gsp@ulysses.UUCP (Gary Perlman) (06/23/84)
The April issue of the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies has an article called: Natural artificial languages: low level processes Although rather long (47 pages), it has something to please everyone: theory, data, application. I highly recommnend it. I wrote it. Get your reprints while they're hot: Gary Perlman BTL MH 5D-105 (201) 582-3624 ulysses!gsp AT&T Bell Labs 5D-105 600 Mountain Ave. Murray Hill, NJ 07974 (201) 582-3624 uucp: ulysses!gsp sdcsla!perlman ABSTRACT An artificial language is one created for concise and precise communication within a limited domain such as mathematics. A natural artificial langguage is one that people find easy to learn and use. I discuss low level properties of natural artificial languages, especially those in which names are chosen for concepts, and symbols are chosen for names, a class of languages I call linguistically mediated artificial languages. These propoerties include choosing mnemonic symbols for names, and suggestive names for concepts, and using internally and externally consistent syntax. I outline a model of processing linguistically mediated artificial language and present results from experiments in support of the model. The results of the experiments are applied to the design of a user interface (MENUNIX) to a programming system (UNIX), demonstrating their practicality along with their theoretical interest. The research shows the trade-offs in designing natral artificial languages: naturalness in a specific domain is gained at the cost of generality for other domains.