Project 1: Scheme & Natural Language Parsing

Educational Objectives: After completion of this assignment, the student should be able to

Operational Objectives: Create the file nlp.scm containing various scheme functions including a small declarative natural language sentence parser.

Deliverables: Two files nlp.scm and log.txt.

Procedural Requirements:

  1. Keep an activities work log for the project in a text file log.txt. Be sure give (a) dated entries on activities and (b) details on testing: what you did and what the results were. We will read your log - dates as well as testing details are important features. Also, (c) any questions asked in this document should be answered in the log. We will read these also.

  2. Create your scheme functions in the file nlp.scm as required below.

  3. Copy the submit script configuration file LIB/proj1/deliverables.sh into your project directory.

  4. Turn in two files nlp.scm and log.txt using the course submit system.

    Warning: Submit scripts do not work on the program and linprog servers. Use shell.cs.fsu.edu to submit projects. If you do not receive the second confirmation with the contents of your project, there has been a malfunction.

Technical Requirements and Specifications

  1. Write scheme functions as follows:

    BOR  ; "Binary OR" takes two arguments x,y, returns x OR y; non-recursive
         ; examples:
         ; (BOR #t #f) Value: #t
         ; (BOR #f #f) Value: #f
    
    BAND ; "Binary AND" takes two arguments x,y, returns x AND y; non-recursive
         ; examples:
         ; (BAND #t #f) Value: #f
         ; (BAND #t #t) Value: #t
    
    pos? ; "positive?" takes one argument, returns true if positive number, false otherwise
         ; examples:
         ; (pos? 1)   Value: #t
         ; (pos? -2)  Value: #f
         ; (pos? 0)   Value: #f
    
    in?  ; takes two arguments item, list; returns true if item is in list, false otherwise
         ; examples:
         ; (in? 'x '(b c x d))   Value: #t
         ; (in? 'x '(b c d e f)) Value: #f
    
    reduce ; takes two arguments binary op, list; returns result of applying op to entire list
         ; examples:
         ; (reduce + '(1 2 3 4 5))         Value: 15
         ; (reduce + '(2))                 Value: 2
         ; (reduce BOR '(#t #t #f #t #f))  Value: #t
         ; (reduce BAND '(#t #t #f #t #f)) Value: #f
         ; (reduce BAND '(#t))             Value: #t
         ; (reduce BAND '(#f))             Value: #f
         ; (reduce BOR '(#f))              Value: #f
         ; (reduce BOR '(#t))              Value: #t
    
    filter ; takes two arguments pred, list; returns list of items passing pred test
         ; examples:
         ; (filter pos? '(1 3 -3 5 -6 7))  Value: (1 3 5 7)
         ; (filter pos? '(-1 -2 -3))       Value: ()
         ; (filter pos? '(1 2 3 4))        Value: (1 2 3 4)
    

    Be sure to thoroughly test each of these as you produce them.

  2. Write five Scheme functions that take a word (represented by a Scheme atom) as an argument and return either #t (= true) or #f (= false) depending on the grammatical classification of the word in five categories: determiner, noun, verb, adjective, and preposition. The five functions should be named det?, noun?, verb?, adj?, and prep? respectively. You may assume that the vocabulary is limited to the following words:

      determiners:  a an the
      nouns:        apple bicycle car cow dog fox motorcycle path pie road truck
      adjectives:   black brown fast hairy hot quick red slow
      verbs:        commutes destroys drives eats jumps makes occupies rides stops travels walks
      prepositions: around at of on over to under
    

    Run Scheme, load your functions, and enter these:

    (reduce BOR (map det? '(hot red car)))
    (reduce BOR (map det? '(the red car is a hot dog)))
    

    What are the results? Explain in some detail how the results are calculated.

    Write a function named OK that returns #t when no more than 25% of the words in a sentence are adjectives and #f otherwise. For example:

    1 ]=> (load "nlp")
    2 ]=> (OK '(a hairy red dog occupies the hot red car))
    ;Value: #f
    3 ]=> (OK '(a red car rides the road))
    ;Value: #t
    
  3. Write new Scheme functions det, noun, verb, adj, and prep:

    det  ; one argument - a list
         ; returns the cdr of the list if the first word in the list is a determiner
         ; otherwise, it returns an empty list '()
    
    noun ; one argument - a list
         ; returns the cdr of the list if the first word in the list is a noun
         ; otherwise, it returns an empty list '()
    
    verb ; one argument - a list
         ; returns the cdr of the list if the first word in the list is a verb
         ; otherwise, it returns an empty list '()
    
    adj  ; one argument - a list
         ; returns the cdr of the list if the first word in the list is an adjective
         ; otherwise, it returns an empty list '()
         ;
    prep ; one argument - a list
         ; returns the cdr of the list if the first word in the list is a preposition
         ; otherwise, it returns an empty list '()
         ;
         ; examples:
         ; (adj '(hairy red dog))        ; Value: (red dog)
         ; (det '(red car))              ; Value: ()
         ; (adj (adj '(hairy red dog)))  ; Value: (dog)
         ; (noun (det '(a dog $)))       ; Value: ($)
    

    (Note that '$' has no special meaning in Scheme. It is used above to have a non-empty cdr to return.)

  4. Using the technology developed above, write a natural language parser in Scheme that implements the following simple grammar for declarative sentences:

      <sentence>     ->  <nounphrase1> <verbphrase>
      <nounphrase1>  ->  [<det>] <nounphrase2>
      <nounphrase2>  ->  <adj> <nounphrase2>
      <nounphrase2>  ->  <noun>
      <verbphrase>   ->  <verb> [<preposition>] [<nounphrase1>]
    

    This entails writing new Scheme functions sentence, nounphrase1, nounphrase2, and verbphrase. These functions should return the tail of a list if parsing is successful and #f followed by the tail otherwise. The following are examples of processing using these functions:

    Input                                                               Result
    -----                                                               ------
    (nounphrase1 '(dog $))                                              ($)
    (nounphrase1 '(hot dog $))                                          ($)
    (nounphrase1 '(the dog $))                                          ($)
    (nounphrase1 '(the quick red fox jumps over the car))               (jumps over the car)
    (nounphrase1 '(the slow brown quick red hairy dog eats an apple))   (eats an apple)
    (nounphrase1 '(the slow brown quick red hairy eats an apple))       (#f eats an apple)
    (nounphrase1 '($))                                                  (#f $)
    
    (verbphrase '(walks the red dog $))                                 ($)
    (verbphrase '(eats a red hot car $))                                ($)
    (verbphrase '(eats an apple $))                                     ($)
    (verbphrase '(eats apple $))                                        ($)
    (verbphrase '(eats $))                                              ($)
    (verbphrase '(eats eats red apple $))                               (eats red apple $)
    (verbphrase '(eats red apple $))                                    ($)
    (verbphrase '(red apple $))                                         (#f red apple $)
    
    (sentence '(dog eats dog $))                                        ($)
    (sentence '(a hot dog eats a hot dog $))                            ($)
    (sentence '(the hairy hot red dog eats a red hot hot hot apple $))  ($)
    (sentence '(the red dog rides a hot car $))                         ($)
    (sentence '(the red dog rides a hot car dog eats pie $))            (dog eats pie $)
    (sentence (sentence '(the red dog rides a hot car dog eats pie $))) ($)
    (sentence '(a dog $))                                               (#f $)
    (sentence '(red dog $))                                             (#f $)
    (sentence '(a rides car $))                                         (#f rides car $)
    (sentence '(an apple $ ))                                           (#f $)
    (sentence '(eats a hot dog $))                                      (#f eats a hot dog $)
    (sentence '(Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo))               (#f buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo)
    

Hints