"words" are [scientifically] baseless things!
where from they have come? just from spaces between them. who and why
decided to put spaces there? i think they had not good proofs, else we
would know that proofs. i know only theory about lexemes to put in
dictionaries, and their word forms.
also "words" in grammar come from old grammars written in old times
for latin, arabic, etc. but it is not authoritative source. you should
know how much errors were in old sciences of chemistry, medicine,
astronomy.
as i know apertium already does not stick with traditional words, for
example, as i know, for turkic languages some words which are written
separately are used as word modifier tags in apertium.
but still lemmas with modifier tags are used in apertium and as i know
there is no way to show whether some another word is used with lemma
only, or with lemma with some suffix(es)...
but i think real atoms of syntax are morphemes and it is an idea
written by several authors in several books.
also i think that syntax and morpholgy should be redivided and
renamed. one of them (syntax?) should include all trees in both of
syntax and morphology. (similar idea is also suggested in a book). and
part of morphology should go to a science named like "surface
decoration of syntax trees".
difference is in possible different priority/order of using morphemes.
in many cases resulting meaning is similar, because in that cases
a(bc) = (ab)c ; it can be written "a bc" but it can have meaning (ab)c
and there can be not much practical problem if translation program
uses it as a(bc), since a(bc) = (ab)c. for example "a" can be an
adverb, "b" - a verb and "c" - gerund suffix. for example, "frankly
speaking".
i can give an example when this has practical differences. in turkic
languages verb negation suffix is written sticked and in apertium it
is also used as a tag. usually adverb is used with verb stem (ie to
part without negation suffix) and negation is used to the phrase
consisting of verb and adverb. for example: "кызу бармады" - "qozu
barmado" in tatar is "did not go fast" and has structure "{{кызу
бар}ма}ды" - "did not {go fast}". but you cannot use this as a rule,
similarly written sequence of morphemes can has also another
structure: "бөтенләй эшләмәде" - "botonlay islamadi" means
"(he/she/it/they) has not worked at all" and it has structure
"{бөтенләй} {эшләмәде}" - "{did not work} {at all}" , or "{{бөтенләй}
{эшләмә}}де" - "did {{not work} {at all}}". ( alternatively it could
have structure "{{{бөтенләй эшлә}мә}де}" and meaning "did not make
wholly" - "did not {make wholly}". )
to translate this correctly from tatar to english you should better
use morphemes as atoms, as tree nodes instead of words, because you
should find correct tree structure before you translate, and you
should be able to set morphemes at correct places of tree. as i
remember apertium does not use syntax trees at all for now, or uses
them only for some language pairs, or you have some instrument for
them and experimenting with them, but sets words as word forms in tree
nodes.
probably there are also other examples with other suffixes. there is
also imperative mood suffix in tatar language, with which i expect to
find similar example, and i do not completely deny such problem with
other suffixes like negation and gerund suffixes when translating from
some language to some language.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
_______________________________________________
Apertium-stuff mailing list
Apertium-stuff@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/apertium-stuff
