Some notes on UTL's syntax

 

A paramount feature of the UTL language is that it should be easy to analize (both syntactically and morphologically), and this analysis should be accurate and unambiguous.  The computerized analysis of a sentece begins with a morpholexical identification of its individual elements, which are grouped in bigger unities, which at the same time make up the parts of the sentence. These structures are represented in a formal grammar, in which for every non-unitary element of a sentence its constitutive elements are given. You can see below a "toy" formal grammar for the UTL language covering some simple declarative sentences.

 

SENTENCE STRUCTURE IN UTL

Note on the markers: elements in brackets are optional; curled brackets indicate zero or more of that kind, and a vertical bar | indicates "or".

    sentence ::= (subject) verb (objects) {adverbial} 

     | subject attributive_verb direct_object object_complement {adverbial}

     | subject copulative_verb subject_complement {adverbial}

     | subject copulative_verb {adverbial}

    subject ::= noun_phrase | "ke" sentence | infinitive_sentence

    objects ::=  direct_object ("al" noun_phrase)

    direct_object ::= accusative_noun_phrase | "ke" sentence

     | infinitive_sentence

    infinitive_sentence ::= infinitive (objects) {adverbial}

    object/subject_complement ::= modified_adjective | noun_phrase 

     | relative_clause

    adverbial ::= adverb_phrase | prepositional_phrase | adverb_clause

    adverb_phrase ::= modified_adverb

     | {modified_adverb} verbal_adverb (objects) {adverbial}

    modified_adverb ::= {modified_adverb} adverb {adverbial}

    prepositional_phrase ::= preposition noun_phrase

    noun_phrase ::= modified_noun | relative_pronoun sentence 

     | (demonstrative) pronoun (number)

    modified_noun ::= (specifier) (number) {adjective} noun 

     (modified_adjective) {prepositional_phrase} (relative_clause)

    modified_adjective ::= (modified_adverb) adjective (adverbial)

     | {modified_adverb} verbal_adjective (objects) {adverbial}

    specifier ::= article | demonstrative | possessive | quantifier

    relative_clause ::= relative_possesive modified_noun sentence

      | relative_pronoun sentence

      | (adverbial) relative_adverb sentence 

    adverb_clause ::= (adverbial) relative_adverb sentence 

 

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(c) Marcos Franco, 1999-2000.