HCMC Blogs

Catching up with backups, uploading files from Coldesp, Mariage and Moses, and trying to get work done after the search committee work took a good part of my day.

As blogged elsewhere, we now have some <m> components of <hyph> which break down into multiple morphemes; we're expressing these using @corresp with multiple values, instead of @sameAs with one. I've now written some basic handling for that situation. In the process, I had to migrate the stylesheet from XSLT 1.0 to 2.0. The site is a mix of both. It really needs to be remodelled using a new Cocoon/eXist stack. I'll do that as soon as we have the new Tomcat box up and running.

Logging time spent on interview, lunch, campus tour etc.

Well, some good news: Leanna has finished the image processing for all of 1853. Next up, she will add the page-break tags for the same year. And, I have completed all the placename entries to date. There will, of course, be many more to come, but the backlog is over. So, I will now be better able to the placename database up to date. Finally, Caitlin has finished tagging the 1578 and 1858 vessels. The extra help is really starting to pay off!

Another batch of changes came through from MK.

At some point, I need to go through the main site tree and weed out files no longer needed. One way to do this would be through rsyncs with delete from the development site, then posting the full results up to the www-dev folder and checking it before replacing the main site, also using rsync with delete. That should be done on a quiet day when I can be sure of being uninterrupted, so I have a chance to fix anything that might go wrong.

I've got the bigger bugs ironed out of the query code and the map is happily running its ajax queries, and no more bizarre problems.

Thought:
When two locations overlap, how to allow each of them to be clickable? We *could* just move one over a bit, but the likely case is that a city like Ilissus is inside of a region (like the Thriasian plain).

In the phar-w file, I have put bibl tags within both prons and defs - such that every seg has a sister bibl - e.g:

<entry>
<form>
<pron><seg type="phonemic">sʕʷáʔʕʷaʔ</seg><bibl>Y1.68; MW; EP</bibl></pron>
<pron><seg type="narrow">swáʔwaʔ</seg><bibl>G48; J3.1; A4</bibl>
</pron>
<pron><seg type="narrow">swˀáʔwˀaʔ</seg><bibl>CS18</bibl></pron>

<hyph><m sameAs="nom">s</m>‐√<m sameAs="ʕWaʔ">ʕʷáʔ</m>+<m sameAs="CHAR">CVC</m></hyph>

<note>onomatopoeic<bibl>Y</bibl></note>
</form>
<sense>
<def><seg>cougar</seg>
<bibl>Y1.68; MW; EP</bibl>
<bibl>G48; J3.1; A4</bibl>
<bibl>CS18</bibl>
</def>
</sense>

I am going to do this even in cases where the entry has only one form and one def (rather than just putting the bibl on the whole entry).
This also serves to distinguish among phonemic representations:
-If it was transcribed by MDK, it has a bibl.
-If it was derived by ECH from a narrow transcription, it has no bibl.

I checked with Martin, and he agreed that this way makes sense, so I am going to change the s-rtr file to use this system too.

Martin questioned the stacking of bibl tags in the example above, where multiple sources all give the same definition. These could all actually be in a single bibl tag, but Martin can collapse them into one programmatically later. I will keep my eyes out for any cases where this would NOT work.

As we noted last week:

----------
<bibl> elements need to be applied in many different locations, especially inside <def> and <form>, to make it absolutely clear what the source for each of them is. Right now, a <bibl> tends to appear in a <def>, and that actually means that it applies not only to the <def>'s parent <sense> element, but also to the preceding sibling <form> element. Since this is not reliably the case, though, we need to be explicit about it.
----------

I went through the s-rtr file and made the placement of bibl tags more explicit. For simple entries with one form and one sense it looks like:

<form>
<pron>
<seg type="phonemic">stíks</seg>
</pron>
<bibl>Y37.45</bibl>
<hyph><m sameAs="stiks">stíks</m></hyph>
</form>
<sense>
<def>
<seg>big male mountain <gloss>goat</gloss></seg>
<bibl>Y37.45</bibl>
</def>
</sense>

The most complex combination I've found so far is this kind - one form with two defs.

<form>
<pron>
<seg type="phonemic">ṣạpḷị́ḷ </seg>
<seg type="narrow">sàpᵊlél</seg>
</pron>
<bibl>G7.32; Y6.151, 305; Y16.189; Y21.11</bibl>
<bibl>W9.100</bibl>
</form>
<sense>
<def>
<seg><gloss>flour</gloss></seg>
<bibl>G7.32; Y6.151, 305; Y16.189; Y21.11</bibl>
</def>
<def>
<seg><gloss>bread</gloss></seg>
<bibl>W9.100</bibl>
</def>
</sense>

So the markup shows that the form was given by two speakers (well, the first bibl is actually at least two speakers), but each had a different definition for it.

If we didn't have the bibls in the form here, the formula Martin mentioned would actually still work, I think:

"A <bibl> appears in a <def>, and that actually means that it applies not only to the <def>'s parent <sense> element, but also to the preceding sibling <form> element."

That should actually cover all possible variations:

-different sources are all listed in the same bibl
-different definitions are handled as above
-different forms of the same word get different <form>s and <sense>s anyway.

So can I get away with not putting bibls in the form after all?

Here are some more decisions we made in Friday's meeting:

1) Yes, we still need seg tags within quote tags in example phrases, even if there is no breakdown of the gloss. For example ...

This one has a breakdown of the gloss:

<seg>whole wheat <gloss>flour</gloss></seg>

This one doesn't, but it should still have <seg>s:

<seg><gloss>flour mill</gloss></seg>

I have fixed all these in the s-rtr file.

2) There does not have to be a hyph line for every form in an entry - just the first form in each entry.

3) For zero morphemes, we will use the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH STROKE character. Ewa will create entries in the affix file for Ø1 and Ø2.

4) When Ewa has added a gloss which was not attested in the original data, we will format it as in this example:

<sense>
<def>
<seg><gloss>stretch</gloss></seg>
<note resp="ECH">[definition by ECH]</note>
</def>
</sense>