Computational Modeling of Verbs in Dene Languages: The Case of Tsuut’ina

2 Morphological Structure of the Dene Verb The morphological structure of verbs in Dene languages is considered to be about as complex as it can get among the languages of the world. However, the overall structure, with outer (disjunct), inner (conjunct), and stem ‘zones’ of verb (cf. Kari 1989) is not generally, and thus computationally, difficult to model. What is seen as most challenging primarily concerns the extensive morphological fusion in subject-aspect inflection immediately preceding the stem (cf. K. Rice 2005: 404–407), a span which “is at least historically a concatenation of morphemes before the verb stem” (K. Rice 2005: 404). As Keren Rice (2005: 405) delicately puts it, “[t]he morphophonemics of this span of the verb is complex.”

[1]  James Kari,et al.  Affix Positions and Zones in the Athapaskan Verb Complex: Ahtna and Navajo , 1989, International Journal of American Linguistics.

[2]  Tommi A. Pirinen,et al.  Building an open-source development infrastructure for language technology projects , 2013, NODALIDA.

[3]  Eung-Do Cook.  A Sarcee Grammar , 1984 .

[4]  James Kari.  The Disjunct Boundary in the Navajo and Tanaina Verb Prefix Complexes , 1975, International Journal of American Linguistics.

[5]  Keren Rice.  A typology of good grammars , 2006 .

[6]  Marie-Odile Junker,et al.  Developing Web Databases for Aboriginal Language Preservation , 2006, Lit. Linguistic Comput..

[7]  Lars Borin,et al.  Grammatically based language technology for minority languages , 2006 .

[8]  Lene Antonsen,et al.  Generating Modular Grammar Exercises with Finite-State Transducers , 2013 .

[9]  Melissa Axelrod.  The Semantics of Time: Aspectual Categorization in Koyukon Athabaskan , 1993 .

[10]  Marie-Odile Junker,et al.  Building Search Engines for Algonquian languages 1 , 2008 .

[11]  Tommi A. Pirinen,et al.  HFST - Framework for Compiling and Applying Morphologies , 2011, SFCM.

[12]  Mans Hulden,et al.  Foma: a Finite-State Compiler and Library , 2009, EACL.

[13]  Gary Libben,et al.  Morphological Representation in an Endangered, Polysynthetic Language , 2002, Brain and Language.

[14]  Patricia A. Shaw,et al.  CONSONANT HARMONY SYSTEMS: THE SPECIAL STATUS OF CORONAL HARMONY , 1991 .

[15]  Lene Antonsen,et al.  Using Finite State Transducers for Making Efficient Reading Comprehension Dictionaries , 2013, NODALIDA.

[16]  Mans Hulden,et al.  An experiment in computational parsing of the Navajo verb , 2008 .

[17]  Lene Antonsen,et al.  Turning language documentation into reader’s and writer’s software tools , 2015 .

[18]  Joyce McDonough.  The Navajo Sound System , 2003 .