1 Automatically Generated Inflection Database (AGID)
6 Copyright 2000-2003 by Kevin Atkinson <kevina@gnu.org>
8 The file "infl.txt" is an automatically created database of the
9 inflected forms of words from a rather large word list.
11 The latest version can be found at http://aspell.sourceforge.net/wl/.
13 Entries are in the following form.
15 <word><sp><pos>[?]:<sp><inflected forms>
16 <word> := [[A-Za-z']]+
17 <sp> := <literal space>
19 <inflected forms> := <inflected form><sp>|<sp>...<sp>|<sp><inflected form>
20 <inflected form> := <individual entry>,<sp>...,<sp><individual entry>
21 <individual entry> := <word><word tags>[<sp><variant level>][<sp>{<explanation>}]
22 <word tags> := [~][<][!][?]
23 <explanation> := [<explanation text>][:<distinguishing number>]
24 <explanation text> := [[A-Za-z'_/]]+
26 where stuff between [ ] is optional, stuff between [[ ]] indicate a
27 range of possible characters for that entry. If a [[ ]] is followed by
28 a + it means the entry can consist of one or more characters in
29 that range. { } are literal.
31 A typical entry will look like
33 WORD V: WORDed, WORed 2, WORD {EXPL} | WORDing, WORing 2 | WORDs
35 <pos> is V for verb, N for noun, or A or adjective or adverb.
36 If <pos> is followed by a ? that means that the part-of-speech was not
37 in the part-of-speech database however the inflected forms of the word
38 where found in the word list.
40 The inflected forms are in the following order for verbs (except for
42 <past tense> [<past participle>] <-ing form> <-s form>
43 and for adjective or adverbs:
44 <-er form> <-est form>
45 Each form is seperated by a ' | '.
47 An absence of a variant level implies a variant level of 0. Two words
48 with the same whole number variant level are considered almost equal
49 with a slight preference given to the entry with a lower number. A
50 whole number variant level of 1 indicates a less preferred form of the
51 word. A whole number variant level of 2 indicates any number of
52 things. It could mean that it is from an archaic use of the word, or
53 a variant that is hardly ever used or for an extremely obscure meaning
54 of the word, or finally it could mean that the word looked like it
55 could possibly be a inflected form of the base word but I could not
56 find any evidence for them. If two words have the same variant level
57 and explanation it means that both inflections were found and the
58 script was not sure which one to use.
60 Sometimes the inflected form to use depends on the meaning of the
61 word. If this is the case the two entries will have different
62 explanations. If the distinction can be made in a few words it is
63 given with underscores (_) replacing spaces. Otherwise the two
64 entries will have different distinguishing numbers.
66 A < after a word means that there is a good change that this is an
67 inflected form of the word, a ~ after a word means that there is a
68 slight chance. A ! after a word indicates that the word is likely an
69 inflections of a similar word (generally one ending in e) and not the
70 current word. A ? after a word means that the word was not in the
71 word list but if it was it would be considered an inflected form of
74 This verson is now almost as accurate as Alan Beale's 2of12id file
75 distributed with the "Unofficial Alternate 12 Dicts Package" for the
76 base words which have an entry in 2of12id.txt with a few notable
77 exceptions. The most obvious one is the "person" entry. Alan Beale
78 considers, based on what his sources have told him, that "persons" is
79 the proper plural for "person" and "people" is considered a variant.
80 I however disagree and decided to consider "people" the primary form
81 and "persons" as the sligtly less perfered variant based on my own
82 experence and http://www.quinion.com/words/usagenotes/un-person.htm
85 The normal plural of person was persons ... However, there is
86 evidence from Chaucer onwards that some writers chose to use people
87 as a plural for person, not only in the generalised sense of 'an
88 uncountable or indistinct mass of individuals' but also in specific
89 countable cases. ... Though persons survives, it does so largely in
90 formal or legal contexts ...From the evidence, it seems that the
91 trend towards using people instead of persons is accelerating and
92 that it may not be so long before persons vanishes from the language
93 except in certain set phrases.
95 I considered making "persons" a variant (level 1), but I decided
96 against it as "persons" is for the most part perfectly acceptable and
97 probably considered the proper plural to use by some.
99 I also considered the -people ending the primary form for all words
100 ending in -person such as salesperson and the -persons entry the
101 slightly less preferred variant in spite of what 2of12id.txt said.
103 In some cases a variant of level 2 is listed in AGID where it is not
104 listed at all in 2of12id. In general this means that the script came
105 up with the possibility and, in spite it not being listed in 2of12id,
106 it seams logical to me.
108 The final case occurs when a word has two or more -s inflections used
109 as both noun and verb forms, and these forms would have different
110 variant levels in 2of12id. For example:
111 ditto N: dittos, dittoes 1
112 ditto V: dittoed | dittoing | dittos, dittoes 0.1
113 For purely technical reasons and because I do not feel that it matters
114 too much I have made the variant levels for the -s forms the same. For
115 example the ditto entries became:
116 ditto N: dittos, dittoes 0.1
117 ditto V: dittoed | dittoing | dittos, dittoes 0.1
118 The choice of the variant levels I used is somewhat arbitrary but I in
119 general went with the lower level.
121 Fell free to send me corrections to correct any of these questionable
122 words. I am mostly interested in the preferred form of the word when
123 the script was not able to decide or words marked with < or ~ that are
124 valid inflected forms of the words.
126 Also included in this version are the files "variant_0.lst",
127 "variant_1.lst", "variant_2.lst", and "variant.tab". The files
128 "variant_#.lst" include all of the inflected forms at the given level
129 found in infl.txt which are not generally considered to be some other
130 common word. The file variant.tab contains a cross reference of all
131 alternate forms of inflected form of words. The file variant-wroot.tab
132 is like variant.tab except that it also included the root form of the
135 Words are in mixed case but all accents have been striped thus words
136 like café are instead cafe.
138 The file "variant" contains a list of alternate inflections.
140 The file "irregular" contains extra information where a noun or verb
141 has irregular inflected forms.
143 The file "dontuse" contains a list of words not to consider an
144 inflected form of a word if more than one inflected form of a word is
147 The files "prefixes" and "suffixes" contains a list of common prefixes
148 and suffixes respectfully. These files are used by the script to
149 produce inflected forms for words that end in a word in the
150 "irregular" file. If the beginning appears in the word list or the
151 prefixes file and the ending appears in the irregular file I also
152 consider <prefix>+<irregular inflections>. If the prefix is 3 letters
153 or more OR appears in the prefixes file and the suffix is 4 letters or
154 more OR appears in the suffixes file I consider it the most likely
155 choice, otherwise I consider it as a possible candidate but not the
158 The file "make-infl" is the actual Perl script used to create the
161 The file "find-var" is the Perl script used to create the variant
162 lists and cross reference file.
164 The file "make-all" was used to create the word list used by the script.
168 From Revision 3a to 4 (January 2, 2003)
170 Added variant-wroot.tab
171 Update find-var script to also produce variant-wroot.tab.
173 From Revision 3 to 3a (April 04, 2001)
175 Fixed a bug in the find-var script which caused some common
176 words which are variants for one usage of a word but not
177 variants for any other common usage to improperly appear in
180 From Revision 2 to 3 (January 28, 2001)
182 Changed the format of infl.txt to something which is slightly harder
183 to read but a lot less ambiguous and easier to parse.
185 Update various files, including the actual script, so that the
186 output that is almost as accurate of Alan Beale 2of12id.txt
188 Eliminated Moby Words and ABLE from the word list used by the script
189 to give more accurate results.
191 From Revision 1 to 2 (August 18, 2000)
193 Classified variants as either almost equal, also used, or
196 The / is now used to indicate equal variants. "/?" is now used to
197 mean what "/" used to be.
199 Lots of additional rules added which greatly improved the results.
201 COPYRIGHT AND SOURCE:
203 The final product is under the following copyright, as well as any
204 copyrights mentioned below.
206 Copyright 2000-2003 by Kevin Atkinson
208 Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this database,
209 the associated scripts, the output created form the scripts and its
210 documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
211 provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and
212 that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
213 supporting documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no representations
214 about the suitability of this array for any purpose. It is provided
215 "as is" without express or implied warranty.
217 The part-of-speech database is taken from Alan Beale 2of12id
218 and the WordNet database which is under the following copyright:
220 This software and database is being provided to you, the LICENSEE, by
221 Princeton University under the following license. By obtaining, using
222 and/or copying this software and database, you agree that you have
223 read, understood, and will comply with these terms and conditions.:
225 Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
226 database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee or
227 royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply with
228 the following copyright notice and statements, including the disclaimer,
229 and that the same appear on ALL copies of the software, database and
230 documentation, including modifications that you make for internal
231 use or for distribution.
233 WordNet 1.6 Copyright 1997 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
235 THIS SOFTWARE AND DATABASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND PRINCETON
236 UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
237 IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PRINCETON
238 UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT-
239 ABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE
240 OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, DATABASE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT
241 INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR
244 The name of Princeton University or Princeton may not be used in
245 advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
246 and/or database. Title to copyright in this software, database and
247 any associated documentation shall at all times remain with
248 Princeton University and LICENSEE agrees to preserve same.
250 Alan Beale 2of12id.txt is indirectly derived from the Moby part-of-speech
251 database and the WordNet database. The Moby part-of-speech is in the
254 The Moby lexicon project is complete and has
255 been place into the public domain. Use, sell,
256 rework, excerpt and use in any way on any platform.
258 Placing this material on internal or public servers is
259 also encouraged. The compiler is not aware of any
260 export restrictions so freely distribute world-wide.
262 You can verify the public domain status by contacting
266 Arcata, CA 95521-4884
272 The word list used is a combination of several word list:
274 1) The ENABLE2K word lists which is in the public domain:
276 The ENABLE master word list, WORD.LST, is herewith formally
277 released into the Public Domain. Anyone is free to use it or
278 distribute it in any manner they see fit. No fee or registration
279 is required for its use nor are "contributions" solicited (if you
280 feel you absolutely must contribute something for your own peace
281 of mind, the authors of the ENABLE list ask that you make a
282 donation on their behalf to your favorite charity). This word
283 list is our gift to the Scrabble community, as an alternate to
284 "official" word lists. Game designers may feel free to
285 incorporate the WORD.LST into their games. Please mention the
286 source and credit us as originators of the list. Note that if
287 you, as a game designer, use the WORD.LST in your product, you
288 may still copyright and protect your product, but you may *not*
289 legally copyright or in any way restrict redistribution of the
290 WORD.LST portion of your product. This *may* under law restrict
291 your rights to restrict your users' rights, but that is only
294 2) All of the word lists except ABLE.LST in the ENABLE2K Supplemnt
297 2DICTS.LST ALSO.LST LETTERS.LST OSPDADD.LST UCACR.LST
298 LCACR.LST NOPOS.LST PLURALS.LST UPPER.LST
300 All of these word lists are also in the public domain.
302 3) The list of signature words from the YAWL package which is in the
305 4) The UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary which in under the following
308 Copyright (c) J Ross Beresford 1993-1999. All Rights Reserved.
310 The following restriction is placed on the use of this
311 publication: if The UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary is used
312 in a software package or redistributed in any form, the
313 copyright notice must be prominently displayed and the text
314 of this document must be included verbatim.
316 There are no other restrictions: I would like to see the
317 list distributed as widely as possible.
319 5) Some extra words found in the Part-Of-Speech database that was not
320 found in any of the above word lists.
322 6) Words found in the Jargon File Word List package, available at
323 http://aspell.sourceforge.net/wl/, which is in the Public Domain.
325 7) Words in 2of12id.txt not in any of the word lists above. 2of12id is
326 indirectly derived from all the above sources and most of the word
327 lists from the Moby Words package:
329 10196pla.ces 113809of.fic 21986na.mes 256772co.mpo 354984si.ngl
330 3897male.nam 4160offi.cia 4946fema.len 6213acro.nym 74550com.mon
332 The Moby Word package, like the Part-Of-Speech database is in the
335 8) And finally some extra words that I added myself. These words can be
336 found in the file "extra-words"
338 The "dontuse", "irregular", and "variant" file was created by me
339 (Kevin Atkinson) from numerous sources.