Parser Implementation

In the previous chapter, we proposed phrase-structure rules as an alternative to rewrite rules. Recall that aspiration could be restricted to syllable initial position (a reasonable first approximation) with a set of rules of the form: (109a) utterance → syllable*(109b) syllable → onset rhyme(109c) onset → aspirated-t | aspirated-k | aspirated-p | ...(109d) rhyme → peak coda(109e) coda → unreleased-t | unreleased-k | unreleased-p | ... This sort of context-free phrase-structure grammar can be processed with well-known parsers like Earley’s Algorithm [30]. Thus, if we completed this grammar in a pure context-free formalism, we could employ a straightforward Earley parser to find syllables, onset, rhymes and so forth.