4. Linguistic data in morphosyntax
Chapter 4 practice exercises
Data analysis
Exercise 1. Glossing
Beginner [4.7]
Imagine that you are conducting elicitations in Nigeria and you have just collected the following Yoruba data in (1).[1] You have collected the pronoun paradigm and several sentences. You’ve also looked up all the words in the dictionary, which are listed in the table below. Gloss the following three sentences according to linguistic convention to prepare them for inclusion in a paper.
Note 1: Bolu, Wale, and Shade are proper names.
Note 2: Yoruba is a tonal language, but the tones are omitted in these examples.
| (1) | a. | Yoruba |
| a ti jo | ||
| ‘We danced’ |
| (1) | b. | a ti jo |
| ‘We danced’ |
| (1) | c. | a ti jo |
| ‘We danced’ |
| Yoruba data | English translation |
| adiyẹ | ‘chicken’ |
| ati | ‘and’ |
| gbọ | ‘hear’ |
| je | ‘eat’ |
| jinan | ‘ready’ (for food) |
| jo | ‘dance’ |
| ko | ‘not’ |
| n | action in progress |
| ti | past tense marker |
| Subject pronouns | Object pronouns | |
| 1sg | mo | mi |
| 2sg | iwọ | e |
| 3sg | o | ∅ |
| 1pl | a | wa |
| 2pl | eyin | yin |
| 3pl | wọn | wọn |
Communication and study skills
Exercise 2. Writing about data
Intermediate [4.6]
In Chapter 2, Exercise 2, you developed some data to demonstrate the behaviour of our and ours. Use the introduce, present, discuss format described in Section 4.6 to describe your data.
Research and application
Exercise 3. Source analysis
Intermediate [4.7, 4.8]
Look up an academic article, a book chapter in an academic book, a dissertation, and/or a single-authored academic book in morphology or syntax. Look at how the examples are formatted and answer the following questions.
a. Find the abbreviations list. Where is it?
b. What abbreviations are common/uncommon?
c. Does the source use three or four line glossing?
d. What similarities or differences do you notice compared to the Leipzig conventions?
e. Do they restart the example numbering in every chapter/section?
f. Can you tell which examples they collected themselves vs. got from other sources? How can you tell?
g. How do they cite examples from other sources?
h. If there are examples from multiple languages, how do they indicate which examples are in which language? Is it effective or confusing?
i. Are syntax trees numbered like examples or treated like figures?
Language Journal
Exercise 4. Language modality
Beginner [4.1]
What is the modality of your language?
Exercise 5. Dialects
Intermediate [4.3]
What are the different dialects of your language? Is your language mutually intelligible with another language?
Exercise 6. Glossing
Intermediate [4.7, 4.8]
Find three sentences from your language and create properly formatted glosses for them.
- The data in this exercise was provided by Tolani Akinlade. ↵
