Concurrent Parsing in Programmable Logic Array (PLA-) Nets Problems and Proposals

CONCURRENT PARSING IN PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC ARRAY (PLA-) NETS PROBLEMS AND PROPOSALS Helmut Schnelle RUHR-Universit~t Bochum Sp~achwissenschaftliches Institut D-4630 Bochum 1 West-Germany ABSTRACT This contribution attempts a conceptual and practical introduction into the principles of wiring or constructing special machines for lan- guage processing tasks instead of programming a universal machine. Construction would in princi- ple provide higher descriptive adequacy in com- putationally based linguistics. After all, our heads do not apply programs on stored symbol arrays but are appropriately wired for under- standing or producing language. Introductor~ Remarks i. For me, computational linguistics is not primarily a technical discipline implementing performance processes for independently defined formal structures of linguistic competence. Computational linguistics should be a foundatio- nal discipline: It should be related to process- oriented linguistics as the theory of logical calculi is to formal linguistics (e.g. genera- tive linguistics, Montague-grammars etc.). 2. As it stands, computational linguistics does not yet meet the requirements for a founda- tional discipline. Searle's arguments against the claims of artificial intelligence apply fully to computational linguistics: Programmed solutions of tasks may execute the task satisfactorily with- out giving a model of its execution in the orga- nism. Our intentional linguistic acts are caused by and realized in complicated concurrent pro- cesses occcurring in networks of neurons and are experienced as spontaneous. This also applies to special cases such as the recognition of syntac- tic structure (parsing). These processes are not controlled and executed by central processor units. 3. Computational linguistics must meet the challenge to satisfy the double criterion of des- criptive adequacy: Adequacy in the description of what human beings do (e.g. parsing) and adequacy in the description of ho__~w they do it (namely by spontaneous concurrent processes corresponding to unconscious intuitive understanding). It must try to meet the challenge to provide the foundations for a descriptively and explanatorily adequate process-oriented linguistic, even when it is clear that the presently available conceptual means for describing complicated concurrent processes - mainly the elements of computer architecture - are far less understood than programming theory and programming technique. 4. Note: It does not stand to question that there is any problem which, in principle, could not be solved by programming. It is simply the case that almost all solutions are descriptively inadequate for representing and understanding what goes on in human beings even where they pro- vide an adequate representation of input - output relations - and would thus pass Turing's test. 5. In my opinion, the main features to be rea- lized in more adequate computational systems are - concurrency of localized operations (in- stead of centrally controlled sequential processes), and - signal processing (instead of symbol manipu- lation). These features cannot be represented by a program on an ordinary von Neumann machine since this type of machine is by definition a sequential,cen- trally controlled symbol manipulator. This does not exclude that programs may simulate concurrent processes. For instance, programs for testing gate array designs are of this kind. But simu- lating programs must …

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