Talk:Welsh to English

Section numbers for existing sections from this version — each section / topic should probably be re-numbered to remove reliance on automatic numbering

---

• Talk:Welsh to English/Archive 1 (? → 12:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC))

---

Note: Comments should not include '=' as it confuses the Wiki templating system (as I just found out myself)

Note 2: Suggestions for part-of-speech disambiguation should go here.

OK, I'll try, but I'm not entirely sure of the distinction. some of the stuff at the end of that page, for instance, is covered here. - Donnek

Note 3: Comments should not include the '|' symbol either, at least within double quotes, since it too confuses the wiki.

Notes for areas to be covered

A sort of scratchpad / todo list, based on things that come up when putting phrases into the testing webform.

Conjunctive genitive

gwallt yr eneth - *hair the girl - the hair of the girl - the girl's hair

llaw y bachgen - *hand the boy - the hand of the boy - the boy's hand

Note that the noun phrase in English is definite - contrast "merch y meddyg" (the doctor's daughter) and "merch meddyg" (a doctor's daughter).

For an English phrase 
of the type "def + noun1 + of + def + noun2"
or of the type "def + noun2 + 's + noun1"
convert in Welsh to "noun1 + def + noun2".

Here can noun1 be a simple noun, or can it be a noun phrase? For example "the red cat of the young boy" - Francis Tyers

e.g.

For the pattern det.def + noun1 + of + det.def + noun2:

Output noun1 + det.def + noun2

Yes, as long as you like, eg,

cath goch bachgen bach merch ifanc bert rheolwr y banc mawr du

the red cat of the little boy of the pretty young daughter of the manager of the big black bank

It's only the last NP of the sequence that gets the def.det. Donnek

Ok, so this requires a three level rule.

t1x -> t2x SN_(the cat red) of_(of) SN_(the boy little) of_(of) SN_(the daughter young pretty) of_(of) SN_(the manager) of_(of) SN_(the bank big black)

t2x -> t3x SN_(the cat red) SN_(the boy little) SN_(the daughter young pretty) SN_(the manager) SN_(the bank big black)

t3x -> gen (cat red boy little daughter young pretty manager the bank big black)

What I'll do for now is get the chunks working ('SN' -- noun phrase, and 'of'), for values of 'noun', 'det noun', 'det adj noun', 'det adj adj noun', 'det adj adj adj noun', etc. Then look at taking care of more frequent cases (e.g. the first example). Francis Tyers

For a Welsh phrase of the type "!det + noun1 + def + noun2"
convert in English to "def + noun1 + of + def + noun2"
or to "def + noun2 + 's + noun1".

The second noun is probably historically a genitive, but it has lost all case markers. The equivalent in Irish would be:

ceann an chapaill - *head the of-horse (gen) - the head of the horse - the horse's head

ceann capaill - *head of-horse (gen) - the head of a horse - a horse's head

Welsh to English

A couple of things have come up:

Using a NOUN1 + DET.DEF + NOUN2, we get "the daughter of the doctor", but:

Ond mae fy nhad, mam a thad fy ngŵr wedi talu trethi ac erioed wedi defnyddio'r gwasanaeth iechyd. → But My father is, mother that and my father man after pay taxes and never after use the service health.

If we use NOUN1 + DET + NOUN2, we get "the daughter of the doctor", and:

Ond mae fy nhad, mam a thad fy ngŵr wedi talu trethi ac erioed wedi defnyddio'r gwasanaeth iechyd. → But My father is, mother that and my father of my man after pay taxes and never after use the service health.

Is NOUN1 + DET.POS + NOUN2 reliably going to be DET.POS + NOUN2 + 's + NOUN1 (or DET.DEF + NOUN1 + of + DET.POS + NOUN2)?

Yes. - Donnek

Actually, this is trickier, I guess:

fy nhad, mam a thad fy ngŵr → my father, mother and my husband's father

We'd need to consider "DET NOUN COMMA NOUN CNJCOO NOUN DET NOUN" or at least "DET NOUN COMMA NOUN" → "my father and mother" + "NOUN DET NOUN" → "my husband's father", which would give:

my father and mother and my husband's father

Which although awkward, isn't as horrific as the current translation. I'd prefer to make small chunks where possible, even if (for now) it makes a worse translation, as when we are able to collapse NP CNJCOO NP → NP, in an intermediate stage, it will be more clean.

I think that reads well, actually. I realise there is a tension between doing something that will work for common examples, but is too much of a hack for less common examples, and doing something more comprehensive but which will take longer to finalise. All other things being equal, I would tend towards the former for 0.1, but only you can say what is the best way forward, since you know how Apertium is put together. You've probably struck a decent balance here. - Donnek

Ok, the output is now:

But my father, mother and the father of my man is after pay taxes and never after use the service health.

Which is reasonably ok... The way I have done it is:

In level-1, made three chunks:

• SN(my father , mother)
• CC(and)
• SN(the father of my man)

Then at level-2, I detect:

• SV SN CC SN and transform to: SN CC SN SV.

It doesn't seem to have caused any regressions, but might warrant further testing. - Francis Tyers

This seems to work pretty well for different phrases. The only things that break it are:

insertion of a comma after the second noun: "mae fy nhad, mam, a thad fy ngŵr - My father, mother is, and the father of my man"

replacing the second noun by a conjunctive genitive: "mae fy nhad, mam fy ngŵr a thad fy ngŵr - My father, mother is my man and the father of my man"

I think this is probably good enough for this stage. - Donnek

Marking and word-order

The above brings up a useful point about this. If the standard VSO sequence is changed to SVO (ie unchanged from the English standard), this is a marked pattern, conveying a relative clause. In written Welsh, the verb will be preceded by "a" + soft mutation, but in spoken Welsh the "a" usually disappears.

y bachgen [a] fu yn yr ardd ddydd Llun (the boy who was in the garden on Monday)

yr eneth [a] welodd y ci (the girl who saw the dog)

contrast

gwelodd yr eneth y ci (the girl saw the dog)

Hmmm. Relative clauses are going to be difficult.

For Welsh pattern "noun + a + soft-mutated_verb"
output English pattern "noun + who/which + verb".

The dictionary only has 'a' down as a co-ordinating conjunction "and", does it have other meanings? - Francis Tyers

Yes. "a" - relative "who, which" in a relative clause where the subject is the same as that of the main clause, and "a" - interrogative pre-verbal particle (eg a weles ti hwnna? - did you see that?). Both are followed by soft mutation. Note that interrogative "a" is usually omitted in speech, leaving only the mutation. - Donnek

"yn" as stative

For Welsh pattern "yn + adj"
output English "adj"

There is a problem here in that this pattern can also be an adverb:

siaradodd yn hapus am ei fywyd - he talked happily about his life

For English pattern "adverb_formed_from_adj + ly"
output Welsh "yn + adj"

This second one will be difficult to do, as we don't have adverbs in the English dictionary marked as derivatives from adjectives or not. - Francis Tyers

OK. Unfortunately, since "yn + adj" can be either an adj or an adv in Welsh, I don't even mark them separately in Eurfa - perhaps I should. Would one option be to replicate all the Welsh adj entries in Apertium by preceding them with "yn + space", and adding "-ly" to the English side? This would get the EW direction, but I don't know whether it would cause problems on the WE direction. - Donnek

The above rule has been applied (way!), but does not catch mutated adjectives ("yn" causes soft mutation):

*tyfodd fo yn mawr -> he grew big

tyfodd fo yn fawr -> *he grew in *fawr

This was a dictionary error, 'fawr' did not have the initial-m paradigm. Now added. - Francis Tyers

OK - there are a couple of others I've come across: mwy (fwy), bach (fach), gwyn (wyn). there may be a few more. - Donnek

Taken care of the first two, 'gwyn' doesn't seem to appear in the dictionary (only as 'complaint'). does it inflect at all? - Francis Tyers

LOL! There are some obvious words not in Eurfa, tut tut to me! gwyn (white), *gwen (in practice "wen", fem), gwynion (occasionally, plural), gwynnach (whiter), gwynnaf (whitest). There may be fem comp and super forms too, but we can ignore those. By the way, "da" also has this problem too. - Donnek

 :) -- Ok, I've added gwyn/gwnnach/gwynnaf for now, adding the genders would probably mess up some rules and these are probably fairly low frequency and can be taken care of later. - Francis Tyers

We could also extend this to nouns:

roedd hi'n waith anodd -> *was in ~a #difficult<adj><sint> work - (it) was hard work

(though "work" gets lost in the second proc run).

For Welsh pattern "yn + non-place noun-phrase"
output English "noun-phrase"

This is a bit complex. There are two "yn"s in Welsh: "yn" showing state or condition, or extension in time (yn hapus - happy; yn mynd - going), and "yn" the preposition showing location in a specific place (yn y tŷ - in the house (contrast: mewn tŷ - in a house); yn Nolgellau - in Dolgellau). (They are probably related historically.) The stative "yn" soft-mutates nouns and adjectives, but not verbs; the location "yn" nasal-mutates (and changes to "ym" to match an initial "m" in the following noun, eg ym Mangor - in Bangor).

So - as it stands, the above will clash with 1.3.10 (change prep+noun to prep+det.indef+noun), even though "yn" the preposition will never occur before a non-specific noun (it must have specificity), and even though the above is not actually "yn" the preposition (it's "yn" the stative). We can't use the stative soft-mutation to decide, because (a) that doesn't apply to some consonant initials, and (b) other prepositions cause mutation too, and it would be overkill to check for each one. So the easiest thing is to adjust 1.3.10 to exclude "yn" as one of the prepositions that will be caught. Is it easy? I don't know :-)

I've added the yn "stative" to the analyser as well as the yn "preposition", but until we retrain the tagger it will not pick the former. If you could think of any rules that will choose the right one in a given context it would help (for ideas on the kinds of restrictions to these rules, see here and here). - Francis Tyers

The simplest would be:

Welsh word "yn" is a preposition

when it is followed by "det.def" or by a capitalised word

otherwise it is a stative

That may not be perfect, but it is good enough. I'll bear in mind the tagger pages, but it may take a while to get to that stage. - Donnek

Insert det.indef before non-definite noun

daeth Taid â lamp -> Grandfather came with lamp (preferably "with a lamp")

dychwelodd y rheolwr gyda gŵr tew -> the manager returned with fat man (preferably "with a fat man")

For Welsh pattern "prep + noun"
output English pattern "prep + det.indef + noun"

this should probably be working now, - Francis Tyers

I am tempted to retire this in favour of a broader rule:

For Welsh pattern "non-specific noun.sg"
output English "a + non-specific noun.sg"

"Non-specific" here means a noun that is not qualified by det.def, pr.poss, etc.

daeth car ar hyd y ffordd -> *car came along the road - a car ...

mae'r athro yn licio chwarae gêm o golff -> *the teacher is liking play game he golf - the teacher likes to play a game of golf

1.3.16 would deal with "play". For "gêm o golff" we would need to prevent "*a game of a golf" (which the existing rule would in fact have produced for "o golff"). Perhaps:

For Welsh pattern "non-specific noun + o + non-specific noun"
output English pattern "a + noun + of + noun"

This would need to fire before the revised rule above, or we need some other way of sorting out the possible doubling of "a" (a a game of golf) - LOL - let it happen and then have a rule:

For English pattern "det.indef + det.indef"
output "det.indef"

gwelodd y bachgen gath yn yr ardd -> the boy saw cat in the garden (preferably "a cat")

Preferential choice between verbforms

bydd y lamp yn rhoi golau -> *are the lamp giving light - the lamp will be giving light (and presumably we could massage this into "the lamp will give light" later, since that would be the more natural English equivalent)

A couple of things here. The most important is that tagger chooses the less frequent imperative out of the imperative/future choice for the verb. Presumably this then means that the subject shift can't take place. But even with the imperative choice, the imperative 2p sing info gets lost between interchunk and postchunk, and replaced with a generic? present which gets output as "are". Odd.

(I'm assuming that "bydd" would get output as "will be", since that would be the correct English tense.)

I fixed this (crudely) by commenting out the imperative for "be" 2pSg (You are!) When I train the tagger next I'll see if i can take care of it there. - Francis Tyers

Another example:

roedd y bechgyn yn gallu croesi dan y ffordd -> *the boys were #be<vbmod><ger># able to #vblex><vblex><pres> under the road - the boys were able to cross under the road

Here, proc decides to ignore "croesi" (cy-en.dix line 6203) as an infinitive in favour of conjugating it as present 2p sing. The infinitive option doesn't even show! Can we add some such rule as:

When you have homographous Welsh verb options <inf> and conjugated_verb
choose <inf> unless verb is followed by pr

This isn't very good, because you could have the conjugated from without a pronoun, but it might deal with this to some extent.

The example above also has some funkiness going on with "gallu" - "were be able" needs to be transformed into "were able". However, I don't know enough about how Apertium treats modal verbs to make a suggestion.

This is now giving:

the boys were being able to cross under the road

Which is an improvement. On the other hand, "^be<vbser><past><p3><pl>$ ^be able to<vbmod><ger>$" is probably redundant :) -- Not sure how to deal with this. - Francis Tyers

What about a purely surface hack, eg:

For English pattern "was/were + being + able"

output "was/were + able"

Or a mapping to convert "be able" to "can/could"? - Donnek

Comparative adjectives with "less/more"

tyfodd y twnnel yn llai llachar -> *the tunnel grew small bright - the tunnel grew less bright

tyfodd y twnnel yn fwy tywyll -> *the tunnel grew big dark - the tunnel grew more dark

For Welsh pattern "fwy/llai + adj"
output English "more/less + adj"

For English pattern "more/less + adj"
output Welsh "fwy/llai + adj"

I'll see if i can copy in a rule from Spanish--English for this :) - Francis Tyers

Synthetic comparative adjectives

Many of these seem to have faulty dictionary entries:

tyfodd y twnnel yn fwy -> the tunnel grew big (should be "bigger")

tyfodd y twnnel yn llai -> the tunnel grew small (should be "smaller")

tyfodd y twnnel yn hirach -> the tunnel grew long (should be "longer")

tyfodd y twnnel yn uwch -> the tunnel grew high (should be "higher")

Dictionary error in the bidix, now fixed. - Francis Tyers

Cool! - Donnek

Note, also a rule needs to be written for:

the expensive house → y tŷ drud

the more expensive house → y tŷ drutach

the most expensive house → y tŷ drutaf

You mean for the consonant change t->d? - Donnek

Subordinate ("reported speech") clauses with "bod" + noun

Also referring to the cool sentence, we have two sentences as follows:

(1) roedd y Comisiwn yn ymchwilio i'r honiadau - the Commission was investigating the allegations

(2) mae yr AS wedi methu datgan £103,000 o roddion - the MP has failed to declare £103,000 of gifts

Subordinate clauses, like the relative clauses, will be difficult. But a first stab at this might be as follows:

For Welsh pattern "[b/f]od + [det.def] + noun + [qualifiers] + wedi + verb"
output English "that + [det.def] + noun + [qualifiers] + has/have (number agreeing with noun) + verb_past_participle"

clywodd y dyn bod y trên wedi cyrraedd yn hwyr -> *the man heard be the train after arrive #late

This would be:

VBSER(INF) + DEFINITE_NP + wedi + VERB

THAT + DEFINITE_NP + HAS + VERBPP

Where DEFINITE_NP is any noun phrase preceded by the definite article? - Francis Tyers

Actually, thinking about this again, it doesn't have to be definite - it just so happened that in those sentences it was. You could have something like:

clywodd ysbïwr bod y trên .... -> a spy heard that the train ....

So the NP could be "[det.def, rhyw (some), pr.poss] + [adj - eg hen] + noun + [qualifiers - adjectives, demonstratives, etc]", or it could just be "pr.subj" (clywodd fo bod y trên ...). The same applies to the "am" construction below. Another point is the the VBSER can be soft-mutated - "fod" instead of "bod". - Donnek

This rule is broadly working for now. At least it is inserting the 'that', a form of 'have' and changing the verb to a pp. It is not however robust, and seems to me a bit hacky. Could you give some more examples so I can fine tune it? - Francis Tyers

Hacky? Surely not .... I did say that relative and subordinate clauses will be difficult, so we may have to refactor as we go along. An alternative to the above (which would also cover the adjective example below) would be:

For Welsh pattern "[b/f]od + NP + complement"

output English "that + NP + is + complement"

This would give:

clywodd y dyn bod y trên wedi cyrraedd yn hwyr -> *the man heard that the train is after arrive #late

You would then have further rules to transform "is + after + verb" to "has + verbpp", and "is + for + verb" to "will + verb". (Irish and Gaidhlig have a similar construction, by the way, using "ar, air" instead of "wedi", so whatever rule bundle you use here would be transferable to that branch of Celtic too.)

There is also another similar construction using "ar" in place of "wedi" and "am" - this one means "about to":

clywodd y dyn bod y trên ar gyrraedd yn hwyr -> *the man heard be the train on arrive late - the man heard that the train was about to arrive late

So an additional rule "is + on + verb -> was + about to + arrive".

Oh, there's another one too, with "newydd", meaning "just now":

clywodd y dyn bod y trên newydd gyrraedd yn hwyr -> *the man heard be the new train arrive late - the man heard that the train had just arrived late

This one has been caught by the adjective rule, but "newydd" belongs to the VP, not the NP in this case, so we'd need some prioritisation.

Other examples:

roedd y bachgen yn dweud bod y tŷ wedi mynd ar werth -> the boy was saying that the house has gone on value

(fine, except that "ar werth" means "on sale" - see 1.3.19 below.

dywedodd hi bod y trên yn hwyr -> *she said be the train late - she said that the train is late.

You could deal with this one by adding a similar rule:

VBSER(INF) + NP + ADJ

THAT + NP + VBSER + ADJ

dwi'n meddwl bod y glaw wedi stopio -> *dwithinking that the rain has stopped - I think that ....

(We need to get the present tense of "bod" sorted out too)

dywedodd yr eneth bod y siop am agor ar amser -> the girl said that the shop will open on #time

(I'm noticing the lack of adverbs, eg "tomorrow", "today", "afterwards", etc. I suppose the remaining bits of Eurfa need importing at some point.)

Donnek

The above rule would give "the man heard that the train has arrived late" - not perfect, since in English we would use pluperfect rather than perfect here, but a lot better.

We can extend this to another construction:

For Welsh pattern "[b/f]od + [det.def] + noun + [qualifiers] + am + verb"
output English "that + [det.def] + noun + [qualifiers] + will + verb"

clywodd y dyn bod y trên am gyrraedd yn hwyr -> *the man heard be the train for arrive #late

The above rule would give "the man heard that the train will arrive late" - not perfect, since in English we would use conditional rather than future here.

This now seems to be working. - Francis Tyers

These could be improved if it were possible to refer back to the verb of the main clause. Thus where it is past, the subordinate would use pluperfect or conditional; where it is non-past, the subordinate would use perfect or future.

We can probably set this as a variable, but what would be the triggers to set/unset the variable? - Francis Tyers

End of the clause? Full stop or comma, perhaps? - Donnek

There are other varieties of subordinate clause that I give other suggestions about.

Incidentally, in the above the det.def should be taken to include other prenominal qualifiers like possessives.

Verbal nouns / Infinitives

roedd y dyn yn gwerthu pethau rhad -> the man was selling cheap things

roedd fo yn palu -> he was digging

Both of these are fine.

Making the verbal noun/infinitive the subject doesn't work quite so well:

roedd gwerthu pethau rhad yn hawdd -> *was sell cheap things easy - selling cheap things was easy

roedd palu yn waith caled -> *was dig in a hard work - digging was hard work

The latter would be benefit from the extension of the "yn as stative" rule to nouns, as suggested in 1.3.4 above. But we also need to define the VN as a subject, so that it can be shifted. This is not easy, because the rule may cause problems with other constructions later. But we can take a stab at it.

First, we can use the infinitival form in English - "to sell cheap things was easy" and "to dig was hard work" are equivalent to the above sentences.

For Welsh pattern "verb<vblex><inf>"
output English "to + verb"

For English pattern "to + verb"
output Welsh "verb<vblex><inf>"

This allows the same rule to be used in sentences like:

ceisiodd y dyn agor y bocs -> *the man sought open the box

which should produce "the man tried to open the box". (Can we delete the "seek" entry for "ceisio" until we have refined choices between different entries? The "try" entry is more frequent.)

"seek" entry commented out and replaced with "try". Francis Tyers

Second, we can assume that a verbal noun phrase will occur after an inflected verb (mostly forms of "bod"). So we might try expanding the above to say:

For Welsh pattern "verb_inflected + verb<vblex><inf> + [noun phrase]"
output English "to + verb + [noun phrase] + verb_inflected"

for the first two sentences ("roedd gwerthu pethau rhad" and "roedd palu"), and:

For Welsh pattern "verb_inflected + subject + verb<vblex><inf> + noun phrase"
output English "subject + verb_inflected + to + verb + noun phrase"

for the third ("ceisiodd y dyn agor y bocs").

This is not perfect, and I am not sure how it would cut across the existing rule for subject shift.

There are also interesting issues with nesting of infinitival subject phrases:

roedd gwerthu pethau rhad yn hawdd yn neis -> *was sell cheap things easy nice - to sell cheap things easily was nice

roedd gwerthu pethau rhad yn hawdd yn beth neis -> *was sell cheap things easy in a nice thing - to sell cheap things easily was a nice thing

where I'm not sure how you specify the boundaries of the noun phrase. Any views, or is that too complex for the present iteration.

At the moment to define noun phrases we just define fixed length patterns of tags which are matched in left-to-right, longest-match way. So for example for Welsh to English:

NOUN → SN_(NOUN)

PRNSUBJ → SN_(PRNSUBJ)

DET → SN_(DET)

DET NOUN → SN_(DET NOUN)

NOUN1 NOUN2 → SN_(NOUN2-NOUN1)

NOUN ADJ → SN_(ADJ NOUN)

yn ADJ → SN_(ADJ)

DET NOUN ADJ → SN_(DET ADJ NOUN)

NOUN ADJ1 ADJ2 → SN_(ADJ2 ADJ1 NOUN)

The first is the pattern we detect in Welsh, and the second is the "chunk" that we output in English. Any suggestions on defining more of these (the most frequently occurring), or changing them would be appreciated. - Francis Tyers

Note also in the above that we have the adverb problem from 1.3.4.

Non-compositional multiword phrases

This section is for phrases that have to be scoped as a whole, rather than broken down to their constituent parts. Note: Will probably be marked as "adv" if nothing is given.

ar werth - on sale (adv)

ar ôl y cwbl - after all (adv)

erbyn hyn - by now (adv)

doed a ddelo - come what may (adv)

hyd yn oed - even (adv)

pan fo angen - as needed (adv)

wrth gwrs - of course (adv)

yn ôl i - back to (adv)

yn weddill i - remaining to (adv)

Superlative adjective + "oll"

y rhai lleiaf oll -> *the some smallest *oll - the smallest ones of all

yn gyntaf oll -> *first *oll - first of all

For Welsh pattern "adj.super + oll"
output English "adj.super + of all"

We need to add "oll" (all) to the dictionary, but this would still be a necessary rule.

"rhai"

y rhai bach -> *the some small - the small ones

rhai mawr -> *some big - big ones

"rhai" (some) can be considered the plural of "un" (one).

For Welsh pattern "rhai + adj"
output English "adj + ones"

This also applies to phrases like "y rhai lleiaf oll" above. We need to convert "oll" first on the basis that is follows an adj, and then we need to convert "rhai" on the basis that it precedes an adj.

Lexis

• cwm → cirque (replace with: cwm → valley)

Yes, the Eurfa entry is tagged (geography) so this makes sense. But "cym" would be wrong - cwm (valley), cymau or cymoedd (valleys) - Donnek

Oops, typo :) - Francis Tyers

• Some verb lemmas are being generated incorrectly, (see here)

"cael" - get / have

"cael" is in the dix as "get", because in most cases that is the better gloss:

mi aeth o i'r banc i gael pres allan -> *mi he went in the bank I get money *allan - he went to the bank to get money out

Apertium's version shows some regressions (we can omit the "mi" - see comment to 1.3.27, and "allan", along with the other Eurfa adverbs, has yet to be added to the dix). "i" should not be glossed as "in", but "to" (see comment to 1.3.7). Second, the shortened form of pr.sub.1p.sing ("i") will *never* occur without a preceding conjugated verb, so that option has to be banned in this context.)

Regarding the shortened prn.subj, yep, this is the biggest regression we've had and I'm currently trying to fix it. - Francis Tyers 14:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

mae o'n cael mynd ar ôl y cwbl -> *he is getting go after the all - he's getting to go after all

Pretty creditable attempt, but could be improved if 1.3.16 was applied (if infin is not preceded by "yn", translate as "to"+ infin).

mi gafodd yr athro radd dda o Brifysgol Bangor -> **mi the teacher got good degree of Bangor-University - the teacher got a good degree from the University of Bangor

"mi" again (1.3.27) and inserted "a" (1.3.10) would improve this, but choosing "of" or "from" for "o" will be difficult. For "Bangor-University" see 1.3.31 below.

Note that "cael" in this sentence focusses on the "getting" - focussing on possession uses a different construction:

mae gan yr athro radd dda o Brifysgol Bangor -> *is with the teacher good degree of Bangor-University - the teacher has a good degree from the University of Bangor

"cael"is also used to create a passive construction:

mi gafodd y dyn ei daro gan gar -> **mi the man got his strike with car - the man was struck by a car

Apertium's version is pretty close to the literal - "he got his striking by a car" - which is close to the English "he got himself struck by a car"

However, in the coolness sentence this gloss is inappropriate:

ei bod hi'n cael perthynas â dyn llawer hŷn -> *that she is getting relation with a much older man - that she is having a relationship with a much older man

Can we try the following rule:

For Welsh pattern "cael + NP + {â, gyda}"
output English "have + NP + with"

"i" + infin

After most time conjunctions (eg

• cyn - before,
• ar ôl - after,
• ers - since,
• nes - until,
• erbyn - by the time that,
• wedi - after,
• wrth - while),
• rhag ofn (in case),
• er mwyn (in order to),

the conjunctive clause uses "i" + SM_infin to express person (with "i" being conjugated as appropriate), with tense being dependent on the first part of the sentence.

In terms of conjunctions, we currently have:

<l>a</l><r>and</r>
<l>ond</l><r>but</r>
<l>neu</l><r>or</r>

I'll add these, although some of them already exist as prepositions (which will be fun for the tagger to distinguish between). Should I just add them all to the bidix and Welsh monodix as given above? - Francis Tyers

I tend to think of them just as prepositions with "i" after them, ie a special form of prepositional phrase. But you're right, it would probably be best to tag them as conjunctions. You could get the tagger to distinguish them from prepositions by specifying that the conjunctive version will always be follows by "i" (or a conjugated form of it). - Donnek

Ok, I've added some others I found in my grammar too... probably some of them are variants (north/south) maybe? e.g. it has "gan" for "since". A quick other question:

Until I get the tagger up to speed, will it make much difference if I identify these in the transfer rules based only on lemma as opposed to on lemma+POS ? e.g. this means that if the tagger accidentally tags "wrth" as a preposition, it could still apply it in the transfer rules below. - Francis Tyers

Yes, there are others I haven't got around to yet. "gan" (because, since) and "am" (because, since) are two of them, but they use a "bod" construction similar to 1.3.26, so that's why they're not in this section.

Re the tagger question, I think that should be cause no problems, because the key point is that all of these are followed with "i" - that's why I said above that I tend to think of them as "preposition + i construction". - Donnek

(Note in the examples below that "i'r" is still coming up as "in the", which needs to be addressed.)

Done. This was confusing me for a while, but turns out it was down as "yn+yr" not "i+yr"! - Francis Tyers

The little rotter. Hopefully it has been squashed now. - Donnek

aeth y bachgen wedi i'r bws ddod - *the boy went after in the bus come - the boy went after the bus came

aeth y bachgen wedi iddo fo ddod -> *the boy went after to him come - the boy went after he/it came

bydd o wedi gadael erbyn i'r llythyr gyrraedd -> *that he has left by in the letter arrive - he will have left by the time the letter arrives

bydd o wedi gadael erbyn iddo fo gyrraedd -> *that he has left by to him arrive - he will have left by the time he/it arrives

wrth i'r heddlu ddod i mewn, rhedodd y dyn i mewn i'r stryd -> *beside in the police come I in, the man ran intothe road - as the police came in, the man ran into the street

wrth iddyn nhw ddod i mewn, rhedodd y dyn i mewn i'r stryd -> *beside to them come I in, the man ran intothe road - as they came in, the man ran into the street

For Welsh pattern "cyn + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "before + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past (see below)

Done. - Francis Tyers

For Welsh pattern "wedi + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "after + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

Done. - Francis Tyers

For Welsh pattern "ar ôl + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "after + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

For Welsh pattern "nes + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "until + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

For Welsh pattern "erbyn + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "by the time that + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

For Welsh pattern "wrth + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "as + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

Done. - Francis Tyers

For Welsh pattern "rhag ofn + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "in case + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

For Welsh pattern "er mwyn + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb.infin"
output English "in order for + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.present/verb.past

For Welsh pattern "ers + {"i" + NP, "i".conj + [pr.subj]} + SM_verb"
output English "since + {NP, pr.subj) + verb.past

Note: the use of present or past tense depends on the main verb (except with "ers", when you really only use it in the past). If Apertium can only choose one, then use the present as default. But it would be nice to be able to switch based on the main verb - if this is past, use the past tense (preterite) in English; if it is non-past, use the present tense in English (see comments to 1.3.15).

I'll try setting a variable which tracks the tense of the last conjugated verb (e.g. no inf, ger, etc.) - Francis Tyers

That would be great, becasue it makes quite a difference in terms of how the translation reads to an English speaker. - Donnek

It's done, but could I get examples for each of the rules above so I can test them? - Francis Tyers

I'll do full versions for "cyn":

roedd y siop wedi cau cyn i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio -> *The shop was after close before the boy completed his dinner - the shop had closed before the boy finished his dinner

roedd y siop wedi cau cyn iddo orffen ei ginio -> *The shop was after close before him completed his dinner - the shop had closed before he finished his dinner

Great - the "after close" is because we don't have a rule yet for periphrastic tenses.

caeodd y siop cyn i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio -> The shop closed before the boy completed his dinner - the shop closed before the boy finished his dinner

caeodd y siop cyn iddo orffen ei ginio -> The shop closed before him completed his dinner - the shop closed before he finished his dinner

Great.

mae'r siop yn cau cyn i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio -> *The shop is closing before the boy complete his dinner - the shop closes before the boy finishes his dinner

mae'r siop yn cau cyn iddo orffen ei ginio -> *The shop is closing before him complete his dinner - the shop closes before he finishes his dinner

Fine, apart from the fact that the pr number is not being carried across to the verb.

bydd y siop yn cau cyn i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio -> *Are the shop closing before the boy #complete<vblex><imp> his dinner

bydd y siop yn cau cyn iddo orffen ei ginio -> *Are the shop closing before him #complete<vblex><imp> his dinner

Not so good. The main problem is that the imperative is being chosen instead of the future, and I suspect this then mucks up your tense choice.

Is there any way to disambiguate between imperative / future here? - Francis Tyers

Note that with the pronoun versions the pr.obj is being used instead of the pr.subj.

Similar sentences for "wedi" (after):

roedd y siop wedi cau wedi i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

roedd y siop wedi cau wedi iddo orffen ei ginio

caeodd y siop wedi i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

caeodd y siop wedi iddo orffen ei ginio

mae'r siop yn cau wedi i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

mae'r siop yn cau wedi iddo orffen ei ginio

bydd y siop yn cau wedi i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

bydd y siop yn cau wedi iddo orffen ei ginio

Similar sentences for "wrth" (as, while):

roedd y siop wedi cau wrth i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

roedd y siop wedi cau wrth iddo orffen ei ginio

caeodd y siop wrth i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

caeodd y siop wrth iddo orffen ei ginio

mae'r siop yn cau wrth i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

mae'r siop yn cau wrth iddo orffen ei ginio

bydd y siop yn cau wrth i'r bachgen orffen ei ginio

bydd y siop yn cau wrth iddo orffen ei ginio

- Donnek

Conjunctive genitive with proper names

The sentence from 1.3.29 above:

mi gafodd yr athro radd dda o Brifysgol Bangor -> **mi the teacher got good degree of Bangor-University - the teacher got a good degree from the University of Bangor

suggests the need to deal separately with proper nouns; a useful shorthand would be "any words not coming at the beginning of a sentence which are capitalised".

The "Bangor-University" is, I believe, an earlier rule intended to deal with compound nouns ( get "*woods-things" for "pethau pren" - wooden things, for instance), and I wonder whether it might be commented out for the present?

Yep, actually I haven't yet implemented the rule at the very top (in fact the first rule, as I'm still considering how to do it most effectively. I will make this a priority. - Francis Tyers

Ah, I see. Yes, it would be nice to get that sorted, because it's probably the most distinctive Welsh construction vis-a-vis English. - Donnek

For more discussion, see 1.3.1.1. - Francis Tyers

In this and similar instances it would be preferable for variations of the normal genitive rule (1.3.1) to apply (a capitalised noun is by definition definite), and we can therefore suggest an additional rule:

For a Welsh phrase of the type "!det.def + noun1 + noun_capitalised"
output English to "det.def + noun1 + of + noun_capitalised"

Should we make this noun_capitalised or "proper name" (we mark proper names separately in the dictionary and separate them into "anthroponyms", "cognomens" and "toponyms" - Francis Tyers

Ah, excellent. Would this offer a way of dealing with items like "Red Branch" below? Any of these three categories would use the rule above, but capitalised words that are not marked as one of the above would instead get the det.def added before the capitalised_noun. - Donnek

The following is another example:

Flwyddyn neu ddwy ar ôl priodas Cwchwlin, paratodd Bricriw Dafod Ffals wledd yn ei gastell a gwahoddodd y Brenin Conor ac arwyr y Gangen Goch.

This is very lightly edited actual text from p55 of "Cwchwlin" by Ivor Owen, a retelling of the Irish Cúchulain legend. Apertium's version of this is:

Year or two after marriage *Cwchwlin, prepared *Bricriw *Dafod *Ffals feast in his castle that invited the King *Conor and the heroes Red Branch.

This is actually pretty good.

The rule above would deal with the following:

ar ôl priodas Cwchwlin -> *after marriage Cwchwlin - after the marriage of Cwchwlin

This is kind of done, if we choose a "known" name, we get: "Year or two after the marriage of Elin." - Francis Tyers

Well done.- Donnek

The other example:

ac arwyr y Gangen Goch -> *and the heroes Red Branch - and the heroes of the Red Branch

should already be caught under the second rule under 1.3.1 above, but isn't. Unfortunately, the rule in this section would give the suboptimal "and the heroes of Red Branch". It may be possible to differentiate between different types of proper name (ie those which have an English gloss and those which don't), but in the meantime, on balance, it makes sense to implement the rule in this section.

The extended rule in 1.3.10 would deal with "(a) year" and "(a) feast".

There is the unsolved issue with word-sequence for unknown words (in my view, some pragmatic response to this has to be found, because it is unlikely that Apertium will ever be dealing with a text in which it knows every word). The worst infelicity in the above is that tagger has selected "a" as the relative particle "who, which, that" instead of the much more likely "and" (which is the correct one in this case). This should actually have been ruled out in this case because relative-a is followed by SM, while conjunctive-a is not.

Yep, this is a tagger error and I'm working to resolve it. Unfortunately the forbid/enforce rules don't appear to be applying themselves :/ - Francis Tyers

Preverbal particles - negative

As noted in 1.3.27, preverbal particles need to be addressed. Note that this and the following sections apply mainly to formal, written Welsh.

ond ni threuliodd Cwchwlin ond ychydig o'r misoedd a oedd yn weddill iddo fo yn Nhŷ'r Bechgyn

->*but We spent *Cwchwlin but #a little<n><sg> of the months that was in remnant to him in the House of the Boys (p14)

but Cwchwlin spent only a few of the months remaining to him in the Boys' House

For Welsh pattern "ni + MM_verb.inflected + subject"
output English "subject + auxiliary + not + verb"

Without the auxiliary, this would produce archaic English ("he spent not"), which would be acceptable at a pinch, but Apertium may have standard rules for producing English negatives where a simple affirmative is replaced by a periphrastic negative (I go - I don't go; I went - I didn't go; etc).

MM is the "mixed mutation" - use AM where possible, and SM everywhere else:

• c -> ch
• p -> ph
• t -> th
• g -> ---
• b -> f
• d -> dd
• ll -> l
• m -> f
• rh -> r

ni phrynodd yr athro'r papur -> *We the teacher bought the paper - the teacher did not buy the paper

"ni" becomes "nid" before a vowel, but not before a vowel "exposed" by the soft mutation of a "g":

nid aeth i'r dref -> *Came went to the town - he did not go to the town

ni welodd y bachgen y gath -> *We the boy saw the cat - the boy did not see the cat

ni orffennodd fo'r dasg -> *We completed the task was - he did not complete the task

Note here that we seem to have a regression where the tagger is choosing an unlikely inflected form of "bod" instead of the pr.3p.sing.m. This may be related to the 1.3.29 issue with "i".

For Welsh pattern "verb_inflected + {fo, o, fe, e}"
output English "he + verb_inflected"

Can we also try a more general rule based on negation, namely:

For Welsh pattern "previous_negation + ond"
output "only"

That may not be possible, of course, in which case we'll have to try something else.

The "ni" particle is typical of formal or written Welsh. Spoken or informal Welsh tends to use "ddim" after the verb. But we can leave that till later.

I've added the particle, "ni" and "nid", written a couple of disambiguation rules and done a basic rule which just puts "not" after the verb. This doesn't work in most cases, but does seem to work nicely with "to be" — "nid yw fe yn dref" → "he is not in town". This ruleset is likely to be extremely fragile. - Francis Tyers

"to be" in conditional subjunctive

Roedd e'n meddwl mai gwaed anifail a welodd. → *He was thinking animal blood might be and saw.

[Was] [he] [thinking] [might be] [blood animal] [and] [saw]

Analysis: ^bod<vbser><pii><p3><sg>$ ^prpers<prn><subj><p3><m><sg>+yn<pr>$ ^meddwl<vblex><inf>$ ^bod<vbser><cns><p3><sg>$ ^gwaed<n><m><sg>$ ^anifail<n><m><sg>$ ^a<cnjcoo>$ ^gweld<vblex><past><p3><sg>$

This could be something like:

He was thinking that it might be animal blood that he saw.

Suggestions welcome.

Regression tests

Main article: Welsh to English/Regression tests

Coolness factor

Disclaimer: We're not deliberately aiming the translator at crime texts, it just seems to work best with these — a subject for investigation perhaps?

Roedd y Comisiwn yn ymchwilio i'r honiadau bod yr AS wedi methu datgan £103,000 o roddion.

the Commission Was investigating the allegations that the MP has failed to declare £103,000 of gifts.

"He was the Commission crookedly ymchwiliad I ' group claims be he drives ACE has failed declare he gifts." (InterTran)

Dywedodd yr heddlu fod y troseddau honedig wedi digwydd rhwng 2003 a 2007 yn Sir Benfro a Sir Gaerfyrddin.

the police Said that the alleged crimes have happened between 2003 and 2007 in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

"He said he drives police force be the transgressions alleged has happened between 2003 I go 2007 crookedly Shire ble I go Shire Gaerfyrddin." (InterTran)

Mae'r heddlu hefyd yn ymchwilio i honiadau ei bod hi'n cael perthynas â dyn llawer hŷn.

the police Are also investigating his allegations be she getting relation with a much older man.

"He ' is being group police force also crookedly ymchwiliad I claims you go be she ' heartburn have relation he goes tight much hn & #375." (InterTran)

Mae Ymddiriedolaeth Caerdydd a'r Fro yn gwrthod dweud faint mae'r driniaeth yn costio, ond yn ôl papur newydd y Sun mae'r driniaeth cyffuriau yn costio £2,500 y mis.

Cardiff Trust and the Region Is refusing say size the treatment is costing , but according to the newspaper Sun the treatment is drugs costing £2,500 the month.

"He is being Trust Cardiff I ' go group Land refusing say as many he ' is being group treatment costing , except according to paper news the Sun he ' is being group treatment ingredients costing the month." (InterTran)

Ond byddwn ni'n parhau i weithio gyda'n staff, gwirfoddolwyr, cystadleuwyr, cwsmeriaid, partneriaid, a chyrff eraill i wella ein gwasanaeth Cymraeg.

But we will be continuing to work within a staff, volunteers, competitors, customers, partners, and other bodies to improve our Welsh service.

"Except we will be we ' heartburn last I work with ' heartburn staff , volunteers , competitors , customers partneriaid , I go bodies other I improve our service Welsh." (InterTran)