Syntactic labels

In some language pairs, syntactic function labels are used to improve disambiguation, or allow tighter transfer rules to be written. For example, disambiguating verb phrase co-ordinators from noun phrase co-ordinators lets you write transfer rules to merge two co-ordinated NPs.

Apertium processes left-to-right longest match, so if we have the following sentence,

• John kicked the ball and Mary caught it.

And we have a rule for noun cc noun, then we will get the following analysis,

• John kicked the [ball] and [Mary]

But if we can tag the conjunction as being a global conjunction, then we can avoid lumping the subject of the second sentence with the object of the first sentence.

• [John kicked the ball] and [Mary caught it]

Example

$ echo "Gud talaði øll hesi orð og segði Hann:" | lt-proc fo-is.automorf.bin | cg-proc fo-is.rlx.bin 
  ^Gud/Gud<np><al><m><sg><acc><@OBJ→>/Gud<np><al><m><sg><nom><@SUBJ→>$ 
  ^talaði/tala<vblex><past><p2><sg><@+FMAINV>/tala<vblex><past><p3><sg><@+FMAINV>$ 
  ^øll/allur<prn><qnt><nt><pl><acc><@←OBJ>$ 
  ^hesi/hesin<prn><dem><nt><pl><acc><@←OBJ>$ 
  ^orð/orð<n><nt><sg><acc><ind><@←OBJ>/orð<n><nt><pl><acc><ind><@←OBJ>$ 
  ^og/og<cnjcoo><@CNP>/og<cnjsub><@CVP>$ 
  ^segði/siga<vblex><past><p3><sg><@+FMAINV>$ 
  ^Hann/Prnpers<prn><p3><m><sg><nom><@←SUBJ>$^:/:<sent>$

Here, we could for example have a rule that moves subjects of a finite main verb that are to the right, to the left. e.g. @+FMAINV @←SUBJ to @→SUBJ @+FMAINV as is the order in English.

Standard syntax tags

These are the uniform tags used in many Giellatekno projects. It isn't necessary to implement all of the analysis, even implementing part of it can prove useful in writing transfer or lexical selection rules.

Tag	Description
@←SUBJ	Subject, head verb to the left
@SUBJ→	Subject, head verb to the right
@←OBJ	Direct object, head verb to the left
@OBJ→	Direct object, head verb to the right
@←IOBJ	Indirect object, head verb to the left
@IOBJ→	Indirect object, head verb to the right
@→N	Noun modifier, head noun to the right
@N←	Noun modifier, head noun to the left
@→A	Adjective modifier, head noun to the right
@A←	Adjective modifier, head noun to the left
@IM
@SPRED	Subject predicate,
@←SPRED	Subject predicate,
@SPRED→	Subject predicate,
@OPRED	Object predicate,
@←OPRED	Object predicate,
@OPRED→	Object predicate,
@+FAUXV	Finite auxiliary verb
@-FAUXV	Non-finite auxiliary verb
@+FMAINV	Finite main verb
@-FMAINV	Non-finite main verb
@-FSUBJ→	Subject of a non-finite verb
@-F←OBJ	Object of a non-finite verb
@-FOBJ→	Object of a non-finite verb
@SPRED←OBJ
@-FADVL
@←ADVL	Adverbial modifier, head to the left
@ADVL→	Adverbial modifier, head to the right
@ADVL	Adverbial modifier
@P←	Complement of a preposition
@CNP	Local conjunction or subjunction
@CVP	Conjunction or subjunction that joins finite-verb phrases
@→CS
@CNP-VP	Ambiguous co-ordinator
@APP	Apposition
@IMV	Infinite main verb
@ICL-ADVL	Non-finite subclause ...
@ICL-AUX←	"right" argument of auxiliary (?)
@ICL-OBJ	Non-finite subclause ...
@ICL-STA	Non-finite subclause ...
@HNOUN	Noun phrase fragment
@X	No analysis

External links

• Syntax tags used in Sámi at giellatekno.uit.no