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<TITLE>European Resource Grammar Summer School</TITLE>
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</HEAD><BODY BGCOLOR="white" TEXT="black">
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<P ALIGN="center"><CENTER><H1>European Resource Grammar Summer School</H1>
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<FONT SIZE="4">
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<I>Gothenburg, 17-28 August 2009</I><BR>
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Aarne Ranta (aarne at chalmers.se)
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</FONT></CENTER>
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<P>
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<I>preliminary version, 17 November 2008</I>
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</P>
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<P>
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<IMG ALIGN="middle" SRC="eu-langs.png" BORDER="0" ALT="">
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</P>
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<H3>Executive summary</H3>
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<P>
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We plan to organize a summer school with the goal of implementing the GF
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resource grammar library for 15 new languages, so that the library will
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cover all the 23 official EU languages of year 2009. Also other languages
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chosen by the participants can be covered. The current library comprises 12
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languages.
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</P>
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<P>
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The library is a linguistic resource that covers the inflectional morphology
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and basic syntax of each language. It can be used in GF applications
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and also ported to other formats. The library is licensed under LGPL.
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</P>
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<P>
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Each language is implemented by one or two students working together.
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Travel grants will be available for students selected on the basis of
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pre-conference assignments.
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</P>
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<P>
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The official announcement will be in January 2009, and the summer school
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itself on 17-28 August 2009, at the campus of Chalmers University of
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Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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</P>
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<H2>Introduction</H2>
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<P>
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Since 2007, EU-27 has 23 official languages, listed in the diagram on top of this
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document.
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There is a growing need of translation between
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these languages. The traditional language-to-language method requires 23*22 = 506
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translators (humans or computer programs) to cover all possible translation needs.
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</P>
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<P>
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An alternative to language-to-language translation is the use of an <B>interlingua</B>:
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a language-independent representation such that all translation problems can
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be reduced to translating to and from the interlingua. With 23 languages,
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only 2*23 = 46 translators are needed.
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</P>
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<P>
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Interlingua sounds too good to be true. In a sense, it is. All attempts to
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create an interlingua that would solve all translation problems have failed.
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However, interlinguas for restricted applications have shown more
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success. For instance, mathematical texts and weather reports can be translated
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by using interlinguas tailor-made for the domains of mathematics and weather reports,
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respectively.
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</P>
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<P>
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What is required of an interlingua is
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>semantic accuracy: correspondence to what you want to say in the application
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<LI>language-independence: abstraction from individual languages
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</UL>
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<P>
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Thus, for instance, an interlingua for mathematical texts may be based on
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mathematical logic, which at the same time gives semantic accuracy and
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language independence. In other domains, something else than mathematical
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logic may be needed; the <B>ontologies</B> defined within the semantic
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web technology are often good starting points for interlinguas.
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</P>
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<H2>GF: a framework for multilingual grammars</H2>
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<P>
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The interlingua is just one part of a translation system. We also need
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the mappings between the interlingua and the involved languages. As the
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number of languages increases, this part grows while the interlingua remains
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constant.
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</P>
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<P>
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GF (Grammatical Framework,
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<A HREF="http://digitalgrammars.com/gf"><CODE>digitalgrammars.com/gf</CODE></A>)
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is a programming language designed to support interlingua-based translation.
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A "program" in GF is a <B>multilingual grammar</B>, which consists of an
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<B>abstract syntax</B> and a set of <B>concrete syntaxes</B>. A concrete
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syntaxes is a mapping from the abstract syntax to a particular language.
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These mappings are <B>reversible</B>, which means that they can be used for
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translating in both directions. This means that creating an interlingua-based
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translator for 23 languages just requires 1 + 23 = 24 grammar modules (the abstract
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syntax and the concrete syntaxes).
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</P>
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<P>
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The diagram first in this document shows an interlingua
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system covering the 23 EU languages.
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Languages marked in
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red are of particular interest for the summer school, since they are those
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on which the effort will be concentrated.
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</P>
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<H2>The GF resource grammar library</H2>
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<P>
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The GF resource grammar library is a set of grammars used as libraries when
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building interlingua-based translation systems. The library currently covers
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the 9 languages coloured in green in the diagram above; in addition,
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Catalan, Norwegian, and Russian are covered, and there is ongoing work on
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Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, and Thai.
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</P>
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<P>
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The purpose of the resource grammar library is to define the "low-level" structure
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of a language: inflection, word order, agreement. This structure belongs to what
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linguists call morphology and syntax. It can be very complex and requires
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a lot of knowledge. Yet, when translating from one language to another, knowing
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morphology and syntax is but a part of what is needed. The translator (whether human
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or machine) must understand the meaning of what is translated, and must also know
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the idiomatic way to express the meaning in the target language. This knowledge
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can be very domain-dependent and requires in general an expert in the field to
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reach high quality: a mathematician in the field of mathematics, a meteorologist
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in the field of weather reports, etc.
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</P>
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<P>
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The problem is to find a person who is an expert in both the domain of translation
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and in the low-level linguistic details. It is the rareness of this combination
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that has made it difficult to build interlingua-based translation systems.
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The GF resource grammar library has the mission of helping in this task. It encapsulates
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the low-level linguistics in program modules accessed through easy-to-use interfaces.
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Experts on different domains can build translation systems by using the library,
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without knowing low-level linguistics. The idea is much the same as when a
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programmer builds a graphical user interface (GUI) from high-level elements such as
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buttons and menus, without having to care about pixels or geometrical forms.
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</P>
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<H3>Applications of the library</H3>
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<P>
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In addition to translation, the library is also useful in <B>localization</B>,
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that is, porting a piece of software to new languages.
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The GF resource grammar library has been used in three major projects that need
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interlingua-based translation or localization of systems to new languages:
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>in KeY,
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<A HREF="http://www.key-project.org/"><CODE>http://www.key-project.org/</CODE></A>,
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for writing formal and informal software specifications (3 languages)
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<LI>in WebALT,
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<A HREF="http://webalt.math.helsinki.fi/content/index_eng.html"><CODE>http://webalt.math.helsinki.fi/content/index_eng.html</CODE></A>,
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for translating mathematical exercises to 7 languages
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<LI>in TALK <A HREF="http://www.talk-project.org"><CODE>http://www.talk-project.org</CODE></A>,
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where the library was used for localizing spoken dialogue systems to six languages
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</UL>
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<P>
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The library is also a generic linguistic resource, which can be used for tasks
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such as language teaching and information retrieval. The liberal license (LGPL)
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makes it usable for anyone and for any task. GF also has tools supporting the
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use of grammars in programs written in other programming languages: C, C++, Haskell,
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Java, JavaScript, and Prolog. In connection with the TALK project, support has also been
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developed for translating GF grammars to language models used in speech
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recognition (GSL/Nuance, HTK/ATK, SRGS, JSGF).
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</P>
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<H3>The structure of the library</H3>
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<P>
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The library has the following main parts:
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI><B>Inflection paradigms</B>, covering the inflection of each language.
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<LI><B>Common Syntax API</B>, covering a large set of syntax rule that
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can be implemented for all languages involved.
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<LI><B>Common Test Lexicon</B>, giving ca. 500 common words that can be used for
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testing the library.
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<LI><B>Language-Specific Syntax Extensions</B>, covering syntax rules that are
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not implementable for all languages.
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<LI><B>Language-Specific Lexica</B>, word lists for each language, with
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accurate morphological and syntactic information.
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</UL>
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<P>
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The goal of the summer school is to implement, for each language, at least
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the first three components. The latter three are more open-ended in character.
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</P>
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<H2>The summer school</H2>
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<P>
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The goal of the summer school is to extend the GF resource grammar library
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to covering all 23 EU languages, which means we need 15 new languages.
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We also welcome other languages, if there are interested participants.
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</P>
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<P>
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The amount of work and skill is between a Master's thesis and a PhD thesis.
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The Russian implementation was made by Janna Khegai as a part of her
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PhD thesis; the thesis contains other material, too.
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The Arabic implementation was started by Ali El Dada in his Master's thesis,
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but the thesis does not cover the whole API. The realistic amount of work is
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somewhere between 3 and 8 person months, but this is very much language-dependent.
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Dutch, for instance, can profit from previous implementations of German and
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Scandinavian languages, and will probably require less work.
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Latvian and Lithuanian are the first languages of the Baltic family and
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will probably require more work.
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</P>
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<P>
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In any case, the proposed allocation of work power is 2 participants per
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language. They will have 6 months to work at home, followed
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by 2 weeks of summer school. Who are these participants?
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</P>
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<H3>Selecting participants</H3>
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<P>
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After the call has been published, persons interested to participate in
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the project are expected to learn GF by self-study from the
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<A HREF="http://digitalgrammars.com/gf/doc/gf-tutorial.html">tutorial</A>.
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This should take a couple of weeks. Also an on-line course will be
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arranged to help in getting started with GF.
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</P>
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<P>
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Participants should continue to
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implement selected parts of the resource grammar, following the advice from
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the
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<A HREF="http://digitalgrammars.com/gf/doc/Resource-HOWTO.html">Resource-HOWTO document</A>.
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What parts exactly are selected will be announced later.
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This work will take another couple of weeks.
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</P>
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<P>
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Those who are interested in getting a travel grant will submit
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their sample resource grammar fragment
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to the Summer School Committee in the beginning of May.
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The Committee then decides who is invited to represent which language
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in the summer school.
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</P>
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<P>
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After the Committee decision, the participants have around three months
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to work on their languages. The work is completed in the summer school
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itself. It is also thoroughly tested by using it to add new languages
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to applications - in particular, to the WebALT mathematical
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exercise translator.
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</P>
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<P>
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Depending on the quality of submitted work, and on the demands of different
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languages, the Committee may decide to select another number than 2 participants
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for a language. We will also consider accepting participants who want to
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pay their own expenses.
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</P>
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<P>
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To keep track on who is working on which language, we will establish a Wiki page
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soon after the call is published. The participants are encouraged
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to contact each other and even work in groups.
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</P>
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<H3>Who is qualified</H3>
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<P>
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Writing a resource grammar implementation requires good general programming
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skills, and a good explicit knowledge of the grammar of the target language.
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A typical participant could be
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>native or fluent speaker of the target language
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<LI>interested in languages on the theoretical level, and preferably familiar
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with many languages (to be able to think about them on an abstract level)
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<LI>familiar with functional programming languages such as ML or Haskell
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(GF itself is a language similar to these)
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<LI>on Master's or PhD level in linguistics, computer science, or mathematics
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</UL>
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<P>
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But it is the quality of the assignment that is assessed, not any formal
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requirements. The "typical participant" was described to give an idea of
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who is likely to succeed in this.
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</P>
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<H3>Costs</H3>
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<P>
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Our aim is to make the summer school free of charge for the participants
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who are selected on the basis of their assignments. And not only that:
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we plan to cover their travel and accommodation costs, up to 1000 EUR
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per person.
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</P>
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<P>
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We try to get the funding question settled by mid-February 2009.
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</P>
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<H3>Teachers</H3>
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<P>
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A list of teachers will be published here later. Some of the local teachers
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probably involved are the following:
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>Krasimir Angelov
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<LI>Robin Cooper
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<LI>Håkan Burden
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<LI>Markus Forsberg
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<LI>Harald Hammarström
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<LI>Peter Ljunglöf
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<LI>Aarne Ranta
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</UL>
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<P>
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More teachers are welcome! If you are interested, please contact us so that
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we can discuss your involvement and travel arrangements.
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</P>
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<P>
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In addition to teachers, we will look for consultants who can help to assess
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the results for each language. Please contact us!
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</P>
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<H3>The Summer School Committee</H3>
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<P>
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This committee consists of a number of teachers and consultants,
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who will select the participants. It will be selected by February 2009.
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</P>
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<H3>Time and Place</H3>
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<P>
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The summer school will
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be organized at the campus of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg,
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Sweden, on 17-28 August 2009.
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</P>
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<P>
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Time schedule:
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</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>February: announcement of summer school and the grammar
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writing contest to get participants
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<LI>March-April: on-line course, work on the contest assignment (ca 1 month)
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<LI>May: submission deadline and notification of acceptance
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<LI>June-July: more work on the grammars
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<LI>August: summer school
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<LI>September-December: more homework if necessary
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</UL>
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<H3>Dissemination and intellectual property</H3>
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<P>
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The new resource grammars will be released under the LGPL just like
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the current resource grammars,
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with the copyright held by respective authors.
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</P>
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<P>
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The grammars will be distributed via the GF web site.
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</P>
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<P>
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The WebALT-specific grammars will have special licenses agreed between the
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authors and WebALT Inc.
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</P>
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<H2>Why I should participate</H2>
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<P>
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Seven reasons:
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</P>
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<OL>
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<LI>participation in a pioneering language technology work in an enthusiastic atmosphere
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<LI>work and fun with people from all over Europe and the world
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<LI>job opportunities and business ideas
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<LI>credits: the school project will be established as a course at Chalmers worth
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15 ETCS points per person, but extensions to Master's thesis will
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also be considered
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<LI>merits: the resulting grammar can easily lead to a published paper
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<LI>contribution to the multilingual and multicultural development of Europe and the
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world
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<LI>free trip and stay in Gothenburg (for travel grant students)
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</OL>
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