MaltParser 0.23

This is the home page for MaltParser, Version 0.23, a system for data-driven dependency parsing, which can be used to induce a parsing model from treebank data and to parse new data using an induced model. Besides instructions for downloading the system for various platforms, this page also contains a user guide.

Relation to older versions:

From Version 0.1 to 0.2:
1. Parsing algorithms: Nivre's algorithm (Nivre 2003) has been reimplemented and Covington's incremental algorithm (Covington 2001) has been added.
2. Learning algorithms: Support vector machines, using LIBSVM (Chang and Lin 2005), has been added in addition to memory-based learning, using TiMBL (Daelemans and Van den Bosch 2005).
3. Feature models: A specification language for feature models has been implemented, which allows the user to specify arbitrary combinations of lexical features, part-of-speech features, and dependency type features. (This functionality replaces the hard-coded models supplied with version 0.1.)
From Version 0.2 to 0.21: More robust handling of input and output and new options for setting maximum sentence length, maximum token length and maximum number of features.
From Version 0.21 to 0.22: New option for setting maximum tag length and command line flags for all options.
From Version 0.22 to 0.23: New options for character encoding and root label.

Download MaltParser 0.23

MaltParser 0.23 can be downloaded as binaries and is available on three platforms:

The software can be used freely for non-commercial research and educational purposes. It comes with no warranty, but we welcome all comments, bug reports, and suggestions for improvements.

MaltParser 0.23 uses libTimbl, part of TiMBL (Tilburg Memory-Based Learner), Version 5.1, and LIBSVM, Version 2.8, in order to learn parsing models from treebanks, and we gratefully acknowledge the use of these software packages. However, MaltParser 0.23 is a standalone application, so there is no need to install either TiMBL or LIBSVM separately.

Shortcut

For users who only want to have a decent robust dependency parser (and who are not interested in experimenting with different parsing algorithms, learning algorithms and feature models), we provide pretrained parsing models for a selection of languages:

These models can be used together with MaltParser to get a running parser without having access to training data from a treebank. Note, however, that the parser presupposes that the input has been segmented and tagged for parts-of-speech in accordance with the format of the original treebank (see details for each language).

User Guide for MaltParser 0.23

This is a short user guide for MaltParser 0.23, a data-driven parser that uses dependency-based syntactic representations and treebank-induced classifiers to guide the parser at nondeterministic choice points. The guide includes basic instructions for running the system, including a specification of the option file used to control the system's behavior, and is followed by a short presentation of the parsing methodology implemented in the system. More information about parsing algorithms, learning algorithms and feature models can be found in the following publications:

Chang, C.-C. and Lin, C.-J. (2005) LIBSVM: A Library for Support Vector Machines. URL: http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/papers/libsvm.pdf.
Covington, M. A. (2001) A Fundamental Algorithm for Dependency Parsing. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual ACM Southeast Conference, pp. 95-102.
Daelemans, W. and Van den Bosch, A. (2005) Memory-Based Language Processing. Cambridge University Press.
Nivre, J. (2003) An Efficient Algorithm for Projective Dependency Parsing. In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Parsing Technologies (IWPT 03), Nancy, France, 23-25 April 2003, pp. 149-160.
Nivre, J., Hall, J. and Nilsson, J. (2004) Memory-Based Dependency Parsing. In Ng, H. T. and Riloff, E. (eds.) Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL), May 6-7, 2004, Boston, Massachusetts, pp. 49-56.
Nivre, J. (2004) Incrementality in Deterministic Dependency Parsing. In Incremental Parsing: Bringing Engineering and Cognition Together. Workshop at ACL-2004, Barcelona, Spain, July 25, 2004.
Nivre, J. and Scholz, M. (2004) Deterministic Dependency Parsing of English Text. In Proceedings of COLING 2004, Geneva, Switzerland, August 23-27, 2004.

Running MaltParser

The parser can be run in two basic modes, learning (inducing a parsing model from a treebank) and parsing (using the parsing model to parse new data). In the current version of the parser, new data must be tokenized and part-of-speech tagged in the Malt-TAB format. Regardless of mode, MaltParser is normally run by executing the following command at the command line prompt:

> ./maltparser -f file

where file is the name of an option file, specifying all the parameters needed. From version 0.22 it is also possible to specify options using command line flags, which will override any settings included in the option file. (Although it is possible to run the program using only flags and no option file, it is usually more convenient to combine the two methods.) The option file and the flags are described in detail below. A list of all flags and options can be obtained by running MaltParser with the -h flag:

> ./maltparser -h

Option File

The option file contains a sequence of parameter specifications with the following simple syntax:

$PARAMETER$
VALUE

In addition, the option file may contain comment lines starting with "--". The following table lists all the available parameters with their permissible values. Default values are marked with "*". Parameters that lack a default value must be specified in the option file (if they are required by the particular configuration of modules invoked). An example option file can be found here.

In the following table, we describe the different options that can be specified in the option file. Options that have no default value must be specify. For each option we also give the flag that can be used for specifying the option directly in the command line (overriding any specifications in the option file).

Global Parameters Flag Description Values Description
INFILE -i Input file Filename The input (for both learning and parsing) must be in the Malt-TAB format. During learning the four columns form, postag, head, deprel are required; during parsing only the first two (form, postag) are required. An example input file can be found here.
OUTFILE -o Output file Filename
OUTFORMAT -O Output data format TAB
MALTXML*
TIGERXML Malt-TAB
Malt-XML
TIGER-XML
CHARSET -C Character set ISO-8859-1*
UTF-8
... NB: The user must verify that the character encoding in the input file conforms to the specification of this option. The parser does not check that the encoding is correct and only escapes the characters ", ', &, <, > if the output format is MALTXML or TIGERXML.
VERBOSE -v Output to terminal YES*
NO
MAXSENTENCELENGTH -z Maximum number of tokens per sentence Integer Default = 512
MAXTOKENLENGTH -y Maximum number of characters per token Integer Default = 256
Tagset Parameters Flag Description Values Description
MAXTAGLENGTH -w Maximum number of characters per tag name Integer Default = 128
POSSET -P Part-of-speech tagset Filename The part-of-speech tagset must be specified in a text file with one tag per line (and no blank lines). An example file can be found here.
DEPSET -D Dependency type tagset Filename The dependency type tagset must be specified in a text file with one tag per line (and no blank lines). An example file can be found here.
ROOTLABEL -R Dependency type label used for roots String Default = ROOT
Parser Parameters Flag Description Values Description
MODE -m Mode (learning or parsing) PARSE* Parsing (using an induced model to parse new data)
LEARN Learning (inducing a model from treebank data)
ALGORITHM -a Parsing algorithm
(see description below) NIVRE*
COVINGTON Nivre (2003, 2004)
Covington (2001) (incremental)
PARSEROPTIONS -p Parser options (algorithm specific) -a [ES] Arc order (NIVRE):
E(ager), S(tandard)
NB: In flag, whitespace is replaced by underscore (e.g. "-a_E" instead of "-a E").
-g [NP] Graph condition (COVINGTON):
N(on-Projective), P(rojective)

Guide Parameters Flag Description Values Description
MAXFEATURES -c Maximum number of features of each type Integer Default = 30
FEATURES -F Feature model specification
(see description below) Filename Model specified in Filename.par
NB: If no feature model specification can be loaded, a default specification equivalent to m3.par is used for parsing.
Learner Parameters Flag Description Values Description
LEARNER -l Learner type
(see description below) MBL*
SVM Memory-based learning (TiMBL)
Support vector machine (LIBSVM)
LEARNEROPTIONS -L Parameter settings (learner specific) String TiMBL example: "-m M -k 5 -w 0 -d ID -L 3" (see TiMBL Documentation)
NB: In flag, whitespace is replaced by underscore (e.g. "-m_M_-k_5" instead of "-m M -k 5").
LIBSVM example: "-t 0" (see LIBSVM Documentation)

Inductive Dependency Parsing

MaltParser can be characterized as a data-driven parser-generator. While a traditional parser-generator constructs a parser given a grammar, a data-driven parser-generator constructs a parser given a treebank. MaltParser is an implementation of inductive dependency parsing, where the syntactic analysis of a sentence amounts to the derivation of a dependency structure, and where inductive machine learning is used to guide the parser at nondeterministic choice points. This parsing methodology is based on three essential components:

Deterministic parsing algorithms for building dependency graphs.
History-based feature models for predicting the next parser action.
Discriminative machine learning to map histories to parser actions

Given the restrictions imposed by these components, MaltParser has been designed to give maximum flexibility in the way components can be varied independently of each other. We now describe the functionality for each of the components in turn.

Parsing Algorithms

Any deterministic parsing algorithm compatible with the MaltParser architecture has to operate with the following set of data structures, which also provide the interface to the feature model:

A stack STACK of partially processed tokens, where STACK[i] is the i+1th token from the top of the stack, with the top being STACK[0].
A list INPUT of remaining input tokens, where INPUT[i] is the i+1th token in the list, with the first token being INPUT[0].
A stack CONTEXT of unattached tokens occurring between the token on top of the stack and the next input token, with the top CONTEXT[0] being the token closest to STACK[0] (farthest from INPUT[0]).
A function HEAD defining the partially built dependency structure, where HEAD[i] is the syntactic head of the token i (with HEAD[i] = 0 if i is not yet attached to a head).
A function DEP labeling the partially built dependency structure, where DEP[i] is the dependency type linking the token i to its syntactic head (with DEP[i] = ROOT if i is not yet attached to a head).
A function LC defining the leftmost child of a token in the partially built dependency structure (with LC[i] = 0 if i has not left children).
A function RC defining the rightmost child of a token in the partially built dependency structure (with RC[i] = 0 if i has not right children).
A function LS defining the next left sibling of a token in the partially built dependency structure (with LS[i] = 0 if i has no left siblings).
A function RS defining the next right sibling of a token in the partially built dependency structure (with RS[i] = 0 if i has no right siblings).

An algorithm builds dependency structures incrementally by updating HEAD and DEP, but it can only add a dependency arc between the top of the stack (STACK[0]) and the next input token (INPUT[0]) in the current configuration. (The context stack CONTEXT is therefore only used by algorithms that allow non-projective dependency structures, since unattached tokens under a dependency arc are ruled out in projective dependency structures.) MaltParser provides two basic parsing algorithms, each with two options:

Nivre's algorithm (Nivre 2003, Nivre 2004) is a linear-time algorithm limited to projective dependency structures. It can be run in arc-eager (-a E) or arc-standard (-a S) mode (cf. Nivre 2004).
Covington's algorithm (Covington 2001) is a quadratic-time algorithm for unrestricted dependency structures, which proceeds by trying to link each new token to each preceding token. It can be run in a projective (-g P) mode, where the linking operation is restricted to projective dependency structure, or in a non-projective (-g N) mode, allowing non-projective (but acyclic) dependency structures. In non-projective mode, the algorithm uses the CONTEXT stack to store unattached tokens occurring between STACK[0] and INPUT[0] (from right to left).

Feature Models

MaltParser uses history-based feature models for predicting the next action in the deterministic derivation of a dependency structure, which means that it uses features of the partially built dependency structure together with features of the (tagged) input string. More precisely, features are defined in terms of the word form (LEX), part-of-speech (POS) or dependency type (DEP) of a token defined relative to one of the data structures STACK, INPUT and CONTEXT, using the auxiliary functions HEAD, LC, RC, LS and RS. A feature model is defined in an external feature specification with the following syntax:

<fspec>  ::= <feat>⁺ 

<feat>   ::= <lfeat> | <nlfeat>

<lfeat>  ::= LEX \t <dstruc> \t <off> \t <suff> \n

<nlfeat> ::= (POS|DEP) \t <dstruc> \t <off> \n

<dstruc> ::= (STACK|INPUT|CONTEXT)

<off>    ::= <nnint> \t <int> \t <nnint> \t <int> \t <int>

<suff>   ::= <nnint> 

<int>    ::= (...|-2|-1|0|1|2|...)

<nnint>  ::= (0|1|2|...)

As syntactic sugar, any <lfeat> or <nlfeat> can be truncated if all remaining integer values are zero. An example feature specification can be found here. Each feature is specified on a single line, consisting of at least two tab-separated columns. The first column defines the feature type to be lexical (LEX), part-of-speech (POS), or dependency (DEP). The second column identifies one of the main data structures in the parser configuration, usually the stack (STACK) or the list of remaining input tokens (INPUT), as the ``base address'' of the feature. (The third alternative, CONTEXT, is relevant only together with Covington's algorithm in non-projective mode.) The actual address is then specified by a series of ``offsets'' with respect to the base address as follows:

The third column defines a list offset i, which can only be positive and which identifies the i+1th token in the list/stack specified in the second column (i.e. STACK[i], INPUT[i] or CONTEXT[i]).
The fourth column defines a linear offset i, which can be positive (forward/right) or negative (backward/left) and which refers to (relative) token positions in the original input string.
The fifth column defines an offset i in terms of the HEAD function, which has to be non-negative and which specifies i applications of the HEAD function to the token identified through preceding offsets.
The sixth column defines an offset i in terms of the LC or RC function, which can be negative (| i | applications of LC), positive (i applications of RC), or zero (no applications).
The seventh column defines an offset i in terms of the LS or RS function,which can be negative (| i | applications of LS), positive (i applications of RS), or zero (no applications).

Let us consider a few examples:

POS     STACK   0       0       0       0       0
POS     INPUT   1       0       0       0       0
POS     INPUT   0       -1      0       0       0
DEP     STACK   0       0       1       0       0
DEP     STACK   0       0       0       -1      0

The feature defined on the first line is simply the part-of-speech of the token on top of the stack (TOP). The second feature is the part-of-speech of the token immediately after the next input token in the input list (NEXT), while the third feature is the part-of-speech of the token immediately before NEXT in the original input string (which may not be present either in the INPUT list or the STACK anymore). The fourth feature is the dependency type of the head of TOP (zero steps down the stack, zero steps forward/backward in the input string, one step up to the head). The fifth and final feature is the dependency type of the leftmost dependent of TOP (zero steps down the stack, zero steps forward/backward in the input string, zero steps up through heads, one step down to the leftmost dependent). Using the syntactic sugar of truncating all remaining zeros, these five features can also be specified more succintly:

POS     STACK
POS     INPUT   1
POS     INPUT   0       -1
DEP     STACK   0       0        1
DEP     STACK   0       0        0       -1

The only difference between lexical and non-lexical features is that the specification of lexical features may contain an eighth column specifying a suffix length n. By convention, if n = 0, the entire word form is included; otherwise only the n last characters are included in the feature value. Thus, the following specification defines a feature the value of which is the four-character suffix of the word form of the next left sibling of the rightmost dependent of the head of the token immediately below TOP.

LEX     STACK   1       0        1       1       -1      4

Finally, it is worth noting that if any of the offsets is undefined in a given configuration, the feature is automatically assigned a null value.

Feature Model Examples

Some of the features regularly used in feature models are depicted below. Red features are lexical features (LEX); blue features are part-of-speech features (POS); and green features are dependency features (DEP).

The following table shows three of the models provided with Version 0.1 of MaltParser (there called MBL2, MBL3 and MBL4 because MBL was the only learner type supported in that version). For each model we also give a link to the feature specification for that model.

Models Top Next T N TH TL TR NL TH TL TR NL L1 L2 L3 Feature specification
M2 + + + + + + + m2.par
M3 + + + + + + + + + m3.par
M4 + + + + + + + + + + + m4.par

Learning Algorithms

Inductive dependency parsing requires a learning algorithm to induce a mapping from parser histories, relative to a given feature model, to parser actions, relative to a given parsing algorithm. MaltParser comes with two different learning algorithms, each with a wide variety of parameters:

Memory-based learning and classification (Daelemans and Van den Bosch 2005) stores all training instances at learning time and uses some variant of k-nearest neighbor classification to predict the next action at parsing time. MaltParser uses the software package TiMBL to implement this learning algorithm, and supports all the options provided by that package.
Support vector machines rely on kernel functions to induce a maximum-margin hyperplane classifier at learning time, which can be used to predict the next action at parsing time. MaltParser uses the library LIBSVM (Chang and Lin 2005) to implement this algorithm with all the options provided by this library.

Global Parameters	Flag	Description	Values	Description
INFILE	-i	Input file	Filename	The input (for both learning and parsing) must be in the Malt-TAB format. During learning the four columns form, postag, head, deprel are required; during parsing only the first two (form, postag) are required. An example input file can be found here.
OUTFILE	-o	Output file	Filename
OUTFORMAT	-O	Output data format	TAB MALTXML* TIGERXML	Malt-TAB Malt-XML TIGER-XML
CHARSET	-C	Character set	ISO-8859-1* UTF-8 ...	NB: The user must verify that the character encoding in the input file conforms to the specification of this option. The parser does not check that the encoding is correct and only escapes the characters ", ', &, <, > if the output format is MALTXML or TIGERXML.
VERBOSE	-v	Output to terminal	YES* NO
MAXSENTENCELENGTH	-z	Maximum number of tokens per sentence	Integer	Default = 512
MAXTOKENLENGTH	-y	Maximum number of characters per token	Integer	Default = 256
Tagset Parameters	Flag	Description	Values	Description
MAXTAGLENGTH	-w	Maximum number of characters per tag name	Integer	Default = 128
POSSET	-P	Part-of-speech tagset	Filename	The part-of-speech tagset must be specified in a text file with one tag per line (and no blank lines). An example file can be found here.
DEPSET	-D	Dependency type tagset	Filename	The dependency type tagset must be specified in a text file with one tag per line (and no blank lines). An example file can be found here.
ROOTLABEL	-R	Dependency type label used for roots	String	Default = ROOT
Parser Parameters	Flag	Description	Values	Description
MODE	-m	Mode (learning or parsing)	PARSE*	Parsing (using an induced model to parse new data)
			LEARN	Learning (inducing a model from treebank data)
ALGORITHM	-a	Parsing algorithm (see description below)	NIVRE* COVINGTON	Nivre (2003, 2004) Covington (2001) (incremental)
PARSEROPTIONS	-p	Parser options (algorithm specific)	-a [ES]	Arc order (NIVRE): E(ager), S(tandard) NB: In flag, whitespace is replaced by underscore (e.g. "-a_E" instead of "-a E").
			-g [NP]	Graph condition (COVINGTON): N(on-Projective), P(rojective)

Guide Parameters	Flag	Description	Values	Description
MAXFEATURES	-c	Maximum number of features of each type	Integer	Default = 30
FEATURES	-F	Feature model specification (see description below)	Filename	Model specified in Filename.par NB: If no feature model specification can be loaded, a default specification equivalent to m3.par is used for parsing.
Learner Parameters	Flag	Description	Values	Description
LEARNER	-l	Learner type (see description below)	MBL* SVM	Memory-based learning (TiMBL) Support vector machine (LIBSVM)
LEARNEROPTIONS	-L	Parameter settings (learner specific)	String	TiMBL example: "-m M -k 5 -w 0 -d ID -L 3" (see TiMBL Documentation) NB: In flag, whitespace is replaced by underscore (e.g. "-m_M_-k_5" instead of "-m M -k 5").
				LIBSVM example: "-t 0" (see LIBSVM Documentation)