Keywords - Manual

Purpose

The website has two types of glossaries: those associated with the different scientific disciplines: neurology, psycholoy, sociology, etcetera, and those associated specifically with language, its usage and interpretation. The latter have been made with the intentions of Korzybski and Hayakawa in mind, of improving the communication between humans, and thereby improve civilization in general.

The observation of reality learns that where language is the most precious tool given by nature to humans, it is also the most widely abused one. The number of ways to deceive through words are literally countless, and they are extended every day. But there are also a number of basic ones, some of which have been known from antiquity. These are the rethoric fallacies like Ad hominem, Ad populum, etcetera. They are still in intensive and daily use all over the world.

The first task when wanting to improve on this, is to detect this. The keywords system is intended to be a start of doing that.

Since words are the basic elements (the "atoms") of language, it all starts with separate words. In a formal system, one that follows the rules of logic, a basic rule is that a symbol always has the same meaning. In mathematics epxressed as A = A , where A is anything. In language this is not true. Hayakwawa calls it "The one-word, one-meaning fallacy" => .

The fact that this has to be mentioned specifically, shows that the understanding of the working of language is in a rather primitive state.

The fact that a single word may have different meanings, is provided for rather simple. That is what most glossaries and dictionairies do.

The other way around, from different words to one meaning, is more difficult, for serial media like printed matter. This is where the new information technology comes into play.

But information technology, through its flexibility in connecting information, also provides much more new opportunities. For this purpose the newly developed keywords system is intended.


Functionality, general

The keywords system is an implementation of the functionality provided by the html-hyperlink: to link one piece of information to another piece of information on html-pages. The difference is that the keywords system is not html and fixed by that, but implemented in javascript and PHP, and is configurable and extensible. It does not appear as a link by default, but does this on request.

Any word can be used as a link, but this word has first to be added to a configuration file (technically: an array on a file). The code compares the words of a text to the words in this configuration file, just like in any spellchecker does. A match gives a possiblity to highlight the word, upon which it also becomes a link towards information elsewhere. At present this uses files on the server and html-anchors in this file to get the specific information desired.

The implementation in software means that besides a single word or a number of consecutive words, one can define secundary words that also get highlighted, and that may change the meaning of the original keyword, and may link to different pieces of information. Like "New", "New York", and "New York Times" all point to different information, and the detection of the single word "New" leads to ambiguity.

The match function between textwords and the keywords that point to information, is not direct as in "textword = keyword", but goes through an Associator file. This is because the textwords use human description, with its possbility of combinations and multiple meanings, while the location of the information must be a unique identifier, with strict rules (no spaces, etcetera). With the association file one can give "wonder" and "Wonder" different meanings. It also provides the basic extension necessary for any word interpretation system in that, besides giving one word different meanings, one can also give different words the same meaning.

With another assocation file, called Forward Associator, one can combine two words into a new meaning, this is: make the link point to a new source of information.

And the third extension so far is the possibility to use the context of a word, this is, the text of which it is part of, to first of all make it appear as a link or not, and then of course also make make it link to another destination (yet to be build in). The keyword has to be combined with a number of predefined "environment" words, for example: for ä context requirement of "literature", there is a file that defines the associated context detectors as: "book", "writer", "publisher", etcetera. At present this configuration file is fixed, because one has to use standard meanings anyway.
   

Usage

Example: make a completely new keyword, with restraints, for example for "alles wijst op" ("everything points towards"), a phrase used by media to denote something that they know is not true ("Everything points towards Donald Trump being a Russian spy" (the present implementation uses the Dutch language)

Enter the new keyword plus explanation on the relevant page, here "wijst" on termen_kort.htm
This is done in the website editor.

Add the new keyword in the relevant keywordsAssociator. Go to the general Management page, click Keywords Manager, click AE for the relevant file/group (TermenKort), and add the new anchor -> needle combination , here "wijst" -> "wijst" (can always be changed later).

Add restraints to "wijst": go to Keywords Manager, click on AF (Associator Forwards) for TermenKort. Enter "wijst" as the keyword, "alles" and "op" as the restraints for Forwards Type = "Secundaries, req., multi". Choose Search Range as required, usually 3 (search three words left and right of the keyword).

There are four basic type of restraints:
 -  Forwards required multi: as in "New York Times": requires "York" and "Times" in order to highlight "New" (and the rest).
 -  Forwards required single: the keywoard is highlighted only when one of the secundaries is there. Say "free" and "will" (you don't want to highlight "free" (and "will") as being to general)
 -  Forwards optional: the keyword is always highlighted and the others are optional.
 -  Forwards optional alts: alternative keyword for the hit on the optional:
    vrijheid -> vrijheid;
    vrijheid + godsdient -> godsdienstvrijheid.
    They are coupled by array number opt. 0 <-> alt. 0 , opt. 1 <-> alt. 1 , etcetera
 -  Context restraint: the restraint parameter must have the format: aaa:3,bbb:2, ...  . This highlights the keyword only when three times "aaa" is found in the rest of the text.