O'KeefeHPS@sri-unix.UUCP (09/20/84)
From: O'Keefe HPS (on ERCC DEC-10)
[Forwarded from the Prolog Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.]
This message is composed of extracts from the ProGram manual.
ProGram is a suite of Prolog programs that are intended to permit
the design, evaluation, and debugging of computer realizations of
phrase structure grammars for large fragments of natural languages.
The grammar representation language employed is that known as GPSG
(Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar). A GPSG grammar, as far as
ProGTram is concerned, has up to nine components as follows:
1. Specification of feature syntax.
2. Immediate dominance rules (ID rules).
3. Metarules which operation on the ID rules.
4. Linear precedence rules (LP rules).
5. Feature coefficient default values.
6. Feature co-occurrence restrictions.
7. Feature aliasing data.
8. Root admissibility conditions.
9. A lexicon.
All the major conventions described in the GPSG literature are
implemented, including the Head Feature Convention, the Foot
Feature Principle (and hence slash categories &c), the Control
Agreement Principle, the Conjunct Realisation Principle, lexical
subcategorisation and rule instantiation incorporating the notion
of privilege.
All the major parts of the grammar interpreter code are written
in standard Prolog (Clocksin&Mellish). Installation of the
system should be fairly simple on any machine of moderate size
which supports Prolog.
AVAILABILITY
1. The manual is "University of Sussex Cognitive Science Research
Paper 35 (CSRP 035) and can be ordered from Judith Dennison,
Congitive Studies Programme, Arts E, University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, for 7.50 pounds including postage.
2. ProGram is aprt of the standard Sussex POPLOG system and is
included, without extra charge, in all academic issues and
updates of the POPLOG system. POPLOG is available to UK
academic users for the sum of 500 pounds (special arrangements
apply to holders of SERC AI grants who have a VAX running UNIX).
Existing UK academic POPLOG users can obtain a free update of
the POPLOG system which will include ProGram. POPLOG runs on
VAXes under VMS and UNIX, and on Bleasdale BDC 680as under UNIX.
[RAOK: The Bleasdale is a 68000, POPLOG is on SUNs too by now.]
Non-educational customers (UK & overseas) who want ProGram with
POPLOG should order it through System Designers Ltd, Systems
House, 1 Pembroke Broadway, Camberley, Surrey GU15 3XH. This
company makes POPLOG available to educational institutions in
the USA for 995 dollars.
3. Academic users of other Prolog systems can obtain a magnetic tape
in UNIX "tar" format of the Prolog code of the ProGram system
free, together with a copy of "The Program Manual", provided they
pay the tape, postage, package, and handling costs (35 pounds).
Copies can be ordered from Alison Mudd, Cognitive Studies
Programme, Arts E, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN
A cheque for 35 pounds made payable to "The University of Sussex"
should be enclosed with the order.
I have no connection with POPLOG, ProGram, or (save a recent visit
when I picked up the ProGram manual and saw PopLog running on its
home ground) with the University of Sussex.
Just to make sure you realise what ProGram is and isn't, it IS
meant to be a convenient toolkit for *developing* a GPSG grammar,
it is NOT meant to be the world's most efficient parser. The manual
warns you that "in general, automatic exhaustive parsing with more
than a few rules tends to be slow". You shouldn't need to know
any Prolog in order to use ProGram.