Application-driven automatic subgrammar extraction

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automatic method for extracting application-specific subgrammars from large-scale systemic grammars to reduce complexity and improve reusability in natural language generation tasks.

Contribution

It presents a novel procedure for automatic extraction of consistent subgrammars from large systemic grammars, leveraging their formal equivalence to typed unification grammars.

Findings

Effective in generating encyclopedia entries

Reduces space and run-time requirements

Enhances reusability of grammars

Abstract

The space and run-time requirements of broad coverage grammars appear for many applications unreasonably large in relation to the relative simplicity of the task at hand. On the other hand, handcrafted development of application-dependent grammars is in danger of duplicating work which is then difficult to re-use in other contexts of application. To overcome this problem, we present in this paper a procedure for the automatic extraction of application-tuned consistent subgrammars from proved large-scale generation grammars. The procedure has been implemented for large-scale systemic grammars and builds on the formal equivalence between systemic grammars and typed unification based grammars. Its evaluation for the generation of encyclopedia entries is described, and directions of future development, applicability, and extensions are discussed.