In message <[log in to unmask]>, Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>
writes
>joe andress wrote:
>
>> FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY LANGUAGE:
>
>> Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
>
>Although most of your statements would fall into the same category, the
>above statement has been cited as a classic example of the problem with
>language recognition by a computer (well, not just recognition, but a
>semantic understanding).  Google turns up a boatload of references, but
>I think it was Chomsky that first used this example.  Simple language
>recognition accomplished, what does this mean semantically?
>
>Time (noun) flies (verb) like (prep.phrase) an arrow (noun).
>
>Time (adj) flies (noun) like (verb) an arrow (dir object).
>
>Time (imperative verb) flies (dir obj) like (prep.phrase) an arrow.
>
>(My English breakdown may be the fault of years of neglect).
>
>Language recognition (as in current DragonSpeak or other software) has
>come a long way with recognition and even some semantics, or more
>accurately "context" to differentiate hominems (two, too, to) but there
homonyms...
>is much ground left to cover before we achieve semantic language
>recognition, e.g., Star Trek computer responding to verbal commands.
>
>Jeff

I devised two more examples in the same vein which parse in yet two
further ways, and which Chomsky (for it was he) inexplicably missed....

Kill flies like the bluebottle.

Kill flies like a maniac.

Again the imperative verb, noun and prep. phrase, of your last example
above, but note how 'like' is, respectively:

'as you would'
'resembling'    and
'as if you were'

As in a currently popular book: why is a man like a panda?

Because he eats roots shoots and leaves...
--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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