Working with codes

Mon Jun 23 06:09:06 UTC 2008

Dear Brian, 

This is only to thank you for your detailed answer. A proper reply will 
follow. 

Best
s-- 

Brian MacWhinney schrieb:
> Dear Susanna, 
>
>       Sorry about the delay in replying.  I have been traveling.   Let  
> me try to answer some of these questions below. 
>
> --Brian MacWhinney 
>
> On Jun 19, 2008, at 7:43 AM, bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de wrote: 
>
>> Dear all, 
>>
>> For a study on anaphora, we are coding referring expressions in
>> children's narratives and I have some questions concerning the coding
>> line (we use %cod), as well as subsequent CLAN analyses. 
>>
>> First, is such a %cod line legal?
>> *CHI:	der hund beisst sie in den schwanz.
>> %cod:	der hund|S-DA:N-BL-V1:3-AS-DIR-hundC sie|O-PRO:PP-BL-V3:1-AS- 
>> DIS-
>> katzeC den schwanz|NSO-DA:N-UBL-NV-IND-schwanzC 
>>
>
> For the dependent tier lines like %cod, pretty much everything is  
> legal, since the programs
> don't presume any particularly structure on this line.  For these  
> lines, the main issue is a practical one relating to composing the +s  
> switch when you need to do searching.  Just make sure that you can  
> find the things you want to find by testing out some FREQ or KWAL  
> commands in advance. 
>
>> We use the minus symbol - for separating 7 levels of coding of each
>> referring expression, e.g., syntactic position, lexical realisation,
>> in/animacy, referent introduction vs. reference maintenance, etc. The
>> symbol : is used for separating sub-levels within each of the 7
>> superordinated levels.
>
> This is fine.  You will have to have search strings like +s"*-*-*-*-BL- 
> *" and such.  Personally, I would find this confusing and prone to  
> error, but if you are good at asterisk counting, this will work.
>>
>> Secondly, is there any possibility to link each referring expression
>> on the *CHI line with its coding on the %cod line? Provisionally, we
>> opted for typing the referring expression before the coding string,
>> e.g., 'die katze'.
>
> Ah, herein lies the rub (somewhere in Shakespeare).  You are basically  
> trying to construct something like the %mor line with its 1-to-1 match  
> to the main line.  This is a great idea.  However, the CLAN software  
> is not yet really ready for this.  We are currently right in the  
> middle of implementing strict 1-to-1 matching between the %mor and the  
> main tier within the XML version of CLAN.  Once this is finished then  
> "match" searches will work with the %mor line.  At that point, it  
> would be relatively easy to extend this to a tier called %mat for a  
> user-defined matching tier.  However, none of this will be ready until  
> later this year.
>>
>> Thidly and most importantly, we want to conduct analyses concerning
>> the cooccurrence of elements within each coding string. For instance,
>> we want to investigate differences in children's realisation of
>> referents as a function of referent introduction vs. anaphorical
>> expression (reference maintenance). For that, we want to find a range
>> of cooccurrences as the following: 
>>
>> DA:N and NV and IND
>> (where DA:N means definite article + noun, NV means referent
>> introduction, and IND means indirect anaphor)
>
> I am not sure what you mean by "range" in your phrase "a range of  
> cooccurrences".  However, finding *-DA:N-*^*^*-NV-* should be possible. 
>
>> I have tried COMB, but either I don't understand the principle for the
>> syntax of the command line or I miss some important switch or, well, I
>> don't know what.
>
> You probably just have to play around to learn how to use COMBO. 
>
>>
>> Two things are in such searching procedures very important for us:
>> - The search must be limited to each of the coding strings and not be
>> based on the whole %cod line. For instanance, when looking for the
>> cooccurrence  DA:N and DIS, CLAN would be supposed not to find it in
>> the example above, since it doesn't occur in any of the 3 coding
>> strings. That is, for this concrete example, how can we proceed for
>> ensuring that CLAN ignores the cooccurrence of DA:N for 'the hund' and
>> DIS for 'sie'?
>
> That should be easy enough.  In COMBO lines, it is the ^ that searches  
> across word boundaries.  Just make sure that your search strings don't  
> include the ^.  So, you want
> *-DA:N-*-DIS-* 
>
>> - How can we proceed to get quantitative results of such searches? I
>> mean, in addition to the concrete hits showed in the output window,
>> it'd be very important to have the number of cooccurrences found in
>> each chat file, as well as in all chat files in which the cooccurrence
>> was looked for. 
>>
>> I apologize if the answers for my questions are obvious or easy to be
>> found  in the CLAN manual. I have read the manual very carefully
>> before sending this query, but I don't seem to be able to find the
>> needed answers therein.
>
> I don't think you can really learn this stuff by reading the manual.   
> You just have
> to devote an hour or two to playing around with COMBO.  Think of it as  
> a Bach
> theme with variations. 
>
> --Brian MacWhinney 
>
>>
>> Many, many thanks in advance for any hint. 
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Susanna 
>>
>> *****************************************************************
>> Susanna Bartsch
>> https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/
>> bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de
>> Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
>> Centre for General Linguistics
>> Schuetzenstr. 18
>> 10117 Berlin
>> Germany
>> Tel. +49 (0)30 20 192 503
>> Fax  +49 (0)30 20 192 402
>> ***************************************************************** 
>>
> 
>
> >

*****************************************************************
Susanna Bartsch
bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de
Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
Centre for General Linguistics
Schuetzenstr. 18
10117 Berlin
Germany
Tel. +49 (0)30 20 192 503
Fax  +49 (0)30 20 192 402
*****************************************************************

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