Year: 2024-2025

Spring Semester

Natural Language
Processing
Dr. Wafaa Samy
Dr. Hanaa Eissa
 Syntax (Part 3)

Lecture (11)

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 Contents
• Parsing
o Top-Down Parsing
o Bottom-Up Parsing

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 Parsing
• Parsing means taking an input and producing some
sort of structure for it .
• Syntactic parsing is the task of recognizing a sentence
and assigning a syntactic structure to it.
• Parsing with Context free grammars refers to the task
of assigning proper parse trees to input strings.
o Proper here means a parse tree that covers all and only
the elements of the input and has an S at the top.
• It doesn’t actually mean that the system can select the
correct parse tree from among all the possible trees.

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 Search Strategies
• How can we use grammar (e.g. the grammar
shown) to assign the correct parse tree to an
input string (e.g. Book that trip)?

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 Search Strategies (Cont.)
1. Top-down or goal-directed search.
2. Bottom-up or data-directed search.

Stream of words
Parser Parse tree(s)
Context-free grammar

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 (1) Top-Down Parsing
• A top-down parser searches for a parse tree
by trying to build from the root node S down
to the leaves.
• Top-Down Search:
o Since we’re trying to find parse trees rooted with
an S (Sentences), why not start with the rules that
give us an S.
o Then we can work our way down from there to
the words.
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 Top Down Space

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 Sample L1 Grammar

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Example (1)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP

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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the

Nominal
the

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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the
Nominal  Noun
Noun  cat

Nominal
the
Noun

cat

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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the
Nominal  Noun
Noun  cat
VP  V PP
V  sat
Nominal
the sat
Noun
Nominal
on the
cat Noun

mat
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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the
Nominal  Noun
Noun  cat
VP  V PP
V  sat
Nominal PP  Prep NP
Prep  on
the sat
Noun
Nominal
on the
cat Noun

mat
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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the
Nominal  Noun
Noun  cat
VP  V PP
V  sat
Nominal PP  Prep NP
Prep  on
the sat NP  Det Nominal
Noun Det  the
Nominal
on the
cat

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Example (1) (Cont.)
The cat sat on the mat S  NP VP
NP  Det Nominal
Det  the
Nominal  Noun
Noun  cat
VP  V PP
V  sat
Nominal PP  Prep NP
Prep  on
the sat NP  Det Nominal
Noun Det  the
Nominal
on Nominal  Noun
cat the Noun Noun  mat

mat
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Example (2)
S  NP VP
NP  Nominal
Nominal  Noun
Noun  time
VP  V PP
Nominal V  flies
PP  Prep NP
Noun
flies
Prep  like
NP  Det
Time
Nominal
like Nominal Det  an
an Noun Nominal  Noun
Noun  arrow
arrow
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 Problems with Top-Down Parsing
1. Left Recursion.

2. Structural Ambiguity.

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 Left Recursive
• A grammar is left-recursive, if it contains at least one non-
terminal A, such that: it has a derivation that includes itself
anywhere along its left most branch:

A ⇒∗ α A β, for some α, β and α ⇒∗ ε

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 Immediate Left-Recursion
• The grammar has a rule: A → A α

• Leads to an infinite expansions of trees.

• For example:
S → NP VP
NP → NP PP
VP → VP PP

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 Structural Ambiguity
• Occurs when the grammar assigns more than one possible
parse tree to a sentence.

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 Example (3): Structure Ambiguity
I shot an elephant in my pajamas

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 Example (3): Structure Ambiguity
(Cont.)
I shot an elephant in my pajamas

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 Example (4): Structure Ambiguity

I saw the man with the telescope

Pronoun Pronoun

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 Example (4): Structure Ambiguity
(Cont.)
I saw the man with the telescope

Pronoun Pronoun

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 (2) Bottom-up Parsing
• Bottom-Up Parsing:
o Of course, we also want trees that cover the input words. So
we might also start with trees that link up with the words in the
right way.
o Then work your way up from there to larger and larger trees.

• In bottom-up parsing,
1. The parser starts with the words of the input sentence, and
2. Tries to build parse trees from the words up, again by applying
rules from the grammar one at a time.

• The parse is successful if the parser succeeds in building

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Bottom-Up Search (Cont.)

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Bottom-Up Search (Cont.)

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Bottom-Up Search (Cont.)

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Bottom-Up Search (Cont.)

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Bottom-Up Search (Cont.)

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 Local Ambiguity
• Occurs when some part of a sentence is
ambiguous.
• For example, the sentence:

Book that flight

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 Top-Down and Bottom-Up
• Top-down:
o Helps with POS ambiguities – only consider relevant POS.
o Only searches for trees that can be answers (i.e. S’s).
o But also suggests trees that are not consistent with any of
the words.
o Spends a lot of time on impossible parses (trees that are
not consistent with any of the words).
• Bottom-up:
o Has to consider every POS.
o Only forms trees consistent with the words.
o But suggests trees that make no sense globally.
 Spends a lot of time on useless structures (trees that make no
sense globally, or trees that will not start with S on the top).
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