# How to make qubits speak

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06776 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06776/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Parameterized quantum circuits as machine learning models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07682/) (2019)
- [QNLP in Practice: Running Compositional Models of Meaning on a Quantum Computer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12846/) (2021)
- [Foundations for Near-Term Quantum Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03755/) (2020)
- [Quantum Natural Language Processing on Near-Term Quantum Computers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.04147/) (2020)
- [The Frobenius anatomy of word meanings I: subject and object relative pronouns](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1404.5278/) (2014)
- [Quantum Algorithms for Compositional Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.01406/) (2016)
- [The Mathematics of Text Structure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03478/) (2019)
- [Graph-theoretic Simplification of Quantum Circuits with the ZX-calculus](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.03178/) (2019)
- [Open System Categorical Quantum Semantics in Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00831/) (2015)
- [Compositional game theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.04641/) (2016)
- [Interacting Conceptual Spaces I : Grammatical Composition of Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08314/) (2017)
- [Modelling Lexical Ambiguity with Density Matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05670/) (2020)
- [Phase Gadget Synthesis for Shallow Circuits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.01734/) (2019)
- [Meaning updating of density matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.00862/) (2020)
- [A hybrid classical-quantum workflow for natural language processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06800/) (2020)
- [Variational Quantum Circuit Model for Knowledge Graphs Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00556/) (2019)
- [Cats climb entails mammals move: preserving hyponymy in compositional distributional semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14134/) (2020)
- [Integrated Information in Process Theories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.07654/) (2020)
- [Diagrammatic Differentiation for Quantum Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07960/) (2021)
- [A quantum teleportation inspired algorithm produces sentence meaning from word meaning and grammatical structure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1305.0556/) (2013)
- [An alternative Gospel of structure: order, composition, processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1307.4038/) (2013)
- [Towards Compositional Distributional Discourse Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.03277/) (2018)
- [Functorial Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07408/) (2019)
- [A Compositional Model of Consciousness based on Consciousness-Only](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.16138/) (2020)
- [Retracing some paths in Process Algebra](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1401.5113/) (2014)
- [From quantum foundations via natural language meaning to a theory of everything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07618/) (2016)
- [Functorial Language Games for Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09439/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [The Dawn of Quantum Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06510/) (2021)
- [Compositionality as we see it, everywhere around us](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05327/) (2021)
- [Distilling Text into Circuits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10595/) (2023)
- [Learning Quantum Processes with Memory -- Quantum Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.08167/) (2023)
- [Quantum Concept Music Score from Quantum Picturalism: Musical Incarnation of a Bell-Pair under Measurements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05391/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This is a story about making quantum computers speak, and doing so in a quantum-native, compositional and meaning-aware manner. Recently we did question-answering with an actual quantum computer. We explain what we did, stress that this was all done in terms of pictures, and provide many pointers to the related literature. In fact, besides natural language, many other things can be implemented in a quantum-native, compositional and meaning-aware manner, and we provide the reader with some indications of that broader pictorial landscape, including our account on the notion of compositionality. We also provide some guidance for the actual execution, so that the reader can give it a go as well.