[Lexicog] Digest Number 343

[Allan Johnson]

> Any transformation you want would be possible by learning CQL, the LL
> programming language.  But I suspect you don't want to go that far,
> unless you have a lot of these dictionaries.

Probably not - unless FieldWorks is going to include a sequel to CQL : )

> Clarification question: I'm not sure what you mean about the specific
> wordforms being lower in the hierarchy.  It sounds like a thesaurus, but
> I don't think that's what you mean.  Do you mean instead that the
> citation form (presumably a bare stem, which probably is a possible
> wordform in at least several POSs), and that any irregular forms go
> under each POS?

Yes, I think that's what I'm saying - not like a thesaurus, but arranged
semantically just within each main entry - by meaning rather than by form.
To express it in terms that are used to talk about Shoebox dictionary
structure, what I was trying to describe is similar to the Alternate MDF
hierarchy.  The Standard MDF hierarchy looks like this:

\lx main entry (lexeme)
    \se wordform
        \ps part of speech
            \sn sense number

Since specific wordforms are next to the top of the hierarchy, this would
be used for a form-based organization of the entry.  The Alternate MDF
hierarchy looks like this:

\lx main entry (lexeme)
    \sn sense number
        \se wordform
            \ps part of speech

Here since sense number is next to the top of the hierarchy, this would be
used for a sense-based or meaning-based organization of the entry.  And the
PLB hierarchy looks like this:

\lx main entry (lexeme)
    \ms sense number
        \ps part of speech
            \oi wordform (or \oa affix)

This too would be used for sense-based organization of an entry.  The part
of speech and wordform have just traded places in the hierarchy.  Now -
given a dictionary in this PLB format, what would it take to transform it
to the standard MDF format?  And vice versa?  Could this be done
computationally without a lot of editing by hand?

And a similar question - could a database be designed that would allow both
a Standard MDF view and a PLB view (or Alternate MDF view) of the same
data?  I think this is similar to a problem that was brought up by Michael
Paul Johnson on another list, talking about XML Scripture formats and two
competing hierarchies (paragraph-oriented and verse-oriented) that both
need to be supported in a single database.  It seems that that had a
workable solution, so maybe there's a way...

Allan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Maxwell" <maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Digest Number 343


> Allan Johnson wrote:
> > ...here in the Philippines... we've followed a standard that makes the
sense
> > primary, with part of speech and specific word forms beneath it in the
> > hierarchy.
>
> Clarification question: I'm not sure what you mean about the specific
> wordforms being lower in the hierarchy.  It sounds like a thesaurus, but
> I don't think that's what you mean.  Do you mean instead that the
> citation form (presumably a bare stem, which probably is a possible
> wordform in at least several POSs), and that any irregular forms go
> under each POS?
>
> > So I'm wondering how far this flexibility could take me.  Given an MDF
> > dictionary that I want to publish in PLB format, could I import it to
> > LinguaLinks, rearrange the entry parts, and then export it to PLB
format?
> > If this is a possibility, it would provide a wonderful solution to some
> > difficult dictionary publication problems that we have come up against.
My
> > hunch is that LinguaLinks' flexibility won't take me quite this far.
I'd
> > like to experiment with it and see how far it can go in transforming
the
> > shape of an entry.
>
> Any transformation you want would be possible by learning CQL, the LL
> programming language.  But I suspect you don't want to go that far,
> unless you have a lot of these dictionaries.  (Of course, Ken Zook came
> from the Philippines branch of SIL, and was an accomplished CQL
> programmer...)
>
> There are of course other ways to re-order fields, if that's all you
> need.  You might for instance consider parsing your SFM files (if that's
> what they are) with Python or Perl, and doing the re-arranging that way.
> --
> Mike Maxwell
> Linguistic Data Consortium
> maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>



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