Syntax: Results

These methods were tested using a series of three sentences which demonstrate the program's ability to learn new words and new sentence patterns. Initial information reads as below.

WordType
hasverb
hatnoun
mannoun

Test Sentences

Run 1Run 2Run 3

SentenceAnalysisKnowledge

"The man has a hat."

Limitations

With proper development this method could be used to learn many types of sentences. However, it still has several limitations. Although it is sufficient for simpler grammatical constructs, complicated words and patterns could cause confusion. In particular, words which have multiple meanings with different parts of speech would confuse the program tremendously, and at present it also has no way of connecting related words (such as plural or possessive forms of nouns).

In addition, this method requires carefully crafted training sentences. Although it can work with a minimum of initial information unlike most existing systems, it still has to learn the constructs somewhat sequentially and avoid having too many new concepts introduced at once. This could be partially remedied by implementing a method by which the program stores any sentences it does not yet have the tools to analyze to be recalled later, so that a more general text could be used as training material.