Parsing with Typed Feature Structures

Shuly Wintner, Nissim Francez


Abstract
In this paper we provide for parsing with respect to grammars expressed in a general TFS-based formalism, a restriction of ALE ([2]). Our motivation being the design of an abstract (WAM-like) machine for the formalism ([14]), we consider parsing as a computational process and use it as an operational semantics to guide the design of the control structures for the abstract machine. We emphasize the notion of abstract typed feature structures (AFSs) that encode the essential information of TFSs and define unification over AFSs rather than over TFSs. We then introduce an explicit construct of multi-rooted feature structures (MRSs) that naturally extend TFSs and use them to represent phrasal signs as well as grammar rules. We also employ abstractions of MRSs and give the mathematical foundations needed for manipulating them. We then present a simple bottom-up chart parser as a model for computation: grammars written in the TFS-based formalism are executed by the parser. Finally, we show that the parser is correct.
Anthology ID:
1995.iwpt-1.33
Volume:
Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Parsing Technologies
Month:
September 20-24
Year:
1995
Address:
Prague and Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
Editors:
Eva Hajicova, Bernard Lang, Robert Berwick, Harry Bunt, Bob Carpenter, Ken Church, Aravind Joshi, Ronald Kaplan, Martin Kay, Makoto Nagao, Anton Nijholt, Mark Steedman, Henry Thompson, Masaru Tomita, K. Vijay-Shanker, Yorick Wilks, Kent Wittenburg
Venues:
IWPT | WS
SIG:
SIGPARSE
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
273–287
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/1995.iwpt-1.33
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Shuly Wintner and Nissim Francez. 1995. Parsing with Typed Feature Structures. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Parsing Technologies, pages 273–287, Prague and Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Parsing with Typed Feature Structures (Wintner & Francez, IWPT-WS 1995)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/1995.iwpt-1.33.pdf