# parse-latin

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A Latin-script language parser for [**retext**][retext] producing **[nlcst][]**
nodes.

Whether Old-English (“þā gewearþ þǣm hlāforde and þǣm hȳrigmannum wiþ ānum
penninge”), Icelandic (“Hvað er að frétta”), French (“Où sont les toilettes?”),
`parse-latin` does a good job at tokenizing it.

Note also that `parse-latin` does a decent job at tokenizing Latin-like scripts,
Cyrillic (“Добро пожаловать!”), Georgian (“როგორა ხარ?”), Armenian (“Շատ հաճելի
է”), and such.

## Install

This package is ESM only: Node 12+ is needed to use it and it must be `import`ed
instead of `require`d.

[npm][]:

```sh
npm install parse-latin
```

## Use

```js
import {inspect} from 'unist-util-inspect'
import {ParseLatin} from 'parse-latin'

const tree = new ParseLatin().parse('A simple sentence.')

console.log(inspect(tree))
```

Which, when inspecting, yields:

```txt
RootNode[1] (1:1-1:19, 0-18)
└─0 ParagraphNode[1] (1:1-1:19, 0-18)
    └─0 SentenceNode[6] (1:1-1:19, 0-18)
        ├─0 WordNode[1] (1:1-1:2, 0-1)
        │   └─0 TextNode "A" (1:1-1:2, 0-1)
        ├─1 WhiteSpaceNode " " (1:2-1:3, 1-2)
        ├─2 WordNode[1] (1:3-1:9, 2-8)
        │   └─0 TextNode "simple" (1:3-1:9, 2-8)
        ├─3 WhiteSpaceNode " " (1:9-1:10, 8-9)
        ├─4 WordNode[1] (1:10-1:18, 9-17)
        │   └─0 TextNode "sentence" (1:10-1:18, 9-17)
        └─5 PunctuationNode "." (1:18-1:19, 17-18)
```

## API

This package exports the following identifiers: `ParseLatin`.
There is no default export.

### `ParseLatin(value)`

Exposes the functionality needed to tokenize natural Latin-script languages into
a syntax tree.
If `value` is passed here, it’s not needed to give it to `#parse()`.

#### `ParseLatin#tokenize(value)`

Tokenize `value` (`string`) into letters and numbers (words), white space, and
everything else (punctuation).
The returned nodes are a flat list without paragraphs or sentences.

###### Returns

[`Array.<Node>`][nlcst] — Nodes.

#### `ParseLatin#parse(value)`

Tokenize `value` (`string`) into an [NLCST][] tree.
The returned node is a `RootNode` with in it paragraphs and sentences.

###### Returns

[`Node`][nlcst] — Root node.

## Algorithm

> Note: The easiest way to see **how parse-latin tokenizes and parses**, is by
> using the [online parser demo][demo], which
> shows the syntax tree corresponding to the typed text.

`parse-latin` splits text into white space, word, and punctuation tokens.
`parse-latin` starts out with a pretty easy definition, one that most other
tokenizers use:

*   A “word” is one or more letter or number characters
*   A “white space” is one or more white space characters
*   A “punctuation” is one or more of anything else

Then, it manipulates and merges those tokens into a ([nlcst][]) syntax tree,
adding sentences and paragraphs where needed.

*   Some punctuation marks are part of the word they occur in, such as
    `non-profit`, `she’s`, `G.I.`, `11:00`, `N/A`, `&c`, `nineteenth- and…`
*   Some full-stops do not mark a sentence end, such as `1.`, `e.g.`, `id.`
*   Although full-stops, question marks, and exclamation marks (sometimes) end a
    sentence, that end might not occur directly after the mark, such as `.)`,
    `."`
*   And many more exceptions

## License

[MIT][license] © [Titus Wormer][author]

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[npm]: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install

[demo]: https://wooorm.com/parse-latin/

[license]: license

[author]: https://wooorm.com

[retext]: https://github.com/retextjs/retext

[nlcst]: https://github.com/syntax-tree/nlcst