Software Tools
If you have programs/scripts etc that you have written (or even just found elsewhere) it would be helpful to give a brief description of them here. You can attach copies of the relevant files to this page. Please add your name along with the description so that people know who to contact for further information.
GetFromCelex
A utility to get infromation from the celex database. Celex, at least our version, consists of several files. Usually you will need information from different files, like phonological, morphological and frequency information. GetFromCelex will do all the work for you: you specify which fields you need and an optional number of filters and a file containing the items of interest will be created for you.
Main.MaartenVanCasteren
Mix
Mix is a utility to pseudo-randomise experimental items according to user specified constraints. Just shuufling your items is easy enough, but usually you would want some constraint to be used for the order of your items. Certain itesm should not nest to each other, or a minimum or maximum distance apart. Perhaps you don't want to allow more that a certain number of repetitions, or you would like to start each block with a couple of fillers. All these things are simple to do with Mix, and on top of that Mix can insert breaks, headers and footers to your file, and even reformat each trial.
Main.MaartenVanCasteren
"Match"
Match can match multiple conditions in an experiment on any number of parameters. It will work be selecting the best matching items from larger sets that have to be supplied by the user. Match will allow much better matching than possible by hand, and in a fraction of the time.
26 July 2010 Update: "....updated the online link to Match. The latest version is now available, with an updated manual.
The main change is in the performance, which is much better since I recompiled with the latest Microsoft C++ compiler.
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/maarten.van-casteren/mixandmatch.html
Main.MaartenVanCasteren
Waveform editors.
The main two waveform editors we use are Audacity and Cool Edit. Free versions of both (Windows only) are here:
Programs to manipulate wav files
A set of programs to manipulate wav files written by Dennis Norris to perform tasks such as splicing parts of wav files together.
Sox - sample-rate/format conversion
sox is a unix program to do sample-rate and file format conversions. Horrible syntax, but very flexible. There is a version on the linux machines, and I have installed the most recent version in /group/language/bin/linux/sox. However, this probably won't work for people not in the 'speech' group on unix - Dennis
Phonetic fonts
Here are the !CharisSIL fonts for windows that are now recommended for IPA transcriptions. Note that if you want to use these to in Excel graphs you'll have to use Excel 2003. Just unzip this file and copy the font files into your fonts directory (under 'settings' from the start menu). To insert the non-alphabetic chacters in Word click "insert", then "symbol".
An Introduction to Python Programming for Language Research
The book by Robinson and Baayen, is here [{attachment:python-programming-for-language-research.pdf|An Introduction to Python Programming for Language Research]]
Some people think this is the the way to go. Good for trawling through databases etc.
Other tools/resources
Colin Davis has a set of programs for calculating N in various languages: http://www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/staff/c.davis/Utilities/
Michael Vitevitch's Phonotactic Probability Calculator
Michael Quinion's Affix Builder
Brysbaert & New's SUBTLEXus, a new word frequency measure SUBTLEXus: word frequencies based on American English