Corpus Linguistic Tools for Historical Semantics in Arabic

Abstract

In this paper, we present a set of corpus linguistic tools for conducting historical semantic research in the Arabic language. We compiled a Historical Arabic Corpus (HAC) that spans more than 1500 years of continuous language use. With techniques from the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), the tools we presented here have been used to create the HAC and to explore lexical semantic change. The development of these tools is aimed at offering a catalyst to the ambitions goal of compiling an Arabic dictionary on historical principles. HAC and the tools can also be used for conducting research in a variety of areas of linguistics. .