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%%% File: SFST-Tutorial.tex %%%
%%% Author: Helmut Schmid %%%
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%%% Created: Thu Mar 1 14:10:49 2007 %%%
%%% Modified: Thu Aug 8 09:36:38 2024 (schmid) %%%
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\title{Developing Computational Morphologies\\Using the SFST Tools}
\author{Helmut Schmid\\\\schmid@cis.lmu.de\\
Center for Information and Language Processing\\
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit{\"a}t\\Munich, Germany}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Introduction}
This tutorial is intended as a hands-on introduction to the
implementation of computational morphologies using the Stuttgart
Finite State Transducer (SFST) tools. It assumes some basic knowledge
of finite automata and formal languages on the reader's side. Although
it is primarily concerned with morphology, it might nevertheless be
also relevant for users working in other areas who want to learn how
to write SFST programs.
The tutorial is organized as follows: Section~\ref{fundamentals} gives
a general answer to the question \emph{What is a finite state
transducer?} Section~\ref{steps} introduces the most basic concepts
and operators of the SFST programming language with simple examples.
Section~\ref{morphology} is the largest section. It contains a
step-by-step introduction to the implementation of a computational
morphology using English as the example language.
There is no intention to achieve full coverage of the English
morphology, here. Only selected phenomena are picked out as instructive
examples and implemented with finite state transducer programs,
leaving other similar phenomena as an exercise. Nevertheless, I hope
that the tutorial is comprehensive enough for the reader to learn all
he/she needs to implement a computational morphology for English or
a different language.
This tutorial is preferably read in front of a computer so that the
reader can immediately test the examples. Of course, the SFST tools
have to be installed first. They are available at
\texttt{http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/projekte/gramotron/SOFTWARE/SFST.html}.
The tutorial contains exercises as well as excursions where aspects of
the SFST syntax and the usage of the SFST tools are addressed in more
detail. A comprehensive description of the SFST syntax is contained in
the SFST manual which is part of the SFST software package.
\section{Finite State Transducers\label{fundamentals}}
A finite state transducer (FST) is basically a finite state automaton
where each transition is labeled with a symbol pair rather than a
single symbol. Figure~\ref{fig:transducer} shows an example. Like
finite automata, FSTs have a single start state and a set of final
states. They can be applied in three different ways:
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centerline{\includegraphics[width=7cm]{transducer}}
\caption{Example transducer in graphical notation with a black start
state and a grey end state}
\label{fig:transducer}
\end{figure}
Analogously to a finite automaton, a FST \emph{accepts} a sequence s
of symbol pairs (instead of symbols) if there is a path from the start
state to some final state where the sequence of symbol pairs on the
transitions is identical to s. The transducer shown in
figure~\ref{fig:transducer}, for instance, accepts the two sequences
\texttt{m:m o:o u:u s:s e:e} and \texttt{m:m o:i u: s:c e:e}. The
second symbol of the symbol pair \texttt{u:} is the \emph{empty}
symbol.
FSTs are mainly used to map strings to other strings. A typical
example is morphological analysis where an inflected word form is
analyzed and the base form is returned with additional morphosyntactic
information.
The transducer in figure~\ref{fig:transducer} \emph{analyzes} the
strings \texttt{mouse} and \texttt{mice} and returns the string
\texttt{mouse} in both cases. In general, a FST maps a string s to a
string t (in \emph{analysis} mode) if there is a path from the start state to
some end state where the right-hand side symbols on the transitions
are identical to s and the left-hand side symbols are identical to
t.
The mapping is reversible: In \emph{generation} mode, a transducer
maps a string s to a string t if the left-hand side symbols on the
transitions of some path from the start state to an end state are
identical to s and the corresponding right-hand side symbols are
identical to t. The transducer shown in figure~\ref{fig:transducer}
generates the strings \texttt{mouse} and \texttt{mice} for the input
string \texttt{mouse}.
It is often helpful to think of a transducer as a (possibly infinite)
set of aligned string pairs such as \texttt{m:m o:i u: s:c e:e}, which
is formed by the set of symbol pair sequences that the transducer
accepts. The disjunction (operator $|$) of two transducers is then
equivalent to the union of the two sets of aligned string pairs; the
conjunction (operator \&) is equivalent to the conjunction of the two
sets, and the subtraction (operator --) of two transducers is
equivalent to the set of string pairs appearing in the first set, but
not in the second.
The concatenation of two transducers includes any string pair
$s=s_1s_2$ where $s_1$ is in the first set and $s_2$ is in the second
set of string pairs.
\section{First Steps\label{steps}}
The SFST tools provide a programming language for the implementation
of finite state transducers which is based on extended regular
expressions. The basic concepts and operators of this language will be
introduced in this section. More advanced operators will follow in
section~\ref{morphology}.
\subsection{Simple Regular Expressions}
SFST programs are essentially (extended) regular expressions. The expression
\begin{verbatim}
Hello
\end{verbatim}
for instance, defines a transducer which accepts the string
\emph{Hello} and returns the same string as the analysis.
\begin{exercise}
Store this expression in a file called \emph{foo.fst} and compile it
with the command:
\begin{verbatim}
> fst-compiler foo.fst foo.a
\end{verbatim}
Start the analyzer program:
\begin{verbatim}
> fst-mor foo.a
analyze> Hello
Hello
analyze> Hi
no result for Hi
\end{verbatim}
In the same way, you can test the transducers presented in
the following paragraphs.
\end{exercise}
The following transducer analyzes several strings, namely the strings
``John'', ``Mary'', and ``James'':
\begin{verbatim}
John | Mary | James
\end{verbatim}
This transducer expression uses the ``or'' operator ($|$) to build the
disjunction of the three basic expressions. Blank and tab characters
are ignored in SFST programs unless they are quoted by a preceding
backslash. The next transducer shows the quotation of the blank
symbol and the symbol ``!'' which is otherwise interpreted as an
operator. The transducer accepts the string ``Hello world!''.
\begin{verbatim}
Hello\ world\!
\end{verbatim}
SFST supports many of the regular expression operators known from Unix
tools such as \emph{egrep} or \emph{Perl}. Among them are the
optionality operator ``?'' (for 0 or 1 repetition), the Kleene
operators ``*'' (for 0 or more repetitions) and ``+'' (for 1 or more
repetitions), and the square bracket notation for character ranges
(including the negation operator \verb#^#).
The following expression uses these operators. It defines a transducer
which accepts numbers including fractional numbers with an optional
sign.
\begin{verbatim}
[+\-]? [0-9]* (\. [0-9]+)?
\end{verbatim}
\subsection{The Colon Operator}
So far, the transducers simply returned the input string as the
``analysis''. We will now see how transducers are implemented which
map strings to other strings. The colon operator (:) is used to
indicate the target symbol to which a single symbol is to be
mapped. The transducer \verb#a:b#, for instance, returns an ``a'' in
analysis mode if a single ``b'' is entered. In generation mode, it is
the other way around and the ``a'' is mapped to a ``b''.
\underline{Attention:} In the Xerox finite state tools, the direction
of the colon operator is opposite: The Xerox transducer \verb#a:b#
would analyze ``a'' as ``b''.
The expression below defines a transducer which maps strings
consisting of lower-case and upper-case characters to the
corresponding string of upper-case characters:
\begin{verbatim}
[A-ZA-Z]:[A-Za-z]*
\end{verbatim}
The expression \verb#[A-ZA-Z]:[A-Za-z]# is equivalent to the
disjunction\\ \verb#A:A | B:B | ... | Z:Z | A:a | B:b | ... | Z:z#.
With a similar expression, we can implement a simple word encryptor
which replaces each character of the input string by the next
character in the alphabet:
\begin{verbatim}
[b-zaB-ZA]:[a-zA-Z]*
\end{verbatim}
Now assume we want to map each character to the next but one character
in the alphabet. We could do that by applying the above transducer
twice, mapping the string \emph{cat} first to \emph{dbu} and then to
\emph{ecv}. This is exactly what the following transducer does:
\begin{verbatim}
[b-za]:[a-z]* || [b-za]:[a-z]*
\end{verbatim}
The \emph{composition} operator ``$||$'' applies its left and right
argument transducers in sequence to the input. The transducer
eventually generated by the compiler performs the mapping in one
step. Thus ``a'' is directly mapped to ``c''. You can see that when
you print the compiled transducer with the command
\verb#fst-print foo.a#
\begin{verbatim}
final: 0
0 c:a 0
0 h:f 0
0 q:o 0
0 f:d 0
...
\end{verbatim}
The output of the \emph{fst-print} command shows the list of state
transitions with the source state, the symbol pair and the target
state of each transition. The order in which the transitions are
printed is random and could be different from the one shown above.
\section{Developing a Morphology\label{morphology}}
A computational morphology analyzes an inflected word form such as
``houses'' and usually returns (i) the base form (lemma) ``house'',
(ii) the part of speech ``Noun'' and (iii) additional features such as
the number ``plural''.
The lemmatization of the word \emph{cats} to \emph{cat} is
accomplished by the transducer:
\begin{verbatim}
cat<>:s
\end{verbatim}
The operator ':' is here used to map the final symbol ``s'' to the
\emph{empty symbol} which is represented by ``\verb#<>#''. The above
expression is an abbreviation of the expression\footnote{Similarly,
our first transducer expression \texttt{Hello} was an abbreviation
of \texttt{H:He:el:ll:lo:o}.}:
\begin{verbatim}
c:c a:a t:t <>:s
\end{verbatim}
The symbol on the left-hand side of a colon belongs to the analysis string,
the symbol on the right-hand side to the surface string.
In order to add information about the part of speech and the number
feature to the analysis string, the transducer should be modified as
follows:
\begin{verbatim}
cat <Noun>:<> <plural>:s
\end{verbatim}
\verb#<#Noun\verb#># and \verb#<#plural\verb#># are
\emph{multi-character symbols} which are treated like a single
character. The above transducer analyzes the string \emph{cats} by
(i) mapping the characters ``c'', ``a'', and ``t'' to themselves, (ii)
inserting the multi-character symbol \verb#<#Noun\verb#>#, and (iii)
mapping ``s'' to the symbol \verb#<#plural\verb#>#.
\begin{exercise}
Store the above expression in the file \emph{morph.fst}, compile it
and start \emph{fst-mor}. Analyze the string \emph{cats}. Enter an
empty line in order to switch to generation mode and generate the
inflected word form for the string
``cat\verb#<#Noun\verb#>#\verb#<#plural\verb#>#''.
\begin{verbatim}
analyze> cats
cat<Noun><plural>
analyze>
generate> cat<Noun><plural>
cats
\end{verbatim}
\end{exercise}
The next transducer produces exactly the same mapping as the
previous transducer. Nevertheless the two transducers are different
because the alignment of surface and analysis symbols is different.
\begin{verbatim}
cat <Noun>:s <plural>:<>
\end{verbatim}
We are know ready to implement a simple computational morphology for
English as shown below.
\begin{verbatim}
a<Det>:<><sg>:<> |\
a\.m\.<Adv>:<> |\
...
zymurgy:i<>:e<>:s<Noun>:<><pl>:<> |\
zymurgy<Noun>:<><sg>:<>
\end{verbatim}
The periods have to be quoted because they have a special
meaning in SFST. The backslash at the end of the line tells the
compiler that the expression continues in the following line.
The compilation of this transducer is rather slow. A more efficient
implementation of the same transducer is obtained by storing most of
the relevant information in a separate \emph{lexicon} file which is
processed much faster than regular SFST code because lexicon files use
a restricted syntax: the only operators available are the colon and
the backquote. Any other operator symbol and also the blank and tab
characters are interpreted literally. Multi-character symbols such as
\verb#<sg># are recognized and treated as a single symbol.
The lexicon file for our simple English full-form morphology has the
following content:
\begin{verbatim}
a<Det>:<><sg>:<>
a.m.<Adv>:<>
...
zymurgy:i<>:e<>:s<Noun>:<><pl>:<>
zymurgy<Noun>:<><sg>:<>
\end{verbatim}
When the compiler reads the lexicon file, it converts each line into a
transducer and combines the transducers with an ``or'' operation. This
is the reason why the $|\backslash$ at the end of the line is missing.
The main program of the transducer looks as follows:
\begin{verbatim}
"morph.lex"
\end{verbatim}
This command reads the lexicon file and returns the resulting
transducer.\footnote{This example will only work with SFST version 1.3
or higher. Previous versions treated the multi-character symbols in
the lexicon file literally as a sequence of characters because they
were not seen before in the main program.}
\begin{exercise}
Store the above line in the file \emph{morph.fst} and create a file
\emph{morph.lex} with lexicon entries. Compile \emph{morph.fst} and
try to analyze different word forms using \emph{fst-mor}.
\end{exercise}
\textbf{Caveat:} The file names should only contain ASCII characters!
Adding all the \verb#:<># character sequences in the lexicon file is
cumbersome and makes the lexicon file less readable. We will later
see how they can be inserted automatically.
\subsection{The Period as a Wildcard Symbol}
The period is a wildcard symbol which stands for any available symbol
pair. The set of \emph{available} symbol pairs is listed in the
\emph{alphabet}. The alphabet is defined by a command of the form
\verb#ALPHABET = ...expression...# and changes whenever this command
is used. The compiler computes the actual value of the alphabet by
first compiling \emph{...expression...} to a transducer and then
extracting all symbol pairs occurring on transitions of the resulting
transducer. All of the following commands define the alphabet as the
set \{a:a,b:b,c:b\}:
\begin{verbatim}
ALPHABET = a b c:b
ALPHABET = a | b | c:b
ALPHABET = [a-c]:[ab]
\end{verbatim}
The expression \verb#[a-c]:[ab]# is first expanded to
\verb#[abc]:[ab]# and then to \verb#a:a|b:b|c:b#.
The next transducer program replaces lower-case characters with
upper-case characters.
\begin{verbatim}
ALPHABET = [A-Z] [A-Z]:[a-z]
.*
\end{verbatim}
The alphabet is here defined as the set \{A:A, B:B, ..., Z:Z, A:a,
B:b, ..., Z:z\}. The wildcard symbol ``.'' is replaced by the
disjunction of all these character pairs. The resulting transducer is
equivalent to the transducer \verb#[A-ZA-Z]:[A-Za-z]*# seen earlier.
We are now ready to define a new version of our morphology which
deletes the part-of-speech and feature symbols in the surface string
of the transducer.
\begin{verbatim}
ALPHABET = [a-zA-Z\.] [<Det><Noun><Verb><Adj><Adv><Prep><sg><pl>]:<>
"morph.lex" || .*
\end{verbatim}
The corresponding lexicon file looks as follows:
\begin{verbatim}
a<Det><sg>
a.m.<Adv>
...
zymurgy:i<>:e<>:s<Noun><pl>
zymurgy<Noun><sg>
\end{verbatim}
\subsection{Inflection Classes}
In order to avoid an explicit enumeration of all the possible
inflected word forms for a given lemma (such as \emph{walk},
\emph{walks}, \emph{walked}, \emph{walking} for the verb \emph{to
walk}), we can put all lemmas belonging to the same inflection class
into a separate lexicon file and add the different inflectional
endings in the main program. The lexicon file \emph{verb-reg.lex} for
regular verbs might contain the following entries:
\begin{verbatim}
walk
gain
mention
\end{verbatim}
These verbs are inflected by adding either \emph{s}, \emph{ed},
\emph{ing}, or nothing. The following transducer program reads the
lexicon and adds the endings.
\begin{verbatim}
"verb-reg.lex" <Verb>:<> (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
\end{verbatim}
The expression \verb#{<past>}:{ed}# is equivalent to
\verb#<past>:e<>:d#. The symbols from the two symbol sequences which
are enclosed in curly brackets are pairwise combined, adding empty
symbols at the end as needed.
The parentheses are needed to indicate that \verb#<Verb>:<># is
concatenated with the disjunction of all endings and not just with
\verb#{<3s>}:{s}#.
Similarly, we create a lexicon file \emph{noun-reg.lex} for nouns with
regular nominal inflection:
\begin{verbatim}
cat
house
door
\end{verbatim}
and extend the transducer program. The transducer is now so complex,
that it is better to build it in several steps, using the variables
\verb#$verb-reg-infl$# and \verb#$noun-reg-infl$# to store intermediate
transducers:
\begin{verbatim}
$verb-reg-infl$ = <Verb>:<> (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun>:<> (\
{<sg>}:{} |\
{<pl>}:{s})
"verb-reg.lex" $verb-reg-infl$ |\
"noun-reg.lex" $noun-reg-infl$
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Extend the above program with adjectival inflection. The transducer
should be able to analyze the word forms
\emph{quick/quicker/quickest}.
\end{exercise}
\begin{excursion}
When a transducer program fails to produce the correct results, the
following debugging strategies might be helpful:
Store intermediate transducers \texttt{\$T\$} in a file using commands
such as \verb#$T$ >> "file.a"# within the SFST program. Call
\texttt{fst-generate file.a} in the shell to generate mappings from
analysis strings to surface strings allowed by the intermediate
transducer. Check whether the results are as expected.
If the compilation of the transducer takes a long time because the
lexicon is very large, replace the lexicon with a smaller one
containing only entries which are relevant for debugging.
\end{excursion}
\subsection{Negation}
SFST has two different complement (or negation) operators. The
expression \verb#[^b]# represents the set of all symbols without
``b''. \emph{All symbols} means \emph{all symbols used in the program
up to this point}. Therefore, the transducer \verb#a:[^b]# maps (in
generation mode) the character ``a'' to any symbol encountered before
except ``b''.
``!'' is the negation operator for transducers. \verb#!$T$# is
equivalent to \verb#.* - $T$# which is the set of all mappings allowed
by the alphabet (\verb#.*#) minus the set of mappings performed by the
transducer which is stored in \verb#$T$#. Note that \verb#!a:b# is
very different from \verb#a:[^b]#.
\subsection{Orthographic and Phonological Rules}
We can treat verbs such as \emph{to paste} as regular verbs if we add
a rule \emph{delete-e} which deletes the final ``e'' when a vowel
follows. The deletion rule is implemented with the two-level-rule
operation \verb#e<=><> (<Verb>:<> [ei])# which replaces ``e'' by the
empty symbol if and only if the symbol \verb#<VERB># and an ``e'' or an
``i'' follows.
\begin{verbatim}
$verb-reg-infl$ = <Verb> ({<3s>}:{s} | {<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} |{<gerund>}:{ing} | {<n3s>}:{} | {<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun> ({<sg>}:{} | {<pl>}:{s})
$morph$ = "verb-reg.lex" $verb-reg-infl$ | "noun-reg.lex" $noun-reg-infl$
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] [<Verb><Noun>]:<> e:<>
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb>:<> [ei])
$morph$ || $delete-e$
\end{verbatim}
In contrast to the previous version, the \verb#<Verb># symbol is not
immediately deleted at the surface level when the inflection
transducer \verb#$verb-reg-infl$# is created. Instead it is preserved
here to indicate the position where the deletion rule is to be
applied. Without this marker, the rule would also delete an ``e'' in
verbs such as \emph{to feel} or \emph{to unveil}. The deletion rule
is applied by composing the morphology transducer stored in
\verb#$morph$# with the rule transducer stored in \verb#$delete-e$#:
\begin{exercise}
Add the lemma \emph{paste} to the lexicon file \emph{verb-reg.lex},
compile the above transducer, and use it to analyze and generate
word forms.
Extend the program such that the word forms \emph{later} and
\emph{latest} are correctly analyzed.
\end{exercise}
Two-level rules have to be preceded by the definition of an alphabet
which comprises all symbol pairs that will appear in the
two-level-rule transducer. The proper definition of the alphabet is
very important. Omissions (or insertions) often have severe
consequences. The above alphabet specifies that the \verb#<Verb>#
symbol is to be deleted. Therefore, we have to write \verb#<Verb>:<>#
rather than \verb#<Verb># in the context part of the rule. Otherwise,
the rule would never match because a two-level rule specifies both,
the analysis and the surface layer of the rule context.
\begin{excursion}
The compiler translates two-level rules to complex transducer
expressions. The rule \verb#L a<=>b R# (where L and R are some
transducer expressions) is first replaced by a conjunction of two
more basic rules: \verb#L a<=b R & L a=>b R#.
The rule \verb#L a<=b R# means: \emph{Whenever ``a'' appears between
``L'' and ``R'', it has to be mapped to ``b''.} (This rule still
allows ``a'' to be mapped to ``b'' in other contexts.)
The rule \verb#L a=>b R# means: \emph{The mapping of ``a'' to ``b''
is only allowed if ``L'' precedes and ``R'' follows.} (It also
allows that ``a'' is mapped to something else in the given context.)
The rule \verb#L a<=b R# is equivalent to the expression
\verb#!(.*L (a:. & !a:b) R.*)#. The sub-expression \verb#a:. & !a:b#
represents the set of all mappings of ``a'' allowed by the alphabet
except for the mapping ``a:b''\footnote{Note that the expression
\texttt{a:. \& !a:b} is not equivalent to \texttt{a:[$\hat{~}$b]}
because the latter expression includes symbol pairs which are not
part of the alphabet.}.
The expression\verb#.*L (a:. & !a:b) R.*# comprises all mappings of
strings allowed by the alphabet that include an illicit mapping of
``a'' to a symbol other than ``b'' in the context \verb#L...R#. Its
negation \verb#!(.*L (a:. & !a:b) R.*)# includes all string
mappings without such an illicit substring mapping.
The rule \verb#L a=>b R# is replaced by the expression
\verb#!(!(.*L) a:b .* | .* a:b !(R.*))#. The sub-expression
\verb#!(.*L) a:b .*# includes all string mappings where the mapping
a:b occurs with a wrong left context. \verb#.* a:b !(R.*)# includes
all mappings where the mapping a:b occurs with an incorrect right
context. \verb#!(!(.*L) a:b .* | .* a:b !(R.*))#.
\verb#!(.*L) a:b .*# therefore includes the set of string mappings
allowed by the alphabet where the mapping a:b neither occurs with
the wrong left context nor with the wrong right context. In other
words, a:b only occurs with the correct left and right context.
``L'' and ``R'' are any transducer expressions. They should always
be enclosed in parentheses in order to avoid problems with operator
precedence.
\end{excursion}
We can write a rule which is similar to the \emph{delete-e} rule to
replace ``y'' with ``i'' if ``e'' follows. This rule correctly maps
the string \emph{apply<Verb>ed} to \emph{applied} (in generation mode).
\begin{verbatim}
$verb-reg-infl$ = <Verb> ({<3s>}:{s} | {<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} | {<gerund>}:{ing} | {<n3s>}:{} | {<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun> ({<sg>}:{} | {<pl>}:{s})
$morph$ = "verb-reg.lex" $verb-reg-infl$ | "noun-reg.lex" $noun-reg-infl$
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] [<Verb><Noun> e]:<> y:i
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb>:<> [ei])
$y-to-i$ = y <=> i (<Verb>:<> e)
$morph$ || ($delete-e$ & $y-to-i$)
\end{verbatim}
The above transducer combines the two-level rules with a conjunction
operation (\&).
\begin{excursion}
The conjunction (or intersection) of two transducers T1 and T2 maps
a string ``s'' to a string ``t'' iff both T1 and T2 map ``s'' to
``t'' \emph{via the same alignment} of surface and analysis symbols.
The last point is important. Although both of the following
transducers produce the analysis \emph{cat$\langle$N$\rangle$$\langle$pl$\rangle$} for the string
\emph{cats}, their conjunction is nevertheless empty:
\begin{verbatim}
$T1$ = cat<>:s<N>:<><pl>:<>
$T2$ = cat<N>:s<pl>:<>
$T1$ & $T2$
\end{verbatim}
\end{excursion}
The combination of orthographic rules by conjunction often leads to
unexpected interactions between the rules which are difficult to
foresee, increase rapidly with the number of rules, and complicate the
development process. Therefore it is usually better to combine
two-level rules with composition (i.e.\ to apply them in sequence
rather than in parallel).
The following transducer composes the two-level rules and is otherwise
equivalent to the previous transducer. The part-of-speech labels are
deleted in a separate step. Note that the two rules now require
different alphabet definitions.
\begin{verbatim}
$verb-reg-infl$ = <Verb> ({<3s>}:{s} | {<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} | {<gerund>}:{ing} | {<n3s>}:{} | {<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun> ({<sg>}:{} | {<pl>}:{s})
$morph$ = "verb-reg.lex" $verb-reg-infl$ | "noun-reg.lex" $noun-reg-infl$
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun> e:<>
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb> [ei])
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun> y:i
$y-to-i$ = y <=> i (<Verb> e)
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] [<Verb><Noun>]:<>
$delete-POS$ = .*
$morph$ || $delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $delete-POS$
\end{verbatim}
This transducer still fails to produce the word form \emph{applies}.
In order to generate it, we need to substitute ``y'' with ``ie''. A
two-level rule can only substitute a single symbol with zero or one,
but not with two symbols. Thus a more powerful \emph{string
replacement operation} (shown in the next example) has to be used
instead.
\begin{verbatim}
...
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun>
$y-to-ie$ = {y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)
$morph$ || $delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $y-to-ie$ || $delete-POS$
\end{verbatim}
The expression \verb#{y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)# defines a
transducer which maps the string ``y'' to the string ``ie'' iff it is
followed by either \verb#<Noun># or \verb#<Verb># and an ``s''. Any
other symbol than a ``y'' in this particular context is mapped
according to the alphabet, i.e.\ mapped to itself. This rule will also
produce the plural noun form \emph{hobbies} if we add the lemma
\emph{hobby} to the lexicon file \emph{noun-reg.lex}.
There are two important differences between the two-level rules and
the replace rule: The context of the two-level rules specifies the
symbols on the analysis level as well as on the surface level, whereas
the replace operation only specifies the symbols on the analysis
level.
The other difference between the two types of rules concerns the
definition of the alphabet. The two-level rule
\verb#y <=> i (<Verb> e)# requires that the symbol pair y:i is added
to the alphabet. The alphabet for the rule
\verb#{y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)#, on the other hand, only
contains the symbol pairs appearing outside of the replaced
substring(s).
\begin{excursion}
Replace operations have the general form \verb# T ^-> (L__R)#, where
T is a transducer expression and L and R are automata, i.e.\
transducers which map strings only to themselves. A replace
operation performs the following mapping: If T maps some string
``s'' to a string ``t'', then the replace transducer substitutes any
substring ``s'' of the input string with ``t'' (in generation mode)
if and only if it appears with the left context L and right context
R. Any other substring is mapped according to the alphabet.
The replace operator \verb#^-># matches the contexts L and R with
the symbols on the analysis level. There are three other, less
frequently used variants of the replace operator, namely (1)
\verb#_->#, (2) \verb#/->#, and (3) \verb#\-># which match (1) the
left and right contexts with the \emph{surface} symbols, (2) the
left context with the surface symbols and the right context with the
analysis symbols, and (3) the left context with the analysis symbols
and the right context with the surface symbols.
\end{excursion}
Another orthographic rule is needed to duplicate the final
consonant in the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives such
as \emph{big}, \emph{red}, \emph{thin}, or \emph{flat}. The following
partial program shows one possible implementation of such a rule. It
includes comments which start with the character ``\%'' and extend up
to the end of the line.
\begin{verbatim}
$verb-reg-infl$ = <Verb> ({<3s>}:{s} | {<past>}:{ed} | {<part>}:{ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{ing} | {<n3s>}:{} | {<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun> ({<sg>}:{} | {<pl>}:{s})
$adj-reg-infl$ = <Adj>\
({<pos>}:{} | {<comp>}:{er} | {<sup>}:{est})
$morph$ = "verb-reg.lex" $verb-reg-infl$ |\
"noun-reg.lex" $noun-reg-infl$ | "adj-reg.lex" $adj-reg-infl$
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun><Adj> e:<>
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb> [ei])
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun><Adj> y:i
% also covers happy -> happily
$y-to-i$ = y <=> i ([<Verb><Adj>] [el])
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun><Adj>
$y-to-ie$ = {y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] [<Verb><Noun><Adj>]:<>
$delete-POS$ = .*
% consonants
$c$ = [bcdfghjklmnprstvwxz]
% vowels
$v$ = [aeiou]
% duplication of the consonant
$T$ = b<>:b | d<>:d | g<>:g | l<>:l | m<>:m | n<>:n | p<>:p | t<>:t
ALPHABET = [A-Za-z] <Verb><Noun><Adj>
% the complete duplication rule
$duplicate$ = $T$ ^-> ($c$$v$ __ <Adj> e(r|st))
$R$ = $delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $y-to-ie$ || $duplicate$ || $delete-POS$
$morph$ || $R$
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Add morpho-phonological rules for other phenomena such as the
e-insertion in the plural forms of nouns ending with ``s'' or ``x''.
\end{exercise}
\subsection{Agreement Variables}
Agreement variables are special \emph{synchronized} variables whose name
starts with the symbol ``=''. All appearances of agreement variables
in a regular expression are guaranteed to have identical values. The
following program, for instance, defines a transducer which recognizes
the strings \emph{bib}, \emph{did}, and \emph{gig} and nothing else.
\begin{verbatim}
$=1$ = [bdg]
$=1$ i $=1$
\end{verbatim}
The following transducer expression shows how agreement variables can
\begin{verbatim}
#=C# = bdglmnpt
$T$ = {[#=C#]}:{[#=C#][#=C#]}
\end{verbatim}
be used to implement the duplication operation
\verb#$T$ = b<>:b | d<>:d |...# which was previously used to generate
word forms such as \emph{bigger}. We need a new type of variables here
whose value is a set of symbols rather than a transducer. Such symbol
set variables have to be enclosed with hash symbols. If the name
begins with ``='', the variable is in addition an agreement variable.
\subsection{Compounding}
So far, we have only dealt with inflection. Another important
morphological process is \emph{compounding}. It creates words such as
\emph{whiteboard}, \emph{sunlight}, or \emph{workday} by concatenating
two stems. Only the second stem is inflected. The following transducer
will analyze these forms (if the missing stems are added to the
respective lexicon files).
\begin{verbatim}
$noun-reg-infl$ = <Noun>:<> ({<sg>}:{} | {<pl>}:{s})
$noun-reg$ = \
("noun-reg.lex" | "verb-reg.lex" | "adj-reg.lex")? "noun-reg.lex"
$noun-reg$ $noun-reg-infl$
\end{verbatim}
\subsection{Derivation}
Derivation is a third morphological process which generates new word
forms by modifying a given stem usually with affixation. From the stem
\emph{reach}, we can derive the word \emph{reachable} by adding the
suffix \emph{able}. Further adding the prefix \emph{un}, we obtain
\emph{unreachable}, and with the suffix \emph{ity}, we finally get
\emph{unreachability}. The first two derivation steps are purely
concatenative, whereas the third step requires the mapping of
\emph{able} to \emph{abil}.
The following transducer will correctly analyze the words
\emph{reachable} and \emph{unreachable} if the stem \emph{reach} is
added to the verb lexicon.
\begin{verbatim}
...
% lexicon entries are read from the lexicon files
$verb-reg$ = "verb-reg.lex"
$noun-reg$ = "noun-reg.lex"
$adj-reg$ = "adj-reg.lex"
% derivation of adjectives from verbs
$adj-reg$ = $adj-reg$ | $verb-reg$ able
% prefixation of adjectives
$adj-reg$ = (un)? $adj-reg$
$morph$ = $noun-reg$ $noun-reg-infl$ |\
$verb-reg$ $verb-reg-infl$ |\
$adj-reg$ $adj-reg-infl$
$morph$ || $delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $y-to-ie$ || $duplicate$ || $delete-POS$
\end{verbatim}
This SFST program will generate the incorrect form
\emph{translateable} instead of \emph{translatable}. The verb-final
``e'' should be eliminated. We already have a rule which deletes ``e''
if the symbol \verb#<Verb># and either ``e'' or ``i'' follows. We must
add the vowel ``a'' to this list. Furthermore, we have to make sure
that the symbol \verb#<Verb># appears between \emph{translate} and
\emph{able}, because the rule is not applicable, otherwise.
To this end, we reorganize the program. The part-of-speech markers are
added at a different location. As a side-effect, we get slightly
different compound analyzes: The word \emph{whiteboards} will now be
analyzed as \verb#white<Adj>boards<Noun><pl>#. We also define variables
for frequently used symbol sets which are then used throughout the
program. This modification makes it easier to add new characters like
{\'e} or {\~n}, or new part of speech symbols because it suffices
to add them to the respective symbol set.
\begin{verbatim}
#cons# = bcdfghjklmnprstvwxz
#vowel# = aeiou
#letter# = a-z
#LETTER# = A-Z
#Letter# = #LETTER# #letter#
#pos# = <Adj><Noun><Verb>
#sym# = #Letter# #pos#
$verb-reg-infl$ = (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ = (\
{<sg>}:{} |\
{<pl>}:{s})
$adj-reg-infl$ = (\
{<pos>}:{} |\
{<comp>}:{er} |\
{<sup>}:{est})
% lexicon entries are read from the lexicon files
$verb-reg$ = "verb-reg.lex" <Verb>
$noun-reg$ = "noun-reg.lex" <Noun>
$adj-reg$ = "adj-reg.lex" <Adj>
% noun compounds
$noun-reg$ = ($noun-reg$ | $verb-reg$ | $adj-reg$)? $noun-reg$
% derivation of adjectives from verbs
$adj-reg$ = $adj-reg$ | $verb-reg$ able
% prefixation of adjectives
$adj-reg$ = (un)? $adj-reg$
$morph$ = $noun-reg$ $noun-reg-infl$ |\
$verb-reg$ $verb-reg-infl$ |\
$adj-reg$ $adj-reg-infl$
ALPHABET = [#sym#] e:<>
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb> [aei])
ALPHABET = [#sym#] y:i
$y-to-i$ = y <=> i ([<Verb><Adj>] [el])
ALPHABET = [#sym#]
$y-to-ie$ = {y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)
#=D# = bdglmnpt
$T$ = {[#=D#]}:{[#=D#][#=D#]}
ALPHABET = [#sym#]
$duplicate$ = $T$ ^-> ([#cons#][#vowel#] __ <Adj> e(r|st))
ALPHABET = [#Letter#] [#pos#]:<>
$delete-POS$ = .*
$R$ = $delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $y-to-ie$ || $duplicate$ || $delete-POS$
$morph$ || $R$
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Extend the morphology with a rule for the derivation of adverbs
(\emph{quickly}) from adjectives (\emph{quick}).
\end{exercise}
\subsection{Irregular Inflection}
Thus far, the morphology covers regular inflection such as
\emph{edit/edited/editing}, or \emph{paste/pasting/pasted}, but not
irregular inflection such as \emph{throw/threw/thrown} or
\emph{admit/admitting/admitted}. The inflection of the verb
\emph{admit} can be handled with rules if stress information is
encoded in the lexicon\footnote{The consonant has to be reduplicated
if the last syllable is stressed.}. If not, a separate inflection
class has to be defined, instead. The following fragment shows how to
do it.
\begin{verbatim}
...
#pos# = <Adj><Noun><Verb>
#trigger# = <dup>
#mcs# = #pos# #trigger#
#sym# = #Letter# #mcs#
...
$verb-dup-infl$ = (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{<dup>ed} |\
{<part>}:{<dup>ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{<dup>ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
...
$verb-dup$ = "verb-dup.lex" <Verb>
...
ALPHABET = [#sym#]
$duplicate$ = $T$ ^-> ([#cons#][#vowel#] __ (<Adj> e(r|st) | <Verb><dup>))
ALPHABET = [#Letter#] [#mcs#]:<>
$delete-POS$ = .*
...
\end{verbatim}
The inflection rules for the new verb class \emph{verb-dup} insert the
symbol \texttt{<dup>} in the gerund, past tense, and past participle
forms. This symbol triggers the application of the modified
\texttt{duplicate} rule. It is later deleted by the
\texttt{delete-pos} rule and doesn't appear in the result transducer.
The insertion of trigger symbols is a frequently used trick in
finite-state morphology.
If some verb forms are completely irregular such as
\emph{sit/sat/sat}, it is often easier to add special lexical
entries for the irregular forms than to implement complex
morpho-phonological rules. We could define two new inflection classes:
a class \texttt{verb-pres-ger2} which derives \emph{sit/sits/sitting}
from the lexicon entry \emph{sit} and another class
\texttt{verb-past-part} with the entry \texttt{si:at} for the past
tense and past participle forms.
\begin{verbatim}
...
$verb-pres-ger2-infl$ = (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<gerund>}:{<dup>ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$verb-past-part-infl$ = (\
{<past>}:{} |\
{<part>}:{})
...
$verb-pres-ger2$ = "verb-pres-ger2.lex" <Verb>
$verb-past-part$ = "verb-past-part.lex" <Verb>
...
$morph$ = ...
$verb-pres-ger2$ $verb-pres-ger2-infl$ |\
$verb-past-part$ $verb-past-part-infl$ |\
...
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Extend the morphology with two new inflection classes, one to
generate the forms \emph{throw/throws/throwing/thrown},
\emph{see/sees/seeing/seen}, and \emph{fall/falls/falling/fallen}
and another class for the past tense forms \emph{threw}, \emph{saw},
and \emph{fell}.
You have to add a morpho-phonological rule to insert the ``e'' in
\emph{fallen}. Note that you cannot use two-level rules and replace
rules to replace the empty symbol with ``e''. Use a rule replacing
\texttt{n} with \texttt{en}, instead.
\end{exercise}
\subsection{A Single Lexicon}
Having a separate lexicon file for each inflection class is not ideal.
A single lexicon file is easier to maintain. Therefore we merge all
the sublexica and add a multi-character symbol to each entry which
specifies the inflection class. The new lexicon \texttt{morph.lex} looks
as follows:
\begin{verbatim}
board<N-reg>
...
big<A-reg>
...
apply<V-reg>
...
admit<V-dup>
...
sit<V-pres-ger2>
...
si:at<V-past-part>
\end{verbatim}
Now, the transducer program has to be modified. We split it into
several smaller sections. The main file \texttt{morph.fst} includes
the auxiliary file \texttt{symbols.fst} via the command
\verb@#include "symbols.fst"@ which literally inserts the contents of
\texttt{symbols.fst} at the current position.
The other new files, \texttt{inflection.fst} and \texttt{phon.fst},
are separately compiled. The main file includes the compiled binary
transducers with the expressions \verb#"<inflections.a>"# and
\verb#"<phon.a>"#. The separate compilation of different parts of the
transducer program speeds up the whole compilation process if the
recompilation of transducers whose source files are unchanged is
avoided.
The file \texttt{symbols.fst} contains the definitions of the symbol
set variables. Corresponding transducer variables are also
added. The new variable \texttt{\#infl\#} comprises the set of
inflection class labels.
The inflectional endings for each inflection class are defined in
\texttt{inflection.fst}. The endings now include inflectional class
labels such as \texttt{V-reg}. All endings are merged into a single
transducer which is stored in the result file \texttt{inflection.a}.
The main program \texttt{morph.fst} reads the lexicon from
\texttt{morph.lex} and composes the resulting transducer with the
expression \verb@$Letter$* <>:[#infl#]@ in order to delete the
inflection class labels in the analysis layer.
The next line concatenates the lexicon transducer and the pre-compiled
inflection transducer which is read from \texttt{inflection.a}. The
result includes many incorrect combinations of stems and endings such
as \texttt{clean<>:<A-reg><>:<N-reg><Noun><sg>:<>}.
These will be eliminated by the inflection filter which is defined
next. The filter transducer maps a sequence of letters followed by two
identical inflectional class labels and arbitrary other symbols to a
new string where the class labels have been deleted. The composition
of the filter transducer with the previous transducer returns a new
transducer containing only the correct combinations of stems and
endings. The other combinations are rejected by the filter transducer.
The last command composes the morphology transducer with the
morpho-phonological rules and returns the result transducer.
\begin{verbatim}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% symbols.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
#cons# = bcdfghjklmnprstvwxz
#vowel# = aeiou
#letter# = a-z
#LETTER# = A-Z
#Letter# = #LETTER# #letter#
#pos# = <Adj><Noun><Verb>
#infl# = <A-reg><N-reg><V-reg><V-dup><V-pres-ger2><V-past-part>
#trigger# = <dup>
#mcs# = #pos# #trigger#
#sym# = #Letter# #mcs# #infl#
$cons$ = [#cons#]
$vowel$ = [#vowel#]
$letter$ = [#letter#]
$LETTER$ = [#LETTER#]
$Letter$ = [#Letter#]
$pos$ = [#pos#]
$infl$ = [#infl#]
$trigger$ = [#trigger#]
$mcs$ = [#mcs#]
$sym$ = [#sym#]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%% inflection.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
$noun-reg-infl$ = <>:<N-reg> <Noun> (\
{<sg>}:{} |\
{<pl>}:{s})
$adj-reg-infl$ = <>:<A-reg> <Adj> (\
{<pos>}:{} |\
{<comp>}:{er} |\
{<sup>}:{est})
$verb-reg-infl$ = <>:<V-reg> <Verb> (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{ed} |\
{<part>}:{ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$verb-dup-infl$ = <>:<V-dup> <Verb> (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<past>}:{<dup>ed} |\
{<part>}:{<dup>ed} |\
{<gerund>}:{<dup>ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$verb-pres-ger2-infl$ = <>:<V-pres-ger2> <Verb> (\
{<3s>}:{s} |\
{<gerund>}:{<dup>ing} |\
{<n3s>}:{} |\
{<base>}:{})
$verb-past-part-infl$ = <>:<V-past-part> <Verb> (\
{<past>}:{} |\
{<part>}:{})
$noun-reg-infl$ | $adj-reg-infl$ | $verb-reg-infl$ |\
$verb-dup-infl$ | $verb-pres-ger2-infl$ | $verb-past-part-infl$
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% phon.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
#include "symbols.fst"
ALPHABET = [#sym#] e:<>
$delete-e$ = e <=> <> (<Verb> [aei])
ALPHABET = [#sym#] y:i
$y-to-i$ = y <=> i ([<Verb><Adj>] [el])
ALPHABET = [#sym#]
$y-to-ie$ = {y}:{ie} ^-> (__ [<Verb><Noun>] s)
#=D# = bdglmnpt
$T$ = {[#=D#]}:{[#=D#][#=D#]}
ALPHABET = [#sym#]
$duplicate$ = $T$ ^-> ([#cons#][#vowel#] __ (<Adj> e(r|st) | <Verb><dup>))
ALPHABET = [#Letter#] [#mcs#]:<>
$delete-POS$ = .*
$delete-e$ || $y-to-i$ || $y-to-ie$ || $duplicate$ || $delete-POS$
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% morph.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
#include "symbols.fst"
% Read the lexicon and
% delete the inflection class on the analysis layer
$lex$ = ($Letter$* <>:[#infl#]) || "morph.lex"
% Concatenate stems with the inflectional endings
$morph$ = $lex$ "<inflection.a>"
% Eliminate incorrect combinations with a filter transducer
$=C$ = [#infl#]:<>
$inflection-filter$ = $Letter$+ $=C$ $=C$ $sym$*
$morph$ = $morph$ || $inflection-filter$
$morph$ || "<phon.a>"
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Store the above code in the files \texttt{symbols.fst},
\texttt{inflection.fst}, \texttt{phon.fst}, and \texttt{morph.fst},
respectively. Create a lexicon file \texttt{morph.lex} with entries
as shown before. Use \texttt{fst-compiler} to create
\texttt{inflection.a}, \texttt{phon.a}, and \texttt{morph.a}. Start
\texttt{fst-mor morph.a} and try to analyze different word forms.
\end{exercise}
The Unix utility \texttt{make} can be used to determine automatically
which transducers need to be recompiled. \texttt{make} needs a control
file which looks as follows:
\begin{verbatim}
morph.a: symbols.fst inflection.a phon.a morph.lex
phon.a: symbols.fst
%.a: %.fst
fst-compiler $< $@
\end{verbatim}
The first command tells \texttt{make} that the file \texttt{morph.a}
depends on the files \texttt{symbols.fst}, \texttt{inflection.a},
\texttt{morph.lex}, and \texttt{phon.a}. Whenever one of these files
changes, \texttt{morph.a} needs to be recompiled. The second command
adds the dependency of \texttt{phon.a} on \texttt{symbols.fst}. The
third command consists of two lines and informs the \texttt{make}
program that a file such as \texttt{foo.a} is produced from a
corresponding file \texttt{foo.fst} by calling \texttt{fst-compiler
foo.fst foo.a}.
The new version of the morphology no longer covers derived word forms
and compounds. This functionality will be added in the next section.
\begin{exercise}
Store the above control data in a file called \texttt{makefile} and
call \texttt{make}. If all the files are up to date, nothing is
done. Otherwise, \texttt{make} calls \texttt{fst-compiler} to update
the compiled transducer files.
\end{exercise}
\subsection{Compounding Revisited}
German is a language which is well-known for the complexity of its
compounds. A moderate example is the word
\emph{Bundesausbildungsf"orderungsgesetz} (federal education
advancement law). English is less productive in this respect.
Nevertheless, the compounding mechanism that we will implement next is
able to produce English compounds of similar complexity.
The compounds are generated by the following code which is stored in
the file \texttt{compounding.fst}. The second command reads the
lexicon, deletes the inflection labels in the surface layer, and
replaces the inflection labels in the analysis layer with
part-of-speech symbols. The following command extracts nouns and
adjectives from the lexicon stored in \texttt{$lex$}. Compounds are
created by concatenating one or more compounding stems
(\texttt{\$T1\$+}) and a noun or adjective entry (\texttt{\$T2\$}).
The compounds are then added to the other lexicon entries.
The compounding code is included in \texttt{morph.fst} via an include
command, as shown below.
\begin{verbatim}
%%%%%%%%%%%% compounding.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% generate compounding stems
$T$ = <Adj>:<A-reg> | <Noun>:<N-reg> | <Verb>:[<V-reg><V-dup><V-pres-ger2>]
$T1$ = ($Letter$* $T$) || "morph.lex" || ($Letter$* [#infl#]:<>)
% extract adjective and noun entries
$T2$ = $lex$ || ($Letter$+ [<A-reg><N-reg>])
% produce the compounds
$comp$ = $T1$+ $T2$
% add the compounds to the lexicon
$lex$ = $lex$ | $comp$
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% morph.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
...
$lex$ = ($Letter$* <>:[#infl#]) || "morph.lex"
#include "compounding.fst"
...
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Extend the \texttt{makefile} such that \texttt{morph.a} is
recompiled when \texttt{compounding.fst} is modified. Compile the
morphology and try to analyze different compounds.
\end{exercise}
\subsection{Derivation Revisited}
Many Germanic languages possess two different derivational mechanisms.
The \emph{native} derivation of word forms is exemplified by the
English noun \emph{darkness} which is obtained by adding the suffix
\emph{-ness} to the adjective \emph{dark}. Similarly, the
\emph{neo-classical} nominalization \emph{reality} is composed of the
adjective \emph{real} and the suffix \emph{-ity}. Neo-classical word
formation is mostly used with loan words of Latin origin.
We have to make sure that our morphology only combines neo-classical
affixes with neo-classical stems and native affixes with native stems.
Thus, neither \emph{darkity} nor \emph{realness} should be generated.
We add special entries for derivation stems and derivation suffixes as
shown below. Derivation stems are annotated with their part of speech
and origin. Lexicon entries for derivation suffixes start with the
part of speech and the origin feature of the derivation stem that they
combine with, and they end with the label of the inflectional class of the
resulting word form.
\begin{verbatim}
...
dark<Adj><native>
real<Adj><classic>
<Adj><native>ness<N-reg>
<Adj><classic>ity<N-reg>
\end{verbatim}
The morphology program is extended with the new source code file
\texttt{derivation.fst} which is included in the main file
\texttt{morph.fst} as shown below.
\begin{verbatim}
%%%%%%%%%%%%% derivation.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% extract derivation stems and suffixes
$derivstems$ = $Letter$+ $pos$ <>:[#origin#] || "morph.lex"
$suffixes$ = <>:[#pos#]<>:[#origin#] $Letter$+ <>:[#infl#] || "morph.lex"
$suffixes$ = <Suff>:<> $suffixes$
% concatenate derivation stems and suffixes and
$deriv$ = $derivstems$ $suffixes$
% filter out incorrect combinations
$=pos$ = [#pos#]:<>
$=origin$ = [#origin#]:<>
$filter$ = $sym$* $=pos$ $=origin$ $=pos$ $=origin$ $sym$* $infl$
$deriv$ = $deriv$ || $filter$
% add the derived stems to the lexicon
$lex$ = $lex$ | $deriv$
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% morph.fst %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
...
#include "derivation.fst"
#include "compounding.fst"
...
\end{verbatim}
\begin{exercise}
Extend the morphology such that the word \emph{reachability}
receives the analysis:
\texttt{reach<Verb><Suff>abel<Adj><Suff>ity<Noun><sg>}
The lexicon entry for the first derivational suffix might look as
follows:
\texttt{<V><native>ab<>:ile:<><Adj><classic>}
\end{exercise}
\end{document}
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