Characteristics of the Azerbaijani language in AX Semantics

Fundamentals

In Azerbaijani, you need to know the number of a noun to form the corresponding pronouns correctly. Azerbaijani has no genders for nouns. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Additionally, Azerbaijani has six cases for nouns.

grammatical name	values	examples
case	nominative	it (the dog)
	dative	Mən topu itə verirəm. (I give the ball to the dog.)
	accusative	iti görürəm. (I see the dog)
	genitive	itin zəngi (the dog's bell)
	locative	itdə (in the dog)
	ablative	Bu itdən digərinə getdim. (I walked from this dog to another.)
number	singular	it (dog)
	plural	itlər (dogs)
adjectives (noun)	before noun	qırmızı alma (red apple)
verb tenses	present	o bilir (he knows)
	past	o bildi (he knew)
	future	o biləcək (he will know)

The standard order of a noun phrase in Azerbaijani is the following:

determiner + numeral + adjective + noun + preposition

See for example:

bu    üç    yeni kitab haqqında
these three new  books about
DET   NUM   ADJ  NOUN  PREP
"about these three new books"

Lexicon

Nouns

Azerbaijani nouns inflect for number and case. Nouns should be added to the lexicon if they are not regular. Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.

Examples

The basic lexicon entry for qələm (pen) contains:

• inflection table for case and number:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	qələm	qələmlər
Dative	qələmə	qələmlərə
Accusative	qələmi	qələmləri
Genitive	qələmin	qələmlərin
Locative	qələmdə	qələmlərdə
Ablative	qələmdən	qələmlərdən

Adjectives

In Azerbaijani, the default position for an adjective is "before noun". Azerbaijani adjectives don't inflect.

Verbs

Azerbaijani verbs inflect for person, number, and tense. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects the wrong way, you should add it to the lexicon.

Container settings

Determiner

The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Azerbaijani: indefinite, demonstrative (proximal + distal), and possessives.

For indefinite determiner, only the singular gets determiner bir , the plural doesn't get the indefinite determiner. Possessive determiners are optional and mainly used for emphasis. The noun is automatically marked with possessive suffixes when possessive determiners are used. For example:

kitab (book)
vs.
mənim kitabım (my book)

Pronoun

The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Azerbaijani: personal/distal and demonstrative (proximal). Azerbaijani personal and distal pronouns are always in the same form.

Numerals

Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take gün (day) for example:

	cardinal	ordinal
text	doqquz gün (nine days)	doqquzuncu gün (the ninth day)
digit	9 gün (9 days)	9. gün (the 9th day)

For Azerbaijani, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 12, otherwise (above 12) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:

on iki it
(twelve dogs)
vs.
13 it
(13 dogs)

Determiner switch

Determiners can be switched according to lexical information. If you set the determiner switch for a specific noun in the lexicon, it will automatically switch to another determiner when you add the determiner you intend to switch in the container.

Postposition

Azerbaijani uses postpositions rather than prepositions. Therefore, if prepositions are used in a noun or pronoun container they are automatically put at the end of the phrase. Prepositions function as postpositions despite being called prepositions in the container, since they are analogous to prepositions in English (both are adpositions).

Vowel harmony

The AX platform applies vowel harmony automatically. Vowel harmony means that many inflection suffixes have different variants, that are used depending on what kind of vowels a word contains.

Take for example changing the case of an Azerbaijani noun from nominative to accusative: for words ending in a vowel, the buffer consonant n is added.

lampa [nom, s]
vs.
lampa + i = lampanı [acc, s]