Merging duplicate part of speech categories

26 views
Skip to first unread message

Eric Jackson

unread,
Jul 1, 2026, 5:55:24 PMJul 1
to FieldWorks Language Explorer Discussion
Hi, everyone. I'm working with a student who has imported a large amount of lexical data into FLEx that was originally a plain text file. Somehow in this process, she ended up with duplicated grammatical categories; for instance, looking in the Grammar area under Category Edit, she sees this: (apologies for the resolution; this is a screen-grab of a Zoom meeting)

image.png

As one method to merge these duplicated categories, I can imagine a process like this:
1. In the Grammar area under Category view, rename each duplicated category so it's easier to see which is which (like "VExpr intr 1" and "VExpr intr 2")
2. In the Lexicon area under Bulk Edit, change the category for all "VExpr intr 2" senses to be "VExpr intr 1"
3. In the Grammar area under Category view, delete the now-unused "VExpr intr 2"
(and repeat these steps for each duplicated category)

Is there any better way to do this? I haven't come across any menu item that would let me merge categories, comparable to the way to merge senses.

Thanks for your advice!

Warmly,
Eric

Eric Jackson
Removing technical barriers to language development for data-scarce language communities

Etienne Ondoa

unread,
Jul 2, 2026, 3:50:59 AMJul 2
to flex...@googlegroups.com
Hi Eric,
Based on your screenshot and the details you provided, I suggest the following steps:
  1. Back up your FLEx project.

  2. Rename one of the duplicate grammatical categories, for example:VExpr intr old.

  3. In Lexicon → Bulk Edit, replace all occurrences of VExpr intr (old) with the correct VExpr intr.

  4. Verify that no entries still use the old category.

  5. Delete the unused duplicate category from Grammar → Category Edit.

Please note that FLEx does not currently provide a built-in Merge Categories feature (I have tried and didn't succeed), so Bulk Edit is the safest and most practical method. If there are many duplicates, check whether the import created hidden duplicate categories due to trailing spaces or Unicode differences before starting the cleanup.

More experienced people can offer the best ideas.

Blessings


--
"FLEx list" messages are public. Only members can post.
flex_d...@sil.org
http://groups.google.com/group/flex-list.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FLEx list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flex-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/flex-list/CAMYjny46WLAEv91F-Ai85Kh-5C%3DUHbg9o2zvNBcsbpEVJsR0pw%40mail.gmail.com.


--
---------------------------------------
   
ONDOA ONDOA Etienne Materne  
Information Technology/Language Technology coordinator
Language Technology Consultant
DTST
 Tel:656728904 Skype: Etienne Ondoa Ondoa 
Remote support: 
12-Etienne Ondoa
 

kevin_...@sil.org

unread,
Jul 2, 2026, 8:49:13 AMJul 2
to flex...@googlegroups.com

I affirm Etienne’s suggested approach but would like to add a detail that I think may be important.

 

In each pair of duplicates, I suspect that one of the categories includes an abbreviation, while the other does not. Be sure to keep the one that includes the abbreviation, or you’ll have to add that back in at the end of the deduplication task.

 

Best wishes,

Kevin

image001.png
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages