From Database to Treebank: On Enhancing Hypertext Grammars with Grammar Engineering and Treebank Search

This paper describes how electronic grammars can be further enhanced by adding machine-readable grammars and treebanks. We explore the potential benefits of implemented grammars and treebanks for descriptive linguistics, following the discursive methodology of Bird & Simons (2003) and the values and maxims identified by Nordhoff (2008).1 We describe the resources which we believe make implemented grammars and treebanks feasible additions to electronic descriptive grammars, with a particular focus on the Grammar Matrix grammar customization system (Bender et al. 2010) and the Fangorn treebank search application (Ghodke & Bird 2010). By presenting an example of an implemented grammar based on a descriptive prose grammar, we show one productive method of collaboration between grammar engineer and field linguist, and propose that a tighter integration could be beneficial to both, creating a virtuous cycle that could lead to more effective and informative resources.