HPSG Diagrams

[Jonathan Calder]

Hi all,

I was just composing this when Uli Germann's note came along.  A brief
response to him is at the end of this message.

Don't reinvent the wheel here ...

> 1. Allow the user to define types, constraints and hierarchies with
>    graphical editors.
> 2. Allow the user to enter tree structures in a tree editor, with nodes
>    labeled by AVMs (the common notational convention in HPSG).
> 3. Check whether a tree satisfies the constraints in a grammar.
> 4. Output all these graphical representations in formats suitable for
>    importing into other software.
> 5. Support downloading problem sets from a central server, and
>    submitting answers online for automatic correction.
> 6. Work on something other than Unix, and not require immense amounts
>    of RAM or processor power.

In principle, the Thistle design (available since 1998, see
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1109.html) allows most of this.
Thistle implements a parameterized editing engine, with input and
output via SGML (yes, it's old software).  It's available under the
GPL from

ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/thistle/

Even if you don't take over any code (it was my first major Java
coding exercise, and I spent a lot of time breaking Richard Tobin's
excellent code), the design is right!

Thistle also comes along with a grammar for HPSG diagrams that covers
all of the theory-internal diagrams of P&S 94.  Aside from line breaks
introduced in that book, Thistle does a pretty good job of replicating
the layout.  As a side effect, the grammar defines a DTD for documents
with the same contents as the diagram.

Uli wrote:

> Have you looked into Thistle? I'm not up to date with the latest
> developments, but it might just be what you are looking for.

I've not been able to direct any effort towards Thistle for a couple
of years or so.  As I mentioned above, the code base is not very tidy,
and whether junking or fixing is the right move is a question I'm
still undecided on.

It should also be the case nowadays that a lot of this functionality
can be acheived by the right combination of XML, XSLT (or subset
thereof) and editors that allow you to edit the former through the
latter.  Those layers would also seem to achieve the appropriate
abstraction for some of the applications Luis envisages.

Cheers,

-- Jo

-----------------------------
Jonathan Calder
CEO/CTO Fourth Person Ltd
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