Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad

Preparation Package

What this package is for.

1. To prepare students for the competition. All students who register for
OzCLO should have attempted at least some linguistic problems of this type
before Round 1.

2. One or more sample problems can be used as an optional In-school

Qualification Round run by teachers to select which students will represent
the School.

3. As a fun activity to introduce students to Linguistics even if they will not be

taking part in the competition. The Kiswahili problem is relatively
straightforward and is a good discovery activity to develop analytical skills.

For students who have not participated in OzCLO before

1. Try some of the linguistic problems in this package, and then check your
answers against the solutions provided.

and

2. Participate in the optional Training Session (where available)

• to get some practice with more sample problems, and tips for solving
them, and
• to find out what linguistics, computational linguistics and language
technologies are all about.

For all students

Try out the problems that are available via the OzCLO website.

• Problems from previous OzCLO first round and National competitions.

• The other practice problems, including problems from the North American
competition.

http://www.ozclo.org.au/
 OzCLO Preparation

Problem 1: Kiswahili

Kiswahili is spoken by more than 50 million people (including first- and second-
language speakers) in a number of countries in eastern Africa. Carefully study these
Kiswahili words and their English translations, and answer the questions on the next
page.

1. atanipenda s/he will like me

2. atampenda s/he will like him/her

3. atatupenda s/he will like us

4. atawapenda s/he will like them

5. atakupenda s/he will like you

6. nitakupenda I will like you

7. nitampenda I will like him/her

8. nitawapenda I will like them

9. utanipenda you will like me

10. utampenda you will like him/her

11. tutampenda we will like him/her

12. watampenda they will like him/her

13. atanipiga s/he will beat me

14. ananipiga s/he is beating me

15. alinipiga s/he beat me

16. atakupiga s/he will beat you

17. anakupiga s/he is beating you

18. alikupiga s/he beat you

19. atampiga s/he will beat him/her

20. anampiga s/he is beating him/her

21. alimpiga s/he beat him/her

22. atakusumbua s/he will annoy you

23. unamsumbua you are annoying him/her

2
 OzCLO Preparation

i. Work out which parts of the Kiswahili words go with each of the following
meanings:

• Subjects I …………………… • Objects me ……………………

(one who (one that
does the you …………………… the action is you …………………..
action) done to)
s/he …………………… him/her ………………..

we …………………… us …………………..

they …………………… them …………………..

• Tense future …………………… • Verb like ..…………………

(when) bases
present …………………… (describes beat ..…………………
the action)
past …………………… annoy ..…………………

ii. In what order do the different parts (subject, tense etc.) occur in a Kiswahili word?

iii. What would the meanings be for these Kiswahili words?

walikupenda …………………………………………………

utawapiga …………………………………………………

tulimsumbua …………………………………………………

iv. What would the Kiswahili words be for these meanings?

We beat them. …………………………………………………

You are annoying me. …………………………………………………

They liked him/her. …………………………………………………

3
 OzCLO Preparation

Problem 2: Kannada
by Mirjam Fried

Kannada is one of the major languages of India, spoken by more than 25 million
people primarily in the South of the country, near Bangalore. It’s a very old language
and it uses its own writing system. For the purpose of this puzzle, the Kannada letters
are transcribed using the Roman alphabet. The letters L, D, T, and N represent a
special pronunciation with the tongue curled upward. Note that there is no translation
for ‘the’ in Kannada.

mane 'house' manege 'to (the) house'

peeTe 'market' peeTege 'to (the) market'
tande 'dad' tandege 'to dad'
roTTi 'flat bread' roTTige 'to (the) flat bread'
chaTNi 'chutney (a relish)' chaTNige 'to (the) chutney'
hakki 'bird' hakkige 'to (the) bird'
taayi 'mother' taayige 'to mother'

jooLa 'corn' jooLakke 'to (the) corn'

pustaka 'book' pustakakke 'to (the) book'
simha 'lion' simhakke 'to (the) lion'
kalkatta 'Calcutta' kalkattakke 'to Calcutta'

manushya 'man' manushyanige 'to (the) man'

amma 'mom' ammanige 'to mom'
huDuga 'boy' huDuganige 'to (the) boy'
sneehita 'friend' sneehitanige 'to (the) friend'

i. Carefully examine the pairs of Kannada words on each line above. Which parts of
the words in the righthand column correspond to the English word 'to'?

ii. Now, here are some new words in Kannada:

hamsa 'swan'
akka 'older sister'
tangi 'younger sister'

Study the examples above to work out how would you say:

'to (the) swan'

'to (the) older sister'

'to (the) younger sister'

Hint: In understanding how a language works, we often look at the individual sounds
that make up the words and the kinds of meanings that the words have.

Copyright. Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon.

4
 OzCLO Preparation

Problem 3: Using rules to make strings.

In one sense we can think of a sentence as a string or sequence of words. But it’s not a
random string of course: there are rules. This problem is about a type of rule that
builds up (‘generates’) strings, but we’ll use characters (letters) here instead of words.

You start with a string of characters. If your string contains a character that appears on
the left side of the arrow in a rule, you can turn that character into whatever is on the
right side of the arrow in that rule. You can apply different rules to your string over
and over again until no more moves are possible. You’re not allowed to twiddle the
order of the characters in your string.

Here are the rules:

S → AB
A → ab
A → aAb
B → bcd
B → bBc

i. If you start with ‘S’, which of these strings is it possible to end up with using these
rules? (Put a tick to the right of the possible strings, and a cross to the right of the
impossible ones.)
1. abcd
2. abbcd
3. aabbbcd
4. aaabbbcd
5. abbbbcdcc
6. aabbccdcc
7. aabbbbcdc
8. aaabbbbcd
9. aaabbbbcdc
10. aabbbbbcdcc
11. aaabbbbbbcdcc

ii. Here is a string that can not be generated by these rules: bbbbcdccc

Can you add a rule to all the others so that this string can be generated?

Created by Daniel Midgley, UWA.

5
 OzCLO Preparation

Problem 4: Tenji script for Japanese

A4. Explain the logic behind the Tenji writing system.

6
 OzCLO Preparation

Problem 5: Counting in Etruscan

Etruscans flourished as a separate people inhabiting parts of northern Italy

centered on the region now known as Tuscany for several centuries until
the 1st century B.C. when they were effectively absorbed into the expanding
Roman Empire. They traded throughout the Mediterranean and acquired
their alphabetic writing system from the Greeks with whom they traded
extensively. They left many written texts which we can easily read, as the
Greek alphabet was used. However, their spoken language became extinct
and because Etruscan bears little resemblance to any Indo-European
language, we cannot understand the meaning of many Etruscan words.
Generally, identification of Etruscan numbers remains difficult, but the first
six numbers form a group apart. They are found in epitaphs, in which age of
the deceased and the number of their children is given, and in the Book of the
Mummy which specifies dates of the periodical religious ceremonies and the
size of various offerings.

On a pair of Etruscan dice, known as the Tuscan dice, there are inscribed the
following six words listed here in alphabetic order: ci, huth, max, sa, thu, zal. Each of
these words corresponds to one of the numbers between 1 and 6 (compare English
"one"-1; "two"-2; etc.). You can see how these number words are arranged on the
two-dimensional representation of a die (cube) below:

thu

sa max ci

huth

zal

7
 OzCLO Preparation

i. Which word corresponds to which number? [6 points]

At the time of the decipherment, linguists had the following clues:

1) each die in a pair of dice has three pairs of opposite faces; the sum of the
number on each pair equals 7;
2) thu, ci and zal, in a certain order, represent 1, 2, 3
3) ci, but not thu and zal, occurs very frequently in the Book of the Mummy;
4) the following pairs of words were found in epitaphs:
thu clan; thu at; thu mezu; thu vinac; thu thuscu;
ci clenar; zal clenar; ci atr; zal atr; ci mesur; zal mesur; ci vinacr; zal vinacr; ci
thuscur; zal thuscur
5) in several ancient Mediterranean cultures the number '3' had special
magic-like significance.

Write the correct number under its corresponding written version on the graphic of
the die below.

thu

sa max ci

huth

zal

8
 OzCLO Preparation

Now here's another twist.

It seems that Etruscans enjoyed gambling as many pairs of dice have been
found. On another pair there are inscribed the following six words which
we give here in their alphabetic order: caius, est, i, va, volote, urti. These
were inscribed on the dice rather than the number words found on the
"Tuscan dice ".
Moreover, this choice of words is not random. It is claimed that they make
up a sentence expressing a popular Etruscan proverb: volote i va est, caius
urti meaning 'to a docile horse, the ford is pleasant'.

ii. Supposing that these words were arranged on these dice to symbolize the
numbers written on the Tuscan dice, inscribe each word of the proverb below its
corresponding number word on this two-dimensional figure of a Tuscan die.
[6 points]

thu

sa max ci

huth

zal

iii. Briefly explain your reasoning for the answer you gave to Question 2. [2 points]

9
 OzCLO Preparation

Solutions
1. Kiswahili

• Subjects: I ni • Objects: me ni
(one who (one that
does the you u the action is you ku
action) s/he a done to) him/her m
we tu us tu
they wa them wa

• Tense: future ta • Verb bases: like penda

(when) (describes
present na the action) beat piga
past li annoy sumbua

ii. Subject – Tense – Object – Verb base

iii. walikupenda They liked you.

utawapiga You will beat them.
tulimsumbua We annoyed him/her.

iv. We beat them. Tuliwapiga.

You are annoying me. Unanisumbua.
They liked him/her. Walimpenda.

2. Kannada
i. Last parts: ‘ge’, ‘kke’ or ‘nige’
ii. 'to (the) swan' hamsakke
'to (the) older sister' akkanige
'to (the) younger sister' tangige

In this language, the way to express the meaning 'to' is to add one of three endings
to a word: ‘ge’, ‘kke’ and ‘nige’. Which ending is used is determined by two factors:
• what the final sound of the word is,
• and, if the word ends in /a/, by whether the word denotes a human or not.

So, if a word has:

Final ‘e’ or final ‘i’ → ‘ge’
Final ‘a’ + non-human → ‘kke’
Final ‘a’ + human → ‘nige’

10
 OzCLO Preparation

3. Using rules to make strings

i. Strings 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11 can be generated using the rules.

ii. There are a couple of possibilities for the extra rule required:
S→B
or, with an empty right-side (meaning that the character is deleted):
A→Ø

4. Tenji

A1 a. haiku
b. sake
c. katana
d. kimono
e. koi
f. atari

A2 g. karate
h. anime

A3 i. samurai

j. miso

A4: Tenji is an alphabetical writing system in which each vowel and each consonant
has a specific sign. A consonant and a following vowel sound that together make up a
syllable can be combined in a single Braille symbol. Some syllables only have a vowel
sound.

The vowel signs use the cells in the top row and the middle row left cell. The
consonant signs use the remaining cells: bottom row cells and the middle row right
cell.

11
 OzCLO Preparation

5. Etruscan
i.

thu

sa max ci

4 5 3

huth

zal

ii. There are two possible solutions. Either

thu or thu

i volote

sa max ci sa max ci

urti caius est est caius va

huth huth

volote urti

zal zal

va i

iii. For the first solution above: The number of letters in each word symbolizes the
number.
For the second solution above: The order of the words in the proverb corresponds
to the number, e.g., first word = 1, last word = 6.

12