[Corpora-List] Newbie help - language parsing, Python, Java, etc.

[Colin Matheson]

Dale> I think your specific needs would be best met by looking at the speech
Dale> recognition world.  In particular, check out Nuance (www.nuance.com); you
Dale> can sign up as a developer for free and get access, for non-resale purposes,
Dale> to their speech rec technology, which includes tools for writing grammars
Dale> that would cover very well the kind of NL input you need.  Tools from the
Dale> NLP world have a different focus, with more concern directed towards broader
Dale> coverage.

And as a matter of interest, Johan Bos (johan.bos at ed.ac.uk) has
exactly this kind of system running here in Edinburgh, using Nuance.
He actually compiles the Nuance grammars from higher-level
representations, but that's not necessary.  His office can understand
things like "turn on all the lights except the blue one", and so on.

Colin

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-corpora at lists.uib.no [mailto:owner-corpora at lists.uib.no]On
> > Behalf Of Brian Parkinson
> > Sent: Thursday, 5 September 2002 8:24 AM
> > To: CORPORA at HD.UIB.NO
> > Subject: [Corpora-List] Newbie help - language parsing, Python, Java,
> > etc.
> >
> >
> > Hello:
> >
> > I am starting a hobby type application at home - essentially, I'd want
> > to be able to control the X.10 devices in my home (lights, switches,
> > etc) with some 'English' commands.
> >
> > What I want to do is be able to type stuff like "turn the hall light
> > on" or "turn all lights off" - that sort of thing. The main intention
> > is to learn about this stuff - doesn't have to be anything "fancy" in
> > the end - I just want to putter in this area.
> >
> > Eventually, I'd like to hook up speech recognition software so I can
> > talk to the house as it were. Likely IBM's ViaVoice.
> >
> > I am on a Mac (OS X) and have extensive experience with programming
> > (Java, C/C++, Python, Perl - that sort of thing). I have the interface
> > from Java to the X.10 devices sorted out, but the whole arena of
> > natural language processing is new and daunting - note that I am not by
> > any stretch trying to tackle "real" speech or to gramatically parse any
> > given sentence - I am happy with a specific grammar which hopefully I
> > could extend as time goes on.
> >
> > I'd like to be cross platform - this is a bit of a goal.
> >
> > The nltk library (Python) looks promising, but there is no "English-y"
> > grammar that is supplied - this is the framework to put together
> > something like this, but contains not even really a Hello World type
> > example that I could start using. So I am a bit stymied.
> >
> > Is there anyone on the list that might be able to help with nltk
> > (supply a Hello World type example) or point me in a better direction?
> > Perhaps there are some Perl or Java English parsers available. And any
> > hints/suggestions or good dox to read to help out would be especially
> > helpful.
> >
> > Back to your regularly scheduled discussion...
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > parki...
> >
> >
> >
> >
>