Báo cáo khoa học: A Note on the Translation of Swahili into English

Some features of the morphology of Swahili are discussed from the point of view of mechanizing a dictionary. A preliminary program is described.1. Basic Features of the Swahili Language To the best of my knowledge, no work has previously been carried out on the mechanical translation of any Bantu language.
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Báo cáo khoa học: "A Note on the Translation of Swahili into English" [Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics, vol.11, nos.1 and 2, March and June 1968] A Note on the Translation of Swahili into English by David Woodhouse, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia Some features of the morphology of Swahili are discussed from the point of view of mechanizing a dictionary. A preliminary program is described. parts of the sentence are joined in the same word. Thus,1. Basic Features of the Swahili Language for example, he will buy it becomesTo the best of my knowledge, no work has previously a-ta-ki-nunua.been carried out on the mechanical translation of anyBantu language. This note is therefore a first suggestion (Ta denotes the future tense; ki denotes it; nunuaof a possible basis for a scheme for the mechanical trans- means buy.) Thus, by translating one word, a largelation of Swahili into English. part of the sentence has been dealt with. Furthermore, Swahili, in common with other Bantu languages, the subject, object, and tense indicator of the verb havemakes great use of prefixes. This is its most distinctive all been obtained without searching the rest of the sen-feature when compared with European languages. All tence.agreements between adjectives, nouns, and verbs are 3. All the above may be used without parsing. Whenshown by means of prefixes. There are prefixes for the we come to parsing, it is of great assistance that adjec-subject and object of a verb and for the verb tense. tives, nouns, and verbs must agree.Negation of a verb is also shown by means of prefixes.Suffixes are also used, but a lot of Swahili can be spoken Wa-toto wa-zuri wa-na-kimbea. Good children are running.without using them. Suffixes are used to show motion toor from a place and, apart from this, are used almost Toto is the stem of the word for child; zuri, the stemexclusively in modifying the form of verbs. The passive, of the word for good.)causative, prepositional, reciprocal, subjunctive, pluralimperative, and some singular imperative forms are all M-toto m-zuri a-na-kimbea. A good child is running.constructed by adding a suffix to the verb stem. As isusually the case, addition of a suffix often causes modifi- (Note that adjectives follow their nouns and that therecation of the stem itself. For example, the passive form are no articles.)of a verb ending with the letter a is made by changing There are eight different classes of nouns. Each has itsthe final a to wa, as in kuandika (to write) and kuan- own prefixes for showing singular and plural, and cor-dikwa (to be written). However, kununua (to buy) responding prefixes to attach to adjectives and verbs.gives rise to kununuliwa (to be bought). Prefixes, on For example, the prefixes for the class to which -totothe other hand, are added with no amendment to the belongs are:verb stem, and I see this as one of the reasons why thestrong reliance on prefixes will make Swahili reasonablysusceptible to mechanical translation. Other advantages Singular Pluralof the prefix structure are: Noun ............................. m wa 1. There is less need for context-dependent analysis. Adjective....................... m waFor example, if the present tense of the verb run is Verb ............................... a warecognized in English, one still does not know the finalform of the word: it could be ...