Lemmatization

NepaliKit provides dictionary-based lemmatization for Nepali words, mapping inflected forms to their canonical dictionary form.

What is Lemmatization?

Unlike stemming (which blindly strips suffixes), lemmatization uses a dictionary to find the actual root form. For example: - गर्छन् → गर्नु (infinitive form, not गर्) - किताहरू → किता (singular form) - मैले → म (base pronoun)

Basic Usage

from nepalikit.lemmatizer import NepaliLemmatizer, lemmatize, lemmatize_text

# Single word
print(lemmatize("गर्छन्"))  # "गर्नु"
print(lemmatize("किताहरू"))  # "किता"
print(lemmatize("मैले"))     # "म"

# Full text
text = "मैले किताहरू पढेको छु"
print(lemmatize_text(text))  # "म किता पढ्नु छु"

Lemmatizer vs Stemmer

Input	Stemmer	Lemmatizer
गर्छन्	गर्	गर्नु
किताहरू	कित	किता
मैले	मै	म
पढेको	पढ	पढ्नु

The stemmer strips suffixes blindly. The lemmatizer returns the actual dictionary form.

Features

• Dictionary-based lookup for nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives
• Handles case markers (ले, को, मा, बाट, लाई)
• Handles plural forms (हरू)
• Handles verb conjugations (present, past, negative)
• Rule-based fallback for unknown words
• Zero dependencies (Python stdlib only)

See the API reference for full details.