Analysis of the elements by HPSG

Abstract

In this study, we analyse The Elements of Euclid by Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). In ancient Greek, phrase structures depend mainly upon the agreement of features (gender, case, person, etc.) so that there is much liberty in word order; this is the reason why we adopt a unification-based grammar. In addition to ordinary grammar rules, we add several rules which concerns ellipsis and crossed-dependency. We show that the grammar could cover over 79% for 1154 sentences of Books 7 and 8 of The Elements.