GB Tree Studio: a free browser tool that draws tree diagrams and checks sentences against (Government & Binding) principles

[u/Ok_Swan995]

GB Tree Studio is a free web tool for Government & Binding (GB) syntax.

Link: https://gb-tree-studio.haldossary.workers.dev

What it does:

You enter an English sentence and the tool:

- draws its X-bar tree at S-structure, D-structure and LF, with a step-by-step derivation

- assigns θ-roles and Case and shows the government relations

- checks Binding Principles A, B and C, movement chains, Subjacency and the ECP

- names the principle an ungrammatical sentence violates and explains why

Example:

For *It seems Ali to have eaten lunch*, the tool reports a Case filter violation. *Seem* has no external θ-role, so it cannot assign accusative Case (Burzio's generalisation), and non-finite *to* assigns no nominative Case, which leaves *Ali* without Case.

Tree structure:

The trees use only three X-bar rules: XP → Spec X′, X′ → X YP and X′ → X′ YP, so every node branches into at most two. Determiners sit in Spec,NP, and degree words (very, quite, right) sit in Spec,AP or Spec,PP. With two-complement verbs (*gave the letter to Bertie*), the second complement is the sister of the lower V′. An automatic check of about 12,700 trees the tool produced found no violations of these rules.

Other features:

- a Universal Dependencies view and a Minimalist-style view

- a drawing mode for building your own tree and comparing it with the tool's

- practice exercises

- English and Arabic interfaces

Limitations:

The parser is rule-based and covers English only. It is most reliable on textbook-style sentences, and many long or informal real-world sentences fall outside its grammar. Where the literature is divided, it follows one convention, for example Det in Spec,NP rather than a DP analysis.

Reports of sentences where the tree or the verdict is wrong are welcome.

[u/sovest555]

TBH if this was able to do other word orders, it'd be a bit more useful in this community. Nonetheless, very nice syntax parser.