Abstract
This paper presents GRAMR1, a program (in COBOL and BASIC) intended for instructional use in introductory courses in formal syntax. GRAMR1 accepts as input a string of up to five words and determines whether the string forms a grammatical sentence in Gramr1, a simplified English-like language. Gramr1 has a lexicon of five nouns, eight verbs, and two function words, and is capable of generating affirmative and negative statements and questions. By the use of strict subcategorization and selectional restrictions, the 1,048,576 possible input strings are reduced to 161 acceptable sentences.
This paper provides a description of Gramrl followed by a line-by-line explanation of the COBOL version of GRAMR1, the latter being directed toward readers who are not familiar with computer programming. The final section offers suggestions for classroom applications of the program.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.