restored the summer school and Resource-HOWTO documents

author: aarne <aarne@cs.chalmers.se> 2008-09-16 08:01:47 +0000
committer: aarne <aarne@cs.chalmers.se> 2008-09-16 08:01:47 +0000
commit: c09783e60443d5443e9a1d1609b08c31da5f9d91 (patch)
tree: 27d6f513dae149877bc7418fbe3fc0131a95bef5 /doc/gf-summerschool.html
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
+<HTML>
+<HEAD>
+<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="http://txt2tags.sf.net">
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<TITLE>European Resource Grammar Summer School</TITLE>
+</HEAD><BODY BGCOLOR="white" TEXT="black">
+<P ALIGN="center"><CENTER><H1>European Resource Grammar Summer School</H1>
+<FONT SIZE="4">
+<I>Gothenburg, August 2009</I><BR>
+Aarne Ranta (aarne at chalmers.se)
+</FONT></CENTER>
+
+<P>
+<IMG ALIGN="middle" SRC="eu-langs.png" BORDER="0" ALT="">
+</P>
+<H3>Executive summary</H3>
+<P>
+We plan to organize a summer school with the goal of implementing the GF
+resource grammar library for 15 new languages, so that the library will
+cover all the 23 official EU languages of year 2009. 
+As a test application of the grammars, also an extension of
+the WebALT mathematical exercise translator will be built for each
+language.
+</P>
+<P>
+2 students per language are selected to the summer school, after a phase of 
+self-studies and on the basis of assignments that consist of parts of the resource
+grammars. Travel and accommodation are paid to these participants.
+If funding gets arranged, the call of participation for the summer school will
+be announced in February 2009, and the summer school itself will take place
+in August 2009, in Gothenburg.
+</P>
+<H2>Introduction</H2>
+<P>
+Since 2007, EU-27 has 23 official languages, listed in the diagram on top of this
+document.
+There is a growing need of translation between
+these languages. The traditional language-to-language method requires 23*22 = 506
+translators (humans or computer programs) to cover all possible translation needs.
+</P>
+<P>
+An alternative to language-to-language translation is the use of an <B>interlingua</B>:
+a language-independent representation such that all translation problems can
+be reduced to translating to and from the interlingua. With 23 languages,
+only 2*23 = 46 translators are needed.
+</P>
+<P>
+Interlingua sounds too good to be true. In a sense, it is. All attempts to
+create an interlingua that would solve all translation problems have failed.
+However, interlinguas for restricted applications have shown more
+success. For instance, mathematical texts and weather reports can be translated
+by using interlinguas tailor-made for the domains of mathematics and weather reports,
+respectively.
+</P>
+<P>
+What is required of an interlingua is
+</P>
+<UL>
+<LI>semantic accuracy: correspondence to what you want to say in the application
+<LI>language-independence: abstraction from individual languages
+</UL>
+
+<P>
+Thus, for instance, an interlingua for mathematical texts may be based on
+mathematical logic, which at the same time gives semantic accuracy and
+language independence. In other domains, something else than mathematical
+logic may be needed; the <B>ontologies</B> defined within the semantic
+web technology are often good starting points for interlinguas.
+</P>
+<H2>GF: a framework for multilingual grammars</H2>
+<P>
+The interlingua is just one part of a translation system. We also need
+the mappings between the interlingua and the involved languages. As the
+number of languages increases, this part grows while the interlingua remains
+constant.
+</P>
+<P>
+GF (Grammatical Framework, 
+<A HREF="http://gf.digitalgrammars.com"><CODE>gf.digitalgrammars.com</CODE></A>)
+is a programming language designed to support interlingua-based translation.
+A "program" in GF is a <B>multilingual grammar</B>, which consists of an 
+<B>abstract syntax</B> and a set of <B>concrete syntaxes</B>. A concrete
+syntaxes is a mapping from the abstract syntax to a particular language.
+These mappings are <B>reversible</B>, which means that they can be used for
+translating in both directions. This means that creating an interlingua-based
+translator for 23 languages just requires 1 + 23 = 24 grammar modules (the abstract
+syntax and the concrete syntaxes).
+</P>
+<P>
+The diagram first in this document shows a system covering the 23 EU languages. 
+Languages marked in
+red are of particular interest for the summer school, since they are those 
+on which the effort will be concentrated.
+</P>
+<H2>The GF resource grammar library</H2>
+<P>
+The GF resource grammar library is a set of grammars used as libraries when
+building interlingua-based translation systems. The library currently covers
+the 9 languages coloured in green in the diagram above; in addition, 
+Catalan, Norwegian, and Russian are covered, and there is ongoing work on
+Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, and Thai.
+</P>
+<P>
+The purpose of the resource grammar library is to define the "low-level" structure
+of a language: inflection, word order, agreement. This structure belongs to what
+linguists call morphology and syntax. It can be very complex and requires
+a lot of knowledge. Yet, when translating from one language to another, knowing 
+morphology and syntax is but a part of what is needed. The translator (whether human
+or machine) must understand the meaning of what is translated, and must also know
+the idiomatic way to express the meaning in the target language. This knowledge
+can be very domain-dependent and requires in general an expert in the field to
+reach high quality: a mathematician in the field of mathematics, a meteorologist
+in the field of weather reports, etc.
+</P>
+<P>
+The problem is to find a person who is an expert in both the domain of translation
+and in the low-level linguistic details. It is the rareness of this combination
+that has made it difficult to build interlingua-based translation systems.
+The GF resource grammar library has the mission of helping in this task. It encapsulates
+the low-level linguistics in program modules accessed through easy-to-use interfaces.
+Experts on different domains can build translation systems by using the library, 
+without knowing low-level linguistics. The idea is much the same as when a 
+programmer builds a graphical user interface (GUI) from high-level elements such as
+buttons and menus, without having to care about pixels or geometrical forms.
+</P>
+<H3>Applications of the library</H3>
+<P>
+In addition to translation, the library is also useful in <B>localization</B>,
+that is, porting a piece of software to new languages. 
+The GF resource grammar library has been used in three major projects that need
+interlingua-based translation or localization of systems to new languages:
+</P>
+<UL>
+<LI>in KeY, 
+  <A HREF="http://www.key-project.org/"><CODE>http://www.key-project.org/</CODE></A>,
+  for writing formal and informal software specifications (3 languages)
+<LI>in WebALT,
+  <A HREF="http://webalt.math.helsinki.fi/content/index_eng.html"><CODE>http://webalt.math.helsinki.fi/content/index_eng.html</CODE></A>,
+  for translating mathematical exercises to 7 languages
+<LI>in TALK <A HREF="http://www.talk-project.org"><CODE>http://www.talk-project.org</CODE></A>,
+  where the library was used for localizing spoken dialogue systems to six languages
+</UL>
+
+<P>
+The library is also a generic linguistic resource, which can be used for tasks
+such as language teaching and information retrieval. The liberal license (GPL)
+makes it usable for anyone and for any task. GF also has tools supporting the
+use of grammars in programs written in other programming languages: C, C++, Haskell,
+Java, JavaScript, and Prolog. In connection with the TALK project, support has also been
+developed for translating GF grammars to language models used in speech
+recognition.
+</P>
+<H3>The structure of the library</H3>
+<P>
+The library has the following main parts:
+</P>
+<UL>
+<LI><B>Inflection paradigms</B>, covering the inflection of each language.
+<LI><B>Common Syntax API</B>, covering a large set of syntax rule that
+  can be implemented for all languages involved.
+<LI><B>Common Test Lexicon</B>, giving ca. 500 common words that can be used for
+  testing the library.
+<LI><B>Language-Specific Syntax Extensions</B>, covering syntax rules that are
+  not implementable for all languages.
+<LI><B>Language-Specific Lexica</B>, word lists for each language, with
+  accurate morphological and syntactic information.
+</UL>
+
+<P>
+The goal of the summer school is to implement, for each language, at least
+the first three components. The latter three are more open-ended in character.
+</P>
+<H2>The summer school</H2>
+<P>
+The goal of the summer school is to extend the GF resource grammar library
+to covering all 23 EU languages, which means we need 15 new languages.
+</P>
+<P>
+The amount of work and skill is between a Master's thesis and a PhD thesis.
+The Russian implementation was made by Janna Khegai as a part of her
+PhD thesis; the thesis contains other material, too.
+The Arabic implementation was started by Ali El Dada in his Master's thesis,
+but the thesis does not cover the whole API. The realistic amount of work is
+somewhere around 8 person months, but this is very much language-dependent.
+Dutch, for instance, can profit from previous implementations of German and
+Scandinavian languages, and will probably require less work.
+Latvian and Lithuanian are the first languages of the Baltic family and
+will probably require much more work.
+</P>
+<P>
+In any case, the proposed allocation of work power is 2 participants per
+language. They will have 6 months to work at home, followed
+by 2 weeks of summer school. Who are these participants?
+</P>
+<H3>Selecting participants</H3>
+<P>
+After the call has been published, persons interested to participate in
+the project are expected to learn GF by self-study from the 
+<A HREF="http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Research/Language-technology/GF/doc/gf-tutorial.html">tutorial</A>. 
+This should take a couple of weeks.
+</P>
+<P>
+After and perhapts in parallel with
+working out the tutorial, the participants should continue to 
+implement selected parts of the resource grammar, following the advice from
+the 
+<A HREF="http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Research/Language-technology/GF/doc/Resource-HOWTO.html">Resource-HOWTO document</A>.
+What parts exactly are selected will be announced later. 
+This work will take another couple of weeks.
+</P>
+<P>
+This sample resource grammar fragment 
+will be submitted to the Summer School Committee in the beginning of May.
+The Committee then decides who is invited to represent which language
+in the summer school.
+</P>
+<P>
+After the Committee decision, the  participants have around three months
+to work on their languages. The work is completed in the summer school itself. It is also
+thoroughly tested by using it to add a new language to the WebALT mathematical
+exercise translator.
+</P>
+<P>
+Depending on the quality of submitted work, and on the demands of different
+languages, the Committee may decide to select another number than 2 participants
+for a language. We will also consider accepting participants who want to
+pay their own expenses.
+</P>
+<P>
+Also good proposals from non-EU languages will be considered. Proponents of
+such languages should contact the summer school organizers as early as possible.
+</P>
+<P>
+To keep track on who is working on which language, we will establish a web page
+(Wiki or similar) soon after the call is published. The participants are encourage
+to contact each other and even work in groups.
+</P>
+<H3>Who is qualified</H3>
+<P>
+Writing a resource grammar implementation requires good general programming
+skills, and a good explicit knowledge of the grammar of the target language. 
+A typical participant could be 
+</P>
+<UL>
+<LI>native or fluent speaker of the target language
+<LI>interested in languages on the theoretical level, and preferably familiar
+  with many languages (to be able to think about them on an abstract level)
+<LI>familiar with functional programming languages such as ML or Haskell
+  (GF itself is a language similar to these)
+<LI>on Master's or PhD level in linguistics, computer science, or mathematics
+</UL>
+
+<P>
+But it is the quality of the assignment that is assessed, not any formal
+requirements. The "typical participant" was described to give an idea of
+who is likely to succeed in this.
+</P>
+<H3>Costs</H3>
+<P>
+Our aim is to make the summer school free of charge for the participants
+who are selected on the basis of their assignments. And not only that:
+we plan to cover their travel and accommodation costs, up to 1000 EUR
+per person.
+</P>
+<P>
+We want to get the funding question settled by mid-February 2009, and make
+the final decision on the summer school then.
+</P>
+<H3>Teachers</H3>
+<P>
+Krasimir Angelov
+</P>
+<P>
+?Olga Caprotti
+</P>
+<P>
+?Lauri Carlson
+</P>
+<P>
+?Robin Cooper
+</P>
+<P>
+?Bj�rn Bringert
+</P>
+<P>
+H�kan Burden
+</P>
+<P>
+?Elisabet Engdahl
+</P>
+<P>
+?Markus Forsberg
+</P>
+<P>
+?Janna Khegai
+</P>
+<P>
+?Peter Ljungl�f
+</P>
+<P>
+?Wanjiku Ng'ang'a
+</P>
+<P>
+Aarne Ranta
+</P>
+<P>
+?Jordi Saludes
+</P>
+<P>
+In addition, we will look for consultants who can help to assess the results
+for each language
+</P>
+<H3>The Summer School Committee</H3>
+<P>
+This committee consists of a number of teachers and consultants, 
+who will select the participants.
+</P>
+<H3>Time and Place</H3>
+<P>
+The summer school will
+be organized in Gothenburg in the latter half of August 2009.
+</P>
+<P>
+Time schedule (2009):
+</P>
+<UL>
+<LI>February: announcement of summer school and the grammar
+  writing contest to get participants
+<LI>March-April: work on the contest assignment (ca 1 month)
+<LI>May: submission deadline and notification of acceptance
+<LI>June-July: more work on the grammars
+<LI>August: summer school
+</UL>
+
+<H3>Dissemination and intellectual property</H3>
+<P>
+The new resource grammars will be released under the GPL just like 
+the current resource grammars,
+with the copyright held by respective authors.
+</P>
+<P>
+The grammars will be distributed via the GF web site.
+</P>
+<P>
+The WebALT-specific grammars will have special licenses agreed between the
+authors and WebALT Inc.
+</P>
+<H2>Why I should participate</H2>
+<P>
+Seven reasons:
+</P>
+<OL>
+<LI>free trip and stay in Gothenburg (to be confirmed)
+<LI>participation in a pioneering language technology work in an enthusiastic atmosphere
+<LI>work and fun with people from all over Europe
+<LI>job opportunities and business ideas
+<LI>credits: the school project will be established as a course worth
+  15 ETCS points per person, but extensions to Master's thesis will
+  also be considered
+<LI>merits: the resulting grammar can easily lead to a published paper
+<LI>contribution to the multilingual and multicultural development of Europe
+</OL>
+
+
+<!-- html code generated by txt2tags 2.4 (http://txt2tags.sf.net) -->
+<!-- cmdline: txt2tags gf-summerschool.txt -->
+</BODY></HTML>
author	aarne <aarne@cs.chalmers.se>	2008-09-16 08:01:47 +0000
committer	aarne <aarne@cs.chalmers.se>	2008-09-16 08:01:47 +0000
commit	c09783e60443d5443e9a1d1609b08c31da5f9d91 (patch)
tree	27d6f513dae149877bc7418fbe3fc0131a95bef5 /doc/gf-summerschool.html
parent	e112fd188f905d90b727101fdbfa21478f4c9d18 (diff)