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Adding-Support-For-Other-Languages.html#Adding-Support-For-Other-LanguagesAdding Support For Other Languages 7.6 Affix Compression
Aspell, as of version 0.60, now has support for affix compression. 
The codebase comes from MySpell found in OpenOffice.
   
To add support for affix compression add the following lines to the
language data file.
     affix          lang     affix-compress true
   
The line `affix lang' adds support for recognizing affix
information, and the line `
affix-compress true' enables affix
compression.
   
The affix file is expected to be named lang_affix.dat.  It is
the exact same format as those used by MySpell.  More information can
be found in the myspell/ directory of the distribution or at
http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/dictionary.htmlhttp://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/dictionary.html .
   
Affix compression can also be used with soundslike lookup.  Aspell
does this by only storing the soundslike for the root word.  When a
word is misspelled it will search for a soundslike close to all
possible roots of the misspelled word.
   
When no soundslike information, or the simple soundslike, is used it
may be beneficial to specify the option 
partially-expandwhich will partially expand a word with affix information so that the
affix flags do not effect the first 3 letters of the word.  This will
allow Aspell to get more accurate results when scanning the list for near
misses since the full word can be used and not just the root. 
Specifying this option, however, will also effectively expand any
prefixes.  Thus this option should not be used for prefix heavy
languages such as Hebrew.
   
An existing word list, without affix info, can be affix compressed
using using 
aspell munch-list.
7.6.1 Format of the Affix File
An affix is either a  prefix or a suffix attached to root words to make
other words.  For example supply -> supplied by dropping the "y" and
adding an "ied" (the suffix).
   
Here is an example of how to define one specific suffix borrowed
from the English affix file.
     SFX D Y 4
     SFX D   0     d          e
     SFX D   y     ied        [^aeiou]y
     SFX D   0     ed         [^ey]
     SFX D   0     ed         [aeiou]y
   
This file is space delimited and case sensitive.  So this information
can be interpreted as follows:
   
The first line has 4 fields:
   
1 SFX indicates this is a suffix
2 D is the name of the character which represents this suffix
3 Y indicates it can be combined with prefixes (cross product)
4 4 indicates that sequence of 4 affix entries are needed to
properly store the affix information
   
   
The remaining lines describe the unique information for the 4 affix
entries that make up this affix.  Each line can be interpreted
as follows: (note fields 1 and 2 are used as a check against line 1 info)
   
1 SFX indicates this is a suffix
2 D is the name of the character which represents this affix
3 y the string of chars to strip off before adding affix (a 0
here indicates the NULL string)
4 ied the string of affix characters to add (a 0 here
indicates the NULL string)
5 [^aeiou]y the conditions which must be met before the affix
can be applied
   
   
Field 5 is interesting.  Since this is a suffix, field 5 tells us that
there are 2 conditions that must be met.  The first condition is that
the next to the last character in the word must 
not be any of the
following "a", "e", "i", "o" or "u".  The second condition is that
the last character of the word must end in "y".
7.6.2 When Compared With Ispell
Now for comparison purposes, here is the same information from the
Ispell 
english.aff compression file which was used as the basis
for the OOo one.
     flag *D:
         E           >       D               # As in create > created
         [^AEIOU]Y   >       -Y,IED          # As in imply > implied
         [^EY]       >       ED              # As in cross > crossed
         [AEIOU]Y    >       ED              # As in convey > conveyed
   
The Ispell information has exactly the same information but in a
slightly different (case-insensitive) format:
   
Here are the ways to see the mapping from Ispell .aff format to our
OOo format.
     
The ispell english.aff has flag D under the "suffix" section so
you know it is a suffix.
     
The D is the character assigned to this suffix
     
`*' indicates that it can be combined with prefixes
     
Each line following the : describes the affix entries needed
to define this suffix
          
The first field is the conditions that must be met. 
The second field is after the > if a "-" occurs is the string to strip
off (can be blank). 
The third field is the string to add (the affix)
     
   
In addition all chars in ispell aff files are in uppercase.
7.6.3 Specifying Affix Flags
Affix flags are specified in the word list by specifying them after
the `
/' character:
     word/flags   
For example:
     create/DG
   
will associate the `D' and `G' flag with the word create.
   
