Interpreting semi-formal utterances in dialogs about mathematical proofs

  • Authors:
  • Helmut Horacek;Magdalena Wolska

  • Affiliations:
  • Fachrichtung Informatik, Universität des Saarlandes, Postfach, Saarbrücken, Germany;Fachrichtung Allgemeine Linguistik, Universität des Saarlandes, Postfach, Saarbrücken, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Data & Knowledge Engineering - Special issue: Application of natural language to information systems (NLDB04)
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Dialogs in formal domains, such as mathematics, are characterized by a mixture of telegraphic natural language text and embedded formal expressions. Analysis methods for this kind of setting are rare and require empirical justification due to a notorious lack of data, as opposed to the richness of presentations found in genre-specific textbooks. In this paper, we focus on interpretation techniques for major phenomena observed in a recently collected corpus of tutorial dialogs on proving mathematical theorems. We combine analysis techniques for mathematical formulas and for natural language expressions, supported by knowledge about domain-relevant lexical semantics and by representations relating informal vocabulary to precise domain terms. Interpreting these expressions in a competent manner is not only important for the use in tutorial systems, but also for supporting domain experts through improving the accessibility and usability of formal systems.