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LaTeX
LaTex [la:teç] is a program to produce complex documents such as technical reports or scientific articles. During the ~15 years of its existence, many features have been added to cater for the needs of various academic disciplines. You find some of the possibilities for linguistics further down this page.
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Philosophy
Contrary to word processors (Word, OpenOffice), LaTeX does not try to present your document on the screen the way it is most likely to be printed (What you see is what you get). It rather shows the semantics of your document (sections, subsections, tables, footnotes, linguistic examples, What you see is what you mean).
In a process called compiling , this semantic information is then transformed in an actual printable document.
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Main advantages
- no known bugs
- extraordinary stability
- open and transparent format. You can edit LaTeX files with any program you like.
- consistency in numbering and the like, even if highly complex
- documents can be arbitrarily large (Word gets problems at a certain size and refuses to open.)
- lots of discipline-specific extensions
- freeware
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Advantages for a linguist
The following advantages for a linguist will be addressed below:
- interlinearization
- cross references
- bibliographies
- IPA support
- AVMs
- Trees
Links are given at the end
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Source of a document
LaTeX distinguishes a source file (extension *.tex) from an output file (e.g. *.pdf). In the following section, you can see the use of section, subsection, itemize, enumerate and item in a source file. There is no information about fonts, spacing, numbering etc.
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The pdf of the small document
When the process is compiled to Pdf, LaTeX has chosen sensible options to typeset your semantic declarations. Fonts and numbers have been chosen to fit your declarations.
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Fancy ligatures
Youmightrecognize that the above document looks fancier than Microsoft Word documents. This is because some words are typeset in a more skillfull manner, using a technique called ligatures. Compare the word "define" in LaTeX and Word (especially 'fi'):
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Interlinearization
The main edge that LaTeX has over other programs is automated formatting of interlinearized examples. The commands for this are trivial and easy to use. \ea stands at the beginning of an interlinearized example, \gll in the line of the source language, \z ends the interlinearization. See yourself:
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Output in pdf
The words are aligned automatically, spacing is exactly as necessary and examples stretching over several lines still align, but have the gloss at the very end.
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Crossreferences
Cross referencing is very easy in LaTeX. You label an element using \label{someLabel}. Later, you can refer to this element by \ref{someLabel}. In this case, \ref{Elvis} produces the number of the example, but references to sections, tables or pages are also easy. For this, see the links at the end.
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Bibliography
Citing is very easy with LaTeX. Just use citet{some Author}, and the relevant information will be copied from a database, for instance Meyer(1998).
Your section on references is also updated. (e.g. Meyer,R.(1998): All about me, London:Routledge)
You can use different bibliographic styles. Thus, if you want to resubmit to a different journal, you just have to tell LaTeX to use the other bibliographic style. natseb.bst and natuva.bst are two styles I created that capture standard linguistic citation conventions.
You have to create a database before. This can be easily done using JabRef available at
http://jabref.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
I was told that EndNote provides a similar functionality for Word
JabRef
natseb.bst
natuva.bst |
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Phonetics
It is easy to use IPA under LaTeX. Normally, you type several phonetic characters in a row. In LaTeX you do not need to click through several menus to find them. There is an environment for phonetic transcriptions. \textipa{some text} defines that the text between the braces is to be regarded as IPA. Every character is mapped on an IPA-sign. The small letters keep their values. Some common IPA signs are mapped on the capital letters, some rarer ones like the reversed 'r' are accessible through a special sequence, in this case \*r
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Trees
Trees are popular with many linguistic theories. It is a challenge to produce nice trees on your computer. LaTeX files with trees can lookfearsome, but the resultlooks the better.
The first tree uses blanks and new lines in the source to make it more readable, while the second one is a classical bracketing notation one-liner.
LaTeX ignoresblanks and new lines, so either approach is good, but I recommend the first for better readability of the source and maintenance.
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Other trees
There are other ways of drawing trees. If you face problems with the method above, try http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/clmt/latex4ling/trees/
Other trees |
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Links
Graphical User Interfaces for LaTeX:
- TeXnicCenter: http://www.toolscenter.org/front_content.php?idcat=43
- WinEdt: http://www.winedt.com/
- kile, only for Linux http://kile.sourceforge.net
I do not know the following, but some people like them
- Scientific WorkPlace, WYSIWIG, but rather for natural sciences http://www.mackichan.com/
- www.lyx.org
Obtaining LaTeX:
- Windows:http://www.miktex.org
- Linux: included in all major distributions. If not, use aptitude or the package manager of your choice
- MAC: should be available, but I havenoexperience withthat
LaTeX sites for linguists:
- start here: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/advice/latex.html
- nice synopsis:
- www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~dm/02/latex-tutorial/sources/latex-tutorial.pdf
- also useful: http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/clmt/latex4ling/
Getting help:
- google or another search engine is your friend. Remember the polysemy of the word "latex". You can search for "latex -sex", or, better, more specific like "latex linguistic trees" http://www.google.com/search?q=latex+linguistic+trees yielded 8730 results on 4.3.2005
- there are some forums and mailing lists for LaTeX and more specific uses of LaTeX. You will find them using the search engine of your choice (e.g. google)
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