Converting a comprehensive lexical database into a computational model: The case of East Cree verb inflection

In this paper we present a case study of how comprehensive, well-structured, and consistent lexical databases, one indicating the exact inflectional subtype of each word and another exhaustively listing the full paradigm for each inflectional subtype, can be quickly and reliably converted into a computational model of the finite-state transducer (FST) kind. As our example language, we will use (Northern) East Cree (Algonquian, ISO 639-3: crl), a morphologically complex Indigenous language. We will focus on modeling (Northern) East Cree verbs, as their paradigms represent the most richly inflected forms in this language.