Natural Language Question-Answering Systems: 1969
Recent experiments in programming natural
language question-answering systems are reviewed
to summarize the methods that have been developed for syntactic, semantic,
and logical analysis of English strings.  It is concluded
that at least minimally effective techniques have been devised for
answering questions from natural language subsets in small scale
experimental systems and that a useful paradigm has evolved to guide
research efforts in the field.  Current approaches to semantic
analysis and logical inference are seen to be effective beginnings
but of questionable generality with respect either to subtle aspects of 
meaning or to applications over large subsets of English. 
Generalizing from current small-scale experiments to language-processing 
systems based on dictionaries with thousands of entries-with
correspondingly large grammars and semantic systems-may entail
a new order of complexity and require the invention and development
of entirely different approaches to semantic analysis and questions answering.
CACM January, 1970
Simmons, R. F.
