[Lexicog] Re: Tshwanelex when the structure of your articles often changes

[David Joffe]

> 
>  
> 
> Hi Loig,
> The way I'd do it would be as follows:
> 
> . define a 'pronunciation' element type that includes two child 
> elements, pronunciation and source, and make it repeatable. 
> . define an 'example' element type with example, translation and source 
> as child elements.
> . define a couple of grammar element types, each of which has the child 
> elements you need for each type (one that has plurals, gender, etc, and 
> another that has participles, etc).
> 
> (Remember that for each type of information you can add more than one 
> instance of it.)

(Technical - as per XML standards) Provided it's an *element*, yes, 
but not if it's an attribute of a single element, which may be why 
Loig sees a limitation, since by default in TshwaneLex some things 
such as the pronunciation are an attribute of the main entry. Of 
course this is configurable though. It's easy enough to set up, once 
you know how. So of course it's possible, yes. I suggest reading 
through the 'Basics of Hierarchical Dictionary Data Modelling in 
TshwaneLex' section of the User Guide.


> Then for each headword you can choose what type of grammatical 
> information you need to enter.
> 
> Think of an entry not as having a bunch of items linearly strung 
> together, but a set of hierarchically ordered and embedded items. 

Yup, agreed, it's a good idea in general to think in terms of 
hierarchical structure -- e.g. what information 'belongs to' what, 
and so on, and create corresponding neat hierarchical structures.

If one, however, *literally* wants to be able to add 'any kind of 
information in any order whatsoever at any time', then you really 
just have a free-for-all, and it's actually (at least I would 
consider) 'bad lexicography' --- it's bad from a technical 
viewpoint, but it's also usually bad for end-users, as it invariably 
leads to inconsistencies in the way information is structured and 
presented. Many dictionaries are made this way though ... 
conceptually a 'flat list' of fields and bits of text. In the latest 
TshwaneLex, it *is* possible to set up your dictionary to be a 
'free-for-all' structure, i.e. essentially any field or piece of 
text in any order relative to one another at any time, but I 
definitely wouldn't recommend making a dictionary in that way. It's 
not completely clear to me from Loig's question if a free-for-all is 
what is ultimately desired, or simply rather more options than the 
TshwaneLex "default DTD" allows. Obviously I'd recommend the latter.


> 
> Claire
> 



 - David

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