GiellaLT

GiellaLT provides an infrastructure for rule-based language technology aimed at minority and indigenous languages, and streamlines building anything from keyboards to speech technology.

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This page documents the ELAN tier structures used by our projects.

Intro

The following presents an inventory of both the linguistic and the tier types used by our projects. *Note that adherance to these structures is necessary to use the ELAN-FST script which automatically adds annotations on word, lemma, morphological categories and part of speech.

ELAN Linguistic Types

Name Stereotype Controlled Vocabulary Purpose
refT - - used for ref-tiers; no stereotype because it ref-tiers are independent, root nodes, and time-alignable
orthT symbolic association - used for orth-tiers, exact time-aligned copy of the superordinate ref-tier
wordT symbolic subdivision - used for word-tiers, overall time-aligned copy of the orth-tier (and thus the ref-tier), but able to be divided into multiple equal parts
lemmaT symbolic subdivision - used for lemma-tiers, overall equally-spaced, time-aligned copy of the word-tier, but able to be divided into multiple equal parts
morphT symbolic subdivision - used for morph-tiers, overall equally-spaced, time-aligned copy of the word-tier, but able to be divided into multiple equal parts
posT symbolic subdivision pos used for pos-tiers, overall equally-spaced, time-aligned copy of the word-tier, but able to be divided into multiple equal parts
ftT symbolic association - used for free translation tiers, overall time-aligned copy of the orth-tier (and thus the ref-tier)
noteT symbolic association - used for tiers adding notes to a given parent tiers, overall time-aligned copy of the parent-tier
langT symbolic subdivision languages used for lang-tier to indicate language(s) being used in the utterance

ELAN Tiers and Tier Hierarchy

Required for each speaker:

| Level | Name | Parent Tier | Linguistic Type | Language | Purpose | — | — | — | — | — | — | 0 | ref | - | refT | - (numbered) | root node, time-aligned annotation units are set here, each annotation is provided with a unique number here | -1 | orth | ref | orthT | vernacular | an orthographic transcription is provided here; this provides the input for the FST engine | -2 | word | orth | wordT | vernacular | tokenized version of the orth-tier; automatically created by ELAN-FST-script | -3 | lemma | word | lemmaT | vernacular | lemma (or lemmata in case of ambiguities) for word form listed in parent tier; automatically created by ELAN-FST-script | -3 | morph | word | morphT | English (linguistics) | morphological category (or categories in case of ambiguities) for word form listed in parent tier; automatically created by ELAN-FST-script | -3 | pos | word | posT | English (linguistics) | part of speech (or parts of speech in case of ambiguities) for word form listed in parent tier; adheres to ‘pos’-list of controlled vocabulary; automatically created by ELAN-FST-script

Optional for each speaker:

| Level | Name | Parent Tier | Linguistic Type | Language | Purpose | — | — | — | — | — | — | -2 | ft-XYZ | orth | ftT | a relevant lingua franca | provides a free translation of the annotated text; XYZ is replaced with a language code (e.g. eng, rus, etc.); can occur multiple times for multiple lingua francas | -2 | lang | orth | langT | English | indicates the language being used in an annotated utterance or part of an annotated utterance; the language name is in English; adheres to ‘languages’-list of controlled vocabulary

Optional for any tier or as a root node with its own time-alignment:

| Level | Name | Parent Tier | Linguistic Type | Language | Purpose | — | — | — | — | — | — | *** | note-XYZ| XYZ | noteT | anything | provide unstructured text-based notes for any given parent tier XYZ *all tiers for a given speaker are named using the tier name plus the @ symbol plus an short form referring to the relevant speaker, such as ref@JKW, lemma@JKW

ELAN Tier Template Files for Download

Template files (in ELAN .etf format):