AsTeRICS Grid Dynamic Communicator
20 – Main menu – Grammar correction
What is it?
Grammar correction is a service that is part of the ARASAAC API and integrates Natural Language Processing (NLP) using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in applications and software related to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). This API performs grammatical inflections (verb conjugation, gender and number agreement…) automatically in Spanish and can be used in communication and language modelling activities through Assisted Natural Language (ANL).
AsTeRICS Grid connects to the Grammar Correction API provided by ARASAAC, thus facilitating automatic grammar correction of sentences.
Authors
The grammatical correction has been developed thanks to the collaboration of Eduardo Lleida Solano, Professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering and Communications of the University of Zaragoza, José Manuel Marcos Rodrigo, ARASAAC consultor, now retired, and the ARASAAC team.
Requirements and features
Currently, the grammar correction API is only available in Spanish and as an online service provided by ARASAAC it requires the device to be connected to the Internet in order to function.
How to activate it?
In the Asterics Grid Main Menu, under the Communicator Configuration section, at the bottom of the page is the Miscellaneous section. Within it we will activate the grammar correction by clicking on the checkbox “Enable automatic grammar correction through ARASAAC’s Natural Language API”..
How does it work?
Grammar correction works transparently for the end user and for the people who configure the communicator, since it makes the correction on the sentence already constructed once it has been analysed. No pre-configuration of the communicator is required.
When acting on the sentence, in order for it to function correctly, we will construct sentences with the structure SUBJECT + VERB + COMPLEMENT/S.
If for example we construct the sentence “YO COMER ENSALADA”….
…. Once we click on PLAY the sentence will be sent to the API for analysis and it will return the sentence “YO COMO ENSALAD”.
In this example it was only necessary to conjugate the verb in the first person singular. As there is no word establishing the verb tense, the present tense is taken as the default verb tense.
If we add a word indicating past or future tense, the API will conjugate the verb accordingly. In this other example we see how adding “AYER” conjugates the verb in the simple past tense.
Verb conjugation also takes the subject as a reference for analysis. In this way we can construct sentences with any person. In this example we see a sentence constructed with the TÚ (second person singular).
Finally, the API is also able to match gender and number between articles, nouns and adjectives as we can see in the examples below. The noun always takes precedence in establishing gender and number over the other grammatical elements.
In this first example we see how the article UN, when accompanied by GAFAS, is transformed into UNAS by the system.
In this last, more complex example, we can see how corrections are made both in the subject (la maestra), in the verb conjugation (she talks to) and in the circumstantial complement (los amigos).
