Duelling definitions

[msittig]

Today while reading an article about the China Super League's 2008 schedule (cut in half by the Olympics) I came across the word 还要, which is defined as "even more" and categorized as a NOUN; I've corrected it to ADVERB.

Still, I considered deleting this word because I think more often you'd run into it as two separate characters, as in the article I'm reading:

下半年的具体赛程安排还要看国家队在世界杯预选赛上的成绩

In which case it would translate better literally as "still need/want/must", which I think Adso would do if 还要 were not listed in its dictionary as one single word.

So would deleting 还要 be the best way to handle this case? Or could I take advantage of the fact that the majority of the time it is defined as listed above it would probably be a part of the 比NOUN还要ADJ grammar pattern to fix it in some other way?

Cheers.

[YangDizi]

下半年的具体赛程安排还要看国家队在世界杯预选赛上的成绩。

I agree that 还要 would be better deleted as I don't think the definition of "even more" is helpful. The key verb is surely 看 while 还要 as you correctly say is functioning adverbally.

The sentence above pivots around "还要看". I would translate the sentence as "... depends on the national team's performance in the World Cup qualifiers."

[trevelyan]

Best solution is probably using XML to get Adso to ignore the "even more" entry by default. Then add specific conditions to boost its chance of being selected in specific cases where it is a suitable match. I've done the following.

(1) Assign "even more" a large negative bonus by default:

(2) Add a rule preferring "even more" if the following word is a period:

Period

(3) Add a rule preferring "even more" if it is the last word in the sentence, and no punctuation follows

I'd use rather than since will trigger if the next entry is a question mark.

[trevelyan]

We can add an entry for "还要看" which will translate as "depending on" using similar logic, and resegment itself into two (or three) words if 看 is the main verb in the sentence.

[skylee]

Re #4, I don't think "還要看" = "depending on", as the former's meaning 還要看 the context.

[YangDizi]

We can add an entry for "还要看" which will translate as "depending on" using similar logic, and resegment itself into two (or three) words if 看 is the main verb in the sentence.

I agree with Skylee that adding an entry "好要看=depending on" wouldn't be beneficial. It would give some indication of meaning but could also be misleading. When translating, context is all. "还要看" does appear often in sentences but I'm not convinced it can be regarded as some kind of conjuction that a gloss of "depending on" would suggest.

[trevelyan]

It's an open question. I've added it - if someone finds it unnatural in other circumstances we can always delete it easily enough. We're getting this translation now, which isn't too bad despite the awkwardness of the opening:

"in the next half year concrete track arrangement to depend on the results of national team in the world cup preliminary competition."

[msittig]

Sounds good to me. I'll keep an eye out for more occurrences.

[geek_frappa]

Sounds good to me. I'll keep an eye out for more occurrences.

I think you have stumbled onto something.

"entries" need to develop a type of memory through some mechanism.

(1) Assign "even more" a large negative bonus by default:

(2) Add a rule preferring "even more" if the following word is a period:

Period

(3) Add a rule preferring "even more" if it is the last word in the sentence, and no punctuation follows

I'd use rather than since will trigger if the next entry is a question mark.

nice and elegant. is this update live?

[trevelyan]

Yup, it is all live.

To edit the XML associated with an entry look it up using the advanced editing interface (http://adsotrans.com/uniedit.php). Be sure that "Show Code" is clicked and then provide the XML in the field shown. Don't worry too much about making mistakes - these contributions are reviewed just like the others.

If there is already XML associated with the entry, you can add a new command to the end with a boolean " AND ".