two more questions about converting SALT files to CHAT format

Ying Lu ying.lu at utexas.edu
Sun Nov 11 15:16:21 UTC 2012


Dear Leonid,

Thank you very much for the explanations and your work on the quotes
conversation problem! I look forward to the new version of CLAN! If
resolving the MLU issue will take a while, could you suggest a way of
dealing with the quotes conversation problem with the current version of
CLAN? Thank you!!!

By the way, I wonder if I am on the right track of counting the MLU in
terms of efficiency. In order to convert a SALT file (e.g., test.slt) to CHAT
format and calculate the MLU in CLAN (results saved to a permanent file), I
need to go through the following stages:

(1) run SALTIN test.slt
(2) run MOR test.sltin.cha
(3) save the test.sltin.mor.cex file to test.sltin.mor.cha file
(4) run POST test.sltin.mor.cha
(5) save the test.sltin.mor.pst.cex file to test.sltin.mor.pst.cha file
(6) run mlu +t*CHI +f test.sltin.mor.pst.cha

Do I need to manually change the .cex to .cha format (by opening the .cex
file and saving it as a .cha file)?

Thank you so much again for your time and attention!
Ying



On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 11:35 PM, Leonid Spektor <spektor at andrew.cmu.edu>wrote:

> Ying,
>
> MLU will not count utterances ending with SALT symbols '>' and '^' (CHAT's
> symbols '+...' and '+/.'), if the next utterance of the same speaker starts
> with CHAT's Self-Completion symbol '+,' . Also, utterances will not be
> counted by MLU if they end with CHAT symbol '+.' . Perhaps SALTIN should
> convert SALT symbols '>' and '^' to some other CHAT symbols or we can add
> '+,' symbol on the next utterance of the same speaker. I guess it depends
> on whether SALT symbols '>' and '^' always mark utterances that should not
> be counted by MLU.
>
> I have fixed the quotes conversion problem, but I would like to hold on
> releasing new version of CLAN until the MLU utterances counting issue is
> resolved.
>
> Leonid.
>
>
>
> On Nov 10, 2012, at 14:38 , Ying Lu wrote:
>
> Dear Dr. MacWhinney,
>
> Thank you so much for your reply (especially during the weekend:-)!!!
>
> It would be great that Leonid could revise SALTIN to successfully convertthe quotation
> marks from SALT to CHAT format!
>
> For my second question regarding the > and ^ marks, SALT, by default, excludes
> the abandoned and interrupted utterances, as well as the unintelligibleand nonverbal utterances, from
> the analysis set. But of course, one may uncheck any of these options to
> include the type(s) of utterances. Now the nonverbal utterances (marked
> by {}) and the utterances which contain unintelligible parts (marked by
> XXX) are excluded consistently by both SALT and CLAN in MLU calculation.
>
> Below is the "pretend file" I made to test the conversion of those marks.
> SALT ignores the utterances marked by >, ^, {}, XXXX, also words starting
> with *, while CLAN only ignores {}, XXXX, also words starting with *.
>
> *In SALT:*
> $ Child, Examiner
> + Language: English
> - 0:00
>
> C There is a boy whose name is Tom>
> C He like/3s fish/ing^
> C He went *to a lake.
> C He got XXXXX.
> C XXXX went back home.
> C {picks up book}.
>
> *In CLAN:*
> @Begin
> @Languages:    eng
> @Participants:    CHI Target_Child, INV Investigator
> @ID:    eng|change_me_later|CHI|||||Target_Child|||
> @ID:    eng|change_me_later|INV|||||Investigator|||
> @Time Start:    00:00
> @Comment:    Language: English
> *CHI:    there is a boy whose name is tom +...
> %mor:    adv:loc|there v:cop|be&3S^aux|be&3S det|a n|boy
>     rel|whose^pro:wh|whose^det:wh|whose v|name^n|name
>     v:cop|be&3S^aux|be&3S n|tom +...
> *CHI:    he likes fishing +/.
> %mor:    pro:sub|he v|like-3S
>     adj:part|fish-PROG^n:gerund|fish-PROG^part|fish-PROG +/.
> *CHI:    he went 0to a lake .
> %mor:    pro:sub|he v|go&PAST 0inf|to det|a n|lake .
> *CHI:    he got xxx .
> %mor:    pro:sub|he adj:part|get&PERF^part|get&PERF^v|get&PAST^aux|get&PAST
>     .
> *CHI:    xxx went back home .
> %mor:    v|go&PAST v|back^n|back^adv:loc|back^adj|back n|home^adv:loc|home
> .
> *CHI:    0 .
> %act:    picks up book .
> @End
>
> You are right that the > mark is converted to +... And yes, I will look
> for the instructions about how to create the postcodes! I just started to
> use CLAN, but I can see it is very powerful and helpful! I also have
> Spanish and Mandarin data to analyze. I would love to do the data
> exploration with CLAN!
>
> Thank you very much for your patience and time! I am really grateful for the
> help and information from you and Leonid!
>
> Sincerely,
> Ying
>
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Brian MacWhinney <macw at cmu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Dear Ying Lu,
>>      About 10 months ago, we eliminated the use of the <quiet> ["] form
>> in CHAT.  It appears that Leonid needs to revise SALTIN to match the new
>> format.  The new format, described in section 7.9 of the manual, uses
>> special Unicode marks for begin quote and end quote.  Hopefully, Leonid can
>> revise this part of SALTIN to correspond to the new format.
>>     Regarding utterance exclusion on the basis of the >  and the ^ mark,
>> I don't think that Brown (1973) specifies clearly that these should be
>> excluded.  The final > mark should be converted to +...    Is that
>> happening correctly?  If not we can fix that.  You don't provide any
>> examples of the use of the ^ mark.  I don't imagine anyone would really
>> want to exclude all interrupted utterances, including those with just
>> overlap.  So, this would have to be defined more closely.
>>     If you want to fine-tune all of this, you can create postcodes for
>> these various types and use those postcodes as the basis for exclusion.
>>  The problem here is that different people have different ideas about which
>> utterances should or should not be included.
>>
>> -- Brian MacWhinney
>>
>>
>> On Nov 9, 2012, at 7:03 PM, Ying Lu <yl5834 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Leonid,
>>
>> Thank you very much for your help! I am now able to convert files created
>> in the newest version SALT to CHAT format!
>>
>> I have two more questions.
>>
>> One is about converting the words in quotation marks from SALT to CHAT
>> format. It seems that CLAN will not count the words in quotations marks
>> when running MOR. E.g.,
>>
>> In SALT:
>> C the little boy said[mv][IP] "quiet" [G].
>> In CLAN:
>> *CHI:    the little boy said [% mv] [% ip] <quiet> ["] [% g] .
>> %mor:  det|the adj|little n|boy v|say&PAST n|quote .
>>
>> The other is about how to exclude the abandoned utterances (marked by >
>> in SALT) in CLAN. E.g.,
>> In SALT:
>> C (And they and they) ((and then)) they could/n't[IP]>
>> C ((And then)) the boy look/ed[mv] into the hole [G].
>> In SALT, the abandoned utterances will be excluded from the analysis set.
>> But CLAN keeps them in the MLU calculation. The same happened to the
>> interrupted utterances (marked by ^ in SALT).
>>
>> Thank you very much again!
>> Sincerely,
>> Ying
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, November 5, 2012 11:46:57 AM UTC-6, Spektor, Leonid: CMU wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> SALT started adding Unicode identification characters at the beginning
>>> of transcript. I have changed CLAN in general and SALTIN in particular to
>>> recognize those characters. I will update CLAN by the end of today.
>>>
>>> Leonid.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 5, 2012, at 11:51, Sophie Ambrose wrote:
>>>
>>> I've recently begun running into this problem too and wasn't sure why
>>> the issue arose suddenly. The transcribing is being done in SALT elsewhere,
>>> so it's certainly possible the lab changed to the 2012 version recently
>>> too. I'm glad Leonid will be taking a look at this issue.
>>> Sophie
>>>
>>> On Monday, November 5, 2012 9:47:59 AM UTC-6, Spektor, Leonid: CMU wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Ying Lu,
>>>>
>>>> If the latest version of SALT does output some special characters, then
>>>> it would be best for us to change SALTIN to recognize them. For that I need
>>>> a copy of your "Tran1.slt" file. Please email it to me if you can.
>>>>
>>>> Leonid.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 5, 2012, at 09:48, Ying Lu wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear Leonid,
>>>>
>>>> Thank you very much for your reply!
>>>>
>>>> For problem (a), I understand the errors are due to the unrecognized
>>>> initial characters of the tiers (e.g., $, C). But I don't know why that
>>>> happened. I suspect there is a compatibility issue here, i.e., SALTIN can't
>>>> recognize some symbols generated by the SALT 2012 student version. I will
>>>> try other SALT versions later and see if that works.
>>>>
>>>> As for problem (b), I got a reply from Dr. MacWhinney last night and
>>>> was able to get the comparable MLU. Thanks a lot again for directing me to
>>>> use POST!!!
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>> Ying Lu
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 12:05 AM, Leonid Spektor <spe... at andrew.cmu.edu>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ying Lu,
>>>>>
>>>>> (a)
>>>>> The first error "** ERROR: unknown symbol <> found on 1 line." is
>>>>> probably because the first character on the line 1 is not '$' character. It
>>>>> might be some special control character that SALT or your text editor has
>>>>> inserted and CLAN doesn't recognize. The rest of the errors are due to
>>>>> first line not being recognized by SALTIN and as a result SALTIN can't
>>>>> identify speaker name code.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have created a test file from your example below and here is the
>>>>> result from SALTIN that I get:
>>>>>
>>>>> @Begin
>>>>> @Languages: eng
>>>>> @Participants: CHI Target_Child, INV Investigator
>>>>> @ID: eng|change_me_later|CHI|||||**Target_Child|||
>>>>> @ID: eng|change_me_later|INV|||||**Investigator|||
>>>>> @Time Start: 00:00
>>>>> @Comment: Language: English
>>>>> *CHI: there is a boy whose name is tom .
>>>>> *CHI: he likes swimming .
>>>>> %tim: 00:05
>>>>> @End
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be very helpful if you would send to me directly the
>>>>> "Tran1.slt" file that you used.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> (b)
>>>>> The difference in MLU results is due to %mor tier not being
>>>>> disambiguated by POST command. If you run POST command, then you will get
>>>>> this CHAT file:
>>>>>
>>>>> *CHI:    the dog was [% ip] looking [% mv] in the beehive and 0at [%
>>>>> po] the mole [% u] .
>>>>> %mor: det|the n|dog aux|be&PAST&13S part|look-PROG prep|in det|the
>>>>> n|beehive coord|and 0prep|at det|the n|mole .
>>>>>
>>>>> and this MLU result:
>>>>>
>>>>> MLU for Speaker: *CHI:
>>>>>   MLU (xxx, yyy and www are EXCLUDED from the utterance and morpheme
>>>>> counts):
>>>>> Number of: utterances = 1, morphemes = 11
>>>>> Ratio of morphemes over utterances = 11.000
>>>>> Standard deviation = 0.000
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Leonid.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  On Nov 4, 2012, at 20:33 , Ying Lu wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> *Dear Chibolts group,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am trying to convert some SALT files and compare the MLU calculated
>>>>> by SALT with that by CLAN. I encounter some problems:
>>>>>
>>>>> (a) I am using SALT 2012 Student Version. *
>>>>>
>>>>> *The original SALT file is (I am using a short version sample here):*
>>>>>
>>>>> $ Child, Examiner
>>>>> + Language: English
>>>>> - 0:00
>>>>>
>>>>> C There is a boy whose name is Tom.
>>>>> C He likes swimming.
>>>>>
>>>>> - 0:05
>>>>>
>>>>> *But I got the following message when converting a SALT file into
>>>>> CHAT format using the command line "SALTIN Tran1.slt": *
>>>>> > SALTIN Tran1.slt
>>>>> saltin Tran1.slt
>>>>> Sun Nov 04 18:39:34 2012
>>>>> saltin (07-Sep-2012)
>>>>> ******************************************
>>>>> From file <Tran1.slt>
>>>>> ** ERROR: unknown symbol <> found on 1 line.
>>>>> ** ERROR: unknown symbol <c> found on 5 line.
>>>>> ** ERROR: unknown symbol <c> found on 7 line.
>>>>> Output file <Tran1.sltin.cha>
>>>>>
>>>>> *The output file looks like this:*
>>>>>
>>>>> @Begin
>>>>> @Languages:    eng
>>>>> @Time Start:    00:00
>>>>> @Time Start:    there is a boy whose name is tom .he likes swimming
>>>>> .00:05
>>>>> @End
>>>>>
>>>>> *I don't understand why the errors would occur.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *(b) Also, the MLU calculated by SALT is often different from that
>>>>> calculated by CLAN. For example,*
>>>>> C The dog was look/ing in the beehive and *at the mole. *(in SALT)*
>>>>>
>>>>> *When I convert this to CHAT format, and use the MOR and MLU
>>>>> commands, it showed: *
>>>>> *CHI:    The dog was [% ip] looking [% mv]
>>>>>     in the beehive and 0at [% po] the mole [% u] .
>>>>> %mor:    det|the v|dog^n|dog v:cop|be&PAST&13S^aux|be&PAST&**13S
>>>>>     adj:part|look-PROG^n:gerund|**look-PROG^part|look-PROG
>>>>>     prep|in^adv:loc|in^pfx|in det|the n|beehive coord|and 0prep|at
>>>>>     det|the n|mole .
>>>>>
>>>>> *The MLU by SALT is 11, but the Ratio of morphemes over utterances =
>>>>> 13 (Number of: utterances = 1, morphemes = 13) by CLAN.*
>>>>>
>>>>> Apparently, the MLU result by SALT is what I want. But how could I get
>>>>> the same result in CLAN?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you very much for your attention! Look forward to your help!
>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>> Ying Lu
>>>>>
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