XLE Documentation

by Dick Crouch, Mary Dalrymple, Ron Kaplan, Tracy King, John Maxwell, and Paula Newman
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)

Copyright © 1993-2001 by the Xerox Corporation
Copyright © 2002-2011 by the Palo Alto Research Center. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

This page gives an overview of the XLE documentation that is available to the user. Here are the main documents:

• Pargram Starter Grammar — a quick introduction to XLE for Pargram users
• Walkthrough — a walkthrough of XLE for a user.
• XLE User Documentation — documentation of the XLE user interface (including the generator).
• Grammatical Notations — documentation of the LFG notation used by XLE.
• Transfer — documentation on how to do transfer using XLE.
• Translation — documentation on how to do translation using XLE.

• Introduction
• Entering a new grammar
  • Named linguistic specifications
  • Basic Files
  • Syntactic rules
    • Typing rules: punctuation and format
    • Installing rules
    • Format practice
    • Deleting a rule
  • Lexicon
    • Typing in
    • Starting with an existing entry
    • Analyzing sentences
    • Accessing lexical entries
  • Templates
    • Defining and invoking templates
• Grammar testing and debugging
  • Display of linguistic representations
  • Debugging With No C-structure
  • F-structure debugging
    • Inconsistency
    • Incoherence
    • Incompleteness and determinacy
    • Resolution of functional uncertainties
  • Projections
  • Parsing Category
• Transfer Walkthrough
• Basic Rules
• Templates and Macros
• Optional Rules
  
• References

• About XLE
• Installing XLE
• Getting Started
• XLE and Emacs
  • LFG Mode
  • LFG Menu
  • Other commands
  • Extended searching: Menus and tags
  • XLE Mode
  • Grammar comments
  • Emacs File Variables
  • Emacs and non-ASCII character sets
• XLE and Eclipse
• Tcl Shell Interface
• Tcl Graphical Interface
  • Tree Window
    • Bracketing Window
  • F-Structure Window
  • Constraints Window
  • F-Structure Chart Windows
  • Chart Window
  • Morphology Window
  • Mouse Alternatives
• The Generator
  • Creating a Generator
  • Using the Generator
  • Generator Output
  • Underspecified Generator Input
  • Robust Generation
  • Debugging with the Generator
  • Testing a Generation Grammar
  • Generator Performance
  • Generator Usage Notes
• Loading a Grammar
• Debugging in XLE
• Grammar Coverage
  • Regression Test Tools
  • Building a Testsuite
  • Running a Testsuite
    
  • Test Files and Tree Banks
  • Testing Grammar Coverage
  • Robust Parsing
• Performance Considerations
  • Performance Tuning
  • Limiting the Weight of Edges
  • Determining the Weight of an Edge
  • Skimming Sentences
  • Chart Pruning
  • Shallow Parsing
  • Bounded-time Parsing
  • Aborting XLE
  • Chart-Specific Performance Variables
• Online Documentation
• Support for Optimality Theory
• Local Optimality Marks
  
• Stochastic Disambiguation and Statistical Parameter Estimation
• Stochastic Disambiguation 
• Statistical Parameter Estimation
• Data Preparation
• Feature Annotation
• Statistical Estimation
  
• Inspecting Data Structures
• XLE Output
• Printing Charts
  
• Prolog Output
  
• Input Positions
  
• Normalization
  
• Parsing Text Files
• Grammar Access
• Character Encodings
• Releasing Grammars
• C Programmer's Interface
• File Polling Interface and XML Output
• XLE and Allegro Common Lisp
• Medley<->XLE
• Reporting Bugs
• Command Summary
• Help Commands
• Parse Commands
• Parse File Commands
• Generation Commands
• Display Commands
• I/O Commands
• Grammar Commands
• Performance Tuning Commands
• Miscellaneous Commands
• Transfer Commands
• Variables
• Window Variables
• Display Variables
• parse-testfile Variables
• Performance Variables
• Miscellaneous Commands

• LFG vis-à-vis XLE notations
• Section headers
• Regular predicates for c-structure rules
  • string elements
  • primitive terms
  • concatenation
  • iteration or repetition
  • grouping
  • disjunction or union
  • optionality
  • conjunction or intersection
  • negation or complementation
  • relative complementation
  • term complementation
  • ignore or insert
  • linear precedence
  • shuffle
  • comment
  • Scope of Predicates
    
• Empty strings and empty nodes
• Regular abbreviations
  • Meta-categories
  • Regular-expression macros
  • Phantom nodes
  • Parameterized rules (complex categories)
  • METARULEMACRO
• The functional description language
  • Designators
    • attribute and value symbols
    • instantiated symbols
    • semantic forms
    • f-structure metavariables
    • function application and uncertainty
    • inside-out function application
    • off-path constraints
    • local names
    • reference to stem
    • projection-value designators
    • c-structure metavariables
    • closed sets
    • restriction
  • Propositions
    • truth value
    • equality
    • set membership
    • existential constraint
    • functional and abstract category constraints
    • subsumption
    • head precedence
    • scope relations
    • surface adjunct scope
    • comment
  • Boolean combinations
    • elementary propositions
    • conjunction
    • grouping
    • disjunction
    • optionality
    • negation
• Functional templates and lexical rules
  • Templates in lexical entries
  • Lexical rules
  • Templates in rules
  • System-defined templates
  • COMPLETE 
  • RIGHTBRANCHING
  • CONCAT
    
  • Template notation
• Configuration components
  • FILES
  • OTHERFILES
  • GRAMMARVERSION
  • BASECONFIGFILE
  • MORPHACCESSPATH
  • ENCRYPTFILES
  • PERFORMANCEVARSFILE
  • Section Lists
  • RULES
  • LEXENTRIES
  • TEMPLATES
  • FEATURES
  • ROOTCAT
  • REPARSECAT
  • GOVERNABLERELATIONS
  • SEMANTICFUNCTIONS
  • NONDISTRIBUTIVES
  • EXTERNALATTRIBUTES
  • OPTIMALITYORDER
  • GENOPTIMALITYORDER
  • EPSILON
  • CHARACTERENCODING
  • PARAMETERS
    • ALLOWEMPTYNODES
    • PRESERVEEPSILONS
    • Metacategory-Constraints
    • PathsConnectedByDefault
• Feature declarations
• XLE MORPHOLOGY Section
• MORPHOLOGY Section Format
• Overall Architecture
• Example of MORPHOLOGY section usage
• Use of the MORPHOLOGY section in generation
• Creating transducers
• Text-specified transducers
• Grammar library transducers
• XLE Lexicon Entries and Lookup Model
• XLE Lexicons - Lexicon File Specification
• Standard Lexicon Entries
• Basic lookup model
• Edit entries and augmented lookup model
• Examples
• Overlay Grammars
• Edit Rules
• Morphology Commands

Transfer

• Introduction
• The Transfer Process
• Transfer Facts
• Converting F-Structures to Transfer Facts
• Node Indices and Attribute-Value Pairs
• Semantic Forms
• Sets
• Basic Transfer Rules
• Variables in Patterns
• Consumption of Transfer Facts
• Anonymous Variables and empty RHSs
• Optional Rules
• Contexted Rewriting
• Templates
• Macros
• Splitting Rule Files
• Converting Transfer Facts to F-Structures
• Added Semantic Form Arguments
• Added Arguments
• Deleted Semantic Form Arguments
• Unconvertible Facts
• Advanced Transfer Rule Constructions
• Splitting Rules Across Files
  
• Negated Patterns
• Avoiding Negation
• Built-in Macros for Parameterized Predicates
• Variables over Predicates
• Variables over Predications
• Left- and Right-handed Macros
• Procedural Attachments
• WordNet Interface
• C++ Procedural Attachments
• Stop Rules
• Rule Unions
• Disjunctive Rules
• Non-Resourced Assertions
• External Database
• Left Hand Side Query Order
• Recursive Rules
  
• Redefining Notation
• Including Extra f-structure Information
• Conflict Resolution
• Rule Traces
• Loading multiple rule sets
• Labelling f-structure nodes for triples
  
• XML Output
• State Facts
• Transfer History Mechanism
• Running the Transfer System
• Running Transfer Direct from the XLE
• Debugging and Rule Sets
• Running Transfer via Shell Commands
• Transfer
• Triples
• Extract
• Unpack
• Running Transfer via a Listener
• Triples Listener
• Bare Listener
• Running via a Transfer Server
• Platform Specific Notes
• Programmer's Guide to Transfer
• Top Level Calls to Transfer
• F-Structure Conversion
• Transfer-XLE Interfaces
• Direct From XLE
• Transfer Server
• Transfer Listener
• Transfer Pipes
• XLE Library Calls
• Miscellaneous Utilities

Translation Documentation

• Using a Translator
• Extracting Transfer Rules
• Extracting Transfer Rules From Phrase Pairs
• Extracting Transfer Rules From Aligned Sentences
• Translation Property Weights