# GF Project Ideas

Resource Grammars, Web Applications, etc
contact: Aarne Ranta (aarne at chalmers dot se)

- Resource Grammar Implementations
  - Tasks
  - Who is qualified
  - The Summer School
- Other project ideas
  - GF interpreter in Java
  - GF interpreter in C#
  - GF localization library
  - Multilingual grammar applications for mobile phones
  - Multilingual grammar applications for the web
  - GMail gadget for GF
- Dissemination and intellectual property

## Resource Grammar Implementations

GF Resource Grammar Library is an open-source computational grammar resource that currently covers 12 languages. The Library is a collaborative effort to which programmers from many countries have contributed. The next goal is to extend the library to all of the 23 official EU languages. Also other languages are welcome all the time. The following diagram show the current status of the library. Each of the red and yellow ones are a potential project.

red=wanted, green=exists, orange=in-progress, solid=official-eu, dotted=non-eu

The linguistic coverage of the library includes the inflectional morphology and basic syntax of each language. It can be used in GF applications and also ported to other formats. It can also be used for building other linguistic resources, such as morphological lexica and parsers. The library is licensed under LGPL.

### Tasks

Writing a grammar for a language is usually easier if other languages from the same family already have grammars. The colours have the same meaning as in the diagram above; in addition, we use boldface for the red, still unimplemented languages and italics for the orange languages in progress. Thus, in particular, each of the languages coloured red below are possible programming projects.

Baltic:

- Latvian
- Lithuanian

Celtic:

- Irish

Fenno-Ugric:

- Estonian
- Finnish
- Hungarian

Germanic:

- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- German
- Norwegian
- Swedish

Hellenic:

- Greek

Indo-Iranian:

- Hindi
- Urdu

Romance:

- Catalan
- French
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Spanish

Semitic:

- Arabic
- Maltese

Slavonic:

- Bulgarian
- Czech
- Polish
- Russian
- Slovak
- Slovenian

Tai:

- Thai

Turkic:

- Turkish

### Who is qualified

Writing a resource grammar implementation requires good general programming skills, and a good explicit knowledge of the grammar of the target language. A typical participant could be

- native or fluent speaker of the target language
- interested in languages on the theoretical level, and preferably familiar with many languages (to be able to think about them on an abstract level)
- familiar with functional programming languages such as ML or Haskell (GF itself is a language similar to these)
- on Master's or PhD level in linguistics, computer science, or mathematics

But it is the quality of the assignment that is assessed, not any formal requirements. The "typical participant" was described to give an idea of who is likely to succeed in this.

### The Summer School

A Summer School on resource grammars and applications will be organized at the campus of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 17-28 August 2009. It can be seen as a natural checkpoint in a resource grammar project; the participants are assumed to learn GF before the Summer School, but how far they have come in their projects may vary.

More information on the Summer School web page:

`http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Research/Language-technology/GF/doc/gf-summerschool.html`

## Other project ideas

### GF interpreter in Java

The idea is to write a run-time system for GF grammars in Java. This enables the use of embedded grammars in Java applications. This project is a fresh-up of earlier work, now using the new run-time format PGF and addressing a new parsing algorithm.

Requirements: Java, Haskell, basics of compilers and parsing algorithms.

### GF interpreter in C#

The idea is to write a run-time system for GF grammars in C#. This enables the use of embedded grammars in C# applications. This project is similar to earlier work on Java, now addressing C# and using the new run-time format PGF.

Requirements: C#, Haskell, basics of compilers and parsing algorithms.

### GF localization library

This is an idea for a software localization library using GF grammars. The library should replace strings by grammar rules, which can be conceived as very smart templates always guaranteeing grammatically correct output. The library should be based on the GF Resource Grammar Library, providing infrastructure currently for 12 languages.

Requirements: GF, some natural languages, some localization platform

### Multilingual grammar applications for mobile phones

GF grammars can be compiled into programs that can be run on different platforms, such as web browsers and mobile phones. An example is a numeral translator running on both these platforms.

The proposed project is rather open: find some cool applications of the technology that are useful or entertaining for mobile phone users. A part of the project is to investigate implementation issues such as making the best use of the phone's resources. Possible applications have something to do with translation; one suggestion is an sms editor/translator.

Requirements: GF, JavaScript, some phone application development tools

### Multilingual grammar applications for the web

This project is rather open: find some cool applications of the technology that are useful or entertaining on the web. Examples include

- translators: see demo
- multilingual wikis: see demo
- fridge magnets: see demo

Requirements: GF, JavaScript or Java and Google Web Toolkit, CGI

### GMail gadget for GF

It is possible to add custom gadgets to GMail. If you are going to write e-mail in a foreign language then you probably will need help from dictonary or you may want to check something in the grammar. GF provides all resources that you may need but you have to think about how to design gadget that fits well in the GMail environment and what functionality from GF you want to expose.

Requirements: GF, Google Web Toolkit

## Dissemination and intellectual property

All code suggested here will be released under the LGPL just like the current resource grammars and run-time GF libraries, with the copyright held by respective authors.

As a rule, the code will be distributed via the GF web site.