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.

       -d, --disjuncts
              Display linkage disjuncts.

       --no-walls
              Don't attach to walls in wildcard words.

       -r, --random
              Use unrepeatable random numbers.

       -u, --unused
              Display unused disjuncts.

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.

       Peer-reviewed papers explaining Link Grammar can be found at original CMU site.

       The source code of link-generator and the link-grammar library is located at GitHub.

       The mailing list for Link Grammar discussion is at link-grammar Google group.

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>.

Version 5.9.0                                      2021-03-30                                  LINK-GENERATOR(1)