From: Steven T. Hatton
Message: 1443
Date: 2001-08-07
> <html><body>Selv,
> <tt>
> Steven T. Hatton wrote:<BR>
> >>I have Gordon's book as well. I spent a great deal of time
> trying to write<BR> >>a java program that would enable me to enter
> the 'base' words (the ones <BR> that<BR>
> >>aren't inflected, plural, etc.,) and use them as database
> keys. My hope <BR> was<BR>
> >>to have a category for each word. Based on that category I wanted
> to define<BR> >>all the possible variants of the word. What I
> came to realize was that I<BR> >>don't know nearly as much as I
> thought I did about grammar.<BR> <BR>
> Arlie replied:<BR>
> >Interesting idea. Quite complicated; there are lots of little
> variances<BR> >in conjugation, declension, etc., that seem to be
> practically intuitive<BR> >once you've memorized enough paradigms, but
> not at all natural until then.<BR> <BR>
> I've been thinking about how to structure a similar site, except using <BR>
> MySQL and PHP - I figure by making separate databases for each type of <BR>
> noun, verb, etc, I can program the conjugation rules into the PHP <BR>
> interface, and just make the database entries as strings of root words and
> <BR> declinated endings, and then it can search multiple databases for all
> the <BR> words which could be conjugated into a particular form - so if you
> typed in <BR> "sé", for example, it would not only give you which
> base words can produce <BR> that form, but exactly which form it would
> be. Once the initial version is <BR> in place, it could in theory get
> more advanced and be possible to enter in <BR> a sentence and have it
> determine which forms are correct by comparing them <BR> to the other words
> in the sentence and picking the ones that have cases <BR> which
> agree...<BR>
> <BR>
> but first I need to create the database structure and doing some data <BR>
> entry, taking full advantage of all the Old Norse dictionaries I have at my
> <BR> disposal (I have la Farge, de Vries, Gordon, Vigfusson, Zoëga, <BR>
> Valfells-Cathey, Barnes... um, I should probably stop before someone sends
> <BR> a raiding party to Seattle ;-)<BR>
> <BR>
> -Selv<BR>
> <BR>