Quasi-Indexical Reference In Propositional Semantic Networks

We discuss how a deductive question-answering system can represent the beliefs or other cognitive states of users, of other (interacting) systems, and of itself. In particular, we examine the representation of first-person beliefs of others (e.g., the ~/v.~'~ representation of a user'A belief that he himself is rich). Such beliefs have as an essential component "'quasi-indexical pronouns" (e.g., 'he himself'), and, hence, require for their analysis a method of representing these pronominal constructions and performing valid inferences with them. The theoretical justification for the approach to be discussed is the representation of nested "'de ditto" beliefs (e.g., the system's belief that user-I believes that system-2 believes that user-2 is rich). We discuss a computer implementation of these representations using the Semantic Network Processing System (SNePS) and an ATN parser-generator with a question-answering capability.