D7. Working with Lists

This lesson provides a guide to working with lists in FLEx, covering how lists populate dictionary fields and how users can edit them. Here’s a summary:

Objective:

• Learn which FLEx fields are populated by lists.

• Understand where to access, edit, add, and remove list items.

• Modify hierarchical and flat lists to better categorize linguistic data.

Key Topics:

1. What Are Lists in FLEx?

• FLEx has two types of fields:

  1. User-input fields (typed or pasted text).

  2. List-based fields (predefined options selected from a dropdown menu).

• List-based fields provide consistency and standardization across dictionary entries.

Examples of List-Based Fields:

• Morph Type (e.g., root, suffix, prefix).

• Grammatical Category (e.g., noun, verb, adjective).

• Semantic Domains (e.g., plants, tools, emotions).

2. Navigating the Lists Area

• The Lists Area in FLEx contains 30 predefined lists.

• These lists populate:

  • Lexicon (e.g., grammatical categories, dialect labels).

  • Notebook & Texts Areas (e.g., genres, text markup tags).

  • Other Lists (e.g., researchers, confidence levels).

List Structure

• Lists can be flat (simple lists) or hierarchical (with subcategories).

• Some lists, like Semantic Domains, are extensive and nested into multiple levels.

3. Editing Lists

Adding a New List Item

• Example: Adding "Palm Oil Processing" under Anthropology Categories:

  1. Navigate to Lists → Anthropology Categories.

  2. Expand Material Culture → Food Processing.

  3. Insert a new category and label it 259 - Palm Oil Processing.

  4. Add a description explaining its relevance.

Using a New List Item

• Example: Assigning "Palm Oil Processing" to a dictionary entry:

  1. Open an entry (e.g., cuisiner "to cook").

  2. Click Anthropology Categories → Choose.

  3. Select 259 - Palm Oil Processing.

Promoting/Demoting List Items

• Items can be:

  • Promoted (moved up a level).

  • Demoted (subgrouped under another item).

  • Rearranged via drag-and-drop.

Deleting a List Item

• Example: Removing "offensive" from the Usages list:

  1. Select the item.

  2. Click the red X delete button.

  3. Confirm deletion.

4. Important Lists in FLEx

• Dialect Labels – Tags regional variations of words.

• Extended Note Types – Categorizes grammar, discourse, phonology notes.

• Lexical Relations – Manages synonyms, antonyms, related words.

• Morpheme Types – Defines prefixes, suffixes, infixes, roots.

• Semantic Domains – Groups words into thematic categories.

• Usages – Labels words as archaic, slang, offensive, etc..

• Variant Types – Tracks spelling and pronunciation variations.

5. Advanced List Configurations

• Converting a Flat List to a Hierarchical List:

  • Example: Making Grammar Extended Notes hierarchical:

    1. Open Extended Note Types.

    2. Select Configure List → Support Hierarchy.

    3. Add subcategories like Morphology, Syntax, Discourse.

• Grouping & Regrouping List Items:

  • Example: Moving Historical, Obsolete, Old-Fashioned under Archaic.

  • Example: Promoting Rare to a top-level category.

Completion:

• Includes hands-on activities for adding, editing, and restructuring lists.

• A quiz (80% passing score) to test understanding.

• Encourages backing up FLEx projects before making major list changes.

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com