[Lexicog] dictionary software

[Ron Moe]

A relational database would attempt to model the multidimensional web of
relationships in the mental dictionary. Each piece of information is linked
to other pieces of information. Each link is categorized, as is each piece
of information. For instance 'river' is related to 'noun' and to the
subcategory 'count noun'. It is related to the phonemic representation
/r'IvR/ (at least in my dialect). It is related to some sort of semantic
representation such as 'a body of flowing water'. It is related to other
words with the same basic meaning such as 'stream, brook, rivulet'. It is
related to a proto form '*rei' which in turn is related to other words such
as 'row, rip, arrive, reap'. It is related to other words that it collocates
with, such as 'flow'. It is related to a lot of other words through a
variety of lexical relations: 'bank' (part) 'overflow' (typical action),
'riverbed' (location?). It is related to sentences in a text corpus such as,
'We went upstream until we found a place where we could ford the river'.

A relational database would enable you to link each piece of information,
navigate through the database by utilizing the links, and display
information according to various parameters. Instead of listing 'stream' as
a "synonym" of 'river', you would merely form a link between the two pieces
of information, and specify the nature of the link.

The LinguaLinks program attempted to follow this model with a fair degree of
success. One problem they encountered was that the number of links grew to
the point where the program slowed down to a snail's pace. It is my
understanding that it takes a very fast computer to run LinguaLinks on a
large database. One advantage of LinguaLinks is that each piece of
information is only entered once. If you changed your orthography from
'river' to 'rivr', you would change the word once, and it would be correct
everywhere the word "occurred" in the database.

Ron Moe
SIL, Uganda

-----Original Message-----
From: Conor McDonough Quinn [mailto:quinn at fas.harvard.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 5:14 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] dictionary software


Dia dhaoibh, a chairde!

For those of us with no experience in the matter: what is it that makes
relational databases so useful to lexicographic and/or other linguistic
work?  I'm still not clear on what it is that makes a relational database
distinct from any other kind, so a nice concrete example of

(a) what makes the distinction and
(b) how we (in my case *beginning*) lexicographers can use it to our
benefit

would be much appreciated.

Sla/n,
bhur gcara




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