Re: Shoebox!

--- The Gray Wizard <dbell@...> wrote:

> Is anyone on the list using Shoebox from SIL for lexicon management.
> I
> started playing with it a few days ago and what a joy!  My approach
> was to
> import some amman iar sentences and have Shoebox attempt interlinear
> translation.  In the process, I would enter the required roots and
> affixes
> (both derivational and inflectional) into the lexicon, thereby
> "training"
> the parser.  I was amazed at how quickly the parser became "smart"
> enough to
> "automagically"
Automagically!  Another neologism!  That's fantabulous!

> create interlinear parses with dwindling intervention
> by
> yours truly.  It only took a few texts for the parser to learn most
> of the
> derivational and inflectional system requiring me only to add new
> roots as
> they were encountered.  This despite the fact that my language, amman
> iar,
> has some significant morphophonemic challenges.  It was a breeze to
> encode
> the lexicon with the necessary morphophonemic rules (although it
> would have
> been nice to define these globally rather than redundantly for each
> effected
> affix).  I'm not sure the results would be as satisfying for a
> heavily
> fusional language, but for highly agglutinating languages such as
> amman iar,
> it really is quite good.
It works with inflected languages?  So you can parse a classic IE or
Semitic language?

I tried it once -- it was way too complex for me, or it didn't work; I
forgot.  Lemme see how it works...

> Here's a brief example of the interlinear parse generated.  Note how
> well it
> handles the morphophonemic rules.  I entered the \t line, Shoebox
> generated
> the \m, \g and \p lines.  I later added the \f line.
>
> i dhraug vasamald ergabedhel eleth
> The vicious wolf pounced.
>
> \t i   dhraug-0   vasamald
> \m i   draug -0   ve-   as=         amald
> \g the wolf  -[S] desc- complement= gentle
> \p DET N     -ABS ADJ-  PREF=       N
> \f the wolf       vicious
Lenition of /d/ to /D/, as in Welsh... okay, you won me over.
(Anything with Insular Celtic-style mutation gets my attention.)

I'll try and see if I can get it to work with Calistan (an IE
conlang)...

DaW.

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