Code generation using a backtracking LR parser

Although the parsing phase of the modern compiler has been automated in a machine independent fashion, the diversity of computer architectures inhibits automating the code generation phase. During code generation, some intermediate representation of a source program is transformed into actual machine instructions. The need for portable compilers has driven research towards the automatic generation of code generators.;This research investigates the use of a backtracking LR parser that treats code generation as a series of tree transformations

The application of two-level morphology to non-concatenative German morphology

In this paper I describe a hybrid system for morphological analysis and synthesis. This system consists of two parts. The treatment of morphonology and non-concatenative morphology is based on the two-level approach proposed by Koskenniemi (1983). For the concatenative part of morphosyntax (i.e. affixation) a grammar based on feature-unification is made use of. Both parts rely on a morph lexicon. Combinations of two-level morphology with feature-based morphosyntactic grammars have already been proposed by several authors (c.f. Bear 1988a, Carson 1988, Görz & Paulus 1988, Schiller & Steffens 1989) to overcome the shortcomings of the continuation-classes originally proposed by Koskenniemi (1983) and Karttunen (1983) for the description of morphosyntax. But up to now no linguistically satisfying solution has been proposed for the treatment of non-concatenative morphology in such a framework. In this paper I describe an extension to the model which will allow for the description of such phenomena. Namely it is proposed to restrict the applicability of two-level rules by providing them with filters in the form of feature structures. It is demonstrated how a well-known problem of German morphology, so-called "Umlautung", can be described in this approach in a linguistically motivated and efficient way

TRANSDUCER FOR AUTO-CONVERT OF ARCHAIC TO PRESENT DAY ENGLISH FOR MACHINE READABLE TEXT: A SUPPORT FOR COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING

There exist some English literary works where some archaic words are still used; they are relatively distinct from Present Day English (PDE). We might observe some archaic words that have undergone regular changing patterns: for instances, archaic modal verbs like mightst, darest, wouldst. The –st ending historically disappears, resulting on might, dare and would. (wouldst > would). However, some archaic words undergo distinct processes, resulting on unpredictable pattern; The occurrence frequency for archaic english pronouns like thee ‘you’, thy ‘your’, thyself ‘yourself’ are quite high. Students that are Non-Native speakers of English might come across many difficulties when they encounter English texts which include these kinds of archaic words. How might computer be a help for the student? This paper aims on providing some supports from the perspective of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It proposes some designs of lexicon transducers by using Local Grammar Graphs (LGG) for auto-convert of the archaic words to PDE in a literature machine readable text. The transducer is applied to a machine readable text that is taken from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. The archaic words in the corpus can be converted automatically to PDE. The transducer also allows the presentation of the two forms (Arhaic and PDE), the PDE lexicons-only, or the original (Archaic Lexicons) form-only. This will help students in understanding English literature works better. All the linguistic resources here are machine readable, ready to use, maintainable and open for further development. The method might be adopted for lexicon tranducer for another language too

Patterns of grammaticalization in African languages

The approach outlined in the present paper is based on observations made with African languages. Although the 1000-odd African languages display a remarkable extent of structural variation, there are certain structures that do not seem to occur in Africa. Thus, to our knowledge, an African language having anything that could be called an ergative case or a numeral classifier system has not been discovered so far. It may turn out that our approach can, in a modified form, be made applicable to languages outside Africa. This , however, is a possibility that has not been considered here. The present approach is based essentially on diachronic findings in that it uses observations on language evolution in order to account for structural differences between languages. Thus, it has double potential: apart from describing and explaining typological diversity it can also be material to reconstructing language history

Volume IV

Volume IV of the Bulletin of Applied Linguistics published by the English Department of Morehead State University