[1] From: David Pinaula <pinaula@email.unc.edu> (7)
Subject: LEXA software opinions
[2] From: Ian Lancashire <ian@chass.utoronto.ca> (50)
Subject: Re: 10.037 TACT
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 02:14:39 -0400
From: David Pinaula <pinaula@email.unc.edu>
Subject: LEXA software opinions
I am looking for opinions on the functionality and performance of the LEXA
textual analysis software suite, particularly regarding handling multiple
texts in producing lemmatized indexes. How does it compare to TACT's
feature set? I'd like some informed commentary before I invest my kroners.
David Pinaula
English Dept.
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
pinaula@email.unc.edu
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 00:38:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ian Lancashire <ian@chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 10.037 TACT
As the one mainly responsible now for TACT and its manual,
let me assure users that CHASS at Toronto continues to support
TACT, even though CHASS no longer undertakes to send TACT
diskettes and materials by post in reply to written inquiries.
Several of the previous messages to Humanist have been
unintentionally misleading.
The only TACT manual authorized by the four authors of the software
is being published by MLA early this fall. At about 370 pages,
and with a donated CD-ROM having 250 Mb of software and electronic
texts, this manual has been over three years in the making. The
final corrections to the second and last page proofs were done
early this month.
This maturation time is not unusual for a peer-reviewed work of
scholarship, especially one produced with the help of the MLA editorial
department. Any delay in the publication schedule is my responsibility;
MLA has kept up its end.
I cannot praise highly enough the skill and dedication of the
half dozen MLA staff members who have worked with me on the
manual. They have helped transform an often wordy, obscure,
ill-organized, and even wrong draft into a first-rate piece of
reference prose. The book designer has done a wonderful job.
I would also like to thank readers of Humanist for their interest in
the TACT manual.
Those wishing to buy the manual should order it from MLA in
New York. The full reference is as follows:
Using TACT with electronic texts:
A Guide to Text-Analysis Computing Tools
Version 2.1 for MS-DOS and PC DOS.
Ian Lancashire
in collaboration with
John Bradley
Willard McCarty
Michael Stairs
T. R. Wooldridge
Centre for Computing in the Humanities
University of Toronto
The Modern Language Association of America
New York 1996
(c) 1996 by The Modern Language Association of America
ISBN 0-87352-569-8 (paper)
1. Text processing (Computer Science) 2. TACT. I. Title
QA 76.9.T48L36 1996
Published by The Modern Language Association of America
10 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003-6981
By the way, all royalties to the five authors of the manual from its
sales are being donated to help support future TACT work.
Ian Lancashire
Professor of English, New College
University of Toronto
E-mail: ian@chass.utoronto.ca
URL: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~ian/index.html