Northern Sámi and Norwegian/Derivations

Derivations: general rules and exceptions

Sámi has a lot of derivation rules; sometimes the derived words have lexicalised translations in Bokmål, like ráhkisvuohta→kjærlighet, these we treat as exceptions which have to be specified in bidix. Other times we can use a general rule, like lohkagohten→begynte.1SG å lese.

We have two strategies for handling the rule/exception situation.

1. For the situation where we have many exceptions, we let the analysis be eg. geavaheaddjiid/geavahit<V><TV><Der2><Actor><N><Pl> and from here there are two paths
   1. either this specific analysis is in bidix, here translating into bruker<n><m><pl>, or
   2. we have to use a transfer rule, in this case translating into de som bruker
2. For the situation where we have few exceptions, we use dev/xfst2apertium.relabel to split the analysis into two lexical units. Two lexical units can't be specified in bidix, so here
   1. exceptions have to be added to the .lexc file as if they were lexicalised, so they remain one lexical unit
   2. while general transfer rules now match a pattern of two lexical units

More detailed: Deverbal nouns

Sámi verbs can turn into nouns. We want to be able to put this explicitly into the bidix (eg. sometimes the nob noun is not even based on the nob verb), but if it's not in bidix we want to be able to fall back on a construction using the verb, so

• from geavaheaddjiid/geavahit<V><TV><Der2><Actor><N>
• with fallback => de som bruker<vblex> (or something)
• bidix specified => bruker<n><m>

With the following bidix entries we specify that we want bruker<n><m> in the above example:

    <e><p><l>geavahit<s n="V"/><s n="TV"/></l><r>bruke<s n="vblex"/><s n="pers"/></r></p><par n="__verb"/></e>
    <e><p><l>geavahit<s n="V"/><s n="TV"/><s n="Der2"/><s n="Actor"/><s n="N"/></l><r>bruker<s n="n"/><s n="m"/></r></p><par n="__n"/></e>

while if the second bidix line isn't there, we get the fallback. Transfer rules can now check

 <equal><clip side="tl" part="pos" ...><lit-tag v="N"/></equal>
 <equal><clip side="sl" part="pos" ...><lit-tag v="V"/></equal>

The same specification/fallback might be applied with other Derivations.

Other fallbacks

• Der/at, adj->adv, gets adj.posi.nt.sg.ind ("vid" => "vidt")
• Der/vuohta, adj->n, gets adj...def, eg. "grunn" -> "det grunne" (bidix overrides "fattig" to "fattigdom")
• Der/st, v->v_diminutive, passes through as if nothing happened (although we could add the adverb "litt"?)