1.4 Overview

The CoGesT 1.0 notation is a first approximation to a transcription system for manual transcription which is at the same time compatible with the requirements of automatic computational lexicographic processing. The present report is concerned with providing a basis for the formalisation of the syntax of the CoGesT 1.0 vector notation.

Ongoing work is concerned with the definition of an attribute-value-based formalisation of CoGesT 1.0 syntax as a basis for the integration of CoGesT into a modern computational linguistic framework, and as a basis for the formalisation of the semantics of CoGesT 1.0, which was informally outlined in ModeLex Technical Report No. 1 Gut et al. (2002). Both of these further developments are required in order to fulfil the goal of specifying and implementing a multimodal computational lexicon.

The formalisation of CoGesT 1.0 syntax will be discussed in three stages:

1. the properties of the CoGesT 1.0 notation are discussed at a pre-formal level, in a first step introducing a slightly modified terminology of simplex gestures and two levels of compound gesture, simultaneous compound gestures and sequential compound gestures;
2. in the course of this discussion a number of systematisations of the CoGesT 1.0 notation are proposed;
3. in the following sections, formal grammars in different formalisms are proposed as tools for further multimodal and multilingual computational lexigraphic applications.