Liza Zimina in the MLT programme will defend her thesis "GF Japanese Resource Grammar". Opponent: Linqiqige Zhuo

ABSTRACT

This thesis describes the implementation of the open-source Japanese resource grammar as a part of the GF Resource Grammar Library (RGL). GF (Grammatical Framework) is a grammar formalism for multilingual grammars and their applications intended at performing various natural language processing tasks. The RGL is a set of natural language grammars with a shared abstract syntax and different concrete parts implemented in GF.

The Japanese resource grammar covers all the categories and rules of the GF abstract syntax, thus providing the full correlation with the resource grammars of other languages in the RGL. Due to some peculiarities of the Japanese language, the process of grammar development was complicated by a number of challenges that had not been observed before in the implementation of other GF grammars. One of the most important peculiarities is stylistic stratification in Japanese, which deeply affects its morphology and syntax. Moreover, a number of syntactic constructions predetermined in the abstract syntax are hardly possible in the natural Japanese language (e.g. some types of complex subordinate clauses). Being typologically distant from the European languages, Japanese brings up new issues in the discussion on the universal properties of languages and disputes the generality of some rules in the GF abstract syntax.

Full text (preliminary version): http://www.ling.gu.se/~lager/MLT/zimina_thesis_draft.pdf

Håkan Burden, GSLT PhD student at CSE, will defend his licentiate thesis "Three Studies on Model Transformations - Parsing, Generation and Ease of Use".

Opponent/discussion leader: Leon Moonen, Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo, Norway

Abstract:

Transformations play an important part in both software development and the automatic processing of natural languages. We present three publications rooted in the multi-disciplinary research of Language Technology and Software Engineering and relate their contribution to the literature on syntactical transformations.

Parsing Linear Context-Free Rewriting Systems
The first publication describes four different parsing algorithms for the mildly context-sensitive grammar formalism Linear Context-Free Rewriting Systems. The algorithms automatically transform a text into a chart. As a result the parse chart contains the (possibly partial) analysis of the text according to a grammar with a lower level of abstraction than the original text. The uni-directional and endogenous transformations are described within the framework of parsing as deduction.

Natural Language Generation from Class Diagrams
Using the framework of Model-Driven Architecture we generate natural language from class diagrams. The transformation is done in two steps. In the first step we transform the class diagram, defined by Executable and Translatable UML, to grammars specified by the Grammatical Framework. The grammars are then used to generate the desired text. Overall, the transformation is uni-directional, automatic and an example of a reverse engineering translation.

Executable and Translatable UML - How Difficult Can it Be?
Within Model-Driven Architecture there has been substantial research on the transformation from Platform-Independent Models (PIM) into Platform-Specifc Models, less so on the transformation from Computationally Independent Models (CIM) into PIMs. This publication reflects on the outcomes of letting novice software developers transform CIMs specified by UML into PIMs defined in Executable and Translatable UML.

Conclusion
The three publications show how model transformations can be used within both Language Technology and Software Engineering to tackle the challenges of natural language processing and software development.

Full text: http://www.cse.chalmers.se/%7Eburden/pdfs/BurdenLic.pdf