Babel 2

Babel2 connects the implementations of our core technologies such as Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) and Incremental Recruitment Language (IRL) with mechanisms for multi-agent interactions, robotic embodiment, cognitive processing and learning. An extensive monitoring system gives access to every detail of Babel2’s intermediate representations and dynamics and a high modularity ensures that the system can be used in a very wide variety of scenarios.

Babel2 is written in Common Lisp and runs in most major Lisp implementations (ccl, sbcl, lispworks) on all major platforms (linux, mac os x, windows). Its source code is frequently released to the public under the GNU General Public License.

A large body of publications (check ​here for a selection) use and support these frameworks and a growing list of people have contributed or are in some way involved with Babel2, FCG or IRL.

Fluid Construction Grammar

Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) which is part of Babel 2 is a computational framework for exploring issues in construction grammar. This unification-based grammar formalism uses feature structures for representing linguistic knowledge, and it can apply the same constructions in both parsing and production. FCG also comes with a web interface for visualizing the application of constructions during language processing and the resulting constructs. FCG can be used on any software platform with a running Common Lisp programming environment.

Downloading and installing Babel 2

Download Babel2.zip​ (release of 1 January 2012).

Then follow the instructions for:

1. installing a Lisp environment for Babel2
2. using Emacs together with Lisp
3. getting Babel2 running

Documentation about Babel2 can be found in the Babel2 manual​.

Links

• ​FCG-net
• ​Emergent Languages
• ​The ALEAR Project
• ​The DRUST Project
• ​Construction Grammar
• ​VUB AI-Lab
• ​Sony CSL Paris