ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/TEXT/INFO/FONOL400.ZIP/README

Text File | 1991-04-17 | 13.7 KB | 322 lines

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               ....  Phonological Programming Language  ....

                         Dr. Frank Roberts Brandon

                               Version 4.0.0
                               15 April 1991

                          Copyright (c) 1983,1991


General Introduction

     This section describes the conditions on distribution,
support of the language, history, objectives and implementation,
and gives a script for a quick start in using Fonol. Online, you
can look in the table of contents (TOC) by typing ?/toc.


Fonol Distribution

     Fonol is distributed with my blessings. You may give away
copies to your heart's content so long as you do not charge for
the copies and so long as you give all the distribution files in
unmodified form.


Fonol Support

     I intend to support Fonol as much as is possible with a
spare time project and I welcome your bug reports and suggestions
for improvements. When sending in bug reports, please give all
the details of what happened including the matrix and rules you
were trying to run. The transcription and batch file features
will help in this (i.e. send a diskette with a batch file to set
up the problem if it is at all complex). If you have the source
code, please don't fix things yourself -- let me centralize the
versions, OK? I also welcome any help on the documentation so as
to make sure that it is clear.

     Positive reinforcement is naturally also welcome!

     My current address is:

     Frank R. Brandon
     3937 Anewby Way
     Fort Worth, TX 76133-6860

     [phone].


Porting Fonol

     Porting to other machines that run Pascal or C, especially
Turbo Pascal, should be fairly transparent since I wrote Fonol
as generically as possible. I developed this version of Fonol on
an AT&T 6300 using Turbo Pascal 4.0, a version of Pascal that has
incorporated many of the low level conveniences of C.


Fonol Objectives

     Fonol is a programming language that simulates phonological
rules of the sort described in Chomsky and Halle 'Sound Pattern
of English' or Schane 'Generative Phonology'. It also
incorporates the input and output filters (conditions) which came
into common use about the same time. These filters are currently
restricted to the identification of a pattern and two actions:
preventing the successful application of a specific rule or
blocking (starring) the entire derivation. Some standard
conventions on rule application are supported. Cycles of several
types are allowed for and other means of appropriate control are
also provided. Further extensions, variations, and deviations
are included from later phonological folklore. (Let me know if
there is something truly vital missing -- I'll try to add it if I
can.) Fonol is designed to provide a way of writing phonological
rules and viewing their effects. It is intended to aid students
of phonology to grasp the ideas behind phonological rules and to
help phonologists manage large complex bodies of rules in the
theory of their choice. Considering how many competing theories
and partial theories of phonology exist, it may fail in the
second case, even though I would like to accommodate as many
theoretical variations as possible. Since an attempt will be made
to provide for all theories, those who use more restrictive
theories will simply have to avoid using some features of the
Fonol language. In any case, it should be useful for students and
in beginning work on undescribed phonological systems. In some
cases, Fonol will allow for the same effects as theoretical
systems it does not directly support. In this case, try using
what is provided and fixing up or beautifying your rules when you
put them in paper form. A program written for the IBMs character
oriented display is not able to directly print the
typographically complex forms of phonological rules, anyway.
Computer simulation of phonological rules helps to advance the
broad generative program as well, in that no amount of
hand-waving on the part of the rule writer or good will on the
part of the rule reader will have any effect on the way the
software interprets what is written. In this sense, it forces the
clarification of our ideas just as the whole explicit rule
writing approach was meant to, only without any generosity in
assumptions. In the 'wins-no-friends' department, it also has
been beneficial in revealing how many 'radically new' ideas are
reinventions of the wheel and in raising the question of how we
select one theory over another of similar descriptive power --
the problem of notational variants. I personally do not want to
solve all these problems by myself. For this reason, you will
find the documentation to be written in an informal style and
filled with invitations for you to write me with your ideas.


Fonol History

     Fonol 1.0 was written in Microsoft's MBasic 5.2 under CP/M
in 1983 while I was employed in the Linguistics Department at
the Universidade Estadual de Campinas. A paper on it ('A
Phonological Rule Interpreter for Microcomputers') was eventually
published in 1985 in the Proceedings of the Eleventh
International Conference of the Association for Literary and
Linguistic Computing ["Computers in Literary and Linguistic
Computing", Slatkine Reprints, Rue des Chaudronniers, 5 - Case
765, CH-1211 Geneve 3, Swi tzerland]. Intermediate versions
through 3.0. were written in my spare time after work while I
was employed in the Human Factors Technology Group at General
Dynamics-Fort Worth. There was a hiatus of three years between
version 3.0. and 3.1.0 due to lack of interest. This dearth of
stimulus was broken in late 1990 by Dr. Wayne Redenbarger --
to whom much appreciation! Recent versions from 3.1.0 to 4.0.0
were funded in part by Aetna Insurance and the Social
Security Administration, I suppose, since they've been written
while I've been on disability leave and under treatment. The
present version is written in Borland's Turbo Pascal 4.0 under
MS-DOS. The name 'Fonol' was chosen for similarities to Cobol,
Snobol, Algol, etc. and because, since I was teaching in Brazil
at the time, it seemed like a good abbreviation of 'Linguagem de
Programaçäo Fonológica'. I forgot that some people don't speak
Portuguese.


Printing Fonol Documentation

     The documentation is currently being maintained in Sprint
1.0. Low ASCII (<32) are formatting codes which I use mostly for
screen printing and for marking words to be used in the help
index. You should find one line beginning with ^K which is the
ruler line and various strings beginning with ^B, ^U, or ^D and
ending with ^N which are the Bold, Underline, and inDexed
strings. ^_ is the 'soft' carriage return symbol for line breaks
in paragraphs. ^L is a page break. The IBM high ASCII set (>127)
may cause problems to your printer -- on my Epson I have to set
some dip switches to print them, for example. I am trying to
figure out how to maintain the documentation in a way that anyone
can print and still not lose formatting.


Setting Up On-Line Help

     Fonol.exe is distributed with FONOL.DOC and DOC-HELP.exe,
the program that converts FONOL.DOC to the FH-xxxxx help files
found in \FONHELP. To set up the on-line help, you should put
fonol.exe, doc-help.exe, fonol.doc into some convenient
subdirectory or onto some disk. Log in to that subdirectory or
disk drive. Now type mkdir fonhelp to put ..\fonhelp into your
current directory. Then type doc-help and hit return. It will ask
you if you have done the preceding steps. Just hit return again
and ..\ fonhelp will be filled with the files used by on-line
help. This method is used so that consistency is maintained
between the printed documentation and the on-line documentation.
If you want to edit FONOL.DOC and make changes which will
appear when help is invoked you will have to run DOC-HELP with
FONOL.DOC and the ..\FONHELP subdirectory again. Doc-Help tries
to lemmatize a bit by removing suspected plurals from words
read from boldface titles


On-line Help

?
     Displays this information about on-line help. The help
function allows you to read all the documentation for Fonol from
within Fonol as described below.

?!
     Explains the last three system messages in more detail if
such information is available by bringing up the appropriate
sections of this documentation. This is a way of supplying hints
for problems, especially multiple problems, while avoiding too
much verbosity in the standard error messages.

?/~
     The tilde (~) is used to represent all special characters.
This command will show how to enter special characters (see
Edit).

?/string
     String is explained. It may be a command letter, a word,
a section number or some symbol that is used in Fonol. All
current support may be found on-line: try typing something in, it
will provide some kind of aid, even if it is only a list of the
indexed terms most similar to string.

?/toc
     This command will show the Table of Contents (TOC) of the
Fonol documentation (Fonol.doc). Section numbers or words or
symbols in section titles may be looked up with ?/string. Words
or symbols may reference several sections, so section numbers
will be less 'verbose'.

Help Messages:
     ** Help Table of Contents Overflow **
     ** Help Index Overflow **
          The last edit of Fonol.doc blew out the limits. This should
          never happen to you unless you decide to fix or customize
          the documentation. Write me.
     * Help Index Not Found *
       Check Location of ..\fonhelp
          Help was invoked, but the \fonhelp subdirectory was not
          found on the current logged drive in the directory
          containing Fonol.exe or no index file was in the
          subdirectory.
     * Missing Files in Help Subdirectory *
          The subdirectory was found with an index file, but it is
          incomplete. Better look it over and perhaps run Doc-help
          again.
     Search Failed In: X1..X5
          Shows the five items in the midst of which the search
          failed. This provides some clues when you are hunting around
          for information.


Quick Start in Fonol

     If you can't stand reading documentation, then please follow
this script to get started:

    --Type fonol at the A> prompt and hit Return.

    --When you see the cursor flashing after the Fnl: prompt then
enter 'a --> b __d' and hit Return. You will see an error message
with the Atn: prompt followed by a Rec: prompt with what you
entered. This means you have an opportunity to recuperate the
rule or recover from the error.

    --Now use the arrows to go into the rule and put a '/'
between b and the '__'. Take this opportunity to remove any
single quotes you may have entered. Now hit Return.

    --Now type d. You will see your rule and some information
about space usage.

    --Now type '<<cad' and hit Return. If you left out the single
quotes then you will see your rule apply and yield 'cbd'.

    --Now type 'l/swa.max' to load the demo Swahili phonological
matrix. Type 'm' and hit return to see the matrix (F9 to exit
again).

    --Type l/swa and hit Return and the swa.fon file of rules for
Swahili will be loaded. Your rule is lost.

    --Type d/symbols and hit Return and you will see a list of
the phonemes, features, and other symbols loaded in.

    --Type d/ and hit Return and the rules will be displayed. The
][ lines are declarations, mostly abbreviations to provide
'syntactic sugar'. The rules with --> are obvious. The ones with
* are input and output conditions.

    --Now when the Fnl: prompt reappears, type << [A# Cl9 + pya
#] and hit Return. The rules will be applied and those that do
apply will be printed together with their effects. If you want to
see a lot of these forms, type 'l/swa.fbf'. This will load and
run a batch file of derivations. Keep hitting Q if you get bored,
OK?

    --Display the rules with d/ again. Note the numbers? Pick a
rule at random and from the Fnl: prompt type i/ N where N is the
number of the rule. Now type '[] this is my comment' and hit
Return. If you left out the single quotes, then there will be no
error message, otherwise use backspace or ^g or DEL to delete the
first one at least and hit Return again. You will still see the
Ins: prompt. Hit return on an empty line or ESC or ^y and you
will be back at the Fnl: prompt. Now redisplay the rules. Note wh
ere your comment went and the way the other rules have been
renumbered. Now take the number of your rule and type r/
number. Redisplay the rules and you will see that yours is now
gone and the numbering is as it was previously.

     --You could type 'l/demo.fbf' to see the English, Turkish,
and Swahili demo rule sets loaded and applied to some forms,
or...

     --Type x/ to exit Fonol; say 'no' to its suggestion that you
save the edited rules; and now please do familiarize yourself
with the documentation!


Fonol Files Supplied

    Fonol.exe
    Fonol.doc
    Doc-Help.exe  (Utility that converts Fonol.doc into on-line help
                   files which are kept in a subdirectory called
                   ..\fonhelp)
   (Sample matrices and rule sets for various languages)
    Swa.Max
    Swa.Fon
    Turk.Max
    Turk.Fon
    SPE-ex.Max    (English rules from Sound Pattern of English)
    SPE-ex.Fon
    TestPat.Max   (to practice moving columns and rows in the matrix)
   (Sample batch files of base forms)
    Swa.FBF, Turk.FBF, Demo.FBF