The link-grammar library doesn't use the zlib library directly or indirectly.
What happens is that zlib.h is needed for the compilation of its sat-solver code
because it is included in a header file of the minisat library which is indirectly
included by the sat-solver code. So zlib (actually zlib.h) is only used when building.
However, if the sqlite library+headers exist when using "configure",
HAVE_SQLITE will get defined, which will bring in code that can use sqlite
(sqlite3_open etc. are referenced in the result link-grammar library).
As this code is currently not fully functional, a solution may be to "configure"
link-grammar without the presence of the sqlite library+headers.
A better solution may be to add a link-grammar "configure" option like "--enable-sqlite".
If you think it is indeed better, I will open an issue there for adding it - to be
included in the next version - 5.3.12.
In any case, 5.3.12 is needed to overcome additional problems in 5.3.11 (some
of them are already fixed in the repository, and for some others pull-requests are
still pending).