Reusing a syntactic generator for CALL purposes

This article presents briefly the advantages and disadvantages of reusing natural language processing (NLP) tools in the CALL context. The issue is addressed through the description of GBGen, a sentence generation system. The abstract semantic representation used as input for the generator is described, as well as the actual generation process, from a deep structure to a grammatical sentence through transformations and the application of morphology. The possible didactic value of such a tool is then evaluated and the outline of a CALL scenario given. Finally, proposed adaptations of the generator for the CALL context are discussed.