OTO-MANGUEAN INFLECTIONAL CLASS DATABASE

The Oto-Manguean Inflectional Class Database contains over 13,000 verbal entries from twenty Oto-Manguean languages, along with information pertaining to each verb's inflectional class membership. This database has come out of research carried out under the auspices of the ESRC/AHRC co-funded research project "Endangered complexity: Inflectional classes in Oto-Manguean languages" (Grant: ES/I029621/1).

There are two possible ways to query this database. The first method is by performing a query which searches for matches across all twenty languages. Since each language is a unique system, there are very few fields which all languages have in common. As a result, the ability to search across all languages at once necessarily entails fairly basic search parameters. To perform this type of search, click "Search all languages" in the left-hand naviagtion panel.

The second method of performing a query is language-specific. This allows a user to query the data using many more parameters, which are unique to that langauge. To begin querying an individual language, click on the relevant language name in the left-hand navigation panel on this page.

About the languages

This database includes verbs from twenty different languages, which among them represent all the major branches of the Oto-Manguean phylum. The locations where these languages are spoken are shown on the map below. Each different colour represents a different branch of Oto-Manguean. To see the language names, click the "Menu" icon in the top-left corner of the map.

Much more detailed information about the verbal inflection of each language, including information pertaining to inflectional classes, can be found on each language's search page within the database. Alternatively, this information can be accessed below.

How to cite

This database would not exist were it not for the invaluable support of our many collaborators. It is important for us that both our collaborators and the authors of published data we have used receive the credit they are due. In order to facilitate this, each language search page includes information about how to cite the data.

Should you need to cite the database as a whole entity, the relevant details are:

Feist, Timothy & Enrique L. Palancar. 2015. Oto-Manguean Inflectional Class Database. University of Surrey. http://dx.doi.org/10.15126/SMG.28/1

Exporting data

Search results can be downloaded in CSV format, by clicking on the ‘Export to CSV’ button at the top of the search results. When downloading data, please note the following:

• The CSV file will only contain data relating to the search results. If you wish to download the full dataset for a given language, please ensure no filters have been applied.
• Data downloaded from the ‘All languages’ search page will only contain the fields common to all languages (e.g. English gloss, Spanish gloss, transitivity). If you wish to download the full data associated with verbal entries, it is necessary to do this on a language by language basis.
• There is a known issue with opening downloaded CSV files in Microsoft Excel on a Mac, whereby non-standard characters are rendered incorrectly. Although far from ideal, this can be resolved by taking the following steps:
  1. Open the CSV file in a text editor.
  2. Select all the text (Cmd+A) and copy it (Cmd+C).
  3. Open a new Excel worksheet and click in cell A1.
  4. Paste the data (Cmd+V) into the spreadsheet. (At this stage, each entry will appear in a single cell).
  5. From the menu bar, navigate to Data > Text to columns...
  6. In the dialogue box which appears, select ‘Delimited’ and click Next...
  7. In the list of Delimiters which appears, ensure that only ‘Comma’ is selected, then click Finish

Disclaimer

This database provides details pertinent to inflectional classes and is not intended as a source of semantic data. While a Spanish and English gloss is provided for all entries in the database, we are unable to guarantee the reliability of these glosses. For the majority of languages, the gloss provided in the source data is in Spanish and, often, several meanings are provided. It was impractical to represent all of these in the database and therefore only one meaning was retained. The English glosses were added to the database at a later stage, based solely on the Spanish glosses; for the vast majority of verbs this should does not pose a problem, but there will, inevitably, be verbs for which the English gloss is incorrect, in particular in cases of homophony (e.g. Spa: 'saber' may be translated as 'know', when in fact the correct meaning is 'taste').