Maltese and Hebrew

Maltese and Hebrew

check out with:

 svn co https://apertium.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/apertium/incubator/apertium-mt-he

Todo list

1. Make program to generate a full form list for a given Maltese verb stem
2. Add closed categories to the Maltese analyser (prepositions, conjunctions,pronouns, determiners, numerals)
3. Add closed categories to the bidix
4. Add closed categories to the Hebrew dictionary (prepositions, pronouns, determiners, numerals, conjunctions)
5. Generate Hebrew verb entries from hspell output in Apertium format
6. Add existing verbs to the bidix
7. Look at how attached/clitic pronouns can be treated (Spanish,Catalan,Italian have similar requirements)
8. Add high frequency verbs to the full form list / Maltese analyser
9. Add high frequency nouns, adjectives, adverbs to Maltese analyser
10. Align Maltese and Hebrew bibles
11. Add attached articles to all noun entries -- not 100% sure how this works, see for ex. <e lm="הולדת"><par n="ה"/><i>הולדת</i><par n="עת__n_f"/></e>
12. Wiktionary script: 1) Fix URL encoding 2) Output English gloss as a comment
13. Change mt_verbs.py to generate negation circumfixes for all verbs: ma(--)x or m'(--)x generates <neg>

Maltese verbs

No infinitive. Stem is third person singular, masculine perfect tense.

Second verb infinitive does not exist, instead both verbs are conjugated. "I want to eat" = "I want I eat"

A verbal stem can consist of:

1. Three consonants (radicals) with the medial radical between one of six vowel combinations. (Triliteral)
   • kiteb
2. Four consonants, some having two repeated biradical bases. (Quadriliteral)
3. Two consonants, or a consonant and a semivowel

In verbs with 'għ' or a + 'j' as the third radical, only have the first two radicals in the stem word which ends in 'a' (open syllable).

1. Verbs that have three non-semivocalic consonants are called sound or strong verbs.
2. Verbs that have three radicals, with the last radical being 'għ' or 'j' are called defective or weak verbs.
3. Triliteral verbs with long 'a' or 'ie' between 1st and 2nd radicals are called hollow verbs.
4. Triliteral verbs with where the second and third radicals are the same are called doubled or geminated verbs.

Examples:

Type	Example	Cons	Vowel config	Translation
Sound (Tri)	ħareġ	ħ·r·ġ	2. a·e	he went out
Sound (Quad)	ħarbex	ħ·rb·x	2. a·e	he scribbled
Defective	qata'	q·t·għ	1. a·a	he cut
Weak	mexa	m·x·j	4. e·a	he walked
Hollow	qal	q·w·l	1. a·a	he said
Hollow	sab	s·j·b	1. a·a	he found
Doubled	habb	h·b·b	1. a·a	he loved

Tenses:

1. Perfect: Action in the past
   • seraq "he robbed"
2. Imperfect: Action in the present/future
   • jisraq "he steals" or "he will steal"
3. Imperative: Order/command
   • israq (sg), isirqu (pl) "steal!"
4. Present participle: Only from intransitive verbs, and some verbs of motion. Has both verbal/adjectival function. Has m/f/pl
   • nieżel (m.sg) "descending"
   • nieżla (f.sg) "descending"
   • neżlin (mf.pl) "descending"
5. Past participle: Has both verbal/adjectival function. Has m/f/pl
   • misruq (m.sg) "stolen"
   • misruqa (f.sg) "stolen"
   • misruqin (mf.pl) "stolen"
6. Verbal noun
   • serq "robbing", "theft"

Vowel patterns:

1. KaTaB
2. KaTeB
3. KeTeB
4. KiTeB
5. KoToB

Pronominal Suffixes

Pronouns, prepositions etc. can be dropped in favor of complex suffixes added to the verb;

For example,

iktbilha = ikteb + il + ha
write(imp,p2,sg) + to + her

See The Verb with Pronominal Suffixes for through documentation.

Resources on verbs

1. Maltese Grammar
2. Maltese verbs on Wiktionary
3. Maltese conjugation tables on Wiktionary
4. Maltese verbs on Verbix
5. The verbal morphology of Maltese, Robert D. Hoberman and Mark Aronoff
6. GF Summer School: Progress in Maltese
7. Dana Dannélls, John J. Camilleri 2010. Verb Morphology of Hebrew and Maltese - Towards an Open Source Type Theoretical Resource Grammar in GF

Numerals

We have all Hebrew cardinal numbers and number construction defined in he.dix (still pending tests) (relevant definitions).

For Maltese, we have the cardinal numbers defined ([1]) along with some basic construction rules, but complex numbers is not ready yet (smart paradigms required).

Maltese numeral construction examples:

• 1..9, 11..19 - named numbers.
• 21..99 - "one and thirty" for 31 (wieħed u tletin).
• 100 and up - "three hundred and three and seventy" for 273 (tliet mija u tlieta u sebgħin).
• Same for thousands - "thousand nine hundreds and five and sixty") 1965 (elf disa' mija u ħamsa u sittin)

See also

• Pending tests
• Regression tests

• Maltese morphological analyser web demo, using the resources of this language pair