New York University
November 9-10, 2007

Linguists doing cross-linguistic work have taken into detailed account a large and increasing number of languages and their properties. The ever growing number of languages feeding into the field has made it increasingly difficult to keep track of and integrate the available data and their theoretical implications. While the use of computers allows searches to be done more quickly than in the past, the field has not yet made significant use of the internet. This workshop explored the feasibility of developing a readily usable, open-source web-based database that will allow researchers 1) access to the syntactic, semantic and morphological properties of a great number of the world's languages in the database and 2) opportunities to add new languages to the database, or to add new data or new generalizations concerning languages already in the database.

This workshop called together a group of scholars in the fields of syntax, semantics, morphology and typology as well as experts who have experience in representing language on the internet to discuss issues pertaining to the development of such a database. Some of the questions that we discussed include the following: What syntactic properties will be included in the initial stage of such a database? What kinds of computer software and hardware will be needed to implement such a database? Are there other similar databases right now on the internet? Is it possible to establish connections to these projects? What sorts of uses will be made of the database once it is available online? What kinds of mechanisms can be put in place to ensure high quality data?

This webpage provides links to the original proposal of the database and the slides/handouts of our presenters. For comments and suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact the workshop organizers, Chris Collins, Richard Kayne, and Amy Wong (amywong AT nyu DOT edu).

Acknowledgments

This workshop was funded by New York University's University Research Challenge Fund. The organizers of the workshop would like to thank our presenters and participants for their valuable comments and suggestions. Thanks also go to Dominique Sportiche, Jonathan Brennan, Andrea Cattaneo, Patricia Irwin, Daniel Lassiter, Inna Livitz, Laziz Nchare, and Michael Taylor for their generous assistance throughout the workshop.

Program