Parsing Using Linearly Ordered Phonological Rules

Abstract

A generate and test algorithm is described which parses a surface form into one or more lexical entries using linearly ordered phonological rules. This algorithm avoids the exponential expansion of search space which a naive parsing algorithm would face by encoding into the form being parsed the ambiguities which arise during parsing. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on real language data, and its speed compares favorably with that of a KIMMO-type parser.