Combinatory Categorial Grammar for Computer - Assisted Language Learning

This chapter intends to demonstrate how Applicative and Combinatory Categorial Grammar (ACCG) can be drawn on to design powerful software applications for the teaching of languages. To this end, the authors present some modules from their “pictographic translator,” software that performs syntactical analysis of sentences in natural language directly written by the user, and then dynamically displays series of pictograms that illustrate the words and structure of the user’s sentences. After a short presentation of the application and an introduction to ACCG, the chapter examines how this formalism enables the building of several high-level functions in the system, such as disambiguation, structure exhibition, and grammatical correction/validation. The chapter concludes with a short discussion concerning the potential (and limits) of this architecture with regards to multilingualism. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-447-5.ch017