PyFCG: Fluid Construction Grammar in Python

TL;DR

PyFCG is an open-source Python library that brings Fluid Construction Grammar capabilities to Python, facilitating integration, analysis, learning, and agent-based experiments in construction grammar research.

Contribution

It introduces PyFCG, enabling seamless integration of Fluid Construction Grammar into Python, with tutorials demonstrating analysis, learning, and emergent communication applications.

Findings

Successful formalisation and testing of construction grammar analyses

Effective learning of usage-based construction grammars from corpora

Implementation of agent-based emergent communication experiments

Abstract

We present PyFCG, an open source software library that ports Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) to the Python programming language. PyFCG enables its users to seamlessly integrate FCG functionality into Python programs, and to use FCG in combination with other libraries within Python's rich ecosystem. Apart from a general description of the library, this paper provides three walkthrough tutorials that demonstrate example usage of PyFCG in typical use cases of FCG: (i) formalising and testing construction grammar analyses, (ii) learning usage-based construction grammars from corpora, and (iii) implementing agent-based experiments on emergent communication.