Data Management and Linguistic Analysis:

MDS applied to RODA

Sheila M. Embleton, Dorin Uritescu & Eric S. Wheeler

York University, Toronto, Canada

Order of Presentation Context

Romanian and RODA RODA as Linguistic Technology Examples

• Latin Word-final /u/• Non-palatalized dentals before front vowels

MDS MDS as an analytic tool MDS and Romanian Dialects

Context

Romania

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_language#Geographic_distribution

Romanian

22+ million speakers critical exemplar of eastern

Romance language family

Noul Atlas lingvistic român. Crişana Crişana region in

north-west Romania

Hard copy atlas by Stan and Uritescu (1996, 2003)

Digitize to make it more accessible

Objective Use Information Technology to

permit a broad range of scholars to access the data, select the data appropriately, and present the data clearly;

and so gain greater understanding of its significance.

State of the Project (Nov 2007)

Have entered all 407 maps from Vol. I and II Twice proof-read Consulted source slips, when needed

Have developed search and mapping tools to access the digital data

Initial version now posted at:http://vpacademic.yorku.ca/romanian

RODA as linguistic technology

The technology allows one to:

View the data Search for data and count it Interpret the data or the counts Analyze the data (e.g. MDS) See the results as maps

Save the maps as .jpg pictures Save the results for later use

Hear samples of the data

RODA: function Custom-defined maps

• You select the data• You see the result as a map

Programmable access to the whole set of digitized data• You ask about data spread over many maps• You can customize what you search for

(not just the editor’s choice)

RODA: search of data Context of search becomes important

• Word-final vs non-final vs either• Plain character vs accented character• Character vs (superposed) alternate

Choice of fields to search• E.g. With nouns: sg. vs pl. entries• Variations heard by field workers• Flags to mark special situations (e.g.

hesitation)

Examples from RODA

Crişana, Romania

Crişana, Romania

(from RODA)

Seeing Words Change

Word-final /u/in Latin and non-Latin words

Word-final /u/ from Latin

Latin Romanian(standard and most

dialects)

Dialectal Variation

canto ‘I sing’ cânt cântu(vowel present)

cântu

(non-syllabic)

oculum ‘eye’ ochi ochiu ochiu

Is word-final /u/ random? Look for a geographic pattern over

all potential occurrences The maps for single examples such

as /ochi/ and others, are in the hard-copy dialect Atlas,

But total data for all examples is spread widely over many maps.

Word-final /u/

Data from:•407 maps•Field 1

Size of cross shows the number of occurrences

Horizontal= syllabic

Vertical = non-syllabic

Syllabic and non-syllabic /u/

Data from:•Selected maps•Field 1•Word-final or non-word-final

Size of cross shows the number of occurrences

Horizontal= syllabic

Vertical = non-syllabic

Word-final,syllabic /u/

Data from:•407 maps•Field 1•word-final only•(horizontal = vertical)

Locations 137, 141, 146 show most examples

Word-final,syllabic /u/

Can review the data

Word-final,syllabic /u/

Data from:•selected maps•Field 1•word-final only•removed non-vocalic /u/ , def. art., some clusters +/u/.•(horizontal = vertical)

Locations 137, 141, 146 show most examples

/u/ Pattern There is a pattern:

Word final /u/ is retained in central, and north-eastern areas

It is syllabic mostly in parts of the central area

The locations with most frequent syllabic final /u/ do not form a continuous area

Dialect sub-regions Some locations have a given

feature; others do not. On the basis of such (sometimes

limited) examples, linguists posit the existence of dialect sub-regions.

MDS analysis of “all” data raises questions about the nature of these sub-regions.

Non-palatalized dentals before front vowels

Non-palatalized dentals before front vowels

Crişana: dentals before front vowels are palatalized.

Are they restructured as palatals? If the process is no longer productive,

there may be non-palatalized dentals before front vowels.

If so, where, in what forms and what is the frequency?

Non-palatalized dentals before front vowels

•Examples everywhere.

•(As is well-known, dentals are not palatalized in Oaş, except for 220.)

•Map shows where and how many examples.

Non-palatalized dentals before front vowels

There are examples everywhere (not only in Oaş)

Here we establish a result with the location and frequency of examples.

Can view the examples that support the conclusion.

MDS

MDS as Analytic tool In addition to select, search, count

and map functions, RODA can have special-purpose analytic tools.

A built-in MDS tool allows us to create MDS maps based on any selected set of data.

Other analytic techniques could also be implemented.

MDS Process-1

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) uses the “linguistic distance” between n+1 locations to place them in an n-dimensional space exactly...

MDS Process-2

MDS projects an n-space onto a 2-space (a map) so that the distances among the points are preserved as best as possible.

Projection to 2-space

MDS Process -3 The linguistic map may or may not

correspond to geography It does give a high-level picture of

the total linguistic relationship: All the data used to get the distances is now displayed as a single picture.

Distance measures Based on linguistic forms being

“same” or “not same” Does not account for forms that are

nearly the same:• “cat” ~ “caţ” ~ “feline”

Missing forms are “not same” Summed over many comparisons

MDS and dialects Embleton and

Wheeler have used an MDS process on English dialects Finnish dialects

Dialect roughly correlates with geography

Romanian Dialect groupings Begin with a hypothesis about

dialect groupings in Crişana. Analyzed all data in 403 maps, using

the MDS method. Identity is exact match; any difference

is a difference of 1. Distance is sum of differences.

We see the groupings on a map.

MDS mapAll groups

South-east and South-west are distinct.

The rest are less so. Suggests

the dialect unity of the region

--> refine groupings

MDS mapRefined groupings

Still, considerable overlap or closeness

More groups that could be identified, e.g.:

Several divisions in West

Two areas in Oaş

Oaş is close to southern areas

Still, its distinctness is clear (cf. also Uritescu 1984a).

MDS mapRefined groupings

Crişana dialect regionsWhen a lot of data is considered: There is much overlap of regions A few regions are distinct.It is possible that areas share features in a

complex way, based on distance, physical geography and other factors.

There is more apparent unity than traditional analyses (based on a few features) would provide.

Further investigation

We want to look at: Differences in vocabulary (rare vs

common terms) Phonetics vs morphology vs syntax Other definitions of distance

RODA and MDS RODA provides the large amount of

data. MDS makes the large amount of

data readily understandable as a single picture.

Implementing MDS in RODA means that researchers can easily try the approach.

Summary RODA provides:

Accessible data Flexible searching and custom presentation Repeatable processing

MDS makes the data easy to visualize Result: new linguistic insights based on

the greater understanding of the data

Contacts Sheila Embletonembleton@yorku.ca Dorin Uritescudorinu@yorku.ca Eric Wheelerwheeler@ericwheeler.ca

Site: vpacademic.yorku.ca/romanian/