<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Hi all,</div><div><br></div><div><div>On 23 mars 10, at 10:22, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font size="2" face="Arial"><div><font size="2" face="Arial">Dear Corpora colleagues, Do you think LINGUISTICS is SCIENCE or ARTS? I think the discussion about linguistics using either the scientific or artistic methods, is quite interesting. Really, is it ARTS (the Humanities) or Science. If we divide this man activity into Sciences and Arts, then linguistics for the exception of phonetics is Arts. Can linguistics reconstruct some parent language? We know that all the Romance languages have the parent language, i.e. Latin. But can linguists reconstruct Latin on the basis of Italian, Spanish, French and other Romance languages? The answer is NO. If linguistics had been SCience, then it would have been possible. But it is ARTS, thus it is impossible. Or am I mistaken? Looking forward to hearing from you either directly <a href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</a> or via the net. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev </font></div></font></div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div><br></div><div>Well,</div><div><br></div><div>I do not know if there are any geneticians that ask themselves if genetics is science or arts... but, as far as I know, no genetician is able to reconstruct the genome of the ancestor of homo sapiens and chimpanzee...</div><div><br></div><div>So I would not say anything about what is possible or impossible with either alternatives.</div><div><br></div><div>And to continue with the jokes:</div><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; ">After hearing a piece of music, Gauss reputedly asked "Nice, but what<br>does it prove?" A preconception to mathematicians, of course. But....<br></span></blockquote></div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Well, in itself, maybe it does not prove anything, but if you add more assumption to the universe you are trying to build, then you could prove that "Gauss was not deaf".</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Gilles,</div><div><br></div><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>--</div><div>Gilles Sérasset</div><div>GETALP-LIG BP 53 - F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9</div><div>Phone: +33 4 76 51 43 80 Fax: +33 4 76 63 56 86</div></div></span></div></span> </div><br></body></html>