A Text Generation System For Explaining Concepts In Geometry

The p r o j e c t n o t e p r e s e n t s t h e c o m p u t e r p rog ram GECO (GEometry C O n s u l t e r ) , wh i ch g e n e r a t e s e x p l a n a t i o n s ( d e s c r i p t i o n s ) o f g e o m e t r i c a l c o n c e p t s i n B u l g a r i a n . Ti le p rog ram r e p l i e s t o q u e s t i o t ~ s such as "What i s X" , "Compare X and Y ' , where X and Y a r e c o n c e p t s i n g e o m e t r y . The i d e a to design GECO was i n i t i a l l y inspired by [ H c K e o w n , 1 9 8 5 ] , which gives information on missiles° However, un l ike TEXT, our system is able to give two types of descr ipt ions : deta i led and b r i e f . For instance, i f we ask "What i s a t r i a n g l e " , GECO gives a deta i led descr ip t ion, including d e f i n i t i o n , the cha rac te r i s t i c and non~ cha rac te r i s t i c features of the t r i ang le , but i f we ask once again wi th in a dialogue the same question, the program remind~ us shortly the definition of the concept triangle. This is done by means of a special stack, which keeps a formalized dialogue h is to ry . As in normal human d i a l o g u e , the Systems r e p l i e s t o a r e p e a t e d question in past tense (this is specific at least o f B u l g a r i a n ) . Here i s a " r e c o r d e d " d i a l o g u e be tween u s e r and GECO: