Entries in which multiple morphemes combine inseparably
Posted by mholmes on 16 Feb 2010 in Activity log
Up to now, we have been working on the basis that surface forms can be broken down into discrete segments constituting morphemes. This is not always the case, though; today one form surfaced in which three discrete morphemes combine to form a single-phoneme item (c = nt + sa + s).
I would have liked to use a sequence of lookups in the @sameAs attribute, separated by spaces, but that's not allowed in TEI; @sameAs can only hold one value. The obvious alternative is @corresp, so we would do this:
<hyph> <m corresp="nt sa s">c</m></hyph>
That's what we're going to do, temporarily; but in the long run, I think we need to make two changes:
- Switch all
@sameAsattributes to@correspattributes. - Think about whether we need to use hashes before the
xml:ids we're pointing to. I'm never sure about this: the items aren't necessarily in the same file, although they sometimes are; but in the context of the database they're easily discoverable just by@xml:id.