An online database of root-and-pattern verbs
Poster (konferens), 2013
This work introduces an online database of root-and-pattern verbs
in Maltese. Based on
(Spagnol 2011)’s exhaustive enumeration of around 2000 roots and over 4000 verbs, the need arose
to convert this information from spreadsheet form into a more accessible and manageable storage
format. A relational database schema for Maltese roots and verbs was designed, and the contents
of the spreadsheet were semi-automatically imported into the database via comma-separated value
(CSV) format. A web-based interface was then built around this
database, providing powerful search options for searching by root
and/or verb using regular expression syntax. In addition to
information on roots, classes and derived forms from the original
source, fields for English gloss, transitivity information, and
verb frequency were also added. This information was partially
automatically imported from one of the authors’ personal
notes. The rest of the data is being added manually, and we
invite other interested researchers to contribute to the
database. Hosted by the Maltese Language Resource Server (MRLS),
this database is intended to be an open-access resource usable by
other researches, students and Maltese language teachers. Apart
from the web interface, its contents are also accessible via a
REST web service and can additionally be downloaded locally for
offline use. This work has already been used as a substantial part
of the lexicon for a computational grammar of Maltese (Camilleri
2013). In conjunction with the computational morphology being
developed for Maltese, we hope to expand the database to include
full-form entries, covering all conjugation and suffixation
possibilities. This would boost the number of word forms to
roughly 4 million (and that is only counting the root-and-pattern
verbs). We also plan to extend the database to cover loan verbs,
as well as other lexical categories. We believe this work could
serve as the basis for a complete open-access online Maltese
lexicon, useful both to end-users and researchers.
Maltese
root-and-pattern verbs
lexical resources
Semitic morphology