Government-Binding Based Parser for Warlpiri, a Free-Word Order Language

摘要

Free-word order languages have long posed significant problems for standard parsing algorithms. This report presents an implemented parser, based on Government-Binding theory, for a particular free-word order language, Warlpiri, an aboriginal language of central Australia. The words in a sentence of a free-word order language may swap about relatively freely with little effect on meaning. It is assumed that this similarity in meaning is directly reflected in the syntax. The parser presented here properly processes free word order because it assigns the same syntactic structure of the permutations of a single sentence. The parser also handles fixed word order, as well as other phenomena. This parser differs from the more traditional rule-based parsing systems, e.g., context-free parsers, in that parsing is carried out via the construction of two different structures, one encoding precedence information and one encoding hierarchial information. This bipartite representation is the key to handling both free- and fixed-order phenomena.