Abstract
In this paper, I introduce a computational tool, TYTO (“Typology Tool”), that utilises Semantic Web technologies in order to provide novel ways to process, integrate, and query cross-linguistic data. Its data store incorporates a set of ontologies (comprising linguistic examples, annotations, language background information, and metadata) backed by a logic reasoner software. This allows for highly targeted querying, and, with enough data on the relevant interest areas, TYTO can return answers to rather specific typological questions such as ‘Which other languages in the North America, in addition to Yuchi, do encode senior kin and in-group (such as belonging to the same ethnic group) in a suffixal case marking system?’ TYTO’s data store can be extended with additional ontologies and adapted to allow for project-specific analyses of linguistic data. It is further designed to facilitate collaboration and allow multi-user contributions, including automatic integration of data submitted at different stages by different contributors.
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Schalley, A.C. (2012). TYTO – A Collaborative Research Tool for Linked Linguistic Data. In: Chiarcos, C., Nordhoff, S., Hellmann, S. (eds) Linked Data in Linguistics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28249-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28249-2_14
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