A Survey on NLP Resources, Tools, and Techniques for Marathi Language Processing

Abstract

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has been in practice for the past couple of decades, and extensive work has been done for the Western languages, particularly the English language. The Eastern counterpart, especially the languages of the Indian subcontinent, needs attention as not much language processing work has been done on these languages. Western languages are rich in dictionaries, WordNet, and associated tools, while Indian languages are lagging behind in this segment. Marathi is the third most spoken language in India and the 15th most spoken language worldwide. Lack of resources, complex linguistic facts, and the inclusion of prevalent dialects of neighbors have resulted in limited work for Marathi. The aim of this study is to provide an insight into the various linguistic resources, tools, and state-of-the-art techniques applied to the processing of the Marathi language. Initially, morphological descriptions of the Marathi language are provided, followed by a discussion on the characteristics of the Marathi language. Thereafter, for Marathi language, the availability of corpus, tools, and techniques to be used to develop NLP tasks is reviewed. Finally, gap analysis is discussed in current research and future directions for this new and dynamic area of research are listed that will benefit the Marathi Language Processing research community.