digitallinguistics/spec: v1.0.0-alpha.1

This is the first alpha release of v1.0.0 of the DLx data format!

This is a major release with many additions and breaking changes since the release of v0.29.0. Most of the individual schemas have undergone major version bumps. Changes are summarized below. Additional changes are likely in the coming weeks and months before v1.0.0 is formally released, but the current version of the format is considered stable and ready for testing in real-world scenarios.

A huge thank you to Brock Wroblewski (@Calvin1119) and Vade Kamenitsa-Hale (@vadekh) for all their work implementing changes to the specification, as well as Monica Macaulay (@monicamacaulay) and Hunter Lockwood (@HunterLockwood) for many discussions about the details of this format.

See the complete documentation for the DLx format here:

https://format.digitallinguistics.io

General

• CHANGE: BibliographicReference > BibliographicSource
• CHANGE: key fields now allow underscores and dashes
• CHANGE: references fields renamed to bibliography
• CHANGE: sources fields now refer to person objects
• NEW: Citation: citations to bibliographic sources
• DOCS: the DLx format is compatible with NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON)

Access v3.2.0

• NEW: Access.license: the license for a resource

BibliographicSource v1.0.0

• NEW: BibliographicSource.citationKey: the citation key for the source
• NEW: BibliographicSource.link: a URL to a web page where this publication may be viewed or downloaded

Language v9.0.0

• REMOVE: Language.additionalNames (use Language.exonyms instead)
• REMOVE: Language.autonym (use Language.autonyms instead)
• REMOVE: Language.references (use Language.bibliography instead)
• NEW: Language.autonyms: a list of autonyms for the language
• NEW: Language.bibliography: citations to bibliographic sources about the language
• NEW: Language.description: description of the sociohistorical and documentary context of this language data
• NEW: Language.demographics: an array of demographic information about the language, including level of endangerment, at specific times and places
• NEW: Language.exonyms: a list of exonyms for the language

Lexeme v9.0.0

• REMOVE: Lexeme.references (use Lexeme.bibliography instead)
• CHANGE: Lexeme.sources is now a list of people who were the source of this lexeme
• NEW: Lexeme.alternativeAnalyses: an array of alternative analyses for this lexeme, each as another Lexeme object (useful when dealing with other researchers' analyses)
• NEW: Lexeme.bibliography: citations to bibliographic sources about the lexeme
• NEW: Lexeme.lexemeType: whether the lexeme is lexical or grammatical
• NEW: Lexeme.morphemeType: the morphological type for the lexeme (e.g. stem, prefix, etc.)
• NEW: Lexeme.notes.noteType: add a new pragmatic option
• DOCS: Lexeme.lemma: clarify that this functions as the headword

LexemeForm v2.0.0

• REMOVE: LexemeForm.references (use LexemeForm.bibliography instead)
• CHANGE: LexemeForm.sources is now a list of people who were the source of this lexeme form
• NEW: LexemeForm.bibliography: citations to bibliographic sources about the lexeme form
• NEW: LexemeForm.usages: a list of social usages for the given form

Location v3.0.0

• REMOVE: Location.references (use Location.bibliography instead)
• NEW: Location.bibliography: a list of citations to bibliographic sources about this location
• NEW: Location.date: the date that the language was spoken in this location

Morpheme v4.0.0

• CHANGE: Morpheme.gloss must be in CAPS for grammatical morphemes

MultiLangString v5.0.0

• CHANGE: keys must be valid IETF language tags

Note v5.0.0

• CHANGE: Note.language is assumed to be English if a single string
• CHANGE: Note.source is now a person or reference to a person

Orthography v3.3.0

• NEW: Grapheme.description: a learner-friendly description of the pronunciation of the grapheme
• NEW: Grapheme.pronunciation: the pronunciation(s) of the grapheme, in IPA

Person v4.3.0

• NEW: Person.startDate: the date a person began contributing to documentation for a language
• NEW: Person.endDate: the date a person stopped contributing to documentation for a language

Phoneme v5.0.0

• REMOVE: Phoneme.references (use Phoneme.bibliography instead)
• NEW: Phoneme.bibliography: a list of citations to bibliographic sources about the phoneme

Sense v2.0.0

• REMOVE: Sense.references (use Sense.bibliography instead)
• CHANGE: Sense.sources is now a list of people
• NEW: Sense.bibliography: a list of citations to bibliographic sources about the sense
• NEW: Sense.semanticDomains: a list of semantic domains for the sense

Text v6.0.0

• REMOVE: Text.references (use Text.bibliography instead)
• CHANGE: Text.discourseType: may be either a String or Array
• CHANGE: Text.genre: may be either a String or Array
• NEW: Text.bibliography: a list of citations to bibliographic sources about the text

Translation v3.0.0

• REMOVE: Translation.translationType (use Utterance.translation or Utterance.literal instead)
• CHANGE: Translation may be either a String (in English) or an Object
• CHANGE: keys must be valid IETF language tags

Utterance v5.0.0

• CHANGE: Utterance.translation is for free translations only
• CHANGE: Utterance.speaker is now a reference to a person
• NEW: Utterance.literal: a literal translation of the utterance
• NEW: Utterance.phonetic: a phonetic transcription of the utterance, in IPA
• NEW: Utterance.source: a citation to the publication where the utterance was taken from

Word v4.3.0

• NEW: Word.analysis: the morpheme breakdown for the word token
• NEW: Word.literal: a literal translation of the word token

Development Changes

• use ES modules (in Node 13.x) for build scripts
• documentation for the DLx format is now at format.digitallinguistics.io
• docs are no longer checked into master branch (only gh-pages)
• use GitHub Actions to manage testing and publication