ANACONJ Analyzer of the conjunction AND in Spanish using syntactic patterns and semantic frames

Abstract

Conjunctions have different interpretations: they eliminate redundancies: “Mar´ıa se ba˜n´o y se pein´o” (Maria bathed and she combed her hair), unite different ideas: “Hoy llovi´oyno fui a corer” (Today it rained and I did not go to run) and use of lists: “EranAlma, Edith y Omar” (They were Alma, Edith and Omar). Conjunctions take different semantic contexts. We understand each other because of the common sense despite expressing ourselves incorrectly from the standpoint of semantics, but for a computer it is difficult. In order to “understand” the sentences, the machine must solve semantics problems; this article exposes one of these problems. ANACONJ is an algorithm of pattern recognition of texts, which uses rules and syntactic patterns that analyze each word of a sentence in a phrase, identifying those sentences with conjunctions to build a semantic tree of the sentence where the conjunction connects words (nouns, verbs, etc.) according to their meaning. ANACONJ could be used as a teaching Spanish software tool and as an app for a service robot too.