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4161 lines
136 KiB
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4161 lines
136 KiB
Plaintext
Grammatical Framework Tutorial
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Author: Aarne Ranta aarne (at) cs.chalmers.se
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Last update: %%date(%c)
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% NOTE: this is a txt2tags file.
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% Create an html file from this file using:
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% txt2tags --toc gf-tutorial2.txt
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%!target:html
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%!encoding: iso-8859-1
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%!postproc(tex): "section\*" "section"
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%!postproc(tex): #BCEN "begin{center}"
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%!postproc(tex): #ECEN "end{center}"
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%!preproc(html): #EDITORPNG [../quick-editor.png]
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%!preproc(tex): #EDITORPNG [../../lib/resource-1.0/doc/10lang-small.png]
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%!preproc(html): #LOGOPNG [../gf-logo.png]
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%!preproc(tex): #LOGOPNG ""
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#LOGOPNG
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%--!
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=Introduction=
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==Natural language application programming==
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Making computers understand human language is one of the oldest dreams of
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programmers. Projects with machine translations started almost as soon as
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the first computers appeared in the 1940's. This was partly encouraged by the
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success of decryption during the Second World War. Thus some American scientists
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had the vision that Russian can be seen as encrypted English, which can be
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deciphered by similar algorithms as those used for cracking the Germans' Enigma.
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Despite substantial efforts on machine translation, the early visions were not
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realized, and the general conclusion reached by the mid-1960's was that
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high-quality broad-coverage machine translation is impossible. Machine
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translation was translated to the less ambitious and more specialized tasks of
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computational linguistics. Parallel to this, fantacies of "speaking robots" and
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other language-understanding machines prevailed, exemplified by such science
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fiction figures as the HAL computer in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" from
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1970.
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What we see in today's market of language understanding machines is a variety of
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products, which focus on different aspects of the task and none of which comes
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even close to HAL or a machine translator with human-like capacities. Here is a
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list of some such applications:
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- browse-quality machine translation: Systran
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- machine translation specialized on weather reports: Meteo
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- electronic dictionaries
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- spelling and grammar checkers
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- dialogue systems for enabling simple speech interaction with a computer
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A common feature of these applications is that their construction requires
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**linguistic knowledge**: theoretical understanding of languages. As opposed to
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practical understanding, which means the ability to speak, listen, write, and
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read, theoretical understanding means knowledge of the **rules** of language.
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It is by expressing these rules in a programming language the we can hope to
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make a computer understand at least something of a natural language.
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This is where GF comes into picture. GF, Grammatical Framework, is a programming
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language designed for expressing linguistic rules. A set of such rules is called
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a **grammar**. GF is designed in such a way that it is much easier to write
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grammar rules in it than in a general-purpose programming language, such as
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Java or C or Haskell. At the same time, GF is equipped with tools for
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**embedded grammars**. This means that a GF grammar can be used as a component
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of a program written in another language, such as Java or C or Haskell. To build
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a language application usually involves much more than just a grammar, and it is
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important that the grammar can be integrated seemlessly with the rest of the
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application.
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Since natural language application programming requires linguistic knowledge, it
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is usually considered to need linguistic training. The mission of GF is to relieve
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some of this need. This is achieved in two ways:
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- GF works in a way familiar to ordinary programmers, namely as a **compiler**
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that analyses a language and generates a result.
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- GF has a set of **resource grammar libraries**, which encapsulate much of
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the linguistic knowledge needed when writing grammars.
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This said, GF makes no claim to "fire linguists" from natural language programming
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projects. The claim is rather one of the **division of labour**: GF enables the
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division of grammar writing into different **modules**, where some modules
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require linguistic knowledge and others don't. Linguists working on the linguistic
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modules will appreciate the way GF supports abstractions and generalizations, and
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also the grammar development tools that enable testing of linguistic rules.
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Non-linguists working on the application-oriented modules will appreciate the
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possibility to take grammar rules for granted and focus on other aspects of
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the program.
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==The history of GF and its applications==
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GF belongs to the tradition of **functional programming languages**, exemplified
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by Lisp and, as later and closer relatives, ML and Haskell. An important branch
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of functional programming is **type theory**, which in turn has its roots in
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logic and the foundations of mathematics. GF was, at the first place, created to
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implement the idea that type theory can provide **semantics**, i.e. formalize
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the meaning of natural languages. Several aspects of type-theoretical semantics
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were covered in the monograph //Type-Theoretical Grammar// (A. Ranta, OUP 1994).
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But a stronger aspect grew out of subsequent experiments dealing with different
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languages: it is possible to have a common semantics for many language, and
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thereby build systems that translate between languages via the semantics. During
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this period, discussions with Per Martin-Löf (Ranta's PhD supervisor at the
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University of Stockholm) had a major impact on the work, and cooperation
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with Petri Mäenpää at the University of Helsinki led to the first computer
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implementations.
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As a stand-alone programming language, GF was first implemented in 1998. This
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took place at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Grenoble, within a project entitled
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//Multilingual Document Authoring//. The leading idea in the project was to
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enable writing documents in multiple languages simultaneously, so that the user
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need only know one of the languages; the rest will be produced automatically
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via translations from the type-theoretical semantics. The Xerox staff involved
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in the project included Marc Dymetman, Lauri Karttunen, Veronika Lux,
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Sylvain Pogodalla, and Annie Zaenen.
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The Xerox project produced some prototype applications, e.g. a restaurant phrase
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book and an editor of medical drug descriptions. The grammars that were build
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remained the property of Xerox, but the GF formalism and its implementation
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were released as open-source software under GNU General Public License. The
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principal author of GF got an academic position in 1999, at the Department of
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Computing Science of Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University.
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At Chalmers, both functional programming and type theory flourish, and in this
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environment, GF developed into a more stable and more full-fledged programming
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language. In this process, collaboration with Koen Claessen, Thierry Coquand,
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Thomas Hallgren, Patrik Jansson, and Bengt Nordström made important contributions.
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The idea of making GF into "the working programmer's grammar formalism", as
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opposed to a tool requiring linguistic expertise, was confirmed at Chalmers
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in courses given to computer science students and later in joint research
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projects. A nice experience of the courses was that computer scientists are
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often very interested in languages and have firm intuitions on grammar; given
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a suitable programming tool, they can achieve impressive results. GF seemed to
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be close to such a tool, and, in subsequent collaborations at the Department,
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it evolved even more to a programming language with a virtues of familiarity
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and "the least surprise". Issues of stability are also important, including
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backward compatibility, and documentation is something there can hardly be
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too much of. As a mark of stability, version 1.0 of GF was released in
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2002. In 2004, a theoretical reference paper appeared in the Journal
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of Functional Programming, as well as a long tutorial text in the ESSLLI
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lecture notes post-publication.
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The first full-scale applications of GF emerged as natural-language interfaces.
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The first one was for the proof editor Alfa, written with Thomas Hallgren.
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The second one was a syntax editor and a natural-language interface to the
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software specification language OCL (Object Constraint Language) built
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within the KeY project. This work was done first with Reiner Hähnle, then
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with the students Kristoffer Johannisson (PhD 2005), Hans-Joachim Daniels,
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and David Burke. On the GF implementation side, Janna Khegai (PhD 2006) built
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a Java-based syntax editor. Peter Ljunglöf (PhD 2004) succeeded to identify
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the complexity of parsing in GF and found an algorithm that greatly improved
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the use of GF in parsing. He implemented the algorithm with Håkan Burden, and
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it was later still improved by Krasimir Angelov.
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At the same time, collaboration with the Linguistics Department of
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Gothenburg University served as a "linguistic sanity check" of GF.
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Robin Cooper, an eminent linguist working at the Department, initiated
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two efforts that have formed the development of GF:
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- resource grammar libraries
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- dialogue system applications
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It was the resource grammar libraries that made GF really usable for non-linguist
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programmers in more serious projects. They were heavily missed in the Alfa
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project, and heavily used and improved in the KeY project. The development of
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the library started in 2002; a version stable enough to be released with number
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1.0 was complete in 2006, comprising ten languages.
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Dialogue systems, on the other hand, turned
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out to be a major source of interesting problems and also of successful solutions.
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Much of this work was carried out in the European project TALK (Tools for Ambient
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Linguistic Knowledge, 2004-2006), by Björn Bringert, Rebecca Jonson, and
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Peter Ljunglöf in Gothenburg, and Oliver Lemon (Edinburgh), Nadine Perera (BMW),
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and Karl Weilhammer (Cambridge) at the other sites. In addition to
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complete systems, this project produced supporting tools for embedded grammars
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and speech recognition, and additions to the resource grammar library.
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Besides dialogue systems, multilingual authoring and translation continues
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to be the main application of GF. The European WebALT project (Web Advanced
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Learning Technologies, 2005-2006), used GF to build a tool for translating
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mathematical exercises from formal specifications (written in MathML) to
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six language. Also tool integrating GF with a computer algebra system was
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developed. The project gave rise to a company, WebALT Inc. Many members
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of the WebALT staff also contributed to GF and the resource grammar library:
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Lauri Carlson, Glòria Casanellas, Anni Laine, Wanjiku N'gan'ga, and
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Jordi Saludes.
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As of the time of writing (August 2007), the release of GF has version
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number 2.8. It is a stable system that has been built with contributions
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of dozens of persons and been used by at least hundreds; download figures
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are in thousands. New ideas of how to apply GF are posted by users almost
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every week. These users are often programmers with good knowledge of
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functional languages, highly developed instinct for programming language
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design, and firm intuitions on natural language. Another group of users
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are those that have been trained in GF on courses.
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==The purpose and scope of this book==
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The purpose of this book is to serve the growing user base of GF with
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a manual that gathers all relevant information in one place. However, it
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is also intended to serve those who want to get started with GF, and
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who don't necessarily have the technical background of the typical
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users. We believe that learning to program in GF is not more difficult
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than learning some other programming language; as for the linguistic
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aspects, we believe that writing grammars is an excellent introduction
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to the problems of linguistics, where theory can be learnt at the
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same time as it is motivated by concrete problems.
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The book thus starts with a tutorial, which gradually explains all
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the constructs of the GF programming language. Also the design and style
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aspects of grammar engineering are covered, to help the user to scale
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up from small to large and possibly collaborative applications.
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After the tutorial, the book continues with a "cook book" containing
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hints and case studies for advanced users. Moreover, the resource
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grammar library is covered in some detail, which will help the
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programmers who want to port the library to new languages, but also
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motivate linguistically the choices made in the libraries.
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A complete reference manual concludes the book, with a quick reference
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card as an appendix.
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What is not covered by the book is theoretical discussions of
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GF, especially in comparison to other grammar formalism. Even though important
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in the development of GF as a scientifically justified framework, such
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discussions are not relevant for programmers who want to use GF - any more
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than, say, a book on Haskell has to include comparisons with Java. In fact,
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introducing Haskell by references to Java may have some point, since many
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of the readers can already be assumed to know Java. But, even though some
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readers will know DCG or HPSG or LFG, we will not assume this; we will just
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note in passing the relation between GF and context-free grammars, also
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known as BNF grammars in computer science.
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==GF = Grammatical Framework==
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The term GF is used for different things:
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- a **program** used for working with grammars
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- a **programming language** in which grammars can be written
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- a **theory** about grammars and languages
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This tutorial is primarily about the GF program and
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the GF programming language.
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It will guide you
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- to use the GF program
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- to write GF grammars
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- to write programs in which GF grammars are used as components
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%--!
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==What are GF grammars used for==
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A grammar is a definition of a language.
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From this definition, different language processing components
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can be derived:
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- **parsing**: to analyse the language
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- **linearization**: to generate the language
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- **translation**: to analyse one language and generate another
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A GF grammar can be seen as a declarative program from which these
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processing tasks can be automatically derived. In addition, many
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other tasks are readily available for GF grammars:
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- **morphological analysis**: find out the possible inflection forms of words
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- **morphological synthesis**: generate all inflection forms of words
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- **random generation**: generate random expressions
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- **corpus generation**: generate all expressions
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- **treebank generation**: generate a list of trees with multiple linearizations
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- **teaching quizzes**: train morphology and translation
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- **multilingual authoring**: create a document in many languages simultaneously
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- **speech input**: optimize a speech recognition system for your grammar
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A typical GF application is based on a **multilingual grammar** involving
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translation on a special domain. Existing applications of this idea include
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- [Alfa: http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~hallgren/Alfa/Tutorial/GFplugin.html]:
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a natural-language interface to a proof editor
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(languages: English, French, Swedish)
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- [KeY http://www.key-project.org/]:
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a multilingual authoring system for creating software specifications
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(languages: OCL, English, German)
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- [TALK http://www.talk-project.org]:
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multilingual and multimodal dialogue systems
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(languages: English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish)
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- [WebALT http://webalt.math.helsinki.fi/content/index_eng.html]:
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a multilingual translator of mathematical exercises
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(languages: Catalan, English, Finnish, French, Spanish, Swedish)
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- [Numeral translator http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/gf/translate/]:
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number words from 1 to 999,999
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(88 languages)
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The specialization of a grammar to a domain makes it possible to
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obtain much better translations than in an unlimited machine translation
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system. This is due to the well-defined semantics of such domains.
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Grammars having this character are called **application grammars**.
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They are different from most grammars written by linguists just
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because they are multilingual and domain-specific.
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However, there is another kind of grammars, which we call **resource grammars**.
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These are large, comprehensive grammars that can be used on any domain.
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The GF Resource Grammar Library has resource grammars for 10 languages.
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These grammars can be used as **libraries** to define application grammars.
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In this way, it is possible to write a high-quality grammar without
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knowing about linguistics: in general, to write an application grammar
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by using the resource library just requires practical knowledge of
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the target language. and all theoretical knowledge about its grammar
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is given by the libraries.
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%--!
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==Who is this tutorial for==
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This tutorial is mainly for programmers who want to learn to write
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application grammars. It will go through GF's programming concepts
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without entering too deep into linguistics. Thus it should
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be accessible to anyone who has some previous programming experience.
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A separate document has been written on how to write resource grammars: the
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[Resource HOWTO ../../lib/resource-1.0/doc/Resource-HOWTO.html].
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In this tutorial, we will just cover the programming concepts that are used for
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solving linguistic problems in the resource grammars.
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The easiest way to use GF is probably via the interactive syntax editor.
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Its use does not require any knowledge of the GF formalism. There is
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a separate
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[Editor User Manual http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF2.0/doc/javaGUImanual/javaGUImanual.htm]
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by Janna Khegai, covering the use of the editor. The editor is also a platform for many
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kinds of GF applications, implementing the slogan
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//write a document in a language you don't know, while seeing it in a language you know//.
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%--!
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==The coverage of the tutorial==
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The tutorial gives a hands-on introduction to grammar writing.
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We start by building a small grammar for the domain of food:
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in this grammar, you can say things like
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```
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this Italian cheese is delicious
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```
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in English and Italian.
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The first English grammar
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[``food.cf`` food.cf]
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is written in a context-free
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notation (also known as BNF). The BNF format is often a good
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starting point for GF grammar development, because it is
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simple and widely used. However, the BNF format is not
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good for multilingual grammars. While it is possible to
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"translate" by just changing the words contained in a
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BNF grammar to words of some other
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language, proper translation usually involves more.
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For instance, the order of words may have to be changed:
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```
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Italian cheese ===> formaggio italiano
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```
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The full GF grammar format is designed to support such
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changes, by separating between the **abstract syntax**
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(the logical structure) and the **concrete syntax** (the
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sequence of words) of expressions.
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There is more than words and word order that makes languages
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different. Words can have different forms, and which forms
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they have vary from language to language. For instance,
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Italian adjectives usually have four forms where English
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has just one:
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```
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delicious (wine, wines, pizza, pizzas)
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vino delizioso, vini deliziosi, pizza deliziosa, pizze deliziose
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```
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The **morphology** of a language describes the
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forms of its words. While the complete description of morphology
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belongs to resource grammars, this tutorial will explain the
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programming concepts involved in morphology. This will moreover
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make it possible to grow the fragment covered by the food example.
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The tutorial will in fact build a miniature resource grammar in order
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to give an introduction to linguistically oriented grammar writing.
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Thus it is by elaborating the initial ``food.cf`` example that
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the tutorial makes a guided tour through all concepts of GF.
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While the constructs of the GF language are the main focus,
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also the commands of the GF system are introduced as they
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are needed.
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To learn how to write GF grammars is not the only goal of
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this tutorial. We will also explain the most important
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commands of the GF system. With these commands,
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simple applications of grammars, such as translation and
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quiz systems, can be built simply by writing scripts for the
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system.
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More complicated applications, such as natural-language
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interfaces and dialogue systems, moreover require programming in
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some general-purpose language. Thus we will briefly explain how
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GF grammars are used as components of Haskell programs.
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Chapters on using them in Java and Javascript programs are
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forthcoming; a comprehensive manual on GF embedded in Java, by Björn Bringert, is
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available in
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[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/gf/gf-java.html`` http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/gf/gf-java.html].
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%--!
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==Getting the GF program==
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The GF program is open-source free software, which you can download via the
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GF Homepage:
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[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF`` http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF]
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There you can download
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- binaries for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows
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- source code and documentation
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- grammar libraries and examples
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If you want to compile GF from source, you need a Haskell compiler.
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To compile the interactive editor, you also need a Java compilers.
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But normally you don't have to compile, and you definitely
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don't need to know Haskell or Java to use GF.
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We are assuming the availability of a Unix shell. Linux and Mac OS X users
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have it automatically, the latter under the name "terminal".
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Windows users are recommended to install Cywgin, the free Unix shell for Windows.
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%--!
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==Running the GF program==
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To start the GF program, assuming you have installed it, just type
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```
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% gf
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```
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in the shell.
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You will see GF's welcome message and the prompt ``>``.
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The command
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```
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> help
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|
```
|
|
will give you a list of available commands.
|
|
|
|
As a common convention in this Tutorial, we will use
|
|
- ``%`` as a prompt that marks system commands
|
|
- ``>`` as a prompt that marks GF commands
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thus you should not type these prompts, but only the lines that
|
|
follow them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=The .cf grammar format=
|
|
|
|
Now you are ready to try out your first grammar.
|
|
We start with one that is not written in the GF language, but
|
|
in the much more common BNF notation (Backus Naur Form). The GF
|
|
program understands a variant of this notation and translates it
|
|
internally to GF's own representation.
|
|
|
|
To get started, type (or copy) the following lines into a file named
|
|
``food.cf``:
|
|
```
|
|
Is. S ::= Item "is" Quality ;
|
|
That. Item ::= "that" Kind ;
|
|
This. Item ::= "this" Kind ;
|
|
QKind. Kind ::= Quality Kind ;
|
|
Cheese. Kind ::= "cheese" ;
|
|
Fish. Kind ::= "fish" ;
|
|
Wine. Kind ::= "wine" ;
|
|
Italian. Quality ::= "Italian" ;
|
|
Boring. Quality ::= "boring" ;
|
|
Delicious. Quality ::= "delicious" ;
|
|
Expensive. Quality ::= "expensive" ;
|
|
Fresh. Quality ::= "fresh" ;
|
|
Very. Quality ::= "very" Quality ;
|
|
Warm. Quality ::= "warm" ;
|
|
```
|
|
For those who know ordinary BNF, the
|
|
notation we use includes one extra element: a **label** appearing
|
|
as the first element of each rule and terminated by a full stop.
|
|
|
|
The grammar we wrote defines a set of phrases usable for speaking about food.
|
|
It builds **sentences** (``S``) by assigning ``Quality``s to
|
|
``Item``s. ``Item``s are build from ``Kind``s by prepending the
|
|
word "this" or "that". ``Kind``s are either **atomic**, such as
|
|
"cheese" and "wine", or formed by prepending a ``Quality`` to a
|
|
``Kind``. A ``Quality`` is either atomic, such as "Italian" and "boring",
|
|
or built by another ``Quality`` by prepending "very". Those familiar with
|
|
the context-free grammar notation will notice that, for instance, the
|
|
following sentence can be built using this grammar:
|
|
```
|
|
this delicious Italian wine is very very expensive
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Importing grammars and parsing strings==
|
|
|
|
The first GF command needed when using a grammar is to **import** it.
|
|
The command has a long name, ``import``, and a short name, ``i``.
|
|
You can type either
|
|
```
|
|
> import food.cf
|
|
```
|
|
or
|
|
```
|
|
> i food.cf
|
|
```
|
|
to get the same effect.
|
|
The effect is that the GF program **compiles** your grammar into an internal
|
|
representation, and shows a new prompt when it is ready. It will also show how much
|
|
CPU time is consumed:
|
|
```
|
|
> i food.cf
|
|
- parsing cf food.cf 12 msec
|
|
16 msec
|
|
>
|
|
```
|
|
You can now use GF for **parsing**:
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "this cheese is delicious"
|
|
Is (This Cheese) Delicious
|
|
|
|
> p "that wine is very very Italian"
|
|
Is (That Wine) (Very (Very Italian))
|
|
```
|
|
The ``parse`` (= ``p``) command takes a **string**
|
|
(in double quotes) and returns an **abstract syntax tree** - the thing
|
|
beginning with ``Is``. Trees are built from the rule labels given in the
|
|
grammar, and record the ways in which the rules are used to produce the
|
|
strings. A tree is, in general, something easier than a string
|
|
for a machine to understand and to process further.
|
|
|
|
Strings that return a tree when parsed do so in virtue of the grammar
|
|
you imported. Try parsing something else, and you fail
|
|
```
|
|
> p "hello world"
|
|
Unknown words: hello world
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Extend the grammar ``food.cf`` by ten new food kinds and
|
|
qualities, and run the parser with new kinds of examples.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Add a rule that enables questions of the form
|
|
//is this cheese Italian//.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Add the rule
|
|
```
|
|
IsVery. S ::= Item "is" "very" Quality ;
|
|
```
|
|
and see what happens when parsing ``this wine is very very Italian``.
|
|
You have just made the grammar **ambiguous**: it now assigns several
|
|
trees to some strings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Modify the grammar so that at most one ``Quality`` may
|
|
attach to a given ``Kind``. Thus //boring Italian fish// will no longer
|
|
be recognized.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Generating trees and strings==
|
|
|
|
You can also use GF for **linearizing**
|
|
(``linearize = l``). This is the inverse of
|
|
parsing, taking trees into strings:
|
|
```
|
|
> linearize Is (That Wine) Warm
|
|
that wine is warm
|
|
```
|
|
What is the use of this? Typically not that you type in a tree at
|
|
the GF prompt. The utility of linearization comes from the fact that
|
|
you can obtain a tree from somewhere else. One way to do so is
|
|
**random generation** (``generate_random = gr``):
|
|
```
|
|
> generate_random
|
|
Is (This (QKind Italian Fish)) Fresh
|
|
```
|
|
Now you can copy the tree and paste it to the ``linearize command``.
|
|
Or, more conveniently, feed random generation into linearization by using
|
|
a **pipe**.
|
|
```
|
|
> gr | l
|
|
this Italian fish is fresh
|
|
```
|
|
Pipes in GF work much the same way as Unix pipes: they feed the output
|
|
of one command into another command as its input.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Visualizing trees==
|
|
|
|
The gibberish code with parentheses returned by the parser does not
|
|
look like trees. Why is it called so? From the abstract mathematical
|
|
point of view, trees are a data structure that
|
|
represents **nesting**: trees are branching entities, and the branches
|
|
are themselves trees. Parentheses give a linear representation of trees,
|
|
useful for the computer. But the human eye may prefer to see a visualization;
|
|
for this purpose, GF provides the command ``visualizre_tree = vt``, to which
|
|
parsing (and any other tree-producing command) can be piped:
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "this delicious cheese is very Italian" | vt
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
[Tree2.png]
|
|
|
|
This command uses the programs Graphviz and Ghostview, which you
|
|
might not have, but which are freely available on the web.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Some random-generated sentences==
|
|
|
|
Random generation is a good way to test a grammar; it can also
|
|
be fun. So you may want to
|
|
generate ten strings with one and the same command:
|
|
```
|
|
> gr -number=10 | l
|
|
that wine is boring
|
|
that fresh cheese is fresh
|
|
that cheese is very boring
|
|
this cheese is Italian
|
|
that expensive cheese is expensive
|
|
that fish is fresh
|
|
that wine is very Italian
|
|
this wine is Italian
|
|
this cheese is boring
|
|
this fish is boring
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Systematic generation==
|
|
|
|
To generate //all// sentence that a grammar
|
|
can generate, use the command ``generate_trees = gt``.
|
|
```
|
|
> generate_trees | l
|
|
that cheese is very Italian
|
|
that cheese is very boring
|
|
that cheese is very delicious
|
|
that cheese is very expensive
|
|
that cheese is very fresh
|
|
...
|
|
this wine is expensive
|
|
this wine is fresh
|
|
this wine is warm
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
You get quite a few trees but not all of them: only up to a given
|
|
**depth** of trees. To see how you can get more, use the
|
|
``help = h`` command,
|
|
```
|
|
> help gt
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. If the command ``gt`` generated all
|
|
trees in your grammar, it would never terminate. Why?
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Measure how many trees the grammar gives with depths 4 and 5,
|
|
respectively. You use the Unix **word count** command ``wc`` to count lines.
|
|
**Hint**. You can pipe the output of a GF command into a Unix command by
|
|
using the escape ``?``, as follows:
|
|
```
|
|
> generate_trees | ? wc
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==More on pipes; tracing==
|
|
|
|
A pipe of GF commands can have any length, but the "output type"
|
|
(either string or tree) of one command must always match the "input type"
|
|
of the next command.
|
|
|
|
The intermediate results in a pipe can be observed by putting the
|
|
**tracing** flag ``-tr`` to each command whose output you
|
|
want to see:
|
|
```
|
|
> gr -tr | l -tr | p
|
|
|
|
Is (This Cheese) Boring
|
|
this cheese is boring
|
|
Is (This Cheese) Boring
|
|
```
|
|
This facility is good for test purposes: for instance, you
|
|
may want to see if a grammar is **ambiguous**, i.e.
|
|
contains strings that can be parsed in more than one way.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Extend the grammar ``food.cf`` so that it produces ambiguous strings,
|
|
and try out the ambiguity test.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Writing and reading files==
|
|
|
|
To save the outputs of GF commands into a file, you can
|
|
pipe it to the ``write_file = wf`` command,
|
|
```
|
|
> gr -number=10 | l | write_file exx.tmp
|
|
```
|
|
You can read the file back to GF with the
|
|
``read_file = rf`` command,
|
|
```
|
|
> read_file exx.tmp | p -lines
|
|
```
|
|
Notice the flag ``-lines`` given to the parsing
|
|
command. This flag tells GF to parse each line of
|
|
the file separately. Without the flag, the grammar could
|
|
not recognize the string in the file, because it is not
|
|
a sentence but a sequence of ten sentences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=The .gf grammar format=
|
|
|
|
To see GF's internal representation of a grammar
|
|
that you have imported, you can give the command
|
|
``print_grammar = pg``,
|
|
```
|
|
> print_grammar
|
|
```
|
|
The output is quite unreadable at this stage, and you may feel happy that
|
|
you did not need to write the grammar in that notation, but that the
|
|
GF grammar compiler produced it.
|
|
|
|
However, we will now start the demonstration
|
|
how GF's own notation gives you
|
|
much more expressive power than the ``.cf``
|
|
format. We will introduce the ``.gf`` format by presenting
|
|
another way of defining the same grammar as in
|
|
``food.cf``.
|
|
Then we will show how the full GF grammar format enables you
|
|
to do things that are not possible in the context-free format.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Abstract and concrete syntax==
|
|
|
|
A GF grammar consists of two main parts:
|
|
|
|
- **abstract syntax**, defining what syntax trees there are
|
|
- **concrete syntax**, defining how trees are linearized into strings
|
|
|
|
|
|
The context-free format fuses these two things together, but it is always
|
|
possible to take them apart. For instance, the sentence formation rule
|
|
```
|
|
Is. S ::= Item "is" Quality ;
|
|
```
|
|
is interpreted as the following pair of GF rules:
|
|
```
|
|
fun Is : Item -> Quality -> S ;
|
|
lin Is item quality = {s = item.s ++ "is" ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The former rule, with the keyword ``fun``, belongs to the abstract syntax.
|
|
It defines the **function**
|
|
``Is`` which constructs syntax trees of form
|
|
(``Is`` //item// //quality//).
|
|
|
|
The latter rule, with the keyword ``lin``, belongs to the concrete syntax.
|
|
It defines the **linearization function** for
|
|
syntax trees of form (``Is`` //item// //quality//).
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Judgement forms==
|
|
|
|
Rules in a GF grammar are called **judgements**, and the keywords
|
|
``fun`` and ``lin`` are used for distinguishing between two
|
|
**judgement forms**. Here is a summary of the most important
|
|
judgement forms:
|
|
|
|
- abstract syntax
|
|
|
|
| form | reading |
|
|
| ``cat`` C | C is a category
|
|
| ``fun`` f ``:`` A | f is a function of type A
|
|
|
|
- concrete syntax
|
|
|
|
| form | reading |
|
|
| ``lincat`` C ``=`` T | category C has linearization type T
|
|
| ``lin`` f ``=`` t | function f has linearization t
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We return to the precise meanings of these judgement forms later.
|
|
First we will look at how judgements are grouped into modules, and
|
|
show how the food grammar is
|
|
expressed by using modules and judgements.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Module types==
|
|
|
|
A GF grammar consists of **modules**,
|
|
into which judgements are grouped. The most important
|
|
module forms are
|
|
|
|
- ``abstract`` A ``=`` M, abstract syntax A with judgements in
|
|
the module body M.
|
|
- ``concrete`` C ``of`` A ``=`` M, concrete syntax C of the
|
|
abstract syntax A, with judgements in the module body M.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Basic types and function types==
|
|
|
|
The nonterminals of a context-free grammar, i.e. categories,
|
|
are called **basic types** in the type system of GF. In addition
|
|
to them, there are **function types** such as
|
|
```
|
|
Item -> Quality -> S
|
|
```
|
|
This type is read "a function from iterms and qualities to sentences".
|
|
The last type in the arrow-separated sequence is the **value type**
|
|
of the function type, the earlier types are its **argument types**.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Records and strings==
|
|
|
|
The linearization type of a category is a **record type**, with
|
|
zero of more **fields** of different types. The simplest record
|
|
type used for linearization in GF is
|
|
```
|
|
{s : Str}
|
|
```
|
|
which has one field, with **label** ``s`` and type ``Str``.
|
|
|
|
Examples of records of this type are
|
|
```
|
|
{s = "foo"}
|
|
{s = "hello" ++ "world"}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Whenever a record ``r`` of type ``{s : Str}`` is given,
|
|
``r.s`` is an object of type ``Str``. This is
|
|
a special case of the **projection** rule, allowing the extraction
|
|
of fields from a record:
|
|
|
|
- if //r// : ``{`` ... //p// : //T// ... ``}`` then //r.p// : //T//
|
|
|
|
|
|
The type ``Str`` is really the type of **token lists**, but
|
|
most of the time one can conveniently think of it as the type of strings,
|
|
denoted by string literals in double quotes.
|
|
|
|
Notice that
|
|
``` "hello world"
|
|
is not recommended as an expression of type ``Str``. It denotes
|
|
a token with a space in it, and will usually
|
|
not work with the lexical analysis that precedes parsing. A shorthand
|
|
exemplified by
|
|
```
|
|
["hello world and people"] === "hello" ++ "world" ++ "and" ++ "people"
|
|
```
|
|
can be used for lists of tokens. The expression
|
|
```
|
|
[]
|
|
```
|
|
denotes the empty token list.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==An abstract syntax example==
|
|
|
|
To express the abstract syntax of ``food.cf`` in
|
|
a file ``Food.gf``, we write two kinds of judgements:
|
|
|
|
- Each category is introduced by a ``cat`` judgement.
|
|
- Each rule label is introduced by a ``fun`` judgement,
|
|
with the type formed from the nonterminals of the rule.
|
|
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Food = {
|
|
|
|
cat
|
|
S ; Item ; Kind ; Quality ;
|
|
|
|
fun
|
|
Is : Item -> Quality -> S ;
|
|
This, That : Kind -> Item ;
|
|
QKind : Quality -> Kind -> Kind ;
|
|
Wine, Cheese, Fish : Kind ;
|
|
Very : Quality -> Quality ;
|
|
Fresh, Warm, Italian, Expensive, Delicious, Boring : Quality ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
Notice the use of shorthands permitting the sharing of
|
|
the keyword in subsequent judgements,
|
|
```
|
|
cat S ; Item ; === cat S ; cat Item ;
|
|
```
|
|
and of the type in subsequent ``fun`` judgements,
|
|
```
|
|
fun Wine, Fish : Kind ; ===
|
|
fun Wine : Kind ; Fish : Kind ; ===
|
|
fun Wine : Kind ; fun Fish : Kind ;
|
|
```
|
|
The order of judgements in a module is free.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Extend the abstract syntax ``Food`` with ten new
|
|
kinds and qualities, and with questions of the form
|
|
//is this wine Italian//.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==A concrete syntax example==
|
|
|
|
Each category introduced in ``Food.gf`` is
|
|
given a ``lincat`` rule, and each
|
|
function is given a ``lin`` rule. Similar shorthands
|
|
apply as in ``abstract`` modules.
|
|
```
|
|
concrete FoodEng of Food = {
|
|
|
|
lincat
|
|
S, Item, Kind, Quality = {s : Str} ;
|
|
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = {s = item.s ++ "is" ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
This kind = {s = "this" ++ kind.s} ;
|
|
That kind = {s = "that" ++ kind.s} ;
|
|
QKind quality kind = {s = quality.s ++ kind.s} ;
|
|
Wine = {s = "wine"} ;
|
|
Cheese = {s = "cheese"} ;
|
|
Fish = {s = "fish"} ;
|
|
Very quality = {s = "very" ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
Fresh = {s = "fresh"} ;
|
|
Warm = {s = "warm"} ;
|
|
Italian = {s = "Italian"} ;
|
|
Expensive = {s = "expensive"} ;
|
|
Delicious = {s = "delicious"} ;
|
|
Boring = {s = "boring"} ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Extend the concrete syntax ``FoodEng`` so that it
|
|
matches the abstract syntax defined in the exercise of the previous
|
|
section. What happens if the concrete syntax lacks some of the
|
|
new functions?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Modules and files==
|
|
|
|
GF uses suffixes to recognize different file formats. The most
|
|
important ones are:
|
|
- Source files: Module name + ``.gf`` = file name
|
|
- Target files: each module is compiled into a ``.gfc`` file.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Import ``FoodEng.gf`` and see what happens:
|
|
```
|
|
> i FoodEng.gf
|
|
- compiling Food.gf... wrote file Food.gfc 16 msec
|
|
- compiling FoodEng.gf... wrote file FoodEng.gfc 20 msec
|
|
```
|
|
The GF program does not only read the file
|
|
``FoodEng.gf``, but also all other files that it
|
|
depends on - in this case, ``Food.gf``.
|
|
|
|
For each file that is compiled, a ``.gfc`` file
|
|
is generated. The GFC format (="GF Canonical") is the
|
|
"machine code" of GF, which is faster to process than
|
|
GF source files. When reading a module, GF decides whether
|
|
to use an existing ``.gfc`` file or to generate
|
|
a new one, by looking at modification times.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. What happens when you import ``FoodEng.gf`` for
|
|
a second time? Try this in different situations:
|
|
- Right after importing it the first time (the modules are kept in
|
|
the memory of GF and need no reloading).
|
|
- After issuing the command ``empty`` (``e``), which clears the memory
|
|
of GF.
|
|
- After making a small change in ``FoodEng.gf``, be it only an added space.
|
|
- After making a change in ``Food.gf``.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=Multilingual grammars and translation=
|
|
|
|
The main advantage of separating abstract from concrete syntax is that
|
|
one abstract syntax can be equipped with many concrete syntaxes.
|
|
A system with this property is called a **multilingual grammar**.
|
|
|
|
Multilingual grammars can be used for applications such as
|
|
translation. Let us build an Italian concrete syntax for
|
|
``Food`` and then test the resulting
|
|
multilingual grammar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==An Italian concrete syntax==
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
concrete FoodIta of Food = {
|
|
|
|
lincat
|
|
S, Item, Kind, Quality = {s : Str} ;
|
|
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = {s = item.s ++ "è" ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
This kind = {s = "questo" ++ kind.s} ;
|
|
That kind = {s = "quello" ++ kind.s} ;
|
|
QKind quality kind = {s = kind.s ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
Wine = {s = "vino"} ;
|
|
Cheese = {s = "formaggio"} ;
|
|
Fish = {s = "pesce"} ;
|
|
Very quality = {s = "molto" ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
Fresh = {s = "fresco"} ;
|
|
Warm = {s = "caldo"} ;
|
|
Italian = {s = "italiano"} ;
|
|
Expensive = {s = "caro"} ;
|
|
Delicious = {s = "delizioso"} ;
|
|
Boring = {s = "noioso"} ;
|
|
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write a concrete syntax of ``Food`` for some other language.
|
|
You will probably end up with grammatically incorrect output - but don't
|
|
worry about this yet.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. If you have written ``Food`` for German, Swedish, or some
|
|
other language, test with random or exhaustive generation what constructs
|
|
come out incorrect, and prepare a list of those ones that cannot be helped
|
|
with the currently available fragment of GF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Using a multilingual grammar==
|
|
|
|
Import the two grammars in the same GF session.
|
|
```
|
|
> i FoodEng.gf
|
|
> i FoodIta.gf
|
|
```
|
|
Try generation now:
|
|
```
|
|
> gr | l
|
|
quello formaggio molto noioso è italiano
|
|
|
|
> gr | l -lang=FoodEng
|
|
this fish is warm
|
|
```
|
|
Translate by using a pipe:
|
|
```
|
|
> p -lang=FoodEng "this cheese is very delicious" | l -lang=FoodIta
|
|
questo formaggio è molto delizioso
|
|
```
|
|
Generate a **multilingual treebank**, i.e. a set of trees with their
|
|
translations in different languages:
|
|
```
|
|
> gr -number=2 | tree_bank
|
|
|
|
Is (That Cheese) (Very Boring)
|
|
quello formaggio è molto noioso
|
|
that cheese is very boring
|
|
|
|
Is (That Cheese) Fresh
|
|
quello formaggio è fresco
|
|
that cheese is fresh
|
|
```
|
|
The ``lang`` flag tells GF which concrete syntax to use in parsing and
|
|
linearization. By default, the flag is set to the last-imported grammar.
|
|
To see what grammars are in scope and which is the main one, use the command
|
|
``print_options = po``:
|
|
```
|
|
> print_options
|
|
main abstract : Food
|
|
main concrete : FoodIta
|
|
actual concretes : FoodIta FoodEng
|
|
```
|
|
You can change the main grammar by the command ``change_main = cm``:
|
|
```
|
|
> change_main FoodEng
|
|
main abstract : Food
|
|
main concrete : FoodEng
|
|
actual concretes : FoodIta FoodEng
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Translation session==
|
|
|
|
If translation is what you want to do with a set of grammars, a convenient
|
|
way to do it is to open a ``translation_session = ts``. In this session,
|
|
you can translate between all the languages that are in scope.
|
|
A dot ``.`` terminates the translation session.
|
|
```
|
|
> ts
|
|
|
|
trans> that very warm cheese is boring
|
|
quello formaggio molto caldo è noioso
|
|
that very warm cheese is boring
|
|
|
|
trans> questo vino molto italiano è molto delizioso
|
|
questo vino molto italiano è molto delizioso
|
|
this very Italian wine is very delicious
|
|
|
|
trans> .
|
|
>
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Translation quiz==
|
|
|
|
This is a simple language exercise that can be automatically
|
|
generated from a multilingual grammar. The system generates a set of
|
|
random sentences, displays them in one language, and checks the user's
|
|
answer given in another language. The command ``translation_quiz = tq``
|
|
makes this in a subshell of GF.
|
|
```
|
|
> translation_quiz FoodEng FoodIta
|
|
|
|
Welcome to GF Translation Quiz.
|
|
The quiz is over when you have done at least 10 examples
|
|
with at least 75 % success.
|
|
You can interrupt the quiz by entering a line consisting of a dot ('.').
|
|
|
|
this fish is warm
|
|
questo pesce è caldo
|
|
> Yes.
|
|
Score 1/1
|
|
|
|
this cheese is Italian
|
|
questo formaggio è noioso
|
|
> No, not questo formaggio è noioso, but
|
|
questo formaggio è italiano
|
|
|
|
Score 1/2
|
|
this fish is expensive
|
|
```
|
|
You can also generate a list of translation exercises and save it in a
|
|
file for later use, by the command ``translation_list = tl``
|
|
```
|
|
> translation_list -number=25 FoodEng FoodIta | write_file transl.txt
|
|
```
|
|
The ``number`` flag gives the number of sentences generated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=Grammar architecture=
|
|
|
|
==Extending a grammar==
|
|
|
|
The module system of GF makes it possible to **extend** a
|
|
grammar in different ways. The syntax of extension is
|
|
shown by the following example. We extend ``Food`` by
|
|
adding a category of questions and two new functions.
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Morefood = Food ** {
|
|
cat
|
|
Question ;
|
|
fun
|
|
QIs : Item -> Quality -> Question ;
|
|
Pizza : Kind ;
|
|
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
Parallel to the abstract syntax, extensions can
|
|
be built for concrete syntaxes:
|
|
```
|
|
concrete MorefoodEng of Morefood = FoodEng ** {
|
|
lincat
|
|
Question = {s : Str} ;
|
|
lin
|
|
QIs item quality = {s = "is" ++ item.s ++ quality.s} ;
|
|
Pizza = {s = "pizza"} ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
The effect of extension is that all of the contents of the extended
|
|
and extending module are put together. We also say that the new
|
|
module **inherits** the contents of the old module.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Multiple inheritance==
|
|
|
|
Specialized vocabularies can be represented as small grammars that
|
|
only do "one thing" each. For instance, the following are grammars
|
|
for fruit and mushrooms
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Fruit = {
|
|
cat Fruit ;
|
|
fun Apple, Peach : Fruit ;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
abstract Mushroom = {
|
|
cat Mushroom ;
|
|
fun Cep, Agaric : Mushroom ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
They can afterwards be combined into bigger grammars by using
|
|
**multiple inheritance**, i.e. extension of several grammars at the
|
|
same time:
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Foodmarket = Food, Fruit, Mushroom ** {
|
|
fun
|
|
FruitKind : Fruit -> Kind ;
|
|
MushroomKind : Mushroom -> Kind ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
At this point, you would perhaps like to go back to
|
|
``Food`` and take apart ``Wine`` to build a special
|
|
``Drink`` module.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Visualizing module structure==
|
|
|
|
When you have created all the abstract syntaxes and
|
|
one set of concrete syntaxes needed for ``Foodmarket``,
|
|
your grammar consists of eight GF modules. To see how their
|
|
dependences look like, you can use the command
|
|
``visualize_graph = vg``,
|
|
```
|
|
> visualize_graph
|
|
```
|
|
and the graph will pop up in a separate window.
|
|
|
|
The graph uses
|
|
|
|
- oval boxes for abstract modules
|
|
- square boxes for concrete modules
|
|
- black-headed arrows for inheritance
|
|
- white-headed arrows for the concrete-of-abstract relation
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Foodmarket.png]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just as the ``visualize_tree = vt`` command, the open source tools
|
|
Ghostview and Graphviz are needed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==System commands==
|
|
|
|
To document your grammar, you may want to print the
|
|
graph into a file, e.g. a ``.png`` file that
|
|
can be included in an HTML document. You can do this
|
|
by first printing the graph into a file ``.dot`` and then
|
|
processing this file with the ``dot`` program (from the Graphviz package).
|
|
```
|
|
> pm -printer=graph | wf Foodmarket.dot
|
|
> ! dot -Tpng Foodmarket.dot > Foodmarket.png
|
|
```
|
|
The latter command is a Unix command, issued from GF by using the
|
|
shell escape symbol ``!``. The resulting graph was shown in the previous section.
|
|
|
|
The command ``print_multi = pm`` is used for printing the current multilingual
|
|
grammar in various formats, of which the format ``-printer=graph`` just
|
|
shows the module dependencies. Use ``help`` to see what other formats
|
|
are available:
|
|
```
|
|
> help pm
|
|
> help -printer
|
|
> help help
|
|
```
|
|
Another form of system commands are those usable in GF pipes. The escape symbol
|
|
is then ``?``.
|
|
```
|
|
> generate_trees | ? wc
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=Resource modules=
|
|
|
|
|
|
==The golden rule of functional programming==
|
|
|
|
In comparison to the ``.cf`` format, the ``.gf`` format looks rather
|
|
verbose, and demands lots more characters to be written. You have probably
|
|
done this by the copy-paste-modify method, which is a common way to
|
|
avoid repeating work.
|
|
|
|
However, there is a more elegant way to avoid repeating work than the copy-and-paste
|
|
method. The **golden rule of functional programming** says that
|
|
- whenever you find yourself programming by copy-and-paste, write a function instead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A function separates the shared parts of different computations from the
|
|
changing parts, its **arguments**, or **parameters**.
|
|
In functional programming languages, such as
|
|
[Haskell http://www.haskell.org], it is possible to share much more
|
|
code with functions than in imperative languages such as C and Java.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Operation definitions==
|
|
|
|
GF is a functional programming language, not only in the sense that
|
|
the abstract syntax is a system of functions (``fun``), but also because
|
|
functional programming can be used to define concrete syntax. This is
|
|
done by using a new form of judgement, with the keyword ``oper`` (for
|
|
**operation**), distinct from ``fun`` for the sake of clarity.
|
|
Here is a simple example of an operation:
|
|
```
|
|
oper ss : Str -> {s : Str} = \x -> {s = x} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The operation can be **applied** to an argument, and GF will
|
|
**compute** the application into a value. For instance,
|
|
```
|
|
ss "boy" ===> {s = "boy"}
|
|
```
|
|
(We use the symbol ``===>`` to indicate how an expression is
|
|
computed into a value; this symbol is not a part of GF)
|
|
|
|
Thus an ``oper`` judgement includes the name of the defined operation,
|
|
its type, and an expression defining it. As for the syntax of the defining
|
|
expression, notice the **lambda abstraction** form ``\x -> t`` of
|
|
the function.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==The ``resource`` module type==
|
|
|
|
Operator definitions can be included in a concrete syntax.
|
|
But they are not really tied to a particular set of linearization rules.
|
|
They should rather be seen as **resources**
|
|
usable in many concrete syntaxes.
|
|
|
|
The ``resource`` module type can be used to package
|
|
``oper`` definitions into reusable resources. Here is
|
|
an example, with a handful of operations to manipulate
|
|
strings and records.
|
|
```
|
|
resource StringOper = {
|
|
oper
|
|
SS : Type = {s : Str} ;
|
|
ss : Str -> SS = \x -> {s = x} ;
|
|
cc : SS -> SS -> SS = \x,y -> ss (x.s ++ y.s) ;
|
|
prefix : Str -> SS -> SS = \p,x -> ss (p ++ x.s) ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
Resource modules can extend other resource modules, in the
|
|
same way as modules of other types can extend modules of the
|
|
same type. Thus it is possible to build resource hierarchies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Opening a resource==
|
|
|
|
Any number of ``resource`` modules can be
|
|
**opened** in a ``concrete`` syntax, which
|
|
makes definitions contained
|
|
in the resource usable in the concrete syntax. Here is
|
|
an example, where the resource ``StringOper`` is
|
|
opened in a new version of ``FoodEng``.
|
|
```
|
|
concrete Food2Eng of Food = open StringOper in {
|
|
|
|
lincat
|
|
S, Item, Kind, Quality = SS ;
|
|
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = cc item (prefix "is" quality) ;
|
|
This k = prefix "this" k ;
|
|
That k = prefix "that" k ;
|
|
QKind k q = cc k q ;
|
|
Wine = ss "wine" ;
|
|
Cheese = ss "cheese" ;
|
|
Fish = ss "fish" ;
|
|
Very = prefix "very" ;
|
|
Fresh = ss "fresh" ;
|
|
Warm = ss "warm" ;
|
|
Italian = ss "Italian" ;
|
|
Expensive = ss "expensive" ;
|
|
Delicious = ss "delicious" ;
|
|
Boring = ss "boring" ;
|
|
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
**Exercise**. Use the same string operations to write ``FoodIta``
|
|
more concisely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Partial application==
|
|
|
|
GF, like Haskell, permits **partial application** of
|
|
functions. An example of this is the rule
|
|
```
|
|
lin This k = prefix "this" k ;
|
|
```
|
|
which can be written more concisely
|
|
```
|
|
lin This = prefix "this" ;
|
|
```
|
|
The first form is perhaps more intuitive to write
|
|
but, once you get used to partial application, you will appreciate its
|
|
conciseness and elegance. The logic of partial application
|
|
is known as **currying**, with a reference to Haskell B. Curry.
|
|
The idea is that any //n//-place function can be defined as a 1-place
|
|
function whose value is an //n-//1 -place function. Thus
|
|
```
|
|
oper prefix : Str -> SS -> SS ;
|
|
```
|
|
can be used as a 1-place function that takes a ``Str`` into a
|
|
function ``SS -> SS``. The expected linearization of ``This`` is exactly
|
|
a function of such a type, operating on an argument of type ``Kind``
|
|
whose linearization is of type ``SS``. Thus we can define the
|
|
linearization directly as ``prefix "this"``.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Define an operation ``infix`` analogous to ``prefix``,
|
|
such that it allows you to write
|
|
```
|
|
lin Is = infix "is" ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Testing resource modules==
|
|
|
|
To test a ``resource`` module independently, you must import it
|
|
with the flag ``-retain``, which tells GF to retain ``oper`` definitions
|
|
in the memory; the usual behaviour is that ``oper`` definitions
|
|
are just applied to compile linearization rules
|
|
(this is called **inlining**) and then thrown away.
|
|
```
|
|
> i -retain StringOper.gf
|
|
```
|
|
The command ``compute_concrete = cc`` computes any expression
|
|
formed by operations and other GF constructs. For example,
|
|
```
|
|
> compute_concrete prefix "in" (ss "addition")
|
|
{
|
|
s : Str = "in" ++ "addition"
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Division of labour==
|
|
|
|
Using operations defined in resource modules is a
|
|
way to avoid repetitive code.
|
|
In addition, it enables a new kind of modularity
|
|
and division of labour in grammar writing: grammarians familiar with
|
|
the linguistic details of a language can make their knowledge
|
|
available through resource grammar modules, whose users only need
|
|
to pick the right operations and not to know their implementation
|
|
details.
|
|
|
|
In the following sections, we will go through some
|
|
such linguistic details. The programming constructs needed when
|
|
doing this are useful for all GF programmers, even if they don't
|
|
hand-code the linguistics of their applications but get them
|
|
from libraries. It is also useful to know something about the
|
|
linguistic concepts of inflection, agreement, and parts of speech.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=Morphology=
|
|
|
|
Suppose we want to say, with the vocabulary included in
|
|
``Food.gf``, things like
|
|
```
|
|
all Italian wines are delicious
|
|
```
|
|
The new grammatical facility we need are the plural forms
|
|
of nouns and verbs (//wines, are//), as opposed to their
|
|
singular forms.
|
|
|
|
The introduction of plural forms requires two things:
|
|
- the **inflection** of nouns and verbs in singular and plural
|
|
- the **agreement** of the verb to subject:
|
|
the verb must have the same number as the subject
|
|
|
|
|
|
Different languages have different rules of inflection and agreement.
|
|
For instance, Italian has also agreement in gender (masculine vs. feminine).
|
|
We want to express such special features of languages in the
|
|
concrete syntax while ignoring them in the abstract syntax.
|
|
|
|
To be able to do all this, we need one new judgement form
|
|
and many new expression forms.
|
|
We also need to generalize linearization types
|
|
from strings to more complex types.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Make a list of the possible forms that nouns,
|
|
adjectives, and verbs can have in some languages that you know.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Parameters and tables==
|
|
|
|
We define the **parameter type** of number in Englisn by
|
|
using a new form of judgement:
|
|
```
|
|
param Number = Sg | Pl ;
|
|
```
|
|
To express that ``Kind`` expressions in English have a linearization
|
|
depending on number, we replace the linearization type ``{s : Str}``
|
|
with a type where the ``s`` field is a **table** depending on number:
|
|
```
|
|
lincat Kind = {s : Number => Str} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The **table type** ``Number => Str`` is in many respects similar to
|
|
a function type (``Number -> Str``). The main difference is that the
|
|
argument type of a table type must always be a parameter type. This means
|
|
that the argument-value pairs can be listed in a finite table. The following
|
|
example shows such a table:
|
|
```
|
|
lin Cheese = {s = table {
|
|
Sg => "cheese" ;
|
|
Pl => "cheeses"
|
|
}
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The table consists of **branches**, where a **pattern** on the
|
|
left of the arrow ``=>`` is assigned a **value** on the right.
|
|
|
|
The application of a table to a parameter is done by the **selection**
|
|
operator ``!``. For instance,
|
|
```
|
|
table {Sg => "cheese" ; Pl => "cheeses"} ! Pl
|
|
```
|
|
is a selection that computes into the value ``"cheeses"``.
|
|
This computation is performed by **pattern matching**: return
|
|
the value from the first branch whose pattern matches the
|
|
selection argument. Thus
|
|
```
|
|
table {Sg => "cheese" ; Pl => "cheeses"} ! Pl
|
|
===> "cheeses"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. In a previous exercise, we make a list of the possible
|
|
forms that nouns, adjectives, and verbs can have in some languages that
|
|
you know. Now take some of the results and implement them by
|
|
using parameter type definitions and tables. Write them into a ``resource``
|
|
module, which you can test by using the command ``compute_concrete``.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Inflection tables and paradigms==
|
|
|
|
All English common nouns are inflected in number, most of them in the
|
|
same way: the plural form is obtained from the singular by adding the
|
|
ending //s//. This rule is an example of
|
|
a **paradigm** - a formula telling how the inflection
|
|
forms of a word are formed.
|
|
|
|
From the GF point of view, a paradigm is a function that takes a **lemma** -
|
|
also known as a **dictionary form** - and returns an inflection
|
|
table of desired type. Paradigms are not functions in the sense of the
|
|
``fun`` judgements of abstract syntax (which operate on trees and not
|
|
on strings), but operations defined in ``oper`` judgements.
|
|
The following operation defines the regular noun paradigm of English:
|
|
```
|
|
oper regNoun : Str -> {s : Number => Str} = \x -> {
|
|
s = table {
|
|
Sg => x ;
|
|
Pl => x + "s"
|
|
}
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The **gluing** operator ``+`` tells that
|
|
the string held in the variable ``x`` and the ending ``"s"``
|
|
are written together to form one **token**. Thus, for instance,
|
|
```
|
|
(regNoun "cheese").s ! Pl ---> "cheese" + "s" ---> "cheeses"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Identify cases in which the ``regNoun`` paradigm does not
|
|
apply in English, and implement some alternative paradigms.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Implement a paradigm for regular verbs in English.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Implement some regular paradigms for other languages you have
|
|
considered in earlier exercises.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Worst-case functions and data abstraction==
|
|
|
|
Some English nouns, such as ``mouse``, are so irregular that
|
|
it makes no sense to see them as instances of a paradigm. Even
|
|
then, it is useful to perform **data abstraction** from the
|
|
definition of the type ``Noun``, and introduce a constructor
|
|
operation, a **worst-case function** for nouns:
|
|
```
|
|
oper mkNoun : Str -> Str -> Noun = \x,y -> {
|
|
s = table {
|
|
Sg => x ;
|
|
Pl => y
|
|
}
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
Thus we can define
|
|
```
|
|
lin Mouse = mkNoun "mouse" "mice" ;
|
|
```
|
|
and
|
|
```
|
|
oper regNoun : Str -> Noun = \x ->
|
|
mkNoun x (x + "s") ;
|
|
```
|
|
instead of writing the inflection tables explicitly.
|
|
|
|
The grammar engineering advantage of worst-case functions is that
|
|
the author of the resource module may change the definitions of
|
|
``Noun`` and ``mkNoun``, and still retain the
|
|
interface (i.e. the system of type signatures) that makes it
|
|
correct to use these functions in concrete modules. In programming
|
|
terms, ``Noun`` is then treated as an **abstract datatype**.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==A system of paradigms using Prelude operations==
|
|
|
|
In addition to the completely regular noun paradigm ``regNoun``,
|
|
some other frequent noun paradigms deserve to be
|
|
defined, for instance,
|
|
```
|
|
sNoun : Str -> Noun = \kiss -> mkNoun kiss (kiss + "es") ;
|
|
```
|
|
What about nouns like //fly//, with the plural //flies//? The already
|
|
available solution is to use the longest common prefix
|
|
//fl// (also known as the **technical stem**) as argument, and define
|
|
```
|
|
yNoun : Str -> Noun = \fl -> mkNoun (fl + "y") (fl + "ies") ;
|
|
```
|
|
But this paradigm would be very unintuitive to use, because the technical stem
|
|
is not an existing form of the word. A better solution is to use
|
|
the lemma and a string operator ``init``, which returns the initial segment (i.e.
|
|
all characters but the last) of a string:
|
|
```
|
|
yNoun : Str -> Noun = \fly -> mkNoun fly (init fly + "ies") ;
|
|
```
|
|
The operation ``init`` belongs to a set of operations in the
|
|
resource module ``Prelude``, which therefore has to be
|
|
``open``ed so that ``init`` can be used. Its dual is ``last``:
|
|
```
|
|
> cc init "curry"
|
|
"curr"
|
|
|
|
> cc last "curry"
|
|
"y"
|
|
```
|
|
As generalizations of the library functions ``init`` and ``last``, GF has
|
|
two predefined funtions:
|
|
``Predef.dp``, which "drops" suffixes of any length,
|
|
and ``Predef.tk``, which "takes" a prefix
|
|
just omitting a number of characters from the end. For instance,
|
|
```
|
|
> cc Predef.tk 3 "worried"
|
|
"worr"
|
|
> cc Predef.dp 3 "worried"
|
|
"ied"
|
|
```
|
|
The prefix ``Predef`` is given to a handful of functions that could
|
|
not be defined internally in GF. They are available in all modules
|
|
without explicit ``open`` of the module ``Predef``.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Pattern matching==
|
|
|
|
We have so far built all expressions of the ``table`` form
|
|
from branches whose patterns are constants introduced in
|
|
``param`` definitions, as well as constant strings.
|
|
But there are more expressive patterns. Here is a summary of the possible forms:
|
|
- a variable pattern (identifier other than constant parameter) matches anything
|
|
- the wild card ``_`` matches anything
|
|
- a string literal pattern, e.g. ``"s"``, matches the same string
|
|
- a disjunctive pattern ``P | ... | Q`` matches anything that
|
|
one of the disjuncts matches
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pattern matching is performed in the order in which the branches
|
|
appear in the table: the branch of the first matching pattern is followed.
|
|
|
|
As syntactic sugar, one-branch tables can be written concisely,
|
|
```
|
|
\\P,...,Q => t === table {P => ... table {Q => t} ...}
|
|
```
|
|
Finally, the ``case`` expressions common in functional
|
|
programming languages are syntactic sugar for table selections:
|
|
```
|
|
case e of {...} === table {...} ! e
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==An intelligent noun paradigm using pattern matching==
|
|
|
|
It may be hard for the user of a resource morphology to pick the right
|
|
inflection paradigm. A way to help this is to define a more intelligent
|
|
paradigm, which chooses the ending by first analysing the lemma.
|
|
The following variant for English regular nouns puts together all the
|
|
previously shown paradigms, and chooses one of them on the basis of
|
|
the final letter of the lemma (found by the prelude operator ``last``).
|
|
```
|
|
regNoun : Str -> Noun = \s -> case last s of {
|
|
"s" | "z" => mkNoun s (s + "es") ;
|
|
"y" => mkNoun s (init s + "ies") ;
|
|
_ => mkNoun s (s + "s")
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
This definition displays many GF expression forms not shown befores;
|
|
these forms are explained in the next section.
|
|
|
|
The paradigms ``regNoun`` does not give the correct forms for
|
|
all nouns. For instance, //mouse - mice// and
|
|
//fish - fish// must be given by using ``mkNoun``.
|
|
Also the word //boy// would be inflected incorrectly; to prevent
|
|
this, either use ``mkNoun`` or modify
|
|
``regNoun`` so that the ``"y"`` case does not
|
|
apply if the second-last character is a vowel.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Extend the ``regNoun`` paradigm so that it takes care
|
|
of all variations there are in English. Test it with the nouns
|
|
//ax//, //bamboo//, //boy//, //bush//, //hero//, //match//.
|
|
**Hint**. The library functions ``Predef.dp`` and ``Predef.tk``
|
|
are useful in this task.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. The same rules that form plural nouns in English also
|
|
apply in the formation of third-person singular verbs.
|
|
Write a regular verb paradigm that uses this idea, but first
|
|
rewrite ``regNoun`` so that the analysis needed to build //s//-forms
|
|
is factored out as a separate ``oper``, which is shared with
|
|
``regVerb``.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Morphological resource modules==
|
|
|
|
A common idiom is to
|
|
gather the ``oper`` and ``param`` definitions
|
|
needed for inflecting words in
|
|
a language into a morphology module. Here is a simple
|
|
example, [``MorphoEng`` resource/MorphoEng.gf].
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:prelude
|
|
|
|
resource MorphoEng = open Prelude in {
|
|
|
|
param
|
|
Number = Sg | Pl ;
|
|
|
|
oper
|
|
Noun, Verb : Type = {s : Number => Str} ;
|
|
|
|
mkNoun : Str -> Str -> Noun = \x,y -> {
|
|
s = table {
|
|
Sg => x ;
|
|
Pl => y
|
|
}
|
|
} ;
|
|
|
|
regNoun : Str -> Noun = \s -> case last s of {
|
|
"s" | "z" => mkNoun s (s + "es") ;
|
|
"y" => mkNoun s (init s + "ies") ;
|
|
_ => mkNoun s (s + "s")
|
|
} ;
|
|
|
|
mkVerb : Str -> Str -> Verb = \x,y -> mkNoun y x ;
|
|
|
|
regVerb : Str -> Verb = \s -> case last s of {
|
|
"s" | "z" => mkVerb s (s + "es") ;
|
|
"y" => mkVerb s (init s + "ies") ;
|
|
"o" => mkVerb s (s + "es") ;
|
|
_ => mkVerb s (s + "s")
|
|
} ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
The first line gives as a hint to the compiler the
|
|
**search path** needed to find all the other modules that the
|
|
module depends on. The directory ``prelude`` is a subdirectory of
|
|
``GF/lib``; to be able to refer to it in this simple way, you can
|
|
set the environment variable ``GF_LIB_PATH`` to point to this
|
|
directory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
=Using parameters in concrete syntax=
|
|
|
|
We can now enrich the concrete syntax definitions to
|
|
comprise morphology. This will involve a more radical
|
|
variation between languages (e.g. English and Italian)
|
|
then just the use of different words. In general,
|
|
parameters and linearization types are different in
|
|
different languages - but this does not prevent the
|
|
use of a common abstract syntax.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Parametric vs. inherent features, agreement==
|
|
|
|
The rule of subject-verb agreement in English says that the verb
|
|
phrase must be inflected in the number of the subject. This
|
|
means that a noun phrase (functioning as a subject), inherently
|
|
//has// a number, which it passes to the verb. The verb does not
|
|
//have// a number, but must be able to //receive// whatever number the
|
|
subject has. This distinction is nicely represented by the
|
|
different linearization types of **noun phrases** and **verb phrases**:
|
|
```
|
|
lincat NP = {s : Str ; n : Number} ;
|
|
lincat VP = {s : Number => Str} ;
|
|
```
|
|
We say that the number of ``NP`` is an **inherent feature**,
|
|
whereas the number of ``NP`` is a **variable feature** (or a
|
|
**parametric feature**).
|
|
|
|
The agreement rule itself is expressed in the linearization rule of
|
|
the predication function:
|
|
```
|
|
lin PredVP np vp = {s = np.s ++ vp.s ! np.n} ;
|
|
```
|
|
The following section will present
|
|
``FoodsEng``, assuming the abstract syntax ``Foods``
|
|
that is similar to ``Food`` but also has the
|
|
plural determiners ``These`` and ``Those``.
|
|
The reader is invited to inspect the way in which agreement works in
|
|
the formation of sentences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==English concrete syntax with parameters==
|
|
|
|
The grammar uses both
|
|
[``Prelude`` ../../lib/prelude/Prelude.gf] and
|
|
[``MorphoEng`` resource/MorphoEng].
|
|
We will later see how to make the grammar even
|
|
more high-level by using a resource grammar library
|
|
and parametrized modules.
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:resource:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete FoodsEng of Foods = open Prelude, MorphoEng in {
|
|
|
|
lincat
|
|
S, Quality = SS ;
|
|
Kind = {s : Number => Str} ;
|
|
Item = {s : Str ; n : Number} ;
|
|
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = ss (item.s ++ (mkVerb "are" "is").s ! item.n ++ quality.s) ;
|
|
This = det Sg "this" ;
|
|
That = det Sg "that" ;
|
|
These = det Pl "these" ;
|
|
Those = det Pl "those" ;
|
|
QKind quality kind = {s = \\n => quality.s ++ kind.s ! n} ;
|
|
Wine = regNoun "wine" ;
|
|
Cheese = regNoun "cheese" ;
|
|
Fish = mkNoun "fish" "fish" ;
|
|
Very = prefixSS "very" ;
|
|
Fresh = ss "fresh" ;
|
|
Warm = ss "warm" ;
|
|
Italian = ss "Italian" ;
|
|
Expensive = ss "expensive" ;
|
|
Delicious = ss "delicious" ;
|
|
Boring = ss "boring" ;
|
|
|
|
oper
|
|
det : Number -> Str -> Noun -> {s : Str ; n : Number} = \n,d,cn -> {
|
|
s = d ++ cn.s ! n ;
|
|
n = n
|
|
} ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Hierarchic parameter types==
|
|
|
|
The reader familiar with a functional programming language such as
|
|
[Haskell http://www.haskell.org] must have noticed the similarity
|
|
between parameter types in GF and **algebraic datatypes** (``data`` definitions
|
|
in Haskell). The GF parameter types are actually a special case of algebraic
|
|
datatypes: the main restriction is that in GF, these types must be finite.
|
|
(It is this restriction that makes it possible to invert linearization rules into
|
|
parsing methods.)
|
|
|
|
However, finite is not the same thing as enumerated. Even in GF, parameter
|
|
constructors can take arguments, provided these arguments are from other
|
|
parameter types - only recursion is forbidden. Such parameter types impose a
|
|
hierarchic order among parameters. They are often needed to define
|
|
the linguistically most accurate parameter systems.
|
|
|
|
To give an example, Swedish adjectives
|
|
are inflected in number (singular or plural) and
|
|
gender (uter or neuter). These parameters would suggest 2*2=4 different
|
|
forms. However, the gender distinction is done only in the singular. Therefore,
|
|
it would be inaccurate to define adjective paradigms using the type
|
|
``Gender => Number => Str``. The following hierarchic definition
|
|
yields an accurate system of three adjectival forms.
|
|
```
|
|
param AdjForm = ASg Gender | APl ;
|
|
param Gender = Utr | Neutr ;
|
|
```
|
|
Here is an example of pattern matching, the paradigm of regular adjectives.
|
|
```
|
|
oper regAdj : Str -> AdjForm => Str = \fin -> table {
|
|
ASg Utr => fin ;
|
|
ASg Neutr => fin + "t" ;
|
|
APl => fin + "a" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
A constructor can be used as a pattern that has patterns as arguments. For instance,
|
|
the adjectival paradigm in which the two singular forms are the same,
|
|
can be defined
|
|
```
|
|
oper plattAdj : Str -> AdjForm => Str = \platt -> table {
|
|
ASg _ => platt ;
|
|
APl => platt + "a" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Morphological analysis and morphology quiz==
|
|
|
|
Even though morphology is in GF
|
|
mostly used as an auxiliary for syntax, it
|
|
can also be useful on its own right. The command ``morpho_analyse = ma``
|
|
can be used to read a text and return for each word the analyses that
|
|
it has in the current concrete syntax.
|
|
```
|
|
> rf bible.txt | morpho_analyse
|
|
```
|
|
In the same way as translation exercises, morphological exercises can
|
|
be generated, by the command ``morpho_quiz = mq``. Usually,
|
|
the category is set to be something else than ``S``. For instance,
|
|
```
|
|
> cd GF/lib/resource-1.0/
|
|
> i french/IrregFre.gf
|
|
> morpho_quiz -cat=V
|
|
|
|
Welcome to GF Morphology Quiz.
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
réapparaître : VFin VCondit Pl P2
|
|
réapparaitriez
|
|
> No, not réapparaitriez, but
|
|
réapparaîtriez
|
|
Score 0/1
|
|
```
|
|
Finally, a list of morphological exercises can be generated
|
|
off-line and saved in a
|
|
file for later use, by the command ``morpho_list = ml``
|
|
```
|
|
> morpho_list -number=25 -cat=V | wf exx.txt
|
|
```
|
|
The ``number`` flag gives the number of exercises generated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Discontinuous constituents==
|
|
|
|
A linearization type may contain more strings than one.
|
|
An example of where this is useful are English particle
|
|
verbs, such as //switch off//. The linearization of
|
|
a sentence may place the object between the verb and the particle:
|
|
//he switched it off//.
|
|
|
|
The following judgement defines transitive verbs as
|
|
**discontinuous constituents**, i.e. as having a linearization
|
|
type with two strings and not just one.
|
|
```
|
|
lincat TV = {s : Number => Str ; part : Str} ;
|
|
```
|
|
This linearization rule
|
|
shows how the constituents are separated by the object in complementization.
|
|
```
|
|
lin PredTV tv obj = {s = \\n => tv.s ! n ++ obj.s ++ tv.part} ;
|
|
```
|
|
There is no restriction in the number of discontinuous constituents
|
|
(or other fields) a ``lincat`` may contain. The only condition is that
|
|
the fields must be of finite types, i.e. built from records, tables,
|
|
parameters, and ``Str``, and not functions.
|
|
|
|
A mathematical result
|
|
about parsing in GF says that the worst-case complexity of parsing
|
|
increases with the number of discontinuous constituents. This is
|
|
potentially a reason to avoid discontinuous constituents.
|
|
Moreover, the parsing and linearization commands only give accurate
|
|
results for categories whose linearization type has a unique ``Str``
|
|
valued field labelled ``s``. Therefore, discontinuous constituents
|
|
are not a good idea in top-level categories accessed by the users
|
|
of a grammar application.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Free variation==
|
|
|
|
Sometimes there are many alternative ways to define a concrete syntax.
|
|
For instance, the verb negation in English can be expressed both by
|
|
//does not// and //doesn't//. In linguistic terms, these expressions
|
|
are in **free variation**. The ``variants`` construct of GF can
|
|
be used to give a list of strings in free variation. For example,
|
|
```
|
|
NegVerb verb = {s = variants {["does not"] ; "doesn't} ++ verb.s ! Pl} ;
|
|
```
|
|
An empty variant list
|
|
```
|
|
variants {}
|
|
```
|
|
can be used e.g. if a word lacks a certain form.
|
|
|
|
In general, ``variants`` should be used cautiously. It is not
|
|
recommended for modules aimed to be libraries, because the
|
|
user of the library has no way to choose among the variants.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Overloading of operations==
|
|
|
|
Large libraries, such as the GF Resource Grammar Library, may define
|
|
hundreds of names, which can be unpractical
|
|
for both the library writer and the user. The writer has to invent longer
|
|
and longer names which are not always intuitive,
|
|
and the user has to learn or at least be able to find all these names.
|
|
A solution to this problem, adopted by languages such as C++, is **overloading**:
|
|
the same name can be used for several functions. When such a name is used, the
|
|
compiler performs **overload resolution** to find out which of the possible functions
|
|
is meant. The resolution is based on the types of the functions: all functions that
|
|
have the same name must have different types.
|
|
|
|
In C++, functions with the same name can be scattered everywhere in the program.
|
|
In GF, they must be grouped together in ``overload`` groups. Here is an example
|
|
of an overload group, defining four ways to define nouns in Italian:
|
|
```
|
|
oper mkN = overload {
|
|
mkN : Str -> N = -- regular nouns
|
|
mkN : Str -> Gender -> N = -- regular nouns with unexpected gender
|
|
mkN : Str -> Str -> N = -- irregular nouns
|
|
mkN : Str -> Str -> Gender -> N = -- irregular nouns with unexpected gender
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
All of the following uses of ``mkN`` are easy to resolve:
|
|
```
|
|
lin Pizza = mkN "pizza" ; -- Str -> N
|
|
lin Hand = mkN "mano" Fem ; -- Str -> Gender -> N
|
|
lin Man = mkN "uomo" "uomini" ; -- Str -> Str -> N
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
=More constructs for concrete syntax=
|
|
|
|
In this chapter, we go through constructs that are not necessary in simple grammars
|
|
or when the concrete syntax relies on libraries. But they are useful when
|
|
writing advanced concrete syntax implementations, such as resource grammar libraries.
|
|
This chapter can safely be skipped if the reader prefers to continue to the
|
|
chapter on using libraries.
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Local definitions==
|
|
|
|
Local definitions ("``let`` expressions") are used in functional
|
|
programming for two reasons: to structure the code into smaller
|
|
expressions, and to avoid repeated computation of one and
|
|
the same expression. Here is an example, from
|
|
[``MorphoIta`` resource/MorphoIta.gf]:
|
|
```
|
|
oper regNoun : Str -> Noun = \vino ->
|
|
let
|
|
vin = init vino ;
|
|
o = last vino
|
|
in
|
|
case o of {
|
|
"a" => mkNoun Fem vino (vin + "e") ;
|
|
"o" | "e" => mkNoun Masc vino (vin + "i") ;
|
|
_ => mkNoun Masc vino vino
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Record extension and subtyping==
|
|
|
|
Record types and records can be **extended** with new fields. For instance,
|
|
in German it is natural to see transitive verbs as verbs with a case.
|
|
The symbol ``**`` is used for both constructs.
|
|
```
|
|
lincat TV = Verb ** {c : Case} ;
|
|
|
|
lin Follow = regVerb "folgen" ** {c = Dative} ;
|
|
```
|
|
To extend a record type or a record with a field whose label it
|
|
already has is a type error.
|
|
|
|
A record type //T// is a **subtype** of another one //R//, if //T// has
|
|
all the fields of //R// and possibly other fields. For instance,
|
|
an extension of a record type is always a subtype of it.
|
|
|
|
If //T// is a subtype of //R//, an object of //T// can be used whenever
|
|
an object of //R// is required. For instance, a transitive verb can
|
|
be used whenever a verb is required.
|
|
|
|
**Contravariance** means that a function taking an //R// as argument
|
|
can also be applied to any object of a subtype //T//.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Tuples and product types==
|
|
|
|
Product types and tuples are syntactic sugar for record types and records:
|
|
```
|
|
T1 * ... * Tn === {p1 : T1 ; ... ; pn : Tn}
|
|
<t1, ..., tn> === {p1 = T1 ; ... ; pn = Tn}
|
|
```
|
|
Thus the labels ``p1, p2,...`` are hard-coded.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Record and tuple patterns==
|
|
|
|
Record types of parameter types are also parameter types.
|
|
A typical example is a record of agreement features, e.g. French
|
|
```
|
|
oper Agr : PType = {g : Gender ; n : Number ; p : Person} ;
|
|
```
|
|
Notice the term ``PType`` rather than just ``Type`` referring to
|
|
parameter types. Every ``PType`` is also a ``Type``, but not vice-versa.
|
|
|
|
Pattern matching is done in the expected way, but it can moreover
|
|
utilize partial records: the branch
|
|
```
|
|
{g = Fem} => t
|
|
```
|
|
in a table of type ``Agr => T`` means the same as
|
|
```
|
|
{g = Fem ; n = _ ; p = _} => t
|
|
```
|
|
Tuple patterns are translated to record patterns in the
|
|
same way as tuples to records; partial patterns make it
|
|
possible to write, slightly surprisingly,
|
|
```
|
|
case <g,n,p> of {
|
|
<Fem> => t
|
|
...
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Regular expression patterns==
|
|
|
|
To define string operations computed at compile time, such
|
|
as in morphology, it is handy to use regular expression patterns:
|
|
- //p// ``+`` //q// : token consisting of //p// followed by //q//
|
|
- //p// ``*`` : token //p// repeated 0 or more times
|
|
(max the length of the string to be matched)
|
|
- ``-`` //p// : matches anything that //p// does not match
|
|
- //x// ``@`` //p// : bind to //x// what //p// matches
|
|
- //p// ``|`` //q// : matches what either //p// or //q// matches
|
|
|
|
|
|
The last three apply to all types of patterns, the first two only to token strings.
|
|
As an example, we give a rule for the formation of English word forms
|
|
ending with an //s// and used in the formation of both plural nouns and
|
|
third-person present-tense verbs.
|
|
```
|
|
add_s : Str -> Str = \w -> case w of {
|
|
_ + "oo" => w + "s" ; -- bamboo
|
|
_ + ("s" | "z" | "x" | "sh" | "o") => w + "es" ; -- bus, hero
|
|
_ + ("a" | "o" | "u" | "e") + "y" => w + "s" ; -- boy
|
|
x + "y" => x + "ies" ; -- fly
|
|
_ => w + "s" -- car
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
Here is another example, the plural formation in Swedish 2nd declension.
|
|
The second branch uses a variable binding with ``@`` to cover the cases where an
|
|
unstressed pre-final vowel //e// disappears in the plural
|
|
(//nyckel-nycklar, seger-segrar, bil-bilar//):
|
|
```
|
|
plural2 : Str -> Str = \w -> case w of {
|
|
pojk + "e" => pojk + "ar" ;
|
|
nyck + "e" + l@("l" | "r" | "n") => nyck + l + "ar" ;
|
|
bil => bil + "ar"
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
Semantics: variables are always bound to the **first match**, which is the first
|
|
in the sequence of binding lists ``Match p v`` defined as follows. In the definition,
|
|
``p`` is a pattern and ``v`` is a value. The semantics is given in Haskell notation.
|
|
```
|
|
Match (p1|p2) v = Match p1 ++ U Match p2 v
|
|
Match (p1+p2) s = [Match p1 s1 ++ Match p2 s2 |
|
|
i <- [0..length s], (s1,s2) = splitAt i s]
|
|
Match p* s = [[]] if Match "" s ++ Match p s ++ Match (p+p) s ++... /= []
|
|
Match -p v = [[]] if Match p v = []
|
|
Match c v = [[]] if c == v -- for constant and literal patterns c
|
|
Match x v = [[(x,v)]] -- for variable patterns x
|
|
Match x@p v = [[(x,v)]] + M if M = Match p v /= []
|
|
Match p v = [] otherwise -- failure
|
|
```
|
|
Examples:
|
|
- ``x + "e" + y`` matches ``"peter"`` with ``x = "p", y = "ter"``
|
|
- ``x + "er"*`` matches ``"burgerer"`` with ``x = "burg"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Implement the German **Umlaut** operation on word stems.
|
|
The operation changes the vowel of the stressed stem syllable as follows:
|
|
//a// to //ä//, //au// to //äu//, //o// to //ö//, and //u// to //ü//. You
|
|
can assume that the operation only takes syllables as arguments. Test the
|
|
operation to see whether it correctly changes //Arzt// to //Ärzt//,
|
|
//Baum// to //Bäum//, //Topf// to //Töpf//, and //Kuh// to //Küh//.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
==Prefix-dependent choices==
|
|
|
|
Sometimes a token has different forms depending on the token
|
|
that follows. An example is the English indefinite article,
|
|
which is //an// if a vowel follows, //a// otherwise.
|
|
Which form is chosen can only be decided at run time, i.e.
|
|
when a string is actually build. GF has a special construct for
|
|
such tokens, the ``pre`` construct exemplified in
|
|
```
|
|
oper artIndef : Str =
|
|
pre {"a" ; "an" / strs {"a" ; "e" ; "i" ; "o"}} ;
|
|
```
|
|
Thus
|
|
```
|
|
artIndef ++ "cheese" ---> "a" ++ "cheese"
|
|
artIndef ++ "apple" ---> "an" ++ "apple"
|
|
```
|
|
This very example does not work in all situations: the prefix
|
|
//u// has no general rules, and some problematic words are
|
|
//euphemism, one-eyed, n-gram//. It is possible to write
|
|
```
|
|
oper artIndef : Str =
|
|
pre {"a" ;
|
|
"a" / strs {"eu" ; "one"} ;
|
|
"an" / strs {"a" ; "e" ; "i" ; "o" ; "n-"}
|
|
} ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Predefined types==
|
|
|
|
GF has the following predefined categories in abstract syntax:
|
|
```
|
|
cat Int ; -- integers, e.g. 0, 5, 743145151019
|
|
cat Float ; -- floats, e.g. 0.0, 3.1415926
|
|
cat String ; -- strings, e.g. "", "foo", "123"
|
|
```
|
|
The objects of each of these categories are **literals**
|
|
as indicated in the comments above. No ``fun`` definition
|
|
can have a predefined category as its value type, but
|
|
they can be used as arguments. For example:
|
|
```
|
|
fun StreetAddress : Int -> String -> Address ;
|
|
lin StreetAddress number street = {s = number.s ++ street.s} ;
|
|
|
|
-- e.g. (StreetAddress 10 "Downing Street") : Address
|
|
```
|
|
FIXME: The linearization type is ``{s : Str}`` for all these categories.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
%--!
|
|
|
|
=Using the resource grammar library=
|
|
|
|
In this chapter, we will take a look at the GF resource grammar library.
|
|
We will use the library to implement a slightly extended ``Food`` grammar
|
|
and port it to some new languages.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==The coverage of the library==
|
|
|
|
The GF Resource Grammar Library contains grammar rules for
|
|
10 languages (in addition, 2 languages are available as incomplete
|
|
implementations, and a few more are under construction). Its purpose
|
|
is to make these rules available for application programmers,
|
|
who can thereby concentrate on the semantic and stylistic
|
|
aspects of their grammars, without having to think about
|
|
grammaticality. The targeted level of application grammarians
|
|
is that of a skilled programmer with
|
|
a practical knowledge of the target languages, but without
|
|
theoretical knowledge about their grammars.
|
|
Such a combination of
|
|
skills is typical of programmers who, for instance, want to localize
|
|
software to new languages.
|
|
|
|
The current resource languages are
|
|
- ``Ara``bic (incomplete)
|
|
- ``Cat``alan (incomplete)
|
|
- ``Dan``ish
|
|
- ``Eng``lish
|
|
- ``Fin``nish
|
|
- ``Fre``nch
|
|
- ``Ger``man
|
|
- ``Ita``lian
|
|
- ``Nor``wegian
|
|
- ``Rus``sian
|
|
- ``Spa``nish
|
|
- ``Swe``dish
|
|
|
|
|
|
The first three letters (``Eng`` etc) are used in grammar module names.
|
|
The incomplete Arabic and Catalan implementations are
|
|
enough to be used in many applications; they both contain, amoung other
|
|
things, complete inflectional morphology.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==The resource API==
|
|
|
|
The resource library API is devided into language-specific
|
|
and language-independent parts. To put it roughly,
|
|
- the syntax API is language-independent, i.e. has the same types and functions for all
|
|
languages.
|
|
Its name is ``Syntax``//L// for each language //L//
|
|
- the morphology API is language-specific, i.e. has partly different types and functions
|
|
for different languages.
|
|
Its name is ``Paradigms``//L// for each language //L//
|
|
|
|
|
|
A full documentation of the API is available on-line in the
|
|
[resource synopsis ../../lib/resource-1.0/synopsis.html]. For our
|
|
examples, we will only need a fragment of the full API.
|
|
|
|
In the first examples,
|
|
we will make use of the following categories, from the module ``Syntax``.
|
|
|
|
|| Category | Explanation | Example ||
|
|
| ``Utt`` | sentence, question, word... | "be quiet" |
|
|
| ``Adv`` | verb-phrase-modifying adverb, | "in the house" |
|
|
| ``AdA`` | adjective-modifying adverb, | "very" |
|
|
| ``S`` | declarative sentence | "she lived here" |
|
|
| ``Cl`` | declarative clause, with all tenses | "she looks at this" |
|
|
| ``AP`` | adjectival phrase | "very warm" |
|
|
| ``CN`` | common noun (without determiner) | "red house" |
|
|
| ``NP`` | noun phrase (subject or object) | "the red house" |
|
|
| ``Det`` | determiner phrase | "those seven" |
|
|
| ``Predet`` | predeterminer | "only" |
|
|
| ``Quant`` | quantifier with both sg and pl | "this/these" |
|
|
| ``Prep`` | preposition, or just case | "in" |
|
|
| ``A`` | one-place adjective | "warm" |
|
|
| ``N`` | common noun | "house" |
|
|
|
|
|
|
We will need the following syntax rules from ``Syntax``.
|
|
|
|
|| Function | Type | Example ||
|
|
| ``mkUtt`` | ``S -> Utt`` | //John walked// |
|
|
| ``mkUtt`` | ``Cl -> Utt`` | //John walks// |
|
|
| ``mkCl`` | ``NP -> AP -> Cl`` | //John is very old// |
|
|
| ``mkNP`` | ``Det -> CN -> NP`` | //the first old man// |
|
|
| ``mkNP`` | ``Predet -> NP -> NP`` | //only John// |
|
|
| ``mkDet`` | ``Quant -> Det`` | //this// |
|
|
| ``mkCN`` | ``N -> CN`` | //house// |
|
|
| ``mkCN`` | ``AP -> CN -> CN`` | //very big blue house// |
|
|
| ``mkAP`` | ``A -> AP`` | //old// |
|
|
| ``mkAP`` | ``AdA -> AP -> AP`` | //very very old// |
|
|
|
|
We will also need the following structural words from ``Syntax``.
|
|
|
|
|| Function | Type | Example ||
|
|
| ``all_Predet`` | ``Predet`` | //all// |
|
|
| ``defPlDet`` | ``Det`` | //the (houses)// |
|
|
| ``this_Quant`` | ``Quant`` | //this// |
|
|
| ``very_AdA`` | ``AdA`` | //very// |
|
|
|
|
|
|
For French, we will use the following part of ``ParadigmsFre``.
|
|
|
|
|| Function | Type | Example ||
|
|
| ``Gender`` | ``Type`` | - |
|
|
| ``masculine`` | ``Gender`` | - |
|
|
| ``feminine`` | ``Gender`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkN`` | ``(cheval : Str) -> N`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkN`` | ``(foie : Str) -> Gender -> N`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkA`` | ``(cher : Str) -> A`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkA`` | ``(sec,seche : Str) -> A`` | - |
|
|
|
|
|
|
For German, we will use the following part of ``ParadigmsGer``.
|
|
|
|
|| Function | Type | Example ||
|
|
| ``Gender`` | ``Type`` | - |
|
|
| ``masculine`` | ``Gender`` | - |
|
|
| ``feminine`` | ``Gender`` | - |
|
|
| ``neuter`` | ``Gender`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkN`` | ``(Stufe : Str) -> N`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkN`` | ``(Bild,Bilder : Str) -> Gender -> N`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkA`` | ``Str -> A`` | - |
|
|
| ``mkA`` | ``(gut,besser,beste : Str) -> A`` | //gut,besser,beste// |
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Try out the morphological paradigms in different languages. Do
|
|
in this way:
|
|
```
|
|
> i -path=alltenses:prelude -retain alltenses/ParadigmsGer.gfr
|
|
> cc mkN "Farbe"
|
|
> cc mkA "gut" "besser" "beste"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Example: French==
|
|
|
|
We start with an abstract syntax that is like ``Food`` before, but
|
|
has a plural determiner (//all wines//) and some new nouns that will
|
|
need different genders in most languages.
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Food = {
|
|
cat
|
|
S ; Item ; Kind ; Quality ;
|
|
fun
|
|
Is : Item -> Quality -> S ;
|
|
This, All : Kind -> Item ;
|
|
QKind : Quality -> Kind -> Kind ;
|
|
Wine, Cheese, Fish, Beer, Pizza : Kind ;
|
|
Very : Quality -> Quality ;
|
|
Fresh, Warm, Italian, Expensive, Delicious, Boring : Quality ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
The French implementation opens ``SyntaxFre`` and ``ParadigmsFre``
|
|
to get access to the resource libraries needed. In order to find
|
|
the libraries, a ``path`` directive is prepended; it is interpreted
|
|
relative to the environment variable ``GF_LIB_PATH``.
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:present:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete FoodFre of Food = open SyntaxFre,ParadigmsFre in {
|
|
lincat
|
|
S = Utt ;
|
|
Item = NP ;
|
|
Kind = CN ;
|
|
Quality = AP ;
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = mkUtt (mkCl item quality) ;
|
|
This kind = mkNP (mkDet this_Quant) kind ;
|
|
All kind = mkNP all_Predet (mkNP defPlDet kind) ;
|
|
QKind quality kind = mkCN quality kind ;
|
|
Wine = mkCN (mkN "vin") ;
|
|
Beer = mkCN (mkN "bière") ;
|
|
Pizza = mkCN (mkN "pizza" feminine) ;
|
|
Cheese = mkCN (mkN "fromage" masculine) ;
|
|
Fish = mkCN (mkN "poisson") ;
|
|
Very quality = mkAP very_AdA quality ;
|
|
Fresh = mkAP (mkA "frais" "fraîche") ;
|
|
Warm = mkAP (mkA "chaud") ;
|
|
Italian = mkAP (mkA "italien") ;
|
|
Expensive = mkAP (mkA "cher") ;
|
|
Delicious = mkAP (mkA "délicieux") ;
|
|
Boring = mkAP (mkA "ennuyeux") ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
The ``lincat`` definitions in ``FoodFre`` assign **resource categories**
|
|
to **application categories**. In a sense, the application categories
|
|
are **semantic**, as they correspond to concepts in the grammar application,
|
|
whereas the resource categories are **syntactic**: they give the linguistic
|
|
means to express concepts in any application.
|
|
|
|
The ``lin`` definitions likewise assign resource functions to application
|
|
functions. Under the hood, there is a lot of matching with parameters to
|
|
take care of word order, inflection, and agreement. But the user of the
|
|
library sees nothing of this: the only parameters you need to give are
|
|
the genders of some nouns, which cannot be correctly inferred from the word.
|
|
|
|
In French, for example, the one-argument ``mkN`` assigns the noun the feminine
|
|
gender if and only if it ends with an //e//. Therefore the words //fromage// and
|
|
//pizza// are given genders. One can of course always give genders manually, to
|
|
be on the safe side.
|
|
|
|
As for inflection, the one-argument adjective pattern ``mkA`` takes care of
|
|
completely regular adjective such as //chaud-chaude//, but also of special
|
|
cases such as //italien-italienne//, //cher-chère//, and //délicieux-délicieuse//.
|
|
But it cannot form //frais-fraîche// properly. Once again, you can give more
|
|
forms to be on the safe side. You can also test the paradigms in the GF
|
|
program.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Compile the grammar ``FoodFre`` and generate and parse some sentences.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write a concrete syntax of ``Food`` for English or some other language
|
|
included in the resource library. You can also compare the output with the hand-written
|
|
grammars presented earlier in this tutorial.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. In particular, try to write a concrete syntax for Italian, even if
|
|
you don't know Italian. What you need to know is that "beer" is //birra// and
|
|
"pizza" is //pizza//, and that all the nouns and adjectives in the grammar
|
|
are regular.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Functor implementation of multilingual grammars==
|
|
|
|
If you did the exercise of writing a concrete syntax of ``Food`` for some other
|
|
language, you probably noticed that much of the code looks exactly the same
|
|
as for French. The immediate reason for this is that the ``Syntax`` API is the
|
|
same for all languages; the deeper reason is that all languages (at least those
|
|
in the resource package) implement the same syntactic structures and tend to use them
|
|
in similar ways. Thus it is only the lexical parts of a concrete syntax that
|
|
you need to write anew for a new language. In brief,
|
|
- first copy the concrete syntax for one language
|
|
- then change the words (the strings and perhaps some paradigms)
|
|
|
|
|
|
But programming by copy-and-paste is not worthy of a functional programmer.
|
|
Can we write a function that takes care of the shared parts of grammar modules?
|
|
Yes, we can. It is not a function in the ``fun`` or ``oper`` sense, but
|
|
a function operating on modules, called a **functor**. This construct
|
|
is familiar from the functional languages ML and OCaml, but it does not
|
|
exist in Haskell. It also bears some resemblance to templates in C++.
|
|
Functors are also known as **parametrized modules**.
|
|
|
|
In GF, a functor is a module that ``open``s one or more **interfaces**.
|
|
An ``interface`` is a module similar to a ``resource``, but it only
|
|
contains the types of ``oper``s, not their definitions. You can think
|
|
of an interface as a kind of a record type. Thus a functor is a kind
|
|
of a function taking records as arguments and producins a module
|
|
as value.
|
|
|
|
Let us look at a functor implementation of the ``Food`` grammar.
|
|
Consider its module header first:
|
|
```
|
|
incomplete concrete FoodI of Food = open Syntax, LexFood in
|
|
```
|
|
In the functor-function analogy, ``FoodI`` would be presented as a function
|
|
with the following type signature:
|
|
```
|
|
FoodI : instance of Syntax -> instance of LexFood -> concrete of Food
|
|
```
|
|
It takes as arguments two interfaces:
|
|
- ``Syntax``, the resource grammar interface
|
|
- ``LexFood``, the domain-specific lexicon interface
|
|
|
|
|
|
Functors opening ``Syntax`` and a domain lexicon interface are in fact
|
|
so typical in GF applications, that this structure could be called a **design patter**
|
|
for GF grammars. The idea in this pattern is, again, that
|
|
the languages use the same syntactic structures but different words.
|
|
|
|
Before going to the details of the module bodies, let us look at how functors
|
|
are concretely used. An interface has a header such as
|
|
```
|
|
interface LexFood = open Syntax in
|
|
```
|
|
To give an ``instance`` of it means that all ``oper``s are given definitione (of
|
|
appropriate types). For example,
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexFoodGer of LexFood = open SyntaxGer, ParadigmsGer in
|
|
```
|
|
Notice that when an interface opens an interface, such as ``Syntax``, then its instance
|
|
opens an instance of it. But the instance may also open some resources - typically,
|
|
a domain lexicon instance opens a ``Paradigms`` module.
|
|
|
|
In the function-functor analogy, we now have
|
|
```
|
|
SyntaxGer : instance of Syntax
|
|
LexFoodGer : instance of LexFood
|
|
```
|
|
Thus we can complete the German implementation by "applying" the functor:
|
|
```
|
|
FoodI SyntaxGer LexFoodGer : concrete of Food
|
|
```
|
|
The GF syntax for doing so is
|
|
```
|
|
concrete FoodGer of Food = FoodI with
|
|
(Syntax = SyntaxGer),
|
|
(LexFood = LexFoodGer) ;
|
|
```
|
|
Notice that this is the //complete// module, not just a header of it.
|
|
The module body is received from ``FoodI``, by instantiating the
|
|
interface constants with their definitions given in the German
|
|
instances.
|
|
|
|
A module of this form, characterized by the keyword ``with``, is
|
|
called a **functor instantiation**.
|
|
|
|
Here is the complete code for the functor ``FoodI``:
|
|
```
|
|
incomplete concrete FoodI of Food = open Syntax, LexFood in {
|
|
lincat
|
|
S = Utt ;
|
|
Item = NP ;
|
|
Kind = CN ;
|
|
Quality = AP ;
|
|
lin
|
|
Is item quality = mkUtt (mkCl item quality) ;
|
|
This kind = mkNP (mkDet this_Quant) kind ;
|
|
All kind = mkNP all_Predet (mkNP defPlDet kind) ;
|
|
QKind quality kind = mkCN quality kind ;
|
|
Wine = mkCN wine_N ;
|
|
Beer = mkCN beer_N ;
|
|
Pizza = mkCN pizza_N ;
|
|
Cheese = mkCN cheese_N ;
|
|
Fish = mkCN fish_N ;
|
|
Very quality = mkAP very_AdA quality ;
|
|
Fresh = mkAP fresh_A ;
|
|
Warm = mkAP warm_A ;
|
|
Italian = mkAP italian_A ;
|
|
Expensive = mkAP expensive_A ;
|
|
Delicious = mkAP delicious_A ;
|
|
Boring = mkAP boring_A ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Interfaces and instances==
|
|
|
|
Let us now define the ``LexFood`` interface:
|
|
```
|
|
interface LexFood = open Syntax in {
|
|
oper
|
|
wine_N : N ;
|
|
beer_N : N ;
|
|
pizza_N : N ;
|
|
cheese_N : N ;
|
|
fish_N : N ;
|
|
fresh_A : A ;
|
|
warm_A : A ;
|
|
italian_A : A ;
|
|
expensive_A : A ;
|
|
delicious_A : A ;
|
|
boring_A : A ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
In this interface, only lexical items are declared. In general, an
|
|
interface can declare any functions and also types. The ``Syntax``
|
|
interface does so.
|
|
|
|
Here is the German instance of the interface:
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexFoodGer of LexFood = open SyntaxGer, ParadigmsGer in {
|
|
oper
|
|
wine_N = mkN "Wein" ;
|
|
beer_N = mkN "Bier" "Biere" neuter ;
|
|
pizza_N = mkN "Pizza" "Pizzen" feminine ;
|
|
cheese_N = mkN "Käse" "Käsen" masculine ;
|
|
fish_N = mkN "Fisch" ;
|
|
fresh_A = mkA "frisch" ;
|
|
warm_A = mkA "warm" "wärmer" "wärmste" ;
|
|
italian_A = mkA "italienisch" ;
|
|
expensive_A = mkA "teuer" ;
|
|
delicious_A = mkA "köstlich" ;
|
|
boring_A = mkA "langweilig" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
Just to complete the picture, we repeat the German functor instantiation
|
|
for ``FoodI``, this time with a path directive that makes it compilable.
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:present:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete FoodGer of Food = FoodI with
|
|
(Syntax = SyntaxGer),
|
|
(LexFood = LexFoodGer) ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Compile and test ``FoodGer``.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Refactor ``FoodFre`` into a functor instantiation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Adding languages to a functor implementation==
|
|
|
|
Once we have an application grammar defined by using a functor,
|
|
adding a new language is simple. Just two modules need to be written:
|
|
- a domain lexicon instance
|
|
- a functor instantiation
|
|
|
|
|
|
The functor instantiation is completely mechanical to write.
|
|
Here is one for Finnish:
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:present:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete FoodFin of Food = FoodI with
|
|
(Syntax = SyntaxFin),
|
|
(LexFood = LexFoodFin) ;
|
|
```
|
|
The domain lexicon instance requires some knowledge of the words of the
|
|
language: what words are used for which concepts, how the words are
|
|
inflected, plus features such as genders. Here is a lexicon instance for
|
|
Finnish:
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexFoodFin of LexFood = open SyntaxFin, ParadigmsFin in {
|
|
oper
|
|
wine_N = mkN "viini" ;
|
|
beer_N = mkN "olut" ;
|
|
pizza_N = mkN "pizza" ;
|
|
cheese_N = mkN "juusto" ;
|
|
fish_N = mkN "kala" ;
|
|
fresh_A = mkA "tuore" ;
|
|
warm_A = mkA "lämmin" ;
|
|
italian_A = mkA "italialainen" ;
|
|
expensive_A = mkA "kallis" ;
|
|
delicious_A = mkA "herkullinen" ;
|
|
boring_A = mkA "tylsä" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Instantiate the functor ``FoodI`` to some language of
|
|
your choice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Division of labour revisited==
|
|
|
|
One purpose with the resource grammars was stated to be a division
|
|
of labour between linguists and application grammarians. We can now
|
|
reflect on what this means more precisely, by asking ourselves what
|
|
skills are required of grammarians working on different components.
|
|
|
|
Building a GF application starts from the abstract syntax. Writing
|
|
an abstract syntax requires
|
|
- understanding the semantic structure of the application domain
|
|
- knowledge of the GF fragment with categories and functions
|
|
|
|
|
|
If the concrete syntax is written by means of a functor, the programmer
|
|
has to decide what parts of the implementation are put to the interface
|
|
and what parts are shared in the functor. This requires
|
|
- knowing how the domain concepts are expressed in natural language
|
|
- knowledge of the resource grammar library - the categories and combinators
|
|
- understanding what parts are likely to be expressed in language-dependent
|
|
ways, so that they must belong to the interface and not the functor
|
|
- knowledge of the GF fragment with function applications and strings
|
|
|
|
|
|
Instantiating a ready-made functor to a new language is less demanding.
|
|
It requires essentially
|
|
- knowing how the domain words are expressed in the language
|
|
- knowing, roughly, how these words are inflected
|
|
- knowledge of the paradigms available in the library
|
|
- knowledge of the GF fragment with function applications and strings
|
|
|
|
|
|
Notice that none of these tasks requires the use of GF records, tables,
|
|
or parameters. Thus only a small fragment of GF is needed; the rest of
|
|
GF is only relevant for those who write the libraries.
|
|
|
|
Of course, grammar writing is not always straightforward usage of libraries.
|
|
For example, GF can be used for other languages than just those in the
|
|
libraries - for both natural and formal languages. A knowledge of records
|
|
and tables can, unfortunately, also be needed for understanding GF's error
|
|
messages.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Design a small grammar that can be used for controlling
|
|
an MP3 player. The grammar should be able to recognize commands such
|
|
as //play this song//, with the following variations:
|
|
- verbs: //play//, //remove//
|
|
- objects: //song//, //artist//
|
|
- determiners: //this//, //the previous//
|
|
- verbs without arguments: //stop//, //pause//
|
|
|
|
|
|
The implementation goes in the following phases:
|
|
+ abstract syntax
|
|
+ functor and lexicon interface
|
|
+ lexicon instance for the first language
|
|
+ functor instantiation for the first language
|
|
+ lexicon instance for the second language
|
|
+ functor instantiation for the second language
|
|
+ ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Restricted inheritance==
|
|
|
|
A functor implementation using the resource ``Syntax`` interface
|
|
works as long as all concepts are expressed by using the same structures
|
|
in all languages. If this is not the case, the deviant linearization can
|
|
be made into a parameter and moved to the domain lexicon interface.
|
|
|
|
Let us take a slightly contrived example: assume that English has
|
|
no word for ``Pizza``, but has to use the paraphrase //Italian pie//.
|
|
This paraphrase is no longer a noun ``N``, but a complex phrase
|
|
in the category ``CN``. An obvious way to solve this problem is
|
|
to change interface ``LexEng`` so that the constant declared for
|
|
``Pizza`` gets a new type:
|
|
```
|
|
oper pizza_CN : CN ;
|
|
```
|
|
But this solution is unstable: we may end up changing the interface
|
|
and the function with each new language, and we must every time also
|
|
change the interface instances for the old languages to maintain
|
|
type correctness.
|
|
|
|
A better solution is to use **restricted inheritance**: the English
|
|
instantiation inherits the functor implementation except for the
|
|
constant ``Pizza``. This is how we write:
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:present:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete FoodEng of Food = FoodI - [Pizza] with
|
|
(Syntax = SyntaxEng),
|
|
(LexFood = LexFoodEng) **
|
|
open SyntaxEng, ParadigmsEng in {
|
|
|
|
lin Pizza = mkCN (mkA "Italian") (mkN "pie") ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
Restricted inheritance is available for all inherited modules. One can for
|
|
instance exclude some mushrooms and pick up just some fruit in
|
|
the ``FoodMarket`` example:
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Foodmarket = Food, Fruit [Peach], Mushroom - [Agaric]
|
|
```
|
|
A concrete syntax of ``Foodmarket`` must then indicate the same inheritance
|
|
restrictions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Change ``FoodGer`` in such a way that it says, instead of
|
|
//X is Y//, the equivalent of //X must be Y// (//X muss Y sein//).
|
|
You will have to browse the full resource API to find all
|
|
the functions needed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Browsing the resource with GF commands==
|
|
|
|
In addition to reading the
|
|
[resource synopsis ../../lib/resource-1.0/synopsis.html], you
|
|
can find resource function combinations by using the parser. This
|
|
is so because the resource library is in the end implemented as
|
|
a top-level ``abstract-concrete`` grammar, on which parsing
|
|
and linearization work.
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately, only English and the Scandinavian languages can be
|
|
parsed within acceptable computer resource limits when the full
|
|
resource is used.
|
|
|
|
To look for a syntax tree in the overload API by parsing, do like this:
|
|
```
|
|
> $GF_LIB_PATH
|
|
> i -path=alltenses:prelude alltenses/OverLangEng.gfc
|
|
> p -cat=S -overload "this grammar is too big"
|
|
mkS (mkCl (mkNP (mkDet this_Quant) grammar_N) (mkAP too_AdA big_A))
|
|
```
|
|
To view linearizations in all languages by parsing from English:
|
|
```
|
|
> i alltenses/langs.gfcm
|
|
> p -cat=S -lang=LangEng "this grammar is too big" | tb
|
|
UseCl TPres ASimul PPos (PredVP (DetCN (DetSg (SgQuant this_Quant)
|
|
NoOrd) (UseN grammar_N)) (UseComp (CompAP (AdAP too_AdA (PositA big_A)))))
|
|
Den här grammatiken är för stor
|
|
Esta gramática es demasiado grande
|
|
(Cyrillic: eta grammatika govorit des'at' jazykov)
|
|
Denne grammatikken er for stor
|
|
Questa grammatica è troppo grande
|
|
Diese Grammatik ist zu groß
|
|
Cette grammaire est trop grande
|
|
Tämä kielioppi on liian suuri
|
|
This grammar is too big
|
|
Denne grammatik er for stor
|
|
```
|
|
Unfortunately, the Russian grammar uses at the moment a different
|
|
character encoding than the rest and is therefore not displayed correctly
|
|
in a terminal window. However, the GF syntax editor does display all
|
|
examples correctly:
|
|
```
|
|
% gfeditor alltenses/langs.gfcm
|
|
```
|
|
When you have constructed the tree, you will see the following screen:
|
|
|
|
#BCEN
|
|
|
|
[../../lib/resource-1.0/doc/10lang-small.png]
|
|
|
|
#ECEN
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Find the resource grammar translations for the following
|
|
English phrases (parse in the category ``Phr``). You can first try to
|
|
build the terms manually.
|
|
|
|
//every man loves a woman//
|
|
|
|
//this grammar speaks more than ten languages//
|
|
|
|
//which languages aren't in the grammar//
|
|
|
|
//which languages did you want to speak//
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
=More concepts of abstract syntax=
|
|
|
|
==GF as a logical framework==
|
|
|
|
In this section, we will show how
|
|
to encode advanced semantic concepts in an abstract syntax.
|
|
We use concepts inherited from **type theory**. Type theory
|
|
is the basis of many systems known as **logical frameworks**, which are
|
|
used for representing mathematical theorems and their proofs on a computer.
|
|
In fact, GF has a logical framework as its proper part:
|
|
this part is the abstract syntax.
|
|
|
|
In a logical framework, the formalization of a mathematical theory
|
|
is a set of type and function declarations. The following is an example
|
|
of such a theory, represented as an ``abstract`` module in GF.
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Arithm = {
|
|
cat
|
|
Prop ; -- proposition
|
|
Nat ; -- natural number
|
|
fun
|
|
Zero : Nat ; -- 0
|
|
Succ : Nat -> Nat ; -- successor of x
|
|
Even : Nat -> Prop ; -- x is even
|
|
And : Prop -> Prop -> Prop ; -- A and B
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Give a concrete syntax of ``Arithm``, either from scatch or
|
|
by using the resource library.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Dependent types==
|
|
|
|
**Dependent types** are a characteristic feature of GF,
|
|
inherited from the **constructive type theory** of Martin-Löf and
|
|
distinguishing GF from most other grammar formalisms and
|
|
functional programming languages.
|
|
|
|
Dependent types can be used for stating stronger
|
|
**conditions of well-formedness** than ordinary types.
|
|
A simple example is a "smart house" system, which
|
|
defines voice commands for household appliances. This example
|
|
is borrowed from the
|
|
[Regulus Book http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/site/1575865262.html]
|
|
(Rayner & al. 2006).
|
|
|
|
One who enters a smart house can use speech to dim lights, switch
|
|
on the fan, etc. For each ``Kind`` of a device, there is a set of
|
|
``Actions`` that can be performed on it; thus one can dim the lights but
|
|
not the fan, for example. These dependencies can be expressed by
|
|
by making the type ``Action`` dependent on ``Kind``. We express this
|
|
as follows in ``cat`` declarations:
|
|
```
|
|
cat
|
|
Command ;
|
|
Kind ;
|
|
Action Kind ;
|
|
Device Kind ;
|
|
```
|
|
The crucial use of the dependencies is made in the rule for forming commands:
|
|
```
|
|
fun CAction : (k : Kind) -> Action k -> Device k -> Command ;
|
|
```
|
|
In other words: an action and a device can be combined into a command only
|
|
if they are of the same ``Kind`` ``k``. If we have the functions
|
|
```
|
|
DKindOne : (k : Kind) -> Device k ; -- the light
|
|
|
|
light, fan : Kind ;
|
|
dim : Action light ;
|
|
```
|
|
we can form the syntax tree
|
|
```
|
|
CAction light dim (DKindOne light)
|
|
```
|
|
but we cannot form the trees
|
|
```
|
|
CAction light dim (DKindOne fan)
|
|
CAction fan dim (DKindOne light)
|
|
CAction fan dim (DKindOne fan)
|
|
```
|
|
Linearization rules are written as usual: the concrete syntax does not
|
|
know if a category is a dependent type. In English, you can write as follows:
|
|
```
|
|
lincat Action = {s : Str} ;
|
|
lin CAction kind act dev = {s = act.s ++ dev.s} ;
|
|
```
|
|
Notice that the argument ``kind`` does not appear in the linearization.
|
|
The type checker will be able to reconstruct it from the ``dev`` argument.
|
|
|
|
Parsing with dependent types is performed in two phases:
|
|
+ context-free parsing
|
|
+ filtering through type checker
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you just parse in the usual way, you don't enter the second phase, and
|
|
the ``kind`` argument is not found:
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "dim the light"
|
|
CAction ? dim (DKindOne light)
|
|
```
|
|
Moreover, type-incorrect commands are not rejected:
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "dim the fan"
|
|
CAction ? dim (DKindOne fan)
|
|
```
|
|
The question mark ``?`` is a **metavariable**, and is returned by the parser
|
|
for any subtree that is suppressed by a linearization rule.
|
|
|
|
To get rid of metavariables, you must feed the parse result into the
|
|
second phase of **solving** them. The ``solve`` process uses the dependent
|
|
type checker to restore the values of the metavariables. It is invoked by
|
|
the command ``put_tree = pt`` with the flag ``-transform=solve``:
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "dim the light" | put_tree -transform=solve
|
|
CAction light dim (DKindOne light)
|
|
```
|
|
The ``solve`` process may fail, in which case no tree is returned:
|
|
```
|
|
> parse "dim the fan" | put_tree -transform=solve
|
|
no tree found
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write an abstract syntax module with above contents
|
|
and an appropriate English concrete syntax. Try to parse the commands
|
|
//dim the light// and //dim the fan//, with and without ``solve`` filtering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Perform random and exhaustive generation, with and without
|
|
``solve`` filtering.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Add some device kinds and actions to the grammar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Polymorphism==
|
|
|
|
Sometimes an action can be performed on all kinds of devices. It would be
|
|
possible to introduce separate ``fun`` constants for each kind-action pair,
|
|
but this would be tedious. Instead, one can use **polymorphic** actions,
|
|
i.e. actions that take a ``Kind`` as an argument and produce an ``Action``
|
|
for that ``Kind``:
|
|
```
|
|
fun switchOn, switchOff : (k : Kind) -> Action k ;
|
|
```
|
|
Functions that are not polymorphic are **monomorphic**. However, the
|
|
dichotomy into monomorphism and full polymorphism is not always sufficien
|
|
for good semantic modelling: very typically, some actions are defined
|
|
for a proper subset of devices, but not just one. For instance, both doors and
|
|
windows can be opened, whereas lights cannot.
|
|
We will return to this problem by introducing the
|
|
concept of **restricted polymorphism** later,
|
|
after a chapter on proof objects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Dependent types and spoken language models==
|
|
|
|
We have used dependent types to control semantic well-formedness
|
|
in grammars. This is important in traditional type theory
|
|
applications such as proof assistants, where only mathematically
|
|
meaningful formulas should be constructed. But semantic filtering has
|
|
also proved important in speech recognition, because it reduces the
|
|
ambiguity of the results.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Grammar-based language models===
|
|
|
|
The standard way of using GF in speech recognition is by building
|
|
**grammar-based language models**. To this end, GF comes with compilers
|
|
into several formats that are used in speech recognition systems.
|
|
One such format is GSL, used in the [Nuance speech recognizer www.nuance.com].
|
|
It is produced from GF simply by printing a grammar with the flag
|
|
``-printer=gsl``.
|
|
```
|
|
> import -conversion=finite SmartEng.gf
|
|
> print_grammar -printer=gsl
|
|
|
|
;GSL2.0
|
|
; Nuance speech recognition grammar for SmartEng
|
|
; Generated by GF
|
|
|
|
.MAIN SmartEng_2
|
|
|
|
SmartEng_0 [("switch" "off") ("switch" "on")]
|
|
SmartEng_1 ["dim" ("switch" "off")
|
|
("switch" "on")]
|
|
SmartEng_2 [(SmartEng_0 SmartEng_3)
|
|
(SmartEng_1 SmartEng_4)]
|
|
SmartEng_3 ("the" SmartEng_5)
|
|
SmartEng_4 ("the" SmartEng_6)
|
|
SmartEng_5 "fan"
|
|
SmartEng_6 "light"
|
|
```
|
|
Now, GSL is a context-free format, so how does it cope with dependent types?
|
|
In general, dependent types can give rise to infinitely many basic types
|
|
(exercise!), whereas a context-free grammar can by definition only have
|
|
finitely many nonterminals.
|
|
|
|
This is where the flag ``-conversion=finite`` is needed in the ``import``
|
|
command. Its effect is to convert a GF grammar with dependent types to
|
|
one without, so that each instance of a dependent type is replaced by
|
|
an atomic type. This can then be used as a nonterminal in a context-free
|
|
grammar. The ``finite`` conversion presupposes that every
|
|
dependent type has only finitely many instances, which is in fact
|
|
the case in the ``Smart`` grammar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. If you have access to the Nuance speech recognizer,
|
|
test it with GF-generated language models for ``SmartEng``. Do this
|
|
both with and without ``-conversion=finite``.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Construct an abstract syntax with infinitely many instances
|
|
of dependent types.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Statistical language models===
|
|
|
|
An alternative to grammar-based language models are
|
|
**statistical language models** (**SLM**s). An SLM is
|
|
built from a **corpus**, i.e. a set of utterances. It specifies the
|
|
probability of each **n-gram**, i.e. sequence of //n// words. The
|
|
typical value of //n// is 2 (bigrams) or 3 (trigrams).
|
|
|
|
One advantage of SLMs over grammar-based models is that they are
|
|
**robust**, i.e. they can be used to recognize sequences that would
|
|
be out of the grammar or the corpus. Another advantage is that
|
|
an SLM can be built "for free" if a corpus is available.
|
|
|
|
However, collecting a corpus can require a lot of work, and writing
|
|
a grammar can be less demanding, especially with tools such as GF or
|
|
Regulus. This advantage of grammars can be combined with robustness
|
|
by creating a back-up SLM from a **synthesized corpus**. This means
|
|
simply that the grammar is used for generating such a corpus.
|
|
In GF, this can be done with the ``generate_trees`` command.
|
|
As with grammar-based models, the quality of the SLM is better
|
|
if meaningless utterances are excluded from the corpus. Thus
|
|
a good way to generate an SLM from a GF grammar is by using
|
|
dependent types and filter the results through the type checker:
|
|
```
|
|
> generate_trees | put_trees -transform=solve | linearize
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Measure the size of the corpus generated from
|
|
``SmartEng``, with and without type checker filtering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Digression: dependent types in concrete syntax==
|
|
|
|
===Variables in function types===
|
|
|
|
A dependent function type needs to introduce a variable for
|
|
its argument type, as in
|
|
```
|
|
switchOff : (k : Kind) -> Action k
|
|
```
|
|
Function types //without//
|
|
variables are actually a shorthand notation: writing
|
|
```
|
|
fun PredVP : NP -> VP -> S
|
|
```
|
|
is shorthand for
|
|
```
|
|
fun PredVP : (x : NP) -> (y : VP) -> S
|
|
```
|
|
or any other naming of the variables. Actually the use of variables
|
|
sometimes shortens the code, since they can share a type:
|
|
```
|
|
octuple : (x,y,z,u,v,w,s,t : Str) -> Str
|
|
```
|
|
If a bound variable is not used, it can here, as elsewhere in GF, be replaced by
|
|
a wildcard:
|
|
```
|
|
octuple : (_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_ : Str) -> Str
|
|
```
|
|
A good practice for functions with many arguments of the same type
|
|
is to indicate the number of arguments:
|
|
```
|
|
octuple : (x1,_,_,_,_,_,_,x8 : Str) -> Str
|
|
```
|
|
One can also use the variables to document what each argument is expected
|
|
to provide, as is done in inflection paradigms in the resource grammar.
|
|
```
|
|
mkV : (drink,drank,drunk : Str) -> V
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Polymorphism in concrete syntax===
|
|
|
|
The **functional fragment** of GF
|
|
terms and types comprises function types, applications, lambda
|
|
abstracts, constants, and variables. This fragment is similar in
|
|
abstract and concrete syntax. In particular,
|
|
dependent types are also available in concrete syntax.
|
|
We have not made use of them yet,
|
|
but we will now look at one example of how they
|
|
can be used.
|
|
|
|
Those readers who are familiar with functional programming languages
|
|
like ML and Haskell, may already have missed **polymorphic**
|
|
functions. For instance, Haskell programmers have access to
|
|
the functions
|
|
```
|
|
const :: a -> b -> a
|
|
const c _ = c
|
|
|
|
flip :: (a -> b -> c) -> b -> a -> c
|
|
flip f y x = f x y
|
|
```
|
|
which can be used for any given types ``a``,``b``, and ``c``.
|
|
|
|
The GF counterpart of polymorphic functions are **monomorphic**
|
|
functions with explicit **type variables**. Thus the above
|
|
definitions can be written
|
|
```
|
|
oper const :(a,b : Type) -> a -> b -> a =
|
|
\_,_,c,_ -> c ;
|
|
|
|
oper flip : (a,b,c : Type) -> (a -> b ->c) -> b -> a -> c =
|
|
\_,_,_,f,x,y -> f y x ;
|
|
```
|
|
When the operations are used, the type checker requires
|
|
them to be equipped with all their arguments; this may be a nuisance
|
|
for a Haskell or ML programmer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Proof objects==
|
|
|
|
Perhaps the most well-known idea in constructive type theory is
|
|
the **Curry-Howard isomorphism**, also known as the
|
|
**propositions as types principle**. Its earliest formulations
|
|
were attempts to give semantics to the logical systems of
|
|
propositional and predicate calculus. In this section, we will consider
|
|
a more elementary example, showing how the notion of proof is useful
|
|
outside mathematics, as well.
|
|
|
|
We first define the category of unary (also known as Peano-style)
|
|
natural numbers:
|
|
```
|
|
cat Nat ;
|
|
fun Zero : Nat ;
|
|
fun Succ : Nat -> Nat ;
|
|
```
|
|
The **successor function** ``Succ`` generates an infinite
|
|
sequence of natural numbers, beginning from ``Zero``.
|
|
|
|
We then define what it means for a number //x// to be //less than//
|
|
a number //y//. Our definition is based on two axioms:
|
|
- ``Zero`` is less than ``Succ`` //y// for any //y//.
|
|
- If //x// is less than //y//, then ``Succ`` //x// is less than ``Succ`` //y//.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The most straightforward way of expressing these axioms in type theory
|
|
is as typing judgements that introduce objects of a type ``Less`` //x y//:
|
|
```
|
|
cat Less Nat Nat ;
|
|
fun lessZ : (y : Nat) -> Less Zero (Succ y) ;
|
|
fun lessS : (x,y : Nat) -> Less x y -> Less (Succ x) (Succ y) ;
|
|
```
|
|
Objects formed by ``lessZ`` and ``lessS`` are
|
|
called **proof objects**: they establish the truth of certain
|
|
mathematical propositions.
|
|
For instance, the fact that 2 is less that
|
|
4 has the proof object
|
|
```
|
|
lessS (Succ Zero) (Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)))
|
|
(lessS Zero (Succ (Succ Zero)) (lessZ (Succ Zero)))
|
|
```
|
|
whose type is
|
|
```
|
|
Less (Succ (Succ Zero)) (Succ (Succ (Succ (Succ Zero))))
|
|
```
|
|
which is the formalization of the proposition that 2 is less than 4.
|
|
|
|
GF grammars can be used to provide a **semantic control** of
|
|
well-formedness of expressions. We have already seen examples of this:
|
|
the grammar of well-formed actions on household devices. By introducing proof objects
|
|
we have now added a very powerful technique of expressing semantic conditions.
|
|
|
|
A simple example of the use of proof objects is the definition of
|
|
well-formed //time spans//: a time span is expected to be from an earlier to
|
|
a later time:
|
|
```
|
|
from 3 to 8
|
|
```
|
|
is thus well-formed, whereas
|
|
```
|
|
from 8 to 3
|
|
```
|
|
is not. The following rules for spans impose this condition
|
|
by using the ``Less`` predicate:
|
|
```
|
|
cat Span ;
|
|
fun span : (m,n : Nat) -> Less m n -> Span ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write an abstract and concrete syntax with the
|
|
concepts of this section, and experiment with it in GF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Define the notions of "even" and "odd" in terms
|
|
of proof objects. **Hint**. You need one function for proving
|
|
that 0 is even, and two other functions for propagating the
|
|
properties.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Proof-carrying documents===
|
|
|
|
Another possible application of proof objects is **proof-carrying documents**:
|
|
to be semantically well-formed, the abstract syntax of a document must contain a proof
|
|
of some property, although the proof is not shown in the concrete document.
|
|
Think, for instance, of small documents describing flight connections:
|
|
|
|
//To fly from Gothenburg to Prague, first take LH3043 to Frankfurt, then OK0537 to Prague.//
|
|
|
|
The well-formedness of this text is partly expressible by dependent typing:
|
|
```
|
|
cat
|
|
City ;
|
|
Flight City City ;
|
|
fun
|
|
Gothenburg, Frankfurt, Prague : City ;
|
|
LH3043 : Flight Gothenburg Frankfurt ;
|
|
OK0537 : Flight Frankfurt Prague ;
|
|
```
|
|
This rules out texts saying //take OK0537 from Gothenburg to Prague//.
|
|
However, there is a
|
|
further condition saying that it must be possible to
|
|
change from LH3043 to OK0537 in Frankfurt.
|
|
This can be modelled as a proof object of a suitable type,
|
|
which is required by the constructor
|
|
that connects flights.
|
|
```
|
|
cat
|
|
IsPossible (x,y,z : City)(Flight x y)(Flight y z) ;
|
|
fun
|
|
Connect : (x,y,z : City) ->
|
|
(u : Flight x y) -> (v : Flight y z) ->
|
|
IsPossible x y z u v -> Flight x z ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Restricted polymorphism==
|
|
|
|
In the first version of the smart house grammar ``Smart``,
|
|
all Actions were either of
|
|
- **monomorphic**: defined for one Kind
|
|
- **polymorphic**: defined for all Kinds
|
|
|
|
|
|
To make this scale up for new Kinds, we can refine this to
|
|
**restricted polymorphism**: defined for Kinds of a certain **class**
|
|
|
|
|
|
The notion of class can be expressed in abstract syntax
|
|
by using the Curry-Howard isomorphism as follows:
|
|
- a class is a **predicate** of Kinds - i.e. a type depending of Kinds
|
|
- a Kind is in a class if there is a proof object of this type
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here is an example with switching and dimming. The classes are called
|
|
``switchable`` and ``dimmable``.
|
|
```
|
|
cat
|
|
Switchable Kind ;
|
|
Dimmable Kind ;
|
|
fun
|
|
switchable_light : Switchable light ;
|
|
switchable_fan : Switchable fan ;
|
|
dimmable_light : Dimmable light ;
|
|
|
|
switchOn : (k : Kind) -> Switchable k -> Action k ;
|
|
dim : (k : Kind) -> Dimmable k -> Action k ;
|
|
```
|
|
One advantage of this formalization is that classes for new
|
|
actions can be added incrementally.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write a new version of the ``Smart`` grammar with
|
|
classes, and test it in GF.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Add some actions, kinds, and classes to the grammar.
|
|
Try to port the grammar to a new language. You will probably find
|
|
out that restricted polymorphism works differently in different languages.
|
|
For instance, in Finnish not only doors but also TVs and radios
|
|
can be "opened", which means switching them on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Variable bindings==
|
|
|
|
Mathematical notation and programming languages have
|
|
expressions that **bind** variables. For instance,
|
|
a universally quantifier proposition
|
|
```
|
|
(All x)B(x)
|
|
```
|
|
consists of the **binding** ``(All x)`` of the variable ``x``,
|
|
and the **body** ``B(x)``, where the variable ``x`` can have
|
|
**bound occurrences**.
|
|
|
|
Variable bindings appear in informal mathematical language as well, for
|
|
instance,
|
|
```
|
|
for all x, x is equal to x
|
|
|
|
the function that for any numbers x and y returns the maximum of x+y
|
|
and x*y
|
|
|
|
Let x be a natural number. Assume that x is even. Then x + 3 is odd.
|
|
```
|
|
In type theory, variable-binding expression forms can be formalized
|
|
as functions that take functions as arguments. The universal
|
|
quantifier is defined
|
|
```
|
|
fun All : (Ind -> Prop) -> Prop
|
|
```
|
|
where ``Ind`` is the type of individuals and ``Prop``,
|
|
the type of propositions. If we have, for instance, the equality predicate
|
|
```
|
|
fun Eq : Ind -> Ind -> Prop
|
|
```
|
|
we may form the tree
|
|
```
|
|
All (\x -> Eq x x)
|
|
```
|
|
which corresponds to the ordinary notation
|
|
```
|
|
(All x)(x = x).
|
|
```
|
|
An abstract syntax where trees have functions as arguments, as in
|
|
the two examples above, has turned out to be precisely the right
|
|
thing for the semantics and computer implementation of
|
|
variable-binding expressions. The advantage lies in the fact that
|
|
only one variable-binding expression form is needed, the lambda abstract
|
|
``\x -> b``, and all other bindings can be reduced to it.
|
|
This makes it easier to implement mathematical theories and reason
|
|
about them, since variable binding is tricky to implement and
|
|
to reason about. The idea of using functions as arguments of
|
|
syntactic constructors is known as **higher-order abstract syntax**.
|
|
|
|
The question now arises: how to define linearization rules
|
|
for variable-binding expressions?
|
|
Let us first consider universal quantification,
|
|
```
|
|
fun All : (Ind -> Prop) -> Prop
|
|
```
|
|
We write
|
|
```
|
|
lin All B = {s = "(" ++ "All" ++ B.$0 ++ ")" ++ B.s}
|
|
```
|
|
to obtain the form shown above.
|
|
This linearization rule brings in a new GF concept - the ``$0``
|
|
field of ``B`` containing a bound variable symbol.
|
|
The general rule is that, if an argument type of a function is
|
|
itself a function type ``A -> C``, the linearization type of
|
|
this argument is the linearization type of ``C``
|
|
together with a new field ``$0 : Str``. In the linearization rule
|
|
for ``All``, the argument ``B`` thus has the linearization
|
|
type
|
|
```
|
|
{$0 : Str ; s : Str},
|
|
```
|
|
since the linearization type of ``Prop`` is
|
|
```
|
|
{s : Str}
|
|
```
|
|
In other words, the linearization of a function
|
|
consists of a linearization of the body together with a
|
|
field for a linearization of the bound variable.
|
|
Those familiar with type theory or lambda calculus
|
|
should notice that GF requires trees to be in
|
|
**eta-expanded** form in order to be linearizable:
|
|
any function of type
|
|
```
|
|
A -> B
|
|
```
|
|
always has a syntax tree of the form
|
|
```
|
|
\x -> b
|
|
```
|
|
where ``b : B`` under the assumption ``x : A``.
|
|
It is in this form that an expression can be analysed
|
|
as having a bound variable and a body.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Given the linearization rule
|
|
```
|
|
lin Eq a b = {s = "(" ++ a.s ++ "=" ++ b.s ++ ")"}
|
|
```
|
|
the linearization of
|
|
```
|
|
\x -> Eq x x
|
|
```
|
|
is the record
|
|
```
|
|
{$0 = "x", s = ["( x = x )"]}
|
|
```
|
|
Thus we can compute the linearization of the formula,
|
|
```
|
|
All (\x -> Eq x x) --> {s = "[( All x ) ( x = x )]"}.
|
|
```
|
|
How did we get the //linearization// of the variable ``x``
|
|
into the string ``"x"``? GF grammars have no rules for
|
|
this: it is just hard-wired in GF that variable symbols are
|
|
linearized into the same strings that represent them in
|
|
the print-out of the abstract syntax.
|
|
|
|
To be able to //parse// variable symbols, however, GF needs to know what
|
|
to look for (instead of e.g. trying to parse //any//
|
|
string as a variable). What strings are parsed as variable symbols
|
|
is defined in the lexical analysis part of GF parsing
|
|
```
|
|
> p -cat=Prop -lexer=codevars "(All x)(x = x)"
|
|
All (\x -> Eq x x)
|
|
```
|
|
(see more details on lexers below). If several variables are bound in the
|
|
same argument, the labels are ``$0, $1, $2``, etc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write an abstract syntax of the whole
|
|
**predicate calculus**, with the
|
|
**connectives** "and", "or", "implies", and "not", and the
|
|
**quantifiers** "exists" and "for all". Use higher-order functions
|
|
to guarantee that unbounded variables do not occur.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Write a concrete syntax for your favourite
|
|
notation of predicate calculus. Use Latex as target language
|
|
if you want nice output. You can also try producing Haskell boolean
|
|
expressions. Use as many parenthesis as you need to
|
|
guarantee non-ambiguity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Semantic definitions==
|
|
|
|
We have seen that,
|
|
just like functional programming languages, GF has declarations
|
|
of functions, telling what the type of a function is.
|
|
But we have not yet shown how to **compute**
|
|
these functions: all we can do is provide them with arguments
|
|
and linearize the resulting terms.
|
|
Since our main interest is the well-formedness of expressions,
|
|
this has not yet bothered
|
|
us very much. As we will see, however, computation does play a role
|
|
even in the well-formedness of expressions when dependent types are
|
|
present.
|
|
|
|
GF has a form of judgement for **semantic definitions**,
|
|
recognized by the key word ``def``. At its simplest, it is just
|
|
the definition of one constant, e.g.
|
|
```
|
|
def one = Succ Zero ;
|
|
```
|
|
We can also define a function with arguments,
|
|
```
|
|
def Neg A = Impl A Abs ;
|
|
```
|
|
which is still a special case of the most general notion of
|
|
definition, that of a group of **pattern equations**:
|
|
```
|
|
def
|
|
sum x Zero = x ;
|
|
sum x (Succ y) = Succ (Sum x y) ;
|
|
```
|
|
To compute a term is, as in functional programming languages,
|
|
simply to follow a chain of reductions until no definition
|
|
can be applied. For instance, we compute
|
|
```
|
|
Sum one one -->
|
|
Sum (Succ Zero) (Succ Zero) -->
|
|
Succ (sum (Succ Zero) Zero) -->
|
|
Succ (Succ Zero)
|
|
```
|
|
Computation in GF is performed with the ``pt`` command and the
|
|
``compute`` transformation, e.g.
|
|
```
|
|
> p -tr "1 + 1" | pt -transform=compute -tr | l
|
|
sum one one
|
|
Succ (Succ Zero)
|
|
s(s(0))
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The ``def`` definitions of a grammar induce a notion of
|
|
**definitional equality** among trees: two trees are
|
|
definitionally equal if they compute into the same tree.
|
|
Thus, trivially, all trees in a chain of computation
|
|
(such as the one above)
|
|
are definitionally equal to each other. So are the trees
|
|
```
|
|
sum Zero (Succ one)
|
|
Succ one
|
|
sum (sum Zero Zero) (sum (Succ Zero) one)
|
|
```
|
|
and infinitely many other trees.
|
|
|
|
A fact that has to be emphasized about ``def`` definitions is that
|
|
they are //not// performed as a first step of linearization.
|
|
We say that **linearization is intensional**, which means that
|
|
the definitional equality of two trees does not imply that
|
|
they have the same linearizations. For instance, each of the seven terms
|
|
shown above has a different linearizations in arithmetic notation:
|
|
```
|
|
1 + 1
|
|
s(0) + s(0)
|
|
s(s(0) + 0)
|
|
s(s(0))
|
|
0 + s(0)
|
|
s(1)
|
|
0 + 0 + s(0) + 1
|
|
```
|
|
This notion of intensionality is
|
|
no more exotic than the intensionality of any **pretty-printing**
|
|
function of a programming language (function that shows
|
|
the expressions of the language as strings). It is vital for
|
|
pretty-printing to be intensional in this sense - if we want,
|
|
for instance, to trace a chain of computation by pretty-printing each
|
|
intermediate step, what we want to see is a sequence of different
|
|
expression, which are definitionally equal.
|
|
|
|
What is more exotic is that GF has two ways of referring to the
|
|
abstract syntax objects. In the concrete syntax, the reference is intensional.
|
|
In the abstract syntax, the reference is extensional, since
|
|
**type checking is extensional**. The reason is that,
|
|
in the type theory with dependent types, types may depend on terms.
|
|
Two types depending on terms that are definitionally equal are
|
|
equal types. For instance,
|
|
```
|
|
Proof (Odd one)
|
|
Proof (Odd (Succ Zero))
|
|
```
|
|
are equal types. Hence, any tree that type checks as a proof that
|
|
1 is odd also type checks as a proof that the successor of 0 is odd.
|
|
(Recall, in this connection, that the
|
|
arguments a category depends on never play any role
|
|
in the linearization of trees of that category,
|
|
nor in the definition of the linearization type.)
|
|
|
|
In addition to computation, definitions impose a
|
|
**paraphrase** relation on expressions:
|
|
two strings are paraphrases if they
|
|
are linearizations of trees that are
|
|
definitionally equal.
|
|
Paraphrases are sometimes interesting for
|
|
translation: the **direct translation**
|
|
of a string, which is the linearization of the same tree
|
|
in the targer language, may be inadequate because it is e.g.
|
|
unidiomatic or ambiguous. In such a case,
|
|
the translation algorithm may be made to consider
|
|
translation by a paraphrase.
|
|
|
|
To stress express the distinction between
|
|
**constructors** (=**canonical** functions)
|
|
and other functions, GF has a judgement form
|
|
``data`` to tell that certain functions are canonical, e.g.
|
|
```
|
|
data Nat = Succ | Zero ;
|
|
```
|
|
Unlike in Haskell, but similarly to ALF (where constructor functions
|
|
are marked with a flag ``C``),
|
|
new constructors can be added to
|
|
a type with new ``data`` judgements. The type signatures of constructors
|
|
are given separately, in ordinary ``fun`` judgements.
|
|
One can also write directly
|
|
```
|
|
data Succ : Nat -> Nat ;
|
|
```
|
|
which is equivalent to the two judgements
|
|
```
|
|
fun Succ : Nat -> Nat ;
|
|
data Nat = Succ ;
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. Implement an interpreter of a small functional programming
|
|
language with natural numbers, lists, pairs, lambdas, etc. Use higher-order
|
|
abstract syntax with semantic definitions. As target language, use
|
|
your favourite programming language.
|
|
|
|
**Exercise**. To make your interpreted language look nice, use
|
|
**precedences** instead of putting parentheses everywhere.
|
|
You can use the [precedence library ../../lib/prelude/Precedence.gf]
|
|
of GF to facilitate this.
|
|
|
|
|
|
=Practical issues=
|
|
|
|
==Lexers and unlexers==
|
|
|
|
Lexers and unlexers can be chosen from
|
|
a list of predefined ones, using the flags``-lexer`` and `` -unlexer`` either
|
|
in the grammar file or on the GF command line. Here are some often-used lexers
|
|
and unlexers:
|
|
```
|
|
The default is words.
|
|
-lexer=words tokens are separated by spaces or newlines
|
|
-lexer=literals like words, but GF integer and string literals recognized
|
|
-lexer=vars like words, but "x","x_...","$...$" as vars, "?..." as meta
|
|
-lexer=chars each character is a token
|
|
-lexer=code use Haskell's lex
|
|
-lexer=codevars like code, but treat unknown words as variables, ?? as meta
|
|
-lexer=text with conventions on punctuation and capital letters
|
|
-lexer=codelit like code, but treat unknown words as string literals
|
|
-lexer=textlit like text, but treat unknown words as string literals
|
|
|
|
The default is unwords.
|
|
-unlexer=unwords space-separated token list (like unwords)
|
|
-unlexer=text format as text: punctuation, capitals, paragraph <p>
|
|
-unlexer=code format as code (spacing, indentation)
|
|
-unlexer=textlit like text, but remove string literal quotes
|
|
-unlexer=codelit like code, but remove string literal quotes
|
|
-unlexer=concat remove all spaces
|
|
```
|
|
More options can be found by ``help -lexer`` and ``help -unlexer``:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Speech input and output==
|
|
|
|
The ``speak_aloud = sa`` command sends a string to the speech
|
|
synthesizer
|
|
[Flite http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/doc/].
|
|
It is typically used via a pipe:
|
|
``` generate_random | linearize | speak_aloud
|
|
The result is only satisfactory for English.
|
|
|
|
The ``speech_input = si`` command receives a string from a
|
|
speech recognizer that requires the installation of
|
|
[ATK http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~sjy/software.htm].
|
|
It is typically used to pipe input to a parser:
|
|
``` speech_input -tr | parse
|
|
The method words only for grammars of English.
|
|
|
|
Both Flite and ATK are freely available through the links
|
|
above, but they are not distributed together with GF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Multilingual syntax editor==
|
|
|
|
The
|
|
[Editor User Manual http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF2.0/doc/javaGUImanual/javaGUImanual.htm]
|
|
describes the use of the editor, which works for any multilingual GF grammar.
|
|
|
|
Here is a snapshot of the editor:
|
|
|
|
#BCEN
|
|
|
|
#EDITORPNG
|
|
|
|
#ECEN
|
|
|
|
|
|
The grammars of the snapshot are from the
|
|
[Letter grammar package http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF/examples/letter].
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Communicating with GF==
|
|
|
|
Other processes can communicate with the GF command interpreter,
|
|
and also with the GF syntax editor. Useful flags when invoking GF are
|
|
- ``-batch`` suppresses the promps and structures the communication with XML tags.
|
|
- ``-s`` suppresses non-output non-error messages and XML tags.
|
|
- ``-nocpu`` suppresses CPU time indication.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thus the most silent way to invoke GF is
|
|
```
|
|
gf -batch -s -nocpu
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
=Embedded grammars in Haskell and Java=
|
|
|
|
GF grammars can be used as parts of programs written in the
|
|
following languages. We will go through a skeleton application in
|
|
Haskell, while the next chapter will show how to build an
|
|
application in Java.
|
|
|
|
We will show how to build a minimal resource grammar
|
|
application whose architecture scales up to much
|
|
larger applications. The application is run from the
|
|
shell by the command
|
|
```
|
|
math
|
|
```
|
|
whereafter it reads user input in English and French.
|
|
To each input line, it answers by the truth value of
|
|
the sentence.
|
|
```
|
|
./math
|
|
zéro est pair
|
|
True
|
|
zero is odd
|
|
False
|
|
zero is even and zero is odd
|
|
False
|
|
```
|
|
The source of the application consists of the following
|
|
files:
|
|
```
|
|
LexEng.gf -- English instance of Lex
|
|
LexFre.gf -- French instance of Lex
|
|
Lex.gf -- lexicon interface
|
|
Makefile -- a makefile
|
|
MathEng.gf -- English instantiation of MathI
|
|
MathFre.gf -- French instantiation of MathI
|
|
Math.gf -- abstract syntax
|
|
MathI.gf -- concrete syntax functor for Math
|
|
Run.hs -- Haskell Main module
|
|
```
|
|
The system was built in 22 steps explained below.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Writing GF grammars==
|
|
|
|
===Creating the first grammar===
|
|
|
|
1. Write ``Math.gf``, which defines what you want to say.
|
|
```
|
|
abstract Math = {
|
|
cat Prop ; Elem ;
|
|
fun
|
|
And : Prop -> Prop -> Prop ;
|
|
Even : Elem -> Prop ;
|
|
Zero : Elem ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
2. Write ``Lex.gf``, which defines which language-dependent
|
|
parts are needed in the concrete syntax. These are mostly
|
|
words (lexicon), but can in fact be any operations. The definitions
|
|
only use resource abstract syntax, which is opened.
|
|
```
|
|
interface Lex = open Syntax in {
|
|
oper
|
|
even_A : A ;
|
|
zero_PN : PN ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
3. Write ``LexEng.gf``, the English implementation of ``Lex.gf``
|
|
This module uses English resource libraries.
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexEng of Lex = open GrammarEng, ParadigmsEng in {
|
|
oper
|
|
even_A = regA "even" ;
|
|
zero_PN = regPN "zero" ;
|
|
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
4. Write ``MathI.gf``, a language-independent concrete syntax of
|
|
``Math.gf``. It opens interfaces.
|
|
which makes it an incomplete module, aka. parametrized module, aka.
|
|
functor.
|
|
```
|
|
incomplete concrete MathI of Math =
|
|
|
|
open Syntax, Lex in {
|
|
|
|
flags startcat = Prop ;
|
|
|
|
lincat
|
|
Prop = S ;
|
|
Elem = NP ;
|
|
lin
|
|
And x y = mkS and_Conj x y ;
|
|
Even x = mkS (mkCl x even_A) ;
|
|
Zero = mkNP zero_PN ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
5. Write ``MathEng.gf``, which is just an instatiation of ``MathI.gf``,
|
|
replacing the interfaces by their English instances. This is the module
|
|
that will be used as a top module in GF, so it contains a path to
|
|
the libraries.
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexEng of Lex = open SyntaxEng, ParadigmsEng in {
|
|
oper
|
|
even_A = mkA "even" ;
|
|
zero_PN = mkPN "zero" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Testing===
|
|
|
|
6. Test the grammar in GF by random generation and parsing.
|
|
```
|
|
$ gf
|
|
> i MathEng.gf
|
|
> gr -tr | l -tr | p
|
|
And (Even Zero) (Even Zero)
|
|
zero is evenand zero is even
|
|
And (Even Zero) (Even Zero)
|
|
```
|
|
When importing the grammar, you will fail if you haven't
|
|
- correctly defined your ``GF_LIB_PATH`` as ``GF/lib``
|
|
- installed the resource package or
|
|
compiled the resource from source by ``make`` in ``GF/lib/resource-1.0``
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Adding a new language===
|
|
|
|
7. Now it is time to add a new language. Write a French lexicon ``LexFre.gf``:
|
|
```
|
|
instance LexFre of Lex = open SyntaxFre, ParadigmsFre in {
|
|
oper
|
|
even_A = mkA "pair" ;
|
|
zero_PN = mkPN "zéro" ;
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
8. You also need a French concrete syntax, ``MathFre.gf``:
|
|
```
|
|
--# -path=.:present:prelude
|
|
|
|
concrete MathFre of Math = MathI with
|
|
(Syntax = SyntaxFre),
|
|
(Lex = LexFre) ;
|
|
```
|
|
9. This time, you can test multilingual generation:
|
|
```
|
|
> i MathFre.gf
|
|
> gr | tb
|
|
Even Zero
|
|
zéro est pair
|
|
zero is even
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Extending the language===
|
|
|
|
10. You want to add a predicate saying that a number is odd.
|
|
It is first added to ``Math.gf``:
|
|
```
|
|
fun Odd : Elem -> Prop ;
|
|
```
|
|
11. You need a new word in ``Lex.gf``.
|
|
```
|
|
oper odd_A : A ;
|
|
```
|
|
12. Then you can give a language-independent concrete syntax in
|
|
``MathI.gf``:
|
|
```
|
|
lin Odd x = mkS (mkCl x odd_A) ;
|
|
```
|
|
13. The new word is implemented in ``LexEng.gf``.
|
|
```
|
|
oper odd_A = mkA "odd" ;
|
|
```
|
|
14. The new word is implemented in ``LexFre.gf``.
|
|
```
|
|
oper odd_A = mkA "impair" ;
|
|
```
|
|
15. Now you can test with the extended lexicon. First empty
|
|
the environment to get rid of the old abstract syntax, then
|
|
import the new versions of the grammars.
|
|
```
|
|
> e
|
|
> i MathEng.gf
|
|
> i MathFre.gf
|
|
> gr | tb
|
|
And (Odd Zero) (Even Zero)
|
|
zéro est impair et zéro est pair
|
|
zero is odd and zero is even
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
==Building a user program==
|
|
|
|
===Producing a compiled grammar package===
|
|
|
|
16. Your grammar is going to be used by persons wh``MathEng.gf``o do not need
|
|
to compile it again. They may not have access to the resource library,
|
|
either. Therefore it is advisable to produce a multilingual grammar
|
|
package in a single file. We call this package ``math.gfcm`` and
|
|
produce it, when we have ``MathEng.gf`` and
|
|
``MathEng.gf`` in the GF state, by the command
|
|
```
|
|
> pm | wf math.gfcm
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Writing the Haskell application===
|
|
|
|
17. Write the Haskell main file ``Run.hs``. It uses the ``EmbeddedAPI``
|
|
module defining some basic functionalities such as parsing.
|
|
The answer is produced by an interpreter of trees returned by the parser.
|
|
```
|
|
module Main where
|
|
|
|
import GSyntax
|
|
import GF.Embed.EmbedAPI
|
|
|
|
main :: IO ()
|
|
main = do
|
|
gr <- file2grammar "math.gfcm"
|
|
loop gr
|
|
|
|
loop :: MultiGrammar -> IO ()
|
|
loop gr = do
|
|
s <- getLine
|
|
interpret gr s
|
|
loop gr
|
|
|
|
interpret :: MultiGrammar -> String -> IO ()
|
|
interpret gr s = do
|
|
let tss = parseAll gr "Prop" s
|
|
case (concat tss) of
|
|
[] -> putStrLn "no parse"
|
|
t:_ -> print $ answer $ fg t
|
|
|
|
answer :: GProp -> Bool
|
|
answer p = case p of
|
|
(GOdd x1) -> odd (value x1)
|
|
(GEven x1) -> even (value x1)
|
|
(GAnd x1 x2) -> answer x1 && answer x2
|
|
|
|
value :: GElem -> Int
|
|
value e = case e of
|
|
GZero -> 0
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
18. The syntax trees manipulated by the interpreter are not raw
|
|
GF trees, but objects of the Haskell datatype ``GProp``.
|
|
From any GF grammar, a file ``GFSyntax.hs`` with
|
|
datatypes corresponding to its abstract
|
|
syntax can be produced by the command
|
|
```
|
|
> pg -printer=haskell | wf GSyntax.hs
|
|
```
|
|
The module also defines the overloaded functions
|
|
``gf`` and ``fg`` for translating from these types to
|
|
raw trees and back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Compiling the Haskell grammar===
|
|
|
|
19. Before compiling ``Run.hs``, you must check that the
|
|
embedded GF modules are found. The easiest way to do this
|
|
is by two symbolic links to your GF source directories:
|
|
```
|
|
$ ln -s /home/aarne/GF/src/GF
|
|
$ ln -s /home/aarne/GF/src/Transfer/
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
20. Now you can run the GHC Haskell compiler to produce the program.
|
|
```
|
|
$ ghc --make -o math Run.hs
|
|
```
|
|
The program can be tested with the command ``./math``.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Building a distribution===
|
|
|
|
21. For a stand-alone binary-only distribution, only
|
|
the two files ``math`` and ``math.gfcm`` are needed.
|
|
For a source distribution, the files mentioned in
|
|
the beginning of this documents are needed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===Using a Makefile===
|
|
|
|
22. As a part of the source distribution, a ``Makefile`` is
|
|
essential. The ``Makefile`` is also useful when developing the
|
|
application. It should always be possible to build an executable
|
|
from source by typing ``make``. Here is a minimal such ``Makefile``:
|
|
```
|
|
all:
|
|
echo "pm | wf math.gfcm" | gf MathEng.gf MathFre.gf
|
|
echo "pg -printer=haskell | wf GSyntax.hs" | gf math.gfcm
|
|
ghc --make -o math Run.hs
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
=Embedded grammars in Java=
|
|
|
|
Forthcoming; at the moment, the document
|
|
|
|
[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/gf/gf-java.html`` http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~bringert/gf/gf-java.html]
|
|
|
|
by Björn Bringert gives more information on Java.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
=Further reading=
|
|
|
|
Syntax Editor User Manual:
|
|
|
|
[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF2.0/doc/javaGUImanual/javaGUImanual.htm`` http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF2.0/doc/javaGUImanual/javaGUImanual.htm]
|
|
|
|
Resource Grammar Synopsis (on using resource grammars):
|
|
|
|
[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF/lib/resource-1.0/synopsis.html`` ../../lib/resource-1.0/synopsis.html]
|
|
|
|
Resource Grammar HOWTO (on writing resource grammars):
|
|
|
|
[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF/lib/resource-1.0/synopsis.html`` ../../lib/resource-1.0/doc/Resource-HOWTO.html]
|
|
|
|
GF Homepage:
|
|
|
|
[``http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/GF/doc`` ../..]
|
|
|