A parsing method and apparatus for symbolic expressions of thought such as English-language sentences is provided. The basic procedure distinguishes only between symbols for pictures (such as 'squirrel' or 'justice') and symbols for relations (such as 'above' or 'pushed'). For example, to the cognitive parser, the sentences 'The squirrel buried a nut' and 'My aunts sent a telegram' are equivalent. The parser thus operates at a level more basic than syntactic parsing, making it simpler. The illustrative embodiment, a cognitive parser for English sentences, comprises: a microprocessor (3), a stored lexicon (7) including symbols and associated entity-types (picture or relation), an input device (1) for a symbol sequence (2), and a procedure (4) executing on the microprocessor for grouping the inputted symbols according to the rules based on entity type. A method comprising operation of the cognitive parser is also provided.
METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PARSING NATURAL LANGUAGE SENTENCES AND OTHER SEQUENTIAL SYMBOLIC EXPRESSIONS