handling dialectal variations in FLEx

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Kevin Warfel

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Nov 14, 2016, 1:32:26 PM11/14/16
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To those of you who’ve used FLEx to log dialectal variations:

 

What is the best/recommended way of handling these data?

 

I can think of a couple of possible approaches:

1) Choose one dialect as the main one and enter that dialect’s form of the word in the Lexeme Form and/or Citation Form field(s). Then enter other dialectal forms as Dialectal Variants. This approach seems to have the advantage of allowing the creation of a minor entry for the variant but the disadvantage of not being configurable for population via the Collect Words tool .

 

2) Create/choose/assign a different writing system for each dialect, with all of these writing systems being “vernacular”. Thus the Lexeme Form and Citation Form fields could contain data for each of the dialects. This approach seems to have the advantage of being configurable for population via the Collect Words tool but the disadvantage of not allowing the creation of a minor entry for any of the dialectal variations.

 

Are there other options I haven’t thought of? Things I’ve not understood about the options I have imagined? What do you recommend, based on your own experiences?

 

Thank you,

Kevin

 

 

Zach Wellstood

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Nov 14, 2016, 2:12:15 PM11/14/16
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Hi FLExperts, 
In one project I've been working on, we're using your approach (1). We have the "dialectal variant" type and a series of subtypes under that variant for each location. However, in addition to this approach, the FLEx project has a custom field (list type) which allows you to choose regional info (i.e. an abbreviation of which dialect the form belongs to). 
Sometimes a form is restricted to a certain dialect but does not have a corresponding form in the dialect you choose as the main dialect. So the custom field is useful for marking the regional info without creating a variant. 

Moreover, if you think sociolinguistically, you can get into some tricky territory if choosing one dialect as the main dialect and making all other dialects "variants" of the main dialect. 

Hope this helps, 
Zach

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Allan Johnson

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Nov 14, 2016, 4:14:30 PM11/14/16
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Hi Kevin,

I'm glad to see this topic come up. I'm currently working with some data that I need to import to FLEx, and how to best handle the two dialects that are represented has been an ongoing question. The two dialects - I guess I can just refer to them as the target dialect and the neighboring dialect. The translator also wants to have the flexibility of being able to add in data from additional neighboring dialects in the future. 

The structure that had worked for this data in Toolbox & Lexique Pro was for words and pronunciations with accompanying sound files from the neighboring dialect to be entered as subentries of the corresponding target dialect entry. Initially that's what we also did in FLEx, with the two dialects in two different vernacular writing systems. This does seem to be functional, but it's kind of an unexpected arrangment of things for a main entry and some of its subentries to be in different dialects. And then I was puzzling over the data entry view in which the arrangement of things seemed particularly awkward - with the data for the subentries being located far away from the main entries in which they'll be nested.

Two attempts to improve on this have been -

1) to display the subentries as dialectal variants (similar to your approach 1). For the dictionary formatting this seems pretty nice, letting the variant pronunciations and sound file links be well-integrated with the main entry. But it doesn't do away with the awkward-looking arrangement of things in the data entry view, since internally FLEx still handles these dialectal variants as separate entries.

2) to enter these dialectal variants in additional writing systems of the lexeme field of the main entry (similar to your apprach 2). I really liked this approach at first. Very neat and tidy looking both in the data entry view and the configured dictionary, and with fully functional buttons to play the sound files. But this was with an initial test on a single entry, just confirming that it could be done. When I went ahead and tried to import the whole dictionary this way, I came upon a limitation of this approach. It doesn't provide a way to handle those cases where a word in the target dialect is mapped to more than one word in the neighboring dialect. These were just occasional cases - roughly 150 out of 3000 entries had this problem. But yet for these 150 cases, it was a genuine problem. And then I also came upon some cases where the information provided for a word in the neigboring dialect needed to include sense-level things like glosses. The only way to make a place for that seems to be to revert to approach 1 in which that word in the neighboring dialect has a whole subentry at its disposal.

As I said, this is an ongoing investigation... I'm not sure I know the best way forward yet. But my current best guess is that I need to let go of approach 2, and revert to approach 1. To deal with the awkward-looking data entry view, it may be that I can do some tricks with the sorting to at least place the main entries next to their subentries in the neighboring dialect, rather than having to go to opposite ends of the dictionary to find these related pieces.

Allan




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Dennis Walters

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Nov 14, 2016, 10:13:21 PM11/14/16
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On 11/15/2016 02:32 AM, Kevin Warfel wrote:
> disadvantage of not being configurable for population via the Collect
> Words tool .

Could you explain what you mean here? How does one configure for
population in Collect Words?

Dennis


Dennis Walters

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Nov 14, 2016, 10:32:42 PM11/14/16
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On 11/15/2016 02:32 AM, Kevin Warfel wrote:
> Are there other options I haven’t thought of?

A single lexical entry can be given multiple Pronunciations with each
tagged for location (or dialect name).

Advantages. The additional pronunciation can be recorded in any
vernacular writing system(s). No additional ws have to be created, thus
the view of the lexical record and any list items can remain simple to
look at. Various pronunciations are all part of a single record, rather
than far flung variant entries. Variant pronunciations are easy to
display (for print) as part of single lexical entry.

Disadvantage. Hard to record variations in content of lexical record
(slight meaning difference between dialects). Additional pronunciations
will not show as subentries.

Would this option be configurable for Collect Words? I don't understand
that part yet.

Dennis


Carin Boone

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Nov 15, 2016, 7:16:30 AM11/15/16
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Hi Alan,

to overcome the data being far apart in the data entry view, could you just add the Variants column to the middle 'Entries' pane?
See screenshot:



On 14/11/2016 21:14, Allan Johnson wrote:
Hi Kevin,

I'm glad to see this topic come up. I'm currently working with some data that I need to import to FLEx, and how to best handle the two dialects that are represented has been an ongoing question. The two dialects - I guess I can just refer to them as the target dialect and the neighboring dialect. The translator also wants to have the flexibility of being able to add in data from additional neighboring dialects in the future. 

The structure that had worked for this data in Toolbox & Lexique Pro was for words and pronunciations with accompanying sound files from the neighboring dialect to be entered as subentries of the corresponding target dialect entry. Initially that's what we also did in FLEx, with the two dialects in two differeVt vernacular writing systems. This does seem to be functional, but it's kind of an unexpected arrangment of things for a main entry and some of its subentries to be in different dialects. And then I was puzzling over the data entry view in which the arrangement of things seemed particularly awkward - with the data for the subentries being located far away from the main entries in which they'll be nested.
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Kevin Warfel

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Nov 15, 2016, 9:06:32 AM11/15/16
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Hi Dennis,

 

I'm not sure if the terms "configure" and "population" are correct, but here's what I meant by that.

 

In the Collect Words tool (which I use primarily in the context of Rapid Word Collection workshops that I facilitate--see RapidWords.net for more info on that), FLEx provides the capability of displaying a variety of fields in the window where the user enters the data. In the screen shots below, I’ve highlighted this, first showing the entire screen, then enlarging the user-configurable part of the screen in the second image, so you can actually see the text and graphics. The icon circled in red in the second image is what you click on to do the configuration.

 

Image 1:

 

 

Image 2:

 

So by “configure for population,” I meant choosing the fields to display in the lower-right window in order to enter data into those fields for the words that are being collected. Note that many fields can be configured to display, but in only a select number of those is the user actually able to enter data in this view. In this illustration, I’ve configured the Collect Words tool to allow me to be able to enter the vernacular word in its citation form, plus a gloss in either English or French or both.

 

Does that answer your question?

 

Kevin

 

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From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dennis Walters

Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 10:13 PM

To: flex...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [FLEx] dialectal variations-configure for population in collect words

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Ron Moe

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Nov 15, 2016, 12:33:42 PM11/15/16
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FLEx was designed to reflect the reality of language as much as possible. So the features that are built into the program are based on how the mind works or how various kinds of linguistic data are related. I would be the first to admit that our understanding of the mental lexicon and linguistic processes is rudimentary and flawed in many ways. The way we think about the lexicon is greatly influenced by our tradition of paper dictionaries. Therefore the model of the lexicon in FLEx could be improved.

 

I am a bit concerned when FLEx users try to find “creative” ways to use a feature of the program to do things that the feature was never designed to do. The use of writing systems to handle dialect differences is one such creative solution. I’ve never used it and so need to be a little cautious. But it seems to me that using the Variant section to handle dialect variants is a better solution, because it was designed for the purpose. It not only enables you to capture what is going on, but also to display it easily and correctly.

 

On the other hand, we know that dialect differences are not limited to the form of the word. Dialects vary in grammar and semantics as well as phonology. So for instance, adequately documenting a dialect may require giving a different example sentence. But this is a can of worms that lexicographers have resisted. The reason is that each dialect needs its own description. Combining two such descriptions in a single database, paper dictionary, or electronic dictionary increases the complexity of the program and display immensely. The more differences between the dialects, the greater the complexity. The more dialects that need to be handled, the greater the complexity. It becomes overwhelming to the programmer, lexicographer, and user.

 

So dictionaries have traditionally only given token recognition to dialects and have only included differences in the form of the word. This happens to be the easiest to record and the kind of variation that is highest in our awareness.

 

To adequately handle all differences between two dialects, you would at least need to duplicate every field and every link. For instance a particular lexeme may belong to one semantic domain in one dialect, but a different domain in a neighboring dialect. I was surprised to find in one language that “dog” belonged to the domain Wild Animials in one dialect and Domesticated Animals in another dialect. So to capture this difference we would have to have two Semantic Domain fields, one for each dialect. I don’t know how the programmers would want to model this or what the user interface would look like. But I seriously doubt that the FieldWorks team has the programmers to implement this level of functionality.

 

So I would urge us all to be realists. A dictionary should be a description of only one dialect. It is possible to document limited information about other dialects, primarily just variants. But this should be seen by all of us as just token acknowledgement of the varied and complicated differences between the dialects. If the dialects are significantly different, and you want to systematically document those differences, then you either need a very different computer program, or you need to create two FLEx projects. If, for political reasons, you absolutely must describe multiple dialects and give them full and equal treatment, you have my utmost sympathy. I would do my level best, with a smile on my face, to convince the politicians that each dialect is so important that it deserves its own dictionary.

 

By the way, Kevin’s use of the word “population” confused me too. I think he was using the noun form of “populate” as in “I’m populating the fields of the database.” I’ve not heard “population” used in this way and thought he meant the populations (people) of the two dialects.


Ron Moe


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Allan Johnson

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Nov 15, 2016, 5:38:01 PM11/15/16
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Hi Carin,

With the data I'm working on, I think the basic issue which puts the variant entries so far away from the main entries they're linked to, is that the headwords of the main entries, and the headwords of the variant subentries, are in two different writing systems. I think that's different from what I'm seeing in the screen shot of your dictionary. Your variants and headwords are all the same writing system, right?

I can configure a column for one of these two writing systems and sort on that - and I can configure a column for the other and sort on that - but either way I do it, the headwords in the two writing systems end up segregated from each other, at opposite ends of the dictionary. Because when the headword is dialect 1, the dialect 2 field is blank. And when the headword is dialect 2, the dialect 1 field is blank. And the blank fields of whichever writing system is being sorted on all group together at one end. Not sure if this fully makes sense without actually looking at the data... 

Anyway, the workaround I tried in one copy of the project, which might accomplish what I'm after, was to bulk edit the "Variant of" field of the neighboring dialect entries into the "Citation form" field of that entry, so that now when I sort on the target dialect headword, what FLEx actually sees for sorting purposes in the neighboring dialect entries, is the target dialect form that that entry is a dialect variant of. Then something extra was bulk edited onto the end of each of those citation forms so it wouldn't perfectly match the existing headwords, to get rid of some unwanted homonym numbers that popped up. 

This may have accomplished what I was after. I'm not sure, because some things have happened since I worked on it which have clouded my memory of the exact details. But I guess what I'm mostly hoping for is to find someone else who has worked through the same issues and successfully come out the other side, so I can just have a good method to follow with some degree of confidence that it won't lead to unexpected trouble later.

Here's a screenshot which might give a bit more clarity on what I was trying to describe in the paragraphs above:

Inline image 1

Allan



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Allan Johnson

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Nov 16, 2016, 2:32:42 PM11/16/16
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Hi Kevin,

Has this discussion been of any help in your choosing between approach 1 and approach 2? Which way are you leaning now for the data you're working with?

Trying to sort through what's been offered in the replies - I might not be seeing it all clearly, but here's an attempt at summarizing the parts that seem to relate to the project I'm working on. You and I both talked about an approach 1 (representing dialect variants as entries of their own which are linked as variants of a lexeme in the other dialect) and an approach 2 (putting dialect variants into writing systems of their own in the lexeme form field of the entry they relate to).

One difficulty I encountered with approach 2 was being limited to just a one-to-one correspondence between the lexeme in the main dialect and lexemes from the neighboring dialect. I believe what Dennis offered provides a way around this limitation. If all you're needing to record from the neighboring dialect is wordforms, pronunciations, and sound files - these things can be put in the pronunciation field rather than the lexeme field, and then since there can be any number of pronunciation fields, this removes the limitation. There can now be a one-to-many correspondence between a lexeme from the main dialect and lexemes from the neighboring dialect.

I tried this on my data, but it still came up against an issue. For a lot of entries it seemed fine. But there was an entry where two alternative forms from the neighboring dialect had been provided, and in order to distinguish between the two - to give some idea of when to choose one vs. when to choose the other, an English gloss for each was provided. These English glosses were clearly important, but I couldn't find an appropriate place to put them in any of the the pronunciation-related fields. I think this is essentially what Dennis is talking about in the first limitation he lists for this approach [Hard to record variations in content of lexical record (slight meaning difference between dialects)]

Now, this might not be a problem for every collection of data - but for the one I'm working with, I think this is the key thing that's pushing me back to some form of approach 1. In approach 1, where each variant has a whole entry of its own, there is a perfectly good place to put an English gloss whenever that's needed.

I wonder though - is there going to be an appropriate way to display those glosses in the configured entry along with the dialect variants they relate to? If the variants are displayed as true subentries - sure, no problem. But I think what I was really after was to show those variants more as an integral part of the main entry, with the [variant form(s)/pronunciations/sound file play buttons] coming right after the main entry's lexeme form and its associated pronunciation and sound file play button. For some reason I'm not finding the project where I thought I had it configured like this... so need to sign out and do some more exploring. Still not feeling sure that I know where I'm going, but do feel obliged to try to make some form of approach 1 work, in order to have places for all the data.

Allan




On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 12:32 PM, Kevin Warfel <kevin_...@sil.org> wrote:

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Kevin Warfel

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Nov 16, 2016, 2:56:15 PM11/16/16
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I am greatly indebted to all of you who responded to my question. I had intended to write this much earlier in the day today, but my Inbox was overflowing when I opened it this morning, and there has been a steady inflow of messages dealing with important topics all day long.

 

I apologize for my ambiguous use of the word “population” that led to confusion for at least some. I think we’re all clear on what I meant now, but it would have been better if I had written in a way that was clear from the beginning.

 

Allan, it was good to hear your thoughts in detail, as you weighed pros and cons of each of the alternatives.

 

Ron, I was glad to hear from you because you’ve been involved in discussions about how FLEx should be designed since well before I began using the program. I value your opinions and insight greatly.

 

Dennis, your idea of using the Pronunciation fields was an approach I hadn’t considered. I’m glad you mentioned it.

 

I haven’t yet made a final decision about how to handle the desire in my situation to note which dialect a word is from in the context of a Rapid Word Collection, but the input from all of you has been very helpful.

 

Blessings,

Kevin

 

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Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 2:33 PM
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Beth-docs Bryson

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Nov 17, 2016, 3:11:25 AM11/17/16
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Kevin,

In previous versions of FieldWorks, these were indeed the two main ways to handle dialectal variation.  The approach with Writing Systems works when nearly every word has a form in both (all) dialects (a rare situation?).  The approach with Variants works when the data is more sparse:  most forms exist in either the main dialect or both, and some forms are specific to another dialect.  However, as others have noted, there are times when it is undesirable to label one or the other as the "main dialect".

In FW 8.3.1 we have introduced a new field called "Dialect Labels".   The main goal with these was to allow a representation of "peer dialects", where no one dialect was "main".  

 - There is a field called Dialect Labels at both the Entry and Sense levels.
 - It is a list field; the user creates their list of dialects (Names and Abbreviations) in the Lists area, and then these are available choices for the Dialect Labels field.  (Only Abbreviation shows in Lexicon Edit.)
 - When configuring the dictionary, the user can choose to show these dialect labels next to the headword (for Entry level) or in the Sense, to indicate that a whole entry applies to a specific dialect, or that just one sense applies only to one (or a few) dialect.  The idea is that if no dialect is specified, it presumably applies to all.  Or if the label is on the whole entry, it implies that each of the senses has that label.
 - When making a reference to an entry or sense (as a complex form, variant, or lexical relation), it is possible to include the Dialect Label of the referred-to entry in the reference.  Thus, you could have:
  elevator n. Device for moving people to upper floors of a building.  syn. lift [UK]
(Okay, that isn't really a synonym.  But that is how it would look with a dialect label on it.)

Note that these are brand new fields, so there are bound to be some things that are not quite working for them yet.  For instance:
 - I said above that they are available on three kinds of references, but they might only be available on a subset of those.
 - In theory, these should have been able to be added to the columns in the Collect Words area, just like any other field, but that hasn't been implemented yet.
 - There are likely other issues with them that we haven't discovered yet.

So, if you were wanting to make an annotation about what dialect something belonged to during a Rapid Word Collection workshop, you could (in a future version) add this column in Collect Words, and fill it in at the time of entering the words.

I hope this gives you more food for thought, as you consider different strategies.

-Beth


On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 12:32 PM, Kevin Warfel <kevin_...@sil.org> wrote:

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Mari-Sisko Khadgi

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Nov 17, 2016, 6:13:43 AM11/17/16
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Hi Kevin,
 
We have used the option 1 (described in your original email) for marking dialects and successfully published couple of dictionaries that way.
 
In Rapid Word Collections workshops, if any of the groups has countered any dialectal variation, they have written both words (or several words) in the response sheet to the same line, but separated them with a slash and using an agreed abbreviation for each dialect.
Like in the case of Beth’s example, the scribe could have written this into the ‘word’ column in the response sheet:
elevator (US, Can) / lift (UK, Aus)
Then the typist would write the exact same thing into the ‘Citation Form’ column in the Collect Words area. After the workshop there is an additional step for separating the dialect variants, but it is easy to filter the database by searching for the slash symbol.  (This may not be the most feasible solution, if there is a lot of dialectal variation.)
 
When using the above method in an RWC workshop, it would be really really nice, if FLEx would allow a Bulk Edit option for adding words to the Variants field (“populating” the Variant field).  For example, if I could use ‘Click Copy’ so that the target field could be ‘Variants’ field.  Now it is a tedious task to add each variant by clicking “Insert Variant” and then copy-pasting (in our case) the word and again clicking “Create”.
 
 
In cases where dialectal variation is consistent changes in pronunciation (like all the word initial [kʰ]s are pronounced as [h] in dialect xxx), we explain such things at the beginning of the dictionary and do not repeat them in each entry.
 
 
Mari-Sisko
 
 
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2016 1:56 PM
Subject: Re: [FLEx] handling dialectal variations in FLEx
 
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Kevin Warfel

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Nov 17, 2016, 8:37:14 AM11/17/16
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Thank you, Beth. This is very good to know about. It sounds like an enhancement that many users will appreciate. The RWC workshop I’m currently preparing for is scheduled for February, so maybe by that time, we’ll be able to enter dialect data directly via the Collect Words tool. That would give us an opportunity to provide feedback to the development team about how this new feature is working. But we’re working on a strategy for capturing dialect information in some other way during the workshop in the event we aren’t able to use the new Dialect Label to do it.

 

-Kevin

 

From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Beth-docs Bryson
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2016 3:11 AM
To: flex...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [FLEx] handling dialectal variations in FLEx

 

Kevin,

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Kevin Warfel

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Nov 17, 2016, 9:15:56 AM11/17/16
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Hi Mari-Sisko,

 

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post. It’s particularly interesting to hear how you’ve handled this issue because your context is very similar to the one I’m preparing for—a RWC workshop in a language with dialectal variation. Usually in situations like this, I encourage the workshop Coordinator to get everyone to agree on one dialect for the purposes of getting the maximum amount of vocabulary during the word collection, and then they add in the dialectal variants in the weeks/months following the workshop. In the current instance, however, it seems preferable to include data from multiple dialects, so we’re looking for a way to indicate that information without creating a bottleneck or backlog in the workflow during the word-collection phase of the workshop.

 

Thanks again for your input.

 

-Kevin

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Ron Moe

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Nov 17, 2016, 2:33:13 PM11/17/16
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Hi Kevin,
Your last couple of posts have clarified your situation. Let me add a few comments.

FLEx allows you to treat all dialects as equal. You have to pick one dialect as the "main dialect", but you can configure FLEx to present them as equals.

Your custom field "Dialect labels" on both entry and sense level is a good idea. A number of years ago the FLEx team discussed the possibility of creating labels on each field that could be used for a number of issues such as dialect. I think the idea was that you could right-click on the field and get a dialog box with a number of options. One option would be to indicate that the field had to do with a dialect. So for instance you could use this feature to label an example sentence as belonging to a particular dialect. That way the example sentence and its translation would all belong to the dialect. This would open up nice possibilities, such as filtering for the label. I don't know whatever happened to the idea.

As far as a Rapid Word Collection workshop is concerned, I like Mari-Sisko's idea:

elevator (US, Can) / lift (UK, Aus)

When training the participants in a RWC workshop, I often had to deal with multiple dialects. I would make it clear that we wanted words from all the dialects. I suggested that they write down all the words they could think of and put a dialect label after any word which was limited by dialect with a long dash between lexeme and dialect label:

elevator --- US

But this doesn't indicate the relationship like Mari-Sisko's. However not all variants are dialect variants. So the workshop participants may not know what label to apply.

I never considered the idea of trying to enter dialect data directly into FLEx. I told the typists to type "elevator -- US" into the Citation Form field and said we would fix the data later. I did this for two reasons. 1) I assumed there wouldn't be too many such words. This turned out to be true and I could fix the variants myself. 2) The relationship between variant forms is not always the same:

Dialect variants where the spelling is different (color (Am); colour (Br)), which are handled in the Variants section by creating separate entries.
Dialect synonyms (elevator (US, Can); lift (UK, Aus), which are handled by the Lexical Relations field on the sense level.
Pronunciation differences that are regular, which we usually ignore.
Pronunciation variants where the spelling is the same due to a standardized orthography but the pronunciation is not regular (schedule: [shejul Br.] [skejl Am.]), which are handled in the Pronunciation section within the same entry.
Alternate forms where there is not a one-to-one correspondence between forms in different dialects (ain't, spoken nonstandard regional and social variant of "am not" "isn't" "hasn't" or  "haven't"). I don't think FLEx can handle this, except to type it straight into a text field such as the Usages field.
Register variants (can't, cannot).

There are other problems, but this is enough. In your original email that started this thread your option #2 doesn't allow you to specify what kind of variant you have. Nor does it allow you to enter any information about the variant other than the simple fact that it is used in a particular dialect.

One problem you will have in a RWC workshop is to train the typists to recognize and correctly handle each type. I've never had typists who were up to such linguistic sophistication. However, if the vast majority of the variant forms are simple dialect variants, you could train the typists how to handle them. You would have to sort out the rest of them later.

Your idea of a special tool in Collect Words would have to be carefully thought through in the light of these complexities. For instance you might want a separate column for each dialect. I know that in the past, feature requests like this sometimes ran into problems with the internal logic of the lexical model that FLEx uses. For instance how do you deal with multiple dialects when the distribution varies?

elevator (US, Can) / lift (UK, Aus)
friend (US, Can, UK) / mate (Aus)

Presumably you would have to type the correct form into all four columns. This would either require a committee or someone who is very familiar with all four dialects. (Oops, elevator/lift and friend/mate are dialect synonyms. So they are bad examples. Which only serves to illustrate how even a linguist can get this wrong.)

I hate to pour cold water onto a good idea. But I've got a lot of experience thinking through feature requests and so my mind started thinking of what the new feature needed to handle. Maybe this will help in the planning.
Ron

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David Wilkinson

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Dec 5, 2016, 7:35:43 AM12/5/16
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Hi,

I’m replying to this thread because Kevin’s initial questions relate to the workshop that I will co-ordinate with Kevin as consultant.

 

The linguistic situation I’m working with is that the language is spoken in one very large ‘village’ (population around 12,000). The village is divided into 4 ‘quartiers’ (wards) and then further into sub-wards. There are a limited number of dialectal differences between the wards, the majority of which are dialectal synonyms. Many of these are a two-way split between one of the dialects and the other three. But sometimes there is a 3-way split. It is essential that all of these dialects and the dialectal synonyms are treated equally – there is no agreed ‘prestigious’ or ‘main’ dialect. I am very grateful for the new feature in 8.3.1 that allows the use of dialect labels at entry and sense level.

 

For the RWC we plan to write an agreed abbreviation for the dialect/s against any relevant words. This will be typed directly in to the collect words tool using the ‘sociolinguistic notes’ column, which seems the most appropriate of those that allow entry in this view. Afterwards that information can be bulk edited into the relevant dialect label entry/sense.

 

My question here is what will be the best way to deal with these dialectal synonyms in FLEx after the workshop. I’m not going to go down the different writing systems route. So I think I have two options:

 

1.       Lexical relations – Ron mentioned this option below and this is my preferred option, though there is a problem with it. I could use the ‘synonym’ relation or more likely I could create a custom ‘dialectal synonym’ relation. This option has the advantage of displaying each of the options equally. It also allows very easily for 3-way (or more) relations. So if I have A,B,C as 3 dialectal synonyms then I only need to go to ‘A’ and mark ‘B’ and ‘C’ as having the lexical relation of dialectal synonym and that also creates the reference for ‘B’ to ‘A’ and ‘C’ and for ‘C’ to ‘A’ and ‘B’. The major problem that I have is that I cannot configure the dictionary to show the dialect label abbreviation (new in 8.3.1) in the configure dictionary for these referenced synonyms? Is this possible or am I missing something?

2.       Variants – This option does solve the major problem with lexical relations in that it will display the dialect label of the synonyms. But it has other problems. It doesn’t really treat the variants equally – there is always a primary entry which has variants, and those variants are ‘variants of’ the primary entry. The entries display differently in configure dictionary – I assume it is possible to change this so that entries with variants and entries that are variants are displayed identically, but it seems difficult to do. Finally, it seems all the variants have to be entered manually, so that if I make B and C variants of A, then I still have to go to entry B and make it a variant of C (as well as A) etc.

 

Am I missing anything? Any other options? Thanks for your help,

David

From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Moe
Sent: 17 November 2016 19:33
To: flex...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [FLEx] handling dialectal variations in FLEx

 

Hi Kevin,

Your last couple of posts have clarified your situation. Let me add a few comments.

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Ron Moe

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Dec 6, 2016, 12:51:53 PM12/6/16
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I think you are going to have problems with either the Lexical Relations or Variants options. If I understand your situation correctly, you have four dialects. Any one of the four dialects may have a dialectal variant or a dialectal synonym. You can also have a two-two split. In these cases you need to say that form-A belongs to one or more of the four dialects and corresponds to form-B in one or more of the four dialects.

Let's assume that you have four dialects (British, American, Canadian, and Australian). Everybody says "friend" except Australia, which says "mate". So how do you want this to appear?

friend (Br. Am. Ca. cf. mate Au.) n. ....
mate (Au. cf. friend Br. Am. Ca.) n. ....

I don't know how to get FLEx to display this. What happens if you have three forms?

friend (Br. Ca. cf. buddy Am. mate Au.) n. ....
mate (Au. cf. friend Br. Ca. buddy Am.) n. ....
buddy (Am. cf. friend Br. Ca. mate Au.) n. ....

This is even worse. Unfortunately I can't check how FLEx works right now because my projects keep crashing. But I don't think any of the Lexical Relations options handles this correctly. If you use the Pair option, you would have to link each pair of dialects. With four dialects that means creating six links every time you have a variant. If you use the Group option (e.g. a group of synonyms), the FLEx only provides a single label. So you wouldn't be able to label each dialect.

I think you will have the same sort of problems using the Variant option. I think you would have to set up six pairs of Variant Types. I don't know if you can link variants to each other. In FLEx you have a main entry and variant entries. I know that you can set up a Variant Type to look like two equal variants so that the dialects appear to look equal. I would have to test these ideas in FLEx to see if/how they would work.
Ron

On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 5:35 AM, David Wilkinson <david_w...@sil.org> wrote:

Hi,

I’m replying to this thread because Kevin’s initial questions relate to the workshop that I will co-ordinate with Kevin as consultant.

 

The linguistic situation I’m working with is that the language is spoken in one very large ‘village’ (population around 12,000). The village is divided into 4 ‘quartiers’ (wards) and then further into sub-wards. There are a limited number of dialectal differences between the wards, the majority of which are dialectal synonyms. Many of these are a two-way split between one of the dialects and the other three. But sometimes there is a 3-way split. It is essential that all of these dialects and the dialectal synonyms are treated equally – there is no agreed ‘prestigious’ or ‘main’ dialect. I am very grateful for the new feature in 8.3.1 that allows the use of dialect labels at entry and sense level.

 

For the RWC we plan to write an agreed abbreviation for the dialect/s against any relevant words. This will be typed directly in to the collect words tool using the ‘sociolinguistic notes’ column, which seems the most appropriate of those that allow entry in this view. Afterwards that information can be bulk edited into the relevant dialect label entry/sense.

 

My question here is what will be the best way to deal with these dialectal synonyms in FLEx after the workshop. I’m not going to go down the different writing systems route. So I think I have two options:

 

1.       Lexical relations – Ron mentioned this option below and this is my preferred option, though there is a problem with it. I could use the ‘synonym’ relation or more likely I could create a custom ‘dialectal synonym’ relation. This option has the advantage of displaying each of the options equally. It also allows very easily for 3-way (or more) relations. So if I have A,B,C as 3 dialectal synonyms then I only need to go to ‘A’ and mark ‘B’ and ‘C’ as having the lexical relation of dialectal synonym and that also creates the reference for ‘B’ to ‘A’ and ‘C’ and for ‘C’ to ‘A’ and ‘B’. The major problem that I have is that I cannot configure the dictionary to show the dialect label abbreviation (new in 8.3.1) in the configure dictionary for these referenced synonyms? Is this possible or am I missing something?

2.       Variants – This option does solve the major problem with lexical relations in that it will display the dialect label of the synonyms. But it has other problems. It doesn’t really treat the variants equally – there is always a primary entry which has variants, and those variants are ‘variants of’ the primary entry. The entries display differently in configure dictionary – I assume it is possible to change this so that entries with variants and entries that are variants are displayed identically, but it seems difficult to do. Finally, it seems all the variants have to be entered manually, so that if I make B and C variants of A, then I still have to go to entry B and make it a variant of C (as well as A) etc.

 

Am I missing anything? Any other options? Thanks for your help,

David

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John Clifton

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Dec 9, 2016, 5:49:41 PM12/9/16
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Thanks, Ron, for the examples below. This is very close to what I'm looking for, except that I don't need to specify how the dialects are split. In fact, it would be very difficult to do so. The situation in the area of PNG where I work is that dialectal isoglosses carve up villages in different ways - for one form you might have a split of ABC vs DE vs FG, for a second form you might have AB vs CEF vs DG, and so on. And even within a village there may be variation. The situation is somewhat like the 'pop/soda/coke' situation described at <http://www.popvssoda.com/>. So while there are clear tendencies, and the forms are clearly dialectal (not synonyms), there is no straightforward dividing into dialects. Furthermore, there is no standard dialect. Each individual writes according to their own idiolect. Even the translation will show variation between different writers. So I don't want to say that one is standard, and the others are variants that simply point back to the standard. Given your examples below, this is how I want them to appear:

buddy (dial. cf. friend, mate) FULL ENTRY
friend (dial. cf. buddy, mate) FULL ENTRY
mate (dial. cf. buddy, friend) FULL ENTRY

Is there any way to do this?

John
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Jeff Shrum

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Dec 9, 2016, 9:58:56 PM12/9/16
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John,

 

I would think one way to do it is to create a custom lexical relation called dialectical synonym and use it to link the entries.  Otherwise the default list of variants includes "dialectical variant"  You could make them all a variant of an abstract form.  I would have to try making the main entry not appear in the dictionary while telling Fieldworks to include the subentries.  It may not allow this, but it is possible to mark a headword as an abstract form.

 

Jeff Shrum

International Language Technology Consultant

Dallas, TX USA

 

From: flex...@googlegroups.com [mailto:flex...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clifton
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 4:50 PM
To: flex...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [FLEx] handling dialectal variations in FLEx

 

Thanks, Ron, for the examples below. This is very close to what I'm looking for, except that I don't need to specify how the dialects are split. In fact, it would be very difficult to do so. The situation in the area of PNG where I work is that dialectal isoglosses carve up villages in different ways - for one form you might have a split of ABC vs DE vs FG, for a second form you might have AB vs CEF vs DG, and so on. And even within a village there may be variation. The situation is somewhat like the 'pop/soda/coke' situation described at <http://www.popvssoda.com/>. So while there are clear tendencies, and the forms are clearly dialectal (not synonyms), there is no straightforward dividing into dialects. Furthermore, there is no standard dialect. Each individual writes according to their own idiolect. Even the translation will show variation between different writers. So I don't want to say that one is standard, and the others are variants that simply point back to the standard. Given your examples below, this is how I want them to appear:

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Hugh Paterson

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Dec 9, 2016, 10:52:31 PM12/9/16
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@John Clifton,

This kind of variation is the same as what we see in the Alemannic Dialects. Would it be possible to make the variations geographical. I mean in your lexicon specify location 1 - variation 1. location 2 - variation 2. It seems a waist to just list a bunch of variants without specifying what variant is used in which context (even if the context is geographical).

Can you use the contributor field? If Tom comes from village 1 then all variants contributed by Tom will be village 1 variants. Whereas all variants contributed by Sue (assuming sue comes from village 2) will come from village 2.

- Hugh



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David Wilkinson

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Dec 10, 2016, 11:09:05 AM12/10/16
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John,

Some days ago I did a mock-up of how it could look based on Ron’s examples. This is using a custom dialectal relationship just as Jeff describes, (which only requires the relations to be selected for one sense and then “the other senses will automatically show all of the senses that are part of this set, excluding the current sense). It uses the dialect label tags in 8.3.1. You would prefer the reference to be before the full entry, that can easily be adjusted.

Sadly for me I’ve concluded that although it is possible to show the dialect labels of variants, it’s not possible to show the dialect labels of lexical relations and I will have to submit that as a feature request.

See the screen-shots below:

David

 

Two forms:

 

 

Three forms:

 

 

 

image001.png
image002.png
image003.png
image004.png
image005.png

Beth-docs Bryson

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Dec 10, 2016, 1:29:41 PM12/10/16
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What David proposes is a great idea.

I've tried a mockup myself, doing a couple things differently:

 - I used the Dialect Labels field at the Entry level, instead of the Sense level.  You can experiment with the consequences of each choice.
 - For the custom "Dialect Synonym" relation, I went ahead and made it at the Sense level, but you can also set up these lexical relations at the Entry level.  Again, you can experiment with the consequences of each choice.
 - I created a Custom Field that I called "Dial Label Sense".  I made it at the Sense level, as a list field that can have more than one value, and I told it to get its values from the Dialect Labels list (the same one used by the Dialect Labels fields).
 - I had to fiddle with the Before, After, and Between spaces to clean it up a bit compared to the default config.

As David notes, the Dialect Labels are not currently available in Lexical Relations.  They *are* available in links to Variants, and also Complex Forms (for instance, in subentries, or references to derivations or to components/roots).  We did not add them to Lexical Relations, but that was partly due to waiting to see (during this Beta period) if it was desired there as well.  This is a great use case for it, and we should be able to add them there.

In the mean time, we did make it possible for Custom Fields to appear in references.  (At the moment they are only available in Lexical Relations, but we could make them available in Variant and Complex Form references as well.)

Since custom fields are available in Lexical Relations, I think I was able to get what David was aiming for by using both the Dialect Label (Entry) field, and my custom Dial Label Sense field.  True, you should not have to enter the same information in both places, and once we make Dialect Labels available on Lexical Relations, this won't be necessary.  (There is some logic about showing an entry-level value on a reference to a sense, that applies only to the Dialect Labels field, not to Custom Fields.  For custom fields, if your reference is pointing at a sense, you only have access to the sense level custom fields.  Similarly for entry.)

I'm interested to know if the attached graphic is close to what John is hoping for.

-Beth


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