The tutorial gives an introduction to GF, Grammatical Framework
(grammaticalframework.org
),
which is a special-purpose programming language for implementing
grammars. GF has
partly the same scope as grammar formalisms like HPSG and LFG, but differs
from them by having a concept of multilingual grammars, i.e. grammars with
shared semantic representations. GF is moreover a
functional programming language
with static typing and a powerful module system,
which makes it a modern and efficient engineering tool.
GF has dedicated constructs and rich libraries for
morphology and syntax implementations.
The GF Resource Grammar Library
has currently coverage of 15 languages. Partly as a result of the
GF Resource Grammar Summer School in 2009
(grammaticalframework.org/summerschool.html
),
which gathered 30 participants from 20 countries, some
15 more languages are under construction.
The main uses of GF and the library have been in
multilingual generation, spoken dialogue systems, and domain-specific
translation. GF-based translation will be developed futher in
the European FP7 project
MOLTO (Multilingual On-Line Translation,
www.molto-project.eu
).
We believe that GF gives an excellent platform for creating computational linguistic resources for new languages. This has been proven by applications covering a wide range of languages (e.g. English, French, Finnish, Arabic, Japanese, Tswana) and further confirmed by the summer school of 2009. GF has shown to attract talented students, who can get productive in a few hours, and then create comprehensive resources in a few months. The already existing language base moreover makes it possible to inherit code and experience when starting projects for new languages.
The GF software runs on all major operating systems (Linux, MacOS, Windows). GF has conversion tools that enable the reuse of grammars in several other formats, including context-free grammars for speech recognition (e.g. Nuance) and finite automata for morphology (XFST). Both the GF compiler and the grammars are available as open-source software.
The goal of the tutorial is to give the knowledge needed for building GF applications or starting a new language implementation. The material is divided into three one-hour lectures:
The material covered will be an abridged
version of the summer school introduction
slides, which can be found in
grammaticalframework.org/doc/resource-tutorial.pdf
.
The main prerequisites are:
Experience has shown that 2-3 years studies in computer science, linguistics, or a related subject give the sufficient background for learning GF. No previous knowledge of GF is presupposed.
Aarne Ranta, Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
Tel. +46 31 772 10 82, Email aarne at chalmers dot se
Homepage www.cs.chalmers.se/~aarne