The Construction of a Pun
Generator for Language Skills
Development
Humor Generation
SoSe 2010
Lourdes Lara Tapia
Overview
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Introduction.
Early pun generators.
JAPE.
STANDUP.
STANDUP in the Praxis.
Evaluation
Conclusion.
References.
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Introduction
 What is a Pun Generator?
 A pun Generator is a Computer Program which
generates jokes.
 What is a Joke?
 It is a short text which provoke laughter.
 A joke has normally a Punchline.
 There are different kind of Jokes:
 Punning riddles
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Introduction
 A punning riddle is a simple question-answer
joke in which the answer makes a play on
words:
 What do you call a good bye that has a tooth?
 A saw long.
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Introduction
 What kind of ambiguity is used here?
Phonetic similarity
Semantic relation
 What do you call a good bye that has a tooth?
Synonym
 A saw long.
Meronym
Homophone
 A So long
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Early pun generators
 Raskin (1985):
 Incongruity Theory.
 Lesard & Levison (1992):
 VINCI: Tom Swift
 “we must hurry”, said Tom Swiftly.
 “I hate Math”, Tom added
 Binsted & Ritchie (1994):
 JAPE:
 Punning riddle uses phonological and semantical ambiguity
 Used a large lexicon (WordNet)
 Properly controlled evaluation of the output was carried out.
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Early pun generators
 Venour (1999):
 The Homonym Common Phrase Pun (HCPP).
 A one-sentence set-up &
 A punning punchline.
 Mechanismus are similar to those used in JAPE
 McKay (2002):
 WISCRAIC:
 Simple puns in 3-different linguistic forms:
 Question-answer, single and two-sentences sequence.
 Support 2nd-language learning
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Early pun generators
 Nijholt (2003):
 Communication with machines.
 Stock et al. (2005):
 HAHAcronym:
 Acronym  funny concepts
 Concept  funny Acronym
 Mihalcea & Strapparava (2006):
 Techniques to humor recognition:
 Humurous and non-humorous.
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JAPE
 Joke Analysis and Production Engine.
 What is JAPE?
 Computer Program
 In Prolog by Binsted in 1994.
 Several Version
 JAPE-1 (pilot version) & JAPE2
 JAPE-3 & JAPE-4 (more flexible dictionary module)
  STANDUP in 2008.
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JAPE
 JAPE produced short texts
 punning
riddles:
 What is the difference between a pretty glove and a
silent cat?
 One is a cute mitten, the other is a mute kitten.
 The Jokes were reliably distinguished from Non-
Jokes.
 The best of these were published in joke books
for children.
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JAPE
 The three main strategies used to create
phonological ambiguity:
 syllable substitution,
 word substitution &
 Metathesis
 Joke-construction mechanisms.
 Very similar to those in STANDUP
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JAPE
 Deficiencies:
 Few parameters available for variation.
 There was no way to guide the software.
 No real user interface.
 The search for suitable words could be slow,
unintelligent and exhaustive.
 Good intelligible jokes was very small.
 No facilities to compare words for phonological or
semantically ambiguity.
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STANDUP
 System To Augment Non-speakers Dialogue Using
Puns.
 This Program is aimed at young children, and lets them
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play with words and phrases by building punning riddles
through a simple interactive user-interface.
Allow young children to explore the language.
Children with Complex Communication Needs (CNN).
Punning riddle.
“Language playground”
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STANDUP
Schema
Description Rules
Templates
Phrasal
Question or
Answer
Header
Lexical Precondition
Header
Question Spec.
Answer Spec.
Preconditions
Header
Template Spec.
Body
Keywords
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Fig. http://www2.hawaii.edu/~bergen/papers/humor-IEEE.pdf
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STANDUP
 What do you call a shout with a window?
 A computer scream.
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STANDUP
11 Schema
(kind of joke)
Description Rules
Templates
Lexical Precondition:
Header:
Newelan2(NP,A,B,HomB)
Nouncomp(NP,A,B),
Homoph(B,HomB),
Noun(HomB)
Question Spec.:
Answer Spec.:
{Shareprop (NP,HomB)}
{phrase (A,HomB)}
Header:
Shareprop {X,Y}
Preconditions:
Meronym(X,MerX),
Syn(Y,SynY)
Keywords:
Template Spec.:
[NP,HomB]
[merHyp, MerX, SynY]
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Phrasal (finish touches)
Question (What is the diff…?)
Answer (They’re both…)
Humor Generation
Header
Body
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STANDUP
11 Schema
(kind of joke)
Description Rules
Templates
Header:
Lexical Precondition:
Header:
Newelan2(NP:computer screen,
A: computer,
B: screen,
HomB: scream)
Nouncomp(NP,A,B),
Homoph(B,HomB),
Noun(HomB)
Shareprop
{computer screen,
scream}
Question Spec.:
{Shareprop (computer screen,
scream)}
Preconditions:
Answer Spec.:
{phrase (computer, scream)}
Meronym(computer screen, window),
Syn(scream, shout)
Keywords:
Template Spec.:
[NP,HomB]
[merSyn, window, shout]
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Phrasal (finish touches)
Question
Question (What
is the diff…?)
What do you call a shout with a window?
Answer (They’re both…)
Humor Generation
Header
A shout with
a window
[merSyn,
window,
shout]
Body
Body
What do you call a
NP(shout) with a
NP(X,Y)
NP(window)
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STANDUP-Lexicon
 WordNet as JAPE +
 Phonetic similarity.
 Speech Output.
 Picture Support.
 Topics.
 Familiarity of words.
 Vocabulary restriction.
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STANDUP-Facilities
 Joke telling:
 VOCA: Voice-Output Communication Aid.
 assists people who are unable to use natural speech to express
their needs and exchange information with other people during a
conversation.
 User Profiles:
 Username.
 Two kind of data:
 Option settings.
 Personal Data.
 Standard Package:
 Beginner
 Touchscreen-user.
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STANDUP-Facilities
 Logging:
 Logged in a Disc file:
 Allows researchers to study usage as required.
 Log player
 Dump the simulated re-runs into a video file.
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STANDUP-Software
 ..\STANDUP Simple.bat
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STANDUP-Evaluation
 Evaluate the effectiveness of the software.
 No ambitious but qualitative study.
 A group of 9 children (8-12years old) with cerebral palsy.
 Scholars used the software spontaneously,
 Found the “Tell the jokes-function” amazing and
 Re-told the jokes afterwards.
 8 children reacted very positively
 1 of the older boys complained about the quality of the Jokes.
 Anecdotal evidence: Children’s communication had
improved.
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STANDUP-Evaluation
 In the post-testing:
 The Preschool and Primary Inventory of
Phonological Awareness, PIPA, showed no sign
of improved.
 Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals,
CELF, only the older boy, who complained,
showed no sign of improved.
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Conclusion
 Humor is one of the most sophisticated forms
of human intelligence.
 On the cognitive side humor has two very
important properties:
 it helps getting and keeping people’s attention.
 it helps remembering.
 On the artificial intelligence side
computational humor is a challenge with
implications for many classical fields.
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Conclusion
 The development of all its facets is not
something for the near future, the
phenomena are too complex.
 Simple puns, at least, can be modelled
formally, and can be generated by a program.
 The software is definitely usable for a
practical application by children with
communication disabilities to develop their
linguistic skills.
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Discussion
 Questions
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 Opinion or
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 Comments
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Thank you for your attention
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References
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Binsted, K. 1996. Machine humour: An implemented model of puns. Ph. D. thesis,
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Binsted, K., H. Pain, and G. Ritchie. 1997. Children's evaluation of computer generated
punning riddles. Pragmatics and Cognition 5 (2), 305-354.
Manurung, R., G. Ritchie, H. Pain, A. Waller, D. O'Mara, R. Black (2008). The construction
of a pun generator for language skills development. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 22(9) pp.
841-869.
Ritchie, G. 2001. Current directions in computational humour. Artificial Intelligence Review
16 (2), 119-135.
Ritchie, G. 2003. The JAPE riddle generator: technical specification. Informatics Research
Report EDI-INF-RR-0158, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh.
Stock, O. and C. Strapparava. 2003. HAHAcronym: Humorous agents for humorous
acronyms. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 16 (3), 297-314.
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~gritchie/
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/research/standup/software.php
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/research/standup/downloads/UserManual.html
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