A Formal Grammar of Spanish for Phrase Level Analysis Applied to Information Retrieval

Abstract

In this study we try to give an exhaustive formal description of verb phrases from the point of view of their contextualization for constituting clauses. Besides, on the basis of subordination and the proposed general frame for its formalization, we try to give also as consistent and complete as possible a description of the syntactic structures that phrases -noun, pronoun, adverb and adjective phrases- have in Spanish. Our priority is, in this case, to show the structure of the grammar, more than to ensure full coverage, which is considered an issue of second level of formalization, that is, of writing the grammar in such a way that it can be easily added new specifications when and where necessary. It is also our intention to show how the grammar, by handling resources for the resolution of ambiguity, can be adapted for different purposes, integration in a full-sentence grammar, on the one hand, and identification of relevant content unities within an application for information retrieval, on the other.