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Re: English/Language/Grammar
by Tiefling (Monk) on Jun 05, 2001 at 13:48 UTC
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The problem with grammar checkers in general is that they can't distinguish between:
Atlantis flies like a 'plane.
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
(Apologies to gumpu, whose answer I hadn't seen when I wrote this - this is clearly a good example :-)
And indeed, code to distinguish between generalisations of those three examples alone would be more trouble to code than it's worth (unles you're being paid to research natural language, in which case you're lucky). There are modules to conjugate English verbs and decline English nouns, but this will only help your program to write simple grammatical sentences, such as Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. :-)
M$'s grammar checkers commit further errors by producing entirely spurious queries, such as 'passive voice' (one of the few parts of speech their system usually spots), which it regards as wrong! The same system also routinely argues 'subject-verb agreement' errors where none exist, and (if the right 'feature' is enabled) can prevent you using any gender-specific language.
Tiefling (and remember - verbing weirds language) | [reply] |
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Curious - I got the 'Time flies...' and 'Fruit flies...' elements from Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. The bit about Atlantis was my idea, as I was struck by the thought that 'Time flies like an arrow' is not actually a canonical use of the verb 'to fly'.
Tiefling (who flies like a brick)
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Re: English/Language/Grammer
by myocom (Deacon) on Jun 05, 2001 at 01:51 UTC
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In a nutshell, no. Parsing natural language is a herculean effort that researchers have been working on for years (do a Google search on "natural language" and it reports 496,000 hits).
Word processors have so-called grammar checkers now, but they're (way) far from perfect.
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Re: English/Language/Grammer
by chipmunk (Parson) on Jun 05, 2001 at 08:24 UTC
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You might be interested in the Lingua::LinkParser module. I don't know if it can be used to determine whether a sentence is grammatically correct, but it's a fascinating module nonetheless.
Dan Brian had an article on the module in issue #19 of http://www.tpj.com. (Past articles are not back up on the TPJ website yet.) | [reply] |
Re: English/Language/Grammer
by Beatnik (Parson) on Jun 05, 2001 at 01:55 UTC
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Sidenote: grammer wouldn't be listed, since it's with 2 a's :)
grammar
Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur. | [reply] |
Re: English/Language/Grammer
by gumpu (Friar) on Jun 05, 2001 at 10:42 UTC
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The problem is (if I remember correctly) that if
you want to check the grammar of a sentence you have
to understand the sentence. The meaning and how a word
is used determines if the chosen grammer is correct.
Computers are rather bad at understanding natural language because it is very ambigious.
It's easy to come up with sentences that can put
even humans on the wrong path, for
instance: "Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like
a banana.". Here flies can be either a noun or a verb.
Have Fun
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Re: English/Language/Grammer
by Beatnik (Parson) on Jun 06, 2001 at 02:25 UTC
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Re: English/Language/Grammer
by mattr (Curate) on Jun 05, 2001 at 12:56 UTC
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Basically no, although there are modules to
help you stem words and do little bits of grammar.
What do you need this for?
If a dictionary lookup is what you need, that is
in the realm of reality.
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Re: English/Language/Grammer
by sierrathedog04 (Hermit) on Jun 05, 2001 at 06:12 UTC
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You mean like Kelsey Grammer the actor? Does he do Perl programming too? | [reply] |