Potential applications of relational frame theory to natural language systems

The task of achieving competent artificial natural language systems is enormous. Advances in hardware and the structural analysis of verbalizations have outpaced theories of language and cognition. Functional contextualism, a behavioral approach in psychology, has seen the rise of relational frame theory, which offers an alternative conceptualization of language and cognition. This theory is based upon the notion of arbitrarily-applicable relational responding - defined by the properties of mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment and transformation of stimulus function. Empirical demonstrations of linguistic phenomena are described with practical examples. It is suggested that consideration of functional contextualism and relational frame theory may offer advantages to those working in the area of natural language processing.