Re: Database Project

On Tuesday 07 August 2001 06:47, you wrote:

> <html><body>
> <tt>
> Hello Steven! 
> Your method of learning Old Norse is obviously to create 
> software that mimics the morphology. Well, that certainly seems to be 
> as valid a way of learning as any other. It also indicates a certain 
> paradigm shift: "Understanding something means that you can write 
> software that mimics it."

Keth,

Actually all it seem to mean is I can make a computer understand ON. {;-)>
Just because I transcribe the content of Gordon into some kind of computer
code doesn't mean *I* understand it. I will say that my learning style is
different from most people's. What I want is a learning tool that I and
others can use.

Imagine being able to read the Hávamál online and click on a word to get
links to definitions, explanations, cultural information, images, etc. Take
just the example of "sitja á fleti fyrir" from the first verse. This cannot
be correctly understood until the reader has a mental image of 10th century
Scandinavian houses. If one could click on some links and end up with a
description and picture representing "fleti" it would be very helpful, as
well as fun.

I haven't actually used this very much, but I do find it interesting:
http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/OEA/
Unfortunately I've had lots of problems using it with Linux, and I try to
avoid Microsoft products as much as I can.

> >That should give you some idea where I'm going. One place that looks
> like it >will be some work to figure out is the adverbs. 
> 
> But the adverbs aren't declined, are they? 
> So they would be the easiest words to deal with.

Gordon does provide some categories and such for adverbs. I'm just not sure
exactly which divisions I should incorporate into the structure of my
outline. I have only glanced at that section. I'm still in the nouns where
I started.

> >I believe they can be broken 
> >down in a way similar to the nouns. I'm simply going through
> Gordon's >*Accidence* chapter and trying to map things out until I
> have a place for all >the words. I'm sure things will come to
> mind as I go along. I would very >much like to be able to
> link to and from a dictionary, but that is way down >the
> road. I would also like to add some descriptive text similar to that
> >found in Gordon. I can't take too much directly from his
> book lest I commit >plagiarism. 
> 
> I have compared many Old Icelandic grammar books. 
> Gordon's is among the shorter ones. It is very 
> well done, and gives a very good overview, but 
> compared to the others it is a bit on the short side. 
> 
> Merely from the observation of its brevity, I think 
> one can draw certain conclusions about its adequacy, 
> and that is that you will discover sooner or later that 
> it is not complete. (you will find there is a lot 
> of grammar problems that you meet in practical work, that 
> it fails to answer)

My feeling is that Gordon's grammar section is very condensed. There's a lot
of information, but a person who is not already skilled in learning languages
will find it difficult to use. What I hope to do is expand it in such a way
that a person can get a better feel for it's structure. I also want to
create a complete list of ON words and their gramatical roles and morphology.
I once wrote a program which ran through all the verses in the Eddas
creating a list of all the different words. Believe it or not, the list is
finite!

> The most complete one I have seen is the one by Adolf Noreen. 
> (Swedish linguist), But it is of course much more difficult 
> than Gordon's book. (btw the "grammar" in Gordon is only 
> a small section of his book, which is primarily an ON reader, 
> but with a rather well written reference section for the grammar)

It's hard to find good ON resources in the States. Gordon is all I've found
so far.

> I think it is definitely a book that is very well suited for 
> course work, where the instructor gives weekly (or daily?) 
> assignments, and gives hints about how to use the reference 
> section for solving the assigned problems. (for example 
> weekly hand in problems would be a good way to run such a course) 
> But it is not meant as a book for self study. (unless you 
> are already well versed in grammar studies from other contexts)

I fully agree. I spent a lot of time looking for definitions and alternative
explanations for the concepts in Gordon.

My biggest problem is limiting the scope of my interests. I have a vision of
a database system that would hold gramatical information and a complet
vocabulary for all old Germanic languages (a sane person would never even
mention the idea of including all living Germanic languages!) Gordon's work
is obviously based on a model of Proto-Germanic with which I am not familiar.
It would be interesting and helpful to be able to click on a word in an
electronic text and pull up an interactive dictionary which would provide the
capability of exploring the connections the word has in other Germanic
languages.

> Here is a simpler project: 
> Create an Old Norse spelling checker. 
> 
> Funny thing: 
> I tried to look at the data file that is used by one of my 
> English spell checkers. BUT: I did *not* find the words 
> I had entered in the file.

There's is probably a different file stored in your home directory with the
list you added.

> Apparently the spell checkers use 
> a kind of algorithmic/numeric/binary tree-model for storing 
> the data about what words are "valid" words in the language. 
> Does any one know what the algorithm is? 
> 
> Best regards 
> Keth

There are some open source spell checkers such as ispell. If you are brave
enough, and have an infinite amount of time to spend on the project, you may
want to crack that open and look at the code. I suspect there are some
highly sophisticated programs which deal with the structure of languages. I
certainly don't have time to explore the subject (unless I get paid for it),
but products such as babelfish and this http://www.translate.ru/eng ,
probably represent a well developed discipline. My biggest problem is that
the scope these projects tend to grow exponentially and quickly. I end up
putting a lot of effort into something which doesn't amount to much in the
end. Be careful.

Steven