Aarne Ranta

I am a Professor of Computer Science at Gothenburg University. I work at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University. The department is a part of the IT University of Gothenburg. I'm currently acting as the Head of Division of Computing Science.

Research

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

I am a member of the Programming Logic Group and the Language Technology Group. I also work in joint projects with the Software Methodologies and Systems Group, the Formal Methods Group, and the Functional Programming Group.

My main project in this Millennium has been the Grammatical Framework (GF). GF 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 various applications such as translation and human-machine interaction.

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 ("stable").

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.

Projects

I am involved in two European networks: JEM (Joining Educational Mathematics) and TYPES. In 2004-2006, I was involved in the European project TALK = Tools for Ambient Linguistic Knowledge.

In 2003-2005, I participated in a project funded by Vetenskapsrådet, with the project title Records, types and computational dialogue semantics.

In the years 2001-2004, I was responsible for the research project Interactive Language Technology funded by VINNOVA, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems.

Publications

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

Graduate Teaching

Four of my PhD students have successfully defended their theses:

• Peter Ljunglöf, 1999-2004. Thesis Expressivity and Complexity of the Grammatical Framework, December 2004.
• Kristofer Johannisson, 2000-2005. Thesis Formal and Informal Software Specifications, June 2005.
• Janna Khegai, 2000-2006. Thesis Language engineering in Grammatical Framework (GF), October 2006.
• Markus Forsberg, 2002-2007, Thesis Three Tools for Language Processing: BNF Converter, Functional Morphology, and Extract, September 2007.

• Björn Bringert, 2005-, Licentiate October 2007.
• Håkan Burden, 2007-.
• Krasimir Angelov, 2008-.
• Muhammad Humayoun, 2007-, at the University of Savoie jointly with Christophe Raffalli.

Undergraduate Teaching

Year 2007-2008

In August (period 1),I taught Datorintroduktion ("Introduction to Computers", in Swedish). Despite the name, it is really a first-year course in Haskell, including practical things on how to compile and run programs.

In addition, I am supervising Master's students. A selection of Master's thesis topics can be found on the Digital Grammars Wiki Page.

Earlier years

In the spring terms of 2002 and 2003, and 2004, and in the autumn terms of 2004, 2005, and 2006, I taught Compiler Construction.

In the spring terms of 2004, 2005, and 2005, I taught Natural Language Technology.

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 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.

Personal

Address and telephone

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