An equipment model and its role in the interpretation of nominal compounds

For natural language understanding systems designed for domains including relatively complex equipment, it is not sufficient to use general knowledge about this equipment. We show problems which can be solved only if the system has access to a detailed equipment model. We discuss features of such models, in particular, their ability to simulate the equipment's behavior. As an illustration, we describe a simulation model for an air compressor. Finally, we demonstrate how to find referents in this model for nominal compounds.