recommended language for proto forms

[Paul Unger]

What language / writing system is recommended for proto forms in the Etymology > Source Form field? I have lines for [vernacular], [vernacular]IPA, English, and an LWC showing in Source Form. My pre-8.3.1 data is all in the [vernacular] line, but in 8.3.1 the default appears to have been changed to English. At least that's where the source word form goes when typed into the 'unmarked' Etymology line (when everything nested in Etymology is still hidden). Should I move everything to English and go with the new 'default' (it looks like this would be possible with Bulk Edit [open two columns of Etymology - Source Form and select different writing systems for each])? Or is there a compelling reason to stick with [vernacular]? Advice appreciated!

Paul

[Ron Moe]

I don't know why the default writing system would have changed. (I haven't upgraded to 8.3.1 yet.) Your choice of writing systems would be determined by a number of factors.

1. What does your audience need? Is your audience linguists who would know IPA, or the English speaking general public who would need a Latin alphabet transcription, or vernacular speakers who would need a vernacular transcription?

2. Is there a tradition for how to write proto forms? In one book on Proto-Indo-European (PIE) most language forms are transcribed in the Roman script with a few IPA additions, except for Greek words that are in the Greek alphabet. Presumably everyone who bought the book would know the Greek alphabet, but not Sanskrit or Cyrillic.

3. What forms are you putting in the Source Form field? Are you putting in a variety of forms, including borrowed words? Are you citing various stages of the language? You might want to use the orthography of the source language or the respective time period, or you might want to transcribe everything into a single script such as IPA.

If the answers to these question point toward a single writing system, I would make that the default and copy everything into that field. That's what I did for my Greek dictionary. At least at this point my Etymology field forms are PIE roots. PIE forms have traditionally been transcribed using Roman letters with some extra letters and diacritics thrown in. My Greek writing system wasn't suited for it, so I added a line for the analysis language (English) writing system and copied everything into it. My English font can handle the extra letters I need. If I want to put a Greek word in, I can always embed it.

This whole area is messy. There are two kinds of "proto forms". 1) There are reconstructed forms for which there is no textual evidence. Presumably these days such reconstructions would be in IPA. 2) Then there are forms that are documented in ancient literature. The best way to cite these forms would be in the original orthography. But for comparative purposes such forms would also need to be transcribed into IPA so that everything is comparable. But that assumes we know the IPA values of ancient scripts, which is hardly the case. Historical and comparative linguistics requires a great deal of careful analysis. So I would talk to an expert in the historical reconstruction of your language family and ask his advice.

Ron Moe

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Paul Unger <pcun...@gmail.com> wrote:

What language / writing system is recommended for proto forms in the Etymology > Source Form field? I have lines for [vernacular], [vernacular]IPA, English, and an LWC showing in Source Form. My pre-8.3.1 data is all in the [vernacular] line, but in 8.3.1 the default appears to have been changed to English. At least that's where the source word form goes when typed into the 'unmarked' Etymology line (when everything nested in Etymology is still hidden). Should I move everything to English and go with the new 'default' (it looks like this would be possible with Bulk Edit [open two columns of Etymology - Source Form and select different writing systems for each])? Or is there a compelling reason to stick with [vernacular]? Advice appreciated!

Paul

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[Beth-docs Bryson]

Paul-

As you note, the whole Etymology cluster has been reworked.  Our hope is that it can handle both etymologies and borrowed words.  It was partly with the borrowed word usage in mind that we made the default for the Source Form writing system be English.  We had to choose something.  As Ron notes, this area is messy, and it probably doesn’t make sense to add writing systems for all the languages that words could be borrowed from, so this field will probably have data in a language that doesn’t match the writing system.

However, if your words are mostly reconstructions, on one hand it makes sense to me for you to write them in the vernacular.  On the other hand, all of the considerations that Ron mentioned apply as well.

These are new fields, and we are open to input on what could be changed.  I’m glad you are trying them out.  During this beta phase is precisely the time to send us suggestions about what could be improved.

-Beth

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[Paul Unger]

Thanks Ron & Beth,

In answer to your questions, Ron, I'm using reconstructed forms from published sources (e.g., Ross, Pawley & Osmond's "Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic" (multiple volumes) and Blust's "Austronesian Comparative Dictionary" [http://www.trussel2.com/ACD/acd-pl_poc.htm]). With those sources I feel I'm on as solid ground as I can be in what you rightly note is a "messy area"! The reconstructed forms are in IPA, but with reasonably few 'odd' characters or diacritics--ŋ, ñ, and the odd ə are the only ones that come to mind. As you note, those copy easily with an English font.

My motivation for looking at proto-forms is two fold: 1. the sub-family we're in is often noted in the literature for its 'conservative / non-innovative' nature. So right now I'm just experimenting to see how many unambiguous retentions there are from proto-language reconstructions (just under 10% of 5200 entries at this point; and I'm being very 'conservative / non-innovative' with what I include ;-) ); and 2. there are a number of words that we collected during RWC workshops that had glosses or other things about them that made me wonder about their accuracy. Finding that some of them are actually reflexes of proto-forms gives me a measure of confidence about them.

Beth: it's nice to hear the rationale behind the decisions concerning the Etymology cluster. English sounds like a good default for what you're aiming at. And with Ron's input, it's probably a good default for me. I've just learned that I can 'turn off' writing systems that I don't need--at least for the 'Source Form' field (click the blue down-arrow at the left, select 'Writing Systems', (un)select those you want). I found that I couldn't get rid of the LWC Writing System for the rest of the fields (the only writing system other than English in e.g., Gloss, Bibliographic Source, etc.; perhaps because it's an 'analysis' language?) until I selected 'Show Hidden Fields'. Deactivating the Writing Systems I won't use in the Etymology cluster gives a much tighter presentation in the Entry view. This is good, because it comes at the beginning of the entry and one often needs to get past it to the 'meat' of an entry--the Senses.

Learning!

Paul

[Brenda Boerger]

Paul,

 

You can also change where the “etymology” (or other) information occurs in your entry.

 

Tools à configure à dictionary à highlight “etymology” and use the up and down arrows to move it to the position where you want it to display.

 

I’m playing with getting the things speakers will want to occur FIRST in the entry and things linguists will want to occur toward the end.

 

~Brenda

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[Paul Unger]

Roger that, Brenda. I've already got 'Etymology' down after 'Senses' in Configure Dictionary, but that doesn't change its position in the Entry pane of Lexicon Edit... If I click on the blue drop-down arrow to the left of Etymology (in the Entry pane) there are intriguing options like 'Move Etymology Up' and 'Move Etymology Down', but they're greyed out. :-( Maybe that's worth asking to the list!

Paul

[Paul Unger]

Actually, I just read the Help on that and those 'buttons' are for reordering if there's more than one Etymology. Bummer...

Paul

[Ron Moe]

Right. The Etymology bundle of fields can now be repeated. (You can also have multiple pronunciation bundles and multiple example sentence bundles.) This is so that you can handle multiple stages in a word's history. For instance our English word "paternal" is borrowed from Latin and is ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European word *pater. So you might want to give the etymology as:

paternal adj. ... [Ety. Medieval Latin paternalis, Latin paternus fatherly, from pater father, PIE pater father]

This can be compared to our inherited word "father":

father n. ... [Ety. Middle English fader, Old English fæder, PIE pater father]

This is a nice example of how confusing etymology can be to a non-expert in the field. The borrowed word "paternal" is much closer to the PIE pater than our inherited word "father".

I'm very happy that this area has been improved in FieldWorks.

Ron Moe

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[Beth-docs Bryson]

Ron, do you find that you are now able to implement this example:

paternal adj. ... [Ety. Medieval Latin paternalis, Latin paternus fatherly, from pater father, PIE pater father]

using the new mechanisms in FLEx 8.3.1?  In this case, the “Preceding Annotation” would be different for each of your three etymologies, is that correct?

Actually, I think by default you won’t get the [ ] around all three etymologies, but there is a way using the special grouping node mechanism that we introduced (only in Hybrid view so far, on a node called “[References Section]”).  If you were to make a copy of that node, and then move nodes in and out of it so that only Etymology is in it, then you could put brackets around all three.

Please do send feedback (to FLEx_D...@sil.org and/or directly to me) about what is or is not working well.  The developers will be happy to hear if they have done something that makes a difference, and the Beta period is the time when we could consider improving things if what we have done is not ideal.

-Beth

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[Ron Moe]

I tried to install 8.3.1 and it crashed. So I'm stuck until they find and fix the bug.

Ron

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