Sardinian and English/Lexical selection

srd → eng

• Cases of a one-to-many translation and sentences where the meaning is unambiguous:

• Rule #1: "pro" in Sardinian can be translated as both "for" and "to":

Pro bider s'artìculu sighire custu culligamentu. → To read the article click on this link.

Pro su libru meu mandico sa pasta kin casu. → For my book I ate pasta with cheese.

• Rule #2: "de" translates to "to" and "of":

Custu artìculu chircat de bogare a pizu sos ammentos documentados de cando si tenzeint sas primas disputas tra poetes a bolu e cale esserent sas règulas de su cunfrontu. → The article tries to shed light on the period to which the first testimonies of competitions between improvising poets date back and the modalities that characterized the confrontation.

Appo pèrditu duos de sos libros meos → I have lost two of my books

• Generalizations:

• Rule #1: when "pro" is followed by a verb, we should have the mapping "pro → to"
• Rule #2: when "de" preceded by a number, we should have the mapping "de → of"

(When these rules don't apply, the translations "pro → for" and "de → to" are used.)

• Second extra lrx rule (for polished RBMT lab)

• "a" in Sardinian can be translated to both "to" and "at" in English

Ex: "a sas nove" → "at nine [o'clock]"

Ex2: "Sun andatos a Frantza." → "They went to France."

So, we opted to translate "a" to "to" in general usage but to translate "a" to "at" when it occurs in a time-telling phrase (i.e. when followed by a determiner (the) and a number).

• Third extra lrx rule (for polished RBMT lab)

• To tell the time in Sardinian, one says "a sas nove" (the nine) and not "at nine [o'clock]" (see sentences corpus for example)

So, we opted to translate "su" (the) as "[null]" when followed by a number and preceded by "a", to translate "su" as (the) when followed by a noun modified by optional adjectives and preceded by "a," and to translate "su" as (the) when followed by a noun but not necessarily preceded by "a."

• We also added a rule that ensures "est" translates to "is" and not "east.",,