Analyzing and generating English phrases with finite-state methods to match and translate inflected Plains Cree word-forms

Antti Arppe


Abstract
This paper presents two finite-state transducer tools, which can be used to analyze or generate simple English verb and noun phrases, that can be mapped with inflected Plains Cree (nêhiyawêwin) verb and noun forms. These tools support fetching an inflected Cree word-form directly with an appropriate plain English phrase, and conversely providing a rough translation of an inflected Cree word-form. Such functionalities can be used to improve the user friendliness of on-line dictionaries. The tools are extendable to other similarly morphologically complex languages.
Anthology ID:
2025.americasnlp-1.6
Volume:
Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on NLP for Indigenous Languages of the Americas (AmericasNLP)
Month:
May
Year:
2025
Address:
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Editors:
Manuel Mager, Abteen Ebrahimi, Robert Pugh, Shruti Rijhwani, Katharina Von Der Wense, Luis Chiruzzo, Rolando Coto-Solano, Arturo Oncevay
Venues:
AmericasNLP | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
48–62
Language:
URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/fix-sig-urls/2025.americasnlp-1.6/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Antti Arppe. 2025. Analyzing and generating English phrases with finite-state methods to match and translate inflected Plains Cree word-forms. In Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on NLP for Indigenous Languages of the Americas (AmericasNLP), pages 48–62, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Analyzing and generating English phrases with finite-state methods to match and translate inflected Plains Cree word-forms (Arppe, AmericasNLP 2025)
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https://preview.aclanthology.org/fix-sig-urls/2025.americasnlp-1.6.pdf