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Overview of the available datasets

Module Register

This module tracks information on genealogical, geographical and other aspects of language classification. It was previously released as Nichols et al. (2013). There are three main data components:

  • IDs: apart from our own unique language identifier (LID), the database is matched to Glottolog and ISO codes.

  • Genealogical information: The genealogy part is based on the state of the art in each family. We stay away from geographical groupings, widely mentioned but unproven groupings, or similar hypothetical groupings. (In the few cases where we felt it necessary to include a label for a residual grouping that is not a clade, such as Western Malayo-Polynesian, we have included 'non-clade' in the name of the group.) Thus, our genealogy is similar to the classifications of Campbell & Poser (2008) or Glottolog, but does not attempt to include languages or families for which there is classificatory information but little or no typological information (e.g. Beothuk, Cayuse) and does not include languages with typological information available that happen not to be in our database. The genealogical database uses two classificatory levels (and corresponding database fields) that are cross-linguistically comparable: Language and Stock, as defined in the metadata. Between these two levels, the database provides various nested convenience levels that reflect the current state of the art in subgrouping research. They are not comparable across families (e.g. what is called a major branch can reflect a primary split in one but later splits in another family). Also, they are not necessarily complete.

  • Geographical information: The geography database contains information on the geographical location of languages and a small-scale and a large-scale classification of languages into areas. The area classifications are based on our assumptions about contact events in history, informed by current knowledge of the historical, genetic, anthropological, and archeological record. We try to keep our definition of areas free of linguistic information in order to avoid circularity in areal linguistics research (Bickel & Nichols 2006). The individual definitions are given in the metadata and illustrated in static area and continent pictures.

  • Other information: This contains information on the genesis (creole vs. regular) and modality (spoken vs. signed) of languages, and on the main subsistence of their speakers.

Module Definitions

This module contains the definitions of common concepts and types used within AUTOTYP. Caution: these values on their own are not typological variables and can represent different stages of database development - do not rely on them to establish typologies, use data in the specific datasets instead. Currently available datasets are:

  • Areas (primary)

    Linguistic areas

  • Category (primary)

    Morphological category

  • Continents (primary)

    Language continents

  • Diathesis (primary)

    Diathesis

  • Flexivity (primary)

    Formative flexivity types: allomorphy of affixes depending on grammatical categories or lexical choice (see Bickel & Nichols 2007 in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. T. Shopen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  • HostRestriction (primary)

    Type of categorical restriction on possible hosts in terms of parts of speech

  • LocusOfMarking (primary)

    Locus of marking, as defined in Bickel & Nichols 2007 (in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. T. Shopen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  • MorphemeType (primary)

    Morpheme type (as defined in Bickel & Nichols 2007 in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. T. Shopen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  • PartOfSpeech (primary)

    Part of speech (detailed referential type)

  • PhonologicalFusion (primary)

    Phonological fusion of grammatical marker, as defined in Bickel & Nichols 2007 (in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. T. Shopen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  • Placement (primary)

    Placement of a grammatical marker within a phrasal domain

  • Polarity (primary)

    Polarity

  • Position (primary)

    Position of grammatical marker with regard to its phonological host

  • PositionalBehavior (primary)

    Positional behavior of a grammatical marker in its phrase, as defined in Bickel & Nichols 2007 (in Language typology and syntactic description, ed. T. Shopen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

  • SemanticClass (primary)

    Semantic class

  • SemanticRole (primary)

    Generalized semantic roles

  • SourceOfMarking (primary)

    Source of grammatical marker (agreement vs. assignment or any combination thereof)

  • SyntacticDomain (primary)

    Syntactic domain

  • SyntacticRole (primary)

    Syntactic role

  • TAM (primary)

    TAM categories

Module Categories

This module describes selected grammatical categories. Currently available datasets are:

  • Alienability (primary)

    Various aspects of possessive classification. Expanded version of Nichols and Bickel's contributions on possession in the World Atlas of Language Structure.

    Note: this module is likely to undergo substantial revision in conjunction with the NP structure module. (Some information is duplicated in the two modules, but was collected independently and cross-checked.)

  • Clusivity (primary)

    Various aspects of how inclusive vs. exclusive distinctions are made (if any).

  • Gender (primary)

    Various aspects of gender distinctions and their reflexes.

  • NumeralClassifiers (primary)

    Presence and number of numeral classifiers.

Module Clause

This module describes selected aspects of clause syntax, currently clause linkage and clause word order:

Module NP

This module describes selected properties of NPs across languages. It currently consists of a single dataset:

  • NPStructure (primary)

    Various aspects of noun phrases, focusing on their marking and (formal or semantic) constraints on head and dependents. Each entry is an NP construction type with a distinct morphosyntax and/or distinct constraints.

  • NPStructurePresence (derived)

    Per-language presence of NP properties

Module Morphology

This module contains information about verb morphology and grammatical markers. Currently available datasets are:

  • GrammaticalMarkers (primary)

    Various formal and semantic properties of individual grammatical markers. The coding of fusion and exponence is an expanded versions of Bickel & Nichols's contributions to the World Atlas of Language Structure.

  • LocusOfMarkingPerMicrorelation (primary)

    Locus of marking (head vs. dependent marking and various special cases) coded at a fine-grained level, tracking language-internal variation in detail. Expanded version of Nichols and Bickel's chapters on Locus in the World Atlas of Language Structure.

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbSynthesis (primary)

    Various aspects of how verbs forms can be structured in a language, such as presence of incorporation and inflectional categories (including agreement) expressed on maximally inflected verbs. These are high-level per-language aggregations, not individual verb forms.

    Note: the entries in this dataset only describe maximally inflected verbs. Do not use this dataset to make definitive statements of which overt inflectional categories are present in a language as other verb forms might be inflected for categories that are absent in the maximally inflected form.

    Note: the fields IsVerbAgreementSurveyComplete and IsVerbInflectionSurveyComplete specify whether the data in VerbAgreement and VerbInflectionCategories is exhaustively coded. Do not rely on entries where these flags are FALSE.

  • MorphemeClasses (primary)

    A multivariate typology of words, affixes and clitics focusing on the host restrictions and on the phonological and grammatical behavior of morphemes.

  • DefaultLocusOfMarkingPerMacrorelation (derived)

    Default locus of marking, aggregated per language and macrorelation

Module GrammaticalRelation

This module contains information about grammatical relations and valence frames. Currently available datasets are:

  • GrammaticalRelationCoverage (primary)

    Presence and coding status of various types of grammatical relations. See GrammaticalRelations (and the underlaying raw table GrammaticalRelationsRaw) for grammatical relation data itself.

  • GrammaticalRelationsRaw (primary)

    Detailed coding of grammatical relations as selectors on generalized semantic roles, conditioned by various parameters (https://www.autotyp.uzh.ch/projects/grhandbook/GR_Quest.pdf).

    Caution: this is a raw dataset that may contain incomplete or erroneous entries. The flag IsSelectorSurveyComplete denotes entries where data input is completed and checked. Also, refer to GrammaticalRelationsCoverage for the coding status of specific phenomena. For most users, we recommend to use the table GrammaticalRelations which has been cleaned up and pre-processed (see aggregations/Alignment.R for the algorithm).

  • PredicateClasses (primary)

    Predicate classes as distinguished by case assignment, agreement and other syntactic patterns. Classes with IDs #1, #2 and #3 are language-independent default (open) classes for intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive predicates, respectively.

  • GrammaticalRelations (derived)

    Detailed coding of grammatical relations as selectors of generalized semantic roles, conditioned by various parameters (https://www.autotyp.uzh.ch/projects/grhandbook/GR_Quest.pdf).

    Note: this is a processed and validated dataset, generated from complete data in GrammaticalRelationsRaw (IsSelectorSurveyComplete==TRUE). We currently include GR data on case marking and agreement only, with default diathesis and semantic/syntactic domain condition.

  • Alignment (derived)

    Computed alignments for case and agreement (syntactic and per-marker)

Note: GrammaticalRelations contains a processed and validated subset of data from GrammaticalRelationsRaw, more suitable for direct usage. It currently includes GR data on case marking and agreement only, with default diathesis and semantic/syntactic domain condition. Users are welcome to inspect the scripts in aggregation-scripts\Alignment.R and use it to produce their own aggregations.

Module Word

This module describes selected aspects of wordhood across languages. It currently consists of a single dataset:

  • WordDomains (primary)

    Strings of morphs are coded for phonological and grammatical cohesion; cohesion patterns come with explicit descriptions and morphs are categorized in a multivariate typology. See our 2009 project report for details. Note: this dataset has known structural defects and only partially exports the available information. It is currently undergoing significant structural revision and will be released as a modernised dataset in a future update.

Module PerLanguageSummaries

This module contains various per-language aggregations using the data from all the other modules. Currently available aggregations are:

  • AlignmentForDefaultPredicatesPerLanguage (derived)

    Per-language summary of morphosyntactic alignments (default predicate class only)

  • GrammaticalMarkersPerLanguage (derived)

    Grammatical marker exemplars properties (based on the data from GrammaticalMarkers), aggregated per language

  • LocusOfMarkingPerLanguage (derived)

    Locus of marking, aggregated per language

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedPresence (primary)

    Per-language summaries of presence of inflectional categories

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionAndAgreementCountsByPosition (derived)

    Per-language number of inflection and agreement markers on the verb

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPosition (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPosition), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned4 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned4), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned5 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned5), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasPreposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPreposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasPostposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPostposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionCategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasMultipleExponents (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasMultipleExponents), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPosition (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPosition), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned4 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned4), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned5 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned5), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasPreposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPreposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasPostposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPostposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbInflectionMacrocategoriesAggregatedByMarkerHasMultipleExponents (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasMultipleExponents), reshaped and aggregated per language and inflection category (binned into broad types) on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerPosition (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPosition), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned4 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned4), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerPositionBinned5 (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerPositionBinned5), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerHasPreposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPreposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerHasPostposedExponent (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasPostposedExponent), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MaximallyInflectedVerbAgreementAggregatedByMarkerHasMultipleExponents (derived)

    Marker position (from GrammaticalMarkers::MarkerHasMultipleExponents), reshaped and aggregated per language and agreement microrelation on maximally inflected verbs

  • MorphologyPerLanguage (derived)

    Per-language summary of morphological properties

  • NPStructurePerLanguage (derived)

    Per-language aggregations of NP properties

  • PredicateClassesSemanticsPerLanguage (derived)

    Per-language summaries of predicate classes with distinct morphosyntactic behavior