Visions for Logic-Based Natural Language Processing

The purpose of this paper is to outline the requirements that the eld of Natural Language Processing (NLP) has for a declarative successor to Prolog. Logic programming approaches play a major role in NLP, and likewise considerations of NLP have had a strong in uence on logic programming ([Colmerauer, 1978], [Pereira and Warren, 1980], [Smolka, 1992]). We will review the state of the art in NL grammar formalisms and processing algorithms in the logic programming paradigm, from the perspective of research in grammatical theory (Computational Linguistics) and from the perspective of applied NLP (Language Engineering). The relationship to Prolog and to current developments in (C)LP will be discussed. We will outline the requirements for a logic programming language that will both support the current practice in NLP and provide a platform which can accommodate future research results.