ABSTRACT

The Athena Language Learning Project (ALLP) is described in broad view in the chapter by Murray (this volume). The current chapter focuses on the natural language processing (NLP) system developed for the ALLP and in particular, the computational details of the NLP and conclusions reached in the course of its development (further details appear in Felshin, 1993; Malone & Felshin, 1991). Murray gives an overview of the NLP system, including a schematic diagram of its components (Figure 13.2), and these will be expanded here. Extensive work on the NLP in several languages has produced a system that works very well as a prototype but is not sufficiently reliable as a delivery system, largely in the syntactic recognition of students' input. Therefore, although the ALLP has developed a small number of prototypes of NLP applications-such as the LINGO microworld described by Murray-these remain experimental and have not been readied for users.