Combining Depictorial and Propositional Inferences for Processing Spatial Expressions

Reasoning with Diagrammatic Representations

Volume

Reasoning with Diagrammatic Representations

Contents

In this paper we concentrate on natural language processing, especially on the spatial reasoning needed for the processing of localization facts. We argue that a purely propositional (rule-based) formalism is not adequate for doing this job, but that a hybrid formalism is necessary. In our case the word hybrid is used for a system combining a propositional and a depictorial subsystem. Two different alternatives for such a formalism are presented.