UsingWomb Grammars for Inducing the Grammar of a Subset of Yorùbá Noun Phrases

Resum

We address the problem of inducing the grammar of an under-resourced language,
Yorùbá, from the grammar of English using an efficient and, linguistically savvy, constraint
solving model of grammar induction –Womb Grammars (WG). Our proposed methodology
adapts WG for parsing a subset of noun phrases of the target language Yorùbá, from the
grammar of the source language English, which is described as properties between pairs of
constituents. Our model is implemented in CHRG (Constraint Handling Rule Grammar) and,
it has been used for inducing the grammar of a useful subset of Yorùbá Noun Phrases. Interesting
extensions to the original Womb Grammar model are presented, motivated by the specific
needs of Yorùbá and, similar tone languages.