Automatic proofreading for Norwegian: The challenges of lexical and grammatical variation

In this paper we present some techniques, experiences and results from the SCARRIE project, which has aimed at developing improved proofreading tools for the Scandinavian languages. The focus is on methods which were used for spelling and grammar checking and particularly some novel analyses and treatments dealing with the extensive lexical and grammar variation in Norwegian Bokmål. The major findings are that (1) since in Bokmål, lexical variants may differ with respect to grammatical features, stylistic replacement at the word level causes a need for grammar checking, and (2) the different systems for gender agreement in Bokmål can be handled in an economical way by a single grammar and lexicon if the features in the lexicon are interpreted dynamically depending on the subnorm or style preferred by the author.