Abstract
We design an FST-driven computational method to calculate the minimal number of nominal forms—the principal parts—one must know to be able to fully inflect a lexeme in standard Finnish. To do this, we model the nominal inflection pattern as an FST according to the KOTUS inflectional classes. Our results show that knowing five forms always suffices to uniquely determine a nominal’s inflectional class, and to subsequently correctly inflect all the remaining forms. This contrasts with most sources in the literature that tend to assume seven forms are needed.
Highlights
The principal parts of a verb or noun inflection pattern has a long tradition in language learning pedagogy, as regards the classical languages Latin and Greek
As the example shows, knowing the inflections of W, X, and Y suffices to determine the exponent present in Z, indicating that the system consists of three principal parts. This kind of a structure is typical for languages where the morphological exponent is clearly distinguishable—for example, where it is represented by an unambiguous suffix. Given such a table of exponents, determining the minimal set of principal parts can be readily solved through various computational methods
When including alternate forms of lexemes like the singular genitives omenien, omenoiden and omenoitten for the lexeme omena, we discover two equivalent minimal sets of principal parts each containing four forms: PARTSG ILLSG GENSG/ GENPL NOMPL
Summary
The principal parts of a verb or noun inflection pattern has a long tradition in language learning pedagogy, as regards the classical languages Latin and Greek. As the example shows, knowing the inflections of W, X, and Y suffices to determine the exponent present in Z, indicating that the system consists of three principal parts. This kind of a structure is typical for languages where the morphological exponent is clearly distinguishable—for example, where it is represented by an unambiguous suffix. Given such a table of exponents, determining the minimal set of principal parts can be readily solved through various computational methods.. NOM and PART do not suffice since we need to see both a consonant gradation (CG) form and a non-CG form to identify morphological exponents
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