LOT Winter School 2010 course description

Course Titel

Linguistic Infrastructure and Microvariation 

 

Teacher

Hans Bennis et al.

 

E-mail:
hans.bennis@meertens.knaw.nl

Postal Address:       
PO Box 94264, 1090 GG Amsterdam

Homepage:
www.meertens.knaw.nl/cms/nl/medewerkers/142447-hansb

Course material can be found on www.meertens.knaw.nl/LOT2010

Course Level:

Introduction / State-of-the-Art

Course Description

In this course we will provide an introduction to the use of digital methods in linguistic research, with a focus on dialect syntax (syntactic microvariation). We will first provide an overview of recent language-oriented initiatives in the ICT-domain, focussing on the large European / Dutch infrastructure project CLARIN (Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure). A second issue concerns the more specialized databases and tools that are available for microparametric linguistic research in the context of the Dutch/Flemish project of SAND (Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects: DynaSAND) and its European partners in the context of Edisyn (European Dialect Syntax). Finally, we will concentrate on syntactic research that has become possible through the availability of these electronic data (topics are verb clustering and verbal inflection in Dutch).

During the course, the students should have a laptop / PC in order to do assignments and to experiment with the available tools and datasets (PCs are provided by the organization of the LOT Winter School).

The course will be teached by a number of experts in the different areas that will be discussed. Hans Bennis will be teacher/coordinator. Other teachers are Jan Odijk (director of CLARIN), Arjan van Hessen (board of CLARIN), Sjef Barbiers (Meertens Institute, director of SAND & Edisyn), Jan Pieter Kunst (ict-developer SAND/Edisyn/CLARIN) & Douwe Zeldenrust (ict-coordinator Meertens Institute).

 

 

Day-to-day Program

 

Monday 18 January        9:30-12:00

AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LINGUISTIC RESEARCH

teacher: Hans Bennis

www.cordis.europa.eu/esfri/history.htm

make an overview of the development for the humanities

www.clarin.eu read from the web-page "About CLARIN": Executive Summary, Clarin Mission, The vision, Basic Concept, Background

 

Tuesday 19 January        9:30-12:00

CLARIN-NL

teachers: Jan Odijk and/or Arjan van Hessen & Hans Bennis

read: Long Term Working Plan: www.clarin.nl/node/47

read: Subprojects (individually accepted + call 1): www.clarin.nl/node/76

- read: 'Computational Humanities' KNAW 2009 [course material-1]

- look at:

DARIAH: www.dariah.eu

Alfalab: www.alfalablog.huygensinstituut.nl

NWO-Catch: www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOP_5XSKYG_Eng (watch the film)

 

Wednesday 20 January        9:30-12:00

DIALECT SYNTAX DATABASES: the Syntactic Atlas of the Netherlands' Dialects

teachers: Jan Pieter Kunst & Hans Bennis

read: Barbiers et al (2005/2008) Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects, Vol I & II. Amsterdam University Press. [read the introduction of Vol.II + the introductory paragraphs for each chapter of both Volumes]

- read: Sjef Barbiers, Leonie Cornips and Jan Pieter Kunst (2007) 'The Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects (SAND): A Corpus of Elicited Speech and Text as an Online Dynamic Atlas'. In J. Beal et al (eds) Models and Methods in the Handling of Unconventional Digital Corpora. Volume 1: Synchronic Corpora. Palgrave-Macmillan. [course material-2]

- look at / try out:

www.meertens.knaw.nl/sand/zoeken/

read the project proposal [course material-3]

 

Thursday 21 January        9:30-12:00

CASE STUDY I: Variation in Verb Clustering

teachers: Sjef Barbiers & Hans Bennis

- read: Barbiers, Sjef (2005) ‘Word order variation in three-verb clusters and the division of labour between generative linguistics and sociolinguistics.’ In: Leonie Cornips & Karen Corrigan [red.] Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 233-264. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, nr. 265). [course material-4]

- read (if possible): Hans Bennis (2009) 'Scheidbaar samengesteld werkwoord of toch niet?' In Ronny Boogaart et al. (eds) Woorden Wisselen. Leiden: SNL. 

15-27. [course material-5]

- background reading: Barbiers, S. (2009) 'Locus and limits of syntactic microvariation'. In: Lingua: 119 (11), 1607-1623. [course material-6]

 

Friday 22 January        9:30-12:00

CASE STUDY II: Variation in Inflection

Teacher: Hans Bennis

- read: Bennis, H.J. & A. MacLean (2007) ‘Variation in verbal inflection in Dutch dialects.’ Morphology 16, 291-312. [course material-7] 

 

 

Reading list
 

Course readings:

 

Course material can be found on www.meertens.knaw.nl/LOT2010