The precise handling of qualitative relationships

The Transtaxor is a computer program which correlates a given problem definition or overall strategy, expressed as a general input syntax, with a given set of circumstances, expressed as a specific input “situation string” to produce an output formula or course of action. The transtaxor is written once for a given computer and thereafter becomes applicable to any problem which can be expressed in terms of a syntax. In order to extend the methodology to a wide variety of problems which can be expressed qualitatively, the usual syntax definitions have been extended to provide for the inclusion of relations, the division of the syntax into levels, and the paralleling of these levels through “developable agendums”. A simple but powerful “transcribing language” incorporates the “action-directing language” into the processing. The concept of “delineation” facilitates the generation of the basic parts, which are developed by the transtaxor, with the aid of a list-processing language, into progressively higher levels of the syntax until the final goal is produced. Examples are given of the application of the methodology to automatic-programming-language translation and information retrieval.