Unification-based grammars and tabular parsing for graphical languages

  • Authors:
  • Kent Wittenburg;Louis Weitzman;Jim Talley

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Visual Languages and Computing
  • Year:
  • 1991

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Abstract

In this paper we present a unification-based grammar formalism and parsing algorithm for the purposes of defining and processing generalizations of concatenative languages such as those found in two-dimensional graphical domains. In order to encompass languages whose elements are combined by operations other than simple string concatenation, we extend the PATR unification-based grammar formalism with functionally specified constraints. In order to parse with these grammars, we extend tabular parsing methods and discuss a bottom-up algorithm that can process input incrementally in a maximally flexible order. This work is currently being applied in the interpretation of handsketched mathematical expressions and structured flowcharts on notebook computers and interactive worksurfaces.