Prerequisites For Shallow-Transfer Machine Translation Of Mordvin Languages: Language Documentation With A Purpose

This paper presents the current lexical, morphological, syntactic and rule-based machine translation work for Erzya and Moksha that can and should be used in the development of a roadmap for Mordvin linguistic research. We seek to illustrate and outline initial problem types to be encountered in the construction of an Apertium-based shallow-transfer machine translation system for the Mordvin language forms. We indicate reference points within Mordvin Studies and other parts of Uralic studies, as a point of departure for outlining a linguistic studies with a means for measuring its own progress and developing a roadmap for further studies.
Keywords: Erzya, Moksha, Uralic, Shallow-transfer machine translation, Measurable language research, Measurable language distance, Finite-State Morphology, Universal Dependencies