Future Prospects for Computational Linguistics

For over two decades, researchers in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics have sought to discover principles that would allow computer systems to process natural languages such as English. This work has been pursued both to further the scientific goals of providing a framework for a computational theory of natural-language communication and to further the engineering goals of creating computer-based systems that can communicate with their~ human users in human terms. Although the goal of fluent machine-based nautral-langusge understanding remains elusive, considerable progress has been made and future prospects appear bright both for the advancement of the science and for its application to the creation of practical systems.