I'm not an expert, but I looked at the website.
Basically, the Soundex algorithm gives a way to search for words that
roughly sound alike by assigning a code to represent words that have a
similar structure. So for example, my last name is Thiessen, but some spell
it Thiesen and some spell it Theissen, and some spell it Theisen. So for
Soundex, all of these would be grouped together under one Soundex code. I
can enter the Soundex code, and get all of these possible spellings after
which I could sort out which one I really wanted.
I see this being mostly helpful in the area of handshapes probably. So in
this case you would set up a "code" somehow that would say if the handshape
is in group 1, then the code would represent the handshape as group 1.
Maybe all circular motion in the horizontal plane would be grouped together
as opposed to circular movement in the diagonal or vertical planes. Then
this "code" can be entered to find signs that fit those general parameters.
This is my best attempt at it. Maybe Dan has a better explanation.
Stuart
Stuart Thiessen
Des Moines, IA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Valerie Sutton"
To:
Sent: Thursday, 21 March 2002 12:19
Subject: Re: SignBank 3: What kind of search-routines do you want?
> >Dan Parvaz wrote:
> >https://www.bluepoof.com/Soundex/info.html
> >
> >Anyway, it should be reasonably simple to work something similar for SW,
> >based partially on the visual noise findings in Klima and Bellugi. It
> >should be easy to include this in your SignBase, modulo some futzing
> >around in FileMaker :-)
>
> --------------------------
>
> Dan -
> Could you please explain in a non-linguist lay person's terms what
> this kind of search would do for us? Can you give me an example if
> you were searching in English for an English word, in this Soundex
> style....
>
> I did go to their web page briefly, but I had trouble getting a
> handle on what we would be doing for SignWriting...
>
> I have to explain this to our programmer, who knows nothing of
> linguistics or sign language...but he has programmed sophisticated
> searches before in FileMaker, so I just have to explain it properly...
>
> Val ;-)
>
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