parses

Parses is the third-person singular present tense form of the verb parse. The verb to parse means to analyze a sequence of symbols, words, or data according to a formal grammar, in order to reveal its structure or meaning.

In linguistics, parsing refers to the cognitive or computational process of assigning a syntactic structure to a sentence. A parse result is often represented as a parse tree (constituency) or a dependency graph, showing how words relate to one another and identifying functions such as subject or predicate.

In computer science, parsing analyzes input data according to a formal grammar. A parser reads source code, data formats, or natural language text and outputs a data structure such as a parse tree or an abstract syntax tree. This structure is used for further processing, such as compilation, interpretation, or data extraction.

Techniques include top-down and bottom-up parsing, recursive-descent parsers, shift-reduce parsers, and chart parsers. In compiler design, parsers are often generated by tools like YACC/Bison or ANTLR, given a grammar that defines valid programs or data structures.

Challenges include ambiguity in natural language, error handling when input does not conform to the grammar, and performance considerations for large inputs or complex grammars. Ambiguity may require disambiguation strategies or probabilistic methods.

Applications span programming language compilers and interpreters, data format validation (such as XML or JSON), data extraction, and NLP pipelines where syntactic structures inform downstream tasks like semantic interpretation or information retrieval.