Re: [lojban] Re: Beta Release of PEG-based Lojban parser.

[jcowan@reutershealth.com]

Rob Speer scripsit:

> The reason I ask is that this summer, I've got a research job in
> semantic interpretation of natural languages. I've gotten permission
> from my advisor to apply my research to Lojban.

Hurrah!  The PEG parser can indeed be used to make parse trees; it's just
that Robin, who's doing the work, doesn't have sufficient Java chops
at present.  But I can't believe it's a big deal.

> This technique of semantic interpretation involves taking a CFG and
> assigning a lambda expression to every rule. You then apply these lambda
> expressions up a parse tree, and at the top you end up with an
> expression encoding the meaning of the sentence.

Very cool.  We may not be smart enough to do this yet in full generality,
but look at Nick's Prolog version.

> 
> So this should apply to Lojban very well. Now, I also think that the PEG
> is very cool and is fixing some of the most blatant things wrong with
> Lojban, and I'd like to be able to use it. So that requires being able
> to retrieve parse trees.

We'll make it happen.

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
"In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."
        --Brian K. Reid