[Lexicog] Toolbox inconsistencies (was: Cheyenne dictionary and blog)

[Sebastian Drude]

In June, we had two interesting meetings in Lansing that dealt with 
lexicon creation and related issues, among other topics:
the "EMELD-conference" and the "Digital Tools Summit in Linguistics".

> The Bardi database is quite messy. It repreesents the merger 
> of three different shoebox databases with inconsistent data entry within 
> that. There are definitely "non-standard" field structures.
One thing that came back and back again on both meetings is that ALL 
shoebox databases tend to be very messy after a while, especially if 
they were produced during a reasonable stretch of time, or by different 
persons, or after merging different databases for different purposes.

That is possibly the major benefit but also the major flaw with 
Shoebox/Toolbox: that it is so very flexible.

Givin the possibility to set up a *set* of templates and sub-templates 
(besides the 'following field' mechanism) would have been useful, but 
what is needed NOW, as was one of the results of the Digital Tools 
Summit, is a consistency-checker for legacy toolbox files.  This comes 
out even more clearly when you try to convert Toolbox Databases to some 
other format, such as Lexique Pro, or Fieldwork, or LEXUS (being 
developed at the MPI Nijmegen).
Our working group at the Summit arrived at some quite promising and 
concrete suggestions of how to implement such a tool.  Are here any 
volunteers in this list who would be willing to discuss this proposal, 
and maybe even some programmers that would pick up this task, say, as a 
degree concluding work in some university course, or just for fun?  Mike 
Maxwell knows more about this, and I would be happy to diskuss the topic 
(better off the list).

I agree with Claire in many things she comments on FIELDWORKS. Although 
promising in many respects, it is in some way the opposit of Toolbox - a 
huge, monolithic tool (for much more than just dictionary producing), 
and possibly not flexible enough for differnt linguists with different 
theoretical convictions (e.g., for linguistis following a 
word-and-paradigm reasoning, as I do). 
Maybe a set of small tools (following the Unix-philosophy) would have 
been better, or could complement it.

Best, Sebastian



 
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