Linguistic Research and the CLARIN Infrastructure
J.E.J.M. Odijk · Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) · 2011
I use a concrete research question from linguistics as an example to illustrate why the CLARIN infrastructure is needed for carrying out proper research in the humanities. I will argue that addressing the example research question properly requires consultation of, search in and analysis of a lot of digitally available data. In addition, several tools must be applied to the data. That is currently mostly possible, but only for researchers or students who • know of the existence of the data and the tools • know where they can obtain them • know how they are structured • are able to do programming themselves in a scripting language (or who involve someone who can do that for them) • who are familiar with running the tools CLARIN wants to change that. CLARIN aims to make it possible to use such data and tools by researchers or students who do not have all these skills by providing a single portal • where all relevant data and other resources can be found • that contains sophisticated search facilities that require no or only minimal knowledge of the internal representation of the data • with an environment in which tools can be applied to data with no or only minimal technical background. • Where resulting data and tools of the research can be stored and made available to the research community again.