This file gives general information about running the PARC LFG Grammar Writer's Workbench. There is no charge for use of the system, but note that by using the workbench, you acknowledge that you have read and accept the terms of the license agreement stored as the file /pub/lfg/license.txt at host ftp.parc.com. Please examine that file before you proceed further. The Grammar Writer's Workbench is a complete parsing implementation for the syntactic formalism of Lexical Functional Grammar. The system provides an environment in which non-programmer linguists can write and debug grammars in the LFG formalism. The workbench implements the original formal devices of Kaplan and Bresnan (1982), plus various features introduced to the theory since the original paper (functional uncertainty, functional precedence, generalization for coordination). It also includes a very rich c-structure notation and a number of different abbreviatory devices. If you decide to become a workbench user and would like to receive information about future updates and bug fixes, please register yourself by sending your name and email address to kaplan@parc.xerox.com. The workbench runs on several different computing platforms: Unix systems on Sun and Linux on Intel hardware. We have had the most experience with SunOS and Solaris; please report any problems you have in bringing the system up on other platforms so that we can attempt to repair the difficulties. The system consists of a few files that are common to all platforms, and then some files that differ according to the platform you run on. All files are stored at ftp.parc.xerox.com in the directory /pub/lfg/ and its subdirectories. COMMON FILES The files common to all platforms are: lfg.sysout (or lfg.sysout.gz, gzipped) lfgmanual.ps/.pdf (or lfg.manual.ps.gz/lfg.manual.pdf.gz) demoenglish (a sample grammar/lexicon file, illustrating various features; can be loaded or printed when running inside GWB) license.txt (of course) The manual describes how to use the system once it has been installed on your system. It can be printed on any postscript printer, and is about 125+ pages long. The sysout file is an initial Medley-lisp memory image that contains all of the GWB code. It is about 11MB uncompressed, about 5MB under gzip compression. PLATFORM SPECIFIC FILES For each platform there is another set of files, called "emulator" files. These are the executable files that cause the sysout to be loaded, and then cause the Lisp programs in the sysout to be run. The platform specific files are stored on separate subdirectories of /pub/lfg/: sunos/ (files for the Sun operating system--we ourselves have had most experience with these) lde ldex ldemulti ldesingle solaris/ (files for the Sun/Solaris operating system) lde ldex linux/intel/ (files for Linux running on Intel hardware) lde ldex At present there is no emulator for Mac OS X. INSTALLATION ON UNIX There is a common installation procedure for Unix systems, which is described here. To install GWB on a Unix system (assuming you have read and accepted the license): 1. Designate either a new or existing directory to be the GWB "home" directory. 2. FTP the emulator files to that directory from the appropriate subdirectory of /pub/lfg. The transfer must be done in BINARY mode. Make sure that all the emulator files are marked as "executable", for example by issuing the command chmod +x lde* 3. Also FTP the lfg.sysout file to that directory, from /pub/lfg/. This must also be a binary transfer, but it is not necessary for this file to be executable. This is a large file and may take a long time to transfer over slow links. An alternative is to retrieve the compressed version, lfg.sysout.gz, then use "gunzip lfg.sysout" to uncompress it. 4. There are two other files on the /pub/lfg/ directory, a sample script for running medley, and an icon bitmap file that will appear when you are running under X windows and you shrink the GWB display window. The script file is named lfgscript; it can be fetched in either ascii or binary mode. This must also be marked executable (chmod +x lfgscript), but this need not be placed in your GWB home directory if some other location is more convenient. However, you must edit this script to insert the name of your GWB home directory. Use any editor to replace the symbol YOURLFGDIRECTORY with the name of your GWB home directory. The bitmap file is named lfg.xbm. Transfer it to the GWB home directory in binary mode. 5. When Medley starts to run, it first looks for a "site greeting file" that can provide a set of preferences for your particular site. This file might, for example, define a set of preferred printers, set up various search paths, or change various other parameters that you may learn about as time goes on. The lfgscript sets the name of this file to be init.lisp on the GWB home directory. Until you become more sophisticated, the simplest thing is just to create an empty init.lisp file so that Medley can find it. Otherwise, Medley will prompt you to enter the name of a greeting file to use each time you start up. If no other preference is given, GWB will use the value of the PRINTER Unix environment variable as the name of the default printer (Postscript) for hardcopy commands. RUNNING GWB ON UNIX Once you have installed all the files, you should be able to run the workbench simply by executing the lfgscript. Several parameters can be provided when the script is invoked, but probably the only one of interest is the -display parameter: lfgscript -display XDISPLAY can be used to tell Medley that it is being run from the XDISPLAY X-server. As a specific example: lfgscript -display pizza:0.0 If you omit this parameter, Medley will create a window on the machine that indicated by the current value of the DISPLAY variable. This may be sufficient if you have connected with ssh and have X-forwarding enabled. The X window that GWB runs in can be moved and resized using the normal commands of your X window manager. GWB will be most comfortable to use, however, if it is running in a full-size window. On SunOS, the script can also be run from a top-level (non-X) shell. Keyboard and mouse interactions on somewhat faster when run in this mode.