[Lexicog] Idioms and Shoebox/Toolbox

Tue Aug 2 19:33:10 UTC 2005

Shoebox/Toolbox does not impose any restrictions on the contents of a field.
It enables you to specify the language of a field and therefore the font,
but you can type anything you want to into the field. It is your choice
whether to present an idiom as a major entry or subentry:

tomorrow adv. The day after this day.
...
the day after tomorrow phr. The day after the day after this day, i.e. two
days from now.

(Or)

tomorrow adv. The day after this day.
  the day after tomorrow phr. The day after the day after this day, i.e. two
days from now.

The first presentation requires you to make 'the day after tomorrow' a
separate entry:

\lx tomorrow
\ps adv
\de The day after this day.

\lx the day after tomorrow
\ps phr
\de The day after the day after this day, i.e. two days from now.

The second requires that it by part of the entry for 'tomorrow':

\lx tomorrow
\ps adv
\de The day after this day.
\se the day after tomorrow
\ps phr
\de The day after the day after this day, i.e. two days from now.

Shoebox doesn't care. The issue is what would be best for the user.

There are only two 'features' of a Shoebox field that really matter. They
can be found by going to Database-Properties-Markers. The most significant
is the 'language encoding'. This assigns the field to one of the language
settings files (default.lng vernacular.lng English.lng French.lng etc).
These settings files are kept with the project settings files (*.prj) and
the database type files (*.typ). In each of the language encodings files you
can specify the font, sort order, upper-lower case associations, and other
things. You access a language settings file from within Shoebox by going to
Project-Language encodings. The second feature is 'Under what in the
hierarchy'. A dictionary article has a hierarchical organization and it is
specified here. You will probably never need to modify this, but it does
have some odd effects. It can affect the display of fields in the Browse
view. If you get fields out of order, it can mess up the print process. So
it is useful to at least be familiar with the MDF hierarchy and try to stick
with it. Unfortunately Shoebox exercises no control over field order. You
can mess up the field order or hierarchy and Shoebox will not complain.

The MDF fields are merely a set of conventions that permit standardization.
The description of each field was written by the MDF designers according to
their view of lexicography. But you can do whatever you want with the
fields. It is best to stick to their design whenever possible, because there
may be unexpected consequences when you go to print the database. But I
often (mis)appropriate one of their fields for other purposes. They
sometimes failed to foresee all the needs of every lexicographer around the
world. (They can hardly be faulted for it.) They did an admirable job, but
we sometimes have to modify their system. If you add a field that is not in
their system, it will not be printed.

But as far as Shoebox/Toolbox is concerned, there is no limitation on the
contents of a field. You can modify the features of an MDF field (go to
Database-Properties-Markers) and Shoebox doesn't care. A field can use any
font (but only one font). It can be any number of words. It can be formatted
to a very limited degree with <return> and <space> characters. By entering
special codes you can achieve more kinds of formatting. For instance you can
indicate a change of font. But then your print program has to be able to
interpret the special codes. The MDF manual describes some codes that they
built into MDF. In my manual (v1.0) the description is under '3.5.2
Character Style codes'.

LexiquePro is based on the MDF codes, so it will print according to what MDF
expects.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Wayne Leman
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 4:07 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Idioms and Shoebox/Toolbox

Susan, your suggested entry for Shoebox/Toolbox is how I would enter that
idiom. The idiom does need its own entry. I don't know if there are any
practical consequences for changing the \lx properties. I have never changed
those properties at all, yet I have \lx entries which are single word,
multiple word, affixes, single morphemes, etc. If I do have an entry which
is less than a word in length, I always try to have an example "sentence"
with at least a full word illustrating usage of the entry.

My 2 cents worth as a user.

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language

----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Gehr" <sgehr at karuk.us>

How do Shoebox/Toolbox users enter idioms in their
databases?

Here's an idiom from Karuk:

imáan múmaankam
 'day after tomorrow'
Lit. 'tomorrow's big tomorrow'

Would it be

\lx imáan múmaankam
\ge 'day_after_tomorrow'
\lt tomorrow's big tomorrow

with the \lx field data properties as 'a single item possibly
consisting of multiple words'?

Are there any consequences to changing the  \lx field data
properties to 'a single item possibly consisting of multiple words'
from 'a single word'?

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