From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Mar 18 20:56:11 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 19 Mar 1993 02:00:20 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8076; Fri, 19 Mar 93 01:59:10 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 4719; Fri, 19 Mar 93 02:00:26 EST Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 01:56:11 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: dictionary program X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: O Message-ID: I should note that one function Bob Chassell mentions in his ideas on a dictionary program, the lined-up interlinear translator, is already implemented if not yet ready for distribution. Nora has it working up to a point, but it needs some cleanup in the user interface, and such a word-for-word ttanslation needs rather better keywording than we currently have in order to be useful to the average novice Lojbanist - you really need to know the grammar to turn a string of keywords into meaningful text. While the Lojbanist who looks at text, figures out the basic grammar, and then translates the words as necessary has no trouble, even I, with my knowledge of the grammar, have tsome trouble with the glosser output simply because it translates all the words WITHOUT my figuring out the grammar first. JL17 had a sample of the output from the current version of the glosser. This current version is designed to work in conjuction with the Lojban parser, making it one step further from being releasable, since we have to let go with both peices of software at once, and we don;t have the support capability right now to do so with the last minute work preparing for the dictionary. Thus this software will probably be released after the dictionary/reference is in press, and we know things won;t be changing in the language for a long while. Since the sofware is written in TurboPascal, like LogFlash, it will at least at first only be available for MS-DOS machines. The glosser does not have a useful dictionary function. However, I note that LogFlash does have a word-lookup function. It seems that this could be usable under some multi-tasking system so that you could keep LogFlash rrunning while you read mail, or whatever - I prewsume thus that it might work OK under Windows. But I don;t use Windows and have never tried anything like this to see if it would be helpful. lojbab