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The Parser and Writer for Syntax (PAWS) has two purposes. The Writer produces about a 100 page long rough draft of a grammar of the syntax of your language, based on the answers to the questions in each section of PAWS. The draft can be in English, French, and/or Spanish. The Parser can optionally produce all the files needed for using the PC-PATR syntactic parser for parsing and disambiguation within FieldWorks Language Explorer or CARLA Studio. For both the Writer and the Parser, we expect PAWS to cover about 80% of what a specific language needs.

Fill out questions & data

PAWS is a series of web pages which explain, illustrate, and ask questions about a syntactic construction. You enter your data and answer the questions.

Edit draft & produce output

The grammar draft is in XLingPaper form which makes editing much easier and more consistent than other tools. The picture is of an edited grammar for Central Mam produced during a three week PAWS workshop in 2013.

Who can use It?

Any linguistically trained native speaker or a native speaker in concert with a linguist familiar with the language or language family can successfully use PAWS.

Common questions

What operating systems does PAWS run on?

Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems

Does it work with Non-Roman Scripts?

Yes and you can determine which font to use.

See full FAQ list

PAWS

Language Technology

PAWS assists users in creating a 100-page draft grammar for undocumented or under-documented languages.