Noun phrases consisting of a sequence of nouns (sometimes referred to as nominal compounds) pose considerable difficulty for language analyzers but are common in many technical domains. The problems are compounded when some of the nouns in the sequence are ambiguously also verbs. The phrasal approach to language analysis, as implemented in PHRAN (PHRasal ANalyzer), has been extended to handle the recognition and partial analysis of such constructions. The phrasal analysis of a noun sequence is performed to an extent sufficient for continued analysis of the sentence in which it appears. PHRAN is currently being used as part of.
