LFGW 0.9
                         General Nature and Use

LFGW is a basic LFG system adapted for doing small (homework-assignment
sized) grammar fragments.  It includes simple morphology and lexical
inheritance, as well as an `error-tolerant parsing' facility (to help
find mistakes in the grammar), but does not implmenent any of the advanced
features of recent LFG (functional uncertainy, anaphoric binding), and also
lacks a workable treatment of long-distance dependencies (this seems odd, but
the purpose of this program is to help students master the basics of LFG,
I've never encountered a student who understood the basics who had any
trouble at all with long-distance dependencies).

LFGW is a Windows port of the DOS-based `LFG-PC' system (`Avery Andrews'
LFG system'), but this version lacks the LFG-PC facilities for semantic
display, but has added the error-tolerant parsing scheme.  the `0.9'
version number indicates that it is pretty raw, and not too extensively
tested (though I have been using it in a class for a few weeks).

It ought to run under 32 bit Windows systems (Win95/Win NT), and under
Windows 3.1 with Win32's installed (which can be obtained by ftp-ing
the file PW1118.EXE from:

   ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES

(in ftp don't try to list the MSLFILES directory, it's HUGE.  Also don't
go to it as a Web URL).

Since it's a newish Windows program, in incorporates a `crash-recovery'
system that writes out your current grammar to a temporary file before
it does anything exciting.  If it crashes, it usually manages to recover
the grammar from this file (but it will loose any changes you have made
to other files).  It can also be configured for lab use, so that students
can conveniently keep their work on personal floppies.


                               License

LFGW may be freely distributed, as long as it is distributed in its
entirety.  Distribution of parts of the system is prohibited.  If you
include additional grammars that you have created yourself, keep them
separate from the supplied examples.

LFGW licensed for free use for any educational or noncommercial purpose.
Commercial use is prohibited without specific written permission. 

The use of this program is entirely at your own risk, and it is not
guaranteed suitable for any particular purpose.  Avery Andrews accepts
no responsibility for any consequences of the use of LFGW.


                             Notes on Setup

Put lfgw09.zip into the directory you want to install LFGW into,
and unpack it with pkunzip, using the -d option (to preserve the
directory structure of the archive):

  pkunzip -d lfgw

You then need to move the file:

  ctl3d32.dll

into your windows\system directory (you may well already have it there,
in which case you can just deleted it from the LFGW directory.

You should then create a Program Group and a Program Item for LFGW.
The command line should give the full directory path for the program,
e.g. if you've put LFGW into c:\lfgw, the command line should be

  c:\lfgw\lfgw

The Working Directory can be set to anything you like, the LFGW directory
will do fine (more on what it does below).

You can start up by clicking on the icon (any ideas for a better one?),
and consult the help menu items (just text files in NotePad, at this point)
for help in getting started.  A good place to start would be the series
of tutorial problems, in the tutorial subdirectory of the lfgw directory.


                    The Working Directory & lfgw.ini

On startup, LFGW looks in the working directory for a file lfgw.ini,
where information is stored about what you were doing in your last
session.  So if you want to work on several projects at once, you can
have different icons specifying different Working Directories, and
the information about each will be recorded separately.


                            Lab Notes

LFGW is designed so that it can be run in a computer lab, with students
keeping their individual work on a floppy.  This can be done conveniently
by putting into the Working Directory a file lfgw.stp, which specifies what
directory the program should write crash-recovery information into, and
where it should look for the user's files.  The lfgw.stp file for the
setup at ANU is:

  lfgw0.9
  crash_recovery c:\temp\
  user_directory a:\

The order has to be as shown, with the name and version first, then
crash_recovery and user_directory, the directory names ending with a
a backslash.  This file should reside in the Working Directory as specified
by the program item.  The user directory specification overrides the
Working Directory as the location where information about sessions is
recorded and read from.

For example, in the ANU setup, the program icon specifies the Working
Directory as `f:\ling2006' (a network drive that students can read
from but not write to), so that's where the lfgw.stp file is.  I put
copies of the tutorial and examples subdirectories onto the students
floppies, so they can modify them, but restore them from the network
drive if they mess them beyond all recovery.


                                Bugs

Are surely legion.  Notify them to:

  Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au


                           Implementation Notes

The interface and some low-level functions are written in BC4/OWL2;
the parser code in Amzi Prolog.  At this point I don't want to distribute
the source code, because its too embarrassing of a mess, but I'd probably
be willing to send it to anyone who promised not to sneer too much.