Formulierungsb

Formulierungsb is a term encountered in some linguistic and natural language generation (NLG) literature to denote a notional stage in the process of converting conceptual representations into natural language text. It is not a standardized term across the field, and its exact meaning varies by author. In many accounts, Formulierungsb refers to the formulation or realization module that takes a semantic representation and produces a surface form, often by selecting a syntactic template, applying agreement, and handling basic morphology. The term likely derives from Formulierung, the German word for formulation, with the suffix b used as a shorthand in some notational conventions.

Role and scope: Formulierungsb is used to distinguish the formulation stage from earlier planning, such as semantic or communicative planning, and from later stages of morphological realization and surface realization. In modular NLG architectures, it may correspond to the component that maps meaning representations to linguistic strings while respecting discourse constraints, style guidelines, and context. The concept is often discussed in relation to interfaces between semantic representations and syntactic realization.

Examples: Given a semantic input such as agent: "Alice", action: "give", theme: "the book", Formulierungsb would generate a surface sentence like "Alice gives the book." In multilingual systems, different realization strategies within Formulierungsb may produce language-specific word orders or agreeing forms.

Status and critique: Formulierungsb is a niche label and is not universally used, which can cause confusion with other formulation-related terms. Some authors prefer explicit names like "formulation module" or "surface realization component" to improve clarity.

See also: Natural language generation, semantics-to-syntax mapping, surface realization, language generation pipeline.