PLAY2CHAT – PLAY Annotation to CHAT Conversion
Status: Current Last updated: 2026-05-12 11:15 EDT
Purpose
Converts PLAY (Phonological and Lexical Acquisition in Young children) annotation files into CHAT format.
Usage
chatter clan play2chat input.play
Options
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
-l, --language | "eng" | ISO 639 language code for the @Languages header |
-o, --output | stdout | Output CHAT file path |
The corpus name in @ID headers is hardcoded to "play_corpus"
(crates/clan/clan-core/src/converters/play2chat.rs:92); there is
no CLI flag to override it. If you need a different corpus name,
post-edit the generated @ID lines or call
play_to_chat_with_options() from Rust.
Input Format
Tab-separated fields: speaker, start_time, end_time, text. Times are in milliseconds and may be empty. Lines starting with # or % are skipped. Lines with fewer than 2 tab-separated fields are ignored.
Example:
CHI 1000 3500 hello world
MOT 4200 6800 how are you
Output
A well-formed CHAT file with headers and participants. Unique speakers are automatically collected and registered as CHAT participants with the Unidentified role. Each PLAY entry becomes an utterance, with timing bullets when start/end times are provided.
Differences from CLAN
- Uses typed AST for CHAT generation
- Produces valid, well-formed CHAT output