A computational grammar and lexicon for Maltese

Maltese concrete syntax
For the Maltese concrete syntax of this grammar, we follow the same approach as in the English
but have a few more agreement features to handle. We start by adding the Gender parameter,
and then defining a few convenience operations for constructing tables from numbers
and genders to strings. Note that we completely omit type declarations for these operators; the
GF compiler will be able to infer their types.
The linearisation definition for Kind is similar in that it inflects for number, however we
also add a static g field to hold the gender. Adjectives in Maltese inflect for both number and
gender, so the Quality linearisation type contains a table from both of these to a string. The
numGenTbl operation takes care of building this table for us. Very works in a similar way as in
English, except that we place the modifier after the adjective and have the number and gender
arguments to pass along. The rest of the grammar should also be quite understandable by now;
once the parameters and linearisation types have been decided, the rules themselves tend to
fall into place.
concrete FoodsMlt of Foods = {
flags coding = utf8 ;
param Number = Sg | Pl ;
param Gender = Masc | Fem ;
oper
numTbl : Str -> Str -> (Number => Str) =
\s,p -> table { Sg => s ; Pl => p } ;
genTbl : Str -> Str -> (Gender => Str) =
\m,f -> table { Masc => m ; Fem => f } ;
numGenTbl : Str -> Str -> Str -> (Number => Gender => Str) =
\m,f,p -> table {
Sg => genTbl m f ;
Pl => \\_ => p
} ;
lincat Kind = { s : Number => Str ; g : Gender } ;
lin
Cheese = { s = numTbl "ġobna" "ġobniet" ; g = Fem };
Fish = { s = numTbl "ħuta" "ħut" ; g = Fem };
lincat Quality = { s : Number => Gender => Str } ;
lin
Expensive = { s = numGenTbl "għali" "għalja" "għaljin" } ;
Delicious = { s = numGenTbl "tajjeb" "tajba" "tajbin" } ;
Very quality = { s = \\n,g => quality.s ! n ! g ++ ħ"afna"} ;
lincat Item = { s : Str ; n : Number ; g : Gender } ;
lin
12