Experience with COMMENTATOR, a computer system simulating verbal behaviour

BEHAVIOUR 0. The project "COMMENTATOR" at the department of general linguis­ tics at the university of Lund is intended to test ideas about language production. The system Implemented in BASIC on the ABC 80 microcomputer generates a scene on the monitor where two per­ sons, Adam and Eve, move randomly around a gate. Not only the pre­ sent positions of Adam and Eve are shown on the screen but even the positions before the last "jump". This setting is also used for presenting human subjects the same sort of stimuli as the compu­ ter. The moves are generated randomly but the operator can choose the lenght of jumps. The initial placement of Adam and Eve can be determined by the operator, too, as well as the instruction for the machine concerning the "focus of attention" (Adam or Eve) and the primary goal of the focused actor (the gate or the other actor). On the operator's command the computer makes written comments on the development happening om the monitor screen. (The present version of COMMENTATOR comments in Swedish but it Isintended to use the same set of abstract semantic presications "percieved" by COMMENTATOR for production in several languages, all according to the operator's choice. As COMMENTATOR is a research tool, it does not use any ready-made sentences describing foreseeable si­ tuations .) 1. The system works roughly as follows: From the primary informa­ tion (the coordinates of the gate and the two actors) some more complex values are derived (distances, relations "to left", to right" etc). Then the topics and their "goals" are determined. After that the conditions are tested for the use of the abstract predicates in the given situation-the so-called question menu. This results in positive or negative abstract propositions. The abstract sentence constituents are ordered as subjects, predicates, and objects. Connective elements are added if possible. These connect the last propositions to the previous ones, i.e. conjuc-tlons or connective adverbs are Inserted in the proposition. The use of proper names, pronouns, or other NPs is chosen on the basis of reference relations to the preceding proposition. The abstract propositions are substituted by surface phrases and words. The assembled structure is printed. When the whole repertoir of comments is exhausted, a new situation is generated on the screen and the process is repeated. (For a more extensive description of the program and one version of the program Itself see …