Manually parsing words with hyphens
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Craig Farrow
Jun 29, 2015, 12:47:43 AM6/29/15
to FLEx List (Google)
Hi all,
I'm stuck with a problem using hyphens in words, and then trying to
manually parse them:
1. I have the normal hyphen defined as a word building character in the
vernacular language, and use it in words such as "guest-house". The
words are divided correctly in Texts.
2. When I come to parse a word in the interlineariser I'm in trouble
because the hyphen is also used for the suffix marker. When I add in
morpheme breaks (e.g. for "guest-house -s"), Flex interprets all the
hyphens as suffix markers and breaks the hyphenated word up as well.
Having done that it won't match the lexicon entry, which has the hyphen
in it.
(All works fine using the parser if the word parses correctly, however,
it is a problem with words for which my parsing rules are not yet working.)
Does anyone know a way to get the manual parsing to work without messing
around with alternate Unicode values for the word-building hyphen, etc.
Thanks,
Craig.
I'm stuck with a problem using hyphens in words, and then trying to
manually parse them:
1. I have the normal hyphen defined as a word building character in the
vernacular language, and use it in words such as "guest-house". The
words are divided correctly in Texts.
2. When I come to parse a word in the interlineariser I'm in trouble
because the hyphen is also used for the suffix marker. When I add in
morpheme breaks (e.g. for "guest-house -s"), Flex interprets all the
hyphens as suffix markers and breaks the hyphenated word up as well.
Having done that it won't match the lexicon entry, which has the hyphen
in it.
(All works fine using the parser if the word parses correctly, however,
it is a problem with words for which my parsing rules are not yet working.)
Does anyone know a way to get the manual parsing to work without messing
around with alternate Unicode values for the word-building hyphen, etc.
Thanks,
Craig.
Keith Beavon
Jun 29, 2015, 7:24:46 PM6/29/15
to flex-list
My problems were identical. I ultimately decided that the programmers wanted /intended you to use the hyphen in that way only between identifiable words. So if there is a word you hyphenate such as SPACE-SUITS, then what "should" happen when you parse it is that the analyzed form of the word would be SPACE SUIT -S and each of the 2 parts will be interpreted/analyzed as words. The hyphen will have been lost at that point of the analysis except for between the word SUIT and the plural suffix.. This is just my layman's perspective. .
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Craig Farrow
Jul 1, 2015, 3:43:59 AM7/1/15
to flex...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Keith.
That's an interesting thought, and makes me want to think through how
we're using hyphens more clearly. Does anyone know of an article or have
advice on how to decide when to hyphenate words?
It seems there are three options for a compound construction:
1. Separate words--a phrase of clearly separate words. E.g. Verb + Noun
- 'make noise'.
2. Hyphenated words for connected concepts that create a single idea.
E.g. 'dragon-boat'-- a particular style of Chinese water vessel. To me
this is different to 'dragon boat', which I would parse along the lines
of 'Viking ship'--i.e. a boat belonging to or used by dragons. In this
case I would want 'dragon-boat' to be in the lexicon with its own gloss,
since it has a special meaning, and is not simply "dragon" + "boat".
3. Compound words where the concepts are fused and are no longer the sum
of the parts. E.g. 'blackbird'. This is clearly a single lexical entry.
But what about 'forefinger'? In English we think of it as a single
concept (and so single word), but the breakdown of 'fore finger' still
makes sense. Yet, I've never seen 'ringfinger' written as one word. If
you were designing a spelling system for English, which would you
choose, and why? Perhaps 'dragonboat' should be in this category, too?
Maybe there's also a fourth option a little distinguished from (2):
2b. Hyphenated phrases such as an adjectival phrase. E.g. 'We should
choose the not-so-risky option.' Here the sum of the parts equals the
whole, so it could be glossed word by word.
Overall, I'd rather be using good grammatical reasons for our use of the
hyphen rather than ones dictated by the limitations of software, so any
pointers on this would be great.
Thanks!
Craig.
> <mailto:flex-list%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.
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That's an interesting thought, and makes me want to think through how
we're using hyphens more clearly. Does anyone know of an article or have
advice on how to decide when to hyphenate words?
It seems there are three options for a compound construction:
1. Separate words--a phrase of clearly separate words. E.g. Verb + Noun
- 'make noise'.
2. Hyphenated words for connected concepts that create a single idea.
E.g. 'dragon-boat'-- a particular style of Chinese water vessel. To me
this is different to 'dragon boat', which I would parse along the lines
of 'Viking ship'--i.e. a boat belonging to or used by dragons. In this
case I would want 'dragon-boat' to be in the lexicon with its own gloss,
since it has a special meaning, and is not simply "dragon" + "boat".
3. Compound words where the concepts are fused and are no longer the sum
of the parts. E.g. 'blackbird'. This is clearly a single lexical entry.
But what about 'forefinger'? In English we think of it as a single
concept (and so single word), but the breakdown of 'fore finger' still
makes sense. Yet, I've never seen 'ringfinger' written as one word. If
you were designing a spelling system for English, which would you
choose, and why? Perhaps 'dragonboat' should be in this category, too?
Maybe there's also a fourth option a little distinguished from (2):
2b. Hyphenated phrases such as an adjectival phrase. E.g. 'We should
choose the not-so-risky option.' Here the sum of the parts equals the
whole, so it could be glossed word by word.
Overall, I'd rather be using good grammatical reasons for our use of the
hyphen rather than ones dictated by the limitations of software, so any
pointers on this would be great.
Thanks!
Craig.
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