Morphology

INTRODUCTION TO THE MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSER OF LIVONIAN.

List of the multichar symbols

The morphological analyses of wordforms in Livonian are presented in this system in terms of the symbols declared below.

(It is highly suggested to follow existing GiellaLT standards when adding new tags).

The parts-of-speech are:

• +A = adjective
• +Adp = adposition
• +Adv = adverb
• +CS = subordinating conjunction
• +CC = coordinating conjunction
• +Interj = interjection
• +N = noun
• +Num = numeral
• +Pcle = particle
• +Pr = preposition
• +Po = postposition
• +Pron = pronoun
• +Qnt = quantifier
• +V = verb

Parts of speech are further split up into:

Nouns

• +Prop = proper nouns

Pronouns

• +Dem = demonstrative
• +Indef = indefinite
• +Interr = interrogative
• +Pers = personal
• +Recipr = reciprocal
• +Refl = reflexive
• +Rel = relative

Nominals are inflected for Number and Case

Number

• +Sg = singular
• +Pl = plural

Case

• +Abe = abessive
• +Abl = ablative case
• +Ade = adessive
• +All = allative
• +Dat = dative case
• +Ela = elative
• +Ess = essive
• +Exe = exessive
• +Gen = genitive case
• +Ill = illative
• +Ine = inessive
• +Ins = instrumental -KÕKS
• +Instr = instructive -IN
• +Lat = Lative
• +Nom = nominative case
• +Par = partitive
• +Prl = prolative
• +Tra = translative
• +Voc = Vocative

Possession is marked as such:

• +PxSg1
• +PxSg2
• +PxSg3
• +PxPl1
• +PxPl2
• +PxPl3

The comparative forms are:

• +Pos
• +Comp
• +Superl

Numerals are classified under:

• +Attr
• +Card
• +Ord

Verb moods are:

• +Cond = conditional
• +Ind = indicative
• +Imprt = imperative
• +ImprtII
• +Jus = jussitive
• +Quo = quotative, quoted speech

Tenses

• +Prs
• +Prt

Voice

• +Act = active
• +Pss = passive

Verb personal forms are:

• +Sg1 = first person singular conjugation
• +Sg2 = second person singular conjugation
• +Sg3 = third person singular conjugation
• +Pl1 = first person plural conjugation
• +Pl2 = second person plural conjugation
• +Pl3 = third person plural conjugation

Other verb forms are

• +ConNeg = connegative, main verb complement to Neg,
• +Ger = gerund
• +Inf = infinitive
• +Neg = verb of negation эзь, аволь, иля
• +Prc = participle CHECK! how is this used ?
• +PrsPrc
• +PrfPrc
• +Sup
• +VGen
• +VAbess
• +Aux = Auxiliary verb

Verbs are syntactically split according to transitivity:

• +TV = Transitive verb
• +IV = Intransitive verb

Usage extents are marked using following tags:

• +Err/Orth
• +Err/Orth-õ-i is õ should be i lītõm should be lītim 2025-09-09
• +Use/-Spell
• +Use/NG no generation

Abbreviated words are classified with:

• +ABBR containing period
• +Symbol = independent symbols in the text stream, like £, €, ©
• +ACR acronyms, not containing period

Special symbols are classified with:

• +CLB
• +PUNCT
• +LEFT
• +RIGHT +MIDDLE

Special multiword units are analysed with:

• +Multi

Normative/prescriptive compounding tags

(to govern compound behaviour for the speller, ie what a compound SHOULD BE):

The first part of the component may be ..

• +CmpN/Sg Sg
• +CmpN/SgN SgNominative
• +CmpN/SgG SgGenitive
• +CmpN/PlG PlGenitive

This entry / word can …

• +CmpNP/All - … be in all positions, default, this tag does not have to be written
• +CmpNP/First - … only be first part in a compound or alone
• +CmpNP/Pref - … only first part in a compound, NEVER alone
• +CmpNP/Last - … only be last part in a compound or alone
• +CmpNP/Suff - … only last part in a compound, NEVER alone
• +CmpNP/None - … not take part in compounds
• +CmpNP/Only - … only be part of a compound, i.e. can never be used alone, but can appear in any position

Non-dictionary words can be recognised with:

• +Guess

Question and Focus particles:

• +Qst

• +Foc

• +Sem/Act Activity
• +Sem/Amount Amount
• +Sem/Ani Animate
• +Sem/Aniprod Animal Product
• +Sem/Body Bodypart
• +Sem/Body-abstr siellu, vuoig?a, jierbmi
• +Sem/Build Building
• +Sem/Build-part Part of Bulding, like the closet
• +Sem/Cat Category
• +Sem/Clth Clothes
• +Sem/Clth-jewl Jewelery
• +Sem/Clth-part part of clothes, boallu, sávdnji…
• +Sem/Ctain Container
• +Sem/Ctain-abstr Abstract container like bank account
• +Sem/Ctain-clth
• +Sem/Curr Currency like dollár, Not Money
• +Sem/Dance Dance
• +Sem/Dir Direction like GPS-kursa
• +Sem/Domain Domain like politics, reindeerherding (a system of actions)
• +Sem/Drink Drink
• +Sem/Dummytag Dummytag
• +Sem/Edu Educational event
• +Sem/Event Event
• +Sem/Feat Feature, like Árvu
• +Sem/Feat-phys Physiological feature, ivdni, fárda
• +Sem/Feat-psych Psychological feauture
• +Sem/Feat-measr Psychological feauture
• +Sem/Fem Female name
• +Sem/Food Food
• +Sem/Food-med Medicine
• +Sem/Furn Furniture
• +Sem/Game Game
• +Sem/Geom Geometrical object
• +Sem/Group Animal or Human Group
• +Sem/Hum Human
• +Sem/Hum-abstr Human abstract
• +Sem/Ideol Ideology
• +Sem/Lang Language
• +Sem/Mal Male name
• +Sem/Mat Material for producing things
• +Sem/Measr Measure
• +Sem/Money Has to do with money, like wages, not Curr(ency)
• +Sem/Obj Object
• +Sem/Obj-clo Cloth
• +Sem/Obj-cogn Cloth
• +Sem/Obj-el (Electrical) machine or apparatus
• +Sem/Obj-ling Object with something written on it
• +Sem/Obj-rope flexible ropelike object
• +Sem/Obj-surfc Surface object
• +Sem/Org Organisation
• +Sem/Part Feature, oassi, bealli
• +Sem/Perc-cogn Cognative perception
• +Sem/Perc-emo Emotional perception
• +Sem/Perc-phys Physical perception
• +Sem/Perc-psych Physical perception
• +Sem/Plant Plant
• +Sem/Plant-part Plant part
• +Sem/Plc Place
• +Sem/Plc-abstr Abstract place
• +Sem/Plc-elevate Place
• +Sem/Plc-line Place
• +Sem/Plc-water Place
• +Sem/Pos Position (as in social position job)
• +Sem/Process Process
• +Sem/Prod Product
• +Sem/Prod-audio Audio product
• +Sem/Prod-cogn Cognition product
• +Sem/Prod-ling Linguistic product
• +Sem/Prod-vis Visual product
• +Sem/Rel Relation
• +Sem/Route Name of a Route
• +Sem/Rule Rule or convention
• +Sem/Semcon Semantic concept
• +Sem/Sign Sign (e.g. numbers, punctuation)
• +Sem/Sport Sport
• +Sem/State
• +Sem/State-sick Illness
• +Sem/Substnc Substance, like Air and Water
• +Sem/Sur Surname
• +Sem/Symbol Symbol
• +Sem/Time Time
• +Sem/Tool Prototypical tool for repairing things
• +Sem/Tool-catch Tool used for catching (e.g. fish)
• +Sem/Tool-clean Tool used for cleaning
• +Sem/Tool-it Tool used in IT
• +Sem/Tool-measr Tool used for measuring
• +Sem/Tool-music Music instrument
• +Sem/Tool-write Writing tool
• +Sem/Txt Text (girji, lávlla…)
• +Sem/Veh Vehicle
• +Sem/Wpn Weapon
• +Sem/Wthr The Weather or the state of ground

Semantics are classified with

Homonymy

• +Hom1
• +Hom2
• +Hom3
• +Hom4

Derivations are classified under the morphophonetic form of the suffix, the source and target part-of-speech.

• +V→N
• +V→V
• +V→A
• +Der/xxx
• +Der/A for example present participle to adjective
• +Der/VN
• +Der/NomAct
• +Der/NomAg
• +NomAct
• +NomAg

Symbols that need to be escaped on the lower side (towards twolc):

• »7: Literal »
• «7: Literal «

   %[%>%]  - Literal >
   %[%<%]  - Literal <
  

Morphophonology

To represent phonologic variations in word forms we use the following symbols in the lexicon files:

• {aä} back/front a
• {oö} back/front o
• {uü} back/front u
• {uü} for consonant lengthening
• %{õØ%} in umblõ:umb%{õØ%}lõ

And following triggers to control variation

• %^PenVV2V penultimate vowel shortening

• %^ĪE2Ē kēļ:kīel
• %^Pen penultimate syllable
• %^U2ZERO The u => 0
• %^VV2V shorten vowel
• %^CC2C weak-grade stem

• %^Õ2I vowel change in stem

• {front} = front vowels
• {back} = back vowels
• %^Tense = Tense stem will have stød if proper stem type
• %^ConsL = Consonant lengthening
• %^1Sh2L =
• %^D2T d:t veʼž:veʼd:vietā
• %^PreI i:0 veʼž:veʼd:vietā
• %^VowShIn1 This causes vowel shortening in 1. syll accompanied by coda consonant lengthening
• %^A2ÕIn2 This causes 2. syll a => õ
• %^ConsSh =
• %^Stress1to2 =
• %^Stress2to1 =
• %^VowsSh1 = vowel shortening in first syllable
• %^VowsShU1 =
• %^VowsShIn1 =
• %^DiphthSh1 =
• %^VowsLI1 = Vowel lengthening
• %^VowsLU1 =
• %^VowsL1 =
• %^LongV2Õin2 = long vowel to õ in second syllable
• %^Vow2Iin2 = vowel to i or ī in second syllable
• %^VowsõToi kīndõr:kīndiriž
• %^DiphthL1 =
• %^D2Ž = The *ti => *si
• %^D2ZERO The d => 0
• %^VOWLower lower vowel
• %^VOWRaise = Vowel raising
• %^VowsMetath = vowel metathesis in verbs
• %^UltRmVow - for removing ultimate vowels i, ? after final consonant in stem
• %^VowsMRM Vow in middle ētam:eitmõd
• %^VowsRM =
• %^ConsRM =
• %^StodRM = for removing Stød
• %^PalatalizeLeft =
• %^PalatalizeLeft
• %^VowsL1aToǭ = a » ǭ

Flag diacritics

We have manually optimised the structure of our lexicon using following flag diacritics to restrict morhpological combinatorics - only allow compounds with verbs if the verb is further derived into a noun again: | @P.NeedNoun.ON@ | (Dis)allow compounds with verbs unless nominalised | @D.NeedNoun.ON@ | (Dis)allow compounds with verbs unless nominalised | @C.NeedNoun@ | (Dis)allow compounds with verbs unless nominalised

For languages that allow compounding, the following flag diacritics are needed to control position-based compounding restrictions for nominals. Their use is handled automatically if combined with +CmpN/xxx tags. If not used, they will do no harm. | @P.CmpFrst.FALSE@ | Require that words tagged as such only appear first | @D.CmpPref.TRUE@ | Block such words from entering ENDLEX | @P.CmpPref.FALSE@ | Block these words from making further compounds | @D.CmpLast.TRUE@ | Block such words from entering R | @D.CmpNone.TRUE@ | Combines with the next tag to prohibit compounding | @U.CmpNone.FALSE@ | Combines with the prev tag to prohibit compounding | @P.CmpOnly.TRUE@ | Sets a flag to indicate that the word has passed R | @D.CmpOnly.FALSE@ | Disallow words coming directly from root.

Use the following flag diacritics to control downcasing of derived proper nouns (e.g. Finnish Pariisi -> pariisilainen). See e.g. North Sámi for how to use these flags. There exists a ready-made regex that will do the actual down-casing given the proper use of these flags. | @U.Cap.Obl@ | Allowing downcasing of derived names: deatnulasj. | @U.Cap.Opt@ | Allowing downcasing of derived names: deatnulasj.

Root lexicon

The word forms in Livonian start from the lexeme roots of basic word classes

• adjectives ;
• adpositions ;
• adverbs ;
• conjunctors ;
• interjections ;
• nouns ;
• particles ;
• pronouns ;
• propernouns ;
• quantifiers ;
• verbs ;
• Abbreviation ;
• Acronym ;
• Punctuation ;
• Symbols ;
• EXCEPTIONS ;
• A_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new adjectives
• ADV_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new adverbs
• N_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new nouns
• PROP_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new propernouns
• V_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new verbs
• QUESTIONABLEMISC_NEWWORDS ; This is for feeding new words of questionable status

Lexica for words that are not inflected

These are but here for the time being

adverb lexicon

• LEXICON ADV_KĒRATÕKS

• LEXICON ADV_KǬRAND

• LEXICON ADV_IRM

Interjections lexicon

pcle-mod lexicon

pcle-lexicon

This is used in compounding, e.g. äʼb-:äʼb

• LEXICON K is the clitic lexicon, but no clitica here, only #.

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This (part of) documentation was generated from src/fst/morphology/root.lexc