Newsgroups: comp.ai.nat-lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!haven.umd.edu!ames!news.Hawaii.Edu!uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu!pollarda
From: pollarda@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Art Pollard)
Subject: YACC / BNF Grammars for English
Message-ID: <Cw3DCt.Dw1@news.Hawaii.Edu>
Sender: news@news.Hawaii.Edu
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 23:31:40 GMT
Lines: 26


Yes, I realize that this is an odd request. 

Here is the situation:  I am just begining work on a grammar checker.
(We all need our projects don't we. :)  After discussing it with 
my partner in crime (we are just finishing up a spell checker) we both
feel pretty confident that we can tackle this.  The more we talk about it, 
the more we feel that we could use Lex/Yacc to do a lot of the 
processing work for the grammar checker.  

Obviously, English isn't directly Yacc parsable.  However, I remember seeing
somewhere that there are only so many noun/verb phrases and that Yacc can
do a fair amount of the parsing.  So, does anyone out there know
of some BNF / Yacc grammars which can handle English (in some form)?   

Also, I am looking for a wordlist which gives the part(s) of speach
for the various words.

If any of you know of information which may be helpful for this project, 
I would appreciate it if you could let me know.

Thanks You,

Art


