This document summarizes a research paper on modeling Vietnamese reduplication using finite-state transducers. It discusses: 1) Reduplication is a common phenomenon in Vietnamese where words are formed by repeating syllables. 2) The researcher constructed finite-state transducers to recognize three types of reduplication - full, tone-accordance, and final consonant-accordance. 3) The transducers were implemented in a Java package called vnReduplicator that can recognize a substantial number of reduplicated Vietnamese words.

1. 文献紹介 (2016/07/22)
長岡技術科学大学 自然言語処理研究室
発表者： LY NAM PHONG
Finite-State Description of
Vietnamese Reduplication
Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Asian Language Resources, ACL-IJCNLP 2009, pages 63–69,
Suntec, Singapore, 6-7 August 2009. c 2009 ACL and AFNLP

2. Abstract
● first computational model for the reduplication
of the Vietnamese language.
● Reduplication is a popular phenomenon of
Vietnamese.
● Reduplicative word examples: hao hao (a little
similar), s ng s ng (high and majestic)...ừ ữ

3. Introduction
● Finite-state technology has been applied
successfully for describing the morphological
processes of many natural languages.
● But they are less suitable for non-concatenative
phenomena in some languages.
● Reduplication is a common phenomenon in
many Asian languages.

4. Vietnamese lexicon
● Language Type:
– Vietnamese is an isolating language which is characterized by the
following properties:
● Is a monosyllabic language
● Word forms never change
● Vocabulary:
– Simple words, which is monosyllabic.
– Compound words, composed by semantic coordination and by
semantic subodination.
– Reduplicative words composed by phonetic reduplication.
– Complex words phonetically transcribed from foreign languages.
Length # %
1
2
3
4
>=5
6303
28416
2259
2784
419
15.69
70.72
5.62
6.93
1.04
Total 40181 100
Table 1: Length of words measured in syllables
(The Vietnamese lexicon edited by Vietlex)

5. Vietnamese lexicon
● Syllables
– In addition of monosyllabic, Vietnamese is a tonal
language.
– Table 2: Vietnamese tones
No. Tones Notation
1.
2.
3.
Low falling
Creaky rising
Creaky falling
à
ã
ạ
4.
5.
6.
Mid level
Dipping
High rising
a
ả
á

6. Reduplication in Vietnamese
● This study can recognize three type of
reduplication, including full reduplication,
reduplication with tone according and
reduplication with final consonant according
đ đ , lăm lăm, ...ỏ ỏ
s ng s ng, đo đ , h h ...ừ ữ ỏ ơ ớ
c m c p, thiêm thi p, ...ầ ậ ế

7. Implemented
● Implemented finite-state sequential transducers
(FSTs) which are able to recognize and
produce corresponding types of reduplicative
words.
● To obtain a sequential FST which is able to
recognize three type of reduplication mentioned
above, they constructed three transducers.

8. First type transducer
● construct a deterministic FST f1 that produces
reduplicants from their roots in which the output
string labeled on each arc is the same as its
input character.
● the following minimal FST recognizes and
generates three words: luôn luôn (always), l lừ ừ
(silently), khàn khàn (raucous).
● f1 recognizing all 274 reduplicative words
consists of 90 states

9. Second type transducer
● Similarly, FST f2 which generates three
reduplicative words giông gi ng (a little similar),ố
đ ng đ ng (interminable) and đăm đ mằ ẵ ắ
(fixedly) is as follows:
● f2 recognizing all 307 reduplicative words
consists of 93 states.

10. Third type transducer
● FST f3 recognizing four reduplicative words
biêng bi c (bluish green), bi n bi t (leaveế ề ệ
behind no traces whatsoever), bình b ch (aị
series of thudding blows), bôm b p (pop pop):ố
● f3 recognizing all 232 reduplicative words of the
third type consists of 59 states.

11. A software Pakage
● They have developed a Java pakage named
vnReduplicator can recognize a substantial
amount of reduplicative bi-syllabic words found
in the Vietnamese language.
● Example input text: Anh đi bi n bi tề ệ . Cô v nẫ
ch anh h n 20 nămờ ơ đ ng đ ngằ ẵ .

12. Conclusion
● presented for the first time a computational
model for the reduplication.
● Current work does not handle partial
reduplication in which either the onset is
repeated or the rhyme and the tone of
syllablesare repeated, for example b ng b nhồ ề
(bob), chúm chím (open slightly one’s lips)…