How to create an entry for a word which has multiple equivalent glosses in multi-lingual dictionary?

[Sargon Hasso]

My question is specific to English—Syriac dictionary, but the concept applies to other languages as well. I am pretty sure someone has tackled this issue and I am wondering what facilities FLEX has that allows me to accomplish this task. So, let’s call English, the source language and Syriac, the target language. The scenario is this:

1)     I have a source word that has multiple target glosses (equivalent meanings).

2)     The target glosses are not senses, so I can’t use ‘sense’ entry.

3)     I don’t want to use a comma separated list, for example: A_source = A1_target; A2_target; A_3 target, etc. This is because I want to be able to explain each target gloss independently if need be. As you know, no two words have exactly the same meaning unless these were acquired, in the language evolution, through multiple sources.

4)     To avoid the above case, I might opt to create a separate entry for the same source word for each equivalent target word. However, this practice, at least in FLEX parlance, is considered a homophone. For example, ‘minute’—time measure vs. ‘minute’—size measure.

5)     Ultimately, in the final entry I want to be able to see the entry combined in the following manner (hence 4 attempt, may not work):

A_source 1) A1_target some more explanations, examples, etc.; A2_target some more explanations, examples, etc.

               2) B1_target some more explanations, examples, etc.; B2_target some more explanations, examples, etc.

 

So, A1_target and A2_target are equivalent meanings for the same sense, hence they are combined under one sense entry; and B1_target, and B2_target are different group of equivalent glosses for sense 2 of the A_source.

 

In summary, I want to be able to enter multiple target definitions in the same ‘sense’ entry that correspond to the source word, but FLEX does not seem to allow me to do just that, unless of course it does but I am not aware of it.

 

Does FLEX have a feature that support this use case?

Any thought or guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

 

[Beth-docs Bryson]

My best recommendation at this point is to use Senses for your true senses, and then Subsenses for the “multiple target words in one sense”.

If you are in the entry for A_source, and it has one sense (whether you have entered any information or not), there is an option to “insert subsense”.  You can find this option in several places:

    - In the menu bar at the top of FLEx, use the Insert menu, and look for “Subsense”.

    - When your cursor is in the sense itself, there will be a blue triangle next to “Sense 1”.  If you click on that, one of the options will be to insert a subsense.

    - If you right-click on the words “Sense 1” you will get that same menu.

    - When you are in the sense, you can also use the white triangle that is at the top of that pane, next to the word “Entry” to get the option to “Insert Subsense”.

If you want the output you describe below, you would put A1_target in subsense 1.1, A2_target in subsense 1.2, etc., and you would put nothing at the actual sense level.  Then you will get almost what you want, except that you don’t want any of the subsense numbers to print—you only want numbers at the sense level.  I can’t remember if the current version of FLEx allows omitting subsense numbers, but when FW 8.3 comes out, that will definitely be possible.  (It is possible in the FW 8.3.0 Alpha 3 that is currently available on the FieldWorks website.)

Hope that helps.

-Beth

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