Kantian Computational Linguistics

Language is a defining characteristic of higher order species-particularly of us, homo sapiens. For that reason, it is only appropriate to conclude that linguistic capability-the ability to understand and generate natural language-is essential in any tools that we build for cognitive assistance. Fast and superior automated solutions exist in most other competencies, including numeracy and vision, but parity in linguistic skills remains elusive [1] for many reasons. In this chapter, we seek to identify why we find ourselves here and propose an alternative approach to overcome identified deficiencies. We do not know yet if this approach is useful or effective, but we proceed to share our thoughts because the biggest risk is doing nothing. First, we review seminal work on linguistics and the structure of language. We then examine the most popular contemporary solutions, identify their drawbacks and propose alternatives to address them.