Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

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Jonathan Robie
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Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax - because the right notation makes it easier to think clearly.

This post describes what Treedown is and what it was designed for. I intend to use Treedown as a notation for blogging about various issues that arise in describing Greek syntax.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
MAubrey
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by MAubrey »

I was just writing about the need for something along these lines:

https://thoughtstreams.io/MikeAubrey/linguistics/#new
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Stephen Carlson »

MAubrey wrote: May 24th, 2017, 10:47 pm I was just writing about the need for something along these lines:

https://thoughtstreams.io/MikeAubrey/linguistics/#new
Another blog of yours to follow??? ;)

There are a bunch of tree drawings tools online. For example, this one -- http://mshang.ca/syntree/ -- supports a bracketing notation and is open source so it can be hacked into a markdown implementation I suppose.

Here's something implemented in PHP, which could be integrated into a webpage: http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Jonathan Robie »

MAubrey wrote: May 24th, 2017, 10:47 pm I was just writing about the need for something along these lines:

https://thoughtstreams.io/MikeAubrey/linguistics/#new
Nice to see we are thinking alike!
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote: May 24th, 2017, 11:34 pm There are a bunch of tree drawings tools online. For example, this one -- http://mshang.ca/syntree/ -- supports a bracketing notation and is open source so it can be hacked into a markdown implementation I suppose.

Here's something implemented in PHP, which could be integrated into a webpage: http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/
Instead of hacking their engine, I would prefer to write a tool that converts Treedown to bracket notation and also to XML. I mentioned this in my blog post, which shows an example using one of the engines you mentioned:
The equivalence of Treedown and bracket notation has some practical ramifications. Not only does it guarantee that Treedown is well defined, it means that we can convert our notation to bracket notion in order to use a variety of existing tools. For instance, here is that same sentence as displayed using this Syntax Tree Generator, taking the bracket notation as input:

Image

Note how similar the structure of this diagram is to the structure of the corresponding Treedown.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Has anyone found a syntax tree generator or other tool that takes bracketed notation as input and can support sentences of the length found in the New Testament? I've tried converting sentences using the Stanford parser and putting them into these tools, and I can't find one that scales well.

For instance ... I don't find this easy to read.

syntax_tree.png
syntax_tree.png (60.69 KiB) Viewed 2255 times
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jonathan Robie wrote: May 25th, 2017, 10:08 am For instance ... I don't find this easy to read.
Isn't part of the problem is that it includes a direct quotation? What if the quotation is an entire book? Then it would really be hard to read!
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
MAubrey
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Re: Treedown: A Simple Notation for Syntax

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Carlson wrote: May 24th, 2017, 11:34 pm
MAubrey wrote: May 24th, 2017, 10:47 pm I was just writing about the need for something along these lines:

https://thoughtstreams.io/MikeAubrey/linguistics/#new
Another blog of yours to follow??? ;)

There are a bunch of tree drawings tools online. For example, this one -- http://mshang.ca/syntree/ -- supports a bracketing notation and is open source so it can be hacked into a markdown implementation I suppose.

Here's something implemented in PHP, which could be integrated into a webpage: http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/
I use ironcreeek's stuff for my trees in my current series on syntax. What I'm imaging is something that converts a notation as you type, like Typora.io does for markdown. LaTeX has some addins that auto generate trees in preview, I'm planning on fooling around with them later this summer.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
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