E-Grammars for a Better Analysis and Description of Khanty and Mansi

AcknowledgmentsWe thank Elena Skribnik and Johanna Laakso for

scholarly and practical advice. Funding for this project

was provided by the European Science Foundation, the

German Research Foundation (Germany), the Austrian

Science Fund (Austria), the Hungarian Scientific

Research Fund (Hungary) and the Academy of Finland

(Finland).

For further informationPlease contact Veronika Bauer: pherenica@gmx.de or

Gábor Fónyad: gabor.fonyad@univie.ac.at .

More information on this and related projects can be

obtained at http://babel.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/ .

Poster available at http://babel.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/poster

Literature citedGleason, Henry A. 1961. An Introduction to Descriptive

Linguistics. Rev. ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.

Hunfalvy, Pál. 1864. A vogul föld és nép. [The Vogul

Country and People.] Pest: F. Eggenberger.

Kálmán, Béla. 1976. Chrestomathia Vogulica. 2nd ed.

Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó.

Munkácsi, Bernát. 1894. A vogul nyelvjárások

szóragozásukban ismertetve. [The Vogul dialects

introduced by their inflection.] Budapest: Magyar

Tudományos Akadémia.

Ромбандеева, Е.И. 1973. Мансийский (вогульский)

язык. [Mansi (Vogul) Language.] Мoscow: Nauka.

Werner, Heinrich (1997): Die ketische Sprache. –

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Interaction of Three Category Representations in the Database

IntroductionBy restructuring and presenting linguistic data from Khanty

and Mansi dialects we aim at improving the analysis and the

typological understanding of these language varieties.

The grammaticographical goals of the ESF project “Ob-Ugric

languages: conceptual structures, lexicon, constructions,

categories” are

• to make diverse types of category relationships visible

• if necessary to reinterpret and and to rename

grammatical categories adequately

• to reveal phenomena possibly still undescribed

• to apply formerly non-existent technologies and take into

account new typological results

A better description of the Ob-Ugric languages is very urgent

given their high degree of endangerment.

The Mansi language• Genetic relationship: Uralic > Finno-Ugric > Ugric > Ob-Ugric > Mansi, Khanty

• Location: Western Siberia (Russia)

• Speakers: Mansi 2.746 (ca. 24% of the Mansi people)

• Typology: agglutinative (suffixing); SOV � postpositions (inflected!); number: singular, dual and plural; 5-7 cases;

subjective and objective conjugation; complex system of non-finite verbal predication; little stem and vowel variation

ProblemsThe traditional analyses of Khanty and Mansi – arising in the

late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. Munkácsi, Hunfalvy,

Kálmán) and still dominant in many current works (e.g.

Rombandeeva 1973) – do not satisfy the needs of the

scientific linguistic community of our days. Some striking

examples would be:

• Continuation of the Latin (as well as Russian and

Hungarian) grammar writing traditions that were

adopted at the very beginning (ca. 150 years ago) with no

thoughts on their appropriateness (e. g. “Accusatives”)

• Application of inappropriate orthography

(e.g. Cyrillic-based)

• Application of idiosyncratic, non-transparent

transcription systems

• Different traditions in different countries

• Different meta-languages: Hungarian, German, Russian,

Finnish

• Problems still existing: very little and hindered access to

native speakers

Veronika Bauer (Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich/Germany) , Gábor Fónyad (University of Vienna/Austria)

[presented at the 2nd International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC).February 11-13, 2011, on the University of Hawai‘i / Honolulu (USA).]

[ kol ]

Figure 2. Figure 2. Figure 2. Figure 2. Slot template of the form kolɑɣənnəl

<stem> <declension><PoS><dialect><number

Possessor>

<number

Possessum>

<person

Possessor><case>

Figure 3. Figure 3. Figure 3. Figure 3. Tree hierarchy leading to the form kolɑɣənnəl

noun kolNorthern

Mansi 3rd

1st

possessive

SG

DU

PL

SG

DU

PL

ABL

INST

NOM

LOC

DAT

2nd

absolute

Figure 1. Figure 1. Figure 1. Figure 1. Representation of the form kolɑɣənnəl in a table

Representation I: Inflection table

[ +3 ][ +1 ] [ +2 ] [ +4 ]

kolkolkolkol----ɑɑɑɑɣɣɣɣ----əəəənnnn----nnnnəəəəllllhousehousehousehouse----DU<2SGDU<2SGDU<2SGDU<2SG----ABLABLABLABL

casecasecasecasepossessum possessum possessum possessum oooooooo < possessor< possessor< possessor< possessor

Representation II: Positional grammar model

Representation III: Tree hierarchy

Results• A modern grammar of Khanty and

Mansi will be provided and made

accessible to scholars in diverse

linguistic fields

• Free access e-grammar (scheduled

for September 2011)

• ‘Paradigm 2.0‘: the user can view the

verbal and nominal paradigms according

to his/her needs (cf. Fig. 4)

• Representations of the main derivation

types, selected word forms are

generated and glossed (cf. Fig. 6)

• Morphology is displayed from the

perspective of the so-called Positional

Grammar (see Gleason 1961 and

Werner 1977) (cf. Fig. 2)

• The interfaces are displayed in a

transparent manner (cf. Fig. 3)

• Concordance linking to the corpus

• The analysis of a certain word is

presented in three different ways (I., II.,

and III) which are complementary to

each other and which allow one

comprehensive reading

• Such a presentation suits the structure

of the Ob-Ugric languages best and

provides an adequate analysis

• Interdependencies and hierarchical

relations between the categories are

detected and shown

kolkolkolkol----ɑɑɑɑɣəɣəɣəɣənnnn----nnnnəəəəllll‘‘‘‘fromfromfromfrom bothbothbothboth of of of of youryouryouryour houseshouseshouseshouses‘‘‘‘

Figure 6. Figure 6. Figure 6. Figure 6. Adjustable ‘Paradigms 2.0’

Possessive inflection

Slot template:

[STEM] - [+1] - [+2] - [+3] - [+4]

[STEM] - nPum - pPor - nPor - case

Figure 5. Figure 5. Figure 5. Figure 5. Schematic affix template

Figure 4. Figure 4. Figure 4. Figure 4. Traditional inflection tables

http://babel.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/

Varvara Tarasovna Beshkil'ceva© Eszter Ruttkay-Miklián