CommonMorph: Participatory Morphological Documentation Platform
This addresses the problem of resource-intensive morphological documentation for linguists and communities working with low-resource languages, though it is incremental as it builds on existing collaborative and technological approaches.
The authors tackled the challenge of collecting and annotating morphological data for low-resource languages by introducing CommonMorph, a platform that streamlines this process through expert definition, contributor elicitation, and community validation, resulting in an open-source tool with UniMorph-compatible outputs.
Collecting and annotating morphological data present significant challenges, requiring linguistic expertise, methodological rigour, and substantial resources. These barriers are particularly acute for low-resource languages and varieties. To accelerate this process, we introduce \texttt{CommonMorph}, a comprehensive platform that streamlines morphological data collection development through a three-tiered approach: expert linguistic definition, contributor elicitation, and community validation. The platform minimises manual work by incorporating active learning, annotation suggestions, and tools to import and adapt materials from related languages. It accommodates diverse morphological systems, including fusional, agglutinative, and root-and-pattern morphologies. Its open-source design and UniMorph-compatible outputs ensure accessibility and interoperability with NLP tools. Our platform is accessible at https://common-morph.com, offering a replicable model for preserving linguistic diversity through collaborative technology.