The CLDF Ontology

A generic CLDF dataset; i.e. a set of cross-linguistic data which does not fit any of the other CLDF modules.

A dataset according to the CLDF Wordlist specification

A dataset according to the CLDF Dictionary specification

A dataset according to the CLDF Structure Dataset specification

A dataset according to the CLDF Parallel Text specification

A dataset according to the CLDF Text Corpus specification

The Borrowing Table stores information about borrowings or loanwords by linking two rows in the Form Table as associative entity where additional information about the particular case of borrowing can be provided.

The table of cognate judgements accompanying a CLDF Wordlist. If the only thing we know about cognate sets is the set of members, a Cognate Table can be used without a corresponding Cognateset Table, otherwise it will become the associative table between Form Table and Cognateset Table.

A unique identifier for a row in a table.

To allow usage of identifiers as path components of URLs IDs must only contain alphanumeric characters, underscore and hyphen.

A title, name or label for an entity.

A description for an entity.

List of source specifications, of the form <source_ID>[], e.g. http://glottolog.org/resource/reference/id/318814[34], or meier2015[3-12] where meier2015 is a citation key in the accompanying BibTeX file.

A human-readable comment on a resource, providing additional context.

A position represents the placement of an item in a series or sequence of items. Although an integer is the recommended datatype, any datatype that supports a total ordering (where the order is transparent, such as alphabetic order for strings) is acceptable. It is also possible to have a list-valued column for this property, which can be useful for implementing multi-level orderings. In such cases, the typical order for tuples is assumed.

A Glottocode denoting a languoid described in Glottolog.

A Glottocode denoting the language-level languoid that is a parent languoid of the languoid described by the row in LanguageTable.

The name of a macroarea as defined by Glottolog.

A latitude in the WGS 84 standard coordinate system, specified as decimal number of degrees.

A longitude in the WGS 84 standard coordinate system, specified as decimal number of degrees.

A column specification given as JSON representation of a CSVW column description. This column specification may be used by CLDF consumers to read a parameter's value as typed data.

Note that a CSVW datatye description is not sufficient, because parsing a string value must also be informed by the column properties null and separator.

Names of contributor(s) to a citeable unit of a dataset.

A full citation for a citeable unit of a dataset, preferably following the rules of the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics Journals or the best practices for Linguistics Data Citation.

Flag signaling whether an edge in a graph is directed or not.

The type of a tree (summary or sample) describes how the tree can be used. Summary (or consensus) trees can be analysed in isolation and should have type summary. Trees resulting from a method that creates multiple trees, and thus should be analysed as a whole (or sampled appropriately) should have type sample.

Flag signaling whether a tree is rooted or not.

The unit used to measure evolutionary time in phylogenetic trees.

A media type (also known as a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME type) as defined by IETF's RFC 6838.

The name or path of a media file within the archive if it is archived within a ZIP file.

URL where a media resource is available directly, typically through HTTP, but other schemes such as file: (interpreted relative to the metadata location) or data: are permissible as well.

The primary text of an example.

The morpheme-pattern analysis of a word in an example.

A gloss corresponding to the morpheme-pattern analysis of a word in an example.

The translated text of an example.

The level of conformance of the example with the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

The following levels are distinguished:

1. WORD_ALIGNED: Analyzed text and glosses obey LGR rule 1, "word-by-word alignment".
2. MORPHEME_ALIGNED: Analyzed text and glosses obey LGR rule 2, "morpheme-by-morpheme correspondence".

No information regarding LGR conformance should be signaled with an empty string, i.e. null value for the property.

While more information is needed to assess how to interpret IGT - e.g. whether rule 4a is followed to group gloss elements for unsegmentable morpheme - the two levels considered here are essential for decisions about automated re-use.

A judgement about the (un)grammaticality of the example.

A non-null value for this property flags an example as ungrammatical or unacceptable. The actual string value is the typographical symbol(s) or text which is to be used to mark the example when formatting it in text (e.g. *).

Note: Ungrammatical examples should link (via languageReference) to special item(s) in LanguageTable with an empty Glottocode to prevent data aggregators from inadvertently assigning such an example to a proper language (if they fail to honour grammaticalityJudgement).

The headword of a dictionary entry.

The part-of-speech of a dictionary entry.

The value (a.k.a. datapoint or measurement) of a language for a structural feature.

For features with a limited, discrete set of valid values (a.k.a. categorical variables) it is recommended to relate items of ValueTable to the respective code in CodeTable.

An alignment represents segments which are grouped into a common cognate set as a matrix in which cognate segments are placed in the same column while gap characters are introduced in those sound sequences missing a certain counterpart.

List of segment indices or segment ranges forming the target of a partial cognacy judgement.

A lexical unit is any collection of word forms corresponding to a certain meaning which can be found in comparative datasets.

Ideally, a lexical unit would just present itself as one single form. However, in practice, scholars often list speech variants and at times even non-cognate alternatives for their preferred form.

The motivation structure of a word form gives glosses for each of its morphemes. In this it is similar to an instance of interlinear glossed text which describes the underlying semantic motivation for a given word form.

As an example, consider Chinese shùpí "bark (of a tree)" which is a compound consisting of shù "tree" and pí "skin", and whose motivation structure could be rendered as tree bark.

The prosodic structure of a word form labels similar prosodic contexts which may recur even within the same word. Prosodic structures for a given language may have an underlying template that describes which syllables are possible. In Chinese dialects, for example, one could describe the basic template of most syllables as consisting of initial, medial, nucleus, coda, and tone, of which the nucleus and the tone as a suprasegmental element are usually the only required elements.

The root of a word form is an abstract basic unit from which several stems can be derived.

A stem is a concrete word form in a language which has been derived as such from a given root.

A list of segments (aka a sound sequence) is understood as the strict segmental representation of a form unit of a language, which is usually given in phonetic transcription. Suprasegmental elements, like tone or accent, of sound sequences are usually represented in a sequential form, although they are usually co-articulated along with the segmental elements of a sound sequence. Alternatively, suprasegmental aspects could also be represented as part of the prosodic structure of a word form.

An identifier referencing a language either

• by providing a foreign key to LanguageTable or
• by using a known encoding scheme.

An identifier referencing the meta language - e.g. of the translation of an example - either

• by providing a foreign key to LanguageTable or
• by using a known encoding scheme.

An identifier referencing a parameter either

• by providing a foreign key to ParameterTable or
• by using a known encoding scheme.

An identifier referencing a code (aka category) description by providing a foreign key to CodeTable.

An identifier referencing an example by providing a foreign key to ExampleTable.

An identifier referencing a dictionary entry by providing a foreign key to EntryTable.

An identifier referencing a form by providing a foreign key to FormTable.

An identifier referencing the source form of a loanword by providing a foreign key to FormTable.

An identifier referencing a loanword by providing a foreign key to FormTable.

An identifier referencing the source parameter of a parameter network edge.

An identifier referencing the target parameter of a parameter network edge.

An identifier referencing a cognateset either

• by providing a foreign key to CognatesetTable or
• by using a known encoding scheme.

An identifier referencing a language tree by providing a foreign key TreeTable.

An identifier referencing a media resource by providing a foreign key to MediaTable.

An identifier referencing a media resource by providing a foreign key to MediaTable.

This property can be used in LanguageTable to point to a media resource describing the speaker area of a language, i.e. the geographic area where the speakers of the language live.

The linked media resource may be an image of a map, depicting the area, or some other multimedia content for human consumption. But it may also be a GeoJSON resource (i.e. a media resource with mediaType application/geo+json). In the latter case, the GeoJSON object MUST contain a feature with a geometry of type Polygon or Multipolygon and a key cldf:languageReference in its properties object with the linking language's id as value.

An identifier referencing a contribution by providing a foreign key to ContributionTable.

A functional equivalent set is a group of strings from different languages that express similar function. This is an identifier referencing a cognateset either

• by providing a foreign key to FunctionalEquivalentsetTable or
• by using a known encoding scheme.

An identifier of a Concepticon concept set.

A concept set groups a number of concept labels which are used in different questionnaires and were judged to denote the same concept despite potential differences among the concrete concept labels (be it their spelling, or the language in which they were originally created).

An identifier of a sound described in the CLTS dataset.

A sound identifier is the last path component of the sound's URL at https://clts.clld.org/parameters , e.g. short_neutral_tone for https://clts.clld.org/parameters/short_neutral_tone.

References a sound in the Cross-Linguistic Transcription Systems database. Suitable to mark parameters as phonemes, and consequently values as elements of phoneme inventories. E.g. voiced_bilabial_nasal_consonant.

To mark sounds that can not be mapped to any sound defined in the current CLTS version, the ID "NA", corresponding to the "unknown" sound https://clts.clld.org/parameters/NA should be used.

A numeric identifier for a unit in GBIF's Backbone Taxonomy.

References a taxonomic unit in GBIF's Backbone Taxonomy. Can be used for example in ParameterTable to mark a lexical concept as biological species. E.g. 5219404.