Transcript present - uralictypology

Conditional constructions in the
Uralic languages: a view from
designing a database structure
Marianne Bakró-Nagy
[email protected]
Anne Tamm
[email protected]
Roadmap to this talk
• Our goals
• Conditionals
–
–
–
–
Terminology and definitions of conditionals
The specific features of the Uralic conditionals
Parameters
Values
• The (im)possibilities of the database
– Our wish list
– What can be fitted into a WALS like structure
– How to structure the discrepancies? The procedure
• Conclusions
The multiple goals of structuring
the UTDb data
• functionality
• entering the data
• storage of the data
• retrieving the data via queries
• structural compatibility
• robust as the WALS (“macroparameters”)
• fine-grained to accommodate Uralic data
(“microparameters” and “nanoparameters”)
Conditionals definition
• A conditionality is a particular relation
between two events.
• It expresses a proposition whose
fulfillment is relevant to the degree of
reality assigned to another proposition
expressed in a sentence.
(Trask 1993. 55)
• an apodosis (subordinate clause, if-clause)
expresses a proposition whose fulfillment is
relevant to the degree of reality assigned to
• another proposition: protasis (main clause,
then-clause)
If X, then Y
if Marianne gets a grandchild now, then Anne is
standing now in front of you
Terminology
a prototypical conditional sentence includes
an apodosis
(subordinate clause, if
clause) expresses
a proposition whose
fulfillment is relevant to the
degree of reality assigned to
another proposition:
if Marianne gets a
grandchild now,
the protasis
(main clause, then-clause)
then Anne is standing now
in front of you
The Uralic conditionals
• dominant sentence structure: complex sentence
• dominant order of clauses: subordinate clause + main clause
• if the order is the reverse, then the subordinate clause is marked, or
the subordinate clause and the main clause are both marked; i.e. in
main clause + subordinate clause order, a marked main clause and
unmarked subordinate clause is exceptional: *Then I buy a hamster,
I get salary.
• dominant marking: marked subordinate clause by separate
words/enclitics/suffixes – but no preverbs or prefixes
• combination of present and past tense + suffixes as adverbial
subordinators depend on how hypothetical they are
• multiple/overmarked conditionality
• one and the same conditional marker can function as a suffix and as
a separate word for adverbial subordination in the same language or
dialect
(Source Bakró-Nagy 2008)
Formal typological parameters of
conditional constructions in Uralic
• sentence structure
– simple sentences
• nonfinite verbal forms [e.g. Estonian, S-E-Khanty, E-W-NMansi, N-Samoyedic]
– gerund [e.g. Nganasan]
– participle [e.g. E-S-Khanty]
– complex sentences [all FU languages]
• order of clauses
– protasis+apodosis [e.g. Udmurt]
– apodosis+protasis [e.g. Udmurt]
– embedded: apodosis-protasis-apodosis [e.g. Hungarian]
• markedness
– markedness of verbs
• markedness of verbs for mood
– markedness of nonfinite verbs
» unmarked nonfinite verbs [e.g. Nenets]
» marked nonfinite forms
types of nonfinite verb markers
local case suffixes [e.g. Estonian] possessive
suffixes [e.g. E-Khanty]
 derivational suffix [e.g. S-Khanty]
 order of markers [e.g. N-Mansi]
– markedness of finite verbs
» unmarked finite verbs [e.g. Komi, Erzya, Moksha, Hungarian etc.]
» marked finite verbs
 types of finite verb markers
 conditional particle [e.g. Mansi, Khanty]
 conditional Vx [e.g. Mansi, Hungarian etc.]
 position/order of finite verb markers …
• markedness of verbs for tense
– present
– future
– past
• [and their combinations in protasis + apodosis depending on
the degree of hypotheticality and epistemic stance]
–
markedness of clauses
• markedness of protasis
– unmarked protasis [all FU languages]
– marked protasis
» types of protasis markers
 word order [Estonian]
 lexical markers
» types of lexical markers
 conjunctions [e.g. Erzya Mordin]
 clitics [e.g. Udmurt, Komi, Khanty, Mansi etc.]
» position of lexical markers
 fixed position [e.g. Komi]
 non-fixed position [e.g. N-E-WMansi]
• markedness of apodosis
– unmarked apodosis [all FU languages]
– marked apodosis
» types of apodosis markers
 lexical markers
» types of lexical markers
 correlative [e.g. Hungarian]
» position of lexical markers
 fixed position [e.g. Hungaian]
macroparameters 1
sentence structure
• simple sentence
• complex sentence
– order of clauses
macroparameters 2
marking
• simple sentence
– markers of non-finite verbs
• complex sentence
– word order
– adverbial subordinators and their position
– tense
Our wish list
• Create compatibility with
– WALS
– Uralic data
• Create the right functionality
– add the data, that is, create an interface for
editors
– query the data, that is, create interface for the
users
Sample queries
• what is the type of conditional construction used in
Hungarian (a WALS-like query)
• but also what are the conditional constructions that
were used in Livonian or Kamas,
• and what are the examples of conditional
constructions in Meadow Mari
• or which language has the largest number of
conditional constructions (these queries are not
like the queries of WALS).
Not just a matter of parameter size
• Relevance of values
– many values not relevant in Uralic
– other values relevant to distinguish between the
Uralic languages and dialects
• Additional categories and relations:
– diachronic data
– examples and their source
• Additional allowed structure
– several alternative constructions are available, ergo
– combining two or more types – one parameter has
multiple values
Our roadmap.
1. The format and description
•
The format
–
–
–
•
We start off with a simple xml/table format to establish the
structure of the tables in terms of embedded structures.
Tables and xml are interchangeable, but the xml format is
friendlier to draw in case the database is designed by a
linguist.
This presentation discusses the relational database structure.
Data description of conditionals
–
–
As the first step, we make a system of attributes and values for
the conditional constructions in the Uralic languages,
followed by a system of relations between the attributes and
values.
2. Analyzing the WALS structures
•
•
•
•
taking the simple structure of the WALS and breaking it down visually to xml
format in a way that we can start adding our own parameters
retaining the structure as in the WALS we identify our own needs compared
to these structures
the WALS contains a matrix table of all value assignments for features. In
that table, rows give the value assignments for a particular language
identified by its WALS code given in the first column, columns give the value
assignments for a particular feature identified by its numeric identifier given
in the first row.
wals_code
1
hun
4
(This table tells us that the consonant inventory of Hungarian is moderately
large. The WALS code for Hungarian is hun, and the numeric identifier 1
pertains to the feature of consonant inventory. The number 4 encodes the
value assignment for this feature in Hungarian – moderately large. )
The goals of the Uralic database
wrt structure and content
The goals of the Uralic database are different, requiring more
embedding and feature-co-occurrence structures:
<construction> kui
< language > est
< /language >
< type>
<type-attribute > if-type
</type-attribute >
< example>
<text> kui õpid, saad targaks </text>
<source> the Mixed corpus of Estonian </source>
<translation> if you study, you will be wise </translation>
< /example>
< /construction >
3. A robust feature value system
• enrich the simple structure with the most
robust parameter system that we can
• this may serve as a hypothesis about how
the parameters of the conditional
constructions could be represented in
general.
• we add here feature 143, but not yet võro
language.
wals_code 143
Structures targeted at stage 3
• Also, new descriptions of the values can be added to a values table,
using the numeric feature id and the numeric value id as given in the
datapoints table matrix.
• From the data structure above, only the following structures and
information is targeted at this stage:
< language > est
< /language >
< type>
<type-attribute > conditional
</type-attribute >
<type-value> if-type
</type-value>
< /type >
4. Fine-tuning
with the data storage needs
• fine-tune the parameter-value system by adding
extra structures and relations (i.e. extra tables
and indices)
• the WALS-like data structure is combined with
the structures that serve the goal of storing the
Uralic data
• information such as the võro language code or
information about major dialects, e.g., vor,
wals_code
vor
143
4. Adding structure
that is different from WALS
• WALS records probably the most frequent value for
Uralic languages, but we wish to have a more finegrained structure. This is provided at this stage of
database development.
• Additional data for languages are added at this stage, as
if adding them to the WALS table on languages.
Additional data for features can be added by extra
numeric feature id s in the WALS-like table features.
• However, each of these additions, if we wish to keep
them separate but still compatible with the data in WALS
to perform larger queries, should be linked to an extra
index encoding the source attribute with the Uralic
Database value.
• information such as an extra index that
allows us to introduce multiple values for
one feature
• 1 value 1 for parameter 1
• 2 value 2 for parameter 1
• 3 value 1 for parameter 2
• 4 value 2 for parameter 2
• …
Summary
This talk presented the specific features of the
Uralic conditionals in the possible Uralic
Typology Database structure.
We identified parameters and values that are
generally relevant, and those that pertain to
the Uralic.
We presented our wish list, what can be fitted
into a WALS like structure, and how to
structure the discrepancies (the procedure).
(Konsta Zamyatin, Budinos)
Bibliography
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