A frame system model of the representation of knowledge for understanding natural language

A model for the representation of knowledge is described. It was developed in the domain of teaching a student how to draw simple figures on a graphic terminal's screen. The student should not need to know anything about computers or graphics and should interact with the computer using a subset of English. The model was designed to represent the knowledge needed to understand sentences encountered in this domain. The model is based on the ideas in Minsky's frame systems, Hewitt's actor formalism and semantic network theory. The basic components of the model and how they are used to represent knowledge is presented. A detailed example is described, giving some details of how the system performs inferences and how it responds to various inputs. Finally some conclusions are drawn about the design of this representation for knowledge.Science, Faculty ofComputer Science, Department ofGraduat