Preference semantics

This dissertation describes a computational system for the analysis of English prose under the Preference Semantics theory of language understanding. The two main areas of investigation are these: (1) the design and implementation of a series of programs for extracting semantic information from a machine-readable dictionary, with this semantic information in a form suitable for use by a subsequent semantic analysis program, and (2) the design and implementation of a semantic analysis program that accepts short English texts and creates a corresponding representation from them. The resulting representation is in a suitable form, such that other Artificial Intelligence programs can use it as a knowledge source.