Somali NLP Grammar

Finite state and Constraint Grammar based analysers, proofing tools and other resources

View the project on GitHub giellalt/lang-som

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Nouns

Nouns in Somali have separate paradigms depending on morphophonological stuff, but are split up into subgroups which correspond to gender polarity groups.

Note that items containing ATR should mark the ATR using <¨> before the vowel or at the beginning of the stem if uncertain.

doog:¨doog NOUN1_M/SgOnly ;

Irregular nouns il and si are both female in singular, and have typical morphology there but, have varying irregular masculine plural forms.

Declension 1: F→M

TODO: write quick overview of morphosyntax, morphophon -i for some nominatives. Pl is -o.

Good amount of nouns with -ad, Fem derivational suffix.

Declension 1: M, sg. only

Declension 1: M→M, M→F

Declension 1: Masc. Pl. Only

Declension 1: Fem. Sg. Only

A fair amount of abstract things, and some collective things that probably need to be moved to collective lexica.

Declension 2

Declension 2: Collective

Groups of things, -ley is a common suffix. Taged with +Coll, but available only in singular.

Declension 2: M→F -yo is plural.

Declension 2: M→F

Some consonant doubling in plurals with -o, some with -yo, no doubling.

Declension 2: M→M - Arabic words with Somali plurals.

Declension 2: F→F -yo plurals

Declension 2: M→F - collectives

TODO: these are collectives, but not marked as such and perhaps should be. but also, they have plurals. May be marked as collectives because of Orwin

Declension 2: M→F - Mass

TODO: these are mass nouns, but not marked as such and perhaps should be. Plurals found in word lists, so maybe these need some special handling.

Declension 3: M→M These are fun, because plurals delete the second vowel. Ex.) gabadh -> gabdho; xubin -> xubno Note that some of these have lenis/fortis changes: Ex.) xadhig -> xadhko

Declension 3: F→M

Declension 3: M→M

Arabic loan plural forms These are borrowed Arabic plural forms for Arabic loans. Not really predictable but mostly taken from Qaamuuska af-Soomaaliga.

Ex.)


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