1. An apparatus for syntactic signal analysis, comprising: primitive conversion means for converting an input signal to a string of primitives; normalized primitive conversion means, responsive to the primitive conversion means, for converting the primitives to a corresponding string of normalized primitives; wherein conversion from a primitive to a set of at least one normalized primitive results in a loss of information content; feature extraction means, responsive to the primitive conversion means and the normalized primitive conversion means, for at least partially restoring the loss of information content, between a primitive and the corresponding set of at least one normalized primitive, by extracting features associated with a primitive; grouping means, responsive to the feature extraction means, for grouping the features extracted from a primitive into at least one current feature group corresponding to the primitive; assignment means, responsive to the grouping means, for assigning, relative to a particular primitive, the at least one current feature group to the normalized primitives to which the particular primitive corresponds; a memory for storing a grammar, the grammar including: grammar rules; and declared feature groups; a grammar rule establishing a relationship between a non-terminal and a replaceable set of terms, the rule permitting an occurrence of the replaceable set to be replaced by the non-terminal; the terms in the replaceable set including at least one of a terminal, a non-terminal, and an empty-symbol, a terminal being equivalent to a normalized primitive; a declared feature group being associated with the non-terminals and with the replaceable sets of the reduction rules; parsing means, responsive to the normalized primitive conversion means and operatively interconnected to the memory, for shifting the stream of normalized primitives onto a stack as terms in the stack until a grammar rule is satisfied, and for applying the grammar rule to replace a replaceable set of terms on the stack with a non-terminal; feature checking means, operatively connected to the memory, responsive to the assignment means and parsing means when the parsing means determines that a grammar rule is satisfied, for processing a current feature group, associated with a replaceable set of terms of the satisfied grammar rule, to produce a violation score if the grammar rule and the corresponding declared feature groups are not satisfied perfectly; production of the violation score by the feature checking means enabling a sequence of normalized primitives, that would otherwise not satisfy any grammar rule not having feature groups corresponding thereto, to satisfy at least one grammar rule and the corresponding declared feature groups, albeit to a lesser degree of satisfaction than a situation where no violation score is generated.