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http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyDepartment of Linguistics

Diversity of Human Language

We are interested in finding out what properties are common to all human languages ("language universals") and the ways in which languages can differ from each other ("linguistic typology"). Beyond this, we aim to answer the question why language universals and cross-linguistic variation are the way they are. To this end, we study various phenomena across a wide range of languages. Our work makes reference to formal properties of language, to the cognitive bases of language, and to aspects of language in use.

As part of our work on the cross-linguistic study of various phenomena, we also work on the descriptive grammars of various little studied, and often endangered, languages. This work includes extensive periods of time spent with speakers of these languages in the areas where the languages are spoken.

A Typological Approach to Field LinguisticsTools for Language Description

(formerly Software Tools and Other Useful Tidbits for Field Linguistics and Language Description)

A contribution of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to the Language Typology Resource Centre

Language Typology Resource Centre (LTRC) (http://www.lotschool.nl/Research/ltrc/) and

Language Typology Resource Center - Projects (http://www.lotschool.nl/Research/ltrc/ltrcproject/index.htm)

This website contains tools for use in field linguistics and language description. Most of the items on the website are questionnaires designed to assist in eliciting data in such a fashion that the data will be comparable across languages. In addition, we would like to include "elicitation kits", allowing the researcher to present movie clips and similar language stimuli to native speaker consultants to see how they would describe the event shown. The number of elicitation kits available is still very limited, but we hope that more will be available in the future. We also include books and articles that provide down-to-earth guidance to the field linguist.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are an important tool in linguistic fieldwork because they allow a fieldworker who is relatively inexperienced in a particular area of linguistics to gather the full range of data in that area. For many of the questionnaires below there are language descriptions whose authors have used the questionnaire in gathering the data. In some cases the same website containing the questionnaire also contains such descriptions. These descriptions can be a useful guide to the use of the questionnaire.

The Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire (Comrie & Smith 1977; a questionnaire primarily aimed for grammar-writing, but with useful structural questions that should be addressed in the field; the Lingua Questionnaire underlies the North Holland/Croom Helm/Routledge Descriptive grammar series). This questionnaire provides the basic questions for the description of many of the constructions found in human language. Contact: N.S.H.Smith (at) uva.nl, comrie (at) eva.mpg.de (replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address) Abbi, Anvita, 2001. A manual of linguistic field work and structures of Indian languages. Muenchen: LINCOM (Not available on-line. Appendix with useful questionnaires for South Asian languages and for other languages as well) Questionnaire Basic sentences for collecting data in Indian languagesContact: anvitaabbi (at) gmail.com (replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)

Dahl, sten, 1985, Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell (This is primarily a typological study of tense and aspect systems. The appendix contains a translation questionnaire used for surveying contexts in which tense and aspect markers are used.) Contact: oesten (at) ling.su.se

Rutgers Questionnaire on Anaphora in African Languages (developed by Ken Safir) Primarily directed at African languages, but useful in a much broader context Anaphora in the African Languages - Questionnaire Version 2.1 (pdf | rft)Contact: afranaph (at) rci.rutgers.edu (replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)

Utrecht Anaphora Questionnaire [pdf] (a general questionnaire for eliciting data on reflexives and reciprocals, and, to a lesser extent, pronominals, developed by Alexis Dimitriadis and Martin Everaert)Contact: alexis.dimitriadis (at) let.uu.nl

2000 East Nusantara Linguistic Workshop Questionnaires:

Deixis Questionnaire (developed by Aone van Engelenhoven for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on deixis)Contact: A.van.Engelenhoven (at) let.leidenuniv.nl(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)

Valency Questionnaire (developed by Marian Klamer for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on valency)Contact: marian.klamer (at) let.leidenuniv.nl

Language Contact Questionnaire (developed by John Bowden for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on language contact)Contact: john.bowden (at) anu.edu.au

Oral Traditions Questionnaire (developed by Margaret Florey for the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on oral traditions) | Questionnaire as pdf-file Contact: mflorey (at) mail.newcastle.edu.au

Questionnaire for Control Verbs (developed by Barbara Stiebels)Contact: stiebels (at) zas.gwz-berlin.de

Questionnaire on Motion in Australian Languages (developed by David Wilkins, David Nash and Jane Simpson, should be useful in a much broader context than Australian languages)Contact: wilkinsdavidp (at) aol.com

Questionnaire on Stress Typology (developed by Harry van der Hulst & Rob Goedemans, this document contains a report on their research including their questionnaire)Contact: R.W.N.Goedemans (at) let.leidenuniv.nl

Questionnaires relating to phonological and grammatical domains in languages (developed by the Word Domains project, University of Leipzig) Contact: Rene Schiering, schiering (at) uni-leipzig.de (replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)

A Typological Questionnaire on Imperative Constructions (developed by Viktor S. Xrakovskij, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistic Research, St. Petersburg, in Typology of Imperative Constructions, ed. V.S. Xrakovskij, Lincom Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, 09 (2001))

STEDT Questionnaires: the linked questionnaires were developed by James A. Matisoff and collaborators as a means of obtaining data for the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. The following questionnaires include Body Parts, Animals, Natural Objects, Plants, Kinship and PeopleContact: stedt (at) socrates.berkeley.edu

Questionnaire for Transitivizing/Detransitivizing verb systems (developed by Johanna Nichols to examine strategies for causativizing and decausativizing. For further discussion, see: Nichols, Johanna, David Peterson, and Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8:149211.) Contact: johanna (at) berkeley.edu

Questionnaire for description of negation systems (developed by Ren van den Berg and Pater Kahrel for the volume Typological studies in negation, published by Benjamins (1994))

Outline of structure for descriptive grammar based on Persian (developed by John Roberts; warning: some Persian fonts not embedded in the .pdf). Some chapters on Persian syntax corresponding to parts of the outline can be found here (Please download the zip-folder.).Contact: dr_john_roberts (at) sil.org

Outline for a grammar of a Papuan language (developed by John Roberts) Contact: dr_john_roberts (at) sil.org (replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)

Typological Aspects of Figurative Language (David Gil and Yeshayahu Shen). The goal of this questionnaire is to obtain an overview of metaphorical expressions in a wide variety of the world's languages, in order to seek out universalities and diversities in the domain of figurative language. The questionnaire may be filled out in varying degrees of detail. Realistic response times might vary from half an hour to a few hours. The questionnaire is currently available in English, Indonesian and Portuguese versions, for use by linguists in different contact-language situations.Contact: gil (at) eva.mpg.de

Word-formation questionniare (Pavol Stekauer): A questionnaire about different types of word-formation strategies and different type of syntactic and semantic categories that often are associated with special word-formation strategies. Contact: STEKAUER (at) condornet.sk

Phonology questionnaire (Dan Everett) A suggested list of topics to consider when writing a description of the phonology of a language. It is not intended to be exhaustive but, rather, to serve as a framework for writing detailed phonologies. Contact: dlevere (at) ilstu.edu

Checklist for the description of Motion Events [pdf] (developed by Bernhard Wlchli, much but by far not everything that should be considered in the description of motion events) Contact: Bernhard.Waelchli (at) uni-konstanz.de

SIL Comparative African Wordlist (SILCAWL) (developed by James Roberts and Keith Snider)Contact: SILEWP (at) sil.org

Questionnaire for a diachronic typological study of valency-changing categories (developed by Leonid Kulikov). A questionnaire for collecting data on diachronic changes and developments in the system of voices and valency-changing categories such as passive, causative, reflexive etc. Contact: L.Kulikov (at) let.leidenuniv.nl

Questionnaire on Ditransitive Constructions (June 2006). (Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath & Andrej Malchukov) This is a general questionnaire for eliciting data on morphological, syntactic and lexical properties of ditransitive constructions, developed by Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath and Andrej Malchukov as part of the project "Ditransitive constructions in the World's languages" at MPI EVA (http://email.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Ditransitive.html) Contact: andrej_malchukov (at) eva.mpg.de | haspelmath (at) eva.mpg.de

Stimulus Kits for Data Elicitation

Many aspects of language can better be investigated by providing a stimulus that evokes the desired linguistic activity than by asking a question. We hope to increase the number of elicitation kits available on this website in the near future.

Pear Story

This is a link to the Pear Story website (http://www.pearstories.org/). The Pear Story is based on a silent video clip. Native speaker consultants are asked to tell the story of the video in their own words. The video clip is found in the Pear Story Website.

Books and Articles to Guide Data Collection and Grammar WritingBooks in this category play a role similar to questionnaires. They aim to guide the inexperienced field worker in both data collection and grammar writing.

Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists, Thomas E. Payne, Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN: 0521588057This book provides a possible outline for a typologically oriented grammar of a previously underdescribed or undescribed language. The book is written from the perspective of a functionally oriented typologist, but most of the issues raised are relevant for generative descriptions as well. This would be a very good starting point for any field linguist interest in the syntax of a relatively undescribed language. The generative syntactician might wish to add additional structural detail, but Payne's book provides a secure foundation for syntactic investigation.

Tafota Baruga Grammar Notes (Cynthia J. M. Farr with Bomi Terrence Furoke and James Buyers Farr) A sketch grammar of a Tafota Baruga grammar intended to serve as a model for reduced descriptions (of about 50 pages or so) of Papuan languages. It is accompanied by an introductory cover sheet explaining the intended use of the model grammar as a guide to writing new grammar sketches. Contact: j-c.farr (at) sil.org.pg and jim-cindi_farr (at) sil.org

Tools for Analyzing the World's Languages: Morphology and Syntax, John Albert Bickford, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998. ISBN: 155671047XThis is a rather simple syntax textbook that provides the background for understanding what might be of interest in the various structures that the field linguist will encounter. The formalism is generative in the sense that trees are provided, structures are discussed explicitly etc., but the formalism employed is roughly that of the generative grammar of the 1960's and 1970's. This is not, in fact, a deficit, since many important typological properties of syntactic structure can be discussed using very simple trees, but the user will need to be sufficiently sophisticated to convert these structures into his favorite formalism.

This is not a guide to follow while doing field work as much as a useful preparation for planning your work.

"Writing a Non-Technical Grammar of Mangga Buang [pdf]", Joan Healey, Studies in Phillipine Linguistics, Volume 1, Number 2, 1977, pp. 36-52Healey shows how she would approach the writing of a non-technical reference grammar by applying her ideas to Mangga Buang. (This article is provided in PDF format.)

Nontechnical Grammars: Audience, Purpose, and Method. Linda Simons, 1981, Notes on Linguistics 20:5--12.Linda Simons presents a bibliography of publications (including Healey 1977) on grammar writing and related topics.

"Writing a Reference Grammar", Uwe Seibert, http://www.uiowa.edu/intlinet/unijos/nigonnet/nlp/refgram1.htm.This is a short and very general discussion of what is needed to write a reference grammar. The site is in effect an ad for training courses for field linguists provided by the Department of Languages and Linguistics of the University of Jos in Nigeria. This page provides links to some additional pages that provide more information.

"Developing a Database of Personal and Demonstrative Pronoun Paradigms: Conceptual and Technical Challenges", Heather Bliss and Elizabeth Ritter, in Steven Bird, Peter Buneman, and Mark Liberman (eds). Proceedings of the IRCS Workshop on Linguistic Databases. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2001.This paper describes some of the conceptual and technical issues in the development of Ritter's Pronoun Database. It should be helpful to field workers interested in studying the pronominal system of a previously unstudied language.

Glossing and formatting data

The Leipzig Glossing Rules, developed by the Department of Linguistics of the Max Plank Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, provide a consistent and widely accepted standard for the interlinear glossing of text.

The Leipzig Glossing RulesOTHER SITES

A number of other initiatives have been undertaken in recent years which provide advice, training, and support for linguists interested in language documentation and description, and many of these have developed web sites containing useful information on topics not covered here. Below, we give some of these sites, along with a brief description.

The E-MELD School of Best Practices in Language Documentation: A web site covering a wide range of topics in language documentation, with a focus on its technological aspects, including discussion of hardware and software tools for language documentation and encoding standards for digital linguistic resources.

The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project: The Rausing Project is a large-scale initiative with three components: a language documentation program, which funds documentation projects throughout the world; an academic program, which trains students to do documentary work; and a digital archive for storing endangered languages data. Its website contains both information specific to the project as well as general information and advice for documentary linguists.

The DoBeS Project: The DoBeS project funds research on endangered languages and runs an endangered language archive based at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Among other things, it has developed a number of tools for language documentation and metadata standards for the archiving of digital linguistic resources.

The Paradisec links page: The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (Paradisec) web site contains a page of links covering a number of areas of potential interest to documentary and descriptive linguists, with a focus on sites related to digital archiving.

The AILLA Links page: The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) web site contains a page of links covering a number of areas of potential interest to documentary and descriptive linguists, including links to information about intellectual property rights, linguistic archives, and funding organizations.

The Endangered Language Fund: The Endangered Language Fund provides grants to projects involving endangered languages. Its website contains links to a number of other projects relevant to the study of endangered languages.

The Foundation for Endangered Languages: The Foundation for Endangered Languages seeks to raise awareness of endangered language issues and supports the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages. Its website contains links to a number of other projects relevant to the study of endangered languages.

SIL Electronic Survey Reports: Online access to SIL's sociolinguistic surveys, conducted by SIL teams all over the world. Many of the surveys include the questionnaires used to conduct the surveys.