GF in Alfa, May 11, 2000.
(photo Setta Aspström)

Aarne Ranta

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Computing Science of Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg.

Research

My principal interests are natural language technology, functional programming, and type theory.

I am a member of the Programming Logic Group and the Language Technology Group. I have also worked in joined projects with the Formal Methods Group and the Functional Programming Group.

My main current project is the Grammatical Framework. It is a special-purpose programming language for writing gramars. It is designed, in particular, for writing multilingual grammars, on top of which one can build interactive applications.

The BNF Converter is a GF spin-off designed for implementation of compiler front-ends. The software is also available as a part of Debian Linux distribution ("testing package").

Functional Morphology is a project where morphological resources (inflection and analysis engines, lexica) are developed for use in GF and as generic resources.

A piece of earlier work is PESCA, which is a small Proof Editor for Sequent Calculus.

Starting November 2001, I am responsible for the research project Interactive Language Technology funded by VINNOVA, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems.

In Spring 2004, I was in charge of organizing the conference Language Technology in Sweden.

I am involved in two European projects: TALK = Tools for Ambient Linguistic Knowledge and TYPES.

Publications

Here is a list of my publications, some of which are available in electronic form.

Graduate Teaching

I still have the pleasure to supervise

• Markus Forsberg, 2002-, Licentiate exam December 2004.
• Kristofer Johannisson, 2000-, Licentiate exam March 2003.
• Janna Khegai, 2000-, Licentiate exam February 2004.

Undergraduate Teaching

Year 2003-2004

In March-May ("läsperiod 4"), I will teach a course on Natural Language Technology. It is aimed for Computer Science students who want to learn the basics of linguistic theory and its computational applications, either for practical purposes or in order to continue with more advanced courses in a linguistics department.

In addition, I am supervising Master's students. Here are some potential Master's Thesis Projects.

Earlier years

In the autumn terms of 1999, 2000, and 2001, I taught a first-year Haskell course entitled Programmering för naturvetare, del 1.

In the spring terms of 2002 and 2003, and 2004, I taught Compiler Construction.

In the spring term of 2004, I taught Natural Language Technology.

In the spring term of 2001, I taught Datalingvistisk projektkurs together with Olof Torgersson. In the autumn terms of 1999 and 2000, I taught Programming projects together with K.V.S. Prasad.

Computers

Personal

Address and telephone