Pangloss: An Interlinear Glossing Tool within an Existing Application Platform

将语言数据提供给广泛的研究人员和语言社区成员是计算机时代语言学的一个重要目标。行间注释文本(IGT)是一种数据类型，它是记录和描述性语言工作的核心。在NSF的资助下，杰弗里·C·古德(Long Now Foundation)将启动Panglos项目，探索扩展OpenOffice.org(一种开源办公生产力软件套件)与IGT合作的功能的可能性。这一扩展将允许对语法信息的文本进行注释，并将这些文本链接到一个简单的词汇数据库。这允许在熟悉的文字处理器环境中构建词典和注释文本集合。由于OpenOffice.org？S原生文档格式是多种可扩展标记语言，使用该系统产生的资源将准备好共享和存档。该项目的产品将不仅限于工具本身，还将包括关于行间注释文本和词典的标准的建议，以及关于在现有的办公应用程序套件上建立特定领域工具的效用的建议。该项目有可能极大地提高从事语言文献工作的人员的生产力。语言学家通常依赖商业软件产品来构建语法、词典和文本，因为它们相对容易使用。然而，这些产品在语言数据的编码和归档方面存在劣势。拟议的研究解决了对易于使用的软件的需求，该软件不具有封闭格式的专有应用程序所固有的缺点。该项目还将作为一项试验性研究，探讨为语言目的开发工具的“插入式”模式的可行性，这是一种软件设计方法，可大大降低开发新工具的成本。因此，它不仅有可能影响语言学，而且有可能影响其他学术领域，这些领域可以将该项目中所做的工作作为开发自己工具的典范。

Making language data available to a wide range of researchers and language community members is an important goal for linguistics in the computer age. Interlinear glossed text (IGT) is a data type which is central to documentary and descriptive linguistic work. With NSF funding, Jeffrey C. Good (Long Now Foundation) will launch the Pangloss project to explore the possibility of extending the functionality OpenOffice.org (an open source suite of office productivity software) for work with IGT. This extension will allow the annotation of texts for grammatical information and the linking of those texts to a simple lexical database. This the allows the building of a dictionary and a collection of annotated texts in a familiar, word processor environment. Because OpenOffice.org?s native document format is a variety of XML, resources produced using this system will be ready for sharing and archiving. The products of this project will not be limited to the tools themselves, but will also include recommendations for standards for interlinear glossed texts and lexicons, as well as recommendations regarding the utility of building domain-specific tools on top of an existing office application suite. This project has the potential to significantly enhance the productivity of those working on linguistic documentation. Linguists commonly rely on commercial software products to build grammars, dictionaries, and texts, due to their relative ease of use. However, these products have disadvantages with respect to the encoding and archiving of linguistic data. The proposed research addresses the need for easy-to-use software which does not have the disadvantages inherent to closed-format, proprietary applications. This project will also serve as a pilot study examining the feasibility of the "plug-in" model of tool development for linguistic purposes, a method for software design that significantly lowers the costs for the creation of new tools. As such, it has the potential to impact not only linguistics generally but also other academic fields that could use the work done in this project as a model for the development of their own tools.