Constructing a parser for Latin

Abstract

We describe the construction of a grammar and lexicon for Latin in the AGFL formalism, in particular the generation of the lexicon by means of transduction and the description of the syntax using the Free Word Order operator. From these two components, an efficient Top-Down chart parser is generated automatically. We measure the lexical and syntactical coverage of the parser and describe how to increase it. The morphological generation technique described here is applicable to many highly-inflected languages. Since the Free Word Order operator described can cope with the extremely free word order in Latin, it may well be used for the description of free-word-order phenomena in modern languages. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.