Automatic Grammar Induction: Combining, Reducing and Doing Nothing

This paper surveys three research directions in parsing. First, we look at methods for both automati­ cally generating a set of diverse parsers and combining the outputs of different parsers into a single parse. Next, we will discuss a parsing method known as transformation-based parsing. This method, though less accurate than the best current corpus-derived parsers, is able to parse quite accurately while learning only a small set of easily understood rules, as opposed to the many-megabyte parameter files learned, by other techniques. Finally, we review a recent study exploring how people and machines compare at the task of creating a program to automatically annotate noun phrases.