Tw'SNTYYEARSOFREF~C~S* 
~avind K. ~shi 
Department of Computer and Information Science 
R. 268 Moore School 
University of Pennsylvania 
Philadelphia, PA 19104 
As I was reflecting deeply in front of the 
statue of Bodhisattva of Gr~ and Wisdom in the 
University Muset~n, I was startled to see Jane. 
Having heard from Don that he had asked the old 
cats to reflect on the 20 years of ACL, Jane had 
decided that she should drop in on some of them 
to seek their advice concerning the future of ACL. 
*This work is supported by the unfunded grant FSN- 
RND-HIN-82-57. I wish to thank Alice, the Cheshire 
Puss, and Lewis Carroll for their help in the pre- 
paration of this paper. 
'~4hat brings you here?" I asked with a grin. 
Jane thought for a while and said: 
"Would you tell me, please, which way I 
ought to take ACL in the future?" 
"That depends a good deal on where you think 
it should go ~" I replied. 
"I don't much care where ,", said Jane. 
"Then it doesn't matter ~c~ way you take 
it," I said after prolonged reflection. 
" so long as I take it somewhere," Jane 
added as an explanation. 
"Oh, you are sure to do that," said I, "if 
you only parse long enough." 
Jane felt that this could not be denied, so 
just to be friendly she decided to ask another 
question: 
'"What sort of computational linguists live 
about here?" 
"Well ~ in that direction lives Bonnie," I 
said waving my right paw and waving the other paw, 
"and in that direction lives Barbara. Visit 
either you like:they're both mad." 
"But I don't want to go among mad people," 
Jane remarked. 
"Oh, you can't help that," said I, "we're all 
mad here. I ' m mad. You' re mad." 
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Jane. 
'~fou must be," said I, "or you wouldn't have 
come here." 
Jane didn't think that proved it at all. How- 
ever, she went on: "And how do you know that 
you're mad?" 
"Well, to begin with," said I, "Don is not 
mad. You grant that?" 
"I suppose so," said Jane. 
'"~ell, then," I went on, "Don is not mad and 
I am not Don. Therefore, I am mad." 
Jane didn't appear to be satisfied with this 
bit of catatonic logic (quite distinct from the 
monotonic logic). 
"I must go for a walk now and continue re- 
flecting," I said, as I left her, leaving my grin 
behind. 
102 
