Ordering Signs in Dictionaries

Thu Aug 14 03:54:06 UTC 2014

Right now, all of my work has been done manually, including any work on the Sign-Symbol-Sequence in the ASL and LIBRAS SignPuddles. I go through every sign and spell it as a finished sign. I have no idea how each sign was input by an individual, they may have looked first at a head or a hand or a movement and started with that to figure out what they were seeing. 

The SignPuddle dictionary sorts as best it can in sort of a "default" order of hand shape group (Groups 1-10), then the various configurations within the hand group (ASL and LIBRAS use different subsets). I do not know if in its "default" it goes into any greater depth as I am not looking at the programming , I am not looking at the "coding numbers". This is purely a visual inspection as were I to have written all these signs "by hand" I would not have the SignPuddle there to sort it automatically. 

To create my dictionary I had to look up on the SignPuddle by hand shape and then start sorting the signs that came up with a specific hand shape and then sort them by orientation, then attempted to sort beyond that by location. The head shapes with an arc could be sorted by default, but the ISWA-10 is somewhat arbitrary in how the hand shapes are actually listed in order within a group. Ditto for motions, though I tried my best to stick to each movement as listed in the sign puddle by its various groupings. 

I created a draft copy of all 10 hand groups which I printed about 25 copies in Brazil which I passed out to several of the Deaf school representatives at of the tech conferences (REATECH) held in Sao Paulo. There were about 300 signs in that dictionary which I created 2-up per page so that one would have a long skinny book printing two at a time to reduce costs. 

The presentation I did for the Sign Writing conference was a rewritten one to show LIBRAS, Portuguese, English, and ASL in the same dictionary. I have only gotten the intro and the two chapters that are loaded to the Sign Writing Conference created so far. 

To answer your query, Andre, ASL and LIBRAS both have directional signs "I give to you, you give to me, you give to him or her" so I tend to default to "I give to you" so that there is a singular motion that I am currently loading. It's one of the grammar-related sign language features that does not lend itself to easy sorting but GIVE+I+YOU doesn't easily break it out easier into English or LSQ ordering. It's going to be a catch-up thing and experimentation for a while. 

Creating an ordered dictionary will, I think, always require human intervention in a sign spelling engine to ensure that related signs are at least within the same hand grouping. 

Charles Butler
chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com
240-764-5748
Clear writing moves business forward.

________________________________
 From: André L <andre-andre at HOTMAIL.CA>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU 
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: Ordering Signs in Dictionaries

Hello,
sorting by the rotation of the hand may not be effective in LSQ because of directional signs. 

André Lemyre

________________________________
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 22:05:50 -0400
From: duncanjonathan at YAHOO.CA
Subject: Re: Ordering Signs in Dictionaries
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU

Hi Charles,
    I watched your talk again today.  I realized that what I call
    "Sign Sequence" you call "Sign Spelling".  I guess it is
    "SignSpelling Sequence".  So I didn't understand that the first
    time.  So now after this more attentive listening to your talk, I
    see that you definitely are using SignSpelling Sequence for all your
    entries and that you are doing them manually the same way Val
    suggested in the SignSpelling Guidelines.   
    Am I correct in my understanding that which symbols come first
    in the sorted list is different from the way SignPuddle is sorting?  

Your sorting would be sorted by the
1. First by symbol in the sign sequence's basegroup of the first
    hand in the SignSpelling Sequence
2. What figure (See the individual chapters)? I need more explanation about this one.
3. The for each basegroup sort by fill

4. In each fill sorting, sort by rotation ( but not distinguishing between right and left hands.  
I see you number both from 1 to 8 in instead of numbering them all
      from 1 to 16)

5. Location symbol. comes after hand symbol when comparing.
From first to last 
No Body - hand to hand, head, body 

5.1 Location sorting on hand contact order doesn't seem to be defined yet

5.2 Head location sorting

5.3 Body body 
Indicate the location of the body, placing the graphic in the left
    lane, the middle lane, or 
right lane. - Need this explained I'm not understanding.
Needs to have numbering for which comes first for body location

6 - What is contact? No order, any can come first.

7.7 - Finger bends (ie no order)?No order, any can come first.

8 - Movement? Vertical, then Horizontal, then Arc - up / down, up
      / abaxo + rotation, then up / down bow 
after / below + arc rotation, face bow, face bow + rotation

Need to define which come first within the vertical, and which come first within the horizontal, etc.  Or just current default currently in ISWA2010
Need to define movement symbols in other planes, etc.

9 Timing.  Which comes first?

10 Faces and posture.
Not sure about this one, would like more explanation.

Also you need to output a dictionary that has, 

hand 
spelling 
sign 
Portuguese 
ASL 
english 
Quote

Do you currently have any way of keeping all this information in
      Sign Puddle?
SignWriter Studio can do 
spelling
sign-LIBRAS
Portuguese
English
Source

I was hoping to add a second SignLanguage to do a dictionary with
      two sign languages but I haven't programmed that yet.

I am still working on finalizing the output for the dictionary. 
      So I am looking for your input whether you use it or not.

Please fill me in where I am lacking and correct me where I am
      wrong.

Regards,

Jonathan

On 8/12/2014 4:47 PM, Jonathan Duncan wrote:

Hi Charles,
>    I enjoyed your symposium “Ordering Signs in Dictionaries” http://www.signwriting.org/symposium/presentation0010.htmlgro
> I was wondering if Steve and Val had been able to find you a solution.  Val mentioned that she thought that Steve would have an easy way for you to do your sorting.
>
>
>I would like to implement a sorting algorithm for SignWriter
      Studio as I haven't implemented any yet and I am starting to
      produce a Honduran Sign Language dictionary.  
>
>
>I understood how you are doing the ordering comparing hand shapes,
      comparing rotations, comparing facings, comparing facial areas,
      etc.  I like it very much.
>
>
>A couple things I wanted to ask.
>
>For your algorithm to work properly does the sign sequence of a
      sign need to be filled out?  I am getting the impression that your
      sorting could sort dictionaries without the sign sequence, is this
      assumption correct?  Or would it sort signs according to the
      symbols in sign sequence?  It doesn't seem to take into account
      the order of the symbols in the sign sequence, is this correct?
>
>Also do you have another document comparing the other symbols like
      movement symbols, etc?  If so could you send it to me? 
>
>
>Thanks
>
> 
>-- 
>
 email: duncanjonathan at yahoo.ca
         joyoduncan at gmail.com
Cel Honduras: (504)3141-1171
Tel USA: (347)875-8442 
Skype: yojoduncan

SignWriter Studio

-- 

 email: duncanjonathan at yahoo.ca
         joyoduncan at gmail.com
Cel Honduras: (504)3141-1171
Tel USA: (347)875-8442 
Skype: yojoduncan

SignWriter Studio

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