A database interface based on Montague's approachto the interpretation of natural language

Abstract

In this paper we describe a database interface that is loosely based upon some of theconcepts proposed by Richard Montague in his approach to the interpretation of natural language. The system is implemented as an executable attribute grammar specified in a higher order, lazy, pure functional programming language. The attribute grammar formalism provides a simple means of implementing Montague's notion of “semantic rule to syntactic rule correspondence” and the higher order functional language in which the attribute grammar is constructed provides an appropriate vehicle for implementing Montague's higher order semantics. The purpose of the paper is two-fold: (i) to demonstrate that many of Montague's ideas can be used to advantage in creating natural language interfaces to databases, and (ii) to introduce a method for implementing attribute grammars in functional languages that is suitable for investigating both grammars and semantic theories of language.