[erg] Jul-06 release of ERG

[Dan Flickinger]

Colleagues -

I am happy to announce the second public release of the ERG this year,
the version named "Jul-06".  The most notable changes since the January
release are the following:

1) A new, more predictable naming scheme for (leaf) lexical types, which
   will affect those of you with files or code that explicitly mention
   these names (types ending in "_le"), which you might have in old
   treebank profiles, lexical acquisition code, etc.  You will find the 
   mapping from old to new names in the file "erg/new-le-types.txt".  
   You will even find documentation of these newly renamed lexical types 
   on the DELPH-IN wiki by tomorrow.
2) Updated and new treebanked profiles for about 10,000 items, including
   now the full development corpus for LOGON.  See the directory "erg/gold".
   The grammar also includes an updated parse-ranking model built from
   the LOGON treebanks, which you'll find in "erg/jh.mem"
3) More consistent semantic composition throughout the grammar, with
   diagnosis of previous errors greatly improved with the use of the fine
   'utool' utility at http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/projects/chorus/utool/
   Also improved the semantics for comparatives and superlatives, in 
   collaboration with LOGON colleagues.
4) Improved external interface for properties of semantic variables, with
   the mapping specified in "erg/semi.vpm".

Note that this release still includes messages, as we are using them in
the LOGON demonstrator.  As announced at Fefor, the first release of the
de-messaged ERG can be expected early in 2007.

Cheers,

 Dan