Morphological Analysis of the Qur’an

Abstract

We present a computational system for morphological analysis and an-notation of the Qur’an, for research and teaching purposes. The system facil-itates a variety of queries on the Qur’anic text that make reference not only to the words but also to their linguistic attributes. The core of the system is a set of finite-state based rules which describe the morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic phenomena of the Qur’anic language. Using a finite-state toolbox we apply the rules to the Qur’anic text and obtain full morphological analysis of its words. The results of the analysis are stored in an efficient database and are accessed through a graphical user interface which facili-tates the presentation of complex queries. The system is currently being used for teaching and research purposes; we exemplify its usefulness for investi-gating several morphological, syntactic, semantic and stylistic aspects of the Qur’anic text. 2