Write rules in Finnish

Write rules in Finnish

Supported sentence structures

The Finnish parser supports two kinds of sentences: Subject – Verb – Object (SVO) and Subject – Verb – Complement (SVC).

  1. In SVO sentences, the verb performs some action on the object, or has some effect on the object. For most SVO sentences, the parser produces two parse matches, and the first parse match has a case transformation for the object of a negative sentence.See Object case transformation in SVO sentences below.
  2. In SVC sentences, the verb is often "to be" and denotes equality, or assignment. In these sentences, the object is usually in the nominative case.

Supported verb forms

In Oracle Policy Modeling the verbs list contains four tenses for each verb: Present, Past, Perfect and Pluperfect. For each tense, it contains the positive and negative forms for 2nd person singular, 3rd person singular, 3rd person plural and passive.

Limitations

Object case transformation in SVO sentences

In SVO sentences, the divisibility of the object determines its case. If the object is divisible, it is in partitive. Otherwise, the object is in genitive. Irrespective of the case of the object in a positive SVO sentence, the object of a negative SVO sentence is always in partitive. As a result, when transforming between positive and negative SVO sentences that have non-divisible objects, the Finnish parser changes the case of the object.

The following criteria determine when the parser changes the case of the object:

  1. Either the original sentence is negative and the object is partitive, or
  2. The original sentence is positive and the object is nominative/genitive.

In case (a), the object is transformed into genitive for the positive/question/uncertain sentences.

In case (b), the object is transformed into partitive for the negative sentence.

Note that in the case of a multiple-word object, only the case of the first word of the object is checked. Additionally, the case transformations are not guaranteed 100% correct, since in some cases the parser cannot correctly determine the partitive stem of a word.

Additionally, since in some cases this transformation is not required, for each SVO sentence the parser also supplies another parse match which keeps the object intact between positive/negative sentence forms. The transformed parse match is displayed first (default) if:

  1. Either the original sentence is negative and the object is partitive, or
  2. The original sentence is positive and the object is genitive.

Thus, if the original sentence is positive and the object is nominative, the default parse match is the untransformed one.

If neither of the supplied parse matches is appropriate,you need to override the generated sentence text as described in Customize sentence text.

Pronoun possessives

In possessive phrases, there is a variation in the possessed object depending on the possessor. If the possessor is a regular noun or a person's name, then the possessed object takes a basic nominative form. For example:

Henkilön lapsi on onnellinen = The person's child is happy

Jussin lapsi on onnellinen = Jussi's child is happy

However, if the possessor is a personal pronoun (eg my, his), then the possessed object takes on an additional ending that depends on the plurality of the possessor. For example:

Sinun lapsesi on onnellinen = Your child is happy

The Finnish parser currently does not support this change in the possessed object. That is, second person substitution would (incorrectly) generate:

Sinun lapsi on onnellinen = Your child is happy

Similarly, third person substitution would (incorrectly) generate:

Hänen lapsi on onnellinen = His/her child is happy

In this case, the user needs to override the generated sentence text as described in Customize sentence text.