Characteristics of the Romanian language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Romanian, you need to know the gender of a noun to form (together with number and case) the accompanying adjectives, determiners, and pronouns correctly.
Romanian has three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter. There are two numbers: singular and plural.
Additionally, Romanian has five cases for nouns. However, nominative and accusative are identical; similarly, genitive and dative share the same form.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| gender | masculine | un doctor bătrân (a good doctor) |
| feminine | o femeie bătrână (a good woman) | |
| neuter | un nume bun (a good name) | |
| number | singular | un doctor bun (a good doctor) |
| plural | doctori buni (good doctors) | |
| cases (noun) | nominative | un baiat (a boy) |
| accusative | Vad un baiat. (I see a boy.) | |
| genitive | Geanta unui baiat. (The bag of a boy.) | |
| dative | Mulțumesc unui baiat. (Thanks to a boy.) | |
| vocative | Baiatule! (Hey, boys!) | |
| adjectives (noun) | after noun | casa roșie (red house) |
| verb tenses | present | el face (he makes) |
| past | el făcu (he made) | |
| past participle | el a făcut (he made) | |
| pluperfect | el făcuse (he had done) | |
| imperfect | el făcea (he was making) |
The standard order of a noun phrase in Romanian is the following:
preposition + determiner + numeral + noun + adjective
See for example:
despre aceste trei cărți populare
about these three book popular
PREP DET NUM NOUN ADJ
"about these three popular books"
Lexicon
Nouns
Romanian nouns are inflected for number and case. Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, adjectives and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.
Note that noun lexicon entries are expected to be in the indefinite form. The AX NLG platform will automatically inflect the definite form, when needed.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for pantof (shoe) contains:
- gender: masculine
- inflection table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | pantof | pantofi |
| Accusative | pantof | pantofi |
| Genitive | pantof | pantofi |
| Dative | pantof | pantofi |
| Vocative | pantofule | pantofilor |
Note
If you need lexicon entries for countries, write to the support about that and you will get them for Romanian with automatic handling of prepositions.
Adjectives
In the lexicon, the inflection table encodes gender, case, and number. For adjective position, the default is "after noun". When an adjective should be before the noun, this has to be configured in the lexicon.
If the adjective stands before the noun, the article and case marker automatically are applied to the adjective instead of the noun. For example:
un bun student (a good student)
bunul student (the good student)
in contrast to:
un student bun (a good student)
studentul bun (the good student)
Verbs
Romanian verbs inflect for person, number, and tense. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.
The future tense is formed with the present tense form of the auxiliary vrea and the (short) infinitive of the actual verb. See the following example with a face (to make):
el va face (he will do)
The past tense in Romanian is formed via present tense of "a avea" + past participle. Take a face (to make) for example:
eu am făcut (I did)
tu ai făcut (you did)
ei au făcut (they did)
Container settings
Determiner
The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Romanian: definite, indefinite, demonstrative, and possessive. Possessive determiners stand behind the noun, and noun will be inflected in the definite form. Indefinite and demonstrative determiners stay before the noun as the standard noun phrase order shows.
cartea lui roșie
NOUN DET ADJ
(his red book)
această carte roșie
DET NOUN ADJ
(this red book)
Numerals
The noun will automatically agree with the numeral number when a numeral variable is used. Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit.
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | nouă zile (nine days) | a noua zi (the ninth day) |
| digit | 9 zile (9 day) | a 9. zi (the 9th day) |
When a cardinal number determines a noun, the classifier de is inserted between the numeral and the inflected noun, except for the numbers whose last two digits range from 1 to 19. For example:
| cardinal numeral | example |
|---|---|
| 7 | Șapte mașini 7 mașini (seven cars/7 cars) |
| 20 | douăzeci de mașini 20 de mașini (twenty cars/20 cars) |
| 119 | o sută nouăsprezece mașini 119 mașini (119 cars) |
For Romanian, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 100 on the platform, otherwise (above 100) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:
o sută de mașini
(one hundred cars)
vs.
101 de mașini
(101 cars)
Vowel harmony
The AX platform applies vowel harmonies automatically. In Romanian, this means that some vowels in nouns can change due to adding specific inflectional suffixes. Take Romanian noun pluralization, for example:
floare (flower) -> flori (flowers)
[oa + suffix i => oa becomes o]
băiat (boy) -> băieţi (boys)
[ia + suffix i => ia becomes ie]