From: goudswaa@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter Goudswaard)
Subject: Re: Data and contractions
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 06:32:27 GMT

judson@watnxt2.ucr.edu (Michael Judson) writes:

>In article <goudswaa.717631178@sfu.ca> goudswaa@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter  
>Goudswaard) writes:

>> Any student of AI and natural language processing will tell you that
>> it's a simple matter to create contractions as output.  How about
>> something as simple as replacing "I am" with "I'm"?  It doesn't take
>> a genius to figure that one out.  Of course context has a lot to do
>> with it, but that's beside the point.  The fact is, it is very easy
>> to implement, and some layman at Paramount decided to give Data a few
>> machine-like characteristics.  Unfortunately, not being able to say
>> contractions was a wrong choice.

>I would tend to disagree with you.  It isn't just simply replacing "I am"
>with "I'm."  In one situation, "I am" would be a better choice, and in
>another situation, "I'm" would be a better choice.  As I said, it's a 
>matter of emotions that would decide.  How a poet reads his poetry depends
>on the mood of the poem.  If Data were to read a poem, I don't think it
>would come out right.  A poem sounds much different and conveys a different
>message when read in a certain manner.  And that is all an expression of
>emotions, which Data does not have.

Yet Data continually struggles to understand human emotion.  He paints,
has a pet (clearly an emotional experience), and plays the violin.  Was
he created with the ability to paint?  I doubt if Dr. Soong specifically
added a "paint" subroutine.  Data learned how to do it.  Just as he
should be able to learn how to use contractions.


>Yes, context does have a lot to do with it, but it is not beside the point.
>It is not so easy to implement.  Why did you say, "it's a simple matter..."
>and then go right on to say, "it is very easy..."  I would tend to think

...because I *learned* how to do it.  Is Data not capable of learning?
If he is a sentient life-form, he would be a pretty shallow one if he
could not learn.

>that your choice of the use of a contraction in the first instance was a
>good choice, and that of not contracting in the second instance was as
>equally a good choice.  The sentences flow better with the contraction in
>one and the absence of the contraction in the other.  But why would I think
>that?  Because it just sounds better.  Does Data know what sounds better?

Of course he does.  In many episodes, he attempts to use slang, and he
recognizes allusion, comedy, analogy, personification, rhetorical
questions, and puns, so you'd think that he should be able to learn
how to use contractions!

>I don't think so ("I do not think so" would not sound quite right (and
>"wouldn't sound quite right" would not sound right either).

-- 
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