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From: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (Michael Maxwell)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.ai
Subject: Re: Seeking PD parser for simple English sentences.
Message-ID: <767@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Oct-86 18:13:47 EST
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.767
Posted: Thu Oct 30 18:13:47 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Nov-86 01:09:23 EST
References: <30@orion.UUCP>
Reply-To: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (Michael Maxwell)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 39
Xref: mnetor net.unix-wizards:8564 net.ai:1268

In article <30@orion.UUCP> heins@orion.UUCP (Michael Heins) writes:
>I am looking for public domain software which I can use to help me parse
>simple English sentences into some kind of standardized representation.
>I guess what I am looking for would be a kind of sentence diagrammer
>which would not have to have any deep knowledge of the meanings of the
>nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
>
>...C routines would be ideal.  Also, references to published
>algorithms would be useful.

Since this seems to be a fairly common request, I am taking the liberty of
posting to the net...
Many Prologs (but not Turbo) have a built-in parser called `Definite Clause
Grammar' (DCG).  It is a way of writing phrase structure rules, which Prolog
then translates into standard Prolog rules.  Most standard texts on Prolog
discuss it, e.g.
%A W.F. Clocksin
%A C.S. Mellish
%D 1984
%T Programming in Prolog
%I Springer-Verlag
%C Berlin

A somewhat more sophisticated rule system was developed by Fernando Pereira in
his Ph.D. dissertation, published with some revision as:
%A Fernando Pereira
%D 1979
%T Extraposition Grammars
%R Working Paper No. 59
%I Department of Aritficial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh
%C Edinburgh

(You'd have to type the program in yourself; he includes a very simple
grammar of English.)

-- 
Mike Maxwell
Boeing Advanced Technology Center
	...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm