Reasoning over explicit readings of language

Protasis is a research project to build an AI whose answers rest on evidence and argument. Every language is mapped into one shared structure, with connotation kept as a separate layer. Language models read and write the text; a logic core holds what is known and reasons over it in explicit steps that a person can follow. How likely something is, and how far a vague word applies, are represented rather than hidden.

The system is meant neither to agree in order to please nor to disagree because it is asked to.

“Mary had a little lamb.”

1Mary owned a small young sheep.likely
2Mary ate a little lamb.less likely
3Mary gave birth to a little lamb.most unlikely

Figure 1. The readings of one sentence and their weights. Lower-weighted readings are kept, so reading 3 stays.

1Reading a sentence

Every sentence, in every language, is read in the same three steps.

1.1 Structure

The language’s patterns produce every reading its words allow, each written in the shared structure.

1.2 Weighting

Context weights those readings: word order, the surrounding words and the situation. Lower-weighted readings are kept, not discarded.

1.3 Reasoning

The logic core follows a chain of sentences for each meaning of the first, and only then decides which meaning is most likely. A chain that leads to a contradiction gives way to the others.

Said	Chain 1: it is cooked	Chain 2: it is hungry
“The chicken is ready to eat.”	The chicken is cooked.	The chicken is hungry.
“It is pecking at the corn.”	Contradiction: the chicken is alive (it is pecking) and not alive (it is cooked).	A hungry chicken is pecking at the corn. No contradiction.
“Who is going to eat?”	Not followed: the chain already holds a contradiction.	The chicken.
Result	Ends in a contradiction.	Holds together: the chicken is hungry, and it is going to eat.

Figure 2. One chain for each meaning of the first sentence. The chain for “it is cooked” ends in a contradiction, so the first sentence most likely means that the chicken is hungry.

2One structure for every language

Every language is mapped into one shared structure, and connotation is kept as a separate, formalised layer.

EnglishThe man came and saw the woman

BasqueGizona etorri zen eta emakumea ikusi zuen

Ancient Greekὁ ἀνὴρ ἦλθε καὶ εἶδε τὴν γυναῖκα

happening 1: arriving    who: the man
happening 2: seeing      seer: the man    seen: the woman
order: 1 before 2        (weighted reading, high)

Figure 3. Three sentences, one main reading.

3Principles

Nothing is guessed

All possible interpretations are examined.

Every step can be checked

Each answer is given with the chain of steps behind it and how sure the system is.

Contested questions

Where a question is contested, each view is stated as its holders would state it, with who holds it and what follows from it.

No appeal to authority

A position is not repeated because a source or the model’s training asserts it, and a view is not refused or softened because it has been called controversial.

4The name

In Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (24a16), a protasis is a sentence that affirms or denies one thing of another. The word comes from προτείνω, to put forward.

πρότασις