Topics in unification grammar parsing

Abstract

Context-free parsing schemata can be translated straightforwardly into parsing algorithms. Such naive implementations might not be the most efficient parsers, and one can improve the efficiency a lot by adding various kinds of sophistication to the algorithm, but it is obvious how a first, simple implementation can be derived from a parsing schema. For unification grammars, however, it is not self-evident how a parsing schema can be translated to even a prototype parsing algorithm. In this chapter we will discuss various issues that have to be addressed in order to obtain practical parsers for unification grammars.