Building SPL logical specifications
for generation with KPML

An introductory guide by Juan Rafael Zamorano Mansilla
May 2003

These pages provide more detail about the possible forms that can be used when building SPL specifications for driving natural language generation with KPML. The examples are mostly drawn from the results that are obtained when using the Nigel grammar of English. The specifications for other languages are similar. For many more examples, see the Grammar Generation Bank.

The main kinds of information that are necessary when generating sentences from SPL specifications are the following:

• Choice of process type: this determines the basic semantic domain of the specification
• Choice of circumstances: these provide additional information concerning when, where, how, etc. the process took place
• Choice of sentence types: this specifies forms of sentences according to their intended function in discourse.

[Added: An extensive draft [pdf, ps] of the documentation for controlling textual semantics in the Nigel grammar of English (ms, 1992: being updated). This gives a good indication of how textual semantics are controlled in a grammar.]