[Lexicog] marking semantic domain subcategories

[Ron Moe]

Hi Wayne,

MDF has three fields that you can use for semantic domains: \is index of
semantics \th thesaurus \sd semantic domain. I chose to use all three in my
system as a bundle. I use \is for a hierarchical numbering system, \th for
the vernacular label for the domain, and \sd for the English label. I don't
know if this is what the designers of MDF had in mind, but it works.
Essentially all three fields refer to the same domain. But by using three
fields we can sort and find the domain by searching in three different
fields. So for instance if I want to classify 'peace', I would create the
following fields:

\lx peace
\ps n
...
\is 4.8.4
\th Eirene  [in our example a vernacular (Greek) label]
\sd Peace

Since the \is number is hierarchical, I can sort on it and see related
domains in close proximity to the one I'm dealing with. I can also sort on
the \th field and search for a vernacular domain, or sort on the \sd field
and search for an English domain. I've found this system to be very flexible
and helpful.

I'm also developing some thoughts on how we could make a domain show up in
more than one place in the hierarchy. For instance I have a domain 'Animal
color, marking' that I would like to see under 'Animal' and under 'Color'.
Currently I have put it under 'Color', but for obvious reasons I would also
like to see it under 'Animal'. One way might be to simply create another
number, so that the same domain is associated with two numbers in the
hierarchy:

\lx pinto
\ps n
\de any horse with irregular spots or markings     [American Heritage
Dictionary]
\is 8.3.3.3.5     [the current number under 8.3.3.3 'Color']
\is 1.6.8     [a proposed number under 1.6 'Animal']
\sd Animal color, marking

Jan F. Ullrich suggested putting the hierarchy in the \sd field:

\sd Organism Animal Vertebrate WarmBloodedVertebrate Mammal HoofedMammal
horse

I doubt if it is necessary to have more than five levels in a hierarchy
(except for an artificial biological classification system), but it seems
that this method would result in long labels, get cumbersome, be subject to
error, and be hard to maintain. Jan pointed out that it has the advantage
that you can filter for a word, but I believe the same results can be
obtained by sorting on the number and scanning through a section of the
hierarchy. I can also filter for a particular word in the \sd field. I just
filtered for the word 'animal' and found animal-related domains in five
different places. (Which tells me something about my organization. But that
is another topic.)

The bottom line is that we have more than one means to accomplish our goal.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Wayne Leman
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 9:18 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] marking semantic domain subcategories


Sure, Mike. Superordinate categories and subordinate categories, for
instance. I am only aware of a single \sd (semantic domain) field for
Shoebox and Toolbox. There may be some way to indicate semantic domain
hierarchy that I don't know about. We should, for instance, not only be able
within Lexique Pro to pull up all horses from our \sd horse fields, but also
when we do so, we should be able to tell from the Lexique Pro display of the
database markers that the horse semantic domain is a subcategory of the
animals domain. Currently, I can mark more than one semantic domain for a
lexical entry, but I have no way of showing any semantic relationship or
hierarchy between multiple semantic domains for a record.

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language



> Wayne Leman wrote:
>> Does anyone on this list know of any way to mark lexical subcategories
>> and
>> other aspect of semantic domain hierarchy within any of the current
>> lexicography software (Shoebox, Toolbox, TshwaneLex, etc.)?
>
> Could you explain a bit more what you mean?  What are some
> examples, and why can't they be marked in e.g. Shoebox?
> (Maybe the latter will be obvious when I see some examples.)
> --
> Mike Maxwell





Yahoo! Groups Links








------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?
Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TzSHvD/SOnJAA/79vVAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/