internet grammars

[P J KAHREL]

This is a proposal for the agenda for the meeting on
internet grammars, for those interested. The meeting will
be on Friday 27 August at 8pm in room A008.

After the meeting there will be a short presentation by
Dietmar Zaefferer and Stefan Gering to give an overview
of the AVG/CRG (Allgemein-vergleichende Grammatik/
Cross-linguistic Reference Grammar) project at the
University of Munich, which is developing a database
structure for the description of languages of any type
(including signed languages). In a way this is an
electronic successor to the 1977 Comrie/Smith
questionnaire. For details see
http://141.84.137.2/index.html

Points to discuss at the meeting are the following (any
additions are welcome):

1. Establishing a committee to structure activities and
come up with a proposal.

2. Credibility: as Bernard Comrie wrote last year, young
scholars need to publish with reputable publishers to
ensure a good CV. Although ALT could come up with
an impressive board of editors, perhaps a "strategic
alliance" with a well-known publisher with a strong
linguistics list can be considered. Perhaps we could form
an alliance with a publisher. (This issue has also come
up in the CreolList, where a related discussion has been
going on but seems to have petered out.)

3. An issue that has been put forward is the problem
with referencing: on-line grammars are dynamic, printed
grammars are static. So it is difficult to give references to
grammars that keep changing.

4. Security: anything can be downloaded from the web,
but material can be protected with passwords.
Alternatively, "teasers" (title page, contents, index,
abstract) material can be placed on the web, and people
can order the book on a CD.

5. The more informal grammatical notes and sketches
can be published by people themselves, as for example
Elena Maslova (for Yukaghir, see http://doma.bicos.de/
elevine/YuGrHTML/home.html) and Peter Austin (for
Kamilaroi, see http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVLPages/
AborigPages/LANG/GAMDICT/GAMDICT.HTM) have
done, and register them with an index, such as Robert
Beard's web site index for on-line grammars/notes and
dictionaries (http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/
rbeard/index.html).