Signatures

Signatures are the string representation of an instance's lemmatization data and consists of a sequence of fields, each introduced by a distinct prefix character or characters. A complete signature looks like this:

@epsd2%sux:a=a[water//water]N'N/a#~$a

Abbreviated Signatures

Oracc's lemmatization allows users to enter just a few key pieces of a signature (this is the "instance lemmatization") and the lemmatizer looks this data up in the glossary and creates complete signatures from it.

Users typically enter just the citation form (CF, a in the example above) and the sense (SENSE, water above), and the instance lemmatization is then a[water]. It is also not uncommon to give simply a Part-of-Speech, such as PN, for the instance lemmatization.

Signature Fields and Prefix Characters

@ = PROJECT

The project to which this signature belongs

% = LANG

The language for the signature; may also have a writing system, e.g., %akk-949 for normalized Akkadian

: = FORM

The form of the word as it appears in the text

= = CF

The = separates FORM and CF, or Citation Form; the equals may be omitted if the CF is the first entry in the signature, as in a[water]

[ ... ]

Square brackets surround the GW, or Guide Word, and/or SENSE

//

Only within [...], the double slash // separates GW and SENSE

POS

The POS (Part-of-Speech) is identified by its position immediately after the closing square bracket of [...]

' = EPOS

The right-quote, ', is the prefix character for the EPOS, the Effective Part-of-Speech

$ = NORM

The normalized version of the writing. This varies by language: in Akkadian, for example, it is the transcription of the word-form, without hyphens and determinatives and with accents. This is not used in the source version of Sumerian glossaries because it can be computed from the morphology (see below).

* = STEM

The STEM, which may be a form of the BASE in Sumerian, or a notation such as D, Š, N, in Akkadian, or possibly other conventions for other languages.

/ = BASE

The BASE utilized in a Sumerian writing. This must match a base given in the @bases part of the entry.

+ = CONT

The Sumerian grapheme following the base, used only when that grapheme is the continuation of the end of the BASE, e.g., -ma in inim-ma. The deconstruction of the grapheme gives the consonant which continues the grapheme followed by the vowel which is normally a morpheme or morpheme constituent.

# = MORPH

The morphology string for the writing.

## = MORPH2

The second morphology string for the writing.

@ = RWS

The RWS, Register or Writing System, for the form.