Expanding Comparative Databases: The Case of Lote

Abstract

Lote is an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea with which the author conducted brief field research in 2022. Although the language had already been relatively well described, it lacked full coverage in grammatical and lexical databases, which are valuable tools for typologists and historical linguists. This paper has two aims. The first is to present data on Lote that can be used to fill gaps in linguistic databases. The second is to offer suggestions to other linguists on how to help expand comparative databases, especially with data pertaining to languages of the Pacific.