[developers] prefixation of multi word lexemes

[Emily M. Bender]

Just a quick note to say that there are languages with prefixal
inflection (including Athabaskan languages).

Emily

On Mon, Aug 08, 2005 at 05:18:05PM +0100, Ann Copestake wrote:
> 
> This is a known effect of the treatment of affixation on MWEs ... I'd prefer
> you didn't patch right now, since I'm thinking about it and intend to check in
> some revised code.  I don't think always attaching to the left periphery is
> correct, though, when we're talking about MWEs, at least assuming there are
> languages where inflection involves prefixation.  For English, I think it would
> probably be reasonable to disallow prefixation in MWEs entirely, and allow
> suffixation at just one site, so I propose to make the approach flexible enough
> to allow statements like this.  One thing I was considering was setting this up
> to be done in the FSs rather than via increasingly complex globals and a
> universal setting for the affixation position, but I think this would involve
> something like having typed values for STEM.  (I think there are possible
> reasons to make STEM more complex anyway, such as allowing for alternative
> spellings of `colour' etc plus dialect, but this is something that should be
> investigated on a small grammar first.)
> 
> Ann