Multidimensional Exploration of Online Linguistic Field Data

Advances in storage technology make it possible to house virtually unlimited quantities of recorded speech data online. Advances in character-encoding technology make it possible to create platform-independent transcriptions. Advances in Web technology make it possible to publish this data for essentially no marginal cost. These developments have profound consequences for the accessibility, quality and quantity of linguistic field data. Recordings become accessible. Transcriptions become verifiable. Large corpora become manageable. In order to illustrate the potential for this mode of operation in field linguistics, I describe a piece of online fieldwork involving a tone language of Cameroon. A complex verb paradigm for Bamileke Dschang has been collected and transcribed, and audio and laryngograph recordings have been digitised and segmented. A central insight of Hyman's analysis concerning the domain of tone rules has been applied to the new data. And a Web program for multidimension..