WP3: Linguistics

Work Package 3 Linguistics develops resources and infrastructure facilities for carrying out linguistic research. It aims to cover each aspect of regular linguistic research projects.

WP3 Linguistic resources

Work Package 3 develops resources for, among others:

  • Obtaining data and tools (both finding existing data and creating new data)
  • Automatic, semi-automatic and manual enrichment of data with various linguistic annotations
  • Search in and analysis of the data
  • Visualization of search and analysis results
  • Publishing data and tools in the CLARIAH infrastructure
  • Creating and publishing enhanced publications on the research

Many of the tools are web applications so that one does not have to download software or data, to install software. Several have dedicated user interfaces that for many uses do not require any programming skills or even knowledge of query languages. We also provide publications on (mostly linguistic) research using the CLARIAH tools and data.

Nevertheless, it requires some training and exercise to get to know all the functionalities and options offered by an application, so that it is used most effectively and efficiently. Therefore, WP3 also stimulates the development of educational material for the regular curricula of the linguistics departments. One can think of tutorials, textual or video explanations of specific features of an application, or explanations of how a particular type of query can be formulated. But also, of methodological considerations on the advantages and disadvantages of the use of corpora in general, automatically generated annotations, etc.

Research with resources from WP3

Many different forms of linguistic research can be supported by the CLARIAH WP3 data and tools:

  • Theoretical linguistics research, for instance a detailed study of a particular construction
  • Corpus-linguistic studies based on the many large corpora made available by CLARIAH
  • Research into language acquisition, for instance using the CHILDES treebank in the PaQu application
  • Research into language variation, for instance by using the MIMORE application
  • Lexicological and lexicographic research, for instance analysing collocations in SoNaR via the OpenSoNaR application

Many of the applications and data can also be used for other types of research in the humanities, like literary studies, history, religious studies, and philosophy.

Examples of research from WP3 Linguistics