Shortening the OED: experience with a grammar-defined database

@article{Blake1992ShorteningTO,
  title={Shortening the OED: experience with a grammar-defined database},
  author={G. Elizabeth Blake and Tim Bray and Frank Wm. Tompa},
  journal={ACM Trans. Inf. Syst.},
  year={1992},
  volume={10},
  pages={213-232}
}
Textual databases with highly variable structure can be usefully described by a grammar-defined model. One example of such a text is the Oxford English Dictionary. This paper describes a first attempt to apply technology based on this model to a real problem. A language called GOEDEL, which is a partial implementation of a set of grammar-defined database operators, was used to extract and alter a subset of the OED in order to assist the editors in their production of The Shorter Oxford English… 
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