Re: Morpheme index project

On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 07:27:33 -0400, Javier BF <uaxuctum@...> wrote:

>>No, what I meant is "English words in capital letters, or abbreviations in
>>capital letters". I only use abbreviations in cases where the English words
>>would be too cumbersome. In any case, they don't need to be English words.
>>The key is the use of capital letters to mark "temporary" words that are
>>intended to be replaced later with the real morphemes. And like the
>>mnemonics in the Lojban gismu list, they're not intended to represent the
>>exact meaning of the word, but simply to provide an aid to memory.
>
>That's more or less what I've been doing so far.
>But I really think having a neat index instead of a
>bunch of English words and abbreviations is much more
>useful, because e.g. with the index each morpheme will
>be thoroughly defined and clearly identified with a
>convenient numerical short name. What's the advantage of
>using a thousand abbreviations, which you'll never be able
>to remember all, over using a thousand numbers which refer
>to a neat and easily computer-tractable index where
>accurate information about the morpheme is provided?
Well, if you want the numbers to refer directly to the index, you won't be
able to assign any numbers until the index is complete, unless you're
willing to take the chance that you might need to reassign numbers on a
massive scale. And if any numbers need to be reassigned, you'll need to
have some way of keeping track of the reassignments and check the date on
any older documents to see if they're using the old assignments. I'm
guessing that you probably want to avoid reassigning numbers. So you'll
need to spend quite a bit of time organizing the index before any of the
morphemes are assigned numbers. And while you're doing the organization,
you'll need some way to refer to the morphemes that can't be confused with
the real language or the index numbers that will eventually be assigned. I
think you're underestimating the time and effort that will go into
organizing the index.

>OTOH, the index allows you to identify the morphemes
>regardless of the language being used in the discussion.
>English translations and English-based abbreviations
>would be used here and in other English-speaking sites,
>but e.g. in IdeoLengua, a Spanish-speaking mailing list,
>it's no wonder that we Spanish speakers would much prefer
>to identify the morphemes using our own Spanish translations
>and Spanish-based abbreviations. Imagine the mess?
That's not what I had in mind at all. You wouldn't use translations of the
words in different languages, but a unique word to identify each morpheme.
And the word doesn't have to be English. Of course, if you're discussing
the language on both an English-speaking list and a Spanish-speaking list,
that changes things. But you could use Spanish ID's for some morphemes and
English ones for others, or pick a neutral language.

Many choices involved in creating an organized vocabulary list are
essentially arbitrary. Do you create a category of "trees", with deciduous
and evergreen trees as subcategories, or do you use the botanical
classification and have conifers in a separate category from flowering
plants? You might reasonably want a category of "containers" that can be
used with the preposition "in". Also, a category of "vehicles" used as the
object of the verb "ride" would be useful. Since many vehicles are also
containers, it would be useful for "vehicle" to be a subcategory of
"container", but then what do you do with vehicles that aren't containers,
like rafts and barges? You'll have to answer many more questions of that
nature before you end up with a final scheme for organizing the index.

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