Formal interpretation of HAIKU and its application to communication interface

Abstract

In this paper we propose a method of formal interpretation of HAIKU, based on the concept of functional grammar. HAIKU is a typical Japanese simple sentence that can represent a fruitful message in a very short concise form of 5-7-5 letters. HAIKU-like simple writing style is now spreading all over the world. The most remarkable feature of Haiku is a fragmental alignment of keywords, which often transcends the ordinary sentence composing grammar. Thus HAIKU can be a good baseline for international communication interface. Foreign people can communicate each other without annoying about the language-dependent grammar. Just by arranging the keywords, people can transfer his (or her) message to other foreign people. In order to understand the meaning of HAIKU-like simple sentence, we propose a formal interpretation method based on a functional grammar. The essential components of functional grammar are kernel sentence and meta-sentence. Meta-sentence can be viewed as a sentence structuring operator, while kernel sentence is viewed as a simple structured, mono-predicate sentence. We will show typical examples of meta-sentences obtained from HAIKU. We also show the examples of Haiku-sentences in Chinese and English.