Computational Linguistics in Support of Linguistic Theory

Abstract

In this paper, we overview the ways in which computational methods can serve the goals of analysis and theory development in linguistics, and encourage the reader to become involved in the emerging cyberinfrastructure for linguistics. We survey examples from diverse subfields of how computational methods are already being used, describe the current state of the art in cyberinfrastructure for linguistics, sketch a pie-in-the-sky view of where the field could go, and outline steps that linguists can take now to bring about better access to and use of linguistic data through cyberinfrastructure.