ARTEMIS: parsing non-peripheral complex sentences in ASD-STE100

Abstract

The simulation of natural language understanding is one of the main objectives of natural language processing (NLP). Within the different applications designed for this purpose, the ARTEMIS prototype follows the paradigm of unification grammars, and unlike other trending computational resources, it is theoretically grounded in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). The syntax-to-semantics linking algorithm proposed in this functional grammar lies at the basis of a parsing process that starts with a natural language sentence, extracts its morphosyntactic features and provides a representation of these in terms of the so-called layered structure of the clause (LSC).

The Grammar Development Environment (GDE) in ARTEMIS is a major component where feature- based production rules (syntactic, lexical and constructional) are stored and ready to allow the generation of the enhanced layered structure of the clause of natural language expressions. Syntactic rules that account for phrasal constituents and simple sentences have already been described, but it is now turn to focus on the study of non-peripheral complex sentences. In an attempt to validate these syntactic rules and to avoid some of the common problems that may arise in parsing applications, our research will concentrate on the analysis of RRG’s juncture-nexus combinations as found in a controlled natural language (CNL) such as ASD-STE100 (Aerospace and Defence Simplified Technical English).