Sentence processing packets

  Although sentence processing is not a primary supertask, it does produce a specific output structure--the conceptual representation of the sentence being considered. Various types of sentences will need to be processed in specific fashions. The capability to do this is provided by the it sentence processing packets. These give sentence processing the capability of dealing with different low level structures. Questions, declarative sentences, quotations, and sentence fragments are examples of this type of packet which are included in the ISAAC model. When a particular type of sentence is recognized, the associated packet alters the processing of the supertask so as to best handle the incoming data, in the context of the current story. In short:

• Declarative packets do not alter normal processing.
• Question packets-external to the story generate the expectation of answering the question.
• Question packets-internal to the story are simply processed with an   anticipation generated that the answer should be provided by the story.
• Quotation packets generate the anticipation that the speaker will be identified, and the suggestion that other speakers are involved.
• Sentence fragment packets simply allow normal processing to occur; the level of change which would be necessary occurs solely within the COMPERE system used to implement portions of this supertask.

If a text contained only one type of sentence, such as all declarative sentences, this form of packet would be unnecessary. Since, however, real-world texts contain a variety of sentence types, these packets will allow the variety of forms to be handled.