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Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic analysis

Short answer

NLP enables computers to understand and generate human language. Syntactic analysis checks grammar and builds a parse tree (e.g., rejecting “Boy the rice eats”). Semantic analysis extracts literal meaning (e.g., eat(boy, rice)) and rejects nonsensical sentences. Pragmatic analysis interprets the intended meaning using context (e.g., “Do you know the time?” as a request).

What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)? Explain the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic analysis of NLP.

Natural language processing (NLP) is the branch of AI that makes computers understand, interpret and generate human language such as English or Nepali, in written or spoken form.

Syntactic analysis (parsing)

It checks whether a sentence follows the grammar of the language and builds a parse tree showing the structure. It uses a lexicon and grammar rules such as S → NP VP, NP → Det N, VP → V NP.

 "The boy eats rice"
          S
        /   \
      NP     VP
     /  \   /  \
   Det   N  V    NP
   The  boy eats  rice

"The boy eats rice" is accepted; "Boy the rice eats" is rejected. Techniques: top-down and bottom-up parsing, transition networks, chart parsing.

Semantic analysis

It finds the meaning of the sentence from the parse tree and word meanings, mapping it to a representation such as logic or a frame, and checks that it makes sense. "The boy eats rice" becomes eat(boy, rice). "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" is syntactically valid but semantically meaningless. It also resolves word senses ("bank").

Pragmatic analysis

It interprets the sentence using context, speaker intention and world knowledge to get the real meaning. "Do you know the time?" means "Please tell me the time", not a question about knowledge. It also resolves references across sentences ("He took it").

Sequence: syntactic (structure) -> semantic (literal meaning) -> pragmatic (intended meaning in context).

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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