Abstract
We describe how type information can be used to infer grammatical structure. This is in contrast to conventional type inference in programming languages where the roles are reversed, structure determining type. Our work is based on Applicative Universal Grammar (AUG), a linguistic theory that views the formation of phrase in a form that is analogous to function application in a programming language. We descibe our overall methodology including its linguistic and philosophical underpinnings.
The natural language parser that we have constructed should be interesting to computer scientists in the way in which AUG relates to types and combinatory calculus, and to linguists in the way in which a very simple, brute force parsing strategy performs surprisingly well in both performance and accuracy. Both computer scientists and linguists should also be interested in the convergence of the theory of functional programming languages and AUG with regard to their conceptual bases. Both have been motivated by entirely di.erent goals and have develop ed independently, but they are rooted in a common conceptual system of an applicative calculus.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
R. Bird and P. Wadler. Introduction to Functional Programming. Prentice Hall, New York, 1988.
R.S. Bird and O. de Moor. Relational program derivation and context-free language recognition. In A.W. Roscoe, editor, A Classical Mind: Essays in Honour of C.A.R. Hoare, pages 17–35. Prentice-Hall International Series in Computer Science, 1994.
Noam Chomsky. On the notion 'rule of grammar'. In Proceedings of Symposium in Applied Mathematics, volume 12 (Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects). 1961.
H.B. Curry. Some logical aspects of grammatical structure. In Structure of language and its mathematical aspects. American Mathematical Society, Providence, 1961.
H.B. Curry and R. Feys. Combinatory Logic, Vol. 1. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1958.
R. Frost and J. Launchbury. Constructing natural language interpreters in a lazy functional language. The Computer Journal, 32(2):108–121, April 1989.
Morris Halle. The Sound Pattern of Russian. Mouton, The Hague, 1959.
P. Hudak. Conception, evolution, and application of functional programming languages. ACM Computing Surveys, 21(3):359–411, 1989.
P. Hudak and J. Fasel. A gentle introduction to Haskell. ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 27(5), May 1992.
P. Hudak, S. Peyton Jones, and P. Wadler (editors). Report on the Programming Language Haskell, A Non-strict Purely Functional Language (Version 1.2). ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 27(5), May 1992.
M.P. Jones, P. Hudak, and S. Shaumyan. Using types to parse natural language. In Proceedings of Glasgow Functional Programming Workshop. IFIP, Springer Verlag, 1995.
Stanislaw Lesniewski. Grundzuge eines neuen Systems der Grundlagen der Mathematik. Fundamenta Mathematicae, 14:1–81, 1929.
Theodore M. Lightner. Generative phonology. In William Orr Dingwall, editor, Survey of Linguistic Science, pages 489–574. Linguistics Program, University of Maryland, 1971.
M. Moortgat. The generalized categorial grammar. In Flip G. Droste and John E. Joseph, editors, Linguistic Theory and Grammatical Description, pages 489–574. John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991.
Richard Montague. Formal philosophy. In R.H. Thomason, editor, Selected writings of Richard Montague. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1974.
Sebastian Shaumyan. Strukturnaja lingvistika, 1965.
Sebastian Shaumyan. Applicative grammar as a semantic theory of natural language. University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Sebastian Shaumyan. A Semiotic Theory of Language. Indiana University Press, 1987.
Sebastian Shaumyan. Applicative universal grammar as a linguistic framework of the translation model. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing. Dakota State University, Madison, Dakota, 1991.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Shaumyan, S., Hudak, P. (1999). Linguistic, Philosophical, and Pragmatic Aspects of Type-Directed Natural Language Parsing. In: Lecomte, A., Lamarche, F., Perrier, G. (eds) Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics. LACL 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1582. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48975-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48975-4_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65751-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48975-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive