GF Resource Grammar Library v. 1.0
Author: Aarne Ranta <aarne (at) cs.chalmers.se>
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The GF Resource Grammar Library defines the basic grammar of
ten languages: 
Danish, English, Finnish, French, German,
Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.

**Notice**. This document concerns the API v. 1.0 which has not
yet been "officially" released. The release will be made in combination
with a new version of GF itself, since the grammars use new features
not available in GF 2.4.

V. 1.0 is not yet available for Russian and Danish: for them,
we refer to [v. 0.9 ../../resource/].


==Authors==

Inger Andersson and Therese Soderberg (Spanish morphology),
Nicolas Barth and Sylvain Pogodalla (French verb list),
Janna Khegai (Russian modules, forthcoming),
Bjorn Bringert (many Swadesh lexica),
Carlos Gonzalia (Spanish cardinals), 
Harald Hammarstrom (German morphology),
Partik Jansson (Swedish cardinals),
Andreas Priesnitz (German lexicon),
Aarne Ranta.

We are grateful for contributions and 
comments to several other people who have used this and 
the previous versions of the resource library, including
Ludmilla Bogavac,
Ana Bove,
David Burke,
Lauri Carlson,
Gloria Casanellas,
Karin Cavallin,
Robin Cooper,
Hans-Joachim Daniels,
Elisabet Engdahl,
Markus Forsberg,
Kristofer Johannisson,
Anni Laine,
Wanjiku Ng'ang'a,
Jordi Saludes.


==License==

The GF Resource Grammar Library is open-source software licensed under
GNU General Public License. See the file [LICENSE ../LICENSE] for more
details.


==Scope==

Coverage, for each language:
- complete morphology
- lexicon of the ca. 100 most important structural words
- test lexicon of ca. 300 content words
- representative fragment of syntax (cf. CLE (Core Language Engine))
- rather flat semantics (cf. Quasi-Logical Form of CLE)


Organization:
- top-level (API) modules
- Ground API + special-purpose APIs
- "school grammar" concepts rather than advanced linguistic theory


Presentation:
- tool ``gfdoc`` for generating HTML from grammars
- example collections


==Quick start==

Go to the main directory, compile the grammars, and run a test.
```
  cd GF/lib/resource-1.0
  make
  make test
```
This will take quite some time. An alternative is to use the
precompiled grammar package from GF download page. This package 
has the necessary ``gfc`` and ``gfr`` files directly under ``GF/lib``.
```
  GF/lib/alltenses
  GF/lib/mathematical
  GF/lib/multimodal
  GF/lib/present
```
Do for instance
```
  cd GF/lib/
  gf
    > i -path=present:prelude present/LangEng.gfc
    > gr -cat=S -number=3 -cf | tb
```
For more examples, see the [Overview slides clt2006.html]. 



===The language independent ground API===

This API is accessible by both ``present`` and ``alltenses``.
The API is divided into a bunch of ``abstract`` modules.
The following figure gives the dependencies of these modules.

[Lang.png] 

The documentation of the individual modules:

- [Common gfdoc/Common.html]: abstract notions with language-indep. implementations
- [Cat gfdoc/Cat.html]: the category system
- [Noun gfdoc/Noun.html]: construction of nouns and noun phrases
- [Adjective gfdoc/Adjective.html]: construction of adjectival phrases
- [Verb gfdoc/Verb.html]: construction of verb phrases
- [Adverb gfdoc/Adverb.html]: construction of adverbial phrases
- [Numeral gfdoc/Numeral.html]: construction of cardinal and ordinal numerals
- [Sentence gfdoc/Sentence.html]: construction of sentences and imperatives
- [Question gfdoc/Question.html]: construction of questions
- [Relative gfdoc/Relative.html]: construction of relative clauses
- [Conjunction gfdoc/Conjunction.html]: coordination of phrases
- [Phrase gfdoc/Phrase.html]: construction of the major units of text and speech
- [Text gfdoc/Text.html]: construction of texts from phrases, using punctuation
- [Idiom gfdoc/Idiom.html]: idiomatic phrases, such as existentials
- [Structural gfdoc/Structural.html]: a lexicon of structural words
- [Lexicon gfdoc/Lexicon.html]: a lexicon of other common words, for test purposes
- [Lang gfdoc/Lang.html]: the main module comprising all the others


===The language-dependent APIs===

- [ParadigmsEng gfdoc/ParadigmsEng.html]: English lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsFin gfdoc/ParadigmsFin.html]: Finnish lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsFre gfdoc/ParadigmsFre.html]: French lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsIta gfdoc/ParadigmsIta.html]: Italian lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsGer gfdoc/ParadigmsGer.html]: German lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsNor gfdoc/ParadigmsNor.html]: Norwegian lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsSpa gfdoc/ParadigmsSpa.html]: Spanish lexical paradigms
- [ParadigmsSwe gfdoc/ParadigmsSwe.html]: Swedish lexical paradigms



- [IrregEng gfdoc/IrregEng.gf]: English irregular verbs
- [IrregFre gfdoc/IrregFre.gf]: French irregular verbs
% - [IrregGer gfdoc/IrregGer.gf]: German irregular verbs
- [IrregNor gfdoc/IrregNor.gf]: Norwegian irregular verbs
- [IrregSwe gfdoc/IrregSwe.gf]: Swedish irregular verbs


===Special-purpose APIs===

====Present====

The API is the same as for the full ground API, but the compiler
has ignored all verb and sentence tenses except the present.
Lines ignored in the source files are marked by ``--# notpresent``.
The result is a smaller and more efficient grammar, which is still
sufficient for many applications.


====Multimodal====

- [Multimodal gfdoc/Multimodal.html]: main module for multimodal dialogue systems
- [Demonstrative gfdoc/Demonstrative.html]: demonstrative noun phrases and adverbs


====Mathematical====

- [Mathematical gfdoc/Mathematical.html]: main module for mathematical language
- [Predication gfdoc/Predication.html]: predication with verbs, adjectives, etc
- [Symbol gfdoc/Symbol.html]: symbols and numbers in text



==Using the library==

===The compiled version===

The simplest way to get the library is to install the precompiled version
[``lib/compiled.tgz`` ../../compiled.tgz]. Just do
```
  cd GF/lib
  tar xvfz compiled.tgz
```
There is no need to link application grammars to the source directories of the
library. Use one (or several) of the following packages instead:

- ``lib/alltenses`` the complete ground-API library with all forms
- ``lib/present`` a pruned ground-API library with present tense only
- ``lib/mathematical`` special-purpose API for mathematical applications
- ``lib/multimodal`` special-purpose API for multimodal dialogue applications


===Linking applications to libraries===

Notice, however, that both special-purpose APIs share modules with
``present``. It is therefore not a good idea to use them in combination with
``alltenses``.


It is advisable to use the bare package names in paths pointing to the
libraries. Here is an example, from ``examples/tram``:
```
  --# -path=.:present:multimodal:mathematical:prelude
```
To reach these directories from anywhere, set the environment variable
``GF_LIB_PATH`` to point to the directory ``GF/lib/``. For instance,
I have the following line in my ``.bashrc`` file:
```
  export GF_LIB_PATH=/home/aarne/GF/lib
```


===Using the libraries as top-level grammars===

If you have done ``make`` in ``lib/resource-1.0``, you will have 
a file ``langs.gfcm``. This file can be used with fast startup for
tasks such as treebank generation:
```
  > i -nocf langs.gfcm
  > gr -cat=S -cf -number=10 | tb
```
The ``-nocf`` flag saves startup time and memory by preventing the
creation of context-free parse grammars. 
The resource grammar libraries do //not// support
parsing very well. While it is theoretically possible to parse with any
GF grammar, the resource grammars are so abstract and complex that
building the actual parser in memory may just need too much resources
to succeed.

An exception is ``LangEng``. It is actually feasible to parse with
both ``alltenses/LangEng`` and ``present/LangEng`` - the latter being
much faster than the former. The ``-mcfg`` flag (multiple context-free grammar)
must be used:
```
  p -lang=LangEng -mcfg "this man is old"
```
Parsing with the ``-mcfg`` flag takes a few extra seconds the first time during
each session, but gets faster at later runs.


==Example applications==

These applications are meand to serve as starting points for
new applications, showing how the libraries can be used in
typical situations.

===Brozeage===

The [examples/bronzeage ../../../examples/bronzeage] 
grammar set implements a language fragment
based on the Swadesh list of 200 words. It is useful for
things like language training.


===Tram===

The [examples/tram ../../../examples/tram] 
grammar set implements the user grammar of a 
multimodal dialogue system concerning public transport.
Its purpose is to serve as a prototype for applications in the
TALK project.


===Animals===

The [examples/animal ../../../examples/animal] 
grammar set implements some queries about animals.
Its purpose is to serve as a prototype for example-based 
grammar writing.


==Known bugs and missing components==

This bugs should be fixed before the final release of v. 1.0.

Danish
- API 1.0 not implemented


English 
- only contracted negation forms


Finnish
- no possessive suffixes
- wrong cases in passive constructions


French
- only direct word order in questions


German
- no list of irregular verbs


Italian
- no contraction of infinitives before clitics
- no list of irregular verbs


Norwegian
- word order in compound verbs sometimes wrong


Russian
- API 1.0 not implemented


Spanish
- no ordinal numbers


Swedish
- word order in compound verbs sometimes wrong



==More reading==

[Grammars as Software Libraries gslt-sem-2006.html]. Slides
with background and motivation for the resource grammar library.

[GF Resource Grammar Library Version 1.0 clt2006.html]. Slides
giving an overview of the library and practical hints on its use.

[How to write resource grammars  Resource-HOWTO.html]. Helps you
start if you want to add another language to the library.

[Parametrized modules for Romance languages http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/geocal2006.pdf]. 
Slides explaining some ideas in the implementation of
French, Italian, and Spanish.


[Grammar writing by examples http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/slides/webalt-2005.pdf].
Slides showing how the method is used.

[Multimodal Resource Grammars http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne/slides/talk-edin2005.pdf].
Slides showing how to use the multimodal resource library.

