How to define a tier type

ELAN supports the following options:

Adding new tier types

Do the following to add a new tier type:

  1. Click on Type menu.
  2. Click on Add New tier type... The Add type dialog window appears.
  3. Define the tier type (see Creating tier types).
  4. Click Add to save the tier type. Otherwise click Close to exit the window without saving.

Creating tier types

Every tier is assigned to a tier type. The tier type specifies the stereotypical constraints (and, as a consequence, whether or not the tiers are time-alignable).

Information about the relationship between tiers is given in two different places: for each individual tier it is given in the Add tier dialog window (see Adding new tiers), and for all tiers belonging to one tier type it is given in the Add type window (this section), i.e.:

  • Add tier attributes window: specify the parent tier of the individual tier.
  • Add type window: specify the stereotypical constraints of tiers belonging to one type.

To create a tier type, do the following:

  1. Click on the Type menu.
  2. Either go to Add New tier type…. In the latter case, click on the tier type that you want to change when the Add dialog window appears:

Figure 2.6. Add a tier type

Add a tier type

  1. Enter a label for the new type
  2. Select the stereotypical constraint:
    • None
    • Time Subdivision
    • Included In
    • Subsymbolic Subdivision
    • Symbolic Association
  3. Associate the new type with a Lexicon Service and Lexicon Entry Field via this option
  4. Associate the new type with an ISO Data Category via this option
  5. Ignore this option


Enter the following information:

  1. Go to Type name. Enter/change the name for the type.
  2. Go to Stereotype. Select the stereotypical constraint relevant to its tiers (see Basic Information: Annotations, tiers and tier types).
  3. Optionally select a controlled vocabulary (see Associating a tier type with Controlled Vocabularies).

After you have selected a stereotypical constraint, ELAN automatically enters the correct value next to the box Time-alignable.

Click Add to save the settings; otherwise click Close to exit the window without saving them.

Changing tier types

Do the following to change the attributes of an already existing tier type:

  1. Click on Edit > Change tier type… The Change type dialog window appears.
  2. The labels of all available tier types are displayed in the pull down menu, e.g.:

    Figure 2.7. Change a tier type

    Change a tier type


  3. Click on the tier type whose attributes you want to change.
  4. Change the settings.
  5. Click Change to save the changes. Otherwise click Close to exit the window without saving the changes.

Deleting tier types

To delete a tier type, do the following:

Click on Edit menu.

  1. Go to Delete tier type…
  2. A dialog window appears. The names of all available tier types are displayed in the pull down menu, e.g.:

    Figure 2.8. Delete a tier type

    Delete a tier type


  3. Click on the type you want to delete.
  4. Click Delete to delete the type; otherwise click Close to close the dialog window.

You can only delete a tier type if it is not used by any of the tiers. If it is used, the following error message appears:

Figure 2.9. Tier type is used

Tier type is used


Importing tier types

It is possible to import tier types from .eaf or .etf files.

Click on Edit > Import types.... Here you can select a .eaf or .etf file by clicking on Browse. Select the file you want to use in the next window and click Select. Finally click Import to import the tier types from the selected file.

Associating a tier type with a Data Category

In ELAN it is possible to associate a tier type with a data category of the ISO Data Category Repository (DCR). To do so click on Type in the ELAN main menu and select Change Tier Type.... In the window that now appears, click the Browse... button to the right of the ISO Data Category option. In the next window(Figure 2.10, “Local Data Category Selection”), select a category from the list and click Apply to associate the selected data category to the tier type.

Figure 2.10. Local Data Category Selection

Local Data Category Selection


More information about the ISO DCR and how to use it can be found in Data categories.