[Attempto] Tutorial on Creating User-Specified Lexicons

[Norbert E. Fuchs]

On 6 Aug 2010, at 16:44, Chris Spencer wrote:

> I'm new to APE. I played around with it, and although it seems to
> include a impressive built-in lexicon, I quickly ran into simple
> sentences that couldn't be parsed. For example, running:
> 
> ./ape.exe -text "Every car has wheels." -cparaphrase
> 
> gives me the error:
> 
>    <message
> 	importance="error"
> 	type="word"
> 	sentence="1"
> 	token=""
> 	value="wheels"
> 	repair="Use the prefix n:, v:, a: or p:."/>
> 
> Am I correct in interpreting this error to mean that the word "wheels"
> is not contained in the built-in lexicon? If I wanted APE to
> understand this sentence, what would I include in a custom lexicon?
> 
> Instead, I tried defining "wheels" by running:
> 
> ./ape.exe -text "Every car has wheels." -cparaphrase -ulextext
> "noun_pl(wheels, wheel, neutr)."
> 
> but that only gives me the more general error:
> 
>  <message
>      importance="error"
>      type="sentence"
>      sentence="1"
>      token="4"
>      value="Every car has &lt;&gt; wheels."
>      repair="This is the first sentence that was not ACE. The sign
> &lt;&gt; indicates the position where parsing failed."/>

Chris

The word "wheel", respectively "wheels" is contained in the built-in lexicon. 

However, ACE requires each noun to have a determiner, which you forgot. If you try, for instance

  Every car has some wheels.

or

  Every car has four wheels.

then APE will happily accept your sentence.

Since you state 

> I'm new to APE. I played around with it,

I suggest that you have a look at the documentation.


> Is there a guide or tutorial on defining a custom lexicon? I found
> http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/docs/ace_lexicon.html, but I'm still
> confused on what exactly I need to do to define my own words.

May I suggest that you read this document again. If you still have problems let us know.

> Also, which verb tenses are currently supported by APE? In my tests,
> it seems like APE cannot understand any past-tense verbs. Are there
> any plans to support different tenses?

ACE currently knows only the simple present tense. See section 2.3 Verb Phrases of http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/docs/ace_constructionrules.html

There are currently no plans to add other tenses.

Regards.

   --- nef