Causal and Enablement Information

Ehrlich's algorithm attempts to find the consequences and effects of actions.

Ant/CQ and &Ant/CQ

Most of Ehrlich's examples make use of the following to determine the results (consequences) of actions. The algorithm searches ant or &ant arcs for instances of the verb in question and then it backtracks to find the accompanying cq arcs. Whatever is at the end of the cq arc is considered a consequence of the action taking place.

The algorithm would search on the path:

(CQ- ! ANT ACT LEX)

Here is an example of what the algorithm hopes to achieve by searching for consequences:

The consequence (hopefully) is a set of steps that depicts what the action is actually doing.

Cause & Effect

Similar to the action/effect case frame. Ehrlich searches on the following path,

(Effect- Cause Act lex)

where Act is the verb in question and Effect is a result of the verb.

Suppose the following propositions exist:

John runs from home to school beginning at timeT0 and ending at time T1 = M1

John is at school at time T1 = M2

and both propositions are part of the following proposition:

(M3 (Cause (M1)) (Effect(M2))

The algorithm would classify M2 as an result (consequence) of the action taking place. Here it would list "John is at school at time T1" as a consequence of the verb "run".

Enablement

The algorithm searches certain paths to find which acts or conditions are enabled by an action having taken place.