LINGUIST List 2.465

Wed 04 Sep 1991

Disc: Software

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "(an Antworth, Displayed glosses
2. Evan Antworth, Re: linguistic software for interlinear text
3. Evan Antworth, Re: Mac text analysis software
4. Evan Antworth, New Macintosh publication for linguists

I regret I have lost the recent query about getting word processors to
align words and their individual glosses - a problem that has bugged me too.
I am grateful to the correspondent who suggested using the Table facility in
Word: I shall try the same for WordPerfect, which I occasionally use.
 There is a German program called List, a development of T3 (i.e. T
superscript-3: sorry, I don't have your typographic conventions to hand),
which does it very well. A working party from the Arts Faculty at Manchester
was given a demo of List as part of our effort to report on available multi-
lingual word processors. It was a very curate's-eggy sort of demo. In some
ways the product seemed excellent: displayed glosses, full Greek, Cyrillic
and Hebrew (though without right-to-left processing), scalable Postscript
fonts, very quick text marking. BUT, footnotes are held in separate files
and cannot be searched together with main text, other standard WP features
were lacking, and - crucially - the price was for us prohibitive:
DM 3,500 for basic program, plus extra for each set of fonts and for graphics
import program, and DM 10,000 for a network licence for only four users.
 As I recall the program had been developed for text editing of biblical
and classical texts rather than linguistics, but it might suit some users.
I haven't got the company's address to hand but if anyone is interested I
think I could find it out for them.
 David Denison (d.denison  uk.ac.man)

There have been a number of postings recently about software to handle
interlinear text, such as Partitur, MS Word, TeX, and IT. I think it is
helpful to distinguish (at least) three different applications that
involve interlinear text and suggest that each requires different software.
First, one may need interlinear text software in order to analyze a large
text corpus for linguistic purposes. For this, you need an interlinear text
editor that will do two major tasks: keep the bundles of interlinear glosses
vertically aligned, and do semi-automatic glossing by maintaining a lexicon
of the glosses. The program should also permit any number of interlinear lines
and handle texts of arbitrary length. As others have noted, the two main
programs available for this large-scale text analysis are IT (that's 'eye-tee',
DOS and Macintosh versions) and Shoebox (DOS only). Both programs were
developed under the auspices of SIL (Summer Insitute of Linguistics). There
should be an SIL software catalog on the Linguist server (but I don't know
the file name); or write to me and I will e-mail it to you, or send a hard
copy. Now the bad news: DOS IT is out of print and will not be available
again until the software and manual are revised. This work is in progress,
but no promises on a delivery date (the price shouldn't exceed $40). Mac IT
is the only SIL program that is marketed commercially and is available for
about $200 from Linguist's Software in Edmonds, WA. Shoebox is available for
about $12. It is a data management system for field linguists that includes as
one of its features a text interlinearizer. While Shoebox's interlinearizer is
not as flexible as IT, it has some advantages in how it stores its lexicon;
plus it does things other than interlinearize text.
Second, one may want to produce a typeset book of interlinear texts. You will
need software that can give you full control over formatting. For this I
recommend the Interlinear Text Formatter (ITF), which is a set of TeX macros
that will produce a professionally typeset book. It is available from SIL
for about $14. A caveat: use ITF only if you intend to do large-scale
formatting and typesetting of interlinear texts. Also, it helps to have a
TeX expert handy.
Third, one may want to include fragments of interlinear text as examples
in a paper. If this is all you need to do, you probably don't need the
power of IT or ITF. Try something simpler such as MS Word formulas or Greg
Lee's TeX macros. Of course if you already have a text corpus in IT format,
examples can be extracted and pasted into your paper.
Evan Antworth
Academic Computing Department
Summer Institute of Linguistics
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas, TX 75236
U.S.A.
Internet: evantxsil.sil.org <------- new address as of May 1991
UUCP: ...!uunet!convex!txsil!evan
phone: 214/709-2418
fax: 214/709-3387

In a recent posting, Willard McCarty asked for information on
textual analysis software for the Macintosh. Here is some
information on a program called AnyText. It is a commercial
program published by Linguist's Software of Edmonds, WA.
(Disclaimer: The following is for your information only; it is not an
endorsement or recommendation. I have no connection to Linguist's
Software or to this program, though Linguist's Software does
market one SIL program [which is how I happened to find out about
AnyText].)
Evan Antworth
evantxsil.sil.org
 _______________________________________________________
The following is taken directly from promotional material
provided by Linguist's Software.
AnyText is a full proximity Boolean search engine and index
generator. It is a Hypercard-based program that allows you to
create concordances and do fast word searches on ordinary text
files in English, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and several
other Semitic and Cyrillic languages.
AnyText provides:
 Two indexed word lists for fast proximity word searches.
 Boolean AND and OR functions for operations between the
 two indexed word lists.
 Wild card string searches.
 Book, chapter, and verse references available for
 properly-formatted text files.
 Two files of different languages can be open for searching.
 Concordances with the key words in context aligned in the
 center of the screen.
 Full context easily retrieved for any concordance entry.
 Creates text files containing complete concordances and word
lists or the partial word list and concordances resulting from
proximity searches.
Includes AnyText, AnyText on-line Help, Hypercard 2.0v2, screen
fonts for Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and phonetics, and User's Manual.
Price: $99.95
Order from:
 Linguist's Software
 P.O. Box 580
 Edmonds, WA 98020
 U.S.A.
 phone (206) 775-1130
 fax (206) 771-5911

Linguist List readers may be interested in a new publication for
Macintosh users called Notes on Apple Macintosh, or NOAM for
short (no connection whatsoever with that other Noam). NOAM is
intended for field linguists of SIL (Summer Institute of
Linguistics), but should be of considerable use to anyone using a
Mac to do linguistic and anthropological work. NOAM will be
particularly focused on techniques for management and
analysis of multilingual data.
NOAM is edited by Randy Valentine, whose stated goal is "to
present you with ideas and instruction that will help you to do a
better job in your anthropology, linguistics, education and
translation work." Randy is a top-notch linguist and teacher, as
well as the author of some of the most creative and useful
Hypercard stacks I have ever seen. Randy's special area of
interest is Native North American cultures.
The first issue of NOAM just appeared this summer. In format it
is 5.5" by 8.5", 54 pages long, and profusely illustrated. The
content includes the following:
 an overview of system 7.0;
 formatting text for syntax and discourse study using
 Hypercard and Word;
 Macintosh news;
 software squibs.
NOAM is published quarterly. The subscription price for one year
is U.S. $14.00. For overseas airmail delivery, add U.S. $12.00
per year. You may obtain a trial copy of the first issue for
$3.00. Send subscription requests and trial copy requests to:
 NOAM
 Box 248
 Waxhaw, NC 28173
 U.S.A.
Evan Antworth
Academic Computing Department
Summer Institute of Linguistics
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas, TX 75236
U.S.A.
Internet: evantxsil.sil.org <------- new address as of May 1991
UUCP: ...!uunet!convex!txsil!evan
phone: 214/709-2418
fax: 214/709-3387