Rule Based Lexical Analysis of Maltese

Since no computer based dictionaries exist for Maltese, the only analysis that can be made at present is rule based. The paper describes a rule based system taking into account the mixed origins, (semitic and romance), of Maltese to categorise function and verb words. The system separates the database, the rule formalisms and the rule definitions, enabling easier analysis and quicker changes to rules when necessary. ~ITRODUCHON Maltese is written in Roman script using 30 letters made up of six vowels and twenty four consonants. Of particular interest are two graphemes gh and ie which though written as two letters are actually considered as one grapheme in the language. A recent survey, based on the most well known Maltese dictionary [l], found that the origin of the words is 40% Semitic, 40% Romance (Italian) and 20% English. The linguistic processing has therefore to take into account this mixed structure. The purpose of this work was to analyse the words to try and distinguish function words and verb words in the running text, within a text-to-speech synthesis application. This is necessary to obtain pause information at appropriate word boundaries. Therefore only a partial lexical analysis is being considered. The method used here involves a rule based system with separation between the rule definitions, the rule operations and the input data formalism. Two databases have the function words and the verb words respectively, to compare with the word under test. The rule formalisms are kept in small local tables pertaining to the various rules under test. In this way addition/deletion of the data is completely independent of the rule formalism, and rules can be added or amended independently of each other. MALTESE HNGUISTICS As in other Semitic languages, Maltese words of semitic origin do not have a stem to which affixes are connected, but rather use transfixes. The stem or root is made up of a number of consonants, which can never occur in isolation, and whose order cannot be altered. Transfixes are then added to the root, sometimes also with prefixes and suffixes. Transfixes are made up of a number of vowels and may include operation on consonants such as doubling the middle consonant, (geminate). On the other hand, words of Romance origin follow the usual pattern of a stem and affixes of the inflectional and derivational type to form other lexemes. For example the semitic derivations from k,t,b are kiteb …