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This paper defines the structure of a semantic network for use in representing discourse and lexical meanings. The structure is designed to represent underlying semantic meanings that, with a lexicon and a grammar, can generate natural-language sentences in a linguistically justifiable manner. The semantics of natural English can be defined as a system of conditions and transformations applied to syntactic constituents to map them into semantic structures. A semantic structure for a statement is defined as a system of unambiguous representations of meaning interconnected by defined logical relations. The author feels that a semantic representation should probably be completely free of its natural-language representation. The correspondence between semantic structure and natural-language representation should reside wholly in the grammar and the lexicon. Specific details and examples of the semantic network operation are described. Illustrations of lexical structures are provided, and references are included. For additional information, see FL 002 345. (Author/VM)

The system described in this report is designed for use as a computational tool that allows a linguist to develop and study methods for generating surface strings from an underlying semantic structure. Initial findings with regard to form-determiners (such as voice, form, tense, and mood), some rules for embedding sentences, and some attention to pronominational substitution are reported. The report discusses how a particular semantic network can be used in conjunction with a grammar to generate sequences of coherent English sentences. The paper first outlines the form of the grammar and lexicon and describes a random generation algorithm that produces syntactically well-formed nonsense. It then shows how the semantic nets are used to control the ordering of grammar rules and lexical selections to generate meaningful discourse. There is also a section on some of the methods and rules for generating multi-sentence discourse. Special emphasis is given to the questions and problems that arise. A list of references is provided.For additional information, see FL 002 344. (Author/VM)