#VinKo (Varieties in Contact) Corpus ## Description VINKO is a spoken corpus based on crowd-sourced audio recordings that has been designed to provide relevant linguistic information about the minority languages and dialects spoken in the area between Innsbruck and the Po Valley. The corpus contains audio recordings from local languages and varieties spoken in the regions Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, with particular focus on the so-called 'language contact' between Germanic (Cimbrian, Mòcheno, Tyrolean, Saurano) and Romance (Ladin, Trentino and Veneto dialects). The data collection took place from June 2017 to May 2021. Part of the recordings can be visualized on the open-access section “Listen and Explore” of the project web page, which can be used by participants and anyone interested in exploring the collected data. **URL:** https://www.vinko.it/index.php **Contact:** vinko@ateneo.univr.it ## Authors - Stefan Rabanus (University of Verona) - Alessandra Tomaselli (University of Verona) - Andrea Padovan (University of Verona) - Anne Kruijt (University of Verona) - Birgit Alber (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano) - Patrizia Cordin (University of Trento) - Roberto Zamparelli (University of Trento) - Barbara Maria Vogt (University of L’Aquila) **Readme structure** 1. General 2. Abbreviations 3. Data Structure 4. Additional Information 5. Error Reporting ## 1. General * **Creator** Anne Kruijt * **Date issued** 2021-06 * **Last Updated** 2021-06 * **Size** 37806 audio files; 37878 tokens * **License** Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Italy (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IT) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/it/ * **Acknowledgments** - *PROJECT OF EXCELLENCE DiLLS: Digital Humanities applied to Foreign Languages and Literatures* 2018-2022, University of Verona CUP n. B31I18000250006 Funding organization: Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca; - *Project PRIN 2015 “TREiL” (Technologies for Research and Education in Linguistics)* 2017-2020, University of Trento (CIMeC/DIPSCO) Project code: Prot. 2015MNX5ZE - CUP n. E72F16001620001 Funding organization: Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca; - *Project AThEME (Advancing the European Multilingual Experience)* Project grant: n. 613465 Funding organization: European Seventh Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (EU) * **Reference**: Please cite the following Open Access paper if you use this dataset http://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=13739&v=2 *Authors: Cordin, Patrizia; Rabanus, Stefan; Alber, Birgit; Mattei, Antonio; Casalicchio, Jan; Tomaselli, Alessandra; Bidese, Ermenegildo; Padovan, Andrea *Title: VinKo, Versione 2 *Date of online publication: 2018 *Journal: Korpus im Text, Serie A, 13739 ## 2. Abbreviations **Languages** * "lldan" = Ampezzano (Ladin) * "lldba" = Badiot (Ladin) * "cim" = Cimbrian * "lldfa" = Fassan (Ladin) * "lldfo" = Fodom (Ladin) * "lldgh" = Gardenese (Ladin) * "mhn" = Mòcheno * "zah" = Saurano * "tre" = Trentino * "tir" = Tyrolean * "vec" = Veneto **Phonological phenomena** * "obstr" = obstruent consonants * "sch" = /s/ retraction * "r" = realization of /r/ ## 3. Data Structure File structure under each language variety is identical and organized as follows: ``` VINKO │ README.md │ └─── Audio folders │ └───cim │ │ | S0027_cim_U0056.flac │ │ | S0034_cim_U0056.flac │ │ | T0101_cim_U0056.flac │ │ | T0101_cim_U0140.flac │ │ | W0099_cim_U0056.flac │ │ | W0102_cim_U0140.flac │ | | ... │ | │ └───lldan (equivalent to "cim") │ └───lldba (equivalent to "cim") │ └───lldfa (equivalent to "cim") │ └───lldfo (equivalent to "cim") │ └───lldgh (equivalent to "cim") │ └───mhn (equivalent to "cim") │ └───zah (equivalent to "cim") │ └───tre (equivalent to "cim") │ └───tir (equivalent to "cim") │ └───vec (equivalent to "cim") │ └─── Metadata │ └─── Users.ods │ └─── Sentences.ods │ └─── Tales.ods │ └─── Words.ods │ └─── Images │ 001_image.png | 002_image_IT.png │ 002_image_DE.png | ... ``` As can be seen, the VinKo Corpus consists of three main folders: the audio folder, containing raw audio recordings collected from speakers; the metadata folder, containing tables with relevant linguistic information as well as sociolinguistic information about speakers; the images folder, containing the pictures employed as visual context for the morphology section. In addition, there is this readme file with the main information about the corpus and the VinKo project. The audio files collected in this repository come from two versions of the VinKo web platform which have been implemented over the years: version 1 covers the two-year-span 2017/2018, whereas version 2 covers from 2019 to 2021. **Audio folders** There are audio recordings in seven language varieties for three different levels of linguistic analysis: phonology, morphology, and syntax. The investigation of each linguistic domain involves a different type of linguistic stimulus: single words for phonology; short stories with a visual context for morphology; sentences for syntax. All linguistic domains are available in the different language varieties and they are comparable across these language varieties. The audio file name always mentions the stimulus ID, the language variety and the user ID (e.g., S0027_cim_U0056). The first letter of the stimulus ID indicates the linguistic domain under investigation: *"S" = Syntax (sentences) *"T" = Morphology (tales) *"W" = Phonology (words) Some speakers recorded more than one audio file for the same stimulus. These files are reported in the corpus as follows: S001_cim_U0056a, S001_cim_U0056b. * **Phonology** This section investigates three main phonological phenomena across language varieties: - the obstruent consonants - /s/ retraction before consonant - the realization of /r/ These phenomena have been investigated within specific contexts. This information is reported in the corresponding table in the metadata folder (Words.ods). * **Morphology** This section investigates the following morphological phenomena: - Case syncretism, especially in personal pronouns and articles - Realization of subject and object clitics The specific linguistic variables investigated are reported in the corresponding table in the metadata folder (Tales.ods). * **Syntax** This section investigates the following syntactic topics: - Syntax of the adjective within DP - Syntax of clitics - Negative concord - Pro drop - Complementizers - Locative particles - Auxiliary selection - Pronouns - Proper name syntax Each of these broad topics includes the analysis of different linguistic variables which are reported in the corresponding table in the metadata folder (Sentences.ods). **Metadata folder** This folder contains four tables with the relevant information about the speakers and the linguistic stimuli: * **Users** The speaker information includes: - USER ID (included in the audio file name) - Language variety - Geographic location - Personal information (gender, age) - Linguistic profile: language proficiency, frequency and contexts of use – VinKo questionnaire version - Period of data collection * **Words** The metadata for the phonology section includes the following information: - STIMULUS ID (included in the audio file name) - Language variety - Graphical rendering of item (Graphy) - Gloss in Standard German and/or Standard Italian - Investigated phenomenon - Word context (e.g., initial, medial, final position) - Target phoneme/specific context under investigation - VinKo questionnaire version * **Sentences** The metadata for the syntax section includes the following information: - STIMULUS ID (included in the audio file name) - Sentence in Standard German and/or Standard Italian - Syntactic topic - Linguistic variable under investigation - VinKo questionnaire version - Code (for internal use only) * **Tales** The metadata for the morphology section includes the following information: - STIMULUS ID (included in the audio file name) - Image used as visual context - Text in Standard German and/or in Standard Italian - Task (Translation; guided free-speech Production) - Linguistic variable under investigation - VinKo questionnaire version ## 4. Additional information **Websites** * VinKo Atlas https://www.vinko.it/listen-explore.php **Scientific Publications** * Cordin, P., Rabanus, S., Alber, B., Mattei, A., Casalicchio, J., Tomaselli, A., Bidese, E., & A. Padovan (2018). Vinko, Versione 2. Korpus im Text, Serie A, 13739 http://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=13739&v=2 **Dissemination** * Vita Trentina (06/2017) https://www.vitatrentina.it/2017/06/29/parli-dialetto-fatti-sentire/ * La Usc di Ladins (04/2021) https://www.lausc.it/valedes-ladines/fascia/15356-vinko-n-projet-per-valoriser-i-lengac-mendres * Di Sait vo Lusérn (04/2021) http://mediateca.istitutocimbro.it/applications/webwork/site_bibliocim/media/sait_vo_lusern/2021_04_02.pdf ## 5. Error reporting The collected files are raw audio data and some may be missing or empty. If you spot any inconsistency, error, or corrupted recording please contact us at vinko@ateneo.univr.it.