SALS-SIG Research Seminar

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HyperLex: A Lexical Database Tool for Phonological Research

Speaker:

Dr Steven Bird

Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh
Date: 23rd April 1998
Time: 11:30am
Place: Seminar Room 357, Building E6A, Macquarie University

Abstract:

A lexical database tool tailored for phonological research is described. Database fields include transcriptions, glosses and hyperlinks to speech files. Database queries are expressed using HTML forms, and these permit regular expression search on any combination of fields. Regular expressions are passed directly to a Perl CGI program, enabling the full flexibility of Perl extended regular expressions. Special support for phonological searches, such as search for minimal pairs, is provided. Search results are presented in the form of HTML or LaTeX tables, where each cell is either a number (representing frequency) or a designated subset of database fields.

The tool offers several advantages over traditional methods of analysis:
  1. it supports a quantitative method of doing phonological research;
  2. it gives universal access to the same set of informants;
  3. it enables other researchers to hear the original speech data without having to rely on published transcriptions;
  4. it makes the full power of regular expression search available, and search results are full multimedia documents; and
  5. it enables the early refutation of false hypotheses, shortening the analysis-hypothesis-test loop.
A life-size application to an African tone language (Dschang) is used for exemplification. The database contains 2200 records, each with approximately 15 fields. Running on a PC laptop with a stand-alone web server, the system has been been used extensively in phonological fieldwork and analysis in Cameroon. The talk will include a live demonstration of the system, and will use online field recordings to explain some key empirical concepts involved in the study of African tone languages.

Enquiries: sals@mri.mq.edu.au

Last modified: April, 1998