Automatic typological analysis of semitic morphology
Arthur Stepanov · Journal of Quantitative Linguistics · 1995
It is shown that the quantitative approach to morphological typology presented by Greenberg (1960) has considerable potential as a sensitive and powerful device for capturing morphological phenomena in natural languages, provided the up‐to‐date statistical techniques and effective computer support are involved. In the present paper, the method of quantitative typology is extended by introducing automatic typological analysis of a large text corpus in a language under investigation. This analysis allows for investigation of distribution functions of quantitative exponents (indices) standing for the relevant morphological features. A computer program is developed which performs automatic typological analysis of Semitic languages. Its performance is exemplified by analysis of Literary Arabic and Maltese.