Re: SHOEBOX: damn thing!!!

> From: Dan Jones
>
> Ahem. I'm not exactly the world's most patient man, but I tried.
> Honestly, I
> tried. However, the Shoebox walkthrough is probably the most unweildy,
> unhelpful and impenetrable piece of literature I have ever had the
> misfortune to come across! I can't make head nor tail of it!
Hmmm.  Most unfortunate.  Shoebox is somewhat unwieldy.  I can remember
giving up on it myself a couple of years ago because it seemed to require
more work to understand then I was willing to dedicate at the time.  I had
not taken the walkthrough then (not even certain it was available at that
time).  I returned to it only recently and found the walkthrough the only
clear path to enlightenment.

> However, since there seem to be many good people who do know how
> to work the
> infernal thing, I come to you for help on what seems to be a relatively
> simple concept. Please excuse my ignorance; software scares and
> intimidates
> me, I leave it alone and it leaves me alone and we get on fine.
Maybe that's the difference.  I've been living with and making a living at
software for most of my adult life.

> Well, here come the questions. I am trying to transfer the Bulyth lexicon
> into Shoebox, and I am using MDF 4.0 language encodings. I want to use the
> \a "alternative" and \u "underlying" fields (for irregular plurals) but
> Shoebox insists that "Marker not in list. Add it?". What should I do? Add
> it?
I elected not to use the MDF 4.0 encodings, I followed the example in the
walkthrough to setup for interlinearization since that was my primary
interest.  I figured I could add the MDF stuff later.  If \a and \u are not
included in the MDF encodings, then go ahead and add them.  BTW, amman iar
uses a form of umlaut to form its plurals and I have used the \a \u fields
successfully to represent this. e.g.

\lx anar
\ps N
\ge person
\a enair
\u anar -i{plu}

> And also, what is the part of speech for a plural inflection?
Inflections don't really have PoS designations.  I elected to use the \ps
tag for inflections to show the category of inflection, in this case Number.

> Please help me, my sanity and the computer's ongoing health relies on your
> kind assistance! I just can't face that damn walkthrough again!
Can't have your sanity threatened.  Ask questions here.  There are several
quite knowledgeable Shoeboxers present, Jeff Sheets and B. Philip Jonsson to
name two.  Once you get the hang of it, it really is quite a useful tool for
conlangers

David

David E. Bell
The Gray Wizard
www.graywizard.net

‘Yes, I think I shall express the accusative case by a prefix!’

A memorable remark! …Just consider the splendour of the words!   ‘I shall
express the accusative case.’  Magnificent!  Not ‘it is expressed’ nor even
the more shambling ‘it is sometimes expressed’, nor the grim ‘you must learn
how it is expressed’.  What a pondering of alternatives within one’s choice
before the final decision in favour of the daring and unusual prefix, so
personal, so attractive; the final solution of some element in a design that
had hitherto proved refractory.  Here were no base considerations of the
‘practical’, the easiest for the ‘modern mind’, or for the million – only a
question of taste, a satisfaction of a personal pleasure, a private sense of
fitness.”

(from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays - A Secret Vice,
by J.R.R. Tolkien [Houghton Mifflin Company 1984])