Lesson 4. Analyze a word without guessing

Why this matters

One meaning can appear in several word forms. To recognize “house” in үйде and үйлерде, our program looks for a stem: the part from which forms are built. Other parts add meanings. A stem dictionary lists stems known to the program and what they mean.

See the whole process

Ordinary spelling gives үй, үйлер, үйлерде. We insert hyphens only in our analysis: үй; үй-лер; үй-лер-де. -лер means plural; -де indicates location, interpreted with context. үйлерде can mean “in the houses”.

Another series is мектеп (“school”), мектептер (“schools”), мектептерде (“in the schools”). Why -тер instead of -лер? The sounds of an ending adapt to the stem. A variant of an ending is another sound form with the same job. We will construct the choice rule later; for now, do not swap endings by guesswork.

Recall map

Written word → known stem → remaining parts → meaning of each part. Hyphens appear only in a teaching analysis.

Recall without looking

Explain the difference between үй and үйлерде. Why should we not assume мектеплер is correct by copying үйлер?

Task

Analyze үйлер, үйлерде, мектептер, and мектептерде. Name the stem, plural part if present, and location part if present. Hint: use only forms explained above. Check: үй-лер; үй-лер-де; мектеп-тер; мектеп-тер-де. The first and third have no location part. For an unknown stem, the honest result is “cannot analyze yet”.