[Lexicog] In Shoebox / Toolbox, how does one deal with zero allomorphs?

[fieldworks_support at SIL.ORG]

How I would set up the case for "naa" including a zero allomorph of the
imperative infix is to set up another entry for "naa" in either the
lexicon, or a second database of forced parses for difficult words, that
looks like this:

\lx naa
\u naa -i-

This says that "naa" has the underlying form of "naa" plus the infix -i-.
(In your example as given, -i is a suffix, not an infix. You need to write
"-i-" with a hyphen after the morpheme on the lx line to make it an infix).
You need to have this as a separate entry, or else Shoebox will always
think "naa" includes the zero allomorph for imperative, even when another
non-zero affix is present in the word.

If the roots never occur in isolation, you can set up a word formula to
avoid the ambiguous parse dialog whenever "naa" appears. If you have a
pattern that "naa -i-" can match but "naa" by itself won't match, the
formula will choose the "naa -i-" parse when "naa" is a word on its own.


Steve White, Jaars language software support
704-843-6337, 1-800-215-7813





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/