ABSTRACT
Natural Language Processing (NLP1) is the branch of Artificial Intelligence concerned with enabling computers to talk like you and me, to understand what is said to them, to be able to conduct sensible conversations and even to translate into and out of foreign languages. When computers can understand what we mean when we speak or type something in English or in any other natural language, they will be much easier to use and will fit in more with our everyday lives. That is why, ever since Alan Turing first described, in 1950, what is now known as the Turing Test, this challenge has been widely regarded as the touchstone of AI. But the goal of having computers engage in intelligent conversation appears to be almost as elusive now as it was then.
