Natural language symbol string storage

Abstract

Natural language applications often require the storage of various symbol strings. Both unidirectional trees and lattices may be used to hold a symbolic data base consisting of lexes, lemes, or other symbol strings. This paper empirically compares placing symbolic information into trees and lattices. (A lattice may be thought of as a unidirec tional network with single, initiating, and terminating nodes.) The use of lattices in this way is an extension of the commonly used tree structure. The empirical study presented is the first on this topic known to the author.