Abstract
The Earley algorithm is a widely used parsing method in natural language processing applications. We introduce a variant of Earley parsing that is based on a “delayed” recognition of constituents. This allows us to start the recognition of a constituent only in cases in which all of its subconstituents have been found within the input string. This is particularly advantageous in several cases in which partial analysis of a constituent cannot be completed and in general in all cases of productions sharing some suffix of their right-hand sides (even for different left-hand side nonterminals). Although the two algorithms result in the same asymptotic time and space complexity, from a practical perspective our algorithm improves the time and space requirements of the original method, as shown by reported experimental results.
Research by the first author is carried out within the framework of the Priority Programme Language and Speech Technology (TST). The TST-Programme is sponsored by NWO (Dutch Organization for Scientific Research).
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Nederhof, MJ., Satta, G. (1997). A variant of Earley parsing. In: Lenzerini, M. (eds) AI*IA 97: Advances in Artificial Intelligence. AI*IA 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1321. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63576-9_98
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63576-9_98
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