think that's quite a good example: I could understand what you
> meant no problem at all of course, but a machine programmed with strict
> plural morphology rules would have problems.
>
> -- 
> Matthew Purver - matt at purver dot org