A Bootstrap Method for Constructing Local Grammars

Local grammars are finite-state grammars or finite-state automata that represent sets of utterances of a natural language.Local grammars have been used to describe a wide variety of sets of strings, ranging from finite sets of words related by prefixation and suffixation to sets of sentences syntactically and semantically related. Formal representations of finite-state grammars are quite varied, although equivalent. We have chosen a particular representation by graphs which is well-adapted to the syntax of natural languages. Using a particular example, we will present in detail a method for constructing local grammars using large corpora