Compiling and Using Finite-State Syntactic Rules

A language-independent framework for syntactic finlte-state parsing is discussed. The article presents a framework, a formalism, a compiler and a parser for grammars written in this forrealism. As a substantial example, fragments from a nontrivial finite-state grammar of English are discussed. The linguistic framework of the present approach is based on a surface syntactic tagging scheme by F. Karlsson. This representation is slightly less powerful than phrase structure tree notation, letUng some ambiguous constructions be described more concisely. The finite-state rule compiler implements what was briefly sketched by Koskenniemi (1990). It is based on the calculus of finite-state machines. The compiler transforms rules into rule-automata. The run-time parser exploits one of certain alternative strategies in performing the effective intersection of the rule automata and the sentence automaton. Fragments of a fairly comprehensive finite-state granmmr of English axe presented here, incl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1992
• Where: COLING
• Authors: Kimmo Koskenniemi, Pasi Tapanainen, Atro Voutilainen
• Keywords: COLING 1992, COLING 2008, Finite-state Rule Compiler, Nontrivial Finite-state Grammar, Syntactic Tagging Scheme