A Comparison of Approaches to Word Class Tagging: Disjunctively vs. Conjunctively Written Bantu Languages

Abstract

Northern Sotho and Zulu are two South African Bantu languages that make use of different writing systems, viz. a disjunctive and a conjunctive writing system respectively. In this article it is argued that the different orthographic systems obscure the morphological similarities and that these systems impact directly on word class tagging for the two languages. It is illustrated that not only different approaches are needed for word class tagging, but also that the sequencing of tasks is to a large extent determined by the difference in writing systems.