Re: Introduction and sandhi scripting question.

    Hi!

Shreyas Sampat wrote:
> Edgard Bikelis wrote:
>
>> Those links on each word will lead to its inflection, and here I am
>> stuck. I tried to write a sandhi script myself, but I had pain enough
>>
>>
> I use Geoff's Sound Change Applier (here:
> http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/lang/sc.html ), which could handle your
> ablaut patterns through "backquote rules", like this:
> (I'll make up some pattern here)
>
> First list the symbols of each vowel type:
>
> grade2: éóEO
> grade1: eoiu
> grade0: ZZeo
>
> I'm using Z to represent deletion.
>
> A rule to downgrade a vowel from grade 2 to grade 1 looks like this:
> (iirc)
>
> <grade2> `grade2`grade1 _
>
> which means
>
> "any time you find a <grade2> vowel, replace it with the vowel in
> grade1 in the same position in the list, in ANY environment."
>
> It would be fantastic if somebody who knew Perl could take apart one
> of the popular appliers and make a syntax specifically for patterned
> shifts like this, though. Mine is sort of a hack.
>
    Ablaut is the easier thing to do, curiously the only thing I did for
verbs so far ; ) :

$root = 'bhére';

$raiz[1]= $root;
$raiz[2]= str_replace('é', 'o', $root);
$raiz[3]= str_replace('é', '', $root);

    It creates all the grades for a given root, in PHP. The only thing I
need is an accented ablauting vowel. The problem really is sandhi, about
which there are two alternatives: or I write a long list of original
status and outcome, for instance:

aa, a:
ae, a:
...
bt, pt

    Or I try generalizing, like I wrote on the grammar. But I tried, and
that is the source of the pain I mentioned ; ). It needs much more
talent to write a small and efficient code...

    Anyway, do you use this Python script just in your computer? I
wanted to do it on-line for myself, if for no one else. Adding words
between university's classes, for instance, and seeing its inflection ;
). Inspiration doesn't know time nor place...

Edgard scripsit.

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