Foundations of computer linguistics. Human machine communication in natural language. (Grundlagen der Computerlinguistik. Mensch-Maschine-Kommunikation in natürlicher Sprache.) (German) Zbl 0956.68141

Hausser, Roland R.

Berlin: Springer. xii, 572 S. (2000).

This book has the subtitle “Human machine communication in natural language”. It is not a mathematical book; its content can be characterized as applications of informatics in linguistics (concerning natural languages). The first section of the book “Language theory” explains the topics which are studied in next sections. The second section is “Formal grammar”. It starts with PS-grammars which are the well-known Chomsky grammars. Further, another formalization of a grammar is introduced, namely the left-associative grammars (LA-grammars), which seems to be more appropriated for natural languages. The hierarchies in the LA-grammar are described and compared with the hierarchies of the PS-grammar. The third section is “Morphology and syntax”. The properties of morphems and the concept of allomorph are explained by examples from the German language. The left-associative allomorph decomposition is described using trees. The concept of LA-morphology is introduced. Also for syntax the concept of LA-syntax is used. The syntax of German (free word ordering) and of English (fixed word ordering) are treated separately. The last section is “Semantics and pragmatics”. It is distinguished among logical (formal) languages, programming languages and natural languages. At the end of the book a tool for communication in natural language is formalized as the so-called SLIM-machine.
Probably, the book will not be very interesting for mathematicians who are interested in formal languages. It will be useful rather for those who are busy in natural languages and in elaborating them with use of a computer.

Reviewer: Bohdan Zelinka (Liberec)

MSC:

68T50	Natural language processing
68-01	Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to computer science
03B65	Logic of natural languages
91F20	Linguistics

Keywords:

formal grammar; LA-grammars; natural languages; PS-grammars; Chomsky grammars