The IBM project LILOG presented in this volume represents a
fundamental stepbeyond computer science as hitherto
understood. It was a successful project in every respect and
has shed light on conjectured basic interrelations between
knowledge processing and language definition. Knowledge
processing is strongly coupled to the natural language used,
and for applied knowledge processing an information base is
neededwhich defines the semantic contents and
interrelations of the language.
The LILOG project was an implementation of an information
basein the German language. A set of tools was also
developed to work with the system, including structured
man-machine interfaces using natural language, inference
algorithms, and a complete subsystem to acquire and store
the required knowledge.
The LILOG project started in 1985 and a functional system
was demonstrated in 1991. The project involved approximately
200 of the scientists working in Germany in the fields of
computational linguistics, natural language understanding
systems, and artificial intelligence. The project proves
that a cooperative project between universities and industry
can produce useful results both in pure research and in
implemented methods and tools.