LIN 351 Week 5 HW:
Coding independent linguistic variables in ELAN

For this assignment, you will be working with the ELAN .eaf files that you created previously (and coded dependent variables in).

Note: Remember that capitalization matters when you are coding tokens! "e" will not be seen as the same thing as "E" when you start running your analyses.

Code each token for two independent variables. To do this, highlight a token, then double-click in the relevant tier ("preceding vowel" or "following context"), right below the token. In the new field that appears, type in the 1-letter code that describes appropriate context. Be sure to code what you hear, not what the spelling suggests -- this may vary across speakers. If you need to make any notes about questionable tokens, etc., type them in a "Notes" tier so you can find them later. (This is much more efficient that writing them down somewhere else!)

Categorize what you find in the data using the following coding scheme as a start. If you find a token that does not fit the existing categories, you can make up a new category and use it. Make sure to make a note of what your new abbreviation means in your Notes tier.

Independent linguistic variable #1: Preceding vowel
Code IPA Symbol Description Example word
i i or ɪ high front "beer"
e e or ɛ mid front "bear"
a ɑ, a or æ low "bar" (for some speakers, some tokens)
o o or ɔ mid back "bore"
u u or ʊ high back round "boor" (or "Bloor")
2 ə unstressed mid central (schwa) "runner"
3 ʌ stressed mid central (caret) "purchase"
x j glides or other sounds "your" as [jr] or "p'ticipate"

Independent linguistic variable #2: Following context
Code Description Example
v Word-final, preceding a vowel "car is"
p Word-final, preceding a pause "car."
c Following consonant, in the next morpheme and in the next syllable "wintertime"
d Following consonant, in the next morpheme but the same syllable "winters"
s Morpheme-internal (Following consonant, in the same morpheme) "card"

Optionally, create a Controlled Vocabulary for each of these variables. Remember to link it to the type that goes with each tier. Protip: Include an option like "not sure", for tokens that are hard to code the first time you encounter them.

You can find more examples for each variant in the Irwin & Nagy 2007 paper (in Quercus).
Your file should now look something like this.

Again, submit your 4 .eaf files in Quercus.

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Updated January 20, 2023