Construction of compound nouns (CNs) for noun phrase in Malay sentence

Abstract

This paper addresses the process of compound noun construction from simple Malay sentences. To construct the compound noun, we characterize them according to the noun phrase categories in Malay sentence. All these categories are formed based on the combination of noun and noun, noun and noun modifier and noun and non-noun modifier. The noun phrase in Malay sentence is referred to as a word group with a noun as its head. The head noun is then accompanied by modifiers or compliments. The modifiers or compliments can be either noun, verb, adjective, determiner or etc. A good understanding of Malay language is an important skill for evaluating and nominating a correct compound noun found from the data collection. The compound noun then will be match with its appropriate category. We also design a general process flow to show the steps involved in creating compound noun from our data collection. The total number of compound nouns collected is important, so that the searching process becomes more widespread. A suitable searching method and data representation is also significant for handling compound nouns from a database.