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The problem of computerized question-answering is considered from the point of view of relational logic. Three aspects of the problem are defined and interrelated — transforming natural-language questions into symbolic questions (retrieval prescriptions), structuring the file, and calculating value sets (answering the question). An experimental program for automatically producing symbolic questions is explained. Finally, the problem of calculating value sets is discussed. A key issue here is the identification of questions that are "unreasonable." It is shown that a logical characterization of permissible input queries is possible and that this characterization can be expressed in terms of machine-recognizable sufficient conditions.
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