NAME

       link-generator - generate natural language sentences using Link Grammar

SYNOPSIS

       link-generator --help
       link-generator --version

DESCRIPTION

       link-generator  is  a  command-line  tool  for generating random sentences whose syntax is
       determined by the specified link-grammar dictionary.

EXAMPLE

       link-generator

BACKGROUND

       The theory of Link Grammar is explained in many academic papers.  In the first  of  these,
       Daniel  Sleator  and  Davy  Temperley,  "Parsing  English with a Link Grammar" (1991), the
       authors defined a new formal grammatical system called a "link  grammar".  A  sequence  of
       words is in the language of a link grammar if there is a way to draw "links" between words
       in such a way that the local requirements of each word are satisfied,  the  links  do  not
       cross,  and  the  words  form  a  consistent  connected graph. The authors encoded English
       grammar into such a system, and wrote the link-parser command-line tool to  parse  English
       using this grammar.

       The  engine  that  performs  the  parsing  is  separate from the dictionaries describing a
       language.  Currently, the most fully developed, complete dictionaries are for the  English
       and Russian languages, although experimental, incomplete dictionaries exist for German and
       eight other languages.

OVERVIEW

       link-generator generates sentences.

OPTIONS

       --help Print usage and exit.

       --version
              Print program version and configuration details, and exit.

       --usage
              Print a short synopsis of the option flags.

       -l language|dict_location, --language=language|dict_location
              Specify the language to use, or the directory file-path to the dictionary to use.

       -s length, --length=length
              If length is 0, read a sentence template. It may consist of fully spelled-out words
              as  well  as wild-cards. The wild-card \* represents any dictionary word. Wild-card
              specifications like prefix\* and \*.n are also recognized.

              Otherwise, it specifies the length of the  sentences  to  generate.  All  generated
              sentences will have exactly this length.

       -c count, --count=count
              Specify the number of sentences to generate. If this number is less than the number
              of possible linkages, then a random subset of possible linkages will be  generated,
              and  one representative sentence for each linkage will be printed. The words in the
              representative sentence are randomly chosen from the set of words  associated  with
              each  disjunct in that linkage. If the count is greater than the number of possible
              linkages, then one representative sentence for each linkage will be printed.

              If the -x option is set, and if the count is greater than the  number  of  possible
              linkages,  then  more  than  one  representative  sentence will be printed for each
              linkage. Each sentence will consist of word choices drawn randomly from the set  of
              words  associated  with  each disjunct.  An approximately equal number of sentences
              will be printed for each linkage; if the count is high enough,  then  all  possible
              word-choices  will  be printed. Note that this typically results in a combinatorial
              explosion!

       -x, --explode
              If set, and is the count is greater than the number of possible linkages, then more
              than  one  sentence  will  be  printed  for each linkage. Each sentence will have a
              distinct random word-choice for that linkage.

SEE ALSO

       The link-parser is a command-line tool for parsing sentences. It provides some  additional
       information about the link-grammar implementation.

       Information on the link-grammar shared-library API and the link types used in the parse is
       available at the AbiWord website ⟨http://www.abisource.com/projects/link-grammar/⟩.

       Peer-reviewed  papers  explaining  Link  Grammar  can  be  found  at  original  CMU   site
       ⟨http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/papers⟩.

       The  source  code  of  link-generator  and  the  link-grammar library is located at GitHub
       ⟨https://github.com/opencog/link-grammar⟩.

       The  mailing  list  for  Link  Grammar  discussion  is  at   link-grammar   Google   group
       ⟨http://groups.google.com/group/link-grammar?hl=en⟩.

AUTHOR

       The  link-grammar  library  were  written  by  Daniel  Sleator  <sleator@cs.cmu.edu>, Davy
       Temperley <dtemp@theory.esm.rochester.edu>, and John Lafferty  <lafferty@cs.cmu.edu>.  The
       link-generator tool was created by Amir Plivatsky <amirpli_at_gmail.com>.

       This  manual page was written by Ken Bloom <kbloom@gmail.com>, for the Debian project, and
       updated Linas Vepstas <linasvepstas@gmail.com>.