SSWL is a searchable database that allows users to discover which properties (morphological, syntactic, and semantic) characterize a language, as well as how these properties relate across languages. This system is designed to be free to the public and open-ended. Anyone can use the database to perform queries.
To learn more about the objectives of SSWL, please visit the original workshop site or watch our tutorial video.
To read about early updates, please visit our Google Group, (which is no longer actively used).
This site hosts the original prototype SSWL, launched June 1 2009.
Letter to Contributors August 20 2012
New set of properties posted on polar questions and answers (August 21 2012)
Guidelines for Language Experts
Guidelines for Property Authors
Citation Guidelines
Description of Search Interface
SSWL Homework Assignment for Introduction to Linguistics (written by Jim Wood)
Creators: Chris Collins and Richard Kayne (NYU)
Architect: Dennis Shasha (NYU)
Senior Editor: Hilda Koopman (UCLA)
Consultant: Chris Collins (NYU)
Past Project Coordinator: Chris Collins (till 09/2011)
Past Language Coordinator: Ken Hagiwara
Back-End: Sangeeta Vishwanath, Hiral Rajani, Jillian Kozyra, Bosh
Front-End: Jessica Chen
Usability Testing: Norman King
UCLA undergraduate research assistants: Michael A Estrada, Timothy Ho and Bryan Villa (Fall 2011)
This material is based in part upon an NSF grant Grant No. BCS-0817202 (SGER: Prototype and Specifications for a Web-based Database of the Syntactic Structures of the World's Languages (SSWL) (2008, with a supplement in 2009). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).