TRALE Generator

I wrote generator.pl for surface realization in HPSG using TRALE while working at the University of Bremen.

DISCLAIMER: This code has been written in 2006. It could be run with the latest TRALE version at that time.

PREREQUISITES

These can be given in theory.pl:

syntactic_object(<type being the mgsat of all syntactic objects>).

ind_path([path,to,index,of,the,mrs]).

cont_path([path,to,mrs]).
liszt_path([path,to,list,of,EPs]).
hcons_path([path,to,handle,constraints]).

Here is what I use. There are chances that it is similar to that:

syntactic_object(syntactic_object).

ind_path([synsem,loc,cont,ind]).
cont_path([synsem,loc,cont]).
liszt_path([synsem,loc,cont,rels]).
hcons_path([synsem,loc,cont,h_cons]).

LOADING

Either launch trale with the option -e "compile('/path/to/generator/directory/generator.p')" or call this within trale prolog compile('/path/to/generator/directory/generator.pl').

USAGE

• To parse a sentence and generate from its semantics:

p_and_g([sentence,as,list,of,words]).

• To parse a phrase of description Desc and generate from its semantics:

p_and_g([sentence,as,list,of,words],Desc).

• To generate from a description Desc (representing the whole sign, not only the semantics), getting all the outputs in the list Words, and matching Desc to the description Root:

g(Desc).
g(Desc,Words).
g_d(Desc,Words,Root).
g_d(Desc,Root).

TEST SUITE HANDLING

• The test suite handling for generation parses a sentence and tries then to generate from its semantics.

• Example lines to be added to test_items.pl for generation test suite handling:

tg(6,[pierre,donne,une,fée,à`,clochette],@root).
tg(6,"Pierre donne une fée à clochette.",@root).

• To test the sentence numbered No in test_items.pl:

testg(No).

To test all sentences in test_items.pl:

testg(No).

• These can also be used to write the test results in file File:

testgw(No,File).
testgw(all,File).

If File exists, its content is replaced by the output, so in order to append the test results to file File instead of overwriting its content, this should be used:

testga(No,File).
testga(all,File).

KNOWN BUGS:

At the time of development (February 2006):

• There is a bug in TRALE that leads to failing calls to alec_rule/6 for some grammars. In that case the generator would not work.
• Indices get mixed sometimes in a way that subject and complements of a verb get interchanged leading to more output than it should give.
• Does not work yet for difference-lists of EPs in liszt_path(...) and hcons_path(...).