Syntactic analysis is a useful procedure for identifying and classifying parts and elements of a given sentence.
Syntactic analysis is an expression used in the field of linguistics to refer to the process carried out to study the links of hierarchy and agreement between groups of words and explore syntactic functions .
It is an essential mechanism for an adequate understanding of texts and a correct interpretation of them. It is a practice that also contributes to understanding everything from the structure of sentences to the functioning of a certain language, as well as helping to acquire and perfect linguistic skills that translate into the development of clear and well-formulated messages.
When carrying out a syntactic analysis, it is possible to mark, first of all, what and how both the subject and the predicate of a sentence are. Identifying cores, their modifiers, and plugins is also part of the procedure. Before continuing with information on this matter, it is necessary to highlight that in the field of programming, the parser (or syntactic analyzer ) is used to explore strings of texts, recognize their syntactic structure and extract useful information from there.
Types of parsing
When collecting data on syntactic analysis, multiple varieties come to light that serve to appreciate the scope, uses and modalities of this type of process.
One of the most common and easiest categories to distinguish in practice identifies school syntactic analysis . Generally, the style taught is based on traditional grammar and encompasses simple and compound sentences, verbal and noun phrases, etc.
Automatic syntactic analysis , meanwhile, can be carried out thanks to a system prepared to function as a sentence syntactic analyzer .
Those who specialize in Computer Science , for their part, do not hesitate to highlight how technological innovation has been generating advances in precision and efficiency in compilers. The most modern ones, for example, manage to excel in the mastery of complex programming languages thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence and the technique known as predictive syntactic analysis . In this framework, the top-down analysis method and the bottom-up analysis method usually appear as alternatives. Furthermore, it is interesting to differentiate between traditional syntactic analysis (capable of analyzing the entire source code on a single occasion) and incremental syntactic analysis (which processes the source code as it is edited).
Natural language processing has also had, in recent times, an evolution that favors compilers from syntactic analysis resources in which there are predictive parsing algorithms suitable for predicting common errors and providing corrections automatically thanks to analysis models. machine learning .
Writing improves, as does text comprehension, when you know how to syntactically analyze a sentence.
Applications
When browsing the Internet, one discovers the existence of different programs and applications that serve to improve text comprehension and writing through syntactic analysis . There is even a free web editor that can be used by those who need to carry out a morphological or syntactic analysis process, for example.
Beyond being used when recognizing the components of a certain sentence (such as the subject , the predicate , the verb , the phrases , etc.), it is worth keeping in mind that syntactic analysis is not exclusive to the level of linguistics . Within the programming language there are rules that establish the guidelines of the syntactic structure that characterizes the programs. With data syntactic analysis , by referring to a specific action, a data transformation is achieved to a different format compared to the original.
Syntactic analysis allows us to identify subject, predicate, verb and other components within a sentence.
Examples of parsing
Those who want to learn about syntactic analysis to work with sentences need to learn by combining theory and practice . At this point, descriptions, indications and references serve as examples .
Knowing and respecting basic steps in the process of analyzing sentences syntactically reduces the chances of mistakes. That is why we will make a brief guide taking as a starting point the following simple sentence : “My boyfriend's cousin gave me a huge plant last night.”
It is convenient to start the analysis by identifying the verb , which in this case is “gifted” . Once this instance is completed, you have to ask yourself , “Who gave a huge plant last night?” With the answer we arrive at the subject of the sentence : “My boyfriend's cousin” .
You must continue analyzing, if there are, complements of the subject. This time, it would be “from my boyfriend.” We must not lose sight of the fact that the predicate is everything that does not integrate the subject. And once the terms are separated, it is necessary to determine if the complement(s) of the verb exist, and what they are and what particularities they possess ( “an immense plant” , “me” , “last night” ).
In a compiler, on the other hand, parsing is recognized for its power to capture the hierarchy that is expressed in the input and convert it into what is called a “derivation tree.” This panorama, say specialists on the subject, translates into token processing in pursuit of the construction of a data structure (which can be abstract syntax trees or a parse tree ).