Evolution, and 'functional' + 'social'

[Daniel Everett]

Joan,

Point well-taken. I was not endorsing Michel's article per se and if it
seemed that I was, that was a mistake on my part. Of course, I need to
read it before I endorse it. I was saying that in comparing his
description of it in his letter with Parkvall's comments on it.

My main point is that we should be careful of saying what is in the
grammar for communicative power and what is merely syntax, e.g. gender,
perfect tense, etc. because there is a lot of work to do to tell these
two conceptually distinct issues apart in practice.

Dan


On Sunday, December 8, 2002, at 11:02 PM, Joan Bresnan wrote:

>> Though I haven't yet read DeGraff's contribution, it sounds more
>> plausible
>> on the surface of things than Parkvall's remarks, though, because it
>> seems to take syntax more seriously than what I could gather from
>> Parkvall's quote.
>>
>
> Dan, you really ought to read the references before you comment on
> them.  I don't wish to make personal remarks about others on this
> list, but a neutral observer might find DeGraff's Linguistic Typology
> commentary to be an intemperate rant that crosses the boundaries of
> academic civility.  "Trying hard to miss the point"--paraphrasing
> Parkvall--is a very kind way to describe it.
>
> Joan
>
>

------------------------------------------

Daniel L. Everett
Chair of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
The University of Manchester
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