RE: [kidsgames] word familiarity

["Brian Thompson" <briandthompson@home.com>]

There are several suggestions I would make structuring the database like a
tree, so that words that are easily classified  nouns, verbs and so forth
are seperated, it help make games like the adlibs games we used to play.  I
think this may make it easier to connect language trees and therefore words,
although grammatically languages are different the words maybe similar
enough that the thesaurus function could be multilingual.  As for the age
range perhaps there should simply be a couple of undefined fields for later
expansion, I think familiarity comes with use and the words we use most in
speaking are the one we learn most readily so if we were to always talk at
the lowest level to each other we would never get beyond the elementary
words.  I do think that a mastery concept is at work and once we know
something we move on, so its a matter of pace and exposure not objective
level.  I would hesistate to age group words I know adults that would
benefit from this project and I wouldn't want to set them off by saying "you
should know that already" and god knows it works that way with children too,
let's think about benefitting all ages even ourselves.  Another field you
might consider including is a paradigm field, I know that the word is
sometimes over used but bear with me.  By paradigm what I mean is blastocyst
would belong to the biology paradigm it is used mainly in that realm of
communication and not very many others, but there could be distinct realms
for some words and others may fall into a general realm main stream words
may fall into that realm and others as well, by creating this sort of
classification we also lend ourselves to the tree structure for concepts in
addition to the tree structure for word usage, having this tree structure
running in several ways will ultimately lend to the database being used in
many different way than we can now imagine, and I can imagine quite a few.
Build the structure strong now and we will change it less as it matures.  An
origin field may be useful as well such as the origin of the word Friday, it
comes from old english as Frigg's day. Frigg was Odin's wife the goddess of
the heaven's and love, by having an origin field you can get to the roots of
a word and sometimes the origin is just as interesting as the meaning, this
field would let experts link words that relate to each other and perhaps let
them enhance the database with their professional knowledge as we aren't
linguists, well maybe there are a few out there.  I will keep in touch if
you have something started post it or forward it to me and I'll see how I
can help.  If some one has a suggestion for the most versatile database
method, open format, please get it to us.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-kidsgames@smluc.org [mailto:owner-kidsgames@smluc.org]On
> Behalf Of jwaddell@ix.netcom.com
> Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2000 5:59 PM
> To: Brian & Carrie Thompson
> Cc: Kidsgames; Chris Ellec
> Subject: RE: [kidsgames] word familiarity
>
>
> Hi Brian and Carrie
>
> I hope this gets to you somehow, as your cbthomp address has been
> bouncing...
>
>
> On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Brian & Carrie Thompson wrote:
>
> -->Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 15:44:09 -0400
> -->From: Brian & Carrie Thompson <cbthomp@earthlink.net>
> -->To: Kidsgames <kidsgames@smluc.org>, Chris Ellec
> <info@linuxforkids.com>
> -->Subject: RE: [kidsgames] word familiarity
> -->
> -->Is someone working on the yawl package?
>
> Yes, but only VERY slowly.
>
>
> -->  I will start doing what I can.  I
> -->just would like to know what it's going to be used for and if
> I should group
> -->things the way that I mentioned earlier?
>
> I REALLY want to get this into some type of database format, so I can do
> SQL queries against it... I don't know if Postgres or MySQL is the best
> choice.  There are several reasons for having in a database, including but
> not limited to associating multiple pieces of data together that relate to
> the word.  This is the database schema I propose at the moment.  I know
> that it is long and I would not necessarily expect all data to be filled
> out on a given word at the same time.  Please chime in with what data we
> "don't really need" and the data I've completely not thought of....
>
> language flag: EN (for yawl, other langauges would use their languages
> standard coding ES for spanish as an example)
>
> word: 128 characters (are there any words longer than this? should it be
> shorter or longer?)
>
> filename (url instead maybe?) of a sound file containing the word
> pronounced.  Perhaps several more of these to include alternate
> pronunciations and/or male/female voices.
>
> filename (url?) of picture file containing (If the word is prone to it)
> a picture of the object the name names, or the action the word
> describes.... Perhaps as with the sound files, multiples of these to
> house multiple pictures that this word represents.
>
> definition: of the word in english (ala dictionary)
>
> room for say 15 alternate definitions:
>
> Pronunciation guide: (ala dictionary), is the dicitionaries method of
> marking sounds with letters copyrighted?)
>
> Age at which word would be expected to be recognized for reading
> [so a story book game can query the database for age appropriate words]
>
> Age at which word would be expected to be recognized for spelling (i.e.
> writing) [so a boggle/hangman/writing a story/wordfind game can query the
> database for age appropriate words]
>
> Age at which word would be expected to be recognized verbally
> [so a sound game (perhaps saying words pulled directly from the files
> pointed too in this database we are creating) can query age appropriate
> words]
>
> Age at which word would be expected to be spoken properly (properly being
> as indicated by the pronunciation guide)
> [so a game that requires the pupil to speak their answers (perhaps a
> picture is shown... and they respond...) can query age appropriate words]
>
> Age at which word would be expected to be associated to something (object
> or action...)
> [so a matching game can be created with age appropriate words]
>
> --> Word familiarity, as in dictionary
> -->or thesaurus or spelling or ....?
> -->
>
> ummm, well, yes.  All of them is my goal....
>
> -->Brian Thompson
> -->
> -->> -----Original Message-----
> -->> From: owner-kidsgames@smluc.org [mailto:owner-kidsgames@smluc.org]On
> -->> Behalf Of Chris Ellec
> -->> Sent: Friday, October 15, 1999 11:47 PM
> -->> To: kidsgames@smluc.org
> -->> Subject: Re:[kidsgames] word familiarity
> -->>
> -->>
> -->> > I had better luck getting it here
> -->> > http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/libs/yawl-0.1.tar.gz
> -->> >
> -->> > Dennis
> -->> >
> -->>
> -->> I got the package. It's 2.6M after untar, and the readme
> claims 258,000
> -->> words....
> -->>
> -->> How do we handle this ?
> -->>
>
> Apparently with a great deal of work :)  I hope my desires above don't add
> too much too it to make it unbearable,  I really believe we need that
> level of flexibility that having this information in database format will
> give us, not to mention how easy it will be to ADD new data, or change
> what is there, if we choose the database approach.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jeff
>
> {ps I'm taking these in sequential order [or at least however it is pine
> is showing them to me...] so I apologize if I'm tramping in
> areas already well traveled.....)
>
>
>
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