[sw-l] Sign Puddle: from a glossary to a dictionary

[Sandy Fleming]

Hi Stephen!

I'm not sure how important it is to define every possible element a
dictionary editor or linguist could think of. Things like selecting signs in
a given dialect only are rather advanced uses and is really asking not only
for extra elements but lots of extra programming within applications to
enable the users to get any sue out of them. Let's not forget that oral
language word processors started out primitive, and advanced features were
evolved over a matter of decades, many of which were hardly even imagined at
the start. We need to develop the word processing features we need _now_,
and let each advance help us to decide what we need next, not just jump in
the deep thinking that advanced oral processing features are automatically
appropriate for sign language processors.

I also think that sign language linguistics is too young a science. By the
time we have really big dictionaries, much of the terminology and
definitions will have changed, because at the moment there are still heated
debates on whether to say "phoneme" or "chireme", and now SL linguistics
seems to be advancing to the point where some say that the "phoneme/chireme"
level is less important for sign languages, which are better described at
the "feature" level.

Perhaps, at least to start with, we could just have a few things, maybe just
"Definition" and "Notes". I've already started to use the definitions in the
Puddle BSL dictionary to make informal grammatical notes on the sign. See my
entries for "child", "children" and "drawer" for instance.

I think it's OK to expect users to read definitions and decide for
themselves whether this is the sign they want or not. Maybe even just
"Definition" cantaining everything a lexicorapher wants to tell the user
about a sign will be all that's needed.

Aargh! I've just noticed I've accidentally capitalised "work" in the
dictionary! Anent that, shouldn't the alphabetical ordering in a dictionary
ignore case?  :>

Sandy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> [mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of Stephen
> Slevinski
> Sent: 19 October 2004 17:24
> To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Subject: [sw-l] Sign Puddle: from a glossary to a dictionary
>
>
> Hi List,
>
> Sign Puddle really is a glossary tool, rather than a dictionary.
> We need to
> add information to the signs.  If we can come up with a formal
> definition of
> what this additional information should look like (a DTD for example), I
> will update the editors screen to allows them to maintain this
> information.
> This information will become part of the Sign Puddle extract.
>
> Here is an incomplete start:
> Source:
> Dialect:
> Parts of speech: verb, noun, ...
> Usage: text
>
> Anyone interested?
> -Stephen
>