Transcript LDTC Workshop - University of Hawai`i at Mānoa Department of

LDTC Workshop
Dictionaries (Lexique Pro)
Why should we make a
dictionary?
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Uses for the community:
– Often gives prestige/legitimacy/validation to a
language
– A useful reference, esp. if the language is
obsolescent
– As a medium for a standard, i.e. the “official”
version
– Pedagogical applications; teaching the language
**Don’t need to be a linguist to do it**
Why should we make a
dictionary?
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For linguists/other researchers:
– Develop close ties to the community
– Projects take several years: some amount of work
security for you and your consultants
– Develop avenues of research you didn’t know
were there
– A huge amount of interesting ethnobotanical,
cultural, etc. knowledge is encoded in the lexicon.
Really doing your duty to documentation.
OK GREAT!
How do I do it then?
Hypothetical steps:
1.
2.
3.
List all the words I know in my
language.
Translate them.
Done!
NOPE.
*Must have a metadata structure that
makes what you do as useful as
possible to the people who you
envision using it.
Parts of a dictionary
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Head word
– First part of the entry, most simplified form of the
word
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Pronunciation
– Can use IPA, and if possible a recording
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Part of speech
– Noun, Verb, Adjective, etc.
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Example sentence (and recording)
■ Translation
-Can include as many languages as you want
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Cross-referencing
Remarks on grammatical
categories
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*Must know what the grammatical
categories are for your language, AND
how to test for them
For example, does your language have:
Adjectives? Particles? Adpositions?
Positionals? Lexical suffixes? Alienably vs.
inalienably possessed nouns? Gender?
Auxiliary, serial, or ‘light’ verbs? Verb
classes?
Types of dictionaries
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Alphabetic - words are presented in
alphabetical order
– Really need standardized spelling
Types of dictionaries
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Organized by root
– e.g. Arabic
‫علم‬
Ac L M
-acalam: sign, token, mark, badge
‫علم‬
-acailam: tender; well with abundant water; ‫عيلم‬
sea
‫معلمة‬
-macalama: encyclopedia
-iaclaam: notification, advice
‫اعالم‬
‫عالم‬
-acaalam: world, universe, cosmos
Types of dictionaries
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Thematic - words are grouped by their
subject area
– Can be complied in less time
– Can be tailored to community interests
– Sometimes lack common, non-thematic
words
– Often not easily searchable
Things to watch out for: homophony
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Things that are clearly related,
homophonous, yet different parts of
speech (or sometimes even the same
parts of speech)
a crow vs. to crow
Google vs. to google
Divisions based on grammatical
properties:
– Ex. Write: is it intransitive, transitive, or
ditransitive? How do you show this?
Things to watch out for: multiple
senses/definitions
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Impress (verb):
– To press a thing into or on something
– To affect deeply in mind or feelings
– To fix ideas or facts firmly in memory
– To urge (something remembered or done)
– To impose a quality or characteristic on
something
– (arch.) to force into service on a seafaring
vessel
Things to watch out for:
suppletion
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Go → went. 2 entries or 1?
Ancient Greek:
λαμβανω (present)
ληψομαι (future)
ελαβον (imperfect)
ειληφα (aorist (completive))
ειλημμαι (perfect)
εληφθην (future perfect)
Other lexical information issues
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Where do you put idioms?
■ What is too big/small to be considered a
word?
– e.g. an “ism”
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What about alternate spellings/dialectal
differences?
■ Things that are taboo?
■ Borrowings? (i.e. when does it count as part
of the language?)
How many words do I have to
have?
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Most English dictionaries contain
~470,000 entries
Most high school graduates have a
vocabulary of ~60,000 words
Dictionaries of less studied languages
are considered ‘good’ if they have
~3,000-6,000 entries
But for today…
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25 entries
– Need to have example sentences
– Best if you have sound clips
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Already have a metadata structure
*Keep everything in mind however if you
plan to put your time into doing a full
dictionary of your language
Got it?
Great!
Let’s make dictionaries!!!
Lexique Pro
Getting started
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Go to:
www.lexiquepro.com/download.htm
Click Lexique Pro 3.6 – Setup
Save it somewhere on your computer to
start the download
Click on it once it finishes to open the
Startup Wizard. Click through until you
see this:
Next:
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Go to File → Create New Lexicon
You will see another Wizard pop up
*If it took you straight here without opening
first, don’t worry about it.
■ This is the same thing you will do if you ever
create dictionaries for other languages too
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
Creating your dictionary
If you need extra fields:
Adding sound files
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1. record yourself saying the headwords
and the example sentences in Audacity
Make sure they are all separate
recordings!
Adding sound files
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Instead of saving, go to file →export
Save files as .wav, in a folder that you
create called LPsoundfiles_(lang
code)_(yourname)_2013
– Ex. LPsoundfiles_jra_hrilsiu_2013
Name the file something easily identifiable to
you
-- Ex. q’ij_example.wav
Adding sound files
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Go to ‘properties’
Copy the file location
Paste the file location into the Lexique
Pro entry field \sf if it’s a headword
recording, or the \sfx field if it’s an
example recording
You might have to add the actual file
name to the end of the extension
If you did it right, then in the ‘view’ tab,
speaker icons will appear
Wrap Up
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Questions? Comments?
If you don’t complete them today, work
on them outside of the workshop (make
time to meet with your mentors if you
need to!)
Thank you!