Characteristics of the Belarusian language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Belarusian, you need to know the gender and animacy of a noun to form (together with number and case) the accompanying adjectives, determiners, numerals, and pronouns correctly.
Belarusian has three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Masculine nouns also differentiate between animate and inanimate. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Additionally, Belarusian has six cases for nouns.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| gender/animacy | masculine inanimate | стары дом (old house) |
| masculine animate | стары ле́кар (old doctor) | |
| feminine | старая дама (old lady) | |
| neuter | старое слова (old word) | |
| number | singular | вялікі дом (big house) |
| plural | вялікія дамы (big houses) | |
| case | nominative | дама (lady) |
| genitive | Голас дамы. (The voice of the lady.) | |
| dative | Ён дорыць даме кветкі. (He gives flowers to the lady.) | |
| accusative | Ён бачыць даму. (He sees the lady.) | |
| instrumental | Ён ідзе з дамай. (He goes with the lady.) | |
| locative | Дзіця ляжыць на даме. (The child lies on the lady.) | |
| adjectives (noun) | before noun | чырвонае яблык (red apple) |
| verb tenses | present | ён гуля́е (he plays) |
| past | ён гуляў (he played) | |
| future | ён бу́дзе гуля́ць (he will play) |
The standard order of a noun phrase in Belarusian is the following:
preposition + determiner + numeral + adjective + noun
See for example:
пра гэтыя тры папулярныя кнігі
about these three popular books
PREP DET NUM ADJ NOUN
"about these three popular books"
Lexicon
Nouns
Belarusian nouns inflect for case, gender and number. If a lexicon entry is missing, the NLG platform tries to find the most probable gender based on heuristics. The number x case forms of a noun should be added to the lexicon if they are not regular.
Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, adjectives, numerals and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for дом (house) contains:
- gender: masculine
- animacy: inanimate
- inflection table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | дом | дамы́ |
| Genitive | до́му | дамо́ў |
| Dative | до́му | дама́м |
| Accusative | дом | дамы́ |
| Instrumental | до́мам | дама́мі |
| Locative | до́ме | дама́х |
Adjectives
In Belarusian, the default position for an adjective is "before noun". In the inflection table, animacy, gender, case, and number can be encoded.
Verbs
Belarusian verbs inflect for person, number, tense, and gender. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects the wrong way, you should add it to the lexicon.
Please note that the future tense can be formed in two ways (imperfective and perfective). For imperfective verbs it is formed by taking the future tense of the auxiliary verb быць (to be) and the infinitive verb. Thus, only the auxiliary verb needs to be in a container. For perfective verbs, the present form usually expresses the future tense. See for example the verbsігра́ць/пайграць (to play),
я бу́ду йгра́ць.
(I will play [imperfective])
я пайграю.
(I will play [perfective])
Container settings
Determiner
The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Belarusian: demonstratives (distal & proximal) and possessives.
Pronoun
The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Belarusian: personal, demonstratives (distal & proximal), reflexive and possessive.
Numerals
Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take дзень (day) for example:
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | дзевяць дзён (nine days) | дзевяты дзень (the ninth day) |
| digit | 9 дзён (9 days) | 9. дзень (the 9th day) |
For Belarusian, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform, otherwise (above 10) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:
дзесяць дамоў
(ten houses)
vs.
11 дамоў
(11 houses)
In Belarusian, case and number for nouns/adjectives change automatically based on cardinal numerals when it's applicable, for example:
| Numeral | case / number | examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (also numbers ending in 1, excluding 11) | Nominative/Singular | 1 прыгожая жанчына (1 beautiful woman) 21 прыгожая жанчына (21 beautiful women) |
| 2-4 (also numbers ending in 2, 3, 4, excluding 12, 13, 14) | - Female nouns/adjectives take genitive/singular - Masculine and Neuter nouns/adjectives mostly take nominative/plural | - 2 прыгожыя жанчыны (2 beautiful women) - 3 прыгожыя мужчыны (3 beautiful men) |
| >= 5 | Genitive/Plural | 7 прыгожых жанчын (7 beautiful women) |
Preposition Switch
On the AX NLG platform the settings for the container Германія (Germany) are: preposition="ў" and case="acc".
ў Германію
(to Germany)
For the below sentence with a different country, Філіпіны (the Philippines), the platform settings are the same as above (preposition="ў" and case="acc"), but the lexical information changes the preposition:
на Філіпіны
(to the Philippines)
Sound shifts
The AX platform applies sound shifts automatically when inflection happens (e.g., by adding a suffix). This involves consonant changes; for example, when the word ends in the consonants г, к, and х , the suffix ы changes to i .
пірог(nom, s) + ы → пірагі (nom, p)
Sound shifts also involve accent changes; for example, о and э only exist when stressed, so if the suffix is unstressed, the letters о and э change to а or я.
крыло (nom, s) + ам → крылам (dat, p)