Controlling content realization with functional unification grammars

Michael Elhadad, Jacques Robin

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

Standard Functional Unification Grammars (FUGs) provide a structurally guided top-down control regime for sentence generation. When using FUGs to perform content realization as a whole, including lexical choice, this regime is no longer appropriate for two reasons: (1) the unification of non-lexicalized semantic input with an integrated lexico-grammar requires mapping “floating” semantic elements which can trigger extensive backtracking and (2) lexical choice requires accessing external constraint sources on demand to preserve the modularity between conceptual and linguistic knowledge. We introduce two control tools that we have implemented for FUGs to address these limitations: bk-class, a form of dependency-directed backtracking to efficiently process “floating” constraints and external, a co-routine mechanism allowing a FUG to cooperate with external constraint sources during unification. We show how these tools complement the top-down regime of FUGs to control the whole content realization process.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAspects of Automated Natural Language Generation - 6th International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, Proceedings
EditorsDietmar Rosner, Eduard Hovy, Robert Dale, Oliviero Stock
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages89-104
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)9783540553991
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1992
Externally publishedYes
Event6th International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, 1992 - Trento, Italy
Duration: 5 Apr 19927 Apr 1992

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume587 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference6th International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, 1992
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityTrento
Period5/04/927/04/92

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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