RE: 'semantic' processing processes whitespace exactly as speech recognition does (else not semantic)

Al,

I will raise the whitespace issue with the WG this week.  To be honest,
I need to look through some fairly old notes to recreate the reasoning for
the decision!

Regards,
  Andrew Hunt

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-voice-request@w3.org [mailto:www-voice-request@w3.org]On
> Behalf Of Al Gilman
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 5:31 PM
> To: www-voice@w3.org
> Subject: 'semantic' processing processes whitespace exactly as speech
> recognition does (else not semantic)
>
>
>
> In the specification there is a remark to the effect
>
> -- quote
>
>    A future draft of this specification will define semantic processing
>    behavior. It is expected that white-space will be preserved in
>    semantic results.
>
> -- end quote
>
> No.  Don't even think about it.
>
> The web must not speak with a forked tongue. 
>
> There has to be _one_ semantic model for whitespace in token declarations in
> speech recognition grammars.  Or there is none.
>
> The speech processing semantics is that leading and trailing whitespace is not
> there, and contiguous sections of whitespace in the interior [that is to say
> appearing with non-whitespace both before and after it] is recognized at the
> "any whitespace is the same as any other whitespace" level of abstraction.
>
> That's the speech recognition behavior, that's the grammar language
> semantics. 
> Point, paragraph, end of story.
>
> Processing that recognizes other distinctions is not 'semantic,' it is
> _amplifying noise_.
>
> I can't scream this loud enough.  The semantics of a grammar encoded in this
> language is how it recognizes speech.  That's all that will ever be checked,
> that's all one can reasonably expect to count on. 
>
> Al
>
> Standard 'personal opinion' disclaimer applies.  But I can explain [start with
> XMLGL, see previous message] why the 'disability interest' does care about the
> semantic integrity of our technology.
>

Received on Monday, 3 September 2001 19:31:17 UTC