LINGUIST List 6.696

Thu 18 May 1995

FYI: Tree-drawing software, Phrase structure grammar on Web

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. George Aaron Broadwell, Tree-drawing software
2. Andreas Kathol, HPSG on the Web

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 For the last few months, I've been using some tree-drawing software
that I like very much. I'd like to recommend RF Flow to all of you who
need to draw syntactic trees.

 RF Flow is a general purpose flowcharting program that works quite
well for syntactic trees. What I like best about the the program are its
Auto-Connect and "rubber-banding" features. Auto-Connect will automatically
draw the lines between nodes in a tree, and the "rubber-banding" feature
(called Lock Move in the program) lets the lines expand and shrink as you
move the nodes around on the page. The program also does an excellent job
at drawing the curves that connect moved items and their traces.

 The output of RF Flow is an OLE object that can be inserted into any
Windows application. I create the trees in RF Flow and then insert them
into WordPerfect for Windows. After insertion they act like graphic
objects, and can be moved around, resized, captioned, rotated, etc.

 The only disadvantage I have noticed so far is a less than optimal
treatment of subscripts. They can be used, but are awkwardly implemented in
the current version.

 The program is sold by

 RFF Electronics
 1053 Banyan Ct.
 Loveland, CO 80538
 (303)-663-5767 (phone)
 (303)-669-4889 (fax)

They have a free trial disk that is fully functional but only allows about
ten objects (i.e. nodes) per diagram. The full program costs about $90.
(Ask for the educational discount price.)

 [If anyone decides to try this program, there are ways to set up the
initialization options to make things easier for linguists. E-mail me for
more details.]

Regards,
 --------------------------------------------------------
George Aaron Broadwell, g.broadwellalbany.edu
Anthropology; Linguistics and Cognitive Science,
 SUNY-Albany, Albany, NY 12222 | 518-442-4711
 --------------------------------------------------------
"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than
diagraming sentences" -- Gertrude Stein

For some months now, a Web page has been in existence on Head-Driven
Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Its address is:

 http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Hpsg.html

(Those who read LINGUIST postings via a www-browser may
follow (A HREF="http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Hpsg.html";)this link</A>.)

Among the resources gathered on this page are

* A bibliography on HPSG-related works in BibTeX and LaTeX format:

 ftp://ling.ohio-state.edu/pub/HPSG/Bibliography/HPSG.bib

 (Follow (A
HREF="ftp://ling.ohio-state.edu/pub/HPSG/Bibliography/HPSG.bib";)this link(/A>.)

* Pointers to implementation efforts:

 http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Implementation.html

 (Follow (A
HREF="http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Implementation.html";)this link(/A>.)

* Pointers to various papers presented at conferences and workshops.

There also exists an HPSG-related mailing list, which can be
subscribed to automatically by sending mail to the address ...

 majordomoling.ohio-state.edu

 ((A
HREF="mailto:majordomoling.ohio-state.edu")majordomoling.ohio-state.edu(/A>)

... with the following single line in the message body:

 subscribe hpsg

For more information on this mailing list, consult

 http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Majordomo.html

 (Follow (A
HREF="http://ling.ohio-state.edu/HPSG/Majordomo.html";)this link(/A>.)

 --Andreas Kathol
 (katholling.ohio-state.edu)