A fully operational processing system for construction grammars
Fluid Construction Grammar can be downloaded as standalone software (through our FCG editor) or as part of the Babel software toolkit. Apart from FCG, Babel also includes modules procedural semantic processing, multi-agent learning and robotic embodiment. For more information on downloading Babel, click here !
Great news: writing constructions has never been easier than with our new FCG Editor! The FCG editor, which is available for MacOS, Windows and Linux, allows you to quickly install and test Fluid Construction Grammar without having to set up a complete Lisp programming environment or the Babel software architecture. It includes all of the essential functionalities of FCG for rapidly defining and visualizing constructions in your web browser, and to develop grammar fragments that you can use for language comprehension and production. You can download the FCG Editor for free at this page.
The FCG editor is based on a first design by Dr Remi van Trijp, and has since then been co-developed by the Sony Computer Science Laboratories Paris and the VUB Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Paul Van Eecke and Katrien Beuls are organising a tutorial at the 11th International Conference on Construction Grammar in Antwerp on 19 August 2020. During the tutorial, we will walk you through the basics of computational construction grammar (CCxG), with a special focus on how the main ideas underlying construction grammar can be implemented using FCG. The tutorial will alternate between theory, hands-on exercises from the textbook and demonstrations of more advanced case studies. It targets in particular lecturers in construction grammar who wish to include CCxG into their courses, as well as scholars who would like to learn CCxG and use it in their research. For more information, please check the tutorial’s webpage.
We’ve made the first part of the tutorial we gave at the latest ICCG conference available on YouTube now. You can watch it here:
Join us for the FCG tutorial on the 10th International Conference on Construction Grammar in Paris on 20 July 2018! Official registration is not yet open but you can already send us an e-mail if you would like to be informed about the practical details (info@fcg-net.org). More information can be found on the tutorial’s web page.
The journal of Constructions and Frames has published a special issue (2017, 9(2)) on approaches to the Verb Phrase in Fluid Construction Grammar with examples for Dutch, English, Spanish and Russian. The complete issue can be found on the publisher’s website. Every paper is accompanied by a web demonstration, which are made available on the demos page.
Natural language processing is one of the most challenging and important areas in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. At Sony CSL Paris, we have pioneered new language technologies based on “constructional” language processing for achieving deep semantic analyses and bidirectional grammars for language production and comprehension.
Job description
We are currently looking for a software engineer / computational linguist who will develop an industrial-strength implementation of our open-source software platform “Fluid Construction Grammar”. Your responsibilities include:
– Implementation of an industrial-strength grammar architecture based on Fluid Construction Grammar (www.fcg-net.org);
– Interface with statistical NLP modules;
– Monitor data acquisition and curation; design control, implementation and improvements;
– Propose and develop new prototypes and applications
– Manage communication and cooperate on legal issues concerning applications
Qualifications:
– Master or Doctoral Degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence; or equivalent practical experience
– Minimum of 5 years of experience in developing projects, preferably in NLP research or related domains
– Independent worker with leadership abilities and the ability to cooperate in a constantly evolving international team
– Multilingual speaker
– Experience in programming languages and in particular symbolic programming
Our offer:
You will earn a competitive salary and get to work in the heart of Paris (5th arrondissement). Extra benefits include meal vouchers, 50% reimbursement of your public transport subscription, and an attractive health insurance contract.
About Sony CSL Paris
Sony CSL Paris was founded in 1996 and is a small but booming research cell, focusing on the following areas: personal music experience, developmental cognitive robots, self-organizing communication systems, and sustainable environment simulation.
Sony Computer Science Laboratory is engaged in several European projects such as FLOW MACHINES, PRAISE, IDGF, LRN2CRE8 and other projects.
Research in Personal Music Experience focuses on the future of musical listening by building prototypes of interactive devices and ethnographic experiments to see what people find exciting in music and how new ways of listening integrate in their lives.
Research in Language is dedicated to constructional language processing and self-organising communication systems. Constructional language processing is a novel approach to the production and comprehension of language that based on rich semantics and a powerful data structure called “constructions”. Research in self-organizing communication systems investigates through computational simulations and mathematical models how a group of autonomous agents/robots could be able to invent and negotiate a communication system similar to human natural languages.
How to build a sustainable society has recently become a major issue as natural resources get depleted and climate change is of great concern. Sony CSL Paris has launched a number of projects to raise awareness about the issues through volunteer computing and participatory food production.
Sony CSL Paris plays a leading role in the areas it has chosen to be active in. It produces a steady stream of papers in the most prestigious journals and conferences. The lab is viewed as highly innovative and plays a leading role in European IT research.
Contact
Candidates should send their cv and motivation letter to Dr Remi van Trijp (remi@csl.sony.fr) before 28 June 2017. The contract starts 1 september 2017.
Computational construction grammar has really taken flight since the 2017 AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding in Stanford. Fluid Construction Grammar was of course well represented, and we want to highlight the following contributions:
We are organising a two-day (6h) practical course on Fluid Construction Grammar. The course is part of the Interdisciplinary College (IK) Spring School in Günne, Germany and takes place on 15-16 March 2017.
For more information, see the following website: www.fcg-net.org/workshops/ik-construction-grammar
Course Description:
Construction Grammar is an innovative approach to language that focuses strongly on semantics, cognitive processes and learning. As such, it has the potential to lead to more powerful language technologies and more comprehensive accounts of language processing than psychology and computational linguistics are able to offer today. This course will teach its participants how the key concepts of construction grammar can be implemented in computational models for deep language processing that are capable of both comprehension and formulation. Moreover, students will also learn how to implement learning operators for more robust processing, and how to evaluate their grammars. Each session will take the form of a hands-on atelier using Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG), an advanced computational platform for developing constructional processing and learning models.