The Munich Cross-linguistic Reference Grammar (CRG)
is a
framework for the unified description of natural languages of any kind,
spoken and written as well as signed languages. The leading idea behind
this database
application is
to support the descriptive linguist as well as the theoretical
linguist, the
former by providing grammar authoring tools, the latter by making
available a
wide variety of queries not only on individual languages, but also and
especially cross-linguistically. It is based on a project called AVG
2.0 'Allgemein-Vergleichende
Grammatik 2.0' ('General Comparative Grammar 2.0') supported by grants Za 111/7-5 and Za 111/7-6
from the DFG (German Research Association) to Dietmar Zaefferer, which
are
hereby gratefully acknowledged.
This page gives a short overview. It is structured
as indicated on the left.
The
aim of the project is to provide a general format for reference
grammars that
(a) guarantees an adequate and comprehensive description of the
language under
consideration, and
(b) ensures that the description is organized along the same lines for
every
language, allowing thereby cross-linguistic comparison in a systematic
way.
It was further elaborated during the work on the hypertext system "A Framework for Descriptive Grammars" (FDG), developed in a project funded by the National Science Foundation from 1990 - 1993 with William Croft and Bernard Comrie as principal investigators, and in the course of the German project AVG 'Allgemein-Vergleichende Grammatik' ('General Comparative Grammar'), supported from 1992 to 1995 by grant Le 358/8-1,2 from the DFG (German Research Association) with Christian Lehmann and Dietmar Zaefferer as principal investigators.
Former project members include
The database structure has the form of a tree with three kinds of edges:
Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ BE-edges for the taxonomic relations (conceptual subordination: every negative clause is a clause), Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ HAVE-edges for the meronomic relations (conceptual part-of-relations: a negative clause must have a negation marker, the latter is by definition part of the former) and
Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡
optional
edges for the rest (e.g. other part-of-relations: a negative clause may
have a
secondary negation marker).
The
CRG database application provides two front ends. Firstly, the front
end for
the reader of grammars. To start a query the user selects a subtree,
which
corresponds to an incomplete statement. The system then provides all
the
completions that are stored in the database, i.e. all the complete
statements
that include the incomplete statement that defines the query. This
makes it
easy to discover correlations and to test hyptheses. At a later stage
it will
be possible to look at visual representations of these correlations.
The second front end is grammar authoring system. It
facilitates language documentation and description, e.g. by providing
an
interlinear representation format for language data of any kind
(spoken,
written and signed; see below for further details). The urgent need for
such a
system should be obvious in view of the fact that many languages are
threatened
by extinction in the near future.
The
complete system will include the following components:
The
cooperation with the following people and organizations is hereby
gratefully
acknowledged:
Ameka,
Felix, Alan Dench, Nicholas Evans (eds.)(forthcoming): Catching
Language.
Issues in Grammar Writing. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bluhme,
Sarah, Matthias Nickles and Dietmar Zaefferer (2003): Cross-linguistic
reference grammar: An XML-based internet database for general
comparative
linguistics.
Presented at DGfS-CL-2003, 27 February 2003, Munich. dgfs-poster-session.ppt
Comrie,
Bernard, and Smith, Norval (1977): Lingua Descriptive Studies:
questionnaire. -
In: Lingua 42,
1-72.
Comrie,
Bernard, William Croft, Christian Lehmann, and Dietmar Zaefferer
(1993):
"A Framework for Descriptive Grammars". - In: André Crochetière,
Jean-Claude Boulanger et Conrad Ouellon (eds.), Proceedings of the
XVth
International Congress of Linguists, vol. I, Quebec City, 159-170.
Comrie, Bernard, (1998): Ein
Strukturrahmen für deskriptive Grammatiken: Allgemeine Bemerkungen. -
In:
Dietmar Zaefferer (ed.), Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner
Sprachvergleich, 7-16.
Farrar, Scott, and D.
Terence Langendoen
(this volume). Markup and the GOLD ontology.
[http://emeld.org/workshop/2003/papers03.html]
Nickles, Matthias (2001):
Systematics -
Ein XML-basiertes Internet-Datenbanksystem für
klassifikationsÔø‡Ôø‡gestütze
Sprachbeschreibungen. UniversitÔø‡Ôø‡t München: Centrum für Informations-
und
Sprachverarbeitung CIS-Bericht-01-129.
[http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/CISPublikationen.html]
Peterson,
John (2002): AVG 2.0. Cross-linguistic Reference Grammar. Final
Report. UniversitÔø‡Ôø‡t München: Centrum für Informations- und
Sprachverarbeitung
CIS-Bericht-02-130.
[http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/CISPublikationen.html]
Zaefferer, Dietmar (1997):
"Neue
Technologien in der Sprachbeschreibung. Der ParadigmenÔø‡Ôø‡wechsel von
linearen
P-Grammatiken zu vernetzten E-Grammatiken". - In: Zeitschrift für
LiteÔø‡Ôø‡raturÔø‡Ôø‡wissenschaft
und Linguistik 106, 76-82.
Zaefferer, Dietmar ed.
(1998): Deskriptive
Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich,
Tübingen:
Niemeyer.
Zaefferer, Dietmar (2001):
Modale
Kategorien. - In: Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehart König, Wulf
Oesterreicher,
Wolfgang Raible (Hgg.), Sprachtypologie und sprachliche Universalien (HSK 20.1). Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter, 784-816.
Zaefferer, Dietmar (2003): A
unified
representation format for spoken and sign language texts. [Downloadable
from
http://emeld.org/workshop/2003/papers03.html]
Zaefferer,
Dietmar (forthcoming): Realizing HumboldtÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s dream: Cross-linguistic
grammatography as database creation. - In: Ameka et al. (eds.)