Interlinearization mode

Interlinearization mode is a text oriented mode designed for parsing and glossing annotations to one or more lines of interlinearized text. This can be done manually or with the use of one or more so-called Analyzers. The segmentation and (typically) the transcription of speech events need to be done in one or more of the other modes before interlinearization can be added in this mode.

Analyzers are software modules that accept an annotation as input and produce suggestions for one or more annotations, on one or more tiers, as output. Examples of the type of processing analyzers can perform are tokenization, morphological parsing and lookup of glosses. The behavior of some analyzers can be configured in a settings panel. Some analyzers need a connection to a lexicon, others can perform their task based on the input alone. Analyzers are implemented as extensions so that third party users and developers can create and add their own analyzers. At least eventually: the LEXAN API, as it is called, still has to be finalized, documented and published.

Part of the user interface of this mode is a Lexicon panel, the front-end of a Lexicon Component module. It allows to create, import and edit a lexicon and its entries. Lexicons are stored separately from annotation data in a new data format. These are the lexicons that analyzers can get access to.

To start the Interlinearization mode, click Options > Interlinearization Mode from the main window.

Figure 3.21. Select Interlinearization Mode

Select Interlinearization Mode

The main screen is split in two, the left side containing 2 panels, the right side consisting of a single panel.

Figure 3.22. Interlinearization mode main view

Interlinearization mode main view

To start working in Interlinearization Mode, you need to have already set up a tier structure and have to have some segmentations (annotations on a top level tier). The values of annotations can be edited in this mode and annotations on dependent tiers, including subdivisions, can be created, but not primary segmentations on top-level, independent tiers. This can be done in Annotation mode and/or Segmentation mode. It is still possible to add new tier types and tiers in this mode (please refer to How to define a tier type and How to define a tier and its attributes for more information about tier structures).

If you want to use an analyzer that requires a connection to a lexicon, you should first create or import a lexicon and link one or more tier types to specific fields in a lexical entry (see Adding new tier types and Set the Lexicon Service and entry field information for a Tier Type).

Analyzer setup and configuration

In order to analyze/interlinearize annotations with the assistance of an analyzer (i.e. other than strictly manual annotation), some configuring is required first. The top-left panel, titled Configure Analyzer Settings, shows the number of current configurations below the Analyzer & Source-Target Configuration button which opens a separate window when clicked, see below.

Figure 3.23. Analyzer and source-target configuration dialog

Analyzer and source-target configuration dialog

Configuration of analyzer settings consists of two parts:

  • Required: specification of source and target tier types. Analyzers need input text and the system needs to know what the input source is. Analyzers will produce output and the system must know what the target(s) is (are). Source and target(s) specifications are based on tier types; the types will resolve to combinations of tiers based on those types.
  • Optional: an analyzer might provide a way to modify settings and thus to change its behavior. But it should work with default settings too.

By ticking the Show tier mapping checkbox the table shows to which tiers each "analyzer-tier type" configuration applies. E.g. in case there are three speakers and the speech tier for all speakers use the same tier type, three tiers will be listed if that type is selected as source of an analyzer etc.

Figure 3.24. The configuration dialog with resolved tier mappings visible

The configuration dialog with resolved tier mappings visible

To add new configurations or edit existing ones click the Edit configuration... button to the right. The Remove configuration... removes the selected configuration, if any.

In the dialog that appears, you can, working from left to right, choose the analyzers you would like to use and set the source and target tiers for each analyzer.

Figure 3.25. Analyzer - Tier Type configuration screen, choosing an analyzer

Analyzer - Tier Type configuration screen, choosing an analyzer

First, you choose a certain analyzer, as described in Types of analyzers and their settings. You can configure multiple analyzers, one per line.

Figure 3.26. Choosing the source tier type

Choosing the source tier type

Each chosen analyzer will need a source and at least one target tier type for it to function. The source and target tier should not be the same. By default, the user interface tries to assist in the setup by only listing types in the source and target columns if certain constraints are met. E.g. in the column for the source a tier type is only listed if there is at least one tier based on that tier type and if that tier has at least one dependent tier (which can then be selected as target).

Figure 3.27. Choosing the target tier type(s)

Choosing the target tier type(s)

In the columns of the target tier types only tier types are listed for which there is at least one tier created as dependent tier of a tier of the source type. If the analyzer supports two target tiers the rightmost column will allow selection of the type for the second target, otherwise this column will be disabled.

When the List all available types... checkbox is ticked, the check on source and target types is not performed and all tier types of the transcription are listed. After selecting the target type(s) a warning message might still be shown that there are possible issues with the configuration, but the user can choose to ignore this.

Figure 3.28. A warning concerning a missing link to a lexicon field or the absence of suitable tiers

A warning concerning a missing link to a lexicon field or the absence of suitable tiers

Some constraints are not checked:

  • if an analyzer potentially produces multiple (suggestions for) annotations, the type of the target should be one of the subdivision types. This is not enforced.

Note

If an analyzer needs access to a certain field in a lexicon the selected type for the source and/or the target should be linked to the proper field in the right lexicon, see Adding new tier types. This way the analyzer knows which lexicon and which field to query.

When you are done with the configuration, click Apply to finish and go back to the main dialog with the table listing the current configurations.

Note

Sometimes, especially after changing an existing configuration, it is necessary to save the file and open it again to see the effect of the changes.

A selected configuration can be removed here too by clicking the Remove configuration button. If the selected analyzer supports customization of settings, the Configure <analyzer name> button will be active and clicking it will show a Configure Analyzer Settings window (double clicking the analyzer in the table has the same effect). But before the actual analyzer settings window opens, you can choose whether global settings or configuration specific settings are going to be updated. This allows for different settings for an analyzer for different source-target combinations, e.g. depending on the language of involved tiers. In case of doubt choose Global Settings.

Figure 3.29. The choice to edit global or specific settings

The choice to edit global or specific settings

The next section describes some analyzers and their settings.

Types of analyzers and their settings

The following analyzers are distributed with ELAN:

  • Parse Analyzer
  • Gloss Analyzer
  • Lexicon Analyzer (a combination of the Parse and Gloss analyzers)
  • Whitespace Analyzer

Figure 3.30. Analyzer settings configuration panel

Analyzer settings configuration panel

The names are somewhat misleading; all of the Parse, Gloss and Lexicon analyzers require access to a lexicon. The Parse analyzer morphologically parses annotations from a word (or token) level tier, based on lexical units (prefixes, stems, suffixes etc.) available in the lexicon (internally the parser is implemented as a state machine with a stack). The results are shown as parse suggestions in a suggestion window from which the user can select one. This analyzer requires one source tier and one target tier, where the target is of a subdivision tier type.

The Gloss analyzer looks up the source annotation in the lexicon and lists all glosses found in the matched entries. The results are again presented as suggestions from which the user can select one. This analyzer requires one source tier and one target tier, where the target is of a symbolic association tier type.

The Lexicon analyzer is a combination of the parse and the gloss analyzer. By configuring the lexicon analyzer, the source tier containing the annotations will both be parsed and glossed in one action. This analyzer requires one source tier and two target tiers.

The Whitespace analyzer splits the selected source annotation at white spaces and places the result on the target tier. It does not need any user confirmation. This analyzer requires one source tier and one target tier, where the target is of a subdivision tier type. Currently the behavior of this analyzer can not be configured (e.g. with respect to treatment of punctuation marks), this might be added in the future.

When configuring analyzers and their source and target tiers, it is possible that the target tier from one analyzer, is the source tier for the next analyzer. The configuration of the tiers is based on tier types rather than on individual tiers.

Note

Configuration on the basis of individual tiers might be added later as an option as well.

The Lexicon analyzer

The Lexicon analyzer is a combination of the parse and the gloss analyzer. When a lexical entry matches a part of the input token during the matching process (and thus becomes part of one of the suggestions), the glosses of that entry are added to the suggestions too (these "glosses" can be the from any field of the entry, depending on the tier-typ configuration), By configuring the lexicon analyzer, the source tier containing the annotations will both be parsed and glossed in one action. This analyzer requires one source tier and two target tiers. (The LEXAN API currently limits the number of target tiers to two, this might be too restrictive and may need to be reconsidered in a future release.)

Figure 3.31. Lexicon Analyzer settings configuration window

Lexicon Analyzer settings configuration window

The Lexicon analyzer supports the following configurable settings:

  • Include variants in the parsing process if this option is checked the parser will also look at the variant field in the process of matching morphemes from the lexicon with parts of the word or token it has received as input
  • Match longer prefixes/suffixes first by default the parser tries to match shorter prefixes before longer ones. This has an effect on the order of the suggestions
  • Exclude aborted parses from results if the parser hasn't finished (one iteration of) the matching process within the maximum number of steps, it adds an "++ABORT++" label at the position in the suggestions where it stopped. This option allows to filter them out of the presented results.
  • Case sensitive matching tells the analyzer whether or not to ignore case in the matching process
  • Match entry field language against tier content language this option allows the analyzer to only include fields with a language string equal to the content language of the target tier (the short id, e.g. "nld" for Dutch). If a lexical entry contains e.g. glosses in multiple languages, only the gloss(es) with the same langauge as the target tier will be suggested.
  • Only suggest parses with same category constituents when this option is selected the analyzer only includes suggestions where the parts have the same grammatical category (based on exact matching, no support for regular expressions yet).
  • Use the citation form of the lexical entry in the output with this option selected the analyzer will use the citation form field in the output (if it exists).
  • Maximum number of parse steps this option determines when the parser should stop the matching process to prevent an unusable number of suggestions
  • Affix marker character by default the analyzer assumes the character that is used to mark a lexical entry as a prefix (a-) or suffix (-a) is a hyphen. This can be changed here (ideally this information should be an accessible property of the lexicon). Apart from this marker, the analyzer has hard coded, built-in support for the morpheme types "prefix", "suffix", "root", "stem" to determine what to try to match in the parsing process.
  • Clitic marker character this field allows to specify the character used to mark clitics in the lexicon. Clitics are treated the same as affixes in the parsing process.
  • String for missing values sets the text the analyzer should use to indicate that a part (e.g. a gloss) is missing in the lexicon
  • "Replace" field in the lexicon this analyzer supports replacement of a matched morph by one or more characters to make the next parse step (more) successful. This replacement text should be in the lexical entry and by default the analyzer looks for a (custom) field "replace". If it is in another field, it can be specified here.

Changes in these settings will only be passed to the analyzer after clicking Apply Settings!

The Parse analyzer

This analyzer is largely the same as the parser part of the Lexicon analyzer, with the same configurable settings. It does not support the Match entry field language against tier content language option, which belongs to the glossing part of the process.

The Gloss analyzer

This analyzer performs a look-up of the input token in the lexicon and returns all values of the lexical entry field it is configured for (via the tier type). This doesn't have to be the "gloss" field of the lexical entries, but can be any field.

Figure 3.32. Gloss Analyzer settings configuration window

Gloss Analyzer settings configuration window

This analyzer supports the following configurable setting:

  • Also match against variant fields in the look up process if this option is checked the glosser will also look at the variant field in the process of matching the input
  • Match gloss language against tier content language this option allows the analyzer to only include glosses with a language string equal to the content language of the target tier (the short id, e.g. "nld" for Dutch). If a lexical entry contains e.g. glosses in multiple languages, only the gloss(es) with the same langauge as the target tier will be suggested.
  • Also match against the citation field in the look up process with this option selected the analyzer will use the citation form field in the output (if it exists).
  • String for missing values sets the text the analyzer should use if the specified field is not found in matched entries in the lexicon

The Whitespace Text analyzer

This analyzer splits the input text it receives into multiple tokens based on white spaces. It allows to configure how e.g. punctuation marks should be treated.

Figure 3.33. Whitespace analyzer configuration panel

Whitespace analyzer configuration panel

The + (Add) and - (Remove) buttons can be used to add or remove a category of characters, represented by a row in the table. A category can contain one or more characters; if there are more than one, each character is separately treated according to the setting for that category. The table has two columns, one labelled Marks, where the special characters or marks can be entered, and one labelled Action, specifying the way those characters should be handled in the tokenization process. When clicked on, the second column shows a dropdown list with predefined actions:

  • Treat as white space means that the input will be split at the position of this character and that this character itself will not be in the output
  • Create separate annotation means that the input will be split at this position and that this character will become a separate token (annotation) in the output
  • Keep with preceding token means that this character will become part of the same annotation as the characters to the left of it
  • Keep with following token means that this character will become part of the same annotation as the characters to the right of it
  • Remove means that this character will be removed from the input string without causing a split of the input (i.e. it is filtered out)

The Apply button has to be clicked to inform the analyzer of the changes and to put them into effect.

Lexicons

The main purpose of the Lexicon Component in ELAN is to support the (semi-automated) interlinearization process. It is not intended as a full-fledged lexicon tool, though the data model supports a bit more than strictly necessary for its main purpose. The data model and XML-based data format are similar to the LIFT format (Lexicon Interchange Format)), but simplified. These are the main fields of a lexical entry:

  • lexical-unit (1)
  • morph-type (0 or 1)
  • citation (0 or 1)
  • variant (0 or more)
  • phonetic (0 or more)
  • sense (1 or more)
    • grammatical-category (1)
    • gloss (1 or more)

The main field is lexical-unit (equivalent to lemma, headword, the primary lexical form). morph-type indicates the word part (e.g. stem, prefix, suffix), analyzers can use this information when processing the input text. The grammatical-category field is the category of the lexical item, the part of speech. The Edit Entry window shows which other fields can be added at the moment. (The data model defines more fields than visible in the entry window, but support and documentation hereof is still pending.) The user can add custom fields at the level of the entry and at the level of sense, these will be visible as field: name.

In the lexicon panel of the interlinearization mode the contents of lexicons can be displayed, one lexicon at the time. But it is possible to store and manage multiple lexicons on disc and choose which one to display. The leftmost drop-down box above the table lists all lexicons that have created or imported.

Figure 3.34. The list of available lexicons

The list of available lexicons


If a lexicon has been selected and is displayed in the panel, lexical entries can be added, edited or removed.

Figure 3.35. Lexicon overview

Lexicon overview

The lexicon overview can be adjusted to display or hide certain columns. To do so, you have to right-click on a lexical entry to display the context-menu. From there, you can show or hide columns of the lexicon. Some fields can occur more than once in an entry (like variant or gloss), these will be displayed in a single cell, each value surrounded by square brackets. The context menu also has Add, Remove and Edit items, which have the same function as the buttons below the table (see Editing lexical entries).

Figure 3.36. Lexicon context-menu

Lexicon context-menu

The order of the entries in the table can be changed by clicking on any of the column headers, a little arrow indicates whether the items are sorted in ascending or descending order.

Creating & editing lexicons

Actions for creating and editing lexicons are available in the Lexicon Actions drop-down menu. The actions always apply to the lexicon that is selected in the lexicons list and visible in the table. The actions will be discussed below.

Figure 3.37. The Lexicon Actions

The Lexicon Actions


  • The Open Lexicon Editor Window... option opens a separate window for editing lexicons and lexical entries. Especially when multiple modifications are intended, this is more convenient than the one-time use entry edit dialogs described in Editing lexical entries. The separate Lexicon Editor is described in section The Lexicon Editor.
  • To create a new lexicon from scratch choose Create New Lexicon.... A new dialog will appear, allowing you to fill out details about your new lexicon.

    Figure 3.38. Create New Lexicon dialog

    Create New Lexicon dialog

    When the details have been filled out (a Name and a Language are required), click Apply to create the lexicon. The lexicon file will be stored in a predefined folder labeled LexanLexicons inside the Special ELAN data folder. The file name is based on the name of the lexicon and the file extension is .xml.

  • The Open Lexicon... option allows to open a lexicon that is already in the native format but is in a different folder. The lexicon file is then copied to the LexanLexicons folder. So, this action behaves like an import function for lexicons that don't need to be converted (e.g. a file that has been shared by a colleague).
  • The Close Lexicon option closes the current lexicon, the table will be cleared and No Lexicon will be selected.
  • The Save Lexicon action updates the corresponding file in the default location, if there have been any changes in the lexicon.
  • The Save Lexicon as... option allows to save the lexicon somewhere else in the same file format, e.g. for the purpose of creating a back up file. This action is similar to the export functions but then in the native format.
  • The Save Lexicon with Current Entry Order option saves the lexicon with the entries sorted as they are visible in the table of lexical entries (the lexicon framework doesn't allow to specify a custom sort order yet).
  • The Edit Lexicon Properties... option opens a window similar to the Create New Lexicon dialog, the properties that have been entered before can be updated or completed here. But there are two additional tabs, Custom Fields and Sort Order, described below. Click the Apply button to apply the changes to the lexicon.

    Figure 3.39. The Edit Lexicon Properties window

    The Edit Lexicon Properties window

    Figure 3.40. The Custom Fields tab

    The Custom Fields tab

    The Custom Fields tab allows to specify the names of custom fields (at the level of entry or sense or both) to be used in lexical entries of this lexicon.

    Figure 3.41. The Sort Order tab

    The Sort Order tab

    In the Sort Order tab a preferred sort order can be specified by entering an ordered list of tokens consisting of one or more characters. The sort order will be applied to the lexical-unit field but also for the variant and citation fields. After changing the sort order it might be necessary to click the header of the lexical-unit column once to enforce re-sorting of the table.

    Note

    It is advised to use the Save Lexicon with Current Entry Order option to apply the new sort order to the underlying data structure as well (not only to the view). After that, new lexical entries will be inserted according to the custom sort order.

  • The Import Lexicon... option opens a file browser window that allows to select either a Toolbox lexicon (.dic, .db, .txt), a lexicon in LIFT format (.lift) or a CorpAfroAs lexicon (.eafl). In case a Toolbox file has been selected, a configuration window will be shown (see below), otherwise a converter will import as much as possible from the original lexicon data into an ELAN lexicon and will add the new lexicon to the list of lexicons.

    Figure 3.42. Import Toolbox dictionary

    Import Toolbox dictionary

    This window allows to specify mappings from Toolbox field markers to ELAN lexicon entry fields. The main element in the window is a tabel with in the first column the list of markers that have been found in the Toolbox dictionary file. In the second column the corresponding field name can be selected from a list or a custom field name can be entered (either custom-field-name or sense/custom-field-name). For some fields it will be possible to enter a language code in the third column, depending on the value in the second column. Markers that don't have a mapping in the second column will be ignored during the import process.

    Other elements in this configuration window are:

    • The Lexicon Name text field allows to enter a name for the lexicon. A name is required, it is also used for the file name of the lexicon.
    • The Show raw field names in table checkbox only has an effect on how field names appear in the table, as friendly name or as their raw equivalents from the lexicon XML file.

      Figure 3.43. Import Toolbox dictionary showing "raw" field names

      Import Toolbox dictionary showing "raw" field names

    • The Split semicolon separated fields into multiple fields option requests the import function to produce multiple fields from a single input field, if the input contains one or more semicolon characters and if the target field is allowed to appear more than once in an entry (e.g. the input has multiple gloss values separated by semicolons).

    After clicking the OK button several warning messages might be shown, e.g. if required information is missing, if a required field has not been selected in the second column (e.g. lexical-unit) or if a field has been selected more often than allowed.

  • The Export Lexicon... action only supports conversion to LIFT format.

Note

There is currently no Undo/Redo mechanism for lexicon edit actions!

Note

If multiple transcription windows are open, using the same lexicon, modifying the lexicon should preferably be done in only one window. On Windows there is no guarantee that all windows are updated correctly after a change in a lexicon made in a different window!

Note

More documentation about the structure of lexical entries, about which fields are required, what is hard-coded etc. will follow. The same for native, import and export formats etc.

Editing lexical entries

After creating or importing a lexicon, lexical entries be added, edited or removed. Adding a new entry can be started by clicking the Add button on the bottom of the Lexicon main panel or by choosing the Add menu item from the context menu, if there are already entries in the table. A new dialog will appear, allowing to create a new entry by entering values for, at least, the required fields.

Figure 3.44. Add a Lexical Entry

Add a Lexical Entry

When you are finished, click Apply to add the entry to the lexicon. Required fields will be highlighted if you click Apply while not all required fields are filled in.

Editing a lexical entry can be done by either clicking the Edit button on the bottom of the panel, by right-clicking the entry and choosing Edit from the context-menu or by double-clicking the entry in a cell that can not be edited directly in the table (i.e. the lexical-unit field or any field of which there can be more than one). A dialog will open, displaying the chosen lexical unit as a tree structure. Some general information is shown, such as ID and date of creation.

Figure 3.45. Edit a lexical entry

Edit a lexical entry

  • To edit the entry, click on the value that you would like to add or change or press TAB to select the first editable field. It will become active and ready for editing, a dark blue border will highlight it. Hitting the TAB key accepts the value of the current field and activates the next field.
  • The fields that are displayed in a dark grey color are so-called placeholders: these fields are not yet there, but can be created. When activating such field the + button can be clicked to add the field to the entry and to make the text field editable.
  • In general when activating a field + or - buttons can be present and can be enabled or greyed out, depending on whether more fields of that type can be added or if that field can be deleted. Pressing the + or = keyboard key triggers the Add Field action, the - key the Remove Field action.
  • When a field is removed it will still be shown in the entry, but in a red color.
  • Changes will only be applied to the entry in the lexicon after clicking the Apply button or pressing the ENTER key.
  • Changes can be discarded by clicking the Cancel button or pressing the ESC key or the CTRL+W combination.

Removal of a lexical entry is done by highlighting the entry in the lexical entries table and then either clicking the Remove button on the bottom of the Lexicon panel, or by right-clicking the entry and choosing Remove from the context-menu.

The Lexicon Editor

The Lexicon Editor combines the editing actions described in the previous sections in a separate, blocking window. The window is split in two with on the left side the same lexical entry table as in the main window and on the right side the lexical entry editor.

Figure 3.46. The Lexicon Editor window

The Lexicon Editor window

The menu bar has three menus:

  • The File menu holds most of the lexicon Open, Save and Import/Export actions that are described in Creating & editing lexicons
  • The Edit menu currently only contains the Edit Lexicon Properties item.
  • The View menu lists the available lexicons. Selecting a lexicon here will load it and fill the Lexical Entries table with its entries.

    Figure 3.47. The Lexicon View menu

    The Lexicon View menu


The left panel shows the name of the current lexicon at the top, with visual highlighting when there are unsaved changes to the lexicon. The lexical entry table covers most of the space, it has the same column showing/hiding and sorting mechanisms as mentioned above. A single click on an entry loads the entry in the entry edit panel to the right. The UP and DOWN keys select the entry in the previous or the next row and loads it. The Add button creates a new entry and loads it. The required fields in an entry are filled with template text, to be modified by the user.

Figure 3.48. A new lexical entry

A new lexical entry

Navigation from one field to the next is again performed with the TAB key, the ENTER key applies the current changes to the entry. If another entry is selected and loaded, changes in the current entry will be applied without a prompt.

Note

If there are multiple ELAN windows open with the same lexicon visible, it might be necessary to reload the lexicon in those windows to see the modifications made in the Lexicon Editor.

Figure 3.49. Filtering the lexical entries

Filtering the lexical entries

It is possible to filter the entries in the table by entering a search string in the Filter Entries text field and pressing Enter. The input is treated as a regular expression. The filter can either be applied to all visible columns or to a single column, selected in the Column drop down box. This allows, for example, to only show the entries with a citation form starting with a 'c'. The filter can be removed again by clicking the Reset button and all entries will be listed again.

The interlinearization panel

The interlinearization panel shows the tier structures and the annotations that were created in e.g. the annotation mode. The annotations are displayed in cells, like in a table or a list, each cell containing a top level annotation and its dependent annotations. The annotations of all visible top level tiers are sorted on time and then added to the cells. This is the main editing area in this mode, for manual and for assisted annotation. In this panel the configured analyzers can be invoked, either for an individual annotation or for a sequence of annotations, via the Analyze/Interlinearize button. The result(s) produced by the analyzer will either be shown here in a Suggestions Window (if there are suggestions to choose from) or immediately applied and added to the designated tier(s) as determined by the analyzer configuration.

Figure 3.50. Interlinearization Panel

Interlinearization Panel

The panel has a small "toolbar" at the top with the following options:

  • The Play Selection panel allows to play back the audio of the interval corresponding to the selected cell (light blue background). A small progress bar shows the playback progress within the interval. The source of the audio is the first media file in the list (the "master media").
  • The Analyze/Interlinearize button starts an automatic, sequential processing of annotations, starting from the active annotation (or the first one of the right type in the view) and then continuing to the right and to the bottom. If the analyzer produces multiple suggestions and user interaction is required, it will pause when the suggestions window is on screen, until the user selects one of the suggestions and the analyzer will continue with the next annotation. When the suggestion window is closed with the ESC key or by clicking the window Close button, this ends the automatic processing. Clicking inside the suggestions window but outside of any of the suggestions, will ignore these suggestions but continue with the automatic processing.
  • The Recursive option only has an effect if there are more than one analyzer source-target configurations. When this checkbox is selected, annotations created by an analyzer will in turn be analyzed, if the first analyzer's target tier is configured as a source tier for another analyzer.
  • The Font Size - and + buttons decrease or increase the size of the font(s) in the panel. The keyboard equivalents are CTRL+- and CTRL++ (CTRL+=).
  • The divider to the left of the Analyze/Interlinearize button can be dragged to change the width of the area of the tier labels.
  • The Configure button creates a dialog in which the user can customize margins and colors used in the interlinearization panel.

    Figure 3.51. Interlinear editor configuration window

    Interlinear editor configuration window


    The following properties can be set:

    • Two background colors for alternating rows.
    • Background and border color of the annotation boxes (if any).
    • Horizontal and vertical margins in pixels between the text and the border of the annotation boxes.
    • The width in pixels representing a white space between annotations (1 - 20).

    Figure 3.52. Customized Interlinearization Panel

    Customized Interlinearization Panel


The tiers that are visible in the editor can be configured via the right-click context menu of the tier names area.

Figure 3.53. Visible tiers context-menu

Visible tiers context-menu

The Show / Hide More... option opens the same window as described in Switching tiers on/off and in View tiers by Type/Participant/Annotator. The Speaker tier is not a real tier but it shows the Participant attribute of the top level tier in this cell. The TC (time code) tier shows the begin and end time of the top level annotation in this cell.

Note

Hiding the top level tier(s) hides all depending tiers, effectively removing the corresponding cells.

A context-menu will also be shown when right-clicking an annotation. Depending on the annotation there can be different options. This allows you to start interlinearization of an annotation, delete an annotation, or add new annotations.

Figure 3.54. Interlinearization context-menu with Analyze option

Interlinearization context-menu with Analyze option

If the active annotation is on a tier that is the source tier for any of the analyzers, there will be the Analyze / Interlinearize option, which invokes the analyzer with this annotation as input. The option Deleting annotations will always be there, while Entering annotations before/after other annotations and Creating depending annotations for a active annotation are available depending on the type of tier the annotation is on.

Another option is also only available for some annotations.

Figure 3.55. Context-menu with Add to Lexicon option

Context-menu with Add to Lexicon option

The Add to Lexicon option is only available for annotations that are on a tier that is linked to a field in a lexicon (via its tier type). This action opens the new entry window (Figure 3.44, “Add a Lexical Entry”) and adds the value of the annotation to the corresponding lexical entry field.

The Suggestion View

When you click the Analyze / Interlinearize button or right-click and choose Analyze / Interlinearize from the context-menu, the process of analyzing or interlinearization will commence. If the analyzer produces multiple, alternative suggestions that need to be disambiguated, a window will appear showing the suggestions in a layout similar to that of the interlinearization panel. This is called the Suggestion View. The window is positioned just below the source annotation but it can be moved and resized. If you tick the Remember window position checkbox, the Suggestion View will show up with the size and location of the last time it was shown.

Figure 3.56. Suggestion View

Suggestion View

The image above displays the Suggestion View with suggestions produced by the Lexicon analyzer, which has two target tiers. It both suggests possible parsings of the input annotation as well as glosses, based on lexical entries found in the current lexicon. You can select the suggestion that best matches your expectations by clicking on it. This is recorded by the analyzer and the next time the same input occurs, it will move the suggestions that have been selected most often to the top of the list. A little header saying "chosen x times before" will appear in those suggestions. If the width of a suggestion makes part of the header invisible then hovering the mouse over the header will show the text in a tooltip. Hovering the mouse over a part of the suggestions will show relevant fields of the lexical entry that part is based on.

Figure 3.57. Tooltip showing some fields of the originating lexical entry (for suggestion S6)

Tooltip showing some fields of the originating lexical entry (for suggestion S6)

There are several keyboard shortcuts for mouse-less interaction with the Suggestion View.

Figure 3.58. Keyboard shortcuts in the Suggestion View

Keyboard shortcuts in the Suggestion View

  • Digits 1-9 and 0 select suggestion number 1-10
  • Digits while pressing SHIFT will select suggestions 11-20
  • SPACE or ENTER selects the first suggestion
  • TAB, BACKSPACE or DELETE ignore this suggestion (and move to the next one in case of sequential processing)
  • ESC or W closes the Suggestion View
  • the UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT arrow keys scroll the view area, if there are scroll bars
  • PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN scroll through the pages in the scroll area
  • the R key reverses the order of the suggestions
  • the I key switches between incremental and normal selection mode (see Figure 3.59, “Incremental, step-by-step selection of suggestions, left to right”)

It can happen that there are so many suggestions that they are (too) hard to overview. There may be many similar-looking options, e.g. similar looking parses. To get some visual aid, you can press Shift and hover the mouse pointer over the fragments of a suggestion. This will trigger a colouring effect: all suggestions with the same value at that position will be displayed with the same background colour (i.e. there will be as many different colours as there are different values in that position). By then clicking one of the suggestions (Shift still pressed), only the suggestions with the same colour will remain in view, all others are removed. This can be a way to narrow down the available choices.

Alternatively it is possible to switch to Incremental selection mode. In that mode disambiguation of the fragments is supported by showing only the alternatives for one specific position, starting with the first one from the left. After choosing the best option, the remaining alternatives for the second fragment are shown, and so on. When filtering for alternatives for a fragment, only the surface form is taken into account (different entries with the same value in the relevant field are shown as one).

Figure 3.59. Incremental, step-by-step selection of suggestions, left to right

Incremental, step-by-step selection of suggestions, left to right

The right mouse button context menu of a suggestion contains one option Don't show this suggestion again, which, if the analyzer supports this, will expel this output or this suggestion (i.e. this combination of elements in the suggestion) for this input from future suggestions.

Figure 3.60. The context menu of a suggestion

The context menu of a suggestion