How to Use the Grammar on the Web

If this is your first attempt, start with Grammar 1a_Lexicon (soon to be renamed Grammar 1). The very short grammar introduces the noun and some features carried by the noun. These are stored in th lexicon. Later more features will be added.

Select 1: New Phrase. Here, you will prompted for a noun, and then certain features. Be sure to type in the correct features. If incorrect features are typed in, the grammar will fail at some point, not necessarily right away. Remember that 'Pl' may not be inherent in nouns. Next you will be prompted for the quantifier, though it only introduces four of them and it does not place them in the lexicon: NIL, some, one, two. The first two are [-Ct] (count) and the latter two are [+Ct]. Here, NIL and one are [-Pl], and some and two are [+Pl]. This will change in later grammars.

Select 2: Lexicon. This opens up a file where you are asked which lexical set you want to go to. Choose one. Then you will be asked which set you want to go to. Since only nouns are generated in Grammar 1, chose Noun maintenance. Here you will promped for 6 choices. These are rather self-evident. When you are finished, chose the last item which returns you to the previous menu. Note that you can add news items to the lexicon in one of two ways: either in noun Mainenance, #4 Enter a new noun; or in #1 of the main menu, New phrase. The only difference is that New phrase continues and prompts you for a quantifier. In more advanced grammars it will prompt you for more members of the phrase, and later, it will start building up VPs until you reach a sentence.

Select 3: Quit. Here you exit the program which saves the new items and the changes that you have made. Then quit the entire program (command-q on a mac).

Grammar 2. This follows the same procedure as Grammar 1. The noun phrase is extended to include determiners. You will start constructing a lexicon for quantifers and determiners here as well as continuing with nouns.

This page last updated 16 JA 2000