bllipparser 2015.07.23

Fetching parsing models

Before you can parse, you’ll need some parsing models. ModelFetcher will help you download and install parsing models. It can be invoked from the command line. For example, this will download and install the standard WSJ model:

shell% python -mbllipparser.ModelFetcher -i WSJ-PTB3

Run python -mbllipparser.ModelFetcher with no arguments for a full listing of options and available parsing models. It can also be invoked as a Python library:

>>> from bllipparser.ModelFetcher import download_and_install_model
>>> download_and_install_model('WSJ-PTB3', '/tmp/models')
'/tmp/models/WSJ-PTB3'

In this case, it would download WSJ and install it to /tmp/models/WSJ-PTB3. Note that it returns the path to the downloaded model. See BLLIP Parser models for information about which parsing model to use.

Basic usage

The easiest way to construct a parser is with the from_unified_model_dir class method. A unified model is a directory that contains two subdirectories: parser/ and reranker/, each with the respective model files:

>>> from bllipparser import RerankingParser, tokenize
>>> rrp = RerankingParser.from_unified_model_dir('/path/to/model/')

This can be integrated with ModelFetcher (if the model is already installed, download_and_install_model is a no-op):

>>> model_dir = download_and_install_model('WSJ-PTB3', '/tmp/models')
>>> rrp = RerankingParser.from_unified_model_dir(model_dir)

You can also load parser and reranker models manually:

>>> rrp = RerankingParser()
>>> rrp.load_parser_model('/tmp/models/WSJ-PTB3/parser')
>>> rrp.load_reranker_model('/tmp/models/WSJ-PTB3/reranker/features.gz', '/tmp/models/WSJ-PTB3/reranker/weights.gz')

If you only want the top parse of a sentence in Penn Treebank format, use the simple_parse() method:

>>> rrp.simple_parse('This is simple.')
'(S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (ADJP (JJ simple))) (. .)))'

If you want more information about the parse, you’ll want to use the parse() method which returns an NBestList object. The parser produces an n-best list of the n most likely parses of the sentence (default: n=50). Typically you only want the top parse, but the others are available as well:

>>> nbest_list = rrp.parse('This is a sentence.')

To get information about the top parse (note that the ptb_parse property is a Tree object, described in more detail later):

>>> print repr(nbest_list[0])
ScoredParse('(S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (NN sentence))) (. .)))', parser_score=-29.621201629004183, reranker_score=-7.9273829816098731)
>>> print nbest_list[0].ptb_parse
(S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (NN sentence))) (. .)))
>>> print nbest_list[0].parser_score
-29.621201629
>>> print nbest_list[0].reranker_score
-7.92738298161
>>> print len(nbest_list)
50

If you have the PyStanfordDependencies package, you can parse straight to Stanford Dependencies:

>>> tokens = nbest_list[0].ptb_parse.sd_tokens()
>>> for token in tokens:
...     print token
...
Token(index=1, form=u'This', cpos=u'DT', pos=u'DT', head=4, deprel=u'nsubj')
Token(index=2, form=u'is', cpos=u'VBZ', pos=u'VBZ', head=4, deprel=u'cop')
Token(index=3, form=u'a', cpos=u'DT', pos=u'DT', head=4, deprel=u'det')
Token(index=4, form=u'sentence', cpos=u'NN', pos=u'NN', head=0, deprel=u'root')
Token(index=5, form=u'.', cpos=u'.', pos=u'.', head=4, deprel=u'punct')

This will attempt to use a default converter but see docs for how to customize dependency conversion (or if you run into Java version issues).

If you have an existing tokenizer, tokenization can also be specified by passing a list of strings:

>>> nbest_list = rrp.parse(['This', 'is', 'a', 'pretokenized', 'sentence', '.'])

The reranker can be disabled by setting rerank=False:

>>> nbest_list = rrp.parse('Parser only!', rerank=False)

You can also parse text with existing POS tags (these act as soft constraints). In this example, token 0 (‘Time’) should have tag VB and token 1 (‘flies’) should have tag NNS:

>>> rrp.parse_tagged(['Time', 'flies'], possible_tags={0 : 'VB', 1 : 'NNS'})[0]
ScoredParse('(S1 (NP (VB Time) (NNS flies)))', parser_score=-53.94938875760073, reranker_score=-15.841407102717749)

You don’t need to specify a tag for all words: Here, token 0 (‘Time’) should have tag VB and token 1 (‘flies’) is unconstrained:

>>> rrp.parse_tagged(['Time', 'flies'], possible_tags={0 : 'VB'})[0]
ScoredParse('(S1 (S (VP (VB Time) (NP (VBZ flies)))))', parser_score=-54.390430751112156, reranker_score=-17.290145080887005)

You can specify multiple tags for each token. When you do this, the tags for a token will be used in decreasing priority. token 0 (‘Time’) should have tag VB, JJ, or NN and token 1 (‘flies’) is unconstrained:

>>> rrp.parse_tagged(['Time', 'flies'], possible_tags={0 : ['VB', 'JJ', 'NN']})[0]
ScoredParse('(S1 (NP (NN Time) (VBZ flies)))', parser_score=-42.82904107213723, reranker_score=-12.865900776775314)

There are many parser options which can be adjusted (though the defaults should work well for most cases) with set_parser_options. This will change the size of the n-best list and pick the defaults for all other options. It returns a dictionary of the current options:

>>> rrp.set_parser_options(nbest=10)
{'language': 'En', 'case_insensitive': False, 'debug': 0, 'small_corpus': True, 'overparsing': 21, 'smooth_pos': 0, 'nbest': 10}
>>> nbest_list = rrp.parse('The list is smaller now.', rerank=False)
>>> len(nbest_list)
10

The parser can also be used as a tagger:

>>> rrp.tag("Time flies while you're having fun.")
[('Time', 'NNP'), ('flies', 'VBZ'), ('while', 'IN'), ('you', 'PRP'), ("'re", 'VBP'), ('having', 'VBG'), ('fun', 'NN'), ('.', '.')]

Use this if all you want is a tokenizer:

>>> tokenize("Tokenize this sentence, please.")
['Tokenize', 'this', 'sentence', ',', 'please', '.']

Parsing shell

There is an interactive shell which can help visualize a parse:

shell% python -mbllipparser.ParsingShell /path/to/model

Once in the shell, type a sentence to have the parser parse it:

bllip> I saw the astronomer with the telescope.
Tokens: I saw the astronomer with the telescope .

Parser's parse:
(S1 (S (NP (PRP I))
     (VP (VBD saw)
      (NP (NP (DT the) (NN astronomer))
       (PP (IN with) (NP (DT the) (NN telescope)))))
     (. .)))

Reranker's parse: (parser index 2)
(S1 (S (NP (PRP I))
     (VP (VBD saw)
      (NP (DT the) (NN astronomer))
      (PP (IN with) (NP (DT the) (NN telescope))))
     (. .)))

If you have nltk installed, you can use its tree visualization to see the output:

bllip> visual Show me this parse.
Tokens: Show me this parse .

[graphical display of the parse appears]

If you have PyStanfordDependencies installed, you can parse straight to Stanford Dependencies:

bllip> sdparse Now with Stanford Dependencies integration!
Tokens: Now with Stanford Dependencies integration !

Parser and reranker:
 Now [root]
  +-- with [prep]
  |  +-- integration [pobj]
  |     +-- Stanford [nn]
  |     +-- Dependencies [nn]
  +-- ! [punct]

The asciitree package is required to visualize Stanford Dependencies as a tree. If it is not available, the dependencies will be shown in CoNLL-X format.

There is more detailed help inside the shell under the help command.

The Tree class

The parser provides a simple (immutable) Tree class which provides information about Penn Treebank-style trees:

>>> tree = bllipparser.Tree('(S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .)))')
>>> print tree
(S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .)))

pretty_string() provides a line-wrapped stringification:

>>> print tree.pretty_string()
(S1 (S (NP (DT This))
     (VP (VBZ is)
      (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree)))
     (. .)))

You can obtain the tokens and tags of the tree:

>>> print tree.tokens()
('This', 'is', 'a', 'fairly', 'simple', 'parse', 'tree', '.')
>>> print tree.tags()
('DT', 'VBZ', 'DT', 'RB', 'JJ', 'NN', 'NN', '.')
>>> print tree.tokens_and_tags()
[('This', 'DT'), ('is', 'VBZ'), ('a', 'DT'), ('fairly', 'RB'), ('simple', 'JJ'), ('parse', 'NN'), ('tree', 'NN'), ('.', '.')]

Or get information about the labeled spans in the tree:

>>> print tree.span()
(0, 8)
>>> print tree.label
S1

You can navigate within the trees and more:

>>> tree.subtrees()
[Tree('(S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .))')]
>>> tree[0] # first subtree
Tree('(S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .))')
>>> tree[0].label
'S'
>>> tree[0][0] # first subtree of first subtree
Tree('(NP (DT This))')
>>> tree[0][0].label
'NP'
>>> tree[0][0].span()
(0, 1)
>>> tree[0][0].tags()
('DT',)
>>> tree[0][0].tokens() # tuple of all tokens in this span
('This',)
>>> tree[0][0][0]
Tree('(DT This)')
>>> tree[0][0][0].token
'This'
>>> tree[0][0][0].label
'DT'
>>> tree[0][0][0].is_preterminal()
True
>>> len(tree[0]) # number of subtrees
3
>>> for subtree in tree[0]:
...    print subtree
...
(NP (DT This))
(VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree)))
(. .)
>>> for subtree in tree.all_subtrees(): # all subtrees (recursive)
...     print subtree.is_preterminal(), subtree
...
False (S1 (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .)))
False (S (NP (DT This)) (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))) (. .))
False (NP (DT This))
True (DT This)
False (VP (VBZ is) (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree)))
True (VBZ is)
False (NP (DT a) (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple)) (NN parse) (NN tree))
True (DT a)
False (ADJP (RB fairly) (JJ simple))
True (RB fairly)
True (JJ simple)
True (NN parse)
True (NN tree)
True (. .)

More examples and advanced features

See the examples directory in the repository.

Release summaries

• 2015.07.23: Fix build error, other build system improvements

• 2015.07.08: Constrained parsing, reranker can now be built with optimization (30% faster), other API additions

• 2015.01.11: Improved PyStanfordDependencies support, memory leak fixed, API additions, bugfixes

• 2014.08.29: Add Tree class, RerankerFeatureCorpus module, other API updates

• 2014.02.09: Add ModelFetcher, RerankingParser improvements

• 2013.10.16: distutils support, initial PyPI release