Adding collocations

[Otlogetswe]

Colleagues

I am working on the second edition of TLHALOSI YA MEDI YA SETSWANA (The Setswana monolingual dictionary). One of the attractive features that we wish to include in the second edition is collocates. We need advice on how this could be implemented in the current version of FLEX. The look that we wish to have is similar to that of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 6th Edition (2016) - I have included a few samples. For instance at the end of the entry cake we would like to have a collocations' box which shows something like this:

VERB + cake

bake a cake (defn.) (Example sentence)

decorate a cake (defn.) (Example sentence)

ice a cake (defn.) (Example sentence)

frost a cake (defn.) (Example sentence)

Or at the end of belief entry to have something like:

ADJECTIVE + belief

a firm strong belief (defn.) (Example sentence)

a strongly-held belief (defn.) (Example sentence)

a common belief (defn.) (Example sentence)

mistaken belief (defn.) (Example sentence)

sincere belied (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

I envisage that in designing something like that one would have a drop down list of Parts of Speech, or perhaps a sequence of POS followed by a box to add an entry; followed below that possible collocates; a possible definition and a space for an Example sentence. This would be so that the following possible schemas could be accommodated:

1. POS + Entry 

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

2. Entry + POS 

Entry + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

Entry + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

Entry + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

3. POS/POS + Entry

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

4. POS + POS + Entry  (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + Entry + (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

5. Entry + POS + POS  (defn.) (Example sentence)

Entry + COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

Entry + COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

Entry + COLLOCATE + COLLOCATE + (defn.) (Example sentence)

etc

I am thinking aloud and being a non-programmer I am not sure if something like this could be implemented with a tweaking of FLEX or not. I would like to hear what others think

Regards

OTLOGETSWE

[Ron Moe]

For a long time I have been favorably impressed with Longman's efforts to indicate idioms and collocational patterns in their dictionaries. In the first photo you included, the entry for "belief" includes sense 4 "beyond belief". This is different than the collocations such as "a firm/strong belief". So sense 4 is actually what FLEx calls a complex form. FLEx handles these in separate entries which are linked to the main entry. But the way Longman is handling collocations is quite different. Instead of senses, it uses boxes, and it doesn't always define the entries for collocations and sometimes does not give an example sentence.

One thing Longman does for senses such as belief-sense 4 "beyond belief" is to include the form of the idiom right after the sense number:

belief n. ... 4 beyond belief (def.) (ex.sent.)

FLEx could do this with a custom field. So far I have not chosen to do this, since FLEx already handles such things nicely (but with a different format). However I have been seriously tempted to try to duplicate Longman's formatting for certain kinds of multi-word expressions.

We need to recognize that there are many different kinds of multi-word expressions (e.g. collocations, set phrases, constructions, idioms). Collocations involve issues that set them apart from what we would normally call "idioms". For one thing, collocations are not what we usually consider to be "lexemes". For another thing, the collocations are mostly transparent--the meaning is mostly clear from the meaning of each word. Even so sometimes Longman sometimes includes some kind of explanation of the meaning, e.g. (= that you believe very much). I think this is why Longman is setting collocations apart in boxes.

Other dictionaries do similar things for discussions of "usage" or "synonyms". They put the information in a box with a label such as "usage" at the top. The old SIL program "Mulit-Dictionary Formatter" (MDF) had the ability to create a table that was unformatted. The lexicographer had to format the information in the table. But this allowed the freedom to include paradigms and other unusual kinds of information. But FLEx has not included this feature. So we are currently limited to main entries and subentries.

The entries for the collocates look to me like any other entry. They may have limited information, but the ordering of the fields and the content of the fields is standard. So the entries themselves could be handled as standard (sub)entries. But putting them in boxes with headings is something new.

I can't imagine any way of doing this with the current functionality in FLEx. First, I can't think of any way in FLEx to create the headings for the box. The Longman boxes have two headings, the main heading "Collocates" and a secondary heading "Adjectives" etc. Second, the headings encompass multiple subentries. So it isn't a matter of just setting up a custom field. We would be introducing another level of organization. (I'm speaking as a lexicographer. I have no idea what this would look like to a computer programmer.) So this would need to be submitted as a feature request. I suppose a program like Word could create the boxes and headings using styles. That would be an issue for Pathway.

I would like to see such functionality in FLEx. This kind of information is critical to describing the meaning and usage of many words, and it is critical for language learners who want to speak correctly.

Ron Moe

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