Overview

The LKB system is a grammar and lexicon development environment for use with unification-based linguistic formalisms. While not restricted to HPSG, the LKB implements the DELPH-IN reference formalism of typed feature structures (jointly with other DELPH-IN software using the same formalism).

The primary documentation on the LKB is provided by the book Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars. Excerpts from the book provide an tour of the LKB (although see LkbInstallation for revised installation instructions) and the user manual.

These pages are intended to provide documentation for aspects of the LKB not covered by the book, including recent developments. The use of a wiki forum is intended to enable LKB developers and users alike to contribute to the available on-line documentation. If you are new to the wiki paradigm, please first familiarize yourself with the etiquette and formatting guidelines, then create a wiki user name for yourself, register on the server, and start editing pages.

Background

The LKB has been in active use since around 1991, with a substantially new version in use from about 1997. These pages include documentation on the following topics:

  • LkbCopyright: Copyright and licensing;
  • LkbInstallation: Obtaining, installing and running the LKB;
  • LkbEmacs: Interfacing the LKB to the emacs(1) editor;
  • LkbLexDb: Using the lexical database machinery to build and maintain large lexicons;
  • LkbFos: Fully open source version of the LKB with a more modern and user-friendly interface;
  • LkbTrollet: Trollet, a wrapper around LKB providing better multilingual support and a cleaner interface;
  • LkbUserGroup: Communication with LKB developers and other users;
  • LkbCourses: Information on the use of the LKB in teaching;
  • LkbFaq: Frequently Asked Questions related to using the LKB;
  • LkbWishlist: Suggestions/requests for extensions to the LKB;
  • LkbBugs: Known issues with incorrect behavior in the LKB;
  • LkbConventions: Conventions followed by many grammar writers;
  • LkbGeneration: Information and notes on generating with the LKB;
  • Lexical Type Database: Web interface to the lexicon (and treebanks) - an add-on to the main LKB; and
  • GrammarEngineeringFaq: Frequently Asked Questions about grammar engineering with the LKB and the Grammar Matrix.

Other pages can be found by entering ‘Lkb’ in the wiki search box. Please check this site regularly to see the LKB wiki grow. Or, if you are a knowledgeable LKB user, consider some volunteer work in creating up-to-date on-line documentation.

Grammars

Small sample grammars are downloadable as described in LkbInstallation. Larger scale resources which are freely downloadable include:

Projects

Projects which have made extensive use of the LKB include:

Acknowledgements

Work on the LKB has been supported by a number of grants and funding sources, including:

  • ACQUILEX I and II (funded by the European Commission);
  • VerbMobil (funded by the German Ministry of Education and Science);
  • The National Science Foundation under Grant No. IRI-9612682;
  • The German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project PERFORM;
  • Deep Thought funded under the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission IST-2001-37836;
  • NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (through joint research with CSLI);
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK). COGENT: Controlled Generation of Text, and SciBorg: Extracting the Science from Scientific Publications;
  • The Norwegian Research Council through the LOGON initiative;
  • Boeing, grant to University of Cambridge.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding bodies.

Last update: 2023-06-30 by EricZinda [edit]