An experimental parser for systemic grammars
Robert T. Kasper · 1988
We describe a general parsing method for systemic grammars. Systemic grammars contain a paradigmatic analysis of language in addition to structural information, so a parser must assign a set of grammatical features and functions to each constituent in addition to producing a constituent structure. Our method constructs a parser by compiling systemic grammars into the notation of Functional Unification Grammar. The existing methods for parsing with unification grammars have been extended to handle a fuller range of paradigmatic descriptions. In particular, the PATR-II system has been extended by using disjunctive and conditional information in functional descriptions that are attached to phrase structure rules. The method has been tested with a large grammar of English which was originally developed for text generation. This testing is the basis for some observations about the bidirectional use of a grammar.