[Lexicog] Lexicography software with dual output option?

[David Joffe]

Hi Eva,

Hmm, I doubt you'll find one tool that quite has everything on your 
wishlist, but I think TLex may come relatively close .. probably 
most the work for handling dual versions (and bilingual/trilingual 
etc.) would work with the 'out the box' features (though one would 
have to take a little time to get to know how these more advanced 
features work). (Some of the below would require a bit of custom 
programming on a TLex-based solution, but just at first glance, it 
seems comparatively minimal ... difficult to be precise, but perhaps 
a day or three's worth of programming hours ... that is a very 
off-the-cuff thumbsuck guesstimate.)

A few more brief answers interleaved below.


On 26 Nov 2012 at 17:14, evali_111 wrote:

> Dear all, I wonder if anyone is aware of a dictionary software (free
> or commercial) which allows you to maintain parallel forms /
> orthographic principles throughout your database, and to choose which
> version to output for a particular audience.

> I am working on a dictionary of Kuot (non-Austronesian, Papua New
> Guinea) and I want to produce a linguists' version and a speakers'
> version. My Toolbox database is in linguist format (phonemic
> transcription etc), but for the speakers, a different orthography is
> needed and many forms need to be inflected to be recognized. The
> differences need to be consistently reflected not only in head words,
> but in cross-references, examples, words cited in definitions of other
> words (x is a part of *y*) etc.
> I see no way of generating one from the other in post-processing, even
> with programmers' help, so the only way seems to be to manually
> maintain dual versions of everything in the main database. Trying to
> maintain two parallel databases does not seem like a viable option.


> Further, I want the speakers' version organised by semantics
> (thesaurus) rather than alphabetically, so the software would
> preferably have support for this.

This might be tricky in TLex, or might be relatively easy, depending 
exactly on what you mean though - difficult for me to say.


> I also want to include many illustrations (and so far, Toolbox and
> LexiquePro seem to place these away from the word they relate to). 

In TLex you can attach image fields (and audio fields) effectively 
anywhere in the data.

 
> The linguists' version would be bilingual (Kuot-English); the
> speakers' version trilingual (Kuot-Tok Pisin-English), with Tok Pisin
> as the main language (in labels for cross-references etc). 

TLex allows you to set up multiple different "views" of your data 
('style sets'), and in each 'view', apart from being able to apply 
distinct styles, you can also selectively hide fields. So you can 
have two 'views' (linguists and speakers) and 'toggle' between them, 
and in the linguist version the Tok Pisin from the trilingual could 
just basically be (as I understand it) hidden.

Changing the language for things like labels sounds like it might be 
related to our 'customizing the metalanguage' functionality, but I 
suggest you perhaps read up a bit more here:

http://tshwanedje.com/tshwanelex/overview.html

(though that overview is getting a little outdated now, i.e. we have 
other new features not mentioned there).


> Further, my current database is full of fields/tags for myself
> (CheckX, CheckY, Fix, AN-Loan? etc) and my work process is somewhat
> dependent on being able sort for these too (easy in Toolbox, but in
> LexiquePro I don't seem able to find them even by database search,
> much less browse by them). 

This can be done trivially in TLex, via F4, 'Sort By', you can 
temporarily 'instantly' sort the list on any field in your 
dictionary. (There are also quite a few other ways to search for 
such things or filter or tag etc.)

Note though, Toolbox does have one or two features that we don't 
have (interlinearization seems to be one of the specific ones I've 
had users mention to me), so if moving to a different tool that is 
something to keep in mind - e.g. if you use the interlinearization 
features you'd possibly lose that).

Kind regards,

 - David (TLex programmer)





------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    lexicographylist-digest at yahoogroups.com 
    lexicographylist-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/