Re: [Corpora-List] Newbie help - language parsing, Python, Java, etc.

From: Colin Matheson (colin@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 05 2002 - 10:08:09 MET DST

  • Next message: Gregor Erbach: "RE: [Corpora-List] Newbie help - language parsing, Python, Java, etc."

    Dale> I think your specific needs would be best met by looking at the speech
    Dale> recognition world. In particular, check out Nuance (www.nuance.com); you
    Dale> can sign up as a developer for free and get access, for non-resale purposes,
    Dale> to their speech rec technology, which includes tools for writing grammars
    Dale> that would cover very well the kind of NL input you need. Tools from the
    Dale> NLP world have a different focus, with more concern directed towards broader
    Dale> coverage.

    And as a matter of interest, Johan Bos (johan.bos@ed.ac.uk) has
    exactly this kind of system running here in Edinburgh, using Nuance.
    He actually compiles the Nuance grammars from higher-level
    representations, but that's not necessary. His office can understand
    things like "turn on all the lights except the blue one", and so on.

    Colin

    > > -----Original Message-----
    > > From: owner-corpora@lists.uib.no [mailto:owner-corpora@lists.uib.no]On
    > > Behalf Of Brian Parkinson
    > > Sent: Thursday, 5 September 2002 8:24 AM
    > > To: CORPORA@HD.UIB.NO
    > > Subject: [Corpora-List] Newbie help - language parsing, Python, Java,
    > > etc.
    > >
    > >
    > > Hello:
    > >
    > > I am starting a hobby type application at home - essentially, I'd want
    > > to be able to control the X.10 devices in my home (lights, switches,
    > > etc) with some 'English' commands.
    > >
    > > What I want to do is be able to type stuff like "turn the hall light
    > > on" or "turn all lights off" - that sort of thing. The main intention
    > > is to learn about this stuff - doesn't have to be anything "fancy" in
    > > the end - I just want to putter in this area.
    > >
    > > Eventually, I'd like to hook up speech recognition software so I can
    > > talk to the house as it were. Likely IBM's ViaVoice.
    > >
    > > I am on a Mac (OS X) and have extensive experience with programming
    > > (Java, C/C++, Python, Perl - that sort of thing). I have the interface
    > > from Java to the X.10 devices sorted out, but the whole arena of
    > > natural language processing is new and daunting - note that I am not by
    > > any stretch trying to tackle "real" speech or to gramatically parse any
    > > given sentence - I am happy with a specific grammar which hopefully I
    > > could extend as time goes on.
    > >
    > > I'd like to be cross platform - this is a bit of a goal.
    > >
    > > The nltk library (Python) looks promising, but there is no "English-y"
    > > grammar that is supplied - this is the framework to put together
    > > something like this, but contains not even really a Hello World type
    > > example that I could start using. So I am a bit stymied.
    > >
    > > Is there anyone on the list that might be able to help with nltk
    > > (supply a Hello World type example) or point me in a better direction?
    > > Perhaps there are some Perl or Java English parsers available. And any
    > > hints/suggestions or good dox to read to help out would be especially
    > > helpful.
    > >
    > > Back to your regularly scheduled discussion...
    > >
    > > Thanks,
    > >
    > > parki...
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 05 2002 - 12:16:14 MET DST