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<Paper uid="C88-1055">
  <Title>Concretion: Assumption-Based Understanding</Title>
  <Section position="5" start_page="272" end_page="273" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Summary and Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Even within a specialized domain, a semantic interpreter must produce a meaning representation that is more specific than is necessarily implied by the linguistic input. This means that the underst,'mding program must choose among a broad range of potentiM word senses, making it impractical to treat each as completely distinct. A better method is to make assumptions about the meaning of the input and proceed with processing fl'om these assumptions. A major problem for the system is to select assumptions that m'e suggested by the input and to correct these assumptions elegantly in the event of conflicting information.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> CONCRETION is the assumption-based part of semantic interpretation. The concretion mechanism described here selects the most specific concept triggered by the input, fills out the roles of this concept based on a variety of linguistic and conceptual information, and keeps track of the assumptions  upon which the concept is dependent. If a contradiction is found, either in filling out the roles or in later stages of maderstanding, the system is able to use these dependencies to correeL the interpretation without excessive processing. This assmnption-based model Mlows processing of speeia.lized interprorations while permitting easy correction of assumptions that prove invalid.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>