Andy | 7 May 2024

Version 1.6.0 of PAWS is now available for download at https://software.sil.org/paws/download/.  It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

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.

This version has several enhancements:

There are some enhancements in the prose explanations in both the PAWS interface pages and in the writer output.  In addition, more consistency checks were added throughout PAWS.

Both the interlinear information and the word information you key in response to the questions have at least two fields: one for keying the vernacular language data and one for keying the free translation/gloss data.  This has two advantages:

  1. It makes it possible for a consultant to review the writer output as you go and especially before leaving PAWS.  The consultant can then give you feedback on any changes to make in PAWS before you begin the editing process.
  2. It makes less work for you when editing the output.

Interlinear information has two possible styles for interlinear text output:

  1. vernacular words (presumably in a roman orthography)
    literal word glosses
    morpheme glosses
    free translation
  2. vernacular words (presumably in a non-roman orthography)
    words in IPA
    IPA with morpheme breaks
    morpheme glosses
    free translation
    state language free translation (presumably in a non-roman orthography)

The Windows version also allows a user to specify which keyboard to use for the following kinds of fields:

  • vernacular language data
  • IPA
  • free translation/gloss
  • custom text to be inserted into the writer when the language being documented has something PAWS does not cover

PAWS will automatically switch to the keyboard selected for each of these fields.