16.2629, Software: The Language Machine Software

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2629. Mon Sep 12 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2629, Software: The Language Machine Software

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Maria Moreno-Rollins <maria at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.


===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 07-Sep-2005
From: Peri Hankey < mpah at users.sourceforge.net >
Subject: The Language Machine Software 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 12:23:25
From: Peri Hankey < mpah at users.sourceforge.net >
Subject: The Language Machine Software 
 


I hope that readers of this list will be interested in the language machine
- a toolkit for language and grammar. This is available as free software
under Gnu GPL from

   http://languagemachine.sourceforge.net

The software consists of a generalised grammatical engine and several
flavours of a metalanguage compiler. The grammatical engine applies
grammatical substitution rules that take the general form

   sequence-to-be-matched <- sequence-to-be-substituted ;

where the sequences to be matched and substituted may be of any length, may
contain terminal, non-terminal and lexical class symbols, and may include
variable bindings and references, variable declarations and immediate or
deferred side-effect actions including calls on external procedures.

There is a summary of how all this relates to the received wisdom about
language implementation at:

   http://languagemachine.sourceforge.net/grammar.html

The language machine can produce a diagram which shows exactly what happens
when unrestricted rewriting rules are applied to an input stream. This
diagram is explained with two very simple examples at:

   http://languagemachine.sourceforge.net/lm-diagram.html

The software is intended for practical applications, for research, and as a
way of explaining some fundamental mechanisms of language and grammar.

As far as I know, there is no other system which displays so clearly how
grammatical structure arises from the application of 'flat' rewriting rules.

Instructions for downloading and building the software can be found at the
website, where there are also pointers to a forum and related resources.

Peri Hankey 
Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics




-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2629