Finnish
- apertium-fin is a conversion from omorfi: omorfi, large coverage, experimental
- giella-fin is in giellatekno repository, more stable
Contents
Grammar stuff
Common formulas:
Numeral fix
People working on morphologically poor language falsely assume that you should use sg/pl distinction in numerals as a sort of agreement feature, i.e. assigning the word "one" to singular always and any other words to plural. Naturally in Finnish numerals have singular plural distinction like any other nominal: one beer is one.num.sg beer.n.sg and two beers is, well two.num.sg beer.n.sg.par (cause plurality in such numeral phrase is expressed with singular partitive cause why not), but then again two.num.pl beers.n.pl is two rounds of beers for you and at least one friend, and also one.num.pl beer.n.pl is one round of beers (but it's never one, but that's a different story).
<def-macro n="number-mangler" npar="1">
<choose>
<!-- nunber mappigngs -->
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="a_number"/><lit-tag v="sg"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="number"/>
<lit-tag v="sg"/>
</let>
</when>
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="a_number"/><lit-tag v="pl"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="number"/>
<lit-tag v="sg"/>
</let>
</when>
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="a_number"/><lit-tag v="sp"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="number"/>
<lit-tag v="sg"/>
</let>
</when>
<!-- otherwise, sg -->
<otherwise>
<let>
<clip pos="1" side="tl" part="a_number"/><lit-tag v="sg"/>
</let>
<let>
<var n="number"/><lit-tag v="sg"/>
</let>
</otherwise>
</choose>
</def-macro>
Negations
Finnish uses negation verb which needs to be translated from many languages from negation and verb together.
Possession structure
Finnish does not have idiomatic verb for possession, if apertium language to translate from has vbhaver it can be translated to omistaa initially and re-organised into adessive of owner and copula on.
Adposition to case suffix
Finnish uses semantic cases for what many e.g. IE languages use adpositions:
- houses -> talot
- on houses -> taloissa
- into houses -> taloihin
etc.
<section-def-macros>
<def-macro n="adp-mangler" npar="1">
<choose>
<!-- adp to case mappigngs -->
<!-- based on adp lexeme only -->
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="lem"/><lit v="I"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="adpcase"/>
<lit-tag v="ine"/>
</let>
<let>
<var n="maybeadp"/>
<lit v=""/>
</let>
</when>
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="lem"/><lit v="i"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="adpcase"/>
<lit-tag v="ine"/>
</let>
<let>
<var n="maybeadp"/>
<lit v=""/>
</let>
</when>
<when>
<test>
<equal><clip pos="1" side="sl" part="lem"/><lit v="fra"/></equal>
</test>
<let>
<var n="adpcase"/>
<lit-tag v="ela"/>
</let>
<let>
<var n="maybeadp"/>
<lit v=""/>
</let>
</when>
...
...
...
<rule comment="adp noun">
<pattern>
<pattern-item n="adp"/>
<pattern-item n="noun"/>
</pattern>
<action>
<call-macro n="adp-mangler">
<with-param pos="1"/>
</call-macro>
<out>
<chunk name="adpnoun" case="caseFirstWord">
<tags>
<tag><lit-tag v="NP"/></tag>
<tag><var n="adpcase"/></tag>
</tags>
<lu>
<clip pos="2" side="tl" part="lem"/>
<clip pos="2" side="tl" part="a_noun"/>
<clip pos="2" side="tl" part="a_number"/>
<var n="adpcase"/>
</lu>
<b pos="0"/>
<lu>
<var n="maybeadp"/>
</lu>
</chunk>
</out>
</action>
</rule>
The effective range of adposition to suffix mapping is a noun phrase:
- (a) green colourless dream -> vihreä väritön uni
- in (a) green colourless dream -> vihreässä värittömässä unessa
but proper noun phrase is appositive:
- for Donald Trump -> Donald Trumpille
- for president Trump -> presidentti Trumpille
in Nokia Finnish a reverse pattern is used (because computers cannot inflect variables a proxy word is inflected):
- user -> käyttäjä
- to user Joe -> käyttäjälle Joe
- file -> tiedosto
- into file thesis.doc -> tiedostoon thesis.doc
it would not be incorrect to use proper inflection in these cases.
