Hi all. In 2010 I asked about using Apertium with Berber languages. Since then, it has become clearer how to use hfst. Also, I've released a hunspell-based spellchecker for Kabyle Berber, so I'm much more familiar with the morphology now, more familiar with other Berber languages too, and have promising data sets for them. It's time to pick up Apertium again.
I'm looking at how to define my prefixes and circumfixes with hfst. I'm familiar with general programming and with Berber linguistics, but only superficially with transducers etc. In the 2010 discussion, it was mentioned that "a Finnish student did Tamazigh[t] with Xerox tools some years ago" - does anyone have a reference? Is there an example (for any language) that I can look at regarding circumfixes? On the wiki I found a page "Replacement_for_flag_diacritics" with a Turkish example. I have a general idea of Turkish grammar but the intention of the example (specifically use of +/-aor) is not clear to me. Can anyone explain? Should I use flag diacritics or [] symbols for circumfixes? Below is a snippet from the previous discussion regarding the quirks of Berber languages and their likely support in hfst. Thanks a lot for any enlightenment. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Both Beesley and Koskenniemi have given good analyses for the grid-morphology of Semitic languages, several Ethiopic scholars have done the same (with Xerox tools) for Amharic. Also the Berber-type circumfixes are neatly treted by the Xerox formalism (and, I hope(!), by its open-source cousins). >>>> . From what I can garner, there is some complicated >>>> combination/alteration between prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, but >>>> not much agglutination per se - that is the impression I get from a short glance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Morocco_Tamazight as well. The Xerox formalism handles this, and is well-documented (with Arabic as a textbook example, solution included..., cf also koskenniemi and kataja 1988 on Akkadian) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Apertium-stuff mailing list Apertium-stuff@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/apertium-stuff
