RC-A1

Revision as of 18:48, 19 October 2012

The UC-A1 is an experimental corpus used to prepare the initial versions of the grammar for sentence-based UNLization and NLization, using IAN and EUGENE, respectively. It comprises a list of 100 structures in UNL, and is supposed to cover very basic linguistic phenomena.

The corpus

• UC-A1 in one single file
  • UC-A1 in English, to be (manually) translated to your target language in order to be used as the input for the UNLization process (with IAN)
  • UC-A1 in UNL, to be used, "as is" (i.e., without any change), as the input for the NLization process (with EUGENE)
• UC-A1 in different files (the same as above, but divided according to the different classes)

*To be manually translated to your target language in order to be used as the input for UNLization (IAN)
**To be used as the input for NLization (EUGENE)
***Do not translate (or transliterate) the temporary entries

Goals

1. To provide the dictionary and grammars necessary to UNLize your translated version of UC-A1 (with IAN)
2. To provide the dictionary and grammars necessary to NLize, to your target language, the UNL version of UC-A1 (with EUGENE)

Methodology

In order to prepare the dictionaries and grammars to deal with the UC-A1, follow the steps below:

UNLization

1. Corpus
   1. Translate (manually) the sentences of the UC-A1 from English into your native language. Be as close as possible to the original, and provide one single translation for each sentence. This will be your input document file, and your goal will be to provide (automatically, through IAN) the UNL graphs for each sentence
   2. Save the translated text (without the English original) in a plain text (.txt) file with UTF-8 encoding and upload it to UNLWEB>UNLDEV>IAN>NL FILES.
2. Dictionary
   1. Localize the dictionary available at eng_unl_dic.txt. Note that "localization" is not the same as "translation". You may need other features (in English, for instance, nouns do not have gender or case) or other entries. In any case, the resulting dictionary should fit your translated version of the corpus (i.e., all the entries appearing in your translated version of the corpus should appear in the dictionary). For further information on localization, see Localization. For information on the dictionary structure, see Dictionary Specs. For an explanation of the structure of the English dictionary, see English Dictionary. In case you need additional features, use only the tags available at the tagset.
   2. Save the NL-UNL dictionary in a plain text (.txt) file with UTF-8 encoding and upload it to UNLWEB>UNLDEV>IAN>DICTIONARIES.
3. Grammar
   1. Create the NL-UNL (analysis) transformation grammar necessary to analyze, in UNL, the natural language sentences of the translated corpus. This grammar is the most difficult (and the actual goal) of the whole analysis task. In order to prepare the grammar, study the Grammar Specs. Next, take a look at the structure of the English Grammar for a detailed example. In many cases, it would be simpler just to localize the English grammar to your own locale rather than creating a whole grammar from the scratch. See the instructions at Localization. The grammar is normally developed inside IAN, because we have to test it every time. But you may also prepare a draft grammar, save it in a plain text (.txt) file with UTF-8 encoding and upload it to UNLWEB>UNLDEV>IAN>T-RULES.
   2. Create the NL-UNL (analysis) disambiguation grammar in order to improve the results of the transformation and to control the process of tokenization. Again, this grammar is normally developed inside IAN (at the D-RULES tab), because we have to test it every time. Consult the English Grammar for a detailed example of a disambiguation grammar.
   3. Test the grammar against the corpus and provide the necessary changes.

NLization

1. Corpus
   1. Upload the file UCA1_unl.txt to UNLWEB>UNLDEV>EUGENE>UNL DOCUMENT. Do not do any change to this file.
2. Dictionary
   1. Localize the dictionary available at unl_eng_dic.txt to your locale. Note, once again, that localization is not the same as translation. The localized version must reflect the word list of your translated corpus. In any case, use only the tags available at the tagset. For further information on the dictionary structure, see Dictionary Specs.
   2. Save the UNL-NL dictionary in a plain text (.txt) file with UTF-8 encoding and upload it to UNLWEB>UNLDEV>PROJECTS>EUGENE>DICTIONARIES.
3. Grammar
   1. Provide the UNL-NL (generation) T-grammar and D-grammar necessary to generate natural language sentences from the UNL corpus. Follow the sample instructions available for the analysis grammar.

Samples and Examples

The following resources have been used to deal with UC-A1 in English and may be used as a sample of what is expected to be provided

• UNLization
  • ENG-UNL Dictionary (English dictionary used for the UNLization of UC-A1) (Documentation available at English Dictionary)
  • ENG-UNL T-Grammar (Transformation grammar used for the UNLization of UC-A1) (Documentation available at English Grammar)
  • ENG-UNL D-Grammar (Disambiguation grammar used for the UNLization of UC-A1) (Documentation available at English Grammar)
• NLization
  • UNL-ENG Dictionary (English dictionary used for the NLization of UC-A1) (Documentation available at English Dictionary)
  • UNL-ENG T-Grammar (Transformation grammar used for the NLization of UC-A1) (Documentation available at English Grammar)

Recommended Readings

Before starting the activity, and in order to fully understand what is expected to be done, it is important for you to be acquainted with the following documentation:

• Tagset, because you are expected to use only the tags included in the tagset
• UNL Dictionary Specs, which is essential to understand the dictionary structure
• UNL Grammar Specs, which is essential to understand the grammar structure

It is also interesting to make a test drive with IAN and EUGENE.