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# Morphological Synthesizer for Ge'ez Language: Addressing Morphological Complexity and Resource Limitations

**Authors:** Gebrearegawi Gebremariam Gidey; [Hailay Kidu Teklehaymanot](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/hailay-kidu-teklehaymanot/); Gebregewergs Mezgebe Atsbha · **Year:** 2024 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages @ LREC-COLING 2024 **Link:** [aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.11](https://aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.11/) · library `aclbulk-2024-gidey-morphological-synthesizer-ge-ez-language` · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) — summary only

[**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W7083317593) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[**1** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/aclbulk-2024-gidey-morphological-synthesizer-ge-ez-language/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages @ LREC-COLING 2024](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2024.rail-1/)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.11/)
- [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.11.pdf)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7083317593)

**Authors (3)**

1. Gebrearegawi Gebremariam Gidey [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2499080948)
2. Hailay Kidu Teklehaymanot [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2298756123)
3. Gebregewergs Mezgebe Atsbha [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2510106544)

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

A rule-based synthesizer generates Ge'ez verb forms in Ge'ez script from infinitive stems, using two-level morphology. It forms five stems per tense-mood, then the TAM forms, then person-number-gender suffixes and object suffixes. A stem classifier marks a verb irregular when it contains a guttural (ሀ ሐ ኀ አ ዐ) or a semi-vowel (የ ወ). The test set is 1,102 sample verbs taken from grammar books and the Bible, not a held-out corpus. Experts checked the output by error counting: 99.6% for regular verbs (7,577 words), 96.6% for irregular verbs (19,290 words), 97.4% overall, against 96.28% for an earlier Afan Oromo verb system. The error analysis names exceptional stems, concatenation exceptions and missing rules. The figures are not internally consistent: 8 errors in 7,577 words is about 99.9%, not 99.6%, and 8 + 661 is 669, not the stated 668. Treat the split with care.

## Ideas

- I1. Test the letter-class rule on data. The paper calls a verb irregular when it contains a guttural or semi-vowel. Check this on MACULA Hebrew verbs: how many forms change class under the rule, and do the weak-root verbs fall into the irregular set? See [The weak verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/07-weak-verbs/).
- I2. Split every score by class, as the paper does for regular and irregular verbs, and state the mix of the test set. A single overall figure depends on that mix, as the authors themselves say.
- I3. Compile boundary changes to a transducer. The boundary handler (suffixes change the last letter of stems ending in ቀ, ከ or ገ) is a finite-state rule. The `lex` and `pre` tables in `tools/hbo` could compile the same kind of rule to an FST, with the paper's error list kept as a regression set.

## For Mova

I1 is a class test on [The weak verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/07-weak-verbs/) with MACULA data. I2 is the reporting format for verb tests in `tools/macula compare`. I3 is for `tools/hbo` (segmenter tables).

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```
@inproceedings{gidey2024morphological,
  title = {{Morphological Synthesizer for Ge'ez Language: Addressing Morphological Complexity and Resource Limitations}},
  author = {Gidey, Gebrearegawi Gebremariam and Teklehaymanot, Hailay Kidu and Atsbha, Gebregewergs Mezgebe},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages @ LREC-COLING 2024},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.11/}
}
```

- [← previous Nâbra: Syrian Arabic Dialects with Morphological Annotations](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/aclbulk-2023-nayouf-nabra-syrian-arabic-dialects-morphological/)
- [next → Computational Morphology and Lexicography Modeling of Modern Standard Arabic Nominals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/aclbulk-2024-khairallah-computational-morphology-lexicography-modeling-modern/)
- [↑ back to Semitic languages](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/sem/)

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