Eliciting Entailment

Interactive construct elicitetion systems may be seen on the one hand as tools for self-realization and construct development and on th~ other as dialectic database systems in which ~hc entire data structure is built up through a process of question, answer and discussion. Current computer-based construct elicitation programs use distance-based measures to feed back construct similarities and to perform cluster analysis, This paper describes new techniques for inferring the entailment structure between constructs. It gives an example of the application of this technique embodied in the computer program ENTAIL. It throws new light upon the role of the oppposite, rather than the negation. in construct theory, logic and dialectics. It is one in a series of papers on fuzzy set semantics for personal constructs.