[Lexicog] Lexical Relations vs. Etymology - using "idiom" in the \ps field

[David Frank]

As I have said recently, I would discourage adding anything in the part of speech field that is not really a part of speech label. You could put labels like noun, verb, adj., etc., but I wouldn't put anything in the part of speech field for entries that are more than one word. I would not use labels like phrase or NP or idiom in the part of speech field nor anywhere else. Crockett has already pointed out that such labels don't belong in the sense number field either. My feeling [and the use of this term brings to mind the other discussion we were having] is that they don't belong anywhere. But I don't know what people are normally taught to do in the case of idioms or phrases when using Shoebox or Toolbox and MDF, and I don't know how the printout would look if the part of speech field were left out or left blank. The software ought to be programmed in such a way as to give reasonable results, or at least there ought to be a way of tricking the software into doing what you need it to do.

I don't use Toolbox and MDF and I am not a programmer, but I believe there should be some Toolbox/MDF experts listening in who can tell how to get the results you want, if the software is capable of it. Cheryl, if you could send examples in an e-mail rather than as an attachment, you might get some help. Show the raw Toolbox or Shoebox output with backslashes and field codes, and then show how that is formatted with MDF, and then reformat it the way you think it should look and ask for help getting it that way.

-- David Frank

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Cheryl Reitz 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 2:51 AM
  Subject: RE: [Lexicog] Lexical Relations vs. Etymology - using "idiom" in the \ps field


  Thanks, Crockett,
  Yes, this problem does turn up, as you surmised, with any Data Range item under \ps other than the first \ps item for the lexeme.  There is both a new sense number listing and a new line.  There should be one or the other, but not both, I think.  If you can help us to troubleshoot this problem, we will be most grateful as we hope to publish the first "official" version this weekend.  I have prepared a 2MB PDF file of the first few pages of our Mabaan (a Sudan language) dictionary, which illustrates this problem. I would have attached it but don't know the protocol here.  If you (or anyone else) wants to see this, let me know if I am allowed to attach it to something sent out to the group.  If not, please send me an e-mail address outside the group and I will send the PDF to you.
  Warm greetings,
  Cheryl
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