Transducer Minimization and Information Compression for NooJ Dictionaries

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the use of an incremental construction method of minimal, acyclic, deterministic FST. The approach consists in constructing a transducer in a single step by adding new strings one by one and minimizing the resultant automaton incrementally. Then, we present a new method to encode the morphological information associated with the dictionary entries. The new encoding unifies a large number of word forms' analyses, thus reducing the number of terminal states of the dictionary's FST, that triggers a more efficient minimization process. Finally, we present experimental results on the FST that represents the Arabic dictionary.