Intersection of Multitape Transducers vs. Cascade of Binary Transducers: The Example of Egyptian Hieroglyphs Transliteration

International audienceThis paper uses the task of transliterating an Egyptian Hieroglyphic text into the latin alphabet as a model problem to compare two finite-state formalisms : the first one is a cascade of binary transducers; the second one is a class of multitape transducers expressing simultaneous constraints. The two systems are compared regarding their expressivity and readability. The first system tends to produce smaller machines, but is more tricky, whereas the second one leads to more abstract and structured rules.Cet article utilise une tache de translitération des hiéroglyphes égyptiens en alphabet latin pour comparer deux formalismes à états finis: le premier est une cascade de transducteurs binaires; le second repose sur des transducteurs multi-rubans exprimant des contraintes simultanées. Ces deux formalismes sont comparés du point de vue de l'expressivité et de la lisibilité. Le premier produit des machines plus petites mais un peu absconses alors que le second est plus déclaratif et permet des description plus abstraites

A Testing Framework for Finite-State Morphology

International audienceThis paper describes a unit testing framework for the languages which rely on rational relations to describe Natural Language Morphology. A test is divided into two parts: firstly compute a finite-state machine; secondly inspect this machine to compute its cardinality. The first part involves the finite-state machines to be tested and finite-state machines encoding the inputs of the test. A dependency relation is used to relate tests and the components of the description