4.0111 PC-KIMMO: A Morphology Program (98)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 23 May 90 19:41:37 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0111. Wednesday, 23 May 1990.
Date: Tue, 22 May 90 20:32:17 CST
From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1>
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT: PC-KIMMO PROGRAM
HUMANISTS may be interested in a newly-released program for
morphological analysis, called PC-KIMMO, available for UNIX,
IBM or Macintosh computers. Shareware.
Subject: PC-KIMMO: a two-level processor for morphological analysis
Keywords: KIMMO, two-level model, morphological parsing, finite
state morphology
PC-KIMMO is a new implementation for microcomputers of a program
dubbed KIMMO after its inventor Kimmo Koskenniemi. It is of
interest to computational linguists, descriptive linguists, and
those developing natural language processing systems. The program
is designed to generate (produce) and/or recognize (parse) words
using a two-level model of word structure in which a word is
represented as a correspondence between its lexical level form
and its surface level form. PC-KIMMO is language-independant. For
each language description the user prepares two input files: (1)
a set of rules that govern phonological/orthographic alternations
and (2) a lexicon that lists all words (morphemes) in their lexical
form and specifies constraints on their order. The rules and lexicon
are implemented computationally using finite state machines.
The purpose of developing PC-KIMMO is to provide a version of the
two-level processor that runs on an IBM PC compatible computer.
The PC-KIMMO program is actually a shell program that serves as
an interactive user interface to the primitive PC-KIMMO
functions. It provides an environment for developing, testing,
and debugging two-level descriptions. The primitive PC-KIMMO
functions are also available as a C-language source code library
that can be included in a program written by the user. This means
that the user can develop and debug a two-level description using
the PC-KIMMO shell and then link PC-KIMMO's functions into his
own program. For example, a syntactic parsing program could use
PC-KIMMO as a morphological preprocessor.
PC-KIMMO will run on the following systems:
MS-DOS or PC-DOS (any IBM PC compatible)
UNIX System V (SCO UNIX V/386 and A/UX) and 4.2 BSD UNIX
Apple Macintosh
The PC-KIMMO software is packaged with the book that describes how
to use it:
Antworth, Evan L. 1990. PC-KIMMO: a two-level processor
for morphological analysis. Occasional Publications in
Academic Computing No. 16. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of
Linguistics. ISBN 0-88312-639-7, 273pp., $23.00.
The book is a full-length tutorial on writing two-level linguistic
descriptions with PC-KIMMO. It also fully documents the PC-KIMMO
user interface and the source code function library. The book with
release diskette(s) is available from:
International Academic Bookstore
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas TX, 75236
phone 214/709-2404
There are two versions of the PC-KIMMO release diskette(s), one
for IBM PC compatibles and one for the Macintosh. Each contains
the executable PC-KIMMO program, examples of language
descriptions, and the source code library for the primitive
PC-KIMMO functions. The PC-KIMMO executable program and the
source code library are copyrighted but are made freely available
to the general public under the condition that they not be resold
or used for commercial purposes.
For those who wish to compile PC-KIMMO for their UNIX system, it
is necessary to first obtain either the DOS or Macintosh version
and then contact us at the address given at the end of this
message.
In addition to the book and full software release, a demo copy of
PC-KIMMO is also available for downloading from various network
sites. The package contains the executable PC-KIMMO program (the
full program), some basic documentation to get you started, and a
couple of sample descriptions to run. The IBM PC version is
contained in an archive that must be restored using the PKUNZIP
program available on many bulletin boards. In order to preserve
the directory structure, be sure to use the -d option; that is,
type "pkunzip -d pckimmo". The Macintosh version is contained in
an archive that must be restored with the UnStuffIt program
available on many bulletin boards.
PC-KIMMO is a research project in progress, not a finished
commercial product. In this spirit, we invite your response to
the software and the book. Please direct your comments to:
Academic Computing Department
PC-KIMMO project
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas, TX 75236
phone: 214/709-2418
Internet: evan@txsil.lonestar.org (Evan Antworth)
(via Compuserve: >Internet evan@txsil.lonestar.org)