Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
1 Description of the syntactic structure of sentences using elementary units such as morphemes, words, phrases and their mutual interrelationships. The goals and methods of parsing are dependent on the grammatical theory in question. Thus the point of departure for parsing in traditional grammar is the relationship of subject to predicate; in structural linguistics, the breaking down of sentences into their immediate constituents; in dependency grammar, the dependency relationships of the individual elements of the sentence to the verb; and in communicativegrammar approach, the relationship between previously known and new information (
theme vs rheme, functional sentence perspective). On processes of parsing, operational procedures.
2 Machine-aided syntactic analysis of language for checking whether a particular word chain (e.g. a sentence) corresponds to the rules of a particular (formal or natural) language. If this is the case, then a representation of the syntactic (and/or semantic) structure (e.g., as a phrase structure diagram) for the word chain is produced. The linguistic basis of parsing may consist of very distinct grammar formalisms (or conceptual structures) such as Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG), Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), and the like. Also, the parsing strategy (the application of rules) may vary: ‘top-down’ (from the sentence node to the terminal symbols) or ‘bottom-up’ (from the terminal symbols to the sentence node); alternatively, the parser can seek to satisfy a rule hypothesis until it can go no further (‘depth first’) or at every point first check all possibilities (‘breadth first’), every strategy or combination of partial strategies having its advantages and disadvantages. Lexical and structural ambiguity is a main cause of difficulties in parsing natural language utterances. Computer programs for syntactic analysis are called ‘parsers.’ These are employed in machine-aided translation, dialogue systems, and the like. ( also ATN grammar, chart, definite clause grammar)
References
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