"Heritage"
Brian MacWhinney
I recently received a message from a user transitioning from
using CA Mode in an older version of CLAN to the newer CHAT/CA mode.
I realize that some of you may also be going through this transition.
So, here are my suggestions to her:
Yes, the new mode includes asterisks in the front of lines and a few
other things that are not very CA-friendly. These changes allow
people to use the CLAN programs with CA data. Of course, if you are
like many CA people, you just want to look closely at the data and you
don't care about searches, so the asterisk is, in this case,
admittedly a nuisance. However, there is a nice program called
CHAT2CA which will take your CHAT/CA file and output "pure" CA with
the .ca extension. But, CLAN itself is going to work best if you edit
in the CHAT/CA format (.cha) and only use the CHAT2CA program when you
want to see your results in a more traditional form.
I should explain one more thing. In order to avoid having to deal
with the requirements of CHAT codes, you should probably put this line
into the beginning of each file.
@Languages: en, CA, Heritage
The en is for English, the CA is for CA, and the word Heritage tells
CLAN that you are not going to worry about strict CHAT checking within
individual lines. If you add "Heritage" you can then run the CHECK
program without too many problems. You run CHECK with escape-L. With
the word "Heritage" included in that line, CHECK makes sure that the
initial parts of lines and the @Begin and @End are okay, but it stops
at that and doesn't bother you about the form of pauses and other
things inside turns. Of course, you don't have to run CHECK at all,
so these decisions are left very much up to you.
Many thanks for your helpful feedback,
--Brian MacWhinney