Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence
|
| Title | Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural language to make them accessible to computer processing, These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor. But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millenia old. First, a typical Knowledge Representation Scheme (using Semantic Nets) will be laid out, followed by an outline of the method used by the ancient Indian grammarians to analyze sentences unambiguously. Finally, the clear parallelism between the two will be demonstrated, and the theoretical implications of this equivalence will be given. |
| Publisher | Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence |
| Date | 1985-03-15 |
| Source | AI Magazine Vol 6, No 1: Spring 1985 |
| Rights | Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:1. Author(s) agree to transfer their copyrights in their article/paper to the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), in order to deal with future requests for reprints, translations, anthologies, reproductions, excerpts, and other publications. This grant will include, without limitation, the entire copyright in the article/paper in all countries of the world, including all renewals, extensions, and reversions thereof, whether such rights current exist or hereafter come into effect, and also the exclusive right to create electronic versions of the article/paper, to the extent that such right is not subsumed under copyright.2. The author(s) warrants that they are the sole author and owner of the copyright in the above article/paper, except for those portions shown to be in quotations; that the article/paper is original throughout; and that the undersigned right to make the grants set forth above is complete and unencumbered.3. The author(s) agree that if anyone brings any claim or action alleging facts that, if true, constitute a breach of any of the foregoing warranties, the author(s) will hold harmless and indemnify AAAI, their grantees, their licensees, and their distributors against any liability, whether under judgment, decree, or compromise, and any legal fees and expenses arising out of that claim or actions, and the undersigned will cooperate fully in any defense AAAI may make to such claim or action. Moreover, the undersigned agrees to cooperate in any claim or other action seeking to protect or enforce any right the undersigned has granted to AAAI in the article/paper. If any such claim or action fails because of facts that constitute a breach of any of the foregoing warranties, the undersigned agrees to reimburse whomever brings such claim or action for expenses and attorneys’ fees incurred therein.4. Author(s) retain all proprietary rights other than copyright (such as patent rights).5. Author(s) may make personal reuse of all or portions of the above article/paper in other works of their own authorship.6. Author(s) may reproduce, or have reproduced, their article/paper for the author’s personal use, or for company use provided that AAAI copyright and the source are indicated, and that the copies are not used in a way that implies AAAI endorsement of a product or service of an employer, and that the copies per se are not offered for sale. The foregoing right shall not permit the posting of the article/paper in electronic or digital form on any computer network, except by the author or the author’s employer, and then only on the author’s or the employer’s own web page or ftp site. Such web page or ftp site, in addition to the aforementioned requirements of this Paragraph, must provide an electronic reference or link back to the AAAI electronic server, and shall not post other AAAI copyrighted materials not of the author’s or the employer’s creation (including tables of contents with links to other papers) without AAAI’s written permission.7. Author(s) may make limited distribution of all or portions of their article/paper prior to publication.8. In the case of work performed under U.S. Government contract, AAAI grants the U.S. Government royalty-free permission to reproduce all or portions of the above article/paper, and to authorize others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.9. In the event the above article/paper is not accepted and published by AAAI, or is withdrawn by the author(s) before acceptance by AAAI, this agreement becomes null and void. |