[Lexicog] dialect tagging

[Mike Maxwell]

I got an inquiry today about lexicon software which can handle multiple 
dialects (like 20 of them).  The design requirement is that most any 
piece of information (ranging from entire lexemes to individual senses 
to alternative pronunciations and grammatical fields) be taggable by 
dialect.  So for example the pronunciation field of one lexeme might be 
tagged as being relevant to dialects a, c, d...n, while another 
pronunciation field of that same lexeme might be tagged for dialect b, 
and another for dialects e and f.  For another lexeme, there might be 
just one pronunciation field untagged for dialects, with the 
interpretation that it's pronounced the same in all dialects.

Or you might tag a sense field for dialects fgh, meaning that it was 
only relevant for those dialects (think "trunk of a car" as a sense for 
'boot').

I know we've gone around and around on that with FLEx; it's fairly clear 
how to model it, but not clear how to implement it efficiently.  And 
afaik, it's not likely to be implemented soon, since the FLEx developers 
are talking refactoring over this next year.

It's also virtually impossible to do (cleanly) with Toolbox, because 
there are (afaik) no two-part fields; you can't have, say,
    \pron acdn foobar
    \pron b    fuubar
    \pron ef   fobar
--or at least if you do, you can't maintain it consistently.

I don't see much on the TshwaneLex web page about dialects, although one 
of their flyers does mention that it has been used in multi-lingual 
projects.  Does anyone have any experience using TshwaneLex for this 
kind of multi-dialect dictionary?  Or any other software?
-- 
    Mike Maxwell
    What good is a universe without somebody around to look at it?
    --Robert Dicke, Princeton physicist


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