comp-syntax-gu-mlt/old-labs/lab2/README.md

Lab 2: Multilingual generation and translation

This lab corresponds to Chapters 5 to 9 of the Notes, but follows them only loosely. Therefore we will structure it according to the exercise sessions rather than chapters. The abstract syntax is given in the subdirectory grammars/abstract/

After lecture 6

1. Design a morphology for the main lexical types (N, A, V) with parameters and a couple of paradigms.
2. Test it by implementing the lexicon in the MicroLang module. You need to define lincat N,A,V,V2 as well as the paradigms in MicroResource.

To deliver: the lexicon part of files MicroGrammarX.gf and MicroResourceX.gf for your language of choice X. Follow the structure of MicroGrammarEng and MicroResourceEng when preparing these.

After lecture 7

1. Define the linearization types of main phrasal categories - the remaining categories in MicroLang.
2. Define the rest of the linearization rules in MicroLang.

To deliver: MicroLangX and MicroResourceX for your language of choice, with the lexicon part from Session 5 completed with syntax part.

After lecture 8

1. Try out the applications in ../python and read its README carefully.
2. Add a concrete syntax for your language to one of the grammars in ../python/, either Query or Draw. The simplest way to do this is first to copy the Eng grammar and then to change the words; the syntax may work well as it is. Even though it can be a bit unnatural, it should be in a wide sense natural.
3. Compile the grammar with gf -make Query???.gf so that your grammar gets included (the same for Draw).
4. Generate phrases in GF by first importing your pgf file and then issuing the command gt | l -treebank; fix your grammar if it looks too bad.
5. Test the corresponding Python application with your language.

The Python code with embedded GF grammars will be explained in a greater detail in Lecture 9.

To deliver: your grammar module.

Deadline: 29 May 2024. Demo your grammars (both Micro and this one) at the last lecture of the course!

A method for testing your Micro grammar

Since MicroLang is a proper part of the RGL, it can be easily implemented as an application grammar. How to do this is shown in grammar/functor/, where the implementation consists of two files:

• MicroLangFunctor.gf which is a generic implementation working for all RGL languages,
• MicroLangFunctorEng.gf which is a functor instantiation for English, easily reproduciple for other languages than Eng.

To use this for testing, you can take the following steps:

1. Build a functor instantiation for your language by copying MicroLangFunctorEng.gf and changing Eng in the file name and inside the file to your language code.

2. Use GF to create a testfile by random generation:

  $ echo "gr -number=1000 | l -tabtreebank" | gf english/MicroLangEng.gf functor/MicroLangFunctorEng.gf >test.tmp

3. Inspect the resulting file test.tmp. But you can also use Unix cut to create separate files for the two versions of the grammar and diff to compare them:

  $ cut -f2 test.tmp >test1.tmp
  $ cut -f3 test.tmp >test2.tmp
  $ diff test1.tmp test2.tmp

  52c52
  < the hot fire teachs her
  ---
  > the hot fire teaches her
  69c69
  < the man teachs the apples
  ---
  > the man teaches the apples
  122c122

As seen from the result in this case, our implementation has a wrong inflection of the verb "teach".

The Mini grammar can be tested in the same way, by building a reference implementation using the functor in functor/.