[Lingtyp] Running an R code to analyze Phonotacticon

[Sandra Auderset]

Hi Ian,

Without seeing a code snippet and knowing the type of analysis/model and number of data points you are working with it is difficult to make an assessment but my hunch is that it should not crash on a 32GB machine. While I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to help, I’d be happy to have a look at your code.

I would also look into parallelization with R (there are tons of resources on this online, e.g. like this (https://nceas.github.io/oss-lessons/parallel-computing-in-r/parallel-computing-in-r.html)). That could solve your problem without modifying the existing code.

All the best,
Sandra

p.s.: sorry if this comes through twice, I accidentally sent it via my eva-email which is not registered with the list

————————
Sandra Auderset (https://sauderset.github.io/), PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher [she/her; ella]

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig - Germany

mail to: sandra_auderset at eva.mpg.de (mailto:sandra_auderset at eva.mpg.de)

> On Monday, May 22, 2023 at 16:30, Ian Joo <ian_joo at nucba.ac.jp (mailto:ian_joo at nucba.ac.jp)> wrote:
> Dear typologists,
>
> for my doctoral project, I am compiling and analyzing a database called Phonotacticon, a cross-linguistic database of basic phonotactic information.
> I have collected more than 350 lects in my database as of now, the goal being around 450.
> For my thesis, I have written an R script to analyze the phonological distances between Eurasian lects based on Phonotacticon. Running the code worked fine until 200 languages or so, albeit with several hours of running time. But now, as the size of the lects has grown (and the distances between each pair of lects have also grown exponentially), my 2020 model Macbook Pro with 16gb RAM cannot run the code anymore without crashing in the middle.
> Perhaps it’s the hardware limit of my Macbook, or maybe I have written the code in an inefficient way. Anyway, I need to run the code somehow to finish revising my thesis. I tried using virtual machines like Google Pro+ with 32gb RAM, but the code crashed there too.
> In case where any of you are using a high-end computer better than mine and you are also experienced with R, I was wondering if I can send you my R script and data so that you can run it on your computer and send me the results, or better yet, see if anything is wrong with my R script so that I can fix it to run it on my own computer.
> I would much appreciate your help direly needed as this point.
>
> From Netherlands,
> Ian
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