Adapting MUMBLE: Experience with Natural Language Generation

This paper describes the construction of a MUMBLE-based [McDonald 83b] tactical component for the TEXT text generation system [McKeown 85]. This new component, which produces fluent English sentences from the sequence of structured message units output from TEXT's strategic component, has produced a 60-fold speed-up in sentence production. Adapting MUMBLE required work on each of the three parts of the MUMBLE framework: the interpreter, the grammar, and the dictionary. It also provided some insight into the organization of the generation process and the consequences of MUMBLE's commitment to a deterministic model.