http://www.eva.mpg.

de/lingua/

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Department of Linguistics

Diversity of Human Language

We are interested in finding out what properties are common to all human
languages ("language universals") and the ways in which languages can differ from
each other ("linguistic typology"). Beyond this, we aim to answer the question why
language universals and cross-linguistic variation are the way they are. To this end,
we study various phenomena across a wide range of languages. Our work makes
reference to formal properties of language, to the cognitive bases of language, and
to aspects of language in use.
As part of our work on the cross-linguistic study of various phenomena, we also
work on the descriptive grammars of various little studied, and often endangered,
languages. This work includes extensive periods of time spent with speakers of
these languages in the areas where the languages are spoken.

A Typological Approach to Field Linguistics

Tools for Language Description
(formerly Software Tools and Other Useful Tidbits for Field Linguistics and Language
Description)
A contribution of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to
the Language Typology Resource Centre

Language Typology Resource Centre (LTRC) (http://www.lotschool.nl/Research/ltrc/)

and

Language Typology Resource Center - Projects

(http://www.lotschool.nl/Research/ltrc/ltrcproject/index.htm)
This website contains tools for use in field linguistics and language description. Most
of the items on the website are questionnaires designed to assist in eliciting data in
such a fashion that the data will be comparable across languages. In addition, we
would like to include "elicitation kits", allowing the researcher to present movie clips
and similar language stimuli to native speaker consultants to see how they would
describe the event shown. The number of elicitation kits available is still very
limited, but we hope that more will be available in the future. We also include books
and articles that provide down-to-earth guidance to the field linguist.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires are an important tool in linguistic fieldwork because they allow a
fieldworker who is relatively inexperienced in a particular area of linguistics to
gather the full range of data in that area. For many of the questionnaires below
there are language descriptions whose authors have used the questionnaire in
gathering the data. In some cases the same website containing the questionnaire
also contains such descriptions. These descriptions can be a useful guide to the use
of the questionnaire.

The Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire (Comrie & Smith 1977; a

questionnaire primarily aimed for grammar-writing, but with useful
structural questions that should be addressed in the field; the Lingua
Questionnaire underlies the North Holland/Croom Helm/Routledge
Descriptive grammar series). This questionnaire provides the basic questions
for the description of many of the constructions found in human language.
Contact: N.S.H.Smith (at) uva.nl, comrie (at) eva.mpg.de
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
Abbi, Anvita, 2001. A manual of linguistic field work and structures of
Indian languages. Muenchen: LINCOM (Not available on-line. Appendix
with useful questionnaires for South Asian languages and for other
languages as well)
Questionnaire Basic sentences for collecting data in Indian
languages
Contact: anvitaabbi (at) gmail.com
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
Dahl, sten, 1985, Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell
(This is primarily a typological study of tense and aspect systems. The
appendix contains a translation questionnaire used for surveying contexts in
which tense and aspect markers are used.)
Contact: oesten (at) ling.su.se
Rutgers Questionnaire on Anaphora in African Languages (developed by
Ken Safir) Primarily directed at African languages, but useful in a much
broader context
Anaphora in the African Languages - Questionnaire Version 2.1 (pdf |
rft)
Contact: afranaph (at) rci.rutgers.edu
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
Utrecht Anaphora Questionnaire [pdf] (a general questionnaire for
eliciting data on reflexives and reciprocals, and, to a lesser extent,
pronominals, developed by Alexis Dimitriadis and Martin Everaert)
Contact: alexis.dimitriadis (at) let.uu.nl
2000 East Nusantara Linguistic Workshop Questionnaires:
o Deixis Questionnaire (developed by Aone van Engelenhoven for the
2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on deixis)
Contact: A.van.Engelenhoven (at) let.leidenuniv.nl
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
o Valency Questionnaire (developed by Marian Klamer for the 2000
East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on valency)
Contact: marian.klamer (at) let.leidenuniv.nl
o Language Contact Questionnaire (developed by John Bowden for
the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on
language contact)
Contact: john.bowden (at) anu.edu.au
o Oral Traditions Questionnaire (developed by Margaret Florey for
the 2000 East Nusantara Linguistics Workshop, workshop on oral
traditions) | Questionnaire as pdf-file
Contact: mflorey (at) mail.newcastle.edu.au
Questionnaire for Control Verbs (developed by Barbara Stiebels)
Contact: stiebels (at) zas.gwz-berlin.de
Questionnaire on Motion in Australian Languages (developed by David
Wilkins, David Nash and Jane Simpson, should be useful in a much broader
context than Australian languages)
Contact: wilkinsdavidp (at) aol.com
Questionnaire on Stress Typology (developed by Harry van der Hulst & Rob
Goedemans, this document contains a report on their research including

their questionnaire)
Contact: R.W.N.Goedemans (at) let.leidenuniv.nl
Questionnaires relating to phonological and grammatical domains in
languages (developed by the Word Domains project, University of Leipzig)
Contact: Rene Schiering, schiering (at) uni-leipzig.de
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
A Typological Questionnaire on Imperative Constructions (developed
by Viktor S. Xrakovskij, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistic
Research, St. Petersburg, in Typology of Imperative Constructions, ed. V.S.
Xrakovskij, Lincom Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, 09 (2001))
STEDT Questionnaires: the linked questionnaires were developed by
James A. Matisoff and collaborators as a means of obtaining data for the
Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. The following
questionnaires include Body Parts, Animals, Natural Objects, Plants, Kinship
and People
Contact: stedt (at) socrates.berkeley.edu
Questionnaire for Transitivizing/Detransitivizing verb systems
(developed by Johanna Nichols to examine strategies for causativizing and
decausativizing. For further discussion, see: Nichols, Johanna, David
Peterson, and Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing
languages. Linguistic Typology 8:149211.)
Contact: johanna (at) berkeley.edu
Questionnaire for description of negation systems (developed by Ren
van den Berg and Pater Kahrel for the volume Typological studies in
negation, published by Benjamins (1994))
Outline of structure for descriptive grammar based on Persian
(developed by John Roberts; warning: some Persian fonts not embedded in
the .pdf). Some chapters on Persian syntax corresponding to parts of the
outline can be found here (Please download the zip-folder.).
Contact: dr_john_roberts (at) sil.org
Outline for a grammar of a Papuan language (developed by John
Roberts)
Contact: dr_john_roberts (at) sil.org
(replace 'at' by the '@' sign to obtain a working e-mail address)
Typological Aspects of Figurative Language (David Gil and Yeshayahu
Shen). The goal of this questionnaire is to obtain an overview of
metaphorical expressions in a wide variety of the world's languages, in order
to seek out universalities and diversities in the domain of figurative
language. The questionnaire may be filled out in varying degrees of detail.
Realistic response times might vary from half an hour to a few hours. The
questionnaire is currently available in English, Indonesian and Portuguese
versions, for use by linguists in different contact-language situations.
Contact: gil (at) eva.mpg.de
Word-formation questionniare (Pavol Stekauer): A questionnaire about
different types of word-formation strategies and different type of syntactic
and semantic categories that often are associated with special wordformation strategies.
Contact: STEKAUER (at) condornet.sk
Phonology questionnaire (Dan Everett)
A suggested list of topics to consider when writing a description of the
phonology of a language. It is not intended to be exhaustive but, rather, to
serve as a framework for writing detailed phonologies.
Contact: dlevere (at) ilstu.edu
Checklist for the description of Motion Events [pdf] (developed by
Bernhard Wlchli, much but by far not everything that should be considered

in the description of motion events)

Contact: Bernhard.Waelchli (at) uni-konstanz.de
SIL Comparative African Wordlist (SILCAWL) (developed by James
Roberts and Keith Snider)
Contact: SILEWP (at) sil.org
Questionnaire for a diachronic typological study of valency-changing
categories (developed by Leonid Kulikov). A questionnaire for collecting
data on diachronic changes and developments in the system of voices and
valency-changing categories such as passive, causative, reflexive etc.
Contact: L.Kulikov (at) let.leidenuniv.nl
Questionnaire on Ditransitive Constructions (June 2006). (Bernard
Comrie, Martin Haspelmath & Andrej Malchukov) This is a general
questionnaire for eliciting data on morphological, syntactic and lexical
properties of ditransitive constructions, developed by Bernard Comrie, Martin
Haspelmath and Andrej Malchukov as part of the project "Ditransitive
constructions in the World's languages" at MPI EVA
(http://email.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Ditransitive.html)
Contact: andrej_malchukov (at) eva.mpg.de | haspelmath (at) eva.mpg.de

Stimulus Kits for Data Elicitation

Many aspects of language can better be investigated by providing a stimulus that
evokes the desired linguistic activity than by asking a question. We hope to increase
the number of elicitation kits available on this website in the near future.

Pear Story
This is a link to the Pear Story website (http://www.pearstories.org/). The Pear
Story is based on a silent video clip. Native speaker consultants are asked to tell
the story of the video in their own words. The video clip is found in the Pear Story
Website.
Books and Articles to Guide Data Collection and Grammar Writing
Books in this category play a role similar to questionnaires. They aim to guide the
inexperienced field worker in both data collection and grammar writing.
Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists, Thomas E. Payne,
Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN: 0521588057
This book provides a possible outline for a typologically oriented grammar of a
previously underdescribed or undescribed language. The book is written from the
perspective of a functionally oriented typologist, but most of the issues raised are
relevant for generative descriptions as well. This would be a very good starting
point for any field linguist interest in the syntax of a relatively undescribed
language. The generative syntactician might wish to add additional structural detail,
but Payne's book provides a secure foundation for syntactic investigation.
Tafota Baruga Grammar Notes (Cynthia J. M. Farr with Bomi Terrence Furoke
and James Buyers Farr) A sketch grammar of a Tafota Baruga grammar intended to
serve as a model for reduced descriptions (of about 50 pages or so) of Papuan
languages. It is accompanied by an introductory cover sheet explaining the
intended use of the model grammar as a guide to writing new grammar sketches.
Contact: j-c.farr (at) sil.org.pg and jim-cindi_farr (at) sil.org

Tools for Analyzing the World's Languages: Morphology and Syntax, John
Albert Bickford, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998. ISBN: 155671047X
This is a rather simple syntax textbook that provides the background for
understanding what might be of interest in the various structures that the field
linguist will encounter. The formalism is generative in the sense that trees are
provided, structures are discussed explicitly etc., but the formalism employed is
roughly that of the generative grammar of the 1960's and 1970's. This is not, in
fact, a deficit, since many important typological properties of syntactic structure can
be discussed using very simple trees, but the user will need to be sufficiently
sophisticated to convert these structures into his favorite formalism.
This is not a guide to follow while doing field work as much as a useful preparation
for planning your work.
"Writing a Non-Technical Grammar of Mangga Buang [pdf]", Joan Healey,
Studies in Phillipine Linguistics, Volume 1, Number 2, 1977, pp. 36-52
Healey shows how she would approach the writing of a non-technical reference
grammar by applying her ideas to Mangga Buang. (This article is provided in PDF
format.)
Nontechnical Grammars: Audience, Purpose, and Method. Linda Simons,
1981, Notes on Linguistics 20:5--12.
Linda Simons presents a bibliography of publications (including Healey 1977) on
grammar writing and related topics.
"Writing a Reference Grammar", Uwe Seibert,
http://www.uiowa.edu/intlinet/unijos/nigonnet/nlp/refgram1.htm.
This is a short and very general discussion of what is needed to write a reference
grammar. The site is in effect an ad for training courses for field linguists provided
by the Department of Languages and Linguistics of the University of Jos in Nigeria.
This page provides links to some additional pages that provide more information.
"Developing a Database of Personal and Demonstrative Pronoun
Paradigms: Conceptual and Technical Challenges", Heather Bliss and Elizabeth
Ritter, in Steven Bird, Peter Buneman, and Mark Liberman (eds). Proceedings of the
IRCS Workshop on Linguistic Databases. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
2001.
This paper describes some of the conceptual and technical issues in the
development of Ritter's Pronoun Database. It should be helpful to field workers
interested in studying the pronominal system of a previously unstudied language.
Glossing and formatting data
The Leipzig Glossing Rules, developed by the Department of Linguistics of the Max
Plank Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, provide a consistent and
widely accepted standard for the interlinear glossing of text.

The Leipzig Glossing Rules

OTHER SITES
A number of other initiatives have been undertaken in recent years which provide
advice, training, and support for linguists interested in language documentation and
description, and many of these have developed web sites containing useful

information on topics not covered here. Below, we give some of these sites, along
with a brief description.
The E-MELD School of Best Practices in Language Documentation: A web site
covering a wide range of topics in language documentation, with a focus on
its technological aspects, including discussion of hardware and software tools
for language documentation and encoding standards for digital linguistic
resources.
The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project: The Rausing Project is a
large-scale initiative with three components: a language documentation
program, which funds documentation projects throughout the world; an
academic program, which trains students to do documentary work; and a
digital archive for storing endangered languages data. Its website contains
both information specific to the project as well as general information and
advice for documentary linguists.
The DoBeS Project: The DoBeS project funds research on endangered
languages and runs an endangered language archive based at the Max
Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Among other things, it has developed a
number of tools for language documentation and metadata standards for the
archiving of digital linguistic resources.
The Paradisec links page: The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources
in Endangered Cultures (Paradisec) web site contains a page of links
covering a number of areas of potential interest to documentary and
descriptive linguists, with a focus on sites related to digital archiving.
The AILLA Links page: The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin
America (AILLA) web site contains a page of links covering a number of
areas of potential interest to documentary and descriptive linguists,
including links to information about intellectual property rights, linguistic
archives, and funding organizations.
The Endangered Language Fund: The Endangered Language Fund provides
grants to projects involving endangered languages. Its website contains links
to a number of other projects relevant to the study of endangered
languages.
The Foundation for Endangered Languages: The Foundation for Endangered
Languages seeks to raise awareness of endangered language issues and
supports the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages. Its
website contains links to a number of other projects relevant to the study of
endangered languages.
SIL Electronic Survey Reports: Online access to SIL's sociolinguistic surveys,
conducted by SIL teams all over the world. Many of the surveys include the
questionnaires used to conduct the surveys.