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<Paper uid="P87-1033">
  <Title>A Unification Method for Disjunctive Feature Descriptions</Title>
  <Section position="8" start_page="241" end_page="241" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
7 Conclusions
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The unification method presented here represents a general solution to a seemingly intractable problem. This method has been used successfully in an experimental parser for a grammar containing several hundred disjunctions in its description. Therefore, we expect that it can be used as the basis for language processing systems requiring large grammatical descriptions that contain disjunctive information, and refined as necessary and appropriate for specific applications.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> While the range of speed achieved by a straightfQrward implementation of this algorithm is acceptable for grammar testing, even greater efficiency would be desirable (and necessary for applications demanding fast real-time performance).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Therefore, we suggest two types of refinement to this algorithm as topics for future research: using heuristics to determine an opportune ordering of the dlsjuncts within a description, and using parallel hardware to implement the compatibility tests for different disjunctions.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>