BUILDRS: An Implementation of DR Theory and LFG

This paper examines a particular PROLOG implementation of Discourse Representation theory (DR theory) constructed at the University of Texas. The implementation also contains a Lexical Functional Grammar parser that provides f-structures; these f-structures are then translated into the semantic representations posited by DR theory, structures which are known as Discourse Representation Structures (DRSs). Our program handles some linguistically interesting phenomena in English such as (i) scope ambiguities of singular quantifiers, (if) functional control phenomena, and (iii) long distance dependencies. Finally, we have implemented an algorithm tor anaphora resolution. Our goal is to use purely linguistically available information in constructing a semantic representation of discourse as far as is feasible and to forego appeals to world knowledge.