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<Paper uid="H89-2009">
  <Title>ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS: PROCESSING MESSAGES AND QUERIES*</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="60" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
INTRODUCTION
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The application which we describe in this paper is a natural language interface to VOYAGER, an expert system which provides navigational assistance for the area between MIT and Harvard 1. The application is well-suited to exploring the role of natural language understanding in an interactive problem-solving context: the expert system knows enough about its domain to allow extended problem-solving dialogue, e.g. for a user to find a hotel near MIT, find a nearby Italian restaurant, and get directions from the hotel to the restaurant (see below).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Our ultimate goal is to process spoken input, and indeed, dialogue is, to use the terms of \[Bib88\], a stereotypically oral genre. A reasonable strategy for incrementally arriving at this goal is to begin with typed input. This approach allows us to explore general issues in handling dialogue, and further allows us to look at ways in which characteristics of the genre, aspects of the task, the informational structure of the utterance and the discourse context can all be used to limit the search space for spoken language recognition.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> The following dialogue illustrates a typical problem-solving session with VOYAGER (note: utterances labelled 'VFE' are contributed by the VOYAGER front-end, discussed shortly).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> User: Is there a hotel near MIT? VFE : I'll ask Voyager...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Vgr : Z can't determine if objects SLre near something.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> I'll try to find the nearest one.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> The nearest hotel to NIT is Marriott.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> Marriott is located at the intersection of Broadway Street and Third Street.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> User: Is there an Italian restaurant near the hotel7 VFE : I'll ask Voyager...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> Vsr : I can't determine if objects are nesL~ something.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> I'll try to find the nearest one.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> The nearest Italian RESTAURANT to Marriott is Bertucci's.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12">  Bertucci's is located at 799 Nain Street.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> User: Hoe do I get to the restaurant from the NazrPSott? VFE : I'll ask Voyager...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> Vgr: I'll try to find the best way to get from Ne~rriott to Bertucci'e. Sta~:t from Na~riott on Broadeay Street.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> PSfter you cross Cla~k Street, take the next left onto Windsor Street. There is a traffic light there.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="16"> PSfter you pass School Street on the right, take the next right onto Nain Street. There is a traffic light there.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> Bertucci's is about forty yards doen on youx right side.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> User: Hoe long would that take? (etc.)</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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