Grammatical Framework: A Hands-On Introduction

CADE-23, Wroclaw, 1 August 2011
Aarne Ranta
New: Tutorial slides, Hands-on code that compiles with GF 3.2 libraries and includes the German file built at the tutorial.

The goal of the tutorial is to give a practical introduction to GF (Grammatical Framework, http://www.grammaticalframework.org) It will enable the participants to write their own GF grammars and to use them in various applications, which can run off-line or on the web.

GF is based on the idea of multilingual grammars, where a shared abstract syntax has reversible mappings to different concrete languages. GF grammars have been used in applications like technical translation, natural language interfaces, and spoken dialogue systems. Closest to the CADE area of interest, GF has been applied to formal specification authoring (the KeY project), proof assistant interfaces (systems ALF and Agda), mathematical teaching material (the WebALT and MOLTO projects), and language-ontology interfaces (the MOLTO project). These projects have addressed up to 15 languages.

Here is an outline of the tutorial topics, with estimated durations:

We finish with an interactive session where we collaboratively extend a GF application with a new language suggested by the audience. This application addresses a natural-language interface to a formal system (30').

(The invited CADE talk by Aarne Ranta will be on a topic related to GF, but it will have a different focus and character. The tutorial and the talk will complete each other, but they can also be attended separately.)

Source code for a demo (under construction).