Natural Language Processing and the Mohawk Language: Creating a finite state morphological parser of Mohawk formal nouns

Presented in this book is the design, implementation and evaluation of a finite state morphological parser for Mohawk formal nouns. Utilizing the finite state morphology software designed by Beesely and Karttunen (2003) along with three of the most comprehensive grammars for Mohawk, one from each of the major dialectal regions, a lexicon for a finite state system was created. In addition to the parser, a taxonomy of Mohawk prefixes and suffixes was developed for the finite state system. The research shown here demonstrates that the Mohawk language’s formal nouns can successfully be described and parsed using the techniques of finite state morphology. With further study and review it is perhaps possible a finite state system could be expanded to include all Mohawk nouns, verbs, and particles. This work is an effort to provide greater access to the Mohawk language for the speakers and learners of the language through the development of digital language tools. It is also an effort to support the creation of linguistic resources for other polysynthetic and under-resourced languages.

Alicia (Grinnell '07) is a Master of Science in Multilingual Computing & Localisation from the University of Limerick, a Project Manager for a translation company, and an MA Candidate in Spanish at Middlebury College. She is an avid language learner who speaks Italian, Spanish, and Russian and has a passion for the languages of North America.