Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2)

[Chris]

Dear All,

In the spirt of transparency, I post the SI2 grant that Dennis and I
have
just submitted to the NSF. You can get an idea of the linguistic and
technical
directions we are heading in.

Feeback welcome!

Here is a brief summary:

Project Summary: SI2-SSE: Platform for Linguistic Exploration
Dennis Shasha and Christopher Collins, New York University (LOI ID
L02169808)

Among the thousands of languages on the earth today, only a few are
widely spoken and even fewer adequately documented. Most existing
linguistic data is stored on paper, on a hard drive, a set of offline
CDs, or at best, a list of online files. We propose a database-backed
web application framework called Linguistic Explorer, consisting of
(i) a set of sister databases covering a wide range of linguistic sub-
disciplines, (ii) a common set of powerful query and analytic tools on
each sister database, (iii) a software package that linguists can use
to set up their own online systems, and (iv) a web page from which
queries to many linguistic databases can be launched. Linguistic
Explorer will enable field linguists to store their data online easily
and will enable linguists, students, and the interested public to
explore relationships among thousands of languages and dialects using
sophisticated search and analytical tools.