Volume 2, Number 2, 145-174, DOI: 10.1007/BF00704455

Why does language matter to artificial intelligence?

Marcelo Dascal

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Abstract

Artificial intelligence, conceived either as an attempt to provide models of human cognition or as the development of programs able to perform lsquointelligentrsquo tasks, is primarily interested in theuses of language. It should be concerned, therefore, withpragmatics. But its concern with pragmatics should not be restricted to the narrow, traditional conception of pragmatics as the theory of communication (or of the social uses of language). In addition to that, AI should take into account also the lsquomentalrsquo uses of language (in reasoning, for example) and the lsquoexistentialrsquo dimensions of language as a determiner of the world we (and our computers) live in. In this paper, the relevance of these three branches of pragmatics-sociopragmatics, psychopragmatics, and ontopragmatics-for AI are explored.

Key words  AI, pragmatics - ontopragmatics - sociopragmatics - psychopragmatics - Turing Test - interpretation - reasoning - humor - meaning - context - dream - mind - language

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