A computational grammar and lexicon for Maltese

param P = P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 ;
lincat
S = Str ;
A = P => P => {s:Str ; b:Bool} ;
lin
Start a = (a!P1!P1).s;
It = \\ _,_ => {s="abc" ; b=True} ;
}
When compiling this valid GF module with gf
produced:
--verbose, the following debug message is
+ Start 65536 (1,1)
This indicates that the compilation of the Start function produces 65536 productions in the
resulting PMCFG. This number fits with the number of possible functions of type P → P →
Bool, which is 2 4×4 . Removing the boolean field from the type gives instead 1 4×4 functions,
and the size explosion disappears 10 . This behaviour means record types containing non-strings
(such the Maybe type above) should not be used inside tables. Alternative factorisations need
to be found in such cases, in order to avoid exponential explosions during compile time.
10 Thanks to Thomas Hallgren for helping with finding a minimal example and explaining the arithmetic behind
the explosion.
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