Computational modelling of Yorùbá numerals in a number-to-text conversion system

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the processes underlying the Yorùbá numeral system and describe a computational system that is capable of converting cardinal numbers to their equivalent Standard Yorùbá number names. First, we studied the  mathematical and linguistic basis of the Yorùbá numeral system so as to formalise its arithmetic and syntactic procedures. Next, the process involved in formulating a Context-Free Grammar (CFG) to capture the structure of the Yorùbá numeral system was highlighted.  Thereafter, the model was reduced into a set of computer programs to implement the numerical to lexical conversion process. System evaluation was done by ranking the output from the software and comparing the output with the representations given by a group of Yorùbá native speakers. The result showed that the system gave correct representation for numbers and produced a recall of 100% with respect to the collected corpus. Our future study is focused on developing a text normalisation system that will produce number names for other numerical expressions such as ordinal numbers, date, time, money, ratio, etc. in Yorùbá text.