1 / 7

Geographical information in linguistic databases

Geographical information in linguistic databases. Problems. Database construction forces you to think in terms of discrete entities Languages are not discrete entities Field data (and linguistic data in general) do not represent ”languages” as wholes but utterances specific in time and space

michaeleroberts
Download Presentation

Geographical information in linguistic databases

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Geographical information in linguistic databases

  2. Problems • Database construction forces you to think in terms of discrete entities • Languages are not discrete entities • Field data (and linguistic data in general) do not represent ”languages” as wholes but utterances specific in time and space • There are just too many language varieties in the world to be assigned codes

  3. Cutting the gordic knot • We need standards for specifying language varieties more precisely • …in particular, for locating language varieties geographically • … by an open-ended system

  4. Consequences • We need to use coordinates… • …and standards for representing them 50°20´N 12°15´W 50.33 -12.25

  5. New entities • Instead of languages: • minimal language communities? typically: a settlement or of less than 1000 inhabitants or nomadic group of a similar size • minimal discrete linguistic areas (=dialect continuum)? example: Continental Scandinavian

  6. Possible encoding: SCD 59.25 18.33 = the variety of Scandinavian spoken at 59.25 degrees north 18.33 degrees east

  7. Better maps! • …but that is for another time

More Related