A computational grammar and lexicon for Maltese

Abstract syntax
At the language-independent level we want to model semantically the kinds of comments we
wish to make about food. Note how the names of categories and functions are only given in
English for ease of understanding; they are merely identifiers and could be named anything.
We start by defining the kinds of food in our grammar (Cheese and Fish) and the qualities they
may have (Expensive and Delicious). The Very function exists for intensifying qualities, and
This and That are functions which produce a demonstrative from a kind of food. Finally, the
Pred (predication) function joins an Item and a Quality to give us a statement. Note that Comment
is the top-level category in the grammar.
abstract Foods = {
flags
startcat = Comment ;
cat
Comment ; Item ; Kind ; Quality ;
fun
Cheese, Fish : Kind ;
Expensive, Delicious : Quality ;
Very : Quality -> Quality ;
This, These : Kind -> Item ;
Pred : Item -> Quality -> Comment ;
}
Given this abstract grammar, we can construct a some abstract syntax trees which use these
functions (illustrated in figure 1.2):
Pred (This Fish) Delicious
Pred (These Cheese) (Very Expensive)
Pred : Comment
Pred : Comment
This : Item
Delicious : Quality
These : Item
Very : Quality
Fish : Kind
Cheese : Kind
Expensive : Quality
Figure 1.2: Abstract syntax trees for the Foods grammar
English concrete syntax
Now we want to describe how such trees can be linearised into our first language, English.
We do this by writing a concrete grammar which contains lincat definitions for each of our
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