Constructing an XML database of linguistics data

Abstract

A language-oriented, multi-dimensional database of the linguistic characteristics of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament can enable researchers to do ad hoc queries. XML is a suitable technology to transform free text into a database. A clause’s word order can be kept intact while other features such as syntactic and semantic functions can be marked as elements or attributes. The elements or attributes from the XML “database” can be accessed and proces sed by a 4th generation programming language, such as Visual Basic. XML is explored as an option to build an exploitable database of linguistic data by representing inherently multi-dimensional data, including syntactic and semantic analyses of free text.

Keywords

• XML
• database
• morphology
• morpho-syntax
• syntax
• semantics
• Hebrew