All utterance (apart from a few) initially map onto 'i don't understand.' The interpretation of utterances can be progammed into Enguage in two ways, as:
- a traditional written program albeit without any syntax; or,
- a spoken instruction .
Either way the interpretation is stored in a file on disk, in the following format:
On "utterence pattern"; do this; reply "ok, this is done"; if not, do that; reply "sorry, that is done"; if not, do the other; reply "ok, we're done".
So this interpretation links the 'utterance pattern' to one of the replies: 'ok, this is done'; 'sorry, that is done'; or, 'ok, we're done'.
The felicity is passed back as is any answer represented by an elipsis or the word 'whatever' is a spoken instruction, as in 'reply "my age is whatever".'