Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing

186 Pages·2010·1.829 MB·

by  Nizar Y. Habash

Introduction to Arabic
Natural Language Processing
Copyright© 2010byMorgan&Claypool
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedin
anyformorbyanymeans—electronic,mechanical,photocopy,recording,oranyotherexceptforbriefquotationsin
printedreviews,withoutthepriorpermissionofthepublisher.
IntroductiontoArabicNaturalLanguageProcessing
NizarY.Habash
www.morganclaypool.com
ISBN:9781598297959 paperback
ISBN:9781598297966 ebook
DOI10.2200/S00277ED1V01Y201008HLT010
APublicationintheMorgan&ClaypoolPublishersseries
SYNTHESISLECTURESONHUMANLANGUAGETECHNOLOGIES
Lecture#10
SeriesEditor:GraemeHirst,UniversityofToronto
SeriesISSN
SynthesisLecturesonHumanLanguageTechnologies
Print1947-4040 Electronic1947-4059
Synthesis Lectures on Human
Language Technologies
Editor
GraemeHirst,UniversityofToronto
SynthesisLecturesonHumanLanguageTechnologiesiseditedbyGraemeHirstoftheUniversityof
Toronto.Theseriesconsistsof50-to150-pagemonographsontopicsrelatingtonaturallanguage
processing,computationallinguistics,informationretrieval,andspokenlanguageunderstanding.
Emphasisisonimportantnewtechniques,onnewapplications,andontopicsthatcombinetwoor
moreHLTsubfields.
IntroductiontoArabicNaturalLanguageProcessing
NizarY.Habash
2010
Cross-LanguageInformationRetrieval
Jian-YunNie
2010
AutomatedGrammaticalErrorDetectionforLanguageLearners
ClaudiaLeacock,MartinChodorow,MichaelGamon,andJoelTetreault
2010
Data-IntensiveTextProcessingwithMapReduce
JimmyLinandChrisDyer
2010
SemanticRoleLabeling
MarthaPalmer,DanielGildea,andNianwenXue
2010
SpokenDialogueSystems
KristiinaJokinenandMichaelMcTear
2009
IntroductiontoChineseNaturalLanguageProcessing
Kam-FaiWong,WenjieLi,RuifengXu,andZheng-shengZhang
2009
iv
IntroductiontoLinguisticAnnotationandTextAnalytics
GrahamWilcock
2009
DependencyParsing
SandraKübler,RyanMcDonald,andJoakimNivre
2009
StatisticalLanguageModelsforInformationRetrieval
ChengXiangZhai
2008
Introduction to Arabic
Natural Language Processing
NizarY.Habash
ColumbiaUniversity
SYNTHESISLECTURESONHUMANLANGUAGETECHNOLOGIES#10
M
&C Morgan &cLaypool publishers
ABSTRACT
Thisbookprovidessystemdevelopersandresearchersinnaturallanguageprocessingandcomputa-
tionallinguisticswiththenecessarybackgroundinformationforworkingwiththeArabiclanguage.
The goal is to introduce Arabic linguistic phenomena and review the state-of-the-art in Arabic
processing.ThebookdiscussesArabicscript,phonology,orthography,morphology,syntaxandse-
mantics,withafinalchapteronmachinetranslationissues.Thechaptersizescorrespondmoreorless
towhatislinguisticallydistinctiveaboutArabic,withmorphologygettingthelion’sshare,followed
byArabicscript.NopreviousknowledgeofArabicisneeded.Thisbookisdesignedforcomputer
scientistsandlinguistsalike.ThefocusofthebookisonModernStandardArabic;however,notes
onpracticalissuesrelatedtoArabicdialectsandlanguageswrittenintheArabicscriptarepresented
indifferentchapters.
KEYWORDS
Arabic,natural language processing,computational linguistics,script,phonology,or-
thography,morphology,syntax,semantics,machinetranslation
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father,
Sakher Habash,who opened my eyes to the beauty of language
and to the elegance of science.
I owe so much to his love,support and faith in me.

ix
Contents
Preface......................................................................xv
Acknowledgments..........................................................xvii
1 Whatis“Arabic”?.............................................................1
1.1 ArabicLanguageandArabicDialects.........................................1
1.2 ArabicScript...............................................................2
1.3 ThisBook .................................................................3
2 ArabicScript.................................................................5
2.1 ElementsoftheArabicScript................................................5
2.1.1 Letters..............................................................5
2.1.2 Diacritics...........................................................11
2.1.3 Digits..............................................................12
2.1.4 PunctuationandOtherSymbols......................................14
2.1.5 ArabicScriptExtensions.............................................14
2.1.6 ArabicTypography..................................................15
2.2 ArabicEncoding,InputandDisplay.........................................16
2.2.1 ArabicInput/OutputSupport........................................17
2.2.2 ArabicEncodings...................................................18
2.3 NLPTasks................................................................20
2.3.1 OrthographicTransliteration.........................................20
2.3.2 OrthographicNormalization.........................................21
2.3.3 HandwritingRecognition............................................23
2.3.4 AutomaticDiacritization.............................................24
2.4 FurtherReadings..........................................................24