<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=koi8-r">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.3825.1300" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Corpora and New language classification of Uralic
languages.<BR>The main problem in constructing corpora is the problem of
classification of this <BR>or that sort. Actually, the problem of classification
may be called the aim of <BR>linguistics in general. A linguist must classify
sounds, phonemes, words, <BR>sentences, meanings, etc., etc. Nevertheless, the
most important problem in <BR>linguistics may be classification of 6000 world
languages and dialects into <BR>subgroups, groups, families, super-families,
filia, etc. However, the main <BR>language families were constructed long ago
and some of them need <BR>reconstructing. I'm sure it is one of the hardest jobs
in linguistics to reconsider <BR>accepted classifications for many
reasons. I heard that such an attempt of this <BR>hard and dangerous job
has been made by Dr. Angela Marcantonio of Rome <BR>university, who tried to
reconsider the Uralic language family in her recent book <BR>(The Uralic
Language Family. Facts, Myths and Statistics.- Oxford UK and <BR>Boston USA:
Blackwell Publishers, 2002, 335 pages). I wish I could read it, but <BR>it is
not available in Novosibirsk, Russia. The Uralic language family is said to
<BR>consist of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages. I can guess that the
Uralic <BR>language family may be not a real family, but a conglomerate of
Finnic, Ugric <BR>and Samoyedic languages. My phonostatistical data on this
language group <BR>makes me believe that one should be very cautious when
talking about the Uralic <BR>languages as one family. Consequenntly, the values
of the coefficient of variation <BR>of 8 consonantal groups (labial, front,
palatal, velar, sonorant, occlusive, fricative <BR>and voiced) SHOW THAT ITS
BODY IS RATHER DISPERCE, i.e. not <BR>compact. The fact is, that this group is
less compact than other language families. <BR>Let us compare the coefficients
of variance of several language families:<BR>Uralic
- 28.31% <BR>Mongolic -
10.78%<BR>Samoyed - 18.29%<BR>Turkic -
18.77%<BR>Finno-Ugric - 24.14%<BR>Altaic - 25.97<BR>Therefore, one can see that
the Uralic group of languages is not as compact as <BR>Finno-Ugric or Samoyedic,
which are its part. It is 2 times less compact than <BR>Mongolic language
family. One can find the details of the compactness of other <BR>language groups
in my recent book (Yuri A. Tambovtsev. The Typology of <BR>Functioning of
Phonemes in the Sound Chain of Indo-European, Paleo-Asiatic, <BR>Ural-Altaic,
and Other World Languages: the compactness of Groups, Families <BR>and the other
Language Taxons. - Novosibirsk: SN Institute, 2003. - 143 pages. In
Russian).<BR>I wonder if I may ask my colleagues in the field of linguistics to
share their <BR>opinion on the book of Dr. Angela Marcantonio. Should we
reconsider the <BR>commonly accepted language families? If so, on the basis of
what data and what <BR>methods? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@hotmail.com">yutamb@hotmail.com</A> Yours <BR>sincerely Yuri
Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia <BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>