SignPuddle database design options

[maria galea]

hi,
I'm just thinking also now - maybe you could have different 'parts of
speech' categories and yes maybe avoid the term 'parts of speech' as Adam
suggested...Perhaps offer categories that have been identified by sign
linguists for sign languages e.g:
1)  'Polycomponential/Classifier Verbs' vs.'Agreement Verbs', 'Plain Verbs'
(Padden's 1990 classical classification)
2) maybe use terms such as 'Nominal' and 'verbal' rather than 'noun' and
'verb'
3) maybe you could check your sign as being 'inflectional' vs.
'derivational'
4) maybe include 'bound-morpheme' vs. 'free morpheme' (so that you can
enter a list of classifier handshapes into the lexicon/dictionary even
though they do not stand on their own etc etc...)


Steve, why don't you send the original email to the sign linguist email
list for consultation - you might get some interesting feedback...
I know for sure that there has been some criticism about SignPuddle from
the sign linguistics field, but it might be a good idea to see what exactly
they are not happy with and why, so things can be improved upon with their
help... From what I learnt from past-emails, they seemed to be
uncomfortable calling SignPuddle Dictionaries a
'corpus/database/dictionary' - Adam Schembri had taken the German Puddle
Dictionary as an example and noticed that there are more than one entries
for a lexeme - and in this aspect i think he was right. He wasn't
comfortable with the term 'Dictionary' for the Dictionary SignPuddle..  I
honestly think that if you could get feedback from the sign linguistic
field it would be well worth your time....even if it's just for the
constructive criticism they may have to offer...

good luck!
maria



On 2 July 2013 16:41, Adam Frost <icemandeaf at gmail.com> wrote:

> See my comments below.
>
> On Jul 1, 2013, at 10:20 AM, Stephen E Slevinski Jr wrote:
>
> > Hi List,
> >
> > Considering the dictionary entries, I will be making several additions
> and would like the general lists opinion on the following topics.
> >
> > This will be used for the coming database conversion.  I will continue
> to support XML as an export/import format.
> >
> > ----------------
> >
> > Language Codes:
> >     the design will include language codes for spoken and signed
> languages.
> >
> > Terms, titles, and text segments can be labelled by language.
> >
> > ----------------
> >
> > Part of Speech:
> >
> > The part of speech can be a text field or a select list.  I am consider
> the following list.  Suggestions or comments are welcome.
> >
> > adjective:  sign that gives attributes to nouns, extending their
> definitions.
> > adverb:  sign that modify clauses, sentences and phrases directly.
> > conjunction:  sign that connect words, phrases or clauses together.
> > interjection:  sign that express emotions, sounds, etc. as exclamation.
> > noun: sign that indicates people, beings, things, places, phenomena,
> qualities or ideas.
> > numeral:  sign that indicate quantities of nouns.
> > preposition: sign that describes the relationship of multiple
> nouns/pronouns in terms of time, distance, or location.
> > pronoun:  sign that refer to and substitute nouns.
> > verb:  sign that indicate actions, occurrences or states.
> >
> I thought that it was interesting that you had the traditional 8 parts of
> speech (for English) plus one that is sometimes categorized with adverbs
> (numeral). I can understand why one would start with these 9 sign languages
> since there is no true understanding of the parts of speech for them yet
> yet. Also, not every language uses the same parts of speech, so I think we
> would need to keep the options somewhat flexible for future findings.
> Having said that, I think this list is a good place to start. :-)
>
> I also noticed that it was mentioned before about being able to have more
> defined categories for verbs and such. I think that would be a very good
> idea for all of the categories to be able to select a subcategory to say
> specifically what type of verb, noun, etc. Then it would be best to allow
> numerals be under the adjective category. Some of these could be defined
> because they seem to be similar for all sign languages (i.e. directional
> verb, transitive verbs, proper nouns, etc.), but some of these would have
> to be defined per language because some languages have a classification
> that others have. Then there's the fact that we find more information about
> a language and realize what categories are needed even more.
>
> Another thing that might be good is to be able to have a way of saying
> that the part of speech for this sign could be a combination of a few or
> even that we don't know what it is yet.
>
> PS I know there will be several people who would have a problem with
> "parts of speech" being applied to sign languages, but no one has ever come
> up with a term that is much better. Just thought you might want to be aware
> of that. ;-)
> >
> > ----------------
> >
> > Lexicon usage
> >
> > An interesting designation for dictionary signs.  Would this list usable
> by the various sign language puddles?
> >
> > dated : sign that is no longer fashionable, but is anachronistic.
> > formal : sign whose use is typically restricted to polite, ceremonious,
> non-casual contexts.
> > informal : sign whose use is typically restricted to casual, non-
> ceremonious conversations.
> > pejoratives:  sign with negative connotations.
> > slang: nonstandard sign that are typically used to mark membership in a
> cultural subgroup.
> >
> > Maybe add an additional lexicon usage such as "test" or "student" or
> "other" to help filter the SignPuddle content.
> >
> I agree with Maria that dated should be archaic. Informal, and probably
> even slang as well, should be colloquial. Because colloquial is truly a
> blanket term, it might be good to have a way of picking a subcategory like
> I suggested for the parts of speech. I don't know about pejoratives because
> I haven't really thought of having a designation for that in a dictionary.
> One reason is that one word that has negative connotations for a specific
> group doesn't necessarily have the same connotation for another group.
> There may be times where a dictionary will have a little section about the
> usage for this type of connotation, but that is usually because it has to
> be explained about the major possible connotations. I think this is better
> than having a blanket term to denote it.
>
> It is might be good to have test and/or student for SignPuddle because it
> is so open and free. I also think it might be good to have an "edited"
> labeling so that people can know which ones have been established as the
> proper or "correct" spellings that has been accepted.
> >
> > ---------------
> >
> > Additional fields for videos and photos will be added for use with
> definition, illustration, demonstration.
> >
> > Thoughts or opinions?
> >
> > Regards,
> > ∼Steve
>
>
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