The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies

Scientific data. 2020. Vol. 7. P. 13.

Rzymski C., Tresoldi T., Greenhill S., Wu M., Schweikhard N., Koptjevskaja-Tamm M., Gast V., Bodt T., Hantgan A., Kaiping G., Chang S., Lai Y., Morozova N., Arjava H., Hübler N., Koile E., Pepper S., Proos M., Van Epps B., Blanco I., Hundt C., Monakhov S., Pianykh K., Ramesh S., Gray R., Forkel R., List J.

Advances in computer-assisted linguistic research are greatly influencing and reshaping linguistic investigation. With the increasing availability of interconnected datasets created and curated by researchers, more and more interwoven questions can now be investigated. Such advances, however, are bringing high requirements in terms of rigorousness for preparing and curating datasets. In this work we present CLICS, a Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications which aims to both tackle interdisciplinary and interconnected research questions as well as showcasing best practices in preparing data for cross-linguistic research. This is done by addressing shortcomings of an earlier version of the database, CLICS2, and supplying an updated version with CLICS3 which massively increases the size and scope of the project. We provide tools and guidelines for this purpose and discuss insights resulting from organizing student tasks for database updates.

Keywords: polysemy, cross-linguistic comparison, Colexification