Re: Reversible sound change applier

Henrik Theiling writes:

[Global and local boolean flags]
 > In the way you can mark for dialects, my script allows marking
 > rules for global flags which you can set to true or false before
 > running a conversion, switching on and off thusly constrained
 > rules.

Right - a handy generic feature! I'm curious whether you know if the
usage of this feature has clustered at all around particular uses -
such as for dialects. One of the design goals for IPA Zounds is to
keep it simple (to use, at least), so I wouldn't add support for
generic flags, but if a bunch of people all wanted a specific flag, I
would look at including that.

 > The local flags are similar in usage, but setting them is by a
 > matching rule.  This way, you can enable/disable rules by matching
 > of other rules.  I implemented the syncope in Old Norse this way,
 > which happens either in the last syllable (by phonological
 > constraints), or if not there, then in the penultimate syllable.

Very nice!

I've been asked about allowing exceptions to rules, and had
wondered about the best way to handle this. Certainly something which
can have rules as 'exceptions' might prove useful for cases such as
the above.

Thanks!

Jamie
--
Artefact Publishing: http://www.artefact.org.nz/
GnuPG Public Key: http://www.artefact.org.nz/people/jamie.html