Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing

Abstract

This book provides system developers and researchers in natural language processing and computational linguistics with the necessary background information for working with the Arabic language. The goal is to introduce Arabic linguistic phenomena and review the state-of-the-art in Arabic processing. The book discusses Arabic script, phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax and semantics, with a final chapter on machine translation issues. The chapter sizes correspond more or less to what is linguistically distinctive about Arabic, with morphology getting the lion's share, followed by Arabic script. No previous knowledge of Arabic is needed. This book is designed for computer scientists and linguists alike. The focus of the book is on Modern Standard Arabic; however, notes on practical issues related to Arabic dialects and languages written in the Arabic script are presented in different chapters.

Table of Contents: What is "Arabic"? / Arabic Script / Arabic Phonology and Orthography / Arabic Morphology / Computational Morphology Tasks / Arabic Syntax / A Note on Arabic Semantics / A Note on Arabic and Machine Translation

A Review in Machine Translation, by Khaled Shaalan: The book is concise, as required by the publisher, but the contents are impressive. It takes care of very specific details such as the hamza letter mark (which can appear above or below specific letter forms; when it appears at stem-initial positions it tends to be perceived as a diacritic) and relates it to aspects of various linguistic phenomena. Moreover, the material in text boxes that frequently appear as alerts or FAQ's are very interesting teaching material that directly draws the attention of the reader's mind. In particular, I admired the highlight such as FAQ: How true is "Arabic has no vowels"? I found that the book follows a reasonable approach such that the reader can easily pursue the logical sequence not only across one chapter but also across the entire book. This means that the material is brilliantly organized in such away it covers the necessary breadth and depth of its intended audience. In my opinion, for anyone who wants to understand Arabic natural language processing, this book is indispensable. Read More