Jabalín: A Comprehensive Computational Model of Modern Standard Arabic Verbal Morphology Based on Traditional Arabic Prosody

Abstract

The computational handling of Modern Standard Arabic is a challenge in the field of natural language processing due to its highly rich morphology. However, several authors have pointed out that the Arabic morphological system is in fact extremely regular. The existing Arabic morphological analyzers have exploited this regularity to variable extent, yet we believe there is still some scope for improvement. Taking inspiration in traditional Arabic prosody, we have designed and implemented a compact and simple morphological system which in our opinion takes further advantage of the regularities encountered in the Arabic morphological system. The output of the system is a large-scale lexicon of inflected forms that has subsequently been used to create an Online Interface for a morphological analyzer of Arabic verbs. The Jabalín Online Interface is available at