Explanation-Based Learning of Indirect Speech Act Interpretation Rules

David Schulenburg 
schulenb@ics.uci.edu

Technical Report 94-21

Abstract:
We describe an approach to deriving efficient rules for interpreting the
intended meaning of indirect speech acts.  We have constructed a
system called Sally that starts with a few, very general principles
for  understanding the intention of the speaker of an utterance.
After inferring the intended meaning of a particular utterance, Sally
creates a specialized rule to understand directly  similar utterances
in the future.