Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Workshop on Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing

FSMNLP 2009: Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing pp 123–130Cite as

Finite State Morphology of the Nguni Language Cluster: Modelling and Implementation Issues

  • Conference paper

  • 632 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6062))

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of a project on computational morphological analysers for the Nguni cluster of languages namely Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele. These languages are agglutinative and lesser-resourced. The project adopted a finite approach, which is well-suited to modelling both regular morphophonological phenomena and linguistic idiosyncrasies. The paper includes a brief overview of the morphology of this cluster of languages, then focuses on how the various morphophonological phenomena of Zulu are modelled and implemented using the Xerox finite-state toolkit. The bootstrapping of the Zulu morphological analyser prototype, ZulMorph, to obtain analyser prototypes for Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele, is outlined and experimental results given.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Beesley, K., Karttunen, L.: Finite State Morphology. CSLI Publications, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, California (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Meinhof, C.: Introduction to the phonology of the Bantu languages. Dietrich Reimer/Ernst Vohsen, Berlin (1932)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bosch, S., Pretorius, L.: A finite-state approach to linguistic contraints in Zulu morphological analysis. Studia Orientalia 103, 205–227 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Pretorius, L., Bosch, S.: Containing overgeneration in Zulu computational morphology. South African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 26(2), 209–216 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bosch, S., Pretorius, L., Fleisch, A.: Experimental bootstrapping of morphological analysers for Nguni languages. Nordic Journal of African Studies 17(2), 66–88 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, University of South Africa, Pretoria

    Laurette Pretorius

  2. Department of African Languages, University of South Africa, Pretoria

    Sonja Bosch

Authors
  1. Laurette Pretorius
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sonja Bosch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki, 00014, Finland

    Anssi Yli-Jyrä

  2. Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, 1737, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    András Kornai

  3. Laboratoire Traitement et Communication de L’Informations, Département Infoamtique et Réseaux, CNRS, 75634, Paris Cedex 13, France

    Jacques Sakarovitch

  4. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 5600, Eindhoven, MB, The Netherlands

    Bruce Watson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pretorius, L., Bosch, S. (2010). Finite State Morphology of the Nguni Language Cluster: Modelling and Implementation Issues. In: Yli-Jyrä, A., Kornai, A., Sakarovitch, J., Watson, B. (eds) Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing. FSMNLP 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6062. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14684-8_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14684-8_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14683-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14684-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation