Joining for Judges: Developing Tools for Hebrew RRG

Nicolai Winther-Nielsen, member of the Amsterdam WIVU team, will present results from joining forces with programmers in order to develop software and test it on the Book of Judges The paper will show how linguistic tools can stimulate research within a sophisticated linguistic framework such as Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). Developers and programs are: Ulrik Petersen: a tool to build tree analyses in RRG. Linguistic Tree Constructor (LTC) is a Windows software tool for drawing syntax trees using point-and-click. Greek, Hebrew, and many other languages are supported, as well as a variety of linguistic theories. LTC is useful for both teaching-purposes and linguistic research. Interlinear text is well supported. Chris Wilson: a tool to build a Logical Structure lexicon. Logical Structure Constructor (LSC) is a web-based application for RRG parsing of Hebrew assisted by annotated text and a lexicon. Annotation can be provided in any format supported by the Emdros database, or inferred using grammatical rules (templates) stored in the lexicon. The application allows browsing and modifying the text, annotations and lexicon. Elizabeth Guest: tools to parse and display Hebrew. A new parser based on Role and Reference Grammar consists of two parts. RRGDraw allows the user to specify parsing templates in the form of trees. RRGParse uses these templates to parse sentences, and it easily handles languages with varying word order flexibility. Steve Bartram and Christopher Samuel: a specialized research and display program. The Biblical Analysis and Research Tool (BART) can present the Hebrew text by marking with tags or proposition divisions. The project explores how a new BART OT version might interact with the Emdros database and with ongoing analysis of Judges and work in RRG. Other programs are used as well, especially SESB for which the reader is the super user in Denmark.