Lexical Database Design: The Shakespeare Dictionary Model

1. The D a t a The S'hakespgare Dt'citbnar~/ (SHAD) project has been using structured databases since 1983. The system is implemented on a PRIME 250-II computer using standard CODASYL--DBMS software and related tools. The project has been able to draw on a vast repository of computerized material dealing with Shakespeare and the English lexicon. Initially, it was part of the "Sonderforschungsbereich I00 Elektronische Sprachforschung" sponsored on the national level by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The research team has been directed by Marvin Spevack and H. Joachim Neuhaus, now both at Miinster, and Thomas Finkenstaedt, now at Augsburg. Spevack's O'oraplete and Syateraah'c ~oncordanoe to the Works o/ ,~hakospeare (Hildesheim and New York, 1968-1978) and Finkenstaedt's Ohronalogt~al En]h)h Dichonarj/ (Heidelberg, 1970), both in machine readable form, were used in a computer-assisted lemmatization procedure (Spevack, Neuhaus, and Finkenstaedt 1974). A chronologically arranged dictionary, where entries are sorted according to the year of first occurrence, makes it possible to "stop" the development of the recorded English vocabulary at any desired moment and to compare, for instance, Shakespeare's vocabulary with the corpus of English words recorded up to 1623, when the F, ist Fohb appeared (Neuhaus 1978). The set of words in Shakespeare can be compared with the complement set of words available in Elizabethan English, but not attested in Shakespeare's works. In this way there is a systematic integration into the total vocabulary. As a result, our database model can easily be expanded or transfered to cover larger or different vocabularies. In order to present the complete Shakespearean vocabulary and to disengage SHAD from dependence on a single edition of Shakespeare, the data were expanded to include all :Jtage directions and speech-prefixes in all quartos up to and including the F,'r,,t Foho (Volume VII of the ~omple~e and o°yaJ! emait~ Ctoncordance to the Works o/ S'hakesI, eare ), and the "bad" quartos (Volume VIII). Volume IX presents all substantive variants, producing a composite Shakespearean vocabulary in modern and eventually old spelling. In analysing this material a strict differentiation between vocabulary level and text level has been observed. Further data-preparation on the vocabulary level concentrated on formal properties of Shakespearean lemmata, such as morphological structure, or etymological background. There is a complete morphology for all lemmata (ca. 20,000 records), which gives detailed structural descriptions of derivations, compounds, and other combinations, as well as all inflected word-forms, as they occur in the text. The etymological data include word histories and loan relations, again supplemented by chronological data. Content-oriented criteria were used in a taxonomic classification of all lemmata (Spevack 1977). On the whole, there are more than thirty fields of information in the original lemma-record file. For the multidimensional analysis and presentation of these resources it seemed natural to use database concepts. Due to a special intervention of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the support of the Ministry, which we both gratefully acknowledge, we could implement our first database in 1983 on a newly installed PRIME 250-II computer. The PRIME DBMS software, which we use, is actually one of the first commercial products which closely adhered to the CODASYL network data model. The design started with a database schema for Shakespearean word-formation and etymology. Since then the system has grown steadily including now a thesaurus structure and a link to the text itself. The database is accessed in batch mode u:~zing the FORTRAN and COBOL interfaces, and interactively with the VISTA query language and report generator. Of course, in a first implementation not only the database schema itself, but the preparation of files, and the programming of the database creation job have to be carried out. The first word-formation database was established in three separate steps. The total time needed to complete the job was about 17 hours. Physical design is especially important in large databases. Our Miinster team was interested in that aspect from the very beginning (DSge 1984).