Eckhard Bick - VISL

Base form (and not word root) is what outputs as the base form of any derived
reading. '=' means that it is identical to the word root, numbers mean removing the n
last letters from the root form, letters are added to the root form. Thus '2oar' means:
"cut 2 letters off 'abalôo', then add 'oar', in order to get the base form 'abaloar'.
Word class is used to determine outward compatibility, and is used to
construe the output word classes N, V, ADJ, ADV from its first letters. For irregular
word form entries, this field can contain inflexion information, e.g. 'abalôo': word
class 'V' and inflexion state 'Present Tense 1st Person Singular'. Any syntactic or
semantic information (like 't' for 'transitive' in 'vt', or 'prof' for 'profession') is not
used on the tagger level. When used, at the disambiguation and syntactic levels, it is
supplemented by the other possible syntactic or semantic classes (field 9).
Combination rules ("alternations") are idiosyncratic markings concerning
outward compatibility with inflexion endings and the like. For instance, for verbs
(which in Portuguese have hundreds of often superficially irregular inflexion forms)
the following are used:
A combines with Infinitive (both non-personal and personal), Future and
Conditional
a combines with Present Indicative forms with stressed inflexion ending
(1. and 2. person plural), Imperative 2. Person Plural, and the regular participle
endings.
i combines with "Past Tense" (Imperfeito)
D combines with "Present Perfect" (Perfeito simples), Past Perfect and
Subjunctive Future Tense.
B combines with root-stressed forms where the initial inflexion ending
letter is 'a' or 'o' (For the '-ar' conjugation Present Tense Indicative 1S, 2S, 3S, 3P and
Imperative 2S, for the '-er' and '-ir' conjugation Present Tense Subjunctive 1S, 2S,
3S, 3P).
C combines with root-stressed forms where the initial inflexion ending
letter is 'e' or 'i' (For the '-ar' conjugation Present Tense Subjunctive 1S, 2S, 3S, 3P,
for the '-er' and '-ir' conjugation Present Tense Indicative 1S, 2S, 3S, 3P and
Imperative 2S).
b combines with ending-stressed Present Tense Subjunctive forms (1P and
2P) of the '-er' and '-ir' conjugations.
c combines with ending-stressed Present Tense Subjunctive forms (1P and
2P) of the '-ar' conjugation.
Other word classes need fewer combination specifications, but an example is
the TP for adjectives (meaning stress on the second last syllable, in opposition to TO
for oxytonal stress), which for certain adjectives selects a particular plural ending ('eis'
for '-el' and '-il' adjectives).
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