Foma is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

''finite-state toolkit'' created and maintained by Mans Hulden. It includes a

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

, and C library for constructing

finite-state automata A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...

and

transducers A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another. Transducers are often employed at the boundaries of automation, measurement, and contro ...

(FST's) for various uses, most typically

Natural Language Processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...

uses such as morphological analysis. Foma can replace the proprietary Xerox Finite State Toolkit for compiling and running FST's written in the ''lexc'' and ''xfst'' formalisms. The speed is comparable with the Xerox tools for most lexicons, although Foma can be 3 or 4 times slower for very large lexicons (e.g. >100,000 words). Foma is also one of the possible backends of the

Helsinki Finite State Toolkit (where other backends provide support for further formalisms). There are several

FOSS Fos or FOSS may refer to: Companies *Foss A/S, a Danish analytical instrument company * Foss Brewery, a former brewery in Oslo, Norway *Foss Maritime, a tugboat and shipping company Historic houses * Foss House (New Brighton, Minnesota), United ...

morphologies written in lexc/xfst compatible with foma, e.g. for the

Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Rus ...

, Cornish, Faroese,

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

, Komi, Mari, Udmurt, Buriat,

Greenlandic language Greenlandic ( kl, kalaallisut, link=no ; da, grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the mos ...

and Iñupiaq languages.

External links

* https://fomafst.github.io/ - homepage * http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Foma - foma information on the Apertium wiki * http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/kieliteknologia/tutkimus/hfst/ - HFST home page

Notes

References

* Free software Cross-platform software Finite automata {{Programming-software-stub