Beginner · NLP

Linguistic Rules

Visual diagram · (in preparation) · Math · (in preparation) · Worked example · 3 difficulty levels.

TL;DR. Explicit, human-defined rules that govern grammar, syntax, and semantics of language, used in some NLP systems.

Technical Definition

Explicit, human-defined rules that govern grammar, syntax, and semantics of language, used in some NLP systems.

How it works

Linguistic rules are handcrafted guidelines that describe patterns and structures in language. These rules can be used by symbolic NLP systems to identify parts of speech, syntactic structures, or semantic relationships. While data-driven methods are prevalent, rule-based systems offer transparency and control, especially for highly specific or low-resource languages.