The Linguistic DataBase (LDB) is a database program created by the TOSCA corpus linguistics group at Nijmegen University for the storage and exploration of syntactically analysed texts. It features a tree viewer and an extensive query language. The LDB program, together with a 130,000 word analysed corpus of modern English (the Nijmegen corpus), is available free of charge to academic institutions and for Hfl. 5000,- to others. A tutorial and reference manual for the LDB can be found in the book: Linguistic Exploitation of Syntactic Databases Hans van Halteren and Theo van den Heuvel Rodopi, Amsterdam (1990) For more information contact: Hans van Halteren Dept. of Language and Speech University of Nijmegen P.O. Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen the Netherlands email: cor_hvh @ kunrc1.urc.kun.nl The demonstration version of the LDB accompanying this information file will run on any MSDOS machine with a drive C: with about 650K of free space. No graphics card is required. The demo program is fully operational except for the following limitations: - the program will run only from drive C: - in all analysis tree databases only the first 200 trees are accessible The files LDBDEMOC.INF and LDBDEMOC.EXE can be copied and distributed freely, providing they are kept together. Furthermore, no money may be charged for distribution, except for the cost of distribution medium and postage. ============================================================================== To move the demo version to your machine: A) If you have received the distribution diskette, obtained the software through ftp (binary mode) or executed step B) below you have a program named LDBDEMOC.EXE. Move to the directory where this file is stored and type (while drive C: is available): ldbdemoc -d c:\ In case this does not yield the files described below, but instead the files DONOTRUN.EXE and RUNTHIS.BAT, you started with a special, safeguarded version of LDBDEMOC.EXE. This version is meant to prevent people who don't have LDBDEMOC.INF (or haven't read it) from accidentally removing existing files by executing LDBDEMOC.EXE without parameters. As you may already have guessed, you must now type c:\runthis B) If you have obtained the software through LISTSERV you have the file named LDBDEMOC.UUE. You must use UUDECODE to translate this: uudecode ldbdemoc.uue Now continue as described under A) above. The result should be a directory C:\LDB with the following contents: LDB DAT ADEM01.ANA ADEM01.COR BW104.ANA BW104.COR DEMO ADEMLDB.DAT LADEMLDB.CMD LDBDEMO.BAT SADEMLDB.CMD INFO ANALYSES.INF LDBDEMOC.INF PROG ANSI.SYS BATCH.DEF DEFAULT.KWD DEMO.DEF INTER.DEF LDB.BAT LDBCREAT.BAT LDBINCL.BAT LDBPDEMO.EXE LDBPRCIN.EXE LDBPRCLD.EXE LDBPRCPR.EXE LDBPREP.BAT LDBPRGCR.EXE WORK LDB.DAT The demo is operational if the system has been booted while: - CONFIG.SYS contains the line DEVICE=ANSI.SYS - ANSI.SYS is present in the root directory of the boot disk To run the demo (did you check your CONFIG.SYS?): c: cd \ldb\demo ldbdemo ============================================================================== Once you are familiar with the LDB you can also use it outside the demo environment. For this, C:\LDB\PROG must be part of the search path. This can be effected by placing the line PATH=C:\LDB\PROG in the file AUTOEXEC.BAT in the root directory of the boot disk. If there is already a PATH command in AUTOEXEC.BAT append ;C:\LDB\PROG to this line. To run the LDB: c: cd \ldb\work ldb When running the LDB in this fashion, your own work (such as exploration schemes you stored in the database) will not disappear after you leave the program. If you inadvertently delete the file LDB.DAT, you can create a new one by copying the file ADEMLDB.DAT in the directory DEMO. In this case, however, you do lose everything you may have stored yourself.