A finite-state approach to arabic broken noun morphology

In this paper, a finite-state computational approach to Arabic broken plural noun morphology is introduced. The paper considers the derivational aspect of the approach, and how generalizations about dependencies in the broken plural noun derivational system of Arabic are captured and handled computationally in this finite-state approach. The approach will be implemented using Xerox finite-state tool

Temiar Reduplication in One-Level Prosodic Morphology

Temiar reduplication is a difficult piece of prosodic morphology. This paper presents the first computational analysis of Temiar reduplication, using the novel finite-state approach of One-Level Prosodic Morphology originally developed by Walther (1999b, 2000). After reviewing both the data and the basic tenets of One-level Prosodic Morphology, the analysis is laid out in some detail, using the notation of the FSA Utilities finite-state toolkit (van Noord 1997). One important discovery is that in this approach one can easily define a regular expression operator which ambiguously scans a string in the left- or rightward direction for a certain prosodic property. This yields an elegant account of base-length-dependent triggering of reduplication as found in Temiar.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Finite-State Phonology: SIGPHON-2000, Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Phonology, pp.13-21. Aug. 6, 2000. Luxembour

Toward a widely usable finite-state morphology workbench for less studied languages, 1: Desiderata

Most of the world’s languages lack electronic word form dictionaries. The linguists who gather such dictionaries could be helped with an efficient morphology workbench that adapts to different environments and uses. A widely usable workbench could be characterized, ideally, as generally applicable, extensible, and freely available (GEA). It seems that such a solution could be implemented in the framework of finite-state methods. The current work defines the GEA desiderata and starts a series of articles concerning these desiderata in finite- state morphology. Subsequent parts will review the state of the art and present an action plan toward creating a widely usable finite-state morphology workbench.Most of the world’s languages lack electronic word form dictionaries. The linguists who gather such dictionaries could be helped with an efficient morphology workbench that adapts to different environments and uses. A widely usable workbench could be characterized, ideally, as generally applicable, extensible, and freely available (GEA). It seems that such a solution could be implemented in the framework of finite-state methods. The current work defines the GEA desiderata and starts a series of articles concerning these desiderata in finite- state morphology. Subsequent parts will review the state of the art and present an action plan toward creating a widely usable finite-state morphology workbench.Peer reviewe

Common Infrastructure for Finite-State Based Methods and Linguistics Descriptions

Finite-state methods have been adopted widely in computational morphology and related linguistic applications. To enable efficient development of finite-state based linguistic descriptions, these methods should be a freely available resource for academic language research and the language technology industry. The following needs can be identified: (i) a registry that maps the existing approaches, implementations and descriptions, (ii) managing the incompatibilities of the existing tools, (iii) increasing synergy and complementary functionality of the tools, (iv) persistent availability of the tools used to manipulate the archived descriptions, (v) an archive for free finite-state based tools and linguistic descriptions. Addressing these challenges contributes to building a common research infrastructure for advanced language technology.Peer reviewe

Finite-State Spell-Checking with Weighted Language and Error Models : Building and Evaluating Spell-Checkers with Wikipedia as Corpus

In this paper we present simple methods for construction and evaluation of finite-state spell-checking tools using an existing finite-state lexical automaton, freely available finite-state tools and Internet corpora acquired from projects such as Wikipedia. As an example, we use a freely available open-source implementation of Finnish morphology, made with traditional finite-state morphology tools, and demonstrate rapid building of Northern Sámi and English spell checkers from tools and resources available from the Internet.Peer reviewe