LESK: A Language Synthetizing Natural Language, Computer Language And Logic

LESK (Language f o r E x a c t l y 3 t a t l ~ Knowledge) i s i n t e n d ed t o b r i d g e t h e c o n s i d e r a b l e gap be tween n a t u r a l l anguage (I~L), computer l an6uage (CL) and log~tc. I t i s d e s i r a b l e t o d o so f o r t he f o l l o w i n g r e a s o n . To implement any n o n t r i v i a l computer sys tem f o r some problem domain, one must f i r s t have a v e r y c l e a r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e domain c o n c e p t s . U s u a l l y t h e imp lemen to r s do n o t have t h i s knowledge, and must s t r u g g l e t o o b t a i n i t from t h e domain e x p e r t s , who a r e u s u a l l y no t compute r e x p e r t s . Hence a means o f p r e c i s e and e f f i c i e n t knowledge e x p r e s s i o n would be v e r y u s e f u l . No such t o o l e x i s t s t oday and we t h e r e f o r e seek t o d e v e l o p one . LESK i s a f i r s t app rox i m a t i o n t o such a medium f o r knowledge c a p t u r e .