Guessing lexicon entries using finite-state methods

A practical method for interactive guessing of LEXC lexicon entries is presented. The method is based on describing groups of similarly inflected words using regular expressions. The patterns are compiled into a finite-state transducer (FST) which maps any word form into the possible LEXC lexicon entries which could generate it. The same FST can be used (1) for converting conventional headword lists into LEXC entries, (2) for interactive guessing of entries, (3) for corpus-assisted interactive guessing and (4) guessing entries from corpora. A method of representing affixes as a table is presented as well how the tables can be converted into LEXC format for several different purposes including morphological analysis and entry guessing. The method has been implemented using the HFST finite-state transducer tools and its Python embedding plus a number of small Python scripts for conversions. The method is tested with a near complete implementation of Finnish verbs. An experiment of generating Finnish verb entries out of corpus data is also described as well as a creation of a full-scale analyzer for Finnish verbs using the conversion patterns

Indexing Old Literary Finnish text

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Aligning phonemes using finte-state methods

The paper presents two finite-state methods which can be used for aligning pairs of cognate words or sets of different allomorphs of stems. Both methods use weighted finite-state machines for choosing the best alternative. Individual letter or phoneme correspondences can be weighted according to various principles, e.g. using distinctive features. The comparison of just two forms at a time is simple, so that method is easier to refine to include context conditions. Both methods are language independent and could be tuned for and applied to several types of languages for producing gold standard data. The algorithms were implemented using the HFST finite-state library from short Python programs. The paper demonstrates that the solving of some non-trivial problems has become easier and accessible for a wider range of scholars.Peer reviewe