#! perl -slw use strict; my %dict = ( sentence => [ [ qw/ noun_phrase verb_phrase / ] ], noun_phrase => [ [ qw/ Article Noun / ] ], verb_phrase => [ [ qw/ Verb noun_phrase / ] ], Article => [ qw/ the a /], Noun => [ qw/ man ball woman table/ ], Verb => [ qw/ hit took saw liked / ] ); sub rand_elt { return @{ $_[ 0 ] }[ rand @{ $_[ 0 ] } ]; } sub listp { return ref $_[0] eq "ARRAY"; } sub generate; sub generate { my $phrase = shift; return listp( $phrase ) ? map{ generate $_ } @{ $phrase } :exists $dict{ $phrase } ? generate rand_elt $dict{ $phrase } : $phrase; } print join ' ', generate "sentence";