Participles

[jcwf]

Participles are a big problem in Afrikaans. If they are used as part of the verb's conjugation they are usually just the verb with a ge- prefix:

ek loop --: ek het geloop

The prefix is dropped if there is an inseperable prefix

ek beveel -- ek het beveel.

The problem comes when they are used as attibutive (or predicative) adjectives:

verbal usage: hy het dit aanbeveel - hij heeft dit aanbevolen - he has recommended this adjectival: die daaglikse aanbevole inname - de dagelijks aanbevolen hoeveelheid - the recommended daily intake predicative: hierdie inname is aanbevole - this intake is recommended

Sometimes the attributive participle is still strong like Dutch aanbevolen, particularly in formal usuage and idioms, but for lower register don't be surprised to see 'aanbeveelde'. The language seems in flux on this point.

Can apertium be taught to distinguish the difference between verbal and adjectival usage?

[ftyers]

We have the following forms for "aanbeveel":

$ lt-expand apertium-afr.afr.dix | grep ':aanbeveel<'
aanbeveel:aanbeveel<vblex><sep><fs><pres>
aanbeveel:aanbeveel<vblex><sep><inf>
aanbeveelend:aanbeveel<vblex><sep><pprs>
beveel aan:aanbeveel<vblex><sep><fm><pres>
aanbeveel:aanbeveel<vblex><sep><pp>

The participle is currently "aanbeveel" should it be "aanbevole" ?

Regarding the ability to distinguish between those uses, it would seem possible, but I would require more examples, e.g. would the following rules work for distinguishing between the forms?

• verbal: if there is an auxiliary 'hebben' in the clause, then it is a normal participle (main verb)
• adjectival: if there is a noun following then it is an attributive adjective form
• predicative: if there is a previous copula verb and following end-of-sentence or punctuation.

[jcwf]

I thinks those three definitions would cover it pretty well. The only complication would be that Dutch has ergative verbs that take nld:zijn as auxiliary.

nld: Het is gebeurd -- afr:dit het gebeur nld: Het land is in 1581 ontstaan -- afr: Die land het in 1581 ontstaan.

But in many cases, like aanbeveel/ aanbevelen / to recommend it would work verbal = aanbeveel adjectival = aanbevole *predicative = aanbevole

You do need three, because for weak participles the aadjectival would have -e, but the predicate does not: take "wens" (nld:wensen eng:wish). You'd have:

verbal: gewens adj: gewenste *pred: gewenst

Unfortunately there are cases where a weak and a strong version co-exist, but the strong one is often limited to a number of idioms. They are perhaps best treated as idiomatic combinations