<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { margin-top: 0 ; margin-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Re: [An-lang] Proto Dialect
chains</title></head><body>
<div>Here are brief responses to some points made by commentators in
the last few days.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>1. The discussion has begun to spread in more directions than I
can handle. As was mentioned earlier, my main concerns were with</div>
<div>(a) different notions of what counts as a 'subgroup', where the
key variable is, specifically, the pattern of distribution of known
innovations over a set of languages and geography, and</div>
<div>(b) the implications that different distributional patterns have
for drawing inferences about regional variation in earlier stages in
the history of these languages.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I grant the existence of variation between idiolects, styles and
social dialects but I am not concerned with these in this context
insofar as they do not have geographic correlates. I grant that it is
often hard to establish innovations but that is a whole other issue
and I wanted to keep it separate.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>2. John Terrell refers to a recent paper:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Terrell, J. E. , Hunt, T. L., J. Bradshaw
(2002). "On the Location of the Proto-Oceanic
Homeland."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Pacific Studies 25(3):57-93</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>noting that this "explores the ins & outs" of
Malcolm Ross's</div>
<div>notions of innovation-defined subgroups' vs 'innovation-linked
subgroups'"</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Coincidentally, when the Terrell<i> et al.</i> paper appeared a
couple of months ago I'd just written an essay with a very similar
title ('Locating Proto Oceanic). I'll attach the text as a PDF
file. (The maps can't be included at the moment, for technical
reasons, but I can mail them to anyone who is desperate.) This
essay is an introductory chapter to the<i> The Lexicon of Proto
Oceanic</i> vol. 2.<i> The Physical Environment</i>, by M. Ross, A.
Pawley and M. Osmond, which is in press with Pacific Linguistics. It
should be out later this year.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>3. Isidore Dyen writes:</div>
<div>>>I see no difficulty with regarding your P-S example as
a</div>
<div>subgroup, provided, of course, that P-S represent different
languages.<br>
Languages are dialect geographically discrete and thus each one has
a<br>
boundary with every other language. If you do not know whether the
P-S<br>
members are discrete then you are involved with a dialect
geographical<br>
problem which needs to be resolved because if the so-called
languages<br>
are not discrete, those pairs or triplets ....that are not
separated<br>
from each other constitute a single language and therefore belong<br>
together by virtue of that fact; their exclusively shared traits
(EST)</div>
<div>to the extent that they are innovations can be taken only as far
back<br>
as an earlier stage of their language, not to a proto-language
that<br>
that language might share with other languages, if any, in your
P-S<br>
set. If each member of your P-S set is a (discrete)language their<br>
respective boundaries more likely occurred sequentially. Since
they<br>
became different languages upon the formation of boundaries among
them,</div>
<div>the times of the formation of those boundaries determine the
sequence.<br>
If the formation of a boundary between two languages depends on
the<br>
total disappearance of cross-pairs of mutually intelligible
speech-<br>
types (or idiolects), then it is clear that the simultaneous
appearance<br>
of boundaries is highly unlikely. Thus it is a convention
(underline)<br>
in comparative linguistics to treat boundaries as occurring</div>
<div>simultaneously if the evidence does not permit assigning a
sequence.</div>
<div>This convention need not be confusing, but there can be
controversy in</div>
<div>adjudging the evidence.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>-- These points seem unexceptional to me, except for the
conclusion drawn in the first sentence. A subgrouping hypothesis is a
hypothesis about a period of unified development in the past. My view
is that if there is no innovation common to all the members of P-S,
but only a pattern of overlapping innovations linking the four
languages then P-S is, plainly, a subgroup only in a weak sense. The
evidence in this case indicates that, far from being unified, there
was well-marked regional variation at the time(s) that P-S became
discrete languages, with extreme ends of the chain showing no unified
development. For my purposes, it is useful to distinguish between
different degrees of unified development.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>4. Waruno Mahdi comments:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>>So, strictly speaking, in instances with overlapping
alignments</div>
<div>as described by Andy Pawley, at best only such with one
certain</div>
<div>distribution pattern could theoretically be innovations of
a</div>
<div>common precursor protolanguage. In all the differently
distributed<br>
patterns, these cannot be innovations in the actual sense which<br>
we think we are implying when we use the term. The question, then,<br>
is, which, if any, of the various observed distributions are we
to</div>
<div>assign to an innovation?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>>>I think, it would perhaps be more consistent if we
stopped using</div>
<div>the term 'innovation' but talk of 'common features'
instead.</div>
<div>It's less sexy, I agree, but at least we wouldn't be
potentially</div>
<div>deceiving our own selves.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>-- If I've read Waruno right, this is a remarkably pessimistic
view, which I can't agree with. We all know that establishing how
languages have changed over time and space can be a very tricky
business and that one should always proceed with caution. We<i>
start</i> by noting the pattern of 'shared/common features' without
presuming always to know which ones are innovations. (Though in some
cases we do know immediately, because some basic facts about the
history of the language family are firmly established.) But we
don't leave it there. There are well-tried methods which can
(sometimes) sort out innovations from retentions and borrowings.
Waruno is saying that there are certain circumstances where these
distinctions are impossible to make with any confidence. Fair enough,
but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Andy Pawley</div>
<div><br></div>
</body>
</html>