LINGUIST List 18.1380

Mon May 07 2007

Disc: New: Database and/or Wiki on Linguistic Evidence?

Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyerlinguistlist.org>

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Directory         1.    James Myers, Database and/or Wiki on Linguistic Evidence?

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Message 1: Database and/or Wiki on Linguistic Evidence?
Date: 05-May-2007
From: James Myers <lngmyersccu.edu.tw>
Subject: Database and/or Wiki on Linguistic Evidence?


There seems to be a rapidly growing interest in expanding the range ofempirical data sources for testing linguistic hypotheses, with books andspecial issues and conferences in this general area becoming more and morecommon. For a conference that we recently held ourselves here in Taiwan, Ithrew together an arbitrary list of references and links:

http://www.ccunix.ccu.edu.tw/~lngproc/IWGElinkse.htm

But it seems to me that there should be a more ambitious, well-organizedattempt to provide a Web-based portal to this kind of information. Thismight include a searchable paper archive, perhaps using the Ashing software:

http://software.auf.net/ashing/

... and/or a wiki, with advice on experimental design and statistics, linksto corpora and software, and suchlike stuff.

I was thinking about starting such a resource myself, but I'm not sure ourserver could handle the traffic, and anyway this kind of thing requires anactive community (not to mention people who actually know how to write andmaintain server-side software).

The main difficulty with such a project would be drawing the line between''empirical'' linguistics and ''ordinary'' linguistics, since of course nosharp line exists. But that's what discussions are for.


Linguistic Field(s): Discipline of Linguistics                             General Linguistics