Revisiting multi-tape automata for semitic morphological analysis and generation

  • Authors:
  • Mans Hulden

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Arizona

  • Venue:
  • Semitic '09 Proceedings of the EACL 2009 Workshop on Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Various methods have been devised to produce morphological analyzers and generators for Semitic languages, ranging from methods based on widely used finite-state technologies to very specific solutions designed for a specific language or problem. Since the earliest proposals of how to adopt the elsewhere successful finite-state methods to root-and-pattern morphologies, the solution of encoding Semitic grammars using multi-tape automata has resurfaced on a regular basis. Multi-tape automata, however, require specific algorithms and reimplementation of finite-state operators across the board, and hence such technology has not been readily available to linguists. This paper, using an actual Arabic grammar as a case study, describes an approach to encoding multi-tape automata on a single tape that can be implemented using any standard finite-automaton toolkit.