Interlinearization Mode analyzer configuration

ELAN
1

Dear ELAN team,

I am struggling to start up Interlinearization mode. It has been a few years since I last used it so maybe I have forgotten a step. We have a lexicon and I have set up tier types and tiers that are connected to it for the Lexicon Analyzer. But when I try to set up the configuration, none of my tiers appear under “Applies to tiers:” in the “Analyzer - Tier Type configuration” window (see screenshot), and when I click “Analyze / Interlinearize” I get the message “No analyzer configuration is selected as active for interlinearization.” The “Configure Analyzer Settings” button is also greyed out. I have tried closing and reopening ELAN but that has no effect.

Screenshot 2026-09-17 110713
Screenshot 2026-09-17 1107131329×929 51.7 KB

Please let me know if you can help or if you would like more screenshots!

Thank you,

Anna Shingledecker

2

Dear Anna,

Thank you for the screenshot.

This is a bug in ELAN, not a mistake in your setup. I’ve been able to reproduce it and I’ve identified the cause.

It will be fixed in the next ELAN release.

What is going wrong:
In ELAN 7.1 the Lexicon Analyzer was extended with a third target tier (for grammatical information) in addition to the morph and gloss tiers. Unfortunately ELAN now requires your transcription to contain enough dependent tiers for all three outputs, even when you only want to use two of them. If your transcription has just two levels below the word tier , a morph tier and a gloss tier, which is the most common setup , ELAN finds no usable tier combination at all. That is why the “Applies to tiers:” list stays empty.

Two ways to work around it for now : either one will get you going, please pick whichever suits you better.

Option 1 — stay on ELAN 7.1 and add one extra tier

Add a single new dependent tier whose parent is your morph tier, so that it sits alongside your gloss tier. For example a “POS” tier.

Create a new tier type for it and set its stereotype to Symbolic Association.
The tier type does not need to be linked to a lexicon field for this workaround. (It would only need that if you later select the tier as the third target in the configuration window.)
You do not have to use this tier at all: it can stay completely empty, and you do not need to select it as Target3 in the configuration window. Its mere presence as a third level below the word tier is enough for ELAN to accept your word tier again.

Then reopen Analyzer – Tier Type configuration and create the configuration once more. Your tiers will now appear under “Applies to tiers:”, and you can leave the third target unselected. The button and “Analyze / Interlinearize” will work as before.

Option 2 — use ELAN 7.0 for the time being
If you would rather not change your tier structure, ELAN 7.0 is not affected and you can use it until the fix is released.

Please let me know if either option gets you going.

Thanks again for reporting this so precisely. It is genuinely helpful, and it has led directly to a fix.

Best regards,
Divya

3

Thank you very much for your thorough response! I tried Option 1. The configuration display was immediately fixed and interlinearization will start.

However, the interlinearization is stalling on some words - it’s not analyzing them, not continuing through the transcript, and no selection box is popping up, even when I click Analyze/Interlinearize again - while for other words it behaves normally (analyzing immediately, passing to the next word, or giving me the typical selection box). This is happening on maybe 1/3-1/2 of the words. I’m not sure whether this is a problem with our file/lexicon or an extension of the glitch. I tried opening the file in ELAN 7.0 and it still happened. Let me know if you can help with this as well - but at least it is partially working now!

Thanks for your help!

Anna Shingledecker

4

Hi Anna,

It’s hard to say exactly why some words aren’t being analysed without taking a closer look. If you’re able to share an example file where you’re seeing this, I’d be glad to dig in, reproduce the issue, and figure out what’s going on.

You can share them directly to me ( Divya.Kanekal AT mpi.nl ). It would also help if you provide the screenshot of “Configure Analyzer Settings” dialog.

Best,
Divya