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I am implementing the Inside-outside algorithm to estimate the parameters of a PCFG based on the train corpus. One observation (on existing implementations) is that, the grammar is converted into Chomsky normal form (binarization) prior to the Expectation-Maximization (EM) step.

However, checking the EM formula, I feel the algorithm can work perfectly without the binarization. Thus, I would like to ask if the binarization step is compulsory, or it is to enhance the performance, or it is just to make the formula clean.

Thanks!

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  • Will you be doing plain PCFG where the P depends on just the current nodes or will you also be taking some hierarchy into account? If it's the former, I think not converting it to CNF will be to your advantage, if it's the latter, I would like to know how it turns out for you.
    – prash ♦
    Apr 13, 2015 at 19:13

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