In addition to the web based lexicon services described here, ELAN (version 5 and higher) also contains a built-in lexicon component, available as part of the Interlinearization mode. See section Lexicons.
To improve consistency an annotator can use a controlled vocabulary (CV). From a CV an entry can be selected that serves as annotation value. Sometimes, however, it is not immediately clear what CV entry should be selected given a certain media fragment. In that case looking up a proposed annotation in a relevant lexicon could help to make a decision. ELAN enables the user to perform lookups in lexicons through the following steps:
A Lexicon Service is in essence a link to a certain lexicon that is hosted on a certain lexicon server. That means that for a user to be able to connect to a lexicon, he needs to connect to the server and subsequently select one of the available lexicons. You can either add a new lexicon or Import an existing one. To add a new lexicon do the following:
If the Add button is disabled, it means that there is no ELAN extension loaded that can handle Lexicon Services. To install an extension, please consult the release notes of ELAN at https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/.
A new Lexicon Service will appear in the drop down list of the Edit Lexicon Service dialog. Click Close to close this dialog.
To import a lexicon do the following:
Once you have selected a service name from the list, you can either click Delete to delete it, or Import to import it. The service name will now be displayed in the Edit Lexicon Service window and you can now add it (see steps 2-6 above).
Before an annotation can be used for a lexicon lookup, the tier type of the tier must have a reference to a Lexicon Service. In addition, there must be a reference to the field of an entry that is of interest. To set this information for a tier type, do the following:
In the Change Type dialog the Lexicon Service name and Lexical Entry Field name
are shown. Click Change to commit to the new Lexicon
settings.
If the tier type of a tier is enhanced with lexicon service and entry field information, lexicon lookups using the annotations of that tier can be performed:
The Signbank lexicon service is a lexicon service plugin that makes a connection between ELAN and an instance of Signbank. Signbank is a webapplication for constructing sign language lexicons (the original Signbank: http://www.auslan.org.au/, several spin offs: https://github.com/Signbank). When ELAN is connected to a Signbank instance that is equipped with this functionality, ELAN is able to show videos of Signbank entries.
For setting up the connection, Consulting a Lexicon. Note that when your are editing the lexicon service, you need to select the type Signbank. After editing a new lexicon service, the initial data from the Signbank is downloaded immediately. This may take a while because all available media is also downloaded. The reason for this is that ELAN needs quick access to the media and this is not guaranteed if the data is requested on demand. Because this data may take a great amount of space it may be necessary to change the location of this data from the special ELAN data folder (see 1.1.2. Special ELAN data folder) to elsewhere. See below for how to do this.
It may prove necessary to change the location of cached data from the special ELAN data folder (see 1.1.2. Special ELAN data folder) to elsewhere. It can be set in the Preferences tab of Edit > Preferences>Edit Preferences. At the item 'Location of cached data' click Browse... and navigate to a new folder in a different location than the default and click Select. The X restores the default file location.
On top of the default functionality of a lexicon service the Signbank lexicon service comes with a few extras. For those extras to work tiers with a tier type that is connected to the Signbank lexicon must also have a connection to an ECV (see Using an External CV) from that same Signbank. If so the following functionality is available.
For a start, when right clicking an annotation of a tier with a tier type that is connected to the Signbank lexicon, there is an option Show in Signbank in the menu. If clicked the Signbank entry corresponding to the annotation value (which is an ECV entry) is opened in a browser.
Also, when hovering over an annotation of a tier with a tier type that is connected to the Signbank lexicon, while CTRL is pressed, a video of Signbank entry corresponding to the annotation value is displayed next to annotation box.
A videos is also displayed when opening a annotation for editing, in this case selecting an ECV entry, and hovering over an ECV entry in the list.
Finally, when searching for lexicon entries in the Lexicon tab, each entry in the result has a link to the lexicon entry in the Signbank webapplication. If clicked the Signbank entry is opened in a browser.
Apart fron the linked media (audio and/or video) that is the basis of the transcription, it is now possible to display media files that are linked to annotations and controlled vocabulary entries. This may come in handy e.g. when choosing an entry from an controlled vocabulary and you want audio and/or visual information to help you choose the correct entry.
To accomplish this a special lexicon service extension that also functions as a media provider should be used. First set up the lexicon service (see Setting up a Lexicon Service ). Next, connect the lexicon service to a tier type (see Set the Lexicon Service and entry field information for a Tier Type) that is also connected to a external controlled vocabulary with entry IDs that can be used by the lexicon service (see Associating a tier type with Controlled Vocabularies).
An example of a lexicon service extension that does all this is the Signbank extension. It connects to a Signbank web service (the original Signbank: http://www.auslan.org.au/, several spin offs: https://github.com/Signbank) that also provides a corresponding ECV containing the necessary data.
When everything is set up correctly, there are several ways to display the media. First, when holding the CTRL button while hovering over the annotation a media file is displayed next to the annotation, if there is a media file linked to the CV entry of the annotation.
Secondly, when opening an annotation for editing, a list of CV entries is shown. Hover over a CV entry in the list to display the corresponding media.