From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Wed Apr  2 16:58:16 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 10:58:16 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.105816.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 2, 2003

Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum number
of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
that a rare extreme?

Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at least
I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.

Suzette Haden Elgin


From jkyle at KU.EDU  Wed Apr  2 18:15:08 2003
From: jkyle at KU.EDU (John Kyle)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 12:15:08 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.121508.0600.JKYLE@KU.EDU>

I find that 150 is a very high number for phonemes although I can't say it's
not possible.  Most languages that I've looked at have between 20 to 40
phonemes.  If anyone knows of languages with that many phonemes (150),
please post.  It would be interesting to see if there are any effects on the
morphology of the language such as word size, etc.

John Kyle
jkyle at ku.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suzette Haden Elgin" <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:58 AM
Subject: question about phonemes


> April 2, 2003
>
> Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum
number
> of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
> roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
> seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
> between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding
"how
> many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
> one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark --
is
> that a rare extreme?
>
> Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at
least
> I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
> that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>
> Suzette Haden Elgin
>


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr  2 18:32:57 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 19:32:57 +0100
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <003c01c2f943$dcfa4730$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.193257.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

There are definitely formulas in information theory about syntagmatic
complexity being inversely proportionate to paradigmatic complexity, in
the sense that smaller inventories require larger words (George Miller
discusses this in a very accessible way in his Science of Words,
published by Scientific American).

I don't know about the largest inventory, but Piraha female speech seems
to have the smallest.
The phonemes of Piraha men are: p, t, k, ?, s, h, b, g, i, a, o. Piraha
women lack /s/, using /h/ where men have /s/ and where men have /h/.

Switching subjects briefly: small inventories like this are interesting
because if a language can get by on such a reduced number (to be fair,
Piraha has two tones as well), then early hominids, e.g. Homo
neanderthalis, could have had quite well-developed speech in spite of
the apparent (and this is quite dubious) limitation of their vocal
apparatus to a much smaller inventory of sounds that Homo sapiens
sapiens. (And no one can rule out the possibility that Neanderthals had
tone languages, which would have compensated considerably.)

-- Dan Everett


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of John Kyle
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 7:15 PM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: question about phonemes


I find that 150 is a very high number for phonemes although I can't say
it's not possible.  Most languages that I've looked at have between 20
to 40 phonemes.  If anyone knows of languages with that many phonemes
(150), please post.  It would be interesting to see if there are any
effects on the morphology of the language such as word size, etc.

John Kyle
jkyle at ku.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suzette Haden Elgin" <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:58 AM
Subject: question about phonemes


> April 2, 2003
>
> Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum
number
> of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was

> roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I
> keep seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot
> of space between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to

> deciding
"how
> many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on

> how one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the
> mark --
is
> that a rare extreme?
>
> Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at
least
> I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong
> about that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>
> Suzette Haden Elgin
>


From bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Wed Apr  2 18:56:06 2003
From: bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Claire Bowern)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 13:56:06 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <000001c2f946$4852ad40$95269bd9@daneverett>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.135606.0500.BOWERN@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>

The largest inventories usually quoted are from San languages like Xoo and
!Kung. Clicks + accompaniments + vowels + phonation types + tones adds up
to well over a hundred (Xoo has something like 86 clicks if you count
click + accompaniment as one phoneme).

Claire

-----------------------------
Claire Bowern
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
305 Boylston Hall
Cambridge, MA, 02138


From jouni.maho at AFRICAN.GU.SE  Wed Apr  2 19:55:51 2003
From: jouni.maho at AFRICAN.GU.SE (Jouni Filip Maho)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 21:55:51 +0200
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.215551.0200.JOUNI.MAHO@AFRICAN.GU.SE>

Cclaire Bowern wrote:
>
>The largest inventories usually quoted are from San languages like Xoo and
>!Kung. Clicks + accompaniments + vowels + phonation types + tones adds up
>to well over a hundred (Xoo has something like 86 clicks if you count
>click + accompaniment as one phoneme).

I remember seeing a total figure of 160+ phonemes (incl. c.45 vowel
sounds) for !Xoo.

One of the main reasons why (some) Khoesan languages tend to have
such large phomeme inventories is that it's been a long tradition to
recognise their syllable structures as mainly CV(N); thus potential
consonant clusters become distinct phonemes.

(They clearly have complex sound systems, though the large figures
could be decreased depending on analysis.)

---
Jouni Maho
Department of Oriental and African Languages
Goteborg University


From geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU  Wed Apr  2 19:59:54 2003
From: geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU (Geoff Nathan)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:59:54 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00bab0700fe8dd@[216.98.174.220]>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.145954.0500.GEOFFNATHAN@WAYNE.EDU>

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
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From bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Wed Apr  2 21:11:41 2003
From: bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Claire Bowern)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 16:11:41 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030402145047.00b132a8@mail.wayne.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.161141.0500.BOWERN@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>

According to the source I used for making up a Kabardian problem recently,
it had 49 consonants and 2 vowels. My memory for Xoo is that it has five
places of clicks, times about 16 possibilities for accompaniments. Then it
has non-click consonants, vowels (with length, nasality, etc) and if you
count tones too it ends up being about 150. Baroque, anyway.
Claire

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Geoff Nathan wrote:

> At 10:58 AM 4/2/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>       Long long ago I was taught that it was
>       roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
>       seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
>       between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
>       many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
>       one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
>       that a rare extreme?
>
>
> The definitive place to go for the answer is Sounds of the World's Languages, Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, 1994
> (I believe--I'm not in my Linguistics office at the moment).  My memory is that 150 is way over the top, but it is the
> case that !Xoo has a lot of clicks, as Claire Bowen mentioned.  The San languages do certainly seem to be at the
> extreme end of the continuum, but languages without clicks that are large, such as Kabardian (over forty consonants and
> more than five vowels) and Thompson (Ntlakapmxw) with about the same number seem to be at the top end otherwise, so
> totals around fifty are pretty close to the top without clicks.  But check SOWL for the final answer.
>
> Geoff
> Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
> Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
> Wayne State University
>
> Linguistics Program
> (snailmail)
> Department of English
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI, 48202
>
> Phone Numbers
> Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
> Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621
>

-----------------------------
Claire Bowern
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
305 Boylston Hall
Cambridge, MA, 02138


From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Thu Apr  3 14:00:55 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:00:55 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.080055.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 3, 2003

My thanks to all on the list who have responded to my question about the
upper limit of (documented) phonemes in human languages. Thank you for the
help, and for the references. However, this is one of those cases in which
the cure has turned out to be worse than the disease.

After reading Spike Gildea's response -- which included the statement that
"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

(1) What does that statement of Spike's mean -- functionally? And how do we
define "cognitive reality," precisely? If phonemes do not function in human
speech to let speakers/listeners distinguish the meanings of words, how [I
am tempted to say "how the blazes"] does that happen? Why do we continue to
teach the concept of phoneme and to teach charts of phonemes if they're
only figments? And what should those of us who work outside the ivory tower
use as a way of helping people do useful tasks like teaching reading, if
not phonemes? I am accustomed every few years to learn that something we
linguists have written whole shelves of books about is now out of favor and
considered quaint, only to learn a few years later that the quaint little
whatever-it-is has come back around on the guitar again. It's
disconcerting, but is apparently the nature of the Linguist Beast. However,
I'd like clarification from within a functionalist framework. I'm not at
all sure that I understand this.

(2) It looks to me, from the responses, as if the following situation holds
(always remembering that the whole thing is unreal, anyway, right?):

Suppose we come across a language that has five identifiable vowels.
Suppose the language modifies vowels by nasalizing them, and there are
minimal pairs in which the meaning distinction depends on whether the vowel
is or isn't nasal. The question then is whether the phoneme inventory for
the language is to be analyzed as having five vowels or as having ten
vowels. If that is so, and if I haven't totally misunderstood your
messages, what are the criteria for making that decision? Functionally
speaking.....

Suzette


From geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU  Thu Apr  3 14:36:58 2003
From: geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU (Geoff Nathan)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:36:58 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00bab18db4677a@[216.98.174.113]>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.093658.0500.GEOFFNATHAN@WAYNE.EDU>

At 08:00 AM 4/3/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>which included the statement that
>"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
>'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
>a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
>two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

         With all due respect to Spike, I completely disagree that 'most
linguists' no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the phoneme.  In
fact, just recently I helped review a paper on the subject for a major
phonetics/phonology journal. The editors ultimately rejected the paper
because it was arguing *for* the cognitive reality of the phoneme, and the
reason for the rejection was that this argument has been made so often and
so persuasively that there is no longer any doubt and yet another article
on the same subject was not needed.
         Certainly most contemporary textbooks within the overall
generative framework have at least four or five pages defending the notion,
and my own textbook, currently almost finished[1], within the Cognitive
Grammar framework makes the same claim, at great length.  The simple fact
of just how hard it is to teach narrow phonetic transcription, and how easy
to teach a broad-to-phonemic transcription to undergraduate students
strikes me as an extraordinarily strong, real-world demonstration that we
hear small numbers of phoneme-sized chunks, and anyone who has taught or
tried to learn a second language as an adult knows that the chunks vary and
govern our perceptions and productions.
         It is true that there is a part of Cognitive Grammar that has
argued a different view (Bybee's new book, and similar work by Kemmer,
Langacker and others), but to say that 'most linguists' have rejected the
notion is somewhat extreme.  I think it will take a lot of persuading to
dethrone a concept that goes back to the eighteen eighties (Baudouin) and
has been defended by every flavor of phonologist from Sapir through Daniel
Jones, David Stampe and now through Andrew Spencer and Carlos Gussenhoven
(both authors of quite recent phonology texts), and is accepted by most
psycholinguists (something that can't be said about most grammatical
constructs these days...).
         I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I
just couldn't let that one pass...

Geoff

[1]  Nathan, Geoffrey S.  In Preparation.  Introduction to Phonology:  A
Cognitive Grammar Approach.  Berlin:  Mouton.
Additional published references on this subject available upon request...


Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
Wayne State University

Linguistics Program
(snailmail)
Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

Phone Numbers
Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621


From nrude at BALLANGRUD.COM  Thu Apr  3 17:29:38 2003
From: nrude at BALLANGRUD.COM (Noel Rude)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:29:38 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.092938.0800.NRUDE@BALLANGRUD.COM>

Fascinating,

    Suzette eloquently states the ivory tower temptation -- denying reality
to the brink of postmodernism and then retreat.  Geoff says, "I don't want
to start a debate about the reality of the phoneme ..."  But we didn't see
Spike's post, and I respect Spike and would like to know his point.

    Maybe we agree on the reality of these things ... phoneme, syllable,
prosody ... maybe folks differ in how they hierarchize them in their
cognitive models.

    Years ago ... from within our functionalist school but not as a
phonologist ... I used to suggest there be a "typological-functional
phonology" -- that somebody oughta be combing the world's lgs for structural
categories (segments, syllables, prosodies) and be looking at how they
relate cross linguistically to certain functions (lexical, demarkative,
pragmatic ...).  Are there more natural tendencies (i.e., phonemes more
likely to serve a lexical function, prosody a demarkative or pragmatic
function, etc.)?  And how do exceptions develop?  Such a phonology might
help solve the abstractness problem -- abstractions less productively tied
to these functions would more likely be historic relics.

    Maybe all this is old hat ... maybe the folks long ago moved in this
direction ... but if FUNKNET only announces conferences and expensive books
... us peons in the trenches might never know.

    Noel


----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Nathan" <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 6:36 AM
Subject: Re: question about phonemes


At 08:00 AM 4/3/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>which included the statement that
>"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
>'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
>a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
>two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

         With all due respect to Spike, I completely disagree that 'most
linguists' no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the phoneme.  In
fact, just recently I helped review a paper on the subject for a major
phonetics/phonology journal. The editors ultimately rejected the paper
because it was arguing *for* the cognitive reality of the phoneme, and the
reason for the rejection was that this argument has been made so often and
so persuasively that there is no longer any doubt and yet another article
on the same subject was not needed.
         Certainly most contemporary textbooks within the overall
generative framework have at least four or five pages defending the notion,
and my own textbook, currently almost finished[1], within the Cognitive
Grammar framework makes the same claim, at great length.  The simple fact
of just how hard it is to teach narrow phonetic transcription, and how easy
to teach a broad-to-phonemic transcription to undergraduate students
strikes me as an extraordinarily strong, real-world demonstration that we
hear small numbers of phoneme-sized chunks, and anyone who has taught or
tried to learn a second language as an adult knows that the chunks vary and
govern our perceptions and productions.
         It is true that there is a part of Cognitive Grammar that has
argued a different view (Bybee's new book, and similar work by Kemmer,
Langacker and others), but to say that 'most linguists' have rejected the
notion is somewhat extreme.  I think it will take a lot of persuading to
dethrone a concept that goes back to the eighteen eighties (Baudouin) and
has been defended by every flavor of phonologist from Sapir through Daniel
Jones, David Stampe and now through Andrew Spencer and Carlos Gussenhoven
(both authors of quite recent phonology texts), and is accepted by most
psycholinguists (something that can't be said about most grammatical
constructs these days...).
         I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I
just couldn't let that one pass...

Geoff

[1]  Nathan, Geoffrey S.  In Preparation.  Introduction to Phonology:  A
Cognitive Grammar Approach.  Berlin:  Mouton.
Additional published references on this subject available upon request...


Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
Wayne State University

Linguistics Program
(snailmail)
Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

Phone Numbers
Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Thu Apr  3 17:50:54 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:50:54 EST
Subject: The reality of phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.125054.EST.>

In a message dated 4/3/03 9:39:23 AM, geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU writes:
<< I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I just
couldn't let that one pass... >>

I'm not sure how one would establish the "cognitive" reality of phonemes, but
the physical, physiological and communicative reality of phonemes seems
beyond doubt.
There's little doubt that voice-generated sounds are discriminated in the
listener and that they produce different effects (changes of state) in the
listener.  And there's little doubt that human languages are composed of a
limited number of basic building block "bytes".  And, as Dan Everett pointed
out, basic information theory can readily relate the relative inventory of
phonemes to the complexity on the next level of communication.

Humans could in theory pass consequential information by way of a spoken
binary system of 0's and 1's, but the speed of transfer and tail-end
processing would be cumbersome.  But that does not mean that it would not be
possible.  Sign language and other examples show that its the functional job
of phonemes that must be satified, not a particular structural one.  (Brian
Dickens wrote: "Originally, Morse's telegraph was built such that the letters
of a message had to be typeset by hand before transmission, and the message
would be printed out on a strip of paper on the receiving end (Kline). The
operators, however, realized that they could communicate much faster by
learning to "think" in Morse Code, so they skipped both the encoding and
decoding steps.")

Whatever cognitive grammar means, it cannot mean that humans must employ a
certain number of phonemes or equivalent language "parts".  But the
requirements of tranferring information DOES require phonemes or equivalent
parts to be used or information will not be tranferred.  And it is therefore
a fair bet that information can't be processed without them either.

Conversely, if we try to imagine a language with say 5000 phonemes, it is
possible to see that such a system would burden memory and recognition.  A
language that is able to use 5000 phonemes does not have as intense a need
for word structure (again as Dan Everett pointed out) or perhaps even
grammar, but the costs are high.  Each phoneme would be carrying an
extraordinary amount of information.

Also, phonemes themselves can carry less than a linguistic unit of
information.  One can recognize a unique phoneme in French without
understanding French and immediately be informed that the speaker is speaking
French.  That is information, but it does not tell you what the speaker is
saying.

Steve Long


From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 18:00:46 2003
From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:00:46 -0800
Subject: Fwd from Dan Everett: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.100046.0800.SPIKE@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

>Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:52:44 +0100
>Subject: Fwd: question about phonemes
>From: Daniel Everett <dan.everett at man.ac.uk>
>
>Spike could you post this for me? FUNKNET rejected it because of
>something in my email program.
>
>Dan
>>
>>Suzette,
>>
>>I don't recall seeing Spike's comment, though it may just be a
>>function of a quick delete button for letters from news groups. In
>>any case, I do not know where the data for any statement of the
>>form 'most linguists do/do not x' would come from, for any value of
>>'x', would come from/did come from.
>>
>>Have there been any polls on this? I don't think so. So that is
>>probably just an off-the-cuff remark of Spike's. Or am I wrong,
>>Spike?
>>
>>It is true that SPE and generative phonology in a sense eliminated
>>the notion 'taxonomic phoneme', which the traditional concept of
>>phoneme was said to be represented by (see also Postal 1968). But
>>Lexical Phonology restored some luster to the concept in the notion
>>of the final output of all lexical rules. Here are some comments
>>from Mohanon (1986)
>>
>>p1: "The principal divergence between the two approaches
>>(traditional phonemes vs. Gen. Phonology, DLE) lay in the answer to
>>the question: what are the levels of representation in phonological
>>theory? The answer that classical phonemic theory yielded was that
>>there are three levels: phonetic, phonemic, and morphophonemic. SPE
>>abandoned the intermediate level..."
>>
>>p6: "Broadly speaking, the classical phonemic level of
>>representation arose out of the speaker's intuitions about what he
>>was saying or hearing, or what was significant in it. This level
>>was meant to capture the speaker's intuitions about which sounds
>>were the same or different... What classical phonemics failed to do
>>was to construct a formal theory of representation: the intuition
>>was right, the theory that followed was inadequate. While
>>abandoning the classical phonemic theory, SPE also abandoned an
>>intuitively appealing level of representation in phonological
>>theory."
>>
>>Mohanon and other LP theorists gave considerable evidence for the
>>linguistic necessity of something like the classical phoneme, as
>>the output of the lexical rule component. Moreover, anyone who has
>>been involved in a literacy project has no doubt come up with their
>>own evidence for native speaker intuitions about phonemes in the
>>classical/LP sense.
>>
>>There is evidence for classical phonemes, in fact, from standard
>>phonological rules. For example, one of the crucial predictions of
>>distinctive feature theory revolves around the concept of natural
>>class. So of the two rules in (1) and (2), (1), the distinctive
>>feature approach, is said to be superior because it (correctly, so
>>the story goes) predicts that aspiration of voiceless stops will
>>occur in one fell swoop in both L1 acquisition and diachronic
>>phonological development:
>>
>>(1) [-vd, -cont] --> [+spread glottis]/X_____ (where x is a
>>stressed syllable, simplifying)
>>
>>(2)   a. p ---> ph/X___
>>      b. t ---> th/X___
>>      c. k ---> kh/X___
>>
>>A problem for (1) and the distinctive feature approach will arise
>>just in case we find examples of children learning the aspiration
>>of one consonant before the aspiration of another or historical
>>cases where one consonant undergoes the aspiration rule prior to
>>another in the history of the language, even though both belong to
>>the same (relevant) natural class of segments. Such cases will
>>support the 'taxonomic phoneme' approach over the distinctive
>>feature approach.
>>
>>Another potential source of evidence for phonemes is the
>>distribution of phonemes in the relevant 'articulatory space' or,
>>non-technically a 'phoneme chart'.
>>
>>In other words, Suzette, there are so many possible sources of
>>evidence for phonemes and so many theoretical approaches to the
>>issue that is very unlikely that Spike is right or could even be
>>right in principle in making this kind of assertion, if that is
>>indeed what was intended. (I hasten to say again that I do not
>>recall seeing Spike's assertion, so I do not want to put words in
>>his mouth.)
>>
>>-- Dan
>>
>>
>>
>>********************
>>Daniel L. Everett
>>Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
>>Department of Linguistics
>>University of Manchester
>>Manchester, UK
>>M13 9PL
>>Phone: 44-161-275-3158
>>Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
>>http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
>>'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf
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From mpost at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 20:44:50 2003
From: mpost at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Mark William Post)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:44:50 -0800
Subject: phonemes and phonological knowledge
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.124450.0800.MPOST@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

Dear Suzette (and others),

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Phoneme (despite the
apparent fact that it doesn't exist)

The basic question seems to be this: what do language users know about
the sounds of language, and how is that knowledge implemented in
communication? There are two very well-supported facts that I see
emerging from thousands of years of research into this question, which
appear at first to be contradictory: 1) language users organize
phonetic material into contrastive categories, which are in most cases
readily comparable across languages 2) the precise content of these
categories - as they are realized in speech - is infinitely variable.

Another way of putting this: language after language agrees on roughly
the same ways of categorizing phonetic content - the high, front,
vowel of language x sounds to a speaker of language y more or less
like the high, front, vowel of language y. At the same time, the
implementation of the categories of language x in actual discourse -
in terms of both sheer phonetic detail and the ways it behaves or is
reshaped in certain contexts - is never - *ever* - precisely the same
as in language y, even given highly controlled experimental
conditions. The origins of these rough categories, or why some
phonetic material seems pretty ripe for recruitment as a contrastive
category, have been shown in many cases to originate in biological and
physical facts to which any language user is subject. And yet it is
clear that what is apparently stored and actually implemented from
language user to language user, and from language to language -
exceeds anything these universal factors alone can explain.

Phonemes seem to me to be theoretical constructs which have been
designed to describe the first fact very well. They do a terrible job
of handling the second fact, often with the result that fact 2 is
simply ignored. They are *useful* in so far as they can often if not
always handle the first fact. But they are virtually *useless* to
anybody interested in accounting for the second, i.e., to anybody
intersted in accurately accounting for a language user's phonological
knowledge.

Does this mean phonemes don't exist, i.e. don't have cognitive
reality? Well, if you design your notion of phoneme (and/or feature)
to accurately describe a language user's phonological knowledge (as is
generally done), you fall short of accounting for the facts - language
users evidently store and implement a great deal more phonological
knowledge than you're capable of capturing with your notion of
phonemes. It would seem probabilistic mathematical models come closer,
although I don't think there's yet a clear idea of how to structure
these.

And yet for transcription, shorthand, representation of the rough
behavior of speech sounds, there is simply no substitute. This is the
use-value of phonemes. They are handy and accessible, and do a
reasonable job of letting us represent our data. But this usefulness
is limited to certain domains, and do not in fact satisfy the demands
of representing phonological knowledge. And as for what to tell people
outside the ivory tower, I'd tell them pretty much that.

For further info, and said in a clearer fashion than I could ever hope
to, see Pierrehumbert (1999) What People Know about Sounds of
Language. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 29, no. 2 (1999 Fall): p.
111-20
and Ohala J. (1974) Phonetic Explanation in Phonology Papers from the
Regional Meetings, Chicago Linguistic Society, Special Issue, Apr,
251-274.

Thanks for your time,

Mark Post


From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 22:51:28 2003
From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:51:28 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030403091521.02619048@mail.wayne.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.145128.0800.SPIKE@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

Sorry for any confusion, folks -- Geoff and Dan didn't see my message
because I had replied privately to Suzette.  I didn't really want to
make time to participate fully in a discussion right now, and I had
this silly idea that I could throw out a quick thought off the top of
my head and then avoid a longer discussion of anything that might
turn out to be more controversial than I had realized.  Here is the
message I sent to Suzette, followed by a brief explanation of my
assertion that the notion of "phoneme" is no longer widely accepted
-- an assertion which appears not to be true after all!

>Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:35:40 -0800
>To: Suzette Haden Elgin <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
>From: Spike Gildea <spike at darkwing.uoregon.edu>
>Subject: Re: question about phonemes
>
>Hi Susan --
>
>I just wanted to stick in a couple cents in favor of not asking the
>question (at least not in this way).  In general, superlatives in
>Linguistics (most, fewest) have always struck me as artificial, so I
>would advocate just giving a range, just like you do when talking
>about how many languages there are.  And since most linguists no
>longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion 'phoneme', we
>are unlikely to ever meaningfully resolve even the question of how
>many is the "right" number for any individual language, much less
>which languages have the most and which the least.
>
>To be a bit more concrete about your specific question, the issue of
>how many phonemes a language has is not a question of fact, it is a
>question of analysis, and the outcome depends crucially on your
>criteria for identifying phonemes.  Places where problems come up
>include whether or not to count contrasts that are arguably
>attributable to suprasegmental features overlaid on more compact
>feature bundles (cf. Dan's  decision not to count tone contrasts in
>Pirahã as phonemic, but to isolate out tongue position and lip
>rounding as the only 'phonemic' distinctions) and whether to count
>contours as individual segments or as sequences (cf. Claire's caveat
>about whether to count "click plus accompaniment" as a single
>phoneme, and similar issues in 'fortis/lenis' contrasts, diphthongs,
>affricates, prenasalized stops, etc.).  Different analysts could
>count between 3 and 64 phonemes in a vowel system with a simple i,
>u, a inventory, but additional contrasts in nasalization, vowel
>length and a four-tone system (3*2*2*4).
>
>Since I'm teaching intro this term, I expect the issue to come up
>again (it often does in that context), but I'm not sure if there's
>any context where I'd like to entertain the question seriously.
>
>Spike
>
>>April 2, 2003
>>
>>Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum number
>>of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
>>roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
>>seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
>>between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
>>many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
>>one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
>>that a rare extreme?
>>
>>Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at least
>>I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
>>that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>>
>>Suzette Haden Elgin


First, I retract my glib assertion about what "most linguists"
believe -- obviously I haven't polled a representative sample, and
there's not enough riding on the answer to make it worth the work.

Second, a quick stab at the substantive question: Do phonemes exist?
Depends on what you mean by phoneme, and what you mean by exist.  I
imagine that everyone agrees on the cognitive reality of contrast,
and it is clear that phonemes provide one way to model that contrast.
But unless we are working with different, updated definitions, the
notion of 'phoneme' that I am familiar with is embedded in phonemic
theory, where it entails the idea of indivisible, atomic units, which
are then discrete building blocks of morphemes.  Both the phoneme and
the theory that launched it certainly seem to have been rejected many
times in the theoretical literature, both by classical generative
theory and subsequent theories that still state phonological
generalizations in terms of discrete features (which may coalesce
into more or less autonomous bundles, depending on the analyst and
the language), and also from cognitive theories like the one
represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, that see phonemic behaviors
as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over a body of
stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars.  Since the theory
that originally gave meaning to the term phoneme is clearly not still
practiced, what is the theoretical status of the notion in more
current theories that still want to make a place for it?  Perhaps the
notion of phoneme is both more current and more coherent than I have
imagined from the subset of the literature that I have read, and I'm
interested in learning more from people who have spent more time
researching this issue.  I am looking forward to reading Geoff's
textbook when it comes out, and I'd appreciate a chance to look at
his list of references sooner (privately, if nobody else wonders
about these questions).

Some more thoughts, partly triggered by Geoff's and Dan's postings...
If the phoneme is seen as a taxonomic unit, then the question is
whether the unit operates as simply a way to conveniently represent
one's data, or whether there is some deeper theoretical/cognitive
significance given to this taxonomic unit.  Obviously, a taxonomic
unit like a phoneme is useful for things like orthographies, without
which it is difficult to even begin to study much of the stuff that
both functionalists and historical linguists have traditionally spent
most of our time on.  And there are certainly many patterns in data
that can be modeled well with reference to the notion phoneme.  It is
less obvious that these patterns cannot be modeled well *without*
reference to the notion phoneme, or that there is a clear need for
this taxonomic unit in order to understand the processing of sound in
linguistic cognition.

To take one of the arguments that Dan cites from LP as supporting the
taxonomic phoneme, evidence that sound change operates one segment at
a time undermines the unity of the notion natural class.  But this
same argument is taken one step farther by Joan Bybee to argue
against the taxonomic phoneme, since evidence that sound change also
operates one *word* at a time undermines the unity of the notion
segment.  Joan has advanced this argument in several publications,
and it is only one of many "frequency effects" that have been
documented (see, e.g., the studies in Bybee and Hopper 2001,
Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure.  She and others
have been working towards a theory that gets "phoneme effects" as a
secondary phenomenon, without assigning a primary cognitive role to
the notion phoneme.

So can we be confident that phonemes exist?  As a label for a
distributional pattern in data, of course.  As a contrastive
taxonomic unit in writing systems and grammars, of course.  As
something that can at least be constructed for use in tasks like
reading, again, no doubt.  As a primary cognitive unit that
structures our perception and production of speech, I think there's
plenty of room for skepticism (obviously -- I'm the guy who thought
most lingists were skeptics).

And to return to the original question, even if we agree that
phonemes exist, that is not the same thing as saying that we can
always determine precisely how many of them we should posit for any
given language, with no room for debate.  I really wonder whether we
have a set of universally agreed-upon criteria that theoreticians
from various camps and descriptive linguists (who generally are the
ones that provide the data for typological/theoretical
generalizations) all rely on in making the analytical decision of how
many of the contrasts that speakers attend to should be counted as
"phonemic".  Pretty much every language presents at least one
problematic issue, whether with autosegmental features, with
contours, or with consistent "subphonemic" variation, and thus
presents analysts with non-automatic choices about precisely where to
draw the phonemic line.  So even if we grant that pretty much all
linguists use -- and maybe most also believe in some cognitive
reality to -- some notion "phoneme", I remain dubious about the
validity of any precise answer to the question of which language has
"the most" or "the least" phonemes, and how many that might be.

best,

Spike
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From yishai at bgumail.bgu.ac.il  Fri Apr  4 03:51:47 2003
From: yishai at bgumail.bgu.ac.il (Yishai Tobin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 06:51:47 +0300
Subject: To be or not to be: phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.065147.0300.>

Dear Suzette and Funknetters,

This discussion has brought me (an inveterate lurker) out from the shadows.

Arguments for and against the phoneme seem never to cease (cf. my discussion on
and summary of the topic in Chapter 1 and the endnotes 6-14 in Phonology as
Human Behavior: Theoretical Implications and Clinical Applications, Duke
University Press. 1997).  They are reminiscent of the early 70s when there were
discussions at LSA and other meetings on whether "deep structure" was
"syntactic" or "semantic" and the different camps would sit on opposite sides
of the auditorium arguing with each other and then be convinced that each one
of them had won the argument and the issue was closed.

The concept of the phoneme (like everything else) is complex,hardly foolproof,
and highly arguable. The existence/demise of the phoneme has been the subject
of much theoretical (descriptive, formal and functional) debate.  As a longtime
functional advocate of the phoneme, I became persuaded/convinced of its
worthiness and reality when confronted with developmental and particularly
clinical situations.

IN MY EXPERIENCE: Children's errors/processes can really be classified as being
phonetic versus phonemic.  For example, if a child says something like /t/ for
/k/ or something like /d/ for /g/ (a process called "fronting") and you repeat
what  the child says; they will adamantly disagree and claim that they did NOT
say what you did; and then they will correct you by saying something that
sounds to you EXACTLY LIKE what you said.  Acoustic analyses of these
utterances show that their (fronted) /t/ or /d/ for /k/  or /g/ is distinct
from their regular apical /t/ or /d/ and, indeed, they have two distinct sounds
in their system and in their production at least one of which "misses the mark"
and overlaps with the other and may not be heard and differentiated by you.
(The same goes for voiced/voiceless distinctions and other sound
substitutions.)

I even think that most regular functional errors/processes are ususally
phonetic (like the above) and if a child has more than merely sporadic phonemic
errors (where s/he cannot perceive or produce different sounds) this may be an
indication of a possible organic origin of an error or pocess.  I have also
noticed that most children make errors primarily with consonants and it may
also be possible that children that make more than sporadic errors with both
consonants and vowels may have an organic origin to these errors/processes.
This, of course, is a hypothesis that must be investigated.

It may also be that anti-phoneme advocates could look at the same data
differently, but, for me, at least, develomental and clinical phonology
supports the existence of what Sanford Shane called that little "bastard", the
phoneme.

Yishai Tobin

Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:

> April 3, 2003
>
> My thanks to all on the list who have responded to my question about the
> upper limit of (documented) phonemes in human languages. Thank you for the
> help, and for the references. However, this is one of those cases in which
> the cure has turned out to be worse than the disease.
>
> After reading Spike Gildea's response -- which included the statement that
> "most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
> 'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
> a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
> two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.
>
> (1) What does that statement of Spike's mean -- functionally? And how do we
> define "cognitive reality," precisely? If phonemes do not function in human
> speech to let speakers/listeners distinguish the meanings of words, how [I
> am tempted to say "how the blazes"] does that happen? Why do we continue to
> teach the concept of phoneme and to teach charts of phonemes if they're
> only figments? And what should those of us who work outside the ivory tower
> use as a way of helping people do useful tasks like teaching reading, if
> not phonemes? I am accustomed every few years to learn that something we
> linguists have written whole shelves of books about is now out of favor and
> considered quaint, only to learn a few years later that the quaint little
> whatever-it-is has come back around on the guitar again. It's
> disconcerting, but is apparently the nature of the Linguist Beast. However,
> I'd like clarification from within a functionalist framework. I'm not at
> all sure that I understand this.
>
> (2) It looks to me, from the responses, as if the following situation holds
> (always remembering that the whole thing is unreal, anyway, right?):
>
> Suppose we come across a language that has five identifiable vowels.
> Suppose the language modifies vowels by nasalizing them, and there are
> minimal pairs in which the meaning distinction depends on whether the vowel
> is or isn't nasal. The question then is whether the phoneme inventory for
> the language is to be analyzed as having five vowels or as having ten
> vowels. If that is so, and if I haven't totally misunderstood your
> messages, what are the criteria for making that decision? Functionally
> speaking.....
>
> Suzette

--
Professor Yishai Tobin
Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics
& Department of Behavioral Sciences
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
P.O. Box 653
84 105 Be'er Sheva, Israel
972-7-6472047 (office)
972-7-6277950 (home)
972-7-6472907  / 972-7-6472932 (fax)

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From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Fri Apr  4 13:43:23 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 07:43:23 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.074323.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 4, 2003

Spike writes:

"Sorry for any confusion, folks -- Geoff and Dan didn't see my message
because I had replied privately to Suzette.  I didn't really want to
make time to participate fully in a discussion right now, and I had
this silly idea that I could throw out a quick thought off the top of
my head and then avoid a longer discussion of anything that might
turn out to be more controversial than I had realized."

Spike doesn't owe the list an apology -- I do. If I'd been paying proper
attention to the headers on my messages, I would have realized that his
note was addressed only to me.

I can say honestly that I'm sorry to have made public something Spike
intended to share only with me; that was rude.

I _can't_ say, however, that I'm sorry to have unleashed the ensuing
discussion. It seems to me that the discussion has been worthwhile, if only
in demonstrating that there is no consensus either on the reality
(cognitive, or psychological, or whatever-you-like) of the phoneme, or on
the maximum number of phonemes documented for a human language.

At least I now know that what I don't know isn't the result of my having
failed to look for the answer in the right places.

Thank you for your tolerance, and for your erudition.

Suzette


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Fri Apr  4 20:50:46 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:50:46 +1200
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <f05200f0ebab227597f05@[128.223.99.96]>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.085046.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Hello All,

I find this discussion very interesting because it fits in with a perspective
I am trying to push - that grammar does not exist.

I shouldn't be surprised because the advocates I hear for the non-existence
of the phoneme are the same (Langacker, Hopper) I have read and identified
with at the syntactic level.

Personally all I can say of substance on the phoneme issue is that
non-existence is for me a "happy congruence" with the way I believe syntax
works.

That said I can understand how the two sides of the discussion can easily
misunderstand one-another. In a sense, of course, grammars (and phonemes) do
exist, we can see them.

I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created. That
is what I read in Spike's post and what prompted me to write here:

"cognitive theories like the one represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, ...
see phonemic behaviors as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over
a body of stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars."

That way you can have your cake and eat it too. It is not an issue of whether
something exists or not, but whether that existence is a fundamental
principle or a product of fundamental principles.

As an analogy I like to compare grammar, and phonemes might be the same, with
waves on the sea. Waves don't have an independent existence, they are the
constant products of uncountable tiny interactions between water molecules.

Hope I'm not getting too meta-physical. This perspective has concrete
applications. It turns our conventional ideas of language inside out, so that
they don't so much become wrong, but you see that the fundamental processes
underlying them are somewhat lateral to those we have been accustomed to
seeing.

That gives us new power.

-Rob Freeman


From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Fri Apr  4 21:32:19 2003
From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 13:32:19 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.133219.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Sure. And while we're at it, reality doesn't exist either. Not really. Besides,
it is so tyranical & oppressive. You gotta watch out, gotta compute, gotta worry,
gotta duck. So let's hear it for freedom & new power, hey?  TG

============

Rob Freeman wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I find this discussion very interesting because it fits in with a perspective
> I am trying to push - that grammar does not exist.
>
> I shouldn't be surprised because the advocates I hear for the non-existence
> of the phoneme are the same (Langacker, Hopper) I have read and identified
> with at the syntactic level.
>
> Personally all I can say of substance on the phoneme issue is that
> non-existence is for me a "happy congruence" with the way I believe syntax
> works.
>
> That said I can understand how the two sides of the discussion can easily
> misunderstand one-another. In a sense, of course, grammars (and phonemes) do
> exist, we can see them.
>
> I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
> from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
> emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created. That
> is what I read in Spike's post and what prompted me to write here:
>
> "cognitive theories like the one represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, ...
> see phonemic behaviors as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over
> a body of stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars."
>
> That way you can have your cake and eat it too. It is not an issue of whether
> something exists or not, but whether that existence is a fundamental
> principle or a product of fundamental principles.
>
> As an analogy I like to compare grammar, and phonemes might be the same, with
> waves on the sea. Waves don't have an independent existence, they are the
> constant products of uncountable tiny interactions between water molecules.
>
> Hope I'm not getting too meta-physical. This perspective has concrete
> applications. It turns our conventional ideas of language inside out, so that
> they don't so much become wrong, but you see that the fundamental processes
> underlying them are somewhat lateral to those we have been accustomed to
> seeing.
>
> That gives us new power.
>
> -Rob Freeman


From the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 02:04:59 2003
From: the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM (the phoneme)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 10:04:59 +0800
Subject: existence and reality
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.100459.0800.THEPHONEME@HOTMAIL.COM>

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


From jmacfarl at UNM.EDU  Sat Apr  5 04:10:35 2003
From: jmacfarl at UNM.EDU (James MacFarlane)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 21:10:35 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <F18BVzShNxNbKU9zS8k0000a964@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.211035.0700.JMACFARL@UNM.EDU>

> From: the phoneme <the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM
>
> Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
>

Dear Phoneme,

In my mind you are not dead.  You live on, but only because you help us to
categorize diverse surface phenomena which are related to one another in
various ways.  It is the arbitrary  (predetermined) status that some
linguists have given you that has been abandoned by many linguists and
psycholinguists.  Instead, some of us believe that you are only a temporary
(synchronic) phenomenon which is only capable of capturing the current state
of the sound system of a particular language.  And, even then you do a less
than adequate job.  If this is all one is interested in, then you should
feel secure in your position.  However, if linguists begin to become more
interested in language content and language use as a determining factor for
the structure of language, then your days are numbered.


James MacFarlane
Doctoral Candidate
University of New Mexico

PS  -I realize this post sounds awfully arrogant. I don't mean it to be.
This is the way that I conceptualize "the phoneme" and I am only presenting
it here to see how my views are different and similar to the views of
FUNKNETTERS. I'm enjoying this conversation tremendously AND learning a
great deal about the phoneme.


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 10:32:14 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 22:32:14 +1200
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <3E8DF9E3.5DF221E3@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.223214.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Hi Tom,

Are you objecting specifically to the idea of emergence here, or radical
theoretical posturing in general?

-Rob

On Saturday 05 April 2003 9:32 am, Tom Givon wrote:
> Sure. And while we're at it, reality doesn't exist either. Not really.
> Besides, it is so tyranical & oppressive. You gotta watch out, gotta
> compute, gotta worry, gotta duck. So let's hear it for freedom & new power,
> hey?  TG
>
> ============
>
> Rob Freeman wrote:
> > ...
> > I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
> > from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
> > emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created.


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 11:49:44 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 23:49:44 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <BAB3A54A.54C0%jmacfarl@unm.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.234944.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Saturday 05 April 2003 4:10 pm, James MacFarlane wrote:
> > From: the phoneme <the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM
> >
> > Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
>
> ...if linguists begin to become
> more interested in language content and language use as a determining
> factor for the structure of language, then your days are numbered.

Hi James,

I see your perspective and raise you one :-) I don't see emergence as
primarily a functionalist/structuralist thing. Though it does gel with the
fundaments of Functionalism based on contrast rather than category.

It's more than an esoteric theoretical issue at the syntax level.

Phonemes change with time, and may be essentially indeterminate, but syntax
arguably changes with each sentence. We might have to search hard to find
evidence for emergence at the phoneme level (certain frequency effects?) but
a category which changes with each sentence might explain lots of
pseudo-categorical syntactic behaviour, like phraseology, collocational and
formulaic aspects of language. (Which behave in some ways like words, and yet
change).

That's the perspective I want to hear about. How current is that with people?

Cheers,

Rob


From jmacfarl at UNM.EDU  Sat Apr  5 15:05:47 2003
From: jmacfarl at UNM.EDU (James MacFarlane)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:05:47 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <E191mN5-0000Z7-00@grunt5.ihug.co.nz>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.080547.0700.JMACFARL@UNM.EDU>


> On Saturday 05 April 2003 4:10 pm, Rob wrote:
>
> I see your perspective and raise you one :-) I don't see emergence as
> primarily a functionalist/structuralist thing. Though it does gel with the
> fundaments of Functionalism based on contrast rather than category.
>
> It's more than an esoteric theoretical issue at the syntax level.
>
> Phonemes change with time, and may be essentially indeterminate, but syntax
> arguably changes with each sentence. We might have to search hard to find
> evidence for emergence at the phoneme level (certain frequency effects?) but
> a category which changes with each sentence might explain lots of
> pseudo-categorical syntactic behaviour, like phraseology, collocational and
> formulaic aspects of language. (Which behave in some ways like words, and yet
> change).

In my understanding you are right on here.  The ordering of constituents
appears to be the driving force behind change in many cases.  Joan Bybee has
discussed this in terms of boundary phenomenon.  This is all about
frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.  I'll shamelessly
take this opportunity to plug an article that I co-authored with a fellow
student Anna Vogel Sosa entitled Evidence for frequency-based constituents
in the mental lexicon: Collocations involving the word of.  Brain &
Language, 83, 227-236   Here we found that if the collocational frequency of
the English word of  and the previous word such as kind were high, then
participants in our psycholinguistic experiment were less likely to identify
the word of, suggesting holistic storage of the two word chunk.  Exactly
what one would expect when boundaries become obscured.

An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.

Best,

James MacFarlane
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From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sun Apr  6 00:57:44 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 12:57:44 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <BAB43EDA.54D2%jmacfarl@unm.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.2003.125744.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 06 April 2003 3:05 am, James MacFarlane wrote:
> ...This is all about
> frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
> frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.

This is nice. The slow solidification of collocations over time shows a nice
parallel with the slow formation of new phonemes.

But we are still talking slow change over time here. Still in a mindset which
sees categories as "mostly" fixed. I don't know if others are seeing this,
but rather than thinking of two separate categories gradually merging to form
a new one over time can we not imagine that two words put together, even for
the very first time, immediately form a (very weak) new category (governed by
paradigmatic frequency effects, for example). Every new sentence might be
regarded as a weak (infrequent?) syntactic category in this sense. The slow
process over time rather than the formation of a new category might be seen
just as a gradual strengthening of this new combined category. The result is
the same but the important thing is that every combination of words can be
thought of (and should be modelled as) the formation of a new category.

Is this a common perspective?

I guess what I am really saying is has anyone considered the power of
emergence in paradigmatic categories rather than just syntagmatic?

> An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
> phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
> continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
> deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.

I'd like to read it. I found a discussion
(http://www.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Directionality.pdf) but not the paper. Is
Phonogeneis on the Web somewhere?

Best,

Rob


From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Sun Apr  6 21:03:36 2003
From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 14:03:36 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.2003.140336.0700.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>



Dear y'all,

I guess I had better say something less flippant (sorry, Paul), tho temptation is
still strong.Chomsky with his intellectual Stalinism had pushed us to adopt
either extreme rationalism ("everything is innate, input doesn't matter") or
extreme empiricism ("nothing is innate, all knowledge derives from input"). In
the very same vein, we have been repeatedly pushed in the past 15 years or so by
our own extreme emergentists to subscribe to an equally reductionist position:
"If X--be it grammar or phonology--is not 100% generative, therefore it is 100%
emergent". I find this passion for reductive solutions suspect on both
theoretical and empirical grounds. I have always thought that the worse gift we
could give Chomsky is to counter his extreme reductionism with an equally extreme
reductionism in the opposite direction. That way he wins either way, because we
concede his main philosophical premise--either or, but God forbid a pragmatic
middle.

Theoretical considerations:

(i)  complex multi-factored systems: We are dealing with biologically-based,
adaptively- shaped complex systems. Most often, such systems display various
kinds of adaptive compromises between conflicting--but equally valid--functional
imperatives (cf. Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over
biology, cognition & language. For running & flying animals, muscle-weight
conflicts with speed. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive
flexibility) conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In
phonology, articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity to
changing context). Etc. etc.

(ii) Automaticity & performance speed: Both phonology and grammar are highly
automated processing systems. Not 100%, but way above 50%, probably--depending
how one counts in real-time communicative behavior--ca. 90% at any given moment.
It is all very nice to observe that emergence is--in principle--ever present. But
at any given time during fluent (non-Pidgin) communication, a spoken-language
user produces language at the speed of, roughly, 1-2 seconds per event/state
clause and 0.250 msecs per lexical word. This is an extremely demanding
processing rate, which can only be made possible by high level of automaticity.
And high automaticity depends heavily on high categoriality; that is, a high rate
of rule-governedness & either/or decidability. When Sapir said "all grammars
leak", I doubt it what he meant was "all grammar leaks 100% all the time". What's
the point of having a grammar then? Sure, grammar has it's counter-adaptive
"spandrels", but neither 100% or 50% of the total. More like 10% percent or even
less at any given time.

(iii) The S-shaped learning curve: This is a well known phenomenon in both
psychology and the linguistic change-cum-variation. The variation ratios of
90-to-10 (at the beginning of the process of  change) and 10-to-90 (at the end)
both last for a long time. The in-between phase, the transitions between 80-to-20
and 20-to-80 ratios, is extremely rapid. This is most likely because the more
even ratios of variation are not viable as processing systems. Most
highly-automated systems can cope with 10% residue ("garbage") by either ignoring
it (if it is adaptively irrelevant), or by investing high-energy resources to
attend to the fine details of context (if it is adaptively urgent). And I suspect
that S.J. Gould's "punctuated equilibria" phenomenon has a similar fundamental
explanation--the adaptive instability of intermediate stages.

Empirical issues:

One can easily test all this empirically, as I have tried to suggest in chs. 2-3
of Bio-Linguistics (Amsterdam:  J. Benjamins, 2002). One can, for example, take a
text of natural communication (unedited, strictly oral!) and compute how many of
the actual uses of all grammatical constructions there are highly
conventionalized & rule-governed ("generative")  vs. how many are in the midst of
change ("emergent"). The computation I did in ch. 2 of B-L yielded the ratio of
98%-to-2%, respectively. So this was only one conversational text of 5 pp. In ch.
3 of the book I did a similar assessment of cliticization (grammaticalization),
yielding a ratio of 90-to-10. And studies of the frequency distribution of marked
vs. unmarked constructions in text yield similar ratios (Givón 1991).

I think those of you who are interested in this as an empirical issue should
undertake similar text-distributional studies of variability ("emergence") vs.
stability ("generativity") in both our major linguistic coding ('structural')
systems-- phonology & grammar. To continue to just take for granted either
emergence or generativity without the benefit such performance tests has become,
to my mind, a bit stale. So if one sounds a bit impatient, Paul, it is because
Chomsky has been ignoring performance and taking 100% generativity for granted
since 1957.

Cheers,  TG
======================


Rob Freeman wrote:

> On Sunday 06 April 2003 3:05 am, James MacFarlane wrote:
> > ...This is all about
> > frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
> > frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.
>
> This is nice. The slow solidification of collocations over time shows a nice
> parallel with the slow formation of new phonemes.
>
> But we are still talking slow change over time here. Still in a mindset which
> sees categories as "mostly" fixed. I don't know if others are seeing this,
> but rather than thinking of two separate categories gradually merging to form
> a new one over time can we not imagine that two words put together, even for
> the very first time, immediately form a (very weak) new category (governed by
> paradigmatic frequency effects, for example). Every new sentence might be
> regarded as a weak (infrequent?) syntactic category in this sense. The slow
> process over time rather than the formation of a new category might be seen
> just as a gradual strengthening of this new combined category. The result is
> the same but the important thing is that every combination of words can be
> thought of (and should be modelled as) the formation of a new category.
>
> Is this a common perspective?
>
> I guess what I am really saying is has anyone considered the power of
> emergence in paradigmatic categories rather than just syntagmatic?
>
> > An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
> > phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
> > continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
> > deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.
>
> I'd like to read it. I found a discussion
> (http://www.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Directionality.pdf) but not the paper. Is
> Phonogeneis on the Web somewhere?
>
> Best,
>
> Rob
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From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr  7 03:09:18 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:09:18 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <3E909628.ACE7E3E7@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.7.APR.2003.150918.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Tom,

I don't find the emergentist position, as I understand it, incompatible with
generativism, it just reverses the power relationship: category vs. example.
Generativist insights about categories are still there, in the main. They are
for me, anyway.

In particular I believe that while emergence (or generalization, actually, as
opposed to generalization_s_) is the fundamental driving force of language I
also believe that driving force must be channeled and parameterized in ways
only glimpsed through some of the insights of generativism.

And Chomsky was only ever going for principles and parameters, wasn't he,
competence rather than performance?

But I seem to have stepped in on an argument which has been going on for some
time. Excuse my ignorance of the established positions, because while I
identify strongly with what I hear of emergence I really don't know yet in
depth how the perspective has developed (over the last 15 years!)

Perhaps I can ask some questions to get to the center of it. Take your
analysis of the empirical nub, for instance. Can you tell me why you want us
to undertake `text-distributional studies of variability ("emergence") vs.
stability ("generativity")'?

Isn't that a bit like saying let's test experimentally how much of language
is performance and how much competence?

Isn't emergence (or really I feel it's better to get down to the driving
force and say generalization) a performance model?

Best,

Rob

On Monday 07 April 2003 9:03 am, you wrote:
> Dear y'all,
>
> I guess I had better say something less flippant (sorry, Paul), tho
> temptation is still strong.Chomsky with his intellectual Stalinism had
> pushed us to adopt either extreme rationalism ("everything is innate, input
> doesn't matter") or extreme empiricism ("nothing is innate, all knowledge
> derives from input"). In the very same vein, we have been repeatedly pushed
> in the past 15 years or so by our own extreme emergentists to subscribe to
> an equally reductionist position: "If X--be it grammar or phonology--is not
> 100% generative, therefore it is 100% emergent". I find this passion for
> reductive solutions suspect on both theoretical and empirical grounds. I
> have always thought that the worse gift we could give Chomsky is to counter
> his extreme reductionism with an equally extreme reductionism in the
> opposite direction. That way he wins either way, because we concede his
> main philosophical premise--either or, but God forbid a pragmatic middle.
>
> Theoretical considerations:
>
> (i)  complex multi-factored systems: We are dealing with
> biologically-based, adaptively- shaped complex systems. Most often, such
> systems display various kinds of adaptive compromises between
> conflicting--but equally valid--functional imperatives (cf.
> Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over biology,
> cognition & language. For running & flying animals, muscle-weight conflicts
> with speed. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive flexibility)
> conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In phonology,
> articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
> distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
> evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity
> to changing context). Etc. etc.
>
> (ii) Automaticity & performance speed: Both phonology and grammar are
> highly automated processing systems. Not 100%, but way above 50%,
> probably--depending how one counts in real-time communicative behavior--ca.
> 90% at any given moment. It is all very nice to observe that emergence
> is--in principle--ever present. But at any given time during fluent
> (non-Pidgin) communication, a spoken-language user produces language at the
> speed of, roughly, 1-2 seconds per event/state clause and 0.250 msecs per
> lexical word. This is an extremely demanding processing rate, which can
> only be made possible by high level of automaticity. And high automaticity
> depends heavily on high categoriality; that is, a high rate of
> rule-governedness & either/or decidability. When Sapir said "all grammars
> leak", I doubt it what he meant was "all grammar leaks 100% all the time".
> What's the point of having a grammar then? Sure, grammar has it's
> counter-adaptive "spandrels", but neither 100% or 50% of the total. More
> like 10% percent or even less at any given time.
>
> (iii) The S-shaped learning curve: This is a well known phenomenon in both
> psychology and the linguistic change-cum-variation. The variation ratios of
> 90-to-10 (at the beginning of the process of  change) and 10-to-90 (at the
> end) both last for a long time. The in-between phase, the transitions
> between 80-to-20 and 20-to-80 ratios, is extremely rapid. This is most
> likely because the more even ratios of variation are not viable as
> processing systems. Most highly-automated systems can cope with 10% residue
> ("garbage") by either ignoring it (if it is adaptively irrelevant), or by
> investing high-energy resources to attend to the fine details of context
> (if it is adaptively urgent). And I suspect that S.J. Gould's "punctuated
> equilibria" phenomenon has a similar fundamental explanation--the adaptive
> instability of intermediate stages.
>
> Empirical issues:
>
> One can easily test all this empirically, as I have tried to suggest in
> chs. 2-3 of Bio-Linguistics (Amsterdam:  J. Benjamins, 2002). One can, for
> example, take a text of natural communication (unedited, strictly oral!)
> and compute how many of the actual uses of all grammatical constructions
> there are highly
> conventionalized & rule-governed ("generative")  vs. how many are in the
> midst of change ("emergent"). The computation I did in ch. 2 of B-L yielded
> the ratio of 98%-to-2%, respectively. So this was only one conversational
> text of 5 pp. In ch. 3 of the book I did a similar assessment of
> cliticization (grammaticalization), yielding a ratio of 90-to-10. And
> studies of the frequency distribution of marked vs. unmarked constructions
> in text yield similar ratios (Givón 1991).
>
> I think those of you who are interested in this as an empirical issue
> should undertake similar text-distributional studies of variability
> ("emergence") vs. stability ("generativity") in both our major linguistic
> coding ('structural') systems-- phonology & grammar. To continue to just
> take for granted either emergence or generativity without the benefit such
> performance tests has become, to my mind, a bit stale. So if one sounds a
> bit impatient, Paul, it is because Chomsky has been ignoring performance
> and taking 100% generativity for granted since 1957.
>
> Cheers,  TG
> ======================


From info at eldp.soas.ac.uk  Mon Apr  7 15:08:55 2003
From: info at eldp.soas.ac.uk (e.potts)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 16:08:55 +0100
Subject: ELDP - 2003 Initial Announcement
Message-ID: <MON.7.APR.2003.160855.0100.>

*** Apologies for any cross-posting ***


Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Advance Notice: 2003 Call for Proposals

With the first round of the ELDP application process completed and offers of
grants made, we propose to move straight on the the second call for
Preliminary Applications.  The purpose of this e-mail is to outline the
timetable and the key structural changes to the programme.  It should be
noted that the timetable has been brought forward when compared with that of
2002.

2002 Outcomes
The ELDP received approximately 150 applications in response to its first
call for applications.  About 40 of these were invited to submit detailed
applications, and although it was not possible to offer financial support to
all good proposals, the Fund was able to make formal offers of grants to 21
applicants: Studentships, Fellowships and Project grants.  Details of the
offers, and subsequently details of those accepted, will be publicised on
the ELDP web page shortly (www.eldp.soas.ac.uk).

2003 Timetable

16th May 2003 - Revised guidelines and forms available on the web page.

8th August 2003 - Deadline for submission of Preliminary Applications.

19th September 2003 - Invitations to submit Detailed Applications
dispatched.

14th November 2003 - Deadline for submission of Detailed Applications.

27th February 2004 - Announcement of Funding Awards.

The timetable will be repeated annually.


2003 Guidance
The new guidelines and application forms for the 2003 funding round will be
published on the website by Friday 26th May 2003.  In the meantime, the 2002
guidelines may be used as a general guide.  The five types of application
used in 2002 will remain, although additional guidelindes as to funding
limits will be provided.

The main aims of the Fund remain the documentation of seriously endangered
languages and the criteria remain (a) endangerment, (b) significance of the
language and (c) quality of proposal.  The Fund's primary concern is with
documentation rather than focused revitalisation - although the link is
appreciated and sometimes desirable.  As such prospective applicants should
structure the documentation in such a way as to assist local communities in
preserving and fostering highly endangered ancestral languages and speech
ways.

Whilst in essence the guidelines will remain broadly similar, there will be
a number of budgetary refinements.  Key changes that you may wish to note
will be as follows:

- Overhead/ Institutional Administration costs will not be eligible.

- Top-up salaries for established/ employed academics will not be eligible
(this includes the funding of non-institutional funded summer vacation
periods).

- A limit of £2000 (pounds sterling) may be requested for publications.

- Major equipment costs (i.e. laptops, camcorders etc) will not be provided
for projects where the period of fieldwork is limited.

- Modest training activity for local communities (within the context of a
substantive project) will be eligible for support.


From jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU  Fri Apr 11 00:10:29 2003
From: jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 17:10:29 -0700
Subject: a query about sentences
Message-ID: <THU.10.APR.2003.171029.0700.JRUBBA@CALPOLY.EDU>

Hi folks,

I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.

We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
he argues for starting there).

My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.

What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Jo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Fri Apr 11 06:07:45 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 07:07:45 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <3E9607F5.BAF0FE39@calpoly.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.070745.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Johanna,

I have an article in the journal Pragmatics and Cognition, published
about 10 years ago entitled 'The sentential divide in language and
cognition', in which I argue that there is a qualitative difference
between studying sentences and their constituents vs. discourse. I give
a number of arguments for this and review a lot of functional work and
compare it with formal work in this regard. I think that the article is
a pretty useful survey.

I personally am less convinced by my own arguments these days, but the
article still does a not too bad job of laying out and defending a
particular point of view that, if nothing else, represents what many
think about the issues.

Best,

Dan

.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 1:10 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: a query about sentences


Hi folks,

I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.

We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
he argues for starting there).

My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.

What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence as
the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Jo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596 •
E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu •  Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK  Fri Apr 11 07:20:50 2003
From: dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK (Dick Hudson)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:20:50 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <3E9607F5.BAF0FE39@calpoly.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.082050.0100.DICK@LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>

Dear Jo,
Good question. Here in the UK, as you know, grammar has got quite well
embedded in the school curriculum, especially in primary schools. One of
the many achievements of the people who have introduced it as part of
government strategy is to introduce it in the context of a very basic
theoretical framework which deliberately takes the focus of sentence
structure. It divides grammar into three levels:
1. word-level grammar - word classes, inflectional and derivational
morphology, 'word families' = lexical relations, spelling, some punctuation
2. sentence-level grammar - phrases, clauses, sentence types, most of
punctuation
3. text-level grammar - cohesion, coherence, especially tense, person and
information flow (not presented in those terms).
In my opinion it's just as important to include word-level stuff as
text-level; but the main point is that grammar is not just sentence
structure, as some people assume.
         To see how it pans out concretely, you might like to look at some
training material (for year 7-9 teachers) that I've almost finished putting
on my web site at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/KS3.htm, where
the index follows this three-way division. This material is meant to follow
on from the "Grammar for Writing" materials for earlier years (which you've
seen); that followed the same three-way structure.
         Hope this helps,
                 Dick Hudson



>Hi folks,
>
>I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
>starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
>composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
>whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.
>
>We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
>sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
>participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
>linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
>he argues for starting there).
>
>My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
>of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
>imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.
>
>What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
>as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?
>
>Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
>
>Jo
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>One Grand Avenue  San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>Tel. (805)-756-2184    Fax: (805)-756-6374 Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu   Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Richard (= Dick) Hudson

Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E  6BT.
+44(0)20 7679 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm


From chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU  Fri Apr 11 17:42:28 2003
From: chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:42:28 -0700
Subject: Sentences
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.104228.0700.CHAFE@LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU>

This is one of the places where looking at how people actually talk makes a
significant difference. There is, first of all, the difference between
grammatical sentences and prosodic sentences. The latter certainly reflect
something interesting about language processing. Beyond that, I've
suggested in various places that sentence closure (of either kind) is often
decided opportunistically on-line, while people are talking, and doesn't
necessarily reflect the boundaries of cognitively relevant units, although
it may. One kind of evidence I find particularly interesting appears in
repeated verbalizations of (more or less) the same content, where sentence
boundaries may be distributed differently in the different tellings. I
talked about this at GURT in February, but see, for example, chapter 11 of
Discourse, Consciousness, and Time, and my article Things we can learn from
repeated tellings of the same experience. Narrative Inquiry 8: 269-285
(1998). I'm tempted to suggest that linguists' preoccupation with sentences
comes above all from writing and grammatical traditions derived from
written language. To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet done.


From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Fri Apr 11 23:53:39 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:53:39 -0500
Subject: Sentences
In-Reply-To: <4293310154.1050057748@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.185339.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

I agree with Wally that focus on 'the sentence' is most likely the result
of being focused on written language. Of course it would be very good to
teach
children (or any people) about spoken language and its forms
and uses, especially for the purpose of building discourse skills
and repertoires.  It would be nice to see a practical school curriculum
that
puts discourse analysis into practice.

But while discourse linguists are working on how to get that
into the curriculum, I don't see any problem in using the
sentence as a starting point and fundamental
unit for teaching about language structure.

The primary aim of teaching about language structure
in schools is ultimately to teach writing. (It would be nice it
the aim were just 'knowledge about language', like a good linguist
would want, but it isn't.) It takes a long time to build up the skills
that lead to fluent and complex writing.

As a student (undergrad and grad)  I did some teaching and
tutoring of composition to well-schooled populations, with whom
I could work on information structure and presentation. Then
in my first teaching job, I was exposed to the attempts at writing
of a population far more innocent of any (writing-based) grammatical
knowledge.
(And these were by no means the most uneducated people in
the population at large.)

I consider it hopeless to try to teach students about
how to control information presentation in a discourse, when they have
no sense of how to put a written clause together and lose control quickly
when dealing with anything but the most simple structures. (For
one thing, many of the undergraduates I was teaching
had a lot of trouble with complement structures, and choosing
the right sorts of complements for the range of 'learned' verbs they
wanted to
use and had seen used in writing.)

So, I find Dick's basic curricular plan, centered around the sentence
(but
still looking at larger and smaller units),
to be quite appropriate for teaching about language structure.
I would put in lots of lexical/collocational work, because
learning the abstract grammatical structures doesn't do much
good if you don't know what words they 'belong' with. (I'm sure
he's already done that, being a Word Grammarian.) Written
English is nobody's native language and students just have to learn it.



On Friday, April 11, 2003, at 12:42  PM, Wallace Chafe wrote:

> This is one of the places where looking at how people actually talk
> makes a
> significant difference. There is, first of all, the difference between
> grammatical sentences and prosodic sentences. The latter certainly
> reflect
> something interesting about language processing. Beyond that, I've
> suggested in various places that sentence closure (of either kind) is
> often
> decided opportunistically on-line, while people are talking, and doesn't
> necessarily reflect the boundaries of cognitively relevant units,
> although
> it may. One kind of evidence I find particularly interesting appears in
> repeated verbalizations of (more or less) the same content, where
> sentence
> boundaries may be distributed differently in the different tellings. I
> talked about this at GURT in February, but see, for example, chapter 11
> of
> Discourse, Consciousness, and Time, and my article Things we can learn
> from
> repeated tellings of the same experience. Narrative Inquiry 8: 269-285
> (1998). I'm tempted to suggest that linguists' preoccupation with
> sentences
> comes above all from writing and grammatical traditions derived from
> written language. To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
> examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet
> done.
>


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 06:38:58 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:38:58 +0100
Subject: Sentences
In-Reply-To: <4293310154.1050057748@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.073858.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Wally says: "To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet
done."

There are two things to say about this. First, there are a lot of us,
Wally, who work exclusively with non-written languages and find the
sentence quite a coherent unit and that the mismatch between
intonational sentences (what Pike called 'breath groups' 'etically' or
'contours' 'emically) and morphosyntactic sentences is not, in fact, all
that great. Your remark seems to ignore the existence of fieldwork.
Moreover, many of us don't have the slightest problem talking about
sentences in unwritten languages and have shown in many writings that
sentences are causally implicated in the understanding of the grammar as
a whole, certainly not merely artifacts of writing systems (Piraha, to
just take a random example, seems to offer intonational evidence in
favor of both paragraphs and sentences. On the other hand, every single
thing we study is in a sense merely an artifact of how we look at the
world, languages, grammars, people, etc.)

But second, I agree strongly with Wally that grammar-intonation
'matching' in the study of sentences (or other constructions) itself has
not been well-studied, by and large. One reason for this is the failure
of nearly every regional or intellectual tradition of linguistics to
accord intonation research and documentation equal status in grammatical
description with, say, the study of words, affixes, phrases, etc.

I have come to the conclusion over the years (unfortunately *after*
writing two grammars) that a grammar without a careful and detailed
study of intonation (i.e. involving study of the phonetics and phonology
of intonation, its relation to information structure, etc) is seriously
incomplete, likely seriously flawed. But to incorporate intonation into
grammar-writing and general analytical & theoretical linguistics
requires a model of intonation that is more useful for the replication
of experiments and checking of analyses than most attempts in the past
have been. Interestingly, here, as in many areas of language study,
computational-linguists seem to have done some of the most useful work,
though many non-hyphenated linguists have pioneered (Pike, Halliday,
Bolinger, Liberman, to name a few very random examples of people whose
influence on this has been around for decades). I strongly recommend
that people take a look at the work growing from the research of Janet
Pierrehumbert, Robert Ladd, Carlos Gussenhoven, and others of this line
(e.g. Mary Beckman, Julia Hirschberg, Candy Sidner, etc.).

I am hoping to begin this summer a multi-year project for the
documentation of intonation in Amazonian languages (something I should
have done years ago). I hope that similar studies can be launched in
other parts of the world.

There is a need in fact to add courses on intonation to the general
linguistics graduate and undergraduate curricula (along with more/some
training in instrumental phonetics). Regardless of one's
perspective/theoretical intonation, the failure of the average field
linguist to carefully study intonation is one of the most serious
omissions of our discipline's history. But it is hard work, and for many
of us, certainly for me, it requires serious intellectual re-tooling.

-- Dan


From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Sat Apr 12 12:40:48 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:40:48 -0500
Subject: second the motion
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.074048.0500.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 12, 2003

My enthusiastic (and weary) thanks to Dan Everett for his letter about the
need for more attention to intonation. He is, in my opinion, absolutely
right when he says: "Regardless of one's perspective/theoretical
intonation, the failure of the average field linguist to carefully study
intonation is one of the most serious omissions of our discipline's
history." I would only say that I wouldn't restrict it to the field
linguist; "the average linguist" would be preferable. Dan is also right
that it's hard work.

Final comment: I wish that almost everything written about the topic were
not so extraordinarily hard to _read_. It's as if there were a conspiracy
within linguistics to suppress the information.

Suzette


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 13:30:10 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:30:10 +0100
Subject: second the motion
In-Reply-To: <v02140b07babd70b4fcf1@[216.98.174.87]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.143010.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Hmmm. There is a typo in my sentence. It read: "Regardless of one's
perspective/theoretical intonation..." It should read, "Regardless of
one's perspective/theoretical orientation..."

I hope that was clear.

-- Dan


From brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 17:28:30 2003
From: brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM (bruce richman)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:28:30 +0000
Subject: practically, teaching sentence g no go
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.172830.0000.BRUCERICHMAN@HOTMAIL.COM>

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From brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 17:47:58 2003
From: brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM (bruce richman)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:47:58 +0000
Subject: Revision: I was very rushed. practically,
 teaching sentence g no go
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.174758.0000.BRUCERICHMAN@HOTMAIL.COM>

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From chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU  Sat Apr 12 17:02:55 2003
From: chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 10:02:55 -0700
Subject: Sentences once more
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.100255.0700.CHAFE@LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU>

Dan Everett's message shows how easily a brief attempt at expressing
something that's really very complicated can lead to misunderstandings. I
hope this won't muddy things further. I didn't mean to say that spoken
sentences are always incoherent, or that there's always a mismatch between
syntax and prosody. In prototypical cases, I think, syntax and prosody do
match, and sentences do express what I would call coherent subtopics in the
flow of thought. I just wanted to point out that the cognitive status of
sentences can be unstable in two ways. First, opportunistic or premature
sentence closure, maybe followed by afterthoughts, is certainly something
that happens fairly often. Second, the subtopics sentences express may
change from one telling to the next. But I didn't mean to say that
sentences are irrelevant or unimportant in speaking. Among other things
they can show the subtopic structure of discourse, and they can show the
variety of ways speakers can decide when they've come to the end of
something, whatever it is. But we can't expect them necessarily to be doing
the same thing all the time. The question I wanted to raise is whether they
should be treated as THE basic unit of linguistic study, as seems for a
long time to have been the case.
By the way, I've never before been accused of ignoring the existence of
fieldwork. How strange!
Wally


From ardise at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 18:05:37 2003
From: ardise at HOTMAIL.COM (Ardis Eschenberg)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 18:05:37 +0000
Subject: a query about sentences
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.180537.0000.ARDISE@HOTMAIL.COM>

Hi!  I guess that all this discussion is basically centered around English
teaching, but I thought I'd add from a different perspective anyway.
I work with a team to teach a Native American language at the highschool
level to non-native speaker Native children.  The basic unit for us is the
verb.  The verb has the bulk of morphological operations (except
compounding) and exhibits the basic phonological processes (example:
devoicing with affixation) that also affect noun phrases.  In a way, this is
sentence level as well as a single verb can be a sentence.  Though I've not
attempted to teach too much intonation, post-verbal operators (clitics)
provide illocutionary force in this language anyway.  Also, sentences are
used to chunk information into digestible blocks for students to process.
When we transcribe, we use inflected verbs to provide stop points
(effectively these provide when we stop a sentence and break it down and
translate) to create a chunk to look into.  It helps prevent hassling over
what is a sentence.
So, perhaps, for different languages a different focus may be necessary.  Or
perhaps this is simply a difference in goals of programs.
-Ardis Eschenberg





>From: Dick Hudson <dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>
>Reply-To: Dick Hudson <dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>
>To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
>Subject: Re: a query about sentences
>Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:20:50 +0100
>
>Dear Jo,
>Good question. Here in the UK, as you know, grammar has got quite well
>embedded in the school curriculum, especially in primary schools. One of
>the many achievements of the people who have introduced it as part of
>government strategy is to introduce it in the context of a very basic
>theoretical framework which deliberately takes the focus of sentence
>structure. It divides grammar into three levels:
>1. word-level grammar - word classes, inflectional and derivational
>morphology, 'word families' = lexical relations, spelling, some punctuation
>2. sentence-level grammar - phrases, clauses, sentence types, most of
>punctuation
>3. text-level grammar - cohesion, coherence, especially tense, person and
>information flow (not presented in those terms).
>In my opinion it's just as important to include word-level stuff as
>text-level; but the main point is that grammar is not just sentence
>structure, as some people assume.
>         To see how it pans out concretely, you might like to look at some
>training material (for year 7-9 teachers) that I've almost finished putting
>on my web site at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/KS3.htm, where
>the index follows this three-way division. This material is meant to follow
>on from the "Grammar for Writing" materials for earlier years (which you've
>seen); that followed the same three-way structure.
>         Hope this helps,
>                 Dick Hudson
>
>
>
>>Hi folks,
>>
>>I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
>>starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
>>composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
>>whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.
>>
>>We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
>>sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
>>participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
>>linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
>>he argues for starting there).
>>
>>My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
>>of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
>>imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.
>>
>>What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
>>as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?
>>
>>Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
>>
>>Jo
>>
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>>One Grand Avenue  San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>>Tel. (805)-756-2184    Fax: (805)-756-6374 Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>>E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu   Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>Richard (= Dick) Hudson
>
>Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
>Gower Street, London WC1E  6BT.
>+44(0)20 7679 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
>http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm


_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 18:03:34 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:03:34 +0100
Subject: Sentences once more
In-Reply-To: <4294063438.1050141775@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.190334.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Wally,

Two things. First, I agree with every single syllable in your last
posting, even the punctuation. Second, I know very well that you are a
dedicated, accomplished fieldworker. I thought that the irony of you
appearing to say something that ignored fieldwork was obvious and so
wanted to draw attention to this. My remark was not intended as a
statement on your status as a fieldworker, but the consequences of a
single statement you made. Now that you have clarified it, the irony has
dissipated.

-- Dan


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 18:16:10 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:16:10 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <F57qFJyKQdMVYXuhmKL0004557a@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.191610.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Ardis says: Though I've not attempted to teach too much intonation,
post-verbal operators (clitics) provide illocutionary force in this
language anyway.  Also, sentences are used to chunk information into
digestible blocks for students to process.

********************************

Well, we can't do everything, I agree. And intonation is not the
solution to all the world's problems. But intonation has a wider range
of functions than what Ardis seems to imply. Pike's pioneering work on
intonation was in fact largely for applied reasons, to develop material
for teaching English. His textbook from the 40s on the Intonation of
American English is still a useful text for helping English speakers
begin to 'get a handle' on intonation. Even in my classes in the UK
examples from that text have been extremely useful teaching tools. But
since these are phonology classes that I use it in, students are then
asked to analyze Pike's examples using different models of intonation,
another use of that textbook.

But even Pike's work seriously underestimates the complexities of
intonation. Many of us take it for granted that intonation is used to
mark questions, surprise, maybe a bit of contrast and focus, and that it
has a few paralinguistics functions. But it is much more complex than
that. Bolinger argued that one cannot even understand basic phonology
without a detailed understanding of intonation. And others have shown
over the years that syntactic studies which omit intonation, whether
generative or functional, in languages with illocutionary force-marking
clitics or not, are simply going to short-change themselves.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Sat Apr 12 19:56:47 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 15:56:47 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.155647.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/11/03 7:56:25 PM, kemmer at RICE.EDU writes:
<<  Written English is nobody's native language and students just have to
learn it. >>

After reading TG's awesome post on phonemes, one might ask how the same
perspectives might apply to this subject.

Aside from that, let me make one small, modest observation regarding the list
exchange here on the sentence.

On a very basic level, why do students have to learn this "second language" -
written English?  I'm not questioning the value of education here.  Rather
I'm asking what the specific advantage of written English above spoken
English is?

Why would we think that a spoken language is a truer representation of
process than the written version of that language?  Is spoken language more
reflective, more effective in communication, a more accurate representation
of "cognitive" processes?  Why would that be?

Perhaps some speakers are less competent at expressing themselves in speech
than in writing, depending on proficiency.  Perhaps speech is a poor rough
approximation of what is going on in writing.  In the real world, writing is
what lawyers, scientists and business people consider the higher level
representation of the actual intent of the persons involved.  Whatever extra
meaning is carried by intonation, can't it be also captured by more precision
in writing?

One might also even take the position that the sentence is the fundamental
unit of meaning in written English.  Neither single words nor morphemes are
enough to convey meaning in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Does the written word often set the standard of grammaticalness (and prosody)
in spoken language?  If it does to any significant degree, then might one
conclude that the actual processes can be more accurately reflected in
written language?  And from that conclude that the sentence is somehow real
and fundamental in those processes?

One might also conclude from the exchange here that sentences and grammar are
somehow separate from what they are supposed to do.  Why teach students
grammar or triple layers of language structure?  So that they can express
themselves better?  To what result?  And if they never learn their grammar
well what is the consequence of that?

Is language nothing more than an exchange of cognitive states?

A young child yelled "There's a bee by your head!" at me the other day.  When
I dodged and ran from where I was standing, he burst into laughter.  There
was no bee.   The sentence was properly constructed for me to understand it,
but it was false.  The child's objective was different from the clear meaning
of the sentence he spoke.  The meaning of his speech was one thing.  His
purpose was something different.

If his sentence had not been properly structured, his ruse would not have
worked.  If he had merely said "A bee am there!", the probability that I
would have been fooled would have been less, but it still may have worked.
But it may be relevant to remember that if he had merely changed my cogntive
state and nothing else -- if I didn't react -- the joke would not have been
satisfying to him at all and he might not try it again on someone else.

The success of language use in this case was to make me jump.  Anything less
would have been just as ineffective whether or not his sentence was
constructed properly or not and whether or not my cognition was affected.

Consider if you will that what makes sentence construction important in many
cases is the visible effects it produces in the listener.  And that the
intermediate "cognitive" effect may not really be the one that the speaker is
concerned with, even if we might assume it is a necessary component to the
end result.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sun Apr 13 02:49:08 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 14:49:08 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
In-Reply-To: <14a.1e1efb7c.2bc9c97f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.13.APR.2003.144908.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 13 April 2003 7:56 am, you wrote:
> In a message dated 4/11/03 7:56:25 PM, kemmer at RICE.EDU writes:
> <<  Written English is nobody's native language and students just have to
> learn it. >>
>
> After reading TG's awesome post on phonemes, one might ask how the same
> perspectives might apply to this subject.

I'm sure the issues are the same. Though I'm not sure the list wants us to go
there.

But you seem to have drawn a different conclusion from it than I did.

Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
"pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
performance?

Best,

Rob Freeman


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Sun Apr 13 06:27:38 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 02:27:38 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
Message-ID: <SUN.13.APR.2003.022738.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/12/03 11:01:31 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
<< Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
"pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
performance? >>

Let me ask how in the world one can conclude anything about "competence"
without observing "performance"?  We can only come to conclusions about the
effects of brain lesions on language "competence" by way of their effects on
language performance.  And no conclusions can be justified if they are not
manifest in performance.

And -- think about it -- when exactly is performance possible without
competence?  Can a subject without any language competence exhibit any
language performance?

How can these two concepts be seen as operational or theoretical opposites?
This seems to be the equivalent of making two legs the opposite of walking.
Or, for that matter, trying to understand the biological origins and
structure of human legs without understanding walking.

The contrast that was drawn was actually between "generative" and "emergent".
 From my individual point of view, it is the difference between stasis and
change.  On one hand you have the stability needed for language to work.
This is totally justified by the function of communication.  There must be a
predictability in the use of language or no communication will happen and the
use of language is pointless.  A listener must expect a speaker to follow
some kind of rules or the speech will be gibberish.

On the other hand, there is the need to postulate "a growth generator" --
something that makes emergence (in the classical sense) possible.  In
biology, just such a mechanism was needed to explain the origin of species.
The same kind of mechanism is needed to explain the origin of language and
languages.

To equate "emergent" with "performance" clearly comes up against the example
that TG gave.  A good deal of ordinary language performance is very
law-abiding.  BUT how it got to be that way can only be explained
naturalistically by a good deal of non-law abiding performance.  Or we'd all
be talking chimp talk today.

>From my point of view, it's plain that the "pragmatic middle" is not a
compromise, but a recognition that generative analysis captures a certain
facet of the phenomenon, but does not capture it all or explain its
existence.  And, from my point of view, this is a fundamental problem with
any pure structural analysis.

You may have a deep structural knowledge of a screwdriver or a human liver,
but still not be able to tell me what they "do". For all we know,
screwdrivers and livers could be structured quite differently and still work
quite well -- because structure is not the final determinant of whether
something works or not.  Where legs are not available, wheels might do a fine
job.  The same situation occurs with language.  Its structure does not answer
much more difficult questions - how did language arise and how does it work?

In fact, the contrast between the "generative" and "emergent" seem to be
basically functional, resulting in different structural needs.  This is
pretty much the nature of the "compromise" mentioned in the post discussed
here.  It is not a compromise in theory.  It is a compromise made by systems
that must continue to work while they continue to adapt.

In a message dated 4/6/03 5:08:43 PM, tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU writes:
<< We are dealing with biologically-based, adaptively- shaped complex
systems. Most often, such systems display various kinds of adaptive
compromises between conflicting--but equally valid--functional imperatives
(cf. Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over biology,
cognition & language. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive
flexibility) conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In
phonology, articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity
to changing context). Etc. etc.>>

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr 14 00:07:25 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:07:25 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
In-Reply-To: <77.e83e132.2bca5d5a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.2003.120725.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 13 April 2003 6:27 pm, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/12/03 11:01:31 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
> << Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
> "pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
> performance? >>
>
> Let me ask how in the world one can conclude anything about "competence"
> without observing "performance"?

No debate on concluding competence without observing performance.

> And -- think about it -- when exactly is performance possible without
> competence?  Can a subject without any language competence exhibit any
> language performance?

Right, the two occur together.

> How can these two concepts be seen as operational or theoretical opposites?
> This seems to be the equivalent of making two legs the opposite of walking.
> Or, for that matter, trying to understand the biological origins and
> structure of human legs without understanding walking.

Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system (emergent
generalization) specifying performance. Why indeed does he compare them to
performance. Clearly any performance will have a competence (100%), and any
competence will relate to some performance (100%).

Now it is true that while any set of rules describing competence should be
100% true, they need not be 100% complete. But let alone 90% of all
sentences, if Tom can show me a rule describing _all_ the structure of any
one sentence I would like to see it. The 90% figure would just be the
percentage of sentences for which any single consistent system of rules
describes _some_ of the structure.

We don't need to find a "pragmatic middle" between generative grammar rules
and emergent generalization, one is a model for the competence of language,
the other for its performance. They are just different things.

To be fair to Tom it is a common confusion, but he should not use it to
dismiss emergent generalization as the only candidate for a model of language
performance.

> The contrast that was drawn was actually between "generative" and
> "emergent". From my individual point of view, it is the difference between
> stasis and change.

This might be the core source of confusion. I keep getting this perspective
that sees emergence (what I call emergent generalization) only as an
explanation for how general categories change. I see it as an explanation for
the language performance underlying the perception of categories as well.

This is something I am trying to clear up.

> From my point of view, it's plain that the "pragmatic middle" is not a
> compromise, but a recognition that generative analysis captures a certain
> facet of the phenomenon, but does not capture it all or explain its
> existence.

I'll accept that. Though I can't help feeling that calling theoretical
duality a "pragmatic middle" is doing something of a violence to the language.

Anyway, that still leaves us looking for a model which "explains its
existence". I think emergent generalization is such a model.

-Rob


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Mon Apr 14 05:23:53 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 01:23:53 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences2
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.2003.012353.EDT.>

I WROTE:
In a message dated 4/13/03 8:22:39 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
<< Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system (emergent
generalization) specifying performance.  >>

I'll let Prof Givon respond as and if he chooses.  But I think if you take a
close look, you'll see you are having your cake and eating it too.  If one
admits the generative model cannot exclude performance, it is hard to see why
one would turn around and use performance in distinction to a generative
model.

The comparison TG made is valid precisely because that the distinction
between competence and performance is artificial and non-operational.  And
there's nothing in the generative model that prevents it being a model for
performance.

Generative grammar rules MUST describe performance, no matter what the
theoretical positioning.  There is no such thing as "rules describing
competence" that exclude performance.  Because "competence" refers to nothing
else than the capabilities and constraints on performance.  It has no meaning
otherwise.  The only contact with reality generative grammar has is in its
relation to performance.  If it has nothing to say about performance, it has
nothing to say.

It is preposterous to say a model that states a human is "competent" to jump
20 feet has nothing to do with a model "specifying" that a human can
"perform" a 20 foot jump.  And so there is no reason to distinguish models on
that basis.

Since generative grammar must be about performance, the real question is what
kind of performance it does refer to.

A completely different problem is confusing "emergence" with "performance".
They are not congruent.  Once again, "emergence" classically is the situation
where a new combination is greater than the sum of its parts.  No matter how
much performance may involve new, emergent elements, it does not need to.  In
the inherently ruled phenomenon of language, there is obviously an ubiquitous
element that cannot be called emergent.  In fact, generative grammar can be
seen as a model describing the non-emergence element of language.

Once again, the glaring problem I think you've run into here is the big blind
spot caused by structural analysis.  The difference between the "generative"
and "emergent" elements of language appear to reflect two different functions
of language structure.  Unless one separates these functions, the validity of
one element always seems to lose out in theory to the other.  Both elements
are functionally valid and language structure may be seen as at best a
compromise between the two.

And, on second thought, it is interesting to contrast "competence" versus
"performance" in an operational, synchronic way.  We have the hypothetical
language "competence" of non-human primates with its apparent constraints on
language structure.  Then we have, a little later on the evolutionary tree,
human language performance that "out-performs" that earlier competence.  Does
this mean the generative model is wrong from an evolutionary perspective?  Of
course not.  What it tells us is that human linguistic competence --
generative grammar -- is not a static event, but an evolving one.  And that
suggests understanding how that evolution occurred is key to understanding
human language.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr 14 23:57:10 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:57:10 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences2
In-Reply-To: <7e.37be5967.2bcb9fe9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.2003.115710.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Steve,

On Monday 14 April 2003 5:23 pm, you wrote:
> In a message dated 4/13/03 8:22:39 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
> << Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
> different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
> describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system
> (emergent generalization) specifying performance.  >>
>
> I'll let Prof Givon respond as and if he chooses.  But I think if you take
> a close look, you'll see you are having your cake and eating it too.  If
> one admits the generative model cannot exclude performance, it is hard to
> see why one would turn around and use performance in distinction to a
> generative model.

I think it was a describes/explains thing. As I understand it the generative
model described performance without ever pretending to explain it. That's how
I understand the distinction, anyway.

There needs to be a performance for it to be described, but the description
is not the same as the thing itself.

An analogy is a sketch, which describes an object, but nobody should mistake
it for the real thing.

Another analogy I like is an animation, where you can see movement, but the
movement doesn't exist.

> The comparison TG made is valid precisely because that the distinction
> between competence and performance is artificial and non-operational.  And
> there's nothing in the generative model that prevents it being a model for
> performance.

Then it would be invalid precisely because there is a distinction. That's a
core tenet of generativism, isn't it?

In latter years people tried to build generatively motivated models of
language performance. But such rule-based performance models have proved
unsuccessful.

As I said, far from 90% I would be surprised if Tom can produce a _single_
sentence which is comprehensively described by grammar rules. 90% is more
like the number which can be _partially_ described by any single consistent
set.

Papers like the classic by Pawley and Syder give a good discussion of this
failure of rules to completely describe (let alone explain) performance.

> Generative grammar rules MUST describe performance, no matter what the
> theoretical positioning.  There is no such thing as "rules describing
> competence" that exclude performance.  Because "competence" refers to
> nothing else than the capabilities and constraints on performance.  It has
> no meaning otherwise.  The only contact with reality generative grammar has
> is in its relation to performance.  If it has nothing to say about
> performance, it has nothing to say.

Yes, but description need not be complete, and it need not explain.

> It is preposterous to say a model that states a human is "competent" to
> jump 20 feet has nothing to do with a model "specifying" that a human can
> "perform" a 20 foot jump.  And so there is no reason to distinguish models
> on that basis.

But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
wheels might do a fine job." You presented that as an example of the
distinction between function and form, but I think it illustrates the
distinction between competency and system equally well.

Once again the animation analogy is a favourite of mine. The system moves,
but the movement of the system is lateral to the perceived movement.

For an example of how description is different from system which I feel has
particular relevance for language, consider a system which consists of a
group of people, say 10 sportsmen and 5 academics. Now lets say that this
group also contains 7 men and 8 women. What is the true nature of this
system, man/woman or sportsman/academic? Both perspectives describe a
competency of the system (to be split into two), but in general both
competencies will not apply at the same time. Organize the system according
to profession and you will disorganize it w.r.t. gender, and vice versa.

The classes are competencies of the system (spit into man/woman or
sportsman/academic) but the nature of the system is a bunch of individuals
and it is irreducibly to be completely modelled only as such.

If you try to model such a system based on one competency or another (let
there be two classes of people X and Y) you will always be chasing your tail.

Description is different from system.

> A completely different problem is confusing "emergence" with "performance".
> They are not congruent.  Once again, "emergence" classically is the
> situation where a new combination is greater than the sum of its parts.  No
> matter how much performance may involve new, emergent elements, it does not
> need to.

It does not need to, but it can, and (under communicative and social pressure
I'm sure) it does. And it can specify those new elements down to the level of
performance. Therefore it can be seen as a performance model.

Though I am not sure if it is seen so classically. I am mostly interested in
emergent paradigmatic categories, not emergent syntagmatic elements, and not
even emergent paradigmatic elements, but categories, like those traditionally
called noun and verb. Such emergent categories allow you to specify syntax
very exactly, and flexibly.

> In the inherently ruled phenomenon of language, there is
> obviously an ubiquitous element that cannot be called emergent.  In fact,
> generative grammar can be seen as a model describing the non-emergence
> element of language.

Yes, I agree with that. I don't think the actual rules of generative grammars
tell us much, though, the forms that are described; only the parameters they
have in common, the types of forms, their connectedness or "topology", if you
like.

I think it is probably just the fact that they specify generalities in terms
of context free substitution which is important.

Identifying that "connectedness" is to my mind a concrete contribution of
generativism. It indicates the "principles and parameters" which need to
channel our model of language, without saying anything about the engine, the
driving force of that model, which I think is the urge to generalize.

> Once again, the glaring problem I think you've run into here is the big
> blind spot caused by structural analysis.  The difference between the
> "generative" and "emergent" elements of language appear to reflect two
> different functions of language structure.  Unless one separates these
> functions, the validity of one element always seems to lose out in theory
> to the other.  Both elements are functionally valid and language structure
> may be seen as at best a compromise between the two.

I don't think this has anything to do with the functional/structural
distinction. Functionalism is a shoe in for this theory though, because it
gives contrast, the systemic network, priority over category. So the
underlying theory of Functionalism says the same thing as I am saying, that
category is a description, but is not fundamental.

I have a hunch the the contrasts of a systemic network are just the flip side
of the generalization which I see as the engine of emergent structure. It was
this parallel which first got me interested in Functionalism.

> And, on second thought, it is interesting to contrast "competence" versus
> "performance" in an operational, synchronic way.  We have the hypothetical
> language "competence" of non-human primates with its apparent constraints
> on language structure.  Then we have, a little later on the evolutionary
> tree, human language performance that "out-performs" that earlier
> competence.  Does this mean the generative model is wrong from an
> evolutionary perspective?  Of course not.  What it tells us is that human
> linguistic competence -- generative grammar -- is not a static event, but
> an evolving one.  And that suggests understanding how that evolution
> occurred is key to understanding human language.

I don't think generative grammar rules themselves are a product of biological
evolution, though perhaps their "context free connectedness" is. I'm sure the
actual forms of language are the natural result, and a reflection, of the
human tendency to find order in the world. Just as Functionalism says
language is an expression of our tendency to find meaning in contrast. The
search for order in the case of language is perhaps parameterized according
to "substitution independently of context" (CFG). There is a bunch of vocal
specific stuff, there is greater complexity in the order found by humans, but
other than that I think the parameters on the generalizations made (or
alternatively the contrasts) is the only inherited component.

That's just a hypothesis, of course.

-Rob


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Tue Apr 15 06:02:55 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 02:02:55 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences3
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.2003.020255.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/14/03 8:09:49 PM, rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM writes:
<< But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
wheels might do a fine job.">>

That was definitely not the point.  The point was that there may be more than
one system -- more precisely structure -- that achieves the same function.
But neither my legs or wheels will get me to the moon.  In this world, there
is a high degree of dependency between structure and function.  That is why
both birds and airplanes have wings.  Some functions are served by a very
limited choice of structural solutions.

In fact, ideally, what a structure "is" should be precisely equivalent to
what it "does." In the case of a Swiss Army knife, the structure is
specifically dictated by all the things that Swiss Army knives are supposed
to do.  In the case of language, structure should ideally be what structure
does.  When there is a discrepency between what WE THINK language does and
WHAT WE THINK the structure of language is, it suggests something is missing.
 Because language is inherently structured, the first place to look for the
problem is in our understanding of the function of language -- what does
language do?

<< You presented that as an example of the distinction between function and
form, but I think it illustrates the distinction between competency and
system equally well. >>

Language follows rules.  If it didn't, it would be gibberish and have no
function.  You cannot understand legs without understanding walking.  And you
cannot understand walking without understanding legs.

When an archaeologist finds a tool whose purpose is unknown, his only chance
at identifying its function is hypothesizing some use from its structure.
And then to try it out and see if that hypothesis works.

There's no question that language is rule governed.  There is no question
that the human ability to generate those rules is in some ways universal.  So
a big question becomes, if this is the structure, what forces produced that
structure?  From a naturalistic point of view, we can't assume that it
dropped out of heaven.  So we need to be able to explain that structure in
terms of the functions it served or serves.  (And I don't mean something like
"human language allowed us to cooperate" - ants cooperate.  The intricacy of
language structure presents the most serious problem to a functional
analysis.  Why is  grammar effective in the operation of human language?
What contingencies shaped the parts?)

I think that some linguists have been a bit guilty of assuming that we
understand language's functions well enough to justify looking at structure
alone.  But that does not make their observations about structure wrong.  It
simply affects the theoretical conclusions that are drawn from those
observations.

<<I'm sure the actual forms of language are the natural result, and a
reflection, of the human tendency to find order in the world.>>

If finding order in the world was all it was about, then there would be no
need for speech.  We could all do it on our own.  I'm pretty sure that human
language had a lot more to do with finding dinner than with finding order.
And that it was the world that imposed its "order" on language, not the other
way around.

<<Just as Functionalism says language is an expression of our tendency to
find meaning in contrast.>>

A more proper functional analysis says the meaning of a word is the effect it
has.  Contrast without consequence has no meaning.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Wed Apr 16 03:01:27 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 15:01:27 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences3
In-Reply-To: <66.30e08953.2bccfa8f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.2003.150127.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Steve,

I think you are taking your adherence to functional orthodoxy a little far
here. Function may be a key determinant of language, but it is not the only
thing in the world.

I almost feel like joining Tom Givon and running from the 100%'ers.

In a final attempt to explain my position let me push the movie analogy and
say that while I don't believe movies should be best described as some kind
of "pragmatic middle" between puppet and picture, I also don't think they can
be completely explained by our functional need to be entertained.

However much an alien might never fully understand movies without
understanding the human need to be entertained.

No more will language be completely explained by the human need to eat.

To tie up, in this analogy your assertion that "language follows rules",
"there's no question that language is rule governed" would be equivalent to
saying "movies have movement, there is no question they contain movement". My
original assertion that "there is no grammar" might be something like "the
pictures in movies don't move". I leave it to you to ascertain which is true,
and I'll leave it to Tom to tell us what a mechanism for a movie which
consisted of a "pragmatic middle" between moving puppets and static pictures
might be.

I'll stick with my assertion that a model of movies needs to be fundamentally
based on photography, and that objects in the pictures don't move, but that
the illusion of movement is continually being created by successions of new
combinations of photographs. Similarly grammar rules don't exist, but the
illusion of grammar rules is continually being created by successions of new
combinations of examples of language use.

Maybe I'll be branded as too narrowly, 100% a "cameraman", but I don't see
us "making movies" any other way.

Best,

Rob

On Tuesday 15 April 2003 6:02 pm, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/14/03 8:09:49 PM, rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM writes:
> << But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
> largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
> wheels might do a fine job.">>
>
> That was definitely not the point.  The point was that there may be more
> than one system -- more precisely structure -- that achieves the same
> function. But neither my legs or wheels will get me to the moon.  In this
> world, there is a high degree of dependency between structure and function.
>  That is why both birds and airplanes have wings.  Some functions are
> served by a very limited choice of structural solutions.
>
> In fact, ideally, what a structure "is" should be precisely equivalent to
> what it "does." In the case of a Swiss Army knife, the structure is
> specifically dictated by all the things that Swiss Army knives are supposed
> to do.  In the case of language, structure should ideally be what structure
> does.  When there is a discrepency between what WE THINK language does and
> WHAT WE THINK the structure of language is, it suggests something is
> missing. Because language is inherently structured, the first place to look
> for the problem is in our understanding of the function of language -- what
> does language do?
>
> << You presented that as an example of the distinction between function and
> form, but I think it illustrates the distinction between competency and
> system equally well. >>
>
> Language follows rules.  If it didn't, it would be gibberish and have no
> function.  You cannot understand legs without understanding walking.  And
> you cannot understand walking without understanding legs.
>
> When an archaeologist finds a tool whose purpose is unknown, his only
> chance at identifying its function is hypothesizing some use from its
> structure. And then to try it out and see if that hypothesis works.
>
> There's no question that language is rule governed.  There is no question
> that the human ability to generate those rules is in some ways universal.
> So a big question becomes, if this is the structure, what forces produced
> that structure?  From a naturalistic point of view, we can't assume that it
> dropped out of heaven.  So we need to be able to explain that structure in
> terms of the functions it served or serves.  (And I don't mean something
> like "human language allowed us to cooperate" - ants cooperate.  The
> intricacy of language structure presents the most serious problem to a
> functional analysis.  Why is  grammar effective in the operation of human
> language? What contingencies shaped the parts?)
>
> I think that some linguists have been a bit guilty of assuming that we
> understand language's functions well enough to justify looking at structure
> alone.  But that does not make their observations about structure wrong.
> It simply affects the theoretical conclusions that are drawn from those
> observations.
>
> <<I'm sure the actual forms of language are the natural result, and a
> reflection, of the human tendency to find order in the world.>>
>
> If finding order in the world was all it was about, then there would be no
> need for speech.  We could all do it on our own.  I'm pretty sure that
> human language had a lot more to do with finding dinner than with finding
> order. And that it was the world that imposed its "order" on language, not
> the other way around.
>
> <<Just as Functionalism says language is an expression of our tendency to
> find meaning in contrast.>>
>
> A more proper functional analysis says the meaning of a word is the effect
> it has.  Contrast without consequence has no meaning.
>
> Steve Long


From l.lagerwerf at scw.vu.nl  Wed Apr 16 10:22:11 2003
From: l.lagerwerf at scw.vu.nl (Luuk Lagerwerf)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 12:22:11 +0200
Subject: Reminder May,
 1st: deadline Multidisciplinary Approaches to Discourse,
 October 22-25, 2003
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.2003.122211.0200.>

For those interested in the workshop MAD'03
(with apologies for those who are not),

In this email, we want to remind you of the deadline for submitting papers:
May 1st, 2003.

For more information and call for papers, please visit:

 http://home.scw.vu.nl/~lagerwerf/Mad03Web/index.htm

More information about registration and prices is now available.

Further schedule:
Deadline (full papers): May 1st, 2003
Notice of acceptance: July 1st, 2003
Deliverance final papers: August 1st, 2003

Kind regards,

Luuk Lagerwerf.


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 14:33:46 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 15:33:46 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.153346.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> Wari', Amazonian, shows agreement and syntax typical of what Dryer
>> (1986) has treated as obligatorily anti-dative or Van Valin & La
>> Polla (1997, 270ff) treat as a 'primary-object pattern'. That is, in
>> simple transitive clauses the AGENT and PATIENT both trigger
>> agreement on the verb. In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the
>> RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs agreement on the verb. The
>> PATIENT argument in these clauses appears as the object of a
>> preposition (Wari' is V-IO-O-S). Pronouns in Wari' may not bear the
>> RECIPIENT role. My question is this: Are there other languages like
>> this? Some hypothetical examples of what I mean are:
>>
>> (1) a. I hit him.
>>      b. Bill hit me.
>>      c. Mary saw you.
>>
>> In 1a-c, the verb would agree in Wari' with both subject/agent and
>> object/patient, regardless of whether these are NPs or pronouns -
>> they may also be zero, but the verb will still show agreement.
>>
>> (2) a. I gave Mary of the book. (I gave the book to Mary) - VERB
>> agrees with 'Mary' and 'I'.
>>      b. *I gave her of the book. (Even though the verb agreement will
>> be for 1 person singular and 3 singular feminine)
>>
>>
>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>>
>> -- Dan
>>


********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 14:49:53 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 15:49:53 +0100
Subject: examples of Wari'
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.154953.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Folks,

I should have included these before, since it seems to make it harder
to follow without actually including some examples ('duh')

(1)     *Mi     nam             con             hwam    cam     cwa'    tarama'.
                na-m
give    3srp/p-3sf      prep:3sm        fish    f       this:m/f        man

'The man gave her the fish.'

(2)     Mi      nam             con             hwam    Hatem   tarama'.
                na-m
give    3srp/p-3sf      prep:3sm        fish    f:name  man

'The man gave Hatem the fish.'

(3)     Maqui'  na      co      ma'.
        come    3s:rp/p m       that:prox:hearer

        'He came.' (lit: 'That masculine being/thing near you came.')

(4)     Querec  nam             cam ma'         Xijam.
                na-m
        see     3sr:p/p-3sf     f that:prox:hearer      m:name.

        'Xijam saw her.' (lit: 'Xijam saw that woman/girl.')


Ex. (1) is ungrammatical. The pronoun cannot reference RECIPIENT/GOAL
(the pronominal paradigm is 100% periphrastic, see Everett in progress
for more details). Example (2) is fine, with a proper name instead of a
pronoun. Example (3) is fine, with pronoun as subject, as is (4) with
pronoun as object. No other word orders are possible.

Again, I am not asking for analysis, but whether this pattern rings any
bells as it were - does anyone know of a similar case? No doubt it will
be obvious and reveal my astounding ignorance, but I am willing to
tolerate the humiliation if I get a good answer.

Dan



********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dparvaz at UNM.EDU  Wed Apr 23 15:21:14 2003
From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (dparvaz at UNM.EDU)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 09:21:14 -0600
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.092114.0600.>

> In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs
> agreement on the verb.
>
> [much snippage]
>
> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?

In the sign languages that I work in -- American Sign Language (ASL) and the Sign
Language of Jordan -- those verbs which do have Subject/Object agreement, AND are
showing a kind of ditransitive relation (like the prototype 'give') typically agree with
AGENT and RECIPIENT/GOAL. These verbs typically move in space between their
arguments.

So, in ASL a verb like HIT, a citation form of which looks something like...

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/H/W1634.htm

... (QuickTime required) starts with the "hitter" and moves to the "hittee" --
definitely moving between AGENT and PATIENT. However, in the case of GIVE...

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/G/W1443.htm

... the agreement is as you stated in your question.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Dan.


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 15:28:04 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 16:28:04 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <1051111274.3ea6af6a9dedf@webmail.unm.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.162804.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Thanks. But it wasn't the agreement pattern that I meant to be asking
about. That pattern is well-established in work by Dryer, Van Valin &
LaPolla, and many others. In RRG it even has a name, Primary Object
agreement. But my question had to do with the prohibition of pronouns
serving as RECIPIENTS/GOALS or indirect objects (the choice between GF
labels vs. semantic role labels depends on your favorite analysis of
dative shift/anti-dative).

-- Dan



On Wednesday, April 23, 2003, at 04:21  pm, dparvaz at UNM.EDU wrote:

>> In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the RECIPIENT/GOAL which
>> triggers/governs
>> agreement on the verb.
>>
>> [much snippage]
>>
>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>
> In the sign languages that I work in -- American Sign Language (ASL)
> and the Sign
> Language of Jordan -- those verbs which do have Subject/Object
> agreement, AND are
> showing a kind of ditransitive relation (like the prototype 'give')
> typically agree with
> AGENT and RECIPIENT/GOAL. These verbs typically move in space between
> their
> arguments.
>
> So, in ASL a verb like HIT, a citation form of which looks something
> like...
>
> http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/H/W1634.htm
>
> ... (QuickTime required) starts with the "hitter" and moves to the
> "hittee" --
> definitely moving between AGENT and PATIENT. However, in the case of
> GIVE...
>
> http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/G/W1443.htm
>
> ... the agreement is as you stated in your question.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan.
>
>
********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dryer at BUFFALO.EDU  Wed Apr 23 17:00:27 2003
From: dryer at BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew Dryer)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:00:27 -0400
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <9783A6B0-7598-11D7-9C7A-000393D73F38@man.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.130027.0400.>

Contrary to what Dan Everett says, the approach if my 1986 paper (Primary
objects, secondary objects, and antidative) would not analyse Wari' as a
language with obligatory antidative.  In fact, Wari' is exactly the sort of
language I proposed the notions of primary object and secondary object for.


Although I still believe that the notions of primary object and secondary
object are a useful way of viewing languages like Wari', I no longer think
the notion of antidative is a useful notion for describing languages like
English where we find two constructions for semantically ditransitive
clauses.  Rather, the two constructions should simply be analysed as
alternative syntactic frames, not related by rule.  However, even in the
framework of my 1986 paper, I would not analyse any language as having an
obligatory antidative, since one of the primary purposes of the notions of
primary and secondary object is to provide a way to avoid describing
languages like Wari' as involving an obligatory dative rule, a popular
approach to such languages both within relational grammar and outside
relational grammar (e.g. in the work of Givon).

I also would argue that Dan's use of the term 'patient' is possibly
Eurocentric.  He applies this term both to the single object in
monotransitive clauses ('I hit HIM') and to the thing other than the
recipient in ditransitive clauses ('I gave Mary THE BOOK').  This makes it
look like there is a mismatch between semantic roles and object categories
in a language with a primary object - secondary object distinction.  While
I think that the direct object - indirect object distinction aligns more
closely with semantic roles than the primary object - secondary object
distinction, I think one should be careful about using semantic labels like
'patient' in this way.  It is a bit like saying that an ergative language
uses the ergative case for transitive agents and the absolutive case for
intransitive agents.

Finally, it isn't clear to me what Dan is asking.  When he says that the
recipient cannot be a pronoun, does he mean that it cannot be an
independent pronoun, but must be realized entirely by the verb morphology?
There are certainly languages where this is true, not only for recipients,
but also for subjects and/or objects.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 3:33 PM +0100 Dan Everett
<dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK> wrote:

>>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> Wari', Amazonian, shows agreement and syntax typical of what Dryer
>>> (1986) has treated as obligatorily anti-dative or Van Valin & La
>>> Polla (1997, 270ff) treat as a 'primary-object pattern'. That is, in
>>> simple transitive clauses the AGENT and PATIENT both trigger
>>> agreement on the verb. In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the
>>> RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs agreement on the verb. The
>>> PATIENT argument in these clauses appears as the object of a
>>> preposition (Wari' is V-IO-O-S). Pronouns in Wari' may not bear the
>>> RECIPIENT role. My question is this: Are there other languages like
>>> this? Some hypothetical examples of what I mean are:
>>>
>>> (1) a. I hit him.
>>>      b. Bill hit me.
>>>      c. Mary saw you.
>>>
>>> In 1a-c, the verb would agree in Wari' with both subject/agent and
>>> object/patient, regardless of whether these are NPs or pronouns -
>>> they may also be zero, but the verb will still show agreement.
>>>
>>> (2) a. I gave Mary of the book. (I gave the book to Mary) - VERB
>>> agrees with 'Mary' and 'I'.
>>>      b. *I gave her of the book. (Even though the verb agreement will
>>> be for 1 person singular and 3 singular feminine)
>>>
>>>
>>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>>>
>>> -- Dan
>>>
>
>
> ********************
> Daniel L. Everett
> Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Manchester
> Manchester, UK
> M13 9PL
> Phone: 44-161-275-3158
> Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
> http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
> 'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf
>
>
>


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Wed Apr 23 18:19:08 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 12:19:08 -0600
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <562095.1051102827@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.121908.0600.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean "the
relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there is no
relationship between them", or something else?

I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do, but
not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some non-conscious
cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.

I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
what I'm trying to clarify.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 11:00 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

<snip>

Although I still believe that the notions of primary object and secondary
object are a useful way of viewing languages like Wari', I no longer think
the notion of antidative is a useful notion for describing languages like
English where we find two constructions for semantically ditransitive
clauses.  Rather, the two constructions should simply be analysed as
alternative syntactic frames, not related by rule.

<snap>
---
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From dryer at BUFFALO.EDU  Wed Apr 23 18:35:19 2003
From: dryer at BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew Dryer)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 14:35:19 -0400
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNOENBDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.143519.0400.>

In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 18:50:13 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 19:50:13 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <562095.1051102827@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.195013.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 6:00 PM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


Contrary to what Dan Everett says, the approach if my 1986 paper
(Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative) would not analyse
Wari' as a language with obligatory antidative.  In fact, Wari' is
exactly the sort of language I proposed the notions of primary object
and secondary object for.


>Right, Matthew. I should have avoided reference to your work since this
is not what the posting was about. I was simply trying to get your
reference in. I should have left it vague. Your paper doesn't really
enter into my current research at all, I was just trying to get the
appropriate references. So the rest of your posting, except for what is
below is a red-herring, that I introduced, so apologies.


Finally, it isn't clear to me what Dan is asking.  When he says that the
recipient cannot be a pronoun, does he mean that it cannot be an
independent pronoun, but must be realized entirely by the verb
morphology? There are certainly languages where this is true, not only
for recipients, but also for subjects and/or objects.

> You got it, Matthew. This is what I am asking. Romance languages often
restrict pronouns to subject position, for example, using clitics
elsewhere. Wari' only allows verb morphology or NPs/proper names for the
indirect object/Recipient. But you didn't give an example of a language
that has exactly the Wari' restriction. Do you have one?

Dan


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Thu Apr 24 15:57:54 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:57:54 -0500
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <904745.1051108519@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.105754.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and "Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc. and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb (say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's a
sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU  Thu Apr 24 17:38:35 2003
From: ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Ellen F. Prince)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 13:38:35 EDT
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns.
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.133835.EDT.ELLEN@CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU>

Kindly spare the wild claims for me. Of course, you can always
donate the LSA something, as penance.

:-) :-) :-)

Ellen Prince



------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:57:54 -0500
From:    David Tuggy <david_tuggy at SIL.ORG>
To:      FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and "Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc. and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb (say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's a
sure thing.

Not?

- --David Tuggy

- -----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

- --On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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------- End of Forwarded Message


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Fri Apr 25 00:15:46 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:15:46 -0500
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <001001c30a8c$b9c6ab50$44d2df80@Vaio>
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.191546.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or not)
is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not fully
bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so forth. I
guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of this kind
can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable definitions by which it
can. I was maintaining that I think there are systematic relationships of
that non-absolute sort which hold between the two types of constructions,
and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me the
whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something not
clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could say
"mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn and I'll
fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not causing a
change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are there.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Payne [mailto:tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:10 PM
To: 'David Tuggy'
Subject: RE: Primary object languages & pronouns


Dear David

  If the verb does not involve motion (transfer of an object from agent
to recipient), then the oblique object is possible, but not the shifted
version:

Mow the lawn for me.
??Mow me the lawn.

 What you say is correct: If "falp" is a non-motional change of state
verb, and "Falp me that blivit" is possible, then "Falp that blivit for
me" is also possible, but not necessarily the other way around. In order
to be shifted, the dative thing must be construable as a recipient, even
if it is also (and maybe basically) a beneficiary. Non-transfer verbs
effectively *become* transfer verbs when put into a dative shift
construction.

He blew the whistle for me.
He blew me the whistle.

The second one, it seems to me, means "transferred the whistle to me by
means of blowing," rather than being a paraphrase of the first one.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and
"Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc.
and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist
in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that
if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I
can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and
convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb
(say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's
a
sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary"
is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the
secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I
am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but
if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or
"there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you
do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive
correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Fri Apr 25 05:29:32 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 06:29:32 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNKEOEDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.25.APR.2003.062932.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Payne [mailto:tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:10 PM
To: 'David Tuggy'
Subject: RE: Primary object languages & pronouns


Dear David

  If the verb does not involve motion (transfer of an object from agent
to recipient), then the oblique object is possible, but not the shifted
version:

Mow the lawn for me.
??Mow me the lawn.

 What you say is correct: If "falp" is a non-motional change of state
verb, and "Falp me that blivit" is possible, then "Falp that blivit for
me" is also possible, but not necessarily the other way around. In order
to be shifted, the dative thing must be construable as a recipient, even
if it is also (and maybe basically) a beneficiary. Non-transfer verbs
effectively *become* transfer verbs when put into a dative shift
construction.

He blew the whistle for me.
He blew me the whistle.

The second one, it seems to me, means "transferred the whistle to me by
means of blowing," rather than being a paraphrase of the first one.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and
"Give that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to
me", etc. and able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist
in its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types
of structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that
if a new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I
can say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and
convey very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion
verb (say "falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most
probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's
a sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary"
is derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the
secondary object to primary object and demotes the primary object to
chomeur.  I am skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or
unconsciously, of a systematic relationship between the two syntactic
frames in English, but if they are, the awareness is akin to awareness
of other nonproductive patterns, and unlike the awareness of more
productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean

> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or
"there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you
do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive
correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Sat Apr 26 23:18:10 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 18:18:10 -0500
Subject: FW: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <SAT.26.APR.2003.181810.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

I would rather you had said "dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially ... me in English, may not be typical of all such structures",
and "different patterns will show up if you examine examples using names or
NPs". The examples with "me" or other pronouns are perfectly good data too,
and I see no call for a value judgment such that some kinds are deemed
"better" than others.

But I agree they do not behave in every way exactly alike. (It underscores
once more the subtlety of these constructions and thus of the interrelations
between them.) It would indeed be much harder to use a proper name or
(other) NP in "Eat me some hallacas". An explanation that helps me
understand why (though not one that would let me predict that no language
could do it differently) is that in "Eat me some hallacas" the benefit that
will accrue to the dative from the accomplishment of the process is so
subjective as to be difficult to perceive in the case of anyone other than
oneself. (Benefit of that or a similar sort is probably to be taken as
definitional for "ethical" datives.) If I say "Eat Tom some hallacas" I am
assuming that your eating hallacas will give Tom such a subjective
satisfaction, and usually I do not know that. I can construct contexts, of
course. If I were going to Venezuela and in our family email group my mother
were to tell me "eat me some hallacas while you're down there", I could
later list as one of my accomplishments for the trip "I ate Mom some
hallacas" (or better, interestingly, "I ate Mom her hallacas".) It would be
stretching the norms, but I might well do it, and my family would understand
it and even enjoy it.

The patterns that will show up if you just look at proper name or NP datives
will probably come closer to a Highest Common Factor for the construction as
a whole than what you will find if you look at pronouns, esp. "me". So if
you're looking for an H.C.F. I suppose that is "better". But their
centrality to the category is questionable at best. I haven't done any stats
on it, but I'd bet a study of datives in natural speech would find an
overwhelming preponderance of pronouns, especially 1st and 2nd person
pronouns, over proper names or (other) NP's. The patterns the pronoun cases
display are important too.

--David


-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Dan Everett
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 12:30 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
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From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sun Apr 27 05:02:19 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 06:02:19 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNAEPIDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <SUN.27.APR.2003.060219.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

David,

Dative-Shift has been defined in a certain way for certain verbs. Now, I
do not necessarily think that (in fact I disagree with) 'Recipes for
Constructions' such that a sentence X must have properties 1-15 in order
to count as an exemplar of Construction A (though this is fairly
standard practice in some circles, e.g. 'Oh, that is not a Passive,
because it lacks a form of the verb 'to be' or a 'by-phrase', etc.). On
the other hand, when trying to counter-exemplify a construction that has
been mainly exemplified with full NPs, the *best* counter-example is one
with full-NPs. Those are better counter-examples because they cannot be
rejected by those wanting to defend the 'Recipe view of A/Dative-Shift'
as related to some other phenomenon, e.g. ethical dative
clitics/pronouns/agreement (and the so-called ethical dative does indeed
encompass all three).

It is in the context of such a debate that a value-judgment to the
effect that one type of data is more pertinent for the discussion than
another is exactly what is called for.

But of course this does not mean that one says that in absolute terms,
i.e. outside of context, that one datum is more valuable or better than
another.

In fact, data mean nothing outside of contexts of discussion in any
case, but that is a different matter.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 12:18 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: FW: Primary object languages & pronouns


I would rather you had said "dative-shift types of examples with
pronouns, especially ... me in English, may not be typical of all such
structures", and "different patterns will show up if you examine
examples using names or NPs". The examples with "me" or other pronouns
are perfectly good data too, and I see no call for a value judgment such
that some kinds are deemed "better" than others.

But I agree they do not behave in every way exactly alike. (It
underscores once more the subtlety of these constructions and thus of
the interrelations between them.) It would indeed be much harder to use
a proper name or
(other) NP in "Eat me some hallacas". An explanation that helps me
understand why (though not one that would let me predict that no
language could do it differently) is that in "Eat me some hallacas" the
benefit that will accrue to the dative from the accomplishment of the
process is so subjective as to be difficult to perceive in the case of
anyone other than oneself. (Benefit of that or a similar sort is
probably to be taken as definitional for "ethical" datives.) If I say
"Eat Tom some hallacas" I am assuming that your eating hallacas will
give Tom such a subjective satisfaction, and usually I do not know that.
I can construct contexts, of course. If I were going to Venezuela and in
our family email group my mother were to tell me "eat me some hallacas
while you're down there", I could later list as one of my
accomplishments for the trip "I ate Mom some hallacas" (or better,
interestingly, "I ate Mom her hallacas".) It would be stretching the
norms, but I might well do it, and my family would understand it and
even enjoy it.

The patterns that will show up if you just look at proper name or NP
datives will probably come closer to a Highest Common Factor for the
construction as a whole than what you will find if you look at pronouns,
esp. "me". So if you're looking for an H.C.F. I suppose that is
"better". But their centrality to the category is questionable at best.
I haven't done any stats on it, but I'd bet a study of datives in
natural speech would find an overwhelming preponderance of pronouns,
especially 1st and 2nd person pronouns, over proper names or (other)
NP's. The patterns the pronoun cases display are important too.

--David


-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Dan Everett
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 12:30 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

---
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From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Tue Apr 29 08:31:46 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 03:31:46 -0500
Subject: Conference in Honor of David McNeill
Message-ID: <TUE.29.APR.2003.033146.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

Posted on behalf of Fey Parrill, University of Chicago
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

(Department Chairs: please forward this announcement to your
department.) (We apologize for duplicate postings.)


Dear colleagues,
At the end of the month we will be closing reservations for the banquet
dinner which follows the conference in honor of David McNeill, to be
held this summer at the University of Chicago (although registration for
the conference itself will remain open). We would like to take this
opportunity to invite you again to register for this wonderful event!

The Organizing Committee of the Festschrift for David McNeill,
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of
Chicago, is pleased to announce a one-day conference to be held in his
honor June 8, 2003, at the University of Chicago.
Speakers:
Adam Kendon
Starkey Duncan
Chuck Goodwin
Michael Silverstein
John Haviland
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Geoffery Beattie
Janet Bavelas
Scott Liddell and Marit Vogt-Svendsen
Dan Slobin and Nini Hoiting

For more information (and to register for the conference):
http://mcneilllab.uchicago.edu/fest.html
For anyone with special needs (wheelchair accessibility, sign
interpreting, assisted listening devices, etc) please contact Amy
Franklin <alfrankl at uchicago.edu>


From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Wed Apr 30 13:35:54 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 08:35:54 -0500
Subject: 8th Int. Cognitive Ling. Conference:  Prereg and new URL
Message-ID: <WED.30.APR.2003.083554.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

From: Suzanne Kemmer <kemmer at rice.edu>
Date: Wed Apr 30, 2003  08:33:15  AM US/Central
To: Funknet <funknet at rice.edu>
Subject:

Preregistration is now open for the 8th International Cognitive
Linguistics
Association, July 20-25, 2003 at the University of La Rioja, Logroño,
Spain.

There is a newly updated Conference Home Page with a new URL:

http://www.unirioja.es/dptos/dfm/sub/congresos/LingCog/ICLA_2003_Main.htm

The Preliminary Schedule is also available on the site in PDF format.

The deadline for preregistration at reduced fees is June 1, 2003
(postmark date)
Ordinary registration will be taken through the conference in July.

Organizer: Francisco Jose Ruiz De Mendoza
francisco.ruiz at dfm.unirioja.es


From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Wed Apr  2 16:58:16 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 10:58:16 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.105816.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 2, 2003

Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum number
of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
that a rare extreme?

Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at least
I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.

Suzette Haden Elgin


From jkyle at KU.EDU  Wed Apr  2 18:15:08 2003
From: jkyle at KU.EDU (John Kyle)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 12:15:08 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.121508.0600.JKYLE@KU.EDU>

I find that 150 is a very high number for phonemes although I can't say it's
not possible.  Most languages that I've looked at have between 20 to 40
phonemes.  If anyone knows of languages with that many phonemes (150),
please post.  It would be interesting to see if there are any effects on the
morphology of the language such as word size, etc.

John Kyle
jkyle at ku.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suzette Haden Elgin" <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:58 AM
Subject: question about phonemes


> April 2, 2003
>
> Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum
number
> of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
> roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
> seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
> between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding
"how
> many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
> one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark --
is
> that a rare extreme?
>
> Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at
least
> I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
> that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>
> Suzette Haden Elgin
>


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr  2 18:32:57 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 19:32:57 +0100
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <003c01c2f943$dcfa4730$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.193257.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

There are definitely formulas in information theory about syntagmatic
complexity being inversely proportionate to paradigmatic complexity, in
the sense that smaller inventories require larger words (George Miller
discusses this in a very accessible way in his Science of Words,
published by Scientific American).

I don't know about the largest inventory, but Piraha female speech seems
to have the smallest.
The phonemes of Piraha men are: p, t, k, ?, s, h, b, g, i, a, o. Piraha
women lack /s/, using /h/ where men have /s/ and where men have /h/.

Switching subjects briefly: small inventories like this are interesting
because if a language can get by on such a reduced number (to be fair,
Piraha has two tones as well), then early hominids, e.g. Homo
neanderthalis, could have had quite well-developed speech in spite of
the apparent (and this is quite dubious) limitation of their vocal
apparatus to a much smaller inventory of sounds that Homo sapiens
sapiens. (And no one can rule out the possibility that Neanderthals had
tone languages, which would have compensated considerably.)

-- Dan Everett


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of John Kyle
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 7:15 PM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: question about phonemes


I find that 150 is a very high number for phonemes although I can't say
it's not possible.  Most languages that I've looked at have between 20
to 40 phonemes.  If anyone knows of languages with that many phonemes
(150), please post.  It would be interesting to see if there are any
effects on the morphology of the language such as word size, etc.

John Kyle
jkyle at ku.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suzette Haden Elgin" <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:58 AM
Subject: question about phonemes


> April 2, 2003
>
> Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum
number
> of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was

> roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I
> keep seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot
> of space between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to

> deciding
"how
> many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on

> how one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the
> mark --
is
> that a rare extreme?
>
> Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at
least
> I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong
> about that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>
> Suzette Haden Elgin
>


From bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Wed Apr  2 18:56:06 2003
From: bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Claire Bowern)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 13:56:06 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <000001c2f946$4852ad40$95269bd9@daneverett>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.135606.0500.BOWERN@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>

The largest inventories usually quoted are from San languages like Xoo and
!Kung. Clicks + accompaniments + vowels + phonation types + tones adds up
to well over a hundred (Xoo has something like 86 clicks if you count
click + accompaniment as one phoneme).

Claire

-----------------------------
Claire Bowern
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
305 Boylston Hall
Cambridge, MA, 02138


From jouni.maho at AFRICAN.GU.SE  Wed Apr  2 19:55:51 2003
From: jouni.maho at AFRICAN.GU.SE (Jouni Filip Maho)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 21:55:51 +0200
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.215551.0200.JOUNI.MAHO@AFRICAN.GU.SE>

Cclaire Bowern wrote:
>
>The largest inventories usually quoted are from San languages like Xoo and
>!Kung. Clicks + accompaniments + vowels + phonation types + tones adds up
>to well over a hundred (Xoo has something like 86 clicks if you count
>click + accompaniment as one phoneme).

I remember seeing a total figure of 160+ phonemes (incl. c.45 vowel
sounds) for !Xoo.

One of the main reasons why (some) Khoesan languages tend to have
such large phomeme inventories is that it's been a long tradition to
recognise their syllable structures as mainly CV(N); thus potential
consonant clusters become distinct phonemes.

(They clearly have complex sound systems, though the large figures
could be decreased depending on analysis.)

---
Jouni Maho
Department of Oriental and African Languages
Goteborg University


From geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU  Wed Apr  2 19:59:54 2003
From: geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU (Geoff Nathan)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:59:54 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00bab0700fe8dd@[216.98.174.220]>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.145954.0500.GEOFFNATHAN@WAYNE.EDU>

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From bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Wed Apr  2 21:11:41 2003
From: bowern at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Claire Bowern)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 16:11:41 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030402145047.00b132a8@mail.wayne.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.2003.161141.0500.BOWERN@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>

According to the source I used for making up a Kabardian problem recently,
it had 49 consonants and 2 vowels. My memory for Xoo is that it has five
places of clicks, times about 16 possibilities for accompaniments. Then it
has non-click consonants, vowels (with length, nasality, etc) and if you
count tones too it ends up being about 150. Baroque, anyway.
Claire

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Geoff Nathan wrote:

> At 10:58 AM 4/2/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>       Long long ago I was taught that it was
>       roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
>       seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
>       between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
>       many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
>       one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
>       that a rare extreme?
>
>
> The definitive place to go for the answer is Sounds of the World's Languages, Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, 1994
> (I believe--I'm not in my Linguistics office at the moment).  My memory is that 150 is way over the top, but it is the
> case that !Xoo has a lot of clicks, as Claire Bowen mentioned.  The San languages do certainly seem to be at the
> extreme end of the continuum, but languages without clicks that are large, such as Kabardian (over forty consonants and
> more than five vowels) and Thompson (Ntlakapmxw) with about the same number seem to be at the top end otherwise, so
> totals around fifty are pretty close to the top without clicks.  But check SOWL for the final answer.
>
> Geoff
> Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
> Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
> Wayne State University
>
> Linguistics Program
> (snailmail)
> Department of English
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI, 48202
>
> Phone Numbers
> Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
> Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621
>

-----------------------------
Claire Bowern
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
305 Boylston Hall
Cambridge, MA, 02138


From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Thu Apr  3 14:00:55 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:00:55 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.080055.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 3, 2003

My thanks to all on the list who have responded to my question about the
upper limit of (documented) phonemes in human languages. Thank you for the
help, and for the references. However, this is one of those cases in which
the cure has turned out to be worse than the disease.

After reading Spike Gildea's response -- which included the statement that
"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

(1) What does that statement of Spike's mean -- functionally? And how do we
define "cognitive reality," precisely? If phonemes do not function in human
speech to let speakers/listeners distinguish the meanings of words, how [I
am tempted to say "how the blazes"] does that happen? Why do we continue to
teach the concept of phoneme and to teach charts of phonemes if they're
only figments? And what should those of us who work outside the ivory tower
use as a way of helping people do useful tasks like teaching reading, if
not phonemes? I am accustomed every few years to learn that something we
linguists have written whole shelves of books about is now out of favor and
considered quaint, only to learn a few years later that the quaint little
whatever-it-is has come back around on the guitar again. It's
disconcerting, but is apparently the nature of the Linguist Beast. However,
I'd like clarification from within a functionalist framework. I'm not at
all sure that I understand this.

(2) It looks to me, from the responses, as if the following situation holds
(always remembering that the whole thing is unreal, anyway, right?):

Suppose we come across a language that has five identifiable vowels.
Suppose the language modifies vowels by nasalizing them, and there are
minimal pairs in which the meaning distinction depends on whether the vowel
is or isn't nasal. The question then is whether the phoneme inventory for
the language is to be analyzed as having five vowels or as having ten
vowels. If that is so, and if I haven't totally misunderstood your
messages, what are the criteria for making that decision? Functionally
speaking.....

Suzette


From geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU  Thu Apr  3 14:36:58 2003
From: geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU (Geoff Nathan)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:36:58 -0500
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00bab18db4677a@[216.98.174.113]>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.093658.0500.GEOFFNATHAN@WAYNE.EDU>

At 08:00 AM 4/3/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>which included the statement that
>"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
>'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
>a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
>two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

         With all due respect to Spike, I completely disagree that 'most
linguists' no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the phoneme.  In
fact, just recently I helped review a paper on the subject for a major
phonetics/phonology journal. The editors ultimately rejected the paper
because it was arguing *for* the cognitive reality of the phoneme, and the
reason for the rejection was that this argument has been made so often and
so persuasively that there is no longer any doubt and yet another article
on the same subject was not needed.
         Certainly most contemporary textbooks within the overall
generative framework have at least four or five pages defending the notion,
and my own textbook, currently almost finished[1], within the Cognitive
Grammar framework makes the same claim, at great length.  The simple fact
of just how hard it is to teach narrow phonetic transcription, and how easy
to teach a broad-to-phonemic transcription to undergraduate students
strikes me as an extraordinarily strong, real-world demonstration that we
hear small numbers of phoneme-sized chunks, and anyone who has taught or
tried to learn a second language as an adult knows that the chunks vary and
govern our perceptions and productions.
         It is true that there is a part of Cognitive Grammar that has
argued a different view (Bybee's new book, and similar work by Kemmer,
Langacker and others), but to say that 'most linguists' have rejected the
notion is somewhat extreme.  I think it will take a lot of persuading to
dethrone a concept that goes back to the eighteen eighties (Baudouin) and
has been defended by every flavor of phonologist from Sapir through Daniel
Jones, David Stampe and now through Andrew Spencer and Carlos Gussenhoven
(both authors of quite recent phonology texts), and is accepted by most
psycholinguists (something that can't be said about most grammatical
constructs these days...).
         I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I
just couldn't let that one pass...

Geoff

[1]  Nathan, Geoffrey S.  In Preparation.  Introduction to Phonology:  A
Cognitive Grammar Approach.  Berlin:  Mouton.
Additional published references on this subject available upon request...


Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
Wayne State University

Linguistics Program
(snailmail)
Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

Phone Numbers
Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621


From nrude at BALLANGRUD.COM  Thu Apr  3 17:29:38 2003
From: nrude at BALLANGRUD.COM (Noel Rude)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:29:38 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.092938.0800.NRUDE@BALLANGRUD.COM>

Fascinating,

    Suzette eloquently states the ivory tower temptation -- denying reality
to the brink of postmodernism and then retreat.  Geoff says, "I don't want
to start a debate about the reality of the phoneme ..."  But we didn't see
Spike's post, and I respect Spike and would like to know his point.

    Maybe we agree on the reality of these things ... phoneme, syllable,
prosody ... maybe folks differ in how they hierarchize them in their
cognitive models.

    Years ago ... from within our functionalist school but not as a
phonologist ... I used to suggest there be a "typological-functional
phonology" -- that somebody oughta be combing the world's lgs for structural
categories (segments, syllables, prosodies) and be looking at how they
relate cross linguistically to certain functions (lexical, demarkative,
pragmatic ...).  Are there more natural tendencies (i.e., phonemes more
likely to serve a lexical function, prosody a demarkative or pragmatic
function, etc.)?  And how do exceptions develop?  Such a phonology might
help solve the abstractness problem -- abstractions less productively tied
to these functions would more likely be historic relics.

    Maybe all this is old hat ... maybe the folks long ago moved in this
direction ... but if FUNKNET only announces conferences and expensive books
... us peons in the trenches might never know.

    Noel


----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Nathan" <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 6:36 AM
Subject: Re: question about phonemes


At 08:00 AM 4/3/2003 -0600, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
>which included the statement that
>"most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
>'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
>a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
>two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.

         With all due respect to Spike, I completely disagree that 'most
linguists' no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the phoneme.  In
fact, just recently I helped review a paper on the subject for a major
phonetics/phonology journal. The editors ultimately rejected the paper
because it was arguing *for* the cognitive reality of the phoneme, and the
reason for the rejection was that this argument has been made so often and
so persuasively that there is no longer any doubt and yet another article
on the same subject was not needed.
         Certainly most contemporary textbooks within the overall
generative framework have at least four or five pages defending the notion,
and my own textbook, currently almost finished[1], within the Cognitive
Grammar framework makes the same claim, at great length.  The simple fact
of just how hard it is to teach narrow phonetic transcription, and how easy
to teach a broad-to-phonemic transcription to undergraduate students
strikes me as an extraordinarily strong, real-world demonstration that we
hear small numbers of phoneme-sized chunks, and anyone who has taught or
tried to learn a second language as an adult knows that the chunks vary and
govern our perceptions and productions.
         It is true that there is a part of Cognitive Grammar that has
argued a different view (Bybee's new book, and similar work by Kemmer,
Langacker and others), but to say that 'most linguists' have rejected the
notion is somewhat extreme.  I think it will take a lot of persuading to
dethrone a concept that goes back to the eighteen eighties (Baudouin) and
has been defended by every flavor of phonologist from Sapir through Daniel
Jones, David Stampe and now through Andrew Spencer and Carlos Gussenhoven
(both authors of quite recent phonology texts), and is accepted by most
psycholinguists (something that can't be said about most grammatical
constructs these days...).
         I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I
just couldn't let that one pass...

Geoff

[1]  Nathan, Geoffrey S.  In Preparation.  Introduction to Phonology:  A
Cognitive Grammar Approach.  Berlin:  Mouton.
Additional published references on this subject available upon request...


Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
Wayne State University

Linguistics Program
(snailmail)
Department of English
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

Phone Numbers
Computing and Information Technology:  (313) 577-1259
Linguistics (English):  (313) 577-8621


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Thu Apr  3 17:50:54 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:50:54 EST
Subject: The reality of phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.125054.EST.>

In a message dated 4/3/03 9:39:23 AM, geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU writes:
<< I don't want to start a debate about the reality of phoneme, but I just
couldn't let that one pass... >>

I'm not sure how one would establish the "cognitive" reality of phonemes, but
the physical, physiological and communicative reality of phonemes seems
beyond doubt.
There's little doubt that voice-generated sounds are discriminated in the
listener and that they produce different effects (changes of state) in the
listener.  And there's little doubt that human languages are composed of a
limited number of basic building block "bytes".  And, as Dan Everett pointed
out, basic information theory can readily relate the relative inventory of
phonemes to the complexity on the next level of communication.

Humans could in theory pass consequential information by way of a spoken
binary system of 0's and 1's, but the speed of transfer and tail-end
processing would be cumbersome.  But that does not mean that it would not be
possible.  Sign language and other examples show that its the functional job
of phonemes that must be satified, not a particular structural one.  (Brian
Dickens wrote: "Originally, Morse's telegraph was built such that the letters
of a message had to be typeset by hand before transmission, and the message
would be printed out on a strip of paper on the receiving end (Kline). The
operators, however, realized that they could communicate much faster by
learning to "think" in Morse Code, so they skipped both the encoding and
decoding steps.")

Whatever cognitive grammar means, it cannot mean that humans must employ a
certain number of phonemes or equivalent language "parts".  But the
requirements of tranferring information DOES require phonemes or equivalent
parts to be used or information will not be tranferred.  And it is therefore
a fair bet that information can't be processed without them either.

Conversely, if we try to imagine a language with say 5000 phonemes, it is
possible to see that such a system would burden memory and recognition.  A
language that is able to use 5000 phonemes does not have as intense a need
for word structure (again as Dan Everett pointed out) or perhaps even
grammar, but the costs are high.  Each phoneme would be carrying an
extraordinary amount of information.

Also, phonemes themselves can carry less than a linguistic unit of
information.  One can recognize a unique phoneme in French without
understanding French and immediately be informed that the speaker is speaking
French.  That is information, but it does not tell you what the speaker is
saying.

Steve Long


From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 18:00:46 2003
From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:00:46 -0800
Subject: Fwd from Dan Everett: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.100046.0800.SPIKE@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

>Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:52:44 +0100
>Subject: Fwd: question about phonemes
>From: Daniel Everett <dan.everett at man.ac.uk>
>
>Spike could you post this for me? FUNKNET rejected it because of
>something in my email program.
>
>Dan
>>
>>Suzette,
>>
>>I don't recall seeing Spike's comment, though it may just be a
>>function of a quick delete button for letters from news groups. In
>>any case, I do not know where the data for any statement of the
>>form 'most linguists do/do not x' would come from, for any value of
>>'x', would come from/did come from.
>>
>>Have there been any polls on this? I don't think so. So that is
>>probably just an off-the-cuff remark of Spike's. Or am I wrong,
>>Spike?
>>
>>It is true that SPE and generative phonology in a sense eliminated
>>the notion 'taxonomic phoneme', which the traditional concept of
>>phoneme was said to be represented by (see also Postal 1968). But
>>Lexical Phonology restored some luster to the concept in the notion
>>of the final output of all lexical rules. Here are some comments
>>from Mohanon (1986)
>>
>>p1: "The principal divergence between the two approaches
>>(traditional phonemes vs. Gen. Phonology, DLE) lay in the answer to
>>the question: what are the levels of representation in phonological
>>theory? The answer that classical phonemic theory yielded was that
>>there are three levels: phonetic, phonemic, and morphophonemic. SPE
>>abandoned the intermediate level..."
>>
>>p6: "Broadly speaking, the classical phonemic level of
>>representation arose out of the speaker's intuitions about what he
>>was saying or hearing, or what was significant in it. This level
>>was meant to capture the speaker's intuitions about which sounds
>>were the same or different... What classical phonemics failed to do
>>was to construct a formal theory of representation: the intuition
>>was right, the theory that followed was inadequate. While
>>abandoning the classical phonemic theory, SPE also abandoned an
>>intuitively appealing level of representation in phonological
>>theory."
>>
>>Mohanon and other LP theorists gave considerable evidence for the
>>linguistic necessity of something like the classical phoneme, as
>>the output of the lexical rule component. Moreover, anyone who has
>>been involved in a literacy project has no doubt come up with their
>>own evidence for native speaker intuitions about phonemes in the
>>classical/LP sense.
>>
>>There is evidence for classical phonemes, in fact, from standard
>>phonological rules. For example, one of the crucial predictions of
>>distinctive feature theory revolves around the concept of natural
>>class. So of the two rules in (1) and (2), (1), the distinctive
>>feature approach, is said to be superior because it (correctly, so
>>the story goes) predicts that aspiration of voiceless stops will
>>occur in one fell swoop in both L1 acquisition and diachronic
>>phonological development:
>>
>>(1) [-vd, -cont] --> [+spread glottis]/X_____ (where x is a
>>stressed syllable, simplifying)
>>
>>(2)   a. p ---> ph/X___
>>      b. t ---> th/X___
>>      c. k ---> kh/X___
>>
>>A problem for (1) and the distinctive feature approach will arise
>>just in case we find examples of children learning the aspiration
>>of one consonant before the aspiration of another or historical
>>cases where one consonant undergoes the aspiration rule prior to
>>another in the history of the language, even though both belong to
>>the same (relevant) natural class of segments. Such cases will
>>support the 'taxonomic phoneme' approach over the distinctive
>>feature approach.
>>
>>Another potential source of evidence for phonemes is the
>>distribution of phonemes in the relevant 'articulatory space' or,
>>non-technically a 'phoneme chart'.
>>
>>In other words, Suzette, there are so many possible sources of
>>evidence for phonemes and so many theoretical approaches to the
>>issue that is very unlikely that Spike is right or could even be
>>right in principle in making this kind of assertion, if that is
>>indeed what was intended. (I hasten to say again that I do not
>>recall seeing Spike's assertion, so I do not want to put words in
>>his mouth.)
>>
>>-- Dan
>>
>>
>>
>>********************
>>Daniel L. Everett
>>Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
>>Department of Linguistics
>>University of Manchester
>>Manchester, UK
>>M13 9PL
>>Phone: 44-161-275-3158
>>Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
>>http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
>>'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf
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From mpost at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 20:44:50 2003
From: mpost at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Mark William Post)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:44:50 -0800
Subject: phonemes and phonological knowledge
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.124450.0800.MPOST@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

Dear Suzette (and others),

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Phoneme (despite the
apparent fact that it doesn't exist)

The basic question seems to be this: what do language users know about
the sounds of language, and how is that knowledge implemented in
communication? There are two very well-supported facts that I see
emerging from thousands of years of research into this question, which
appear at first to be contradictory: 1) language users organize
phonetic material into contrastive categories, which are in most cases
readily comparable across languages 2) the precise content of these
categories - as they are realized in speech - is infinitely variable.

Another way of putting this: language after language agrees on roughly
the same ways of categorizing phonetic content - the high, front,
vowel of language x sounds to a speaker of language y more or less
like the high, front, vowel of language y. At the same time, the
implementation of the categories of language x in actual discourse -
in terms of both sheer phonetic detail and the ways it behaves or is
reshaped in certain contexts - is never - *ever* - precisely the same
as in language y, even given highly controlled experimental
conditions. The origins of these rough categories, or why some
phonetic material seems pretty ripe for recruitment as a contrastive
category, have been shown in many cases to originate in biological and
physical facts to which any language user is subject. And yet it is
clear that what is apparently stored and actually implemented from
language user to language user, and from language to language -
exceeds anything these universal factors alone can explain.

Phonemes seem to me to be theoretical constructs which have been
designed to describe the first fact very well. They do a terrible job
of handling the second fact, often with the result that fact 2 is
simply ignored. They are *useful* in so far as they can often if not
always handle the first fact. But they are virtually *useless* to
anybody interested in accounting for the second, i.e., to anybody
intersted in accurately accounting for a language user's phonological
knowledge.

Does this mean phonemes don't exist, i.e. don't have cognitive
reality? Well, if you design your notion of phoneme (and/or feature)
to accurately describe a language user's phonological knowledge (as is
generally done), you fall short of accounting for the facts - language
users evidently store and implement a great deal more phonological
knowledge than you're capable of capturing with your notion of
phonemes. It would seem probabilistic mathematical models come closer,
although I don't think there's yet a clear idea of how to structure
these.

And yet for transcription, shorthand, representation of the rough
behavior of speech sounds, there is simply no substitute. This is the
use-value of phonemes. They are handy and accessible, and do a
reasonable job of letting us represent our data. But this usefulness
is limited to certain domains, and do not in fact satisfy the demands
of representing phonological knowledge. And as for what to tell people
outside the ivory tower, I'd tell them pretty much that.

For further info, and said in a clearer fashion than I could ever hope
to, see Pierrehumbert (1999) What People Know about Sounds of
Language. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 29, no. 2 (1999 Fall): p.
111-20
and Ohala J. (1974) Phonetic Explanation in Phonology Papers from the
Regional Meetings, Chicago Linguistic Society, Special Issue, Apr,
251-274.

Thanks for your time,

Mark Post


From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Apr  3 22:51:28 2003
From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:51:28 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030403091521.02619048@mail.wayne.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.2003.145128.0800.SPIKE@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>

Sorry for any confusion, folks -- Geoff and Dan didn't see my message
because I had replied privately to Suzette.  I didn't really want to
make time to participate fully in a discussion right now, and I had
this silly idea that I could throw out a quick thought off the top of
my head and then avoid a longer discussion of anything that might
turn out to be more controversial than I had realized.  Here is the
message I sent to Suzette, followed by a brief explanation of my
assertion that the notion of "phoneme" is no longer widely accepted
-- an assertion which appears not to be true after all!

>Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:35:40 -0800
>To: Suzette Haden Elgin <ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET>
>From: Spike Gildea <spike at darkwing.uoregon.edu>
>Subject: Re: question about phonemes
>
>Hi Susan --
>
>I just wanted to stick in a couple cents in favor of not asking the
>question (at least not in this way).  In general, superlatives in
>Linguistics (most, fewest) have always struck me as artificial, so I
>would advocate just giving a range, just like you do when talking
>about how many languages there are.  And since most linguists no
>longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion 'phoneme', we
>are unlikely to ever meaningfully resolve even the question of how
>many is the "right" number for any individual language, much less
>which languages have the most and which the least.
>
>To be a bit more concrete about your specific question, the issue of
>how many phonemes a language has is not a question of fact, it is a
>question of analysis, and the outcome depends crucially on your
>criteria for identifying phonemes.  Places where problems come up
>include whether or not to count contrasts that are arguably
>attributable to suprasegmental features overlaid on more compact
>feature bundles (cf. Dan's  decision not to count tone contrasts in
>Pirah? as phonemic, but to isolate out tongue position and lip
>rounding as the only 'phonemic' distinctions) and whether to count
>contours as individual segments or as sequences (cf. Claire's caveat
>about whether to count "click plus accompaniment" as a single
>phoneme, and similar issues in 'fortis/lenis' contrasts, diphthongs,
>affricates, prenasalized stops, etc.).  Different analysts could
>count between 3 and 64 phonemes in a vowel system with a simple i,
>u, a inventory, but additional contrasts in nasalization, vowel
>length and a four-tone system (3*2*2*4).
>
>Since I'm teaching intro this term, I expect the issue to come up
>again (it often does in that context), but I'm not sure if there's
>any context where I'd like to entertain the question seriously.
>
>Spike
>
>>April 2, 2003
>>
>>Could someone(s) on the list give me their opinion(s) on the maximum number
>>of phonemes in human languages? Long long ago I was taught that it was
>>roughly 70; in recent years I've seen claims that it's roughly 150. I keep
>>seeing different totals in different sources, and there's a lot of space
>>between 70 and 150.  (It makes me wonder if it's analogous to deciding "how
>>many languages exist" and showing a range from 5000 to 10,000 based on how
>>one defines "language" and "dialect.") And -- if 150 is near the mark -- is
>>that a rare extreme?
>>
>>Thanks for your help. I realize that it's not a profound question [at least
>>I don't _think_  it is, but I'm not a phonologist and may be wrong about
>>that], but I'm not satisfied with the answers that I'm finding.
>>
>>Suzette Haden Elgin


First, I retract my glib assertion about what "most linguists"
believe -- obviously I haven't polled a representative sample, and
there's not enough riding on the answer to make it worth the work.

Second, a quick stab at the substantive question: Do phonemes exist?
Depends on what you mean by phoneme, and what you mean by exist.  I
imagine that everyone agrees on the cognitive reality of contrast,
and it is clear that phonemes provide one way to model that contrast.
But unless we are working with different, updated definitions, the
notion of 'phoneme' that I am familiar with is embedded in phonemic
theory, where it entails the idea of indivisible, atomic units, which
are then discrete building blocks of morphemes.  Both the phoneme and
the theory that launched it certainly seem to have been rejected many
times in the theoretical literature, both by classical generative
theory and subsequent theories that still state phonological
generalizations in terms of discrete features (which may coalesce
into more or less autonomous bundles, depending on the analyst and
the language), and also from cognitive theories like the one
represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, that see phonemic behaviors
as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over a body of
stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars.  Since the theory
that originally gave meaning to the term phoneme is clearly not still
practiced, what is the theoretical status of the notion in more
current theories that still want to make a place for it?  Perhaps the
notion of phoneme is both more current and more coherent than I have
imagined from the subset of the literature that I have read, and I'm
interested in learning more from people who have spent more time
researching this issue.  I am looking forward to reading Geoff's
textbook when it comes out, and I'd appreciate a chance to look at
his list of references sooner (privately, if nobody else wonders
about these questions).

Some more thoughts, partly triggered by Geoff's and Dan's postings...
If the phoneme is seen as a taxonomic unit, then the question is
whether the unit operates as simply a way to conveniently represent
one's data, or whether there is some deeper theoretical/cognitive
significance given to this taxonomic unit.  Obviously, a taxonomic
unit like a phoneme is useful for things like orthographies, without
which it is difficult to even begin to study much of the stuff that
both functionalists and historical linguists have traditionally spent
most of our time on.  And there are certainly many patterns in data
that can be modeled well with reference to the notion phoneme.  It is
less obvious that these patterns cannot be modeled well *without*
reference to the notion phoneme, or that there is a clear need for
this taxonomic unit in order to understand the processing of sound in
linguistic cognition.

To take one of the arguments that Dan cites from LP as supporting the
taxonomic phoneme, evidence that sound change operates one segment at
a time undermines the unity of the notion natural class.  But this
same argument is taken one step farther by Joan Bybee to argue
against the taxonomic phoneme, since evidence that sound change also
operates one *word* at a time undermines the unity of the notion
segment.  Joan has advanced this argument in several publications,
and it is only one of many "frequency effects" that have been
documented (see, e.g., the studies in Bybee and Hopper 2001,
Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure.  She and others
have been working towards a theory that gets "phoneme effects" as a
secondary phenomenon, without assigning a primary cognitive role to
the notion phoneme.

So can we be confident that phonemes exist?  As a label for a
distributional pattern in data, of course.  As a contrastive
taxonomic unit in writing systems and grammars, of course.  As
something that can at least be constructed for use in tasks like
reading, again, no doubt.  As a primary cognitive unit that
structures our perception and production of speech, I think there's
plenty of room for skepticism (obviously -- I'm the guy who thought
most lingists were skeptics).

And to return to the original question, even if we agree that
phonemes exist, that is not the same thing as saying that we can
always determine precisely how many of them we should posit for any
given language, with no room for debate.  I really wonder whether we
have a set of universally agreed-upon criteria that theoreticians
from various camps and descriptive linguists (who generally are the
ones that provide the data for typological/theoretical
generalizations) all rely on in making the analytical decision of how
many of the contrasts that speakers attend to should be counted as
"phonemic".  Pretty much every language presents at least one
problematic issue, whether with autosegmental features, with
contours, or with consistent "subphonemic" variation, and thus
presents analysts with non-automatic choices about precisely where to
draw the phonemic line.  So even if we grant that pretty much all
linguists use -- and maybe most also believe in some cognitive
reality to -- some notion "phoneme", I remain dubious about the
validity of any precise answer to the question of which language has
"the most" or "the least" phonemes, and how many that might be.

best,

Spike
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From yishai at bgumail.bgu.ac.il  Fri Apr  4 03:51:47 2003
From: yishai at bgumail.bgu.ac.il (Yishai Tobin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 06:51:47 +0300
Subject: To be or not to be: phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.065147.0300.>

Dear Suzette and Funknetters,

This discussion has brought me (an inveterate lurker) out from the shadows.

Arguments for and against the phoneme seem never to cease (cf. my discussion on
and summary of the topic in Chapter 1 and the endnotes 6-14 in Phonology as
Human Behavior: Theoretical Implications and Clinical Applications, Duke
University Press. 1997).  They are reminiscent of the early 70s when there were
discussions at LSA and other meetings on whether "deep structure" was
"syntactic" or "semantic" and the different camps would sit on opposite sides
of the auditorium arguing with each other and then be convinced that each one
of them had won the argument and the issue was closed.

The concept of the phoneme (like everything else) is complex,hardly foolproof,
and highly arguable. The existence/demise of the phoneme has been the subject
of much theoretical (descriptive, formal and functional) debate.  As a longtime
functional advocate of the phoneme, I became persuaded/convinced of its
worthiness and reality when confronted with developmental and particularly
clinical situations.

IN MY EXPERIENCE: Children's errors/processes can really be classified as being
phonetic versus phonemic.  For example, if a child says something like /t/ for
/k/ or something like /d/ for /g/ (a process called "fronting") and you repeat
what  the child says; they will adamantly disagree and claim that they did NOT
say what you did; and then they will correct you by saying something that
sounds to you EXACTLY LIKE what you said.  Acoustic analyses of these
utterances show that their (fronted) /t/ or /d/ for /k/  or /g/ is distinct
from their regular apical /t/ or /d/ and, indeed, they have two distinct sounds
in their system and in their production at least one of which "misses the mark"
and overlaps with the other and may not be heard and differentiated by you.
(The same goes for voiced/voiceless distinctions and other sound
substitutions.)

I even think that most regular functional errors/processes are ususally
phonetic (like the above) and if a child has more than merely sporadic phonemic
errors (where s/he cannot perceive or produce different sounds) this may be an
indication of a possible organic origin of an error or pocess.  I have also
noticed that most children make errors primarily with consonants and it may
also be possible that children that make more than sporadic errors with both
consonants and vowels may have an organic origin to these errors/processes.
This, of course, is a hypothesis that must be investigated.

It may also be that anti-phoneme advocates could look at the same data
differently, but, for me, at least, develomental and clinical phonology
supports the existence of what Sanford Shane called that little "bastard", the
phoneme.

Yishai Tobin

Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:

> April 3, 2003
>
> My thanks to all on the list who have responded to my question about the
> upper limit of (documented) phonemes in human languages. Thank you for the
> help, and for the references. However, this is one of those cases in which
> the cure has turned out to be worse than the disease.
>
> After reading Spike Gildea's response -- which included the statement that
> "most linguists no longer believe in the cognitive reality of the notion
> 'phoneme' " -- I withdraw my foolhardy remark about this question not being
> a profound one, and I would appreciate a little clarification. I now have
> two questions -- two question-clusters, actually.
>
> (1) What does that statement of Spike's mean -- functionally? And how do we
> define "cognitive reality," precisely? If phonemes do not function in human
> speech to let speakers/listeners distinguish the meanings of words, how [I
> am tempted to say "how the blazes"] does that happen? Why do we continue to
> teach the concept of phoneme and to teach charts of phonemes if they're
> only figments? And what should those of us who work outside the ivory tower
> use as a way of helping people do useful tasks like teaching reading, if
> not phonemes? I am accustomed every few years to learn that something we
> linguists have written whole shelves of books about is now out of favor and
> considered quaint, only to learn a few years later that the quaint little
> whatever-it-is has come back around on the guitar again. It's
> disconcerting, but is apparently the nature of the Linguist Beast. However,
> I'd like clarification from within a functionalist framework. I'm not at
> all sure that I understand this.
>
> (2) It looks to me, from the responses, as if the following situation holds
> (always remembering that the whole thing is unreal, anyway, right?):
>
> Suppose we come across a language that has five identifiable vowels.
> Suppose the language modifies vowels by nasalizing them, and there are
> minimal pairs in which the meaning distinction depends on whether the vowel
> is or isn't nasal. The question then is whether the phoneme inventory for
> the language is to be analyzed as having five vowels or as having ten
> vowels. If that is so, and if I haven't totally misunderstood your
> messages, what are the criteria for making that decision? Functionally
> speaking.....
>
> Suzette

--
Professor Yishai Tobin
Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics
& Department of Behavioral Sciences
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
P.O. Box 653
84 105 Be'er Sheva, Israel
972-7-6472047 (office)
972-7-6277950 (home)
972-7-6472907  / 972-7-6472932 (fax)

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From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Fri Apr  4 13:43:23 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 07:43:23 -0600
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.074323.0600.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 4, 2003

Spike writes:

"Sorry for any confusion, folks -- Geoff and Dan didn't see my message
because I had replied privately to Suzette.  I didn't really want to
make time to participate fully in a discussion right now, and I had
this silly idea that I could throw out a quick thought off the top of
my head and then avoid a longer discussion of anything that might
turn out to be more controversial than I had realized."

Spike doesn't owe the list an apology -- I do. If I'd been paying proper
attention to the headers on my messages, I would have realized that his
note was addressed only to me.

I can say honestly that I'm sorry to have made public something Spike
intended to share only with me; that was rude.

I _can't_ say, however, that I'm sorry to have unleashed the ensuing
discussion. It seems to me that the discussion has been worthwhile, if only
in demonstrating that there is no consensus either on the reality
(cognitive, or psychological, or whatever-you-like) of the phoneme, or on
the maximum number of phonemes documented for a human language.

At least I now know that what I don't know isn't the result of my having
failed to look for the answer in the right places.

Thank you for your tolerance, and for your erudition.

Suzette


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Fri Apr  4 20:50:46 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:50:46 +1200
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <f05200f0ebab227597f05@[128.223.99.96]>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.085046.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Hello All,

I find this discussion very interesting because it fits in with a perspective
I am trying to push - that grammar does not exist.

I shouldn't be surprised because the advocates I hear for the non-existence
of the phoneme are the same (Langacker, Hopper) I have read and identified
with at the syntactic level.

Personally all I can say of substance on the phoneme issue is that
non-existence is for me a "happy congruence" with the way I believe syntax
works.

That said I can understand how the two sides of the discussion can easily
misunderstand one-another. In a sense, of course, grammars (and phonemes) do
exist, we can see them.

I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created. That
is what I read in Spike's post and what prompted me to write here:

"cognitive theories like the one represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, ...
see phonemic behaviors as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over
a body of stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars."

That way you can have your cake and eat it too. It is not an issue of whether
something exists or not, but whether that existence is a fundamental
principle or a product of fundamental principles.

As an analogy I like to compare grammar, and phonemes might be the same, with
waves on the sea. Waves don't have an independent existence, they are the
constant products of uncountable tiny interactions between water molecules.

Hope I'm not getting too meta-physical. This perspective has concrete
applications. It turns our conventional ideas of language inside out, so that
they don't so much become wrong, but you see that the fundamental processes
underlying them are somewhat lateral to those we have been accustomed to
seeing.

That gives us new power.

-Rob Freeman


From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Fri Apr  4 21:32:19 2003
From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 13:32:19 -0800
Subject: question about phonemes
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.133219.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Sure. And while we're at it, reality doesn't exist either. Not really. Besides,
it is so tyranical & oppressive. You gotta watch out, gotta compute, gotta worry,
gotta duck. So let's hear it for freedom & new power, hey?  TG

============

Rob Freeman wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I find this discussion very interesting because it fits in with a perspective
> I am trying to push - that grammar does not exist.
>
> I shouldn't be surprised because the advocates I hear for the non-existence
> of the phoneme are the same (Langacker, Hopper) I have read and identified
> with at the syntactic level.
>
> Personally all I can say of substance on the phoneme issue is that
> non-existence is for me a "happy congruence" with the way I believe syntax
> works.
>
> That said I can understand how the two sides of the discussion can easily
> misunderstand one-another. In a sense, of course, grammars (and phonemes) do
> exist, we can see them.
>
> I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
> from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
> emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created. That
> is what I read in Spike's post and what prompted me to write here:
>
> "cognitive theories like the one represented in Joan Bybee's recent work, ...
> see phonemic behaviors as schemata that are constructed by generalizing over
> a body of stored, phonetically rich word-level exemplars."
>
> That way you can have your cake and eat it too. It is not an issue of whether
> something exists or not, but whether that existence is a fundamental
> principle or a product of fundamental principles.
>
> As an analogy I like to compare grammar, and phonemes might be the same, with
> waves on the sea. Waves don't have an independent existence, they are the
> constant products of uncountable tiny interactions between water molecules.
>
> Hope I'm not getting too meta-physical. This perspective has concrete
> applications. It turns our conventional ideas of language inside out, so that
> they don't so much become wrong, but you see that the fundamental processes
> underlying them are somewhat lateral to those we have been accustomed to
> seeing.
>
> That gives us new power.
>
> -Rob Freeman


From the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 02:04:59 2003
From: the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM (the phoneme)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 10:04:59 +0800
Subject: existence and reality
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.100459.0800.THEPHONEME@HOTMAIL.COM>

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp


From jmacfarl at UNM.EDU  Sat Apr  5 04:10:35 2003
From: jmacfarl at UNM.EDU (James MacFarlane)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 21:10:35 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <F18BVzShNxNbKU9zS8k0000a964@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.2003.211035.0700.JMACFARL@UNM.EDU>

> From: the phoneme <the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM
>
> Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
>

Dear Phoneme,

In my mind you are not dead.  You live on, but only because you help us to
categorize diverse surface phenomena which are related to one another in
various ways.  It is the arbitrary  (predetermined) status that some
linguists have given you that has been abandoned by many linguists and
psycholinguists.  Instead, some of us believe that you are only a temporary
(synchronic) phenomenon which is only capable of capturing the current state
of the sound system of a particular language.  And, even then you do a less
than adequate job.  If this is all one is interested in, then you should
feel secure in your position.  However, if linguists begin to become more
interested in language content and language use as a determining factor for
the structure of language, then your days are numbered.


James MacFarlane
Doctoral Candidate
University of New Mexico

PS  -I realize this post sounds awfully arrogant. I don't mean it to be.
This is the way that I conceptualize "the phoneme" and I am only presenting
it here to see how my views are different and similar to the views of
FUNKNETTERS. I'm enjoying this conversation tremendously AND learning a
great deal about the phoneme.


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 10:32:14 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 22:32:14 +1200
Subject: question about phonemes
In-Reply-To: <3E8DF9E3.5DF221E3@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.223214.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Hi Tom,

Are you objecting specifically to the idea of emergence here, or radical
theoretical posturing in general?

-Rob

On Saturday 05 April 2003 9:32 am, Tom Givon wrote:
> Sure. And while we're at it, reality doesn't exist either. Not really.
> Besides, it is so tyranical & oppressive. You gotta watch out, gotta
> compute, gotta worry, gotta duck. So let's hear it for freedom & new power,
> hey?  TG
>
> ============
>
> Rob Freeman wrote:
> > ...
> > I would propose that the non-existence advocates re-phrase their argument
> > from one that states outright that phonemes don't exist, to one that
> > emphasizes more that they are in a state of being continuously created.


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sat Apr  5 11:49:44 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 23:49:44 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <BAB3A54A.54C0%jmacfarl@unm.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.234944.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Saturday 05 April 2003 4:10 pm, James MacFarlane wrote:
> > From: the phoneme <the_phoneme at HOTMAIL.COM
> >
> > Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
>
> ...if linguists begin to become
> more interested in language content and language use as a determining
> factor for the structure of language, then your days are numbered.

Hi James,

I see your perspective and raise you one :-) I don't see emergence as
primarily a functionalist/structuralist thing. Though it does gel with the
fundaments of Functionalism based on contrast rather than category.

It's more than an esoteric theoretical issue at the syntax level.

Phonemes change with time, and may be essentially indeterminate, but syntax
arguably changes with each sentence. We might have to search hard to find
evidence for emergence at the phoneme level (certain frequency effects?) but
a category which changes with each sentence might explain lots of
pseudo-categorical syntactic behaviour, like phraseology, collocational and
formulaic aspects of language. (Which behave in some ways like words, and yet
change).

That's the perspective I want to hear about. How current is that with people?

Cheers,

Rob


From jmacfarl at UNM.EDU  Sat Apr  5 15:05:47 2003
From: jmacfarl at UNM.EDU (James MacFarlane)
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:05:47 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <E191mN5-0000Z7-00@grunt5.ihug.co.nz>
Message-ID: <SAT.5.APR.2003.080547.0700.JMACFARL@UNM.EDU>


> On Saturday 05 April 2003 4:10 pm, Rob wrote:
>
> I see your perspective and raise you one :-) I don't see emergence as
> primarily a functionalist/structuralist thing. Though it does gel with the
> fundaments of Functionalism based on contrast rather than category.
>
> It's more than an esoteric theoretical issue at the syntax level.
>
> Phonemes change with time, and may be essentially indeterminate, but syntax
> arguably changes with each sentence. We might have to search hard to find
> evidence for emergence at the phoneme level (certain frequency effects?) but
> a category which changes with each sentence might explain lots of
> pseudo-categorical syntactic behaviour, like phraseology, collocational and
> formulaic aspects of language. (Which behave in some ways like words, and yet
> change).

In my understanding you are right on here.  The ordering of constituents
appears to be the driving force behind change in many cases.  Joan Bybee has
discussed this in terms of boundary phenomenon.  This is all about
frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.  I'll shamelessly
take this opportunity to plug an article that I co-authored with a fellow
student Anna Vogel Sosa entitled Evidence for frequency-based constituents
in the mental lexicon: Collocations involving the word of.  Brain &
Language, 83, 227-236   Here we found that if the collocational frequency of
the English word of  and the previous word such as kind were high, then
participants in our psycholinguistic experiment were less likely to identify
the word of, suggesting holistic storage of the two word chunk.  Exactly
what one would expect when boundaries become obscured.

An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.

Best,

James MacFarlane
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From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sun Apr  6 00:57:44 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 12:57:44 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <BAB43EDA.54D2%jmacfarl@unm.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.2003.125744.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 06 April 2003 3:05 am, James MacFarlane wrote:
> ...This is all about
> frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
> frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.

This is nice. The slow solidification of collocations over time shows a nice
parallel with the slow formation of new phonemes.

But we are still talking slow change over time here. Still in a mindset which
sees categories as "mostly" fixed. I don't know if others are seeing this,
but rather than thinking of two separate categories gradually merging to form
a new one over time can we not imagine that two words put together, even for
the very first time, immediately form a (very weak) new category (governed by
paradigmatic frequency effects, for example). Every new sentence might be
regarded as a weak (infrequent?) syntactic category in this sense. The slow
process over time rather than the formation of a new category might be seen
just as a gradual strengthening of this new combined category. The result is
the same but the important thing is that every combination of words can be
thought of (and should be modelled as) the formation of a new category.

Is this a common perspective?

I guess what I am really saying is has anyone considered the power of
emergence in paradigmatic categories rather than just syntagmatic?

> An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
> phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
> continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
> deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.

I'd like to read it. I found a discussion
(http://www.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Directionality.pdf) but not the paper. Is
Phonogeneis on the Web somewhere?

Best,

Rob


From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Sun Apr  6 21:03:36 2003
From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 14:03:36 -0700
Subject: existence and reality
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.2003.140336.0700.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>



Dear y'all,

I guess I had better say something less flippant (sorry, Paul), tho temptation is
still strong.Chomsky with his intellectual Stalinism had pushed us to adopt
either extreme rationalism ("everything is innate, input doesn't matter") or
extreme empiricism ("nothing is innate, all knowledge derives from input"). In
the very same vein, we have been repeatedly pushed in the past 15 years or so by
our own extreme emergentists to subscribe to an equally reductionist position:
"If X--be it grammar or phonology--is not 100% generative, therefore it is 100%
emergent". I find this passion for reductive solutions suspect on both
theoretical and empirical grounds. I have always thought that the worse gift we
could give Chomsky is to counter his extreme reductionism with an equally extreme
reductionism in the opposite direction. That way he wins either way, because we
concede his main philosophical premise--either or, but God forbid a pragmatic
middle.

Theoretical considerations:

(i)  complex multi-factored systems: We are dealing with biologically-based,
adaptively- shaped complex systems. Most often, such systems display various
kinds of adaptive compromises between conflicting--but equally valid--functional
imperatives (cf. Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over
biology, cognition & language. For running & flying animals, muscle-weight
conflicts with speed. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive
flexibility) conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In
phonology, articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity to
changing context). Etc. etc.

(ii) Automaticity & performance speed: Both phonology and grammar are highly
automated processing systems. Not 100%, but way above 50%, probably--depending
how one counts in real-time communicative behavior--ca. 90% at any given moment.
It is all very nice to observe that emergence is--in principle--ever present. But
at any given time during fluent (non-Pidgin) communication, a spoken-language
user produces language at the speed of, roughly, 1-2 seconds per event/state
clause and 0.250 msecs per lexical word. This is an extremely demanding
processing rate, which can only be made possible by high level of automaticity.
And high automaticity depends heavily on high categoriality; that is, a high rate
of rule-governedness & either/or decidability. When Sapir said "all grammars
leak", I doubt it what he meant was "all grammar leaks 100% all the time". What's
the point of having a grammar then? Sure, grammar has it's counter-adaptive
"spandrels", but neither 100% or 50% of the total. More like 10% percent or even
less at any given time.

(iii) The S-shaped learning curve: This is a well known phenomenon in both
psychology and the linguistic change-cum-variation. The variation ratios of
90-to-10 (at the beginning of the process of  change) and 10-to-90 (at the end)
both last for a long time. The in-between phase, the transitions between 80-to-20
and 20-to-80 ratios, is extremely rapid. This is most likely because the more
even ratios of variation are not viable as processing systems. Most
highly-automated systems can cope with 10% residue ("garbage") by either ignoring
it (if it is adaptively irrelevant), or by investing high-energy resources to
attend to the fine details of context (if it is adaptively urgent). And I suspect
that S.J. Gould's "punctuated equilibria" phenomenon has a similar fundamental
explanation--the adaptive instability of intermediate stages.

Empirical issues:

One can easily test all this empirically, as I have tried to suggest in chs. 2-3
of Bio-Linguistics (Amsterdam:  J. Benjamins, 2002). One can, for example, take a
text of natural communication (unedited, strictly oral!) and compute how many of
the actual uses of all grammatical constructions there are highly
conventionalized & rule-governed ("generative")  vs. how many are in the midst of
change ("emergent"). The computation I did in ch. 2 of B-L yielded the ratio of
98%-to-2%, respectively. So this was only one conversational text of 5 pp. In ch.
3 of the book I did a similar assessment of cliticization (grammaticalization),
yielding a ratio of 90-to-10. And studies of the frequency distribution of marked
vs. unmarked constructions in text yield similar ratios (Giv?n 1991).

I think those of you who are interested in this as an empirical issue should
undertake similar text-distributional studies of variability ("emergence") vs.
stability ("generativity") in both our major linguistic coding ('structural')
systems-- phonology & grammar. To continue to just take for granted either
emergence or generativity without the benefit such performance tests has become,
to my mind, a bit stale. So if one sounds a bit impatient, Paul, it is because
Chomsky has been ignoring performance and taking 100% generativity for granted
since 1957.

Cheers,  TG
======================


Rob Freeman wrote:

> On Sunday 06 April 2003 3:05 am, James MacFarlane wrote:
> > ...This is all about
> > frequency.  If two constituents (words, phonemes, morphemes) occur
> > frequently together then the boundaries become blurred.
>
> This is nice. The slow solidification of collocations over time shows a nice
> parallel with the slow formation of new phonemes.
>
> But we are still talking slow change over time here. Still in a mindset which
> sees categories as "mostly" fixed. I don't know if others are seeing this,
> but rather than thinking of two separate categories gradually merging to form
> a new one over time can we not imagine that two words put together, even for
> the very first time, immediately form a (very weak) new category (governed by
> paradigmatic frequency effects, for example). Every new sentence might be
> regarded as a weak (infrequent?) syntactic category in this sense. The slow
> process over time rather than the formation of a new category might be seen
> just as a gradual strengthening of this new combined category. The result is
> the same but the important thing is that every combination of words can be
> thought of (and should be modelled as) the formation of a new category.
>
> Is this a common perspective?
>
> I guess what I am really saying is has anyone considered the power of
> emergence in paradigmatic categories rather than just syntagmatic?
>
> > An article, which has done a great deal to shape the way I think about
> > phonemes is Phonogenesis by Paul Hopper. In that article he argues for a
> > continuum between grammar and phonology.  I think he has presented a great
> > deal of evidence for emergence at the phoneme level.
>
> I'd like to read it. I found a discussion
> (http://www.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/Directionality.pdf) but not the paper. Is
> Phonogeneis on the Web somewhere?
>
> Best,
>
> Rob
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From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr  7 03:09:18 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:09:18 +1200
Subject: existence and reality
In-Reply-To: <3E909628.ACE7E3E7@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.7.APR.2003.150918.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Tom,

I don't find the emergentist position, as I understand it, incompatible with
generativism, it just reverses the power relationship: category vs. example.
Generativist insights about categories are still there, in the main. They are
for me, anyway.

In particular I believe that while emergence (or generalization, actually, as
opposed to generalization_s_) is the fundamental driving force of language I
also believe that driving force must be channeled and parameterized in ways
only glimpsed through some of the insights of generativism.

And Chomsky was only ever going for principles and parameters, wasn't he,
competence rather than performance?

But I seem to have stepped in on an argument which has been going on for some
time. Excuse my ignorance of the established positions, because while I
identify strongly with what I hear of emergence I really don't know yet in
depth how the perspective has developed (over the last 15 years!)

Perhaps I can ask some questions to get to the center of it. Take your
analysis of the empirical nub, for instance. Can you tell me why you want us
to undertake `text-distributional studies of variability ("emergence") vs.
stability ("generativity")'?

Isn't that a bit like saying let's test experimentally how much of language
is performance and how much competence?

Isn't emergence (or really I feel it's better to get down to the driving
force and say generalization) a performance model?

Best,

Rob

On Monday 07 April 2003 9:03 am, you wrote:
> Dear y'all,
>
> I guess I had better say something less flippant (sorry, Paul), tho
> temptation is still strong.Chomsky with his intellectual Stalinism had
> pushed us to adopt either extreme rationalism ("everything is innate, input
> doesn't matter") or extreme empiricism ("nothing is innate, all knowledge
> derives from input"). In the very same vein, we have been repeatedly pushed
> in the past 15 years or so by our own extreme emergentists to subscribe to
> an equally reductionist position: "If X--be it grammar or phonology--is not
> 100% generative, therefore it is 100% emergent". I find this passion for
> reductive solutions suspect on both theoretical and empirical grounds. I
> have always thought that the worse gift we could give Chomsky is to counter
> his extreme reductionism with an equally extreme reductionism in the
> opposite direction. That way he wins either way, because we concede his
> main philosophical premise--either or, but God forbid a pragmatic middle.
>
> Theoretical considerations:
>
> (i)  complex multi-factored systems: We are dealing with
> biologically-based, adaptively- shaped complex systems. Most often, such
> systems display various kinds of adaptive compromises between
> conflicting--but equally valid--functional imperatives (cf.
> Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over biology,
> cognition & language. For running & flying animals, muscle-weight conflicts
> with speed. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive flexibility)
> conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In phonology,
> articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
> distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
> evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity
> to changing context). Etc. etc.
>
> (ii) Automaticity & performance speed: Both phonology and grammar are
> highly automated processing systems. Not 100%, but way above 50%,
> probably--depending how one counts in real-time communicative behavior--ca.
> 90% at any given moment. It is all very nice to observe that emergence
> is--in principle--ever present. But at any given time during fluent
> (non-Pidgin) communication, a spoken-language user produces language at the
> speed of, roughly, 1-2 seconds per event/state clause and 0.250 msecs per
> lexical word. This is an extremely demanding processing rate, which can
> only be made possible by high level of automaticity. And high automaticity
> depends heavily on high categoriality; that is, a high rate of
> rule-governedness & either/or decidability. When Sapir said "all grammars
> leak", I doubt it what he meant was "all grammar leaks 100% all the time".
> What's the point of having a grammar then? Sure, grammar has it's
> counter-adaptive "spandrels", but neither 100% or 50% of the total. More
> like 10% percent or even less at any given time.
>
> (iii) The S-shaped learning curve: This is a well known phenomenon in both
> psychology and the linguistic change-cum-variation. The variation ratios of
> 90-to-10 (at the beginning of the process of  change) and 10-to-90 (at the
> end) both last for a long time. The in-between phase, the transitions
> between 80-to-20 and 20-to-80 ratios, is extremely rapid. This is most
> likely because the more even ratios of variation are not viable as
> processing systems. Most highly-automated systems can cope with 10% residue
> ("garbage") by either ignoring it (if it is adaptively irrelevant), or by
> investing high-energy resources to attend to the fine details of context
> (if it is adaptively urgent). And I suspect that S.J. Gould's "punctuated
> equilibria" phenomenon has a similar fundamental explanation--the adaptive
> instability of intermediate stages.
>
> Empirical issues:
>
> One can easily test all this empirically, as I have tried to suggest in
> chs. 2-3 of Bio-Linguistics (Amsterdam:  J. Benjamins, 2002). One can, for
> example, take a text of natural communication (unedited, strictly oral!)
> and compute how many of the actual uses of all grammatical constructions
> there are highly
> conventionalized & rule-governed ("generative")  vs. how many are in the
> midst of change ("emergent"). The computation I did in ch. 2 of B-L yielded
> the ratio of 98%-to-2%, respectively. So this was only one conversational
> text of 5 pp. In ch. 3 of the book I did a similar assessment of
> cliticization (grammaticalization), yielding a ratio of 90-to-10. And
> studies of the frequency distribution of marked vs. unmarked constructions
> in text yield similar ratios (Giv?n 1991).
>
> I think those of you who are interested in this as an empirical issue
> should undertake similar text-distributional studies of variability
> ("emergence") vs. stability ("generativity") in both our major linguistic
> coding ('structural') systems-- phonology & grammar. To continue to just
> take for granted either emergence or generativity without the benefit such
> performance tests has become, to my mind, a bit stale. So if one sounds a
> bit impatient, Paul, it is because Chomsky has been ignoring performance
> and taking 100% generativity for granted since 1957.
>
> Cheers,  TG
> ======================


From info at eldp.soas.ac.uk  Mon Apr  7 15:08:55 2003
From: info at eldp.soas.ac.uk (e.potts)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 16:08:55 +0100
Subject: ELDP - 2003 Initial Announcement
Message-ID: <MON.7.APR.2003.160855.0100.>

*** Apologies for any cross-posting ***


Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Advance Notice: 2003 Call for Proposals

With the first round of the ELDP application process completed and offers of
grants made, we propose to move straight on the the second call for
Preliminary Applications.  The purpose of this e-mail is to outline the
timetable and the key structural changes to the programme.  It should be
noted that the timetable has been brought forward when compared with that of
2002.

2002 Outcomes
The ELDP received approximately 150 applications in response to its first
call for applications.  About 40 of these were invited to submit detailed
applications, and although it was not possible to offer financial support to
all good proposals, the Fund was able to make formal offers of grants to 21
applicants: Studentships, Fellowships and Project grants.  Details of the
offers, and subsequently details of those accepted, will be publicised on
the ELDP web page shortly (www.eldp.soas.ac.uk).

2003 Timetable

16th May 2003 - Revised guidelines and forms available on the web page.

8th August 2003 - Deadline for submission of Preliminary Applications.

19th September 2003 - Invitations to submit Detailed Applications
dispatched.

14th November 2003 - Deadline for submission of Detailed Applications.

27th February 2004 - Announcement of Funding Awards.

The timetable will be repeated annually.


2003 Guidance
The new guidelines and application forms for the 2003 funding round will be
published on the website by Friday 26th May 2003.  In the meantime, the 2002
guidelines may be used as a general guide.  The five types of application
used in 2002 will remain, although additional guidelindes as to funding
limits will be provided.

The main aims of the Fund remain the documentation of seriously endangered
languages and the criteria remain (a) endangerment, (b) significance of the
language and (c) quality of proposal.  The Fund's primary concern is with
documentation rather than focused revitalisation - although the link is
appreciated and sometimes desirable.  As such prospective applicants should
structure the documentation in such a way as to assist local communities in
preserving and fostering highly endangered ancestral languages and speech
ways.

Whilst in essence the guidelines will remain broadly similar, there will be
a number of budgetary refinements.  Key changes that you may wish to note
will be as follows:

- Overhead/ Institutional Administration costs will not be eligible.

- Top-up salaries for established/ employed academics will not be eligible
(this includes the funding of non-institutional funded summer vacation
periods).

- A limit of ?2000 (pounds sterling) may be requested for publications.

- Major equipment costs (i.e. laptops, camcorders etc) will not be provided
for projects where the period of fieldwork is limited.

- Modest training activity for local communities (within the context of a
substantive project) will be eligible for support.


From jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU  Fri Apr 11 00:10:29 2003
From: jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 17:10:29 -0700
Subject: a query about sentences
Message-ID: <THU.10.APR.2003.171029.0700.JRUBBA@CALPOLY.EDU>

Hi folks,

I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.

We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
he argues for starting there).

My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.

What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Jo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  ? San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  ?  Fax: (805)-756-6374 ? Dept. Phone.  756-2596
? E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu ?  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Fri Apr 11 06:07:45 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 07:07:45 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <3E9607F5.BAF0FE39@calpoly.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.070745.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Johanna,

I have an article in the journal Pragmatics and Cognition, published
about 10 years ago entitled 'The sentential divide in language and
cognition', in which I argue that there is a qualitative difference
between studying sentences and their constituents vs. discourse. I give
a number of arguments for this and review a lot of functional work and
compare it with formal work in this regard. I think that the article is
a pretty useful survey.

I personally am less convinced by my own arguments these days, but the
article still does a not too bad job of laying out and defending a
particular point of view that, if nothing else, represents what many
think about the issues.

Best,

Dan

.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 1:10 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: a query about sentences


Hi folks,

I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.

We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
he argues for starting there).

My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.

What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence as
the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Jo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  ? San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  ?  Fax: (805)-756-6374 ? Dept. Phone.  756-2596 ?
E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu ?  Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK  Fri Apr 11 07:20:50 2003
From: dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK (Dick Hudson)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:20:50 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <3E9607F5.BAF0FE39@calpoly.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.082050.0100.DICK@LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>

Dear Jo,
Good question. Here in the UK, as you know, grammar has got quite well
embedded in the school curriculum, especially in primary schools. One of
the many achievements of the people who have introduced it as part of
government strategy is to introduce it in the context of a very basic
theoretical framework which deliberately takes the focus of sentence
structure. It divides grammar into three levels:
1. word-level grammar - word classes, inflectional and derivational
morphology, 'word families' = lexical relations, spelling, some punctuation
2. sentence-level grammar - phrases, clauses, sentence types, most of
punctuation
3. text-level grammar - cohesion, coherence, especially tense, person and
information flow (not presented in those terms).
In my opinion it's just as important to include word-level stuff as
text-level; but the main point is that grammar is not just sentence
structure, as some people assume.
         To see how it pans out concretely, you might like to look at some
training material (for year 7-9 teachers) that I've almost finished putting
on my web site at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/KS3.htm, where
the index follows this three-way division. This material is meant to follow
on from the "Grammar for Writing" materials for earlier years (which you've
seen); that followed the same three-way structure.
         Hope this helps,
                 Dick Hudson



>Hi folks,
>
>I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
>starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
>composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
>whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.
>
>We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
>sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
>participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
>linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
>he argues for starting there).
>
>My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
>of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
>imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.
>
>What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
>as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?
>
>Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
>
>Jo
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>One Grand Avenue  San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>Tel. (805)-756-2184    Fax: (805)-756-6374 Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu   Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Richard (= Dick) Hudson

Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E  6BT.
+44(0)20 7679 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm


From chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU  Fri Apr 11 17:42:28 2003
From: chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:42:28 -0700
Subject: Sentences
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.104228.0700.CHAFE@LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU>

This is one of the places where looking at how people actually talk makes a
significant difference. There is, first of all, the difference between
grammatical sentences and prosodic sentences. The latter certainly reflect
something interesting about language processing. Beyond that, I've
suggested in various places that sentence closure (of either kind) is often
decided opportunistically on-line, while people are talking, and doesn't
necessarily reflect the boundaries of cognitively relevant units, although
it may. One kind of evidence I find particularly interesting appears in
repeated verbalizations of (more or less) the same content, where sentence
boundaries may be distributed differently in the different tellings. I
talked about this at GURT in February, but see, for example, chapter 11 of
Discourse, Consciousness, and Time, and my article Things we can learn from
repeated tellings of the same experience. Narrative Inquiry 8: 269-285
(1998). I'm tempted to suggest that linguists' preoccupation with sentences
comes above all from writing and grammatical traditions derived from
written language. To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet done.


From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Fri Apr 11 23:53:39 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:53:39 -0500
Subject: Sentences
In-Reply-To: <4293310154.1050057748@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <FRI.11.APR.2003.185339.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

I agree with Wally that focus on 'the sentence' is most likely the result
of being focused on written language. Of course it would be very good to
teach
children (or any people) about spoken language and its forms
and uses, especially for the purpose of building discourse skills
and repertoires.  It would be nice to see a practical school curriculum
that
puts discourse analysis into practice.

But while discourse linguists are working on how to get that
into the curriculum, I don't see any problem in using the
sentence as a starting point and fundamental
unit for teaching about language structure.

The primary aim of teaching about language structure
in schools is ultimately to teach writing. (It would be nice it
the aim were just 'knowledge about language', like a good linguist
would want, but it isn't.) It takes a long time to build up the skills
that lead to fluent and complex writing.

As a student (undergrad and grad)  I did some teaching and
tutoring of composition to well-schooled populations, with whom
I could work on information structure and presentation. Then
in my first teaching job, I was exposed to the attempts at writing
of a population far more innocent of any (writing-based) grammatical
knowledge.
(And these were by no means the most uneducated people in
the population at large.)

I consider it hopeless to try to teach students about
how to control information presentation in a discourse, when they have
no sense of how to put a written clause together and lose control quickly
when dealing with anything but the most simple structures. (For
one thing, many of the undergraduates I was teaching
had a lot of trouble with complement structures, and choosing
the right sorts of complements for the range of 'learned' verbs they
wanted to
use and had seen used in writing.)

So, I find Dick's basic curricular plan, centered around the sentence
(but
still looking at larger and smaller units),
to be quite appropriate for teaching about language structure.
I would put in lots of lexical/collocational work, because
learning the abstract grammatical structures doesn't do much
good if you don't know what words they 'belong' with. (I'm sure
he's already done that, being a Word Grammarian.) Written
English is nobody's native language and students just have to learn it.



On Friday, April 11, 2003, at 12:42  PM, Wallace Chafe wrote:

> This is one of the places where looking at how people actually talk
> makes a
> significant difference. There is, first of all, the difference between
> grammatical sentences and prosodic sentences. The latter certainly
> reflect
> something interesting about language processing. Beyond that, I've
> suggested in various places that sentence closure (of either kind) is
> often
> decided opportunistically on-line, while people are talking, and doesn't
> necessarily reflect the boundaries of cognitively relevant units,
> although
> it may. One kind of evidence I find particularly interesting appears in
> repeated verbalizations of (more or less) the same content, where
> sentence
> boundaries may be distributed differently in the different tellings. I
> talked about this at GURT in February, but see, for example, chapter 11
> of
> Discourse, Consciousness, and Time, and my article Things we can learn
> from
> repeated tellings of the same experience. Narrative Inquiry 8: 269-285
> (1998). I'm tempted to suggest that linguists' preoccupation with
> sentences
> comes above all from writing and grammatical traditions derived from
> written language. To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
> examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet
> done.
>


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 06:38:58 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:38:58 +0100
Subject: Sentences
In-Reply-To: <4293310154.1050057748@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.073858.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Wally says: "To show that I'm wrong about this, one would have to
examine spoken language more carefully than most people have as yet
done."

There are two things to say about this. First, there are a lot of us,
Wally, who work exclusively with non-written languages and find the
sentence quite a coherent unit and that the mismatch between
intonational sentences (what Pike called 'breath groups' 'etically' or
'contours' 'emically) and morphosyntactic sentences is not, in fact, all
that great. Your remark seems to ignore the existence of fieldwork.
Moreover, many of us don't have the slightest problem talking about
sentences in unwritten languages and have shown in many writings that
sentences are causally implicated in the understanding of the grammar as
a whole, certainly not merely artifacts of writing systems (Piraha, to
just take a random example, seems to offer intonational evidence in
favor of both paragraphs and sentences. On the other hand, every single
thing we study is in a sense merely an artifact of how we look at the
world, languages, grammars, people, etc.)

But second, I agree strongly with Wally that grammar-intonation
'matching' in the study of sentences (or other constructions) itself has
not been well-studied, by and large. One reason for this is the failure
of nearly every regional or intellectual tradition of linguistics to
accord intonation research and documentation equal status in grammatical
description with, say, the study of words, affixes, phrases, etc.

I have come to the conclusion over the years (unfortunately *after*
writing two grammars) that a grammar without a careful and detailed
study of intonation (i.e. involving study of the phonetics and phonology
of intonation, its relation to information structure, etc) is seriously
incomplete, likely seriously flawed. But to incorporate intonation into
grammar-writing and general analytical & theoretical linguistics
requires a model of intonation that is more useful for the replication
of experiments and checking of analyses than most attempts in the past
have been. Interestingly, here, as in many areas of language study,
computational-linguists seem to have done some of the most useful work,
though many non-hyphenated linguists have pioneered (Pike, Halliday,
Bolinger, Liberman, to name a few very random examples of people whose
influence on this has been around for decades). I strongly recommend
that people take a look at the work growing from the research of Janet
Pierrehumbert, Robert Ladd, Carlos Gussenhoven, and others of this line
(e.g. Mary Beckman, Julia Hirschberg, Candy Sidner, etc.).

I am hoping to begin this summer a multi-year project for the
documentation of intonation in Amazonian languages (something I should
have done years ago). I hope that similar studies can be launched in
other parts of the world.

There is a need in fact to add courses on intonation to the general
linguistics graduate and undergraduate curricula (along with more/some
training in instrumental phonetics). Regardless of one's
perspective/theoretical intonation, the failure of the average field
linguist to carefully study intonation is one of the most serious
omissions of our discipline's history. But it is hard work, and for many
of us, certainly for me, it requires serious intellectual re-tooling.

-- Dan


From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET  Sat Apr 12 12:40:48 2003
From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:40:48 -0500
Subject: second the motion
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.074048.0500.OCLS@MADISONCOUNTY.NET>

April 12, 2003

My enthusiastic (and weary) thanks to Dan Everett for his letter about the
need for more attention to intonation. He is, in my opinion, absolutely
right when he says: "Regardless of one's perspective/theoretical
intonation, the failure of the average field linguist to carefully study
intonation is one of the most serious omissions of our discipline's
history." I would only say that I wouldn't restrict it to the field
linguist; "the average linguist" would be preferable. Dan is also right
that it's hard work.

Final comment: I wish that almost everything written about the topic were
not so extraordinarily hard to _read_. It's as if there were a conspiracy
within linguistics to suppress the information.

Suzette


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 13:30:10 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:30:10 +0100
Subject: second the motion
In-Reply-To: <v02140b07babd70b4fcf1@[216.98.174.87]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.143010.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Hmmm. There is a typo in my sentence. It read: "Regardless of one's
perspective/theoretical intonation..." It should read, "Regardless of
one's perspective/theoretical orientation..."

I hope that was clear.

-- Dan


From brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 17:28:30 2003
From: brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM (bruce richman)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:28:30 +0000
Subject: practically, teaching sentence g no go
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.172830.0000.BRUCERICHMAN@HOTMAIL.COM>

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From brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 17:47:58 2003
From: brucerichman at HOTMAIL.COM (bruce richman)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:47:58 +0000
Subject: Revision: I was very rushed. practically,
 teaching sentence g no go
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.174758.0000.BRUCERICHMAN@HOTMAIL.COM>

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From chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU  Sat Apr 12 17:02:55 2003
From: chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 10:02:55 -0700
Subject: Sentences once more
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.100255.0700.CHAFE@LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU>

Dan Everett's message shows how easily a brief attempt at expressing
something that's really very complicated can lead to misunderstandings. I
hope this won't muddy things further. I didn't mean to say that spoken
sentences are always incoherent, or that there's always a mismatch between
syntax and prosody. In prototypical cases, I think, syntax and prosody do
match, and sentences do express what I would call coherent subtopics in the
flow of thought. I just wanted to point out that the cognitive status of
sentences can be unstable in two ways. First, opportunistic or premature
sentence closure, maybe followed by afterthoughts, is certainly something
that happens fairly often. Second, the subtopics sentences express may
change from one telling to the next. But I didn't mean to say that
sentences are irrelevant or unimportant in speaking. Among other things
they can show the subtopic structure of discourse, and they can show the
variety of ways speakers can decide when they've come to the end of
something, whatever it is. But we can't expect them necessarily to be doing
the same thing all the time. The question I wanted to raise is whether they
should be treated as THE basic unit of linguistic study, as seems for a
long time to have been the case.
By the way, I've never before been accused of ignoring the existence of
fieldwork. How strange!
Wally


From ardise at HOTMAIL.COM  Sat Apr 12 18:05:37 2003
From: ardise at HOTMAIL.COM (Ardis Eschenberg)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 18:05:37 +0000
Subject: a query about sentences
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.180537.0000.ARDISE@HOTMAIL.COM>

Hi!  I guess that all this discussion is basically centered around English
teaching, but I thought I'd add from a different perspective anyway.
I work with a team to teach a Native American language at the highschool
level to non-native speaker Native children.  The basic unit for us is the
verb.  The verb has the bulk of morphological operations (except
compounding) and exhibits the basic phonological processes (example:
devoicing with affixation) that also affect noun phrases.  In a way, this is
sentence level as well as a single verb can be a sentence.  Though I've not
attempted to teach too much intonation, post-verbal operators (clitics)
provide illocutionary force in this language anyway.  Also, sentences are
used to chunk information into digestible blocks for students to process.
When we transcribe, we use inflected verbs to provide stop points
(effectively these provide when we stop a sentence and break it down and
translate) to create a chunk to look into.  It helps prevent hassling over
what is a sentence.
So, perhaps, for different languages a different focus may be necessary.  Or
perhaps this is simply a difference in goals of programs.
-Ardis Eschenberg





>From: Dick Hudson <dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>
>Reply-To: Dick Hudson <dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK>
>To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
>Subject: Re: a query about sentences
>Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:20:50 +0100
>
>Dear Jo,
>Good question. Here in the UK, as you know, grammar has got quite well
>embedded in the school curriculum, especially in primary schools. One of
>the many achievements of the people who have introduced it as part of
>government strategy is to introduce it in the context of a very basic
>theoretical framework which deliberately takes the focus of sentence
>structure. It divides grammar into three levels:
>1. word-level grammar - word classes, inflectional and derivational
>morphology, 'word families' = lexical relations, spelling, some punctuation
>2. sentence-level grammar - phrases, clauses, sentence types, most of
>punctuation
>3. text-level grammar - cohesion, coherence, especially tense, person and
>information flow (not presented in those terms).
>In my opinion it's just as important to include word-level stuff as
>text-level; but the main point is that grammar is not just sentence
>structure, as some people assume.
>         To see how it pans out concretely, you might like to look at some
>training material (for year 7-9 teachers) that I've almost finished putting
>on my web site at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/KS3.htm, where
>the index follows this three-way division. This material is meant to follow
>on from the "Grammar for Writing" materials for earlier years (which you've
>seen); that followed the same three-way structure.
>         Hope this helps,
>                 Dick Hudson
>
>
>
>>Hi folks,
>>
>>I'm participating in a discussion on another list about what the best
>>starting point for instruction in grammar (in the context of writing or
>>composition instruction) in K-12 schools is; the current debate is about
>>whether the sentence is a good starting point or not.
>>
>>We've gotten into a discussion about the privileged status of the
>>sentence in both traditional grammar and generative syntax. One
>>participant has argued, for example, that the sentence is a basic-level
>>linguistic category (I guess THE basic-level linguistic category, since
>>he argues for starting there).
>>
>>My notion is that a focus on the sentence is too neglectful of the role
>>of sentences in texts, and especially of the role of text-level
>>imperatives in determining the structure of sentences.
>>
>>What are your opinions on the traditional privileging of the sentence
>>as the basic unit of language over larger or smaller units?
>>
>>Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
>>
>>Jo
>>
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>>One Grand Avenue  San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>>Tel. (805)-756-2184    Fax: (805)-756-6374 Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>>E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu   Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>Richard (= Dick) Hudson
>
>Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
>Gower Street, London WC1E  6BT.
>+44(0)20 7679 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
>http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm


_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 18:03:34 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:03:34 +0100
Subject: Sentences once more
In-Reply-To: <4294063438.1050141775@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.190334.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Wally,

Two things. First, I agree with every single syllable in your last
posting, even the punctuation. Second, I know very well that you are a
dedicated, accomplished fieldworker. I thought that the irony of you
appearing to say something that ignored fieldwork was obvious and so
wanted to draw attention to this. My remark was not intended as a
statement on your status as a fieldworker, but the consequences of a
single statement you made. Now that you have clarified it, the irony has
dissipated.

-- Dan


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sat Apr 12 18:16:10 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:16:10 +0100
Subject: a query about sentences
In-Reply-To: <F57qFJyKQdMVYXuhmKL0004557a@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.191610.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Ardis says: Though I've not attempted to teach too much intonation,
post-verbal operators (clitics) provide illocutionary force in this
language anyway.  Also, sentences are used to chunk information into
digestible blocks for students to process.

********************************

Well, we can't do everything, I agree. And intonation is not the
solution to all the world's problems. But intonation has a wider range
of functions than what Ardis seems to imply. Pike's pioneering work on
intonation was in fact largely for applied reasons, to develop material
for teaching English. His textbook from the 40s on the Intonation of
American English is still a useful text for helping English speakers
begin to 'get a handle' on intonation. Even in my classes in the UK
examples from that text have been extremely useful teaching tools. But
since these are phonology classes that I use it in, students are then
asked to analyze Pike's examples using different models of intonation,
another use of that textbook.

But even Pike's work seriously underestimates the complexities of
intonation. Many of us take it for granted that intonation is used to
mark questions, surprise, maybe a bit of contrast and focus, and that it
has a few paralinguistics functions. But it is much more complex than
that. Bolinger argued that one cannot even understand basic phonology
without a detailed understanding of intonation. And others have shown
over the years that syntactic studies which omit intonation, whether
generative or functional, in languages with illocutionary force-marking
clitics or not, are simply going to short-change themselves.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Sat Apr 12 19:56:47 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 15:56:47 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
Message-ID: <SAT.12.APR.2003.155647.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/11/03 7:56:25 PM, kemmer at RICE.EDU writes:
<<  Written English is nobody's native language and students just have to
learn it. >>

After reading TG's awesome post on phonemes, one might ask how the same
perspectives might apply to this subject.

Aside from that, let me make one small, modest observation regarding the list
exchange here on the sentence.

On a very basic level, why do students have to learn this "second language" -
written English?  I'm not questioning the value of education here.  Rather
I'm asking what the specific advantage of written English above spoken
English is?

Why would we think that a spoken language is a truer representation of
process than the written version of that language?  Is spoken language more
reflective, more effective in communication, a more accurate representation
of "cognitive" processes?  Why would that be?

Perhaps some speakers are less competent at expressing themselves in speech
than in writing, depending on proficiency.  Perhaps speech is a poor rough
approximation of what is going on in writing.  In the real world, writing is
what lawyers, scientists and business people consider the higher level
representation of the actual intent of the persons involved.  Whatever extra
meaning is carried by intonation, can't it be also captured by more precision
in writing?

One might also even take the position that the sentence is the fundamental
unit of meaning in written English.  Neither single words nor morphemes are
enough to convey meaning in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Does the written word often set the standard of grammaticalness (and prosody)
in spoken language?  If it does to any significant degree, then might one
conclude that the actual processes can be more accurately reflected in
written language?  And from that conclude that the sentence is somehow real
and fundamental in those processes?

One might also conclude from the exchange here that sentences and grammar are
somehow separate from what they are supposed to do.  Why teach students
grammar or triple layers of language structure?  So that they can express
themselves better?  To what result?  And if they never learn their grammar
well what is the consequence of that?

Is language nothing more than an exchange of cognitive states?

A young child yelled "There's a bee by your head!" at me the other day.  When
I dodged and ran from where I was standing, he burst into laughter.  There
was no bee.   The sentence was properly constructed for me to understand it,
but it was false.  The child's objective was different from the clear meaning
of the sentence he spoke.  The meaning of his speech was one thing.  His
purpose was something different.

If his sentence had not been properly structured, his ruse would not have
worked.  If he had merely said "A bee am there!", the probability that I
would have been fooled would have been less, but it still may have worked.
But it may be relevant to remember that if he had merely changed my cogntive
state and nothing else -- if I didn't react -- the joke would not have been
satisfying to him at all and he might not try it again on someone else.

The success of language use in this case was to make me jump.  Anything less
would have been just as ineffective whether or not his sentence was
constructed properly or not and whether or not my cognition was affected.

Consider if you will that what makes sentence construction important in many
cases is the visible effects it produces in the listener.  And that the
intermediate "cognitive" effect may not really be the one that the speaker is
concerned with, even if we might assume it is a necessary component to the
end result.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Sun Apr 13 02:49:08 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 14:49:08 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
In-Reply-To: <14a.1e1efb7c.2bc9c97f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.13.APR.2003.144908.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 13 April 2003 7:56 am, you wrote:
> In a message dated 4/11/03 7:56:25 PM, kemmer at RICE.EDU writes:
> <<  Written English is nobody's native language and students just have to
> learn it. >>
>
> After reading TG's awesome post on phonemes, one might ask how the same
> perspectives might apply to this subject.

I'm sure the issues are the same. Though I'm not sure the list wants us to go
there.

But you seem to have drawn a different conclusion from it than I did.

Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
"pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
performance?

Best,

Rob Freeman


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Sun Apr 13 06:27:38 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 02:27:38 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
Message-ID: <SUN.13.APR.2003.022738.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/12/03 11:01:31 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
<< Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
"pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
performance? >>

Let me ask how in the world one can conclude anything about "competence"
without observing "performance"?  We can only come to conclusions about the
effects of brain lesions on language "competence" by way of their effects on
language performance.  And no conclusions can be justified if they are not
manifest in performance.

And -- think about it -- when exactly is performance possible without
competence?  Can a subject without any language competence exhibit any
language performance?

How can these two concepts be seen as operational or theoretical opposites?
This seems to be the equivalent of making two legs the opposite of walking.
Or, for that matter, trying to understand the biological origins and
structure of human legs without understanding walking.

The contrast that was drawn was actually between "generative" and "emergent".
 From my individual point of view, it is the difference between stasis and
change.  On one hand you have the stability needed for language to work.
This is totally justified by the function of communication.  There must be a
predictability in the use of language or no communication will happen and the
use of language is pointless.  A listener must expect a speaker to follow
some kind of rules or the speech will be gibberish.

On the other hand, there is the need to postulate "a growth generator" --
something that makes emergence (in the classical sense) possible.  In
biology, just such a mechanism was needed to explain the origin of species.
The same kind of mechanism is needed to explain the origin of language and
languages.

To equate "emergent" with "performance" clearly comes up against the example
that TG gave.  A good deal of ordinary language performance is very
law-abiding.  BUT how it got to be that way can only be explained
naturalistically by a good deal of non-law abiding performance.  Or we'd all
be talking chimp talk today.

>From my point of view, it's plain that the "pragmatic middle" is not a
compromise, but a recognition that generative analysis captures a certain
facet of the phenomenon, but does not capture it all or explain its
existence.  And, from my point of view, this is a fundamental problem with
any pure structural analysis.

You may have a deep structural knowledge of a screwdriver or a human liver,
but still not be able to tell me what they "do". For all we know,
screwdrivers and livers could be structured quite differently and still work
quite well -- because structure is not the final determinant of whether
something works or not.  Where legs are not available, wheels might do a fine
job.  The same situation occurs with language.  Its structure does not answer
much more difficult questions - how did language arise and how does it work?

In fact, the contrast between the "generative" and "emergent" seem to be
basically functional, resulting in different structural needs.  This is
pretty much the nature of the "compromise" mentioned in the post discussed
here.  It is not a compromise in theory.  It is a compromise made by systems
that must continue to work while they continue to adapt.

In a message dated 4/6/03 5:08:43 PM, tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU writes:
<< We are dealing with biologically-based, adaptively- shaped complex
systems. Most often, such systems display various kinds of adaptive
compromises between conflicting--but equally valid--functional imperatives
(cf. Bates-MacWhinney's "competition model"). This is true all over biology,
cognition & language. For all populations, genetic variability (adaptive
flexibility) conflicts with genetic coherence (adaptive inheritance). In
phonology, articulatory speed (sound assimilation) conflicts with auditory
distinctness (sound dissimilation). In learning, innateness (relying on the
evolutionary experience of ancestors) conflicts with emergence (sensitivity
to changing context). Etc. etc.>>

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr 14 00:07:25 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:07:25 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences
In-Reply-To: <77.e83e132.2bca5d5a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.2003.120725.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

On Sunday 13 April 2003 6:27 pm, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/12/03 11:01:31 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
> << Is there anyone else who didn't agree with my characterization of TG's
> "pragmatic middle" argument as a confusion between Chomskian competence and
> performance? >>
>
> Let me ask how in the world one can conclude anything about "competence"
> without observing "performance"?

No debate on concluding competence without observing performance.

> And -- think about it -- when exactly is performance possible without
> competence?  Can a subject without any language competence exhibit any
> language performance?

Right, the two occur together.

> How can these two concepts be seen as operational or theoretical opposites?
> This seems to be the equivalent of making two legs the opposite of walking.
> Or, for that matter, trying to understand the biological origins and
> structure of human legs without understanding walking.

Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system (emergent
generalization) specifying performance. Why indeed does he compare them to
performance. Clearly any performance will have a competence (100%), and any
competence will relate to some performance (100%).

Now it is true that while any set of rules describing competence should be
100% true, they need not be 100% complete. But let alone 90% of all
sentences, if Tom can show me a rule describing _all_ the structure of any
one sentence I would like to see it. The 90% figure would just be the
percentage of sentences for which any single consistent system of rules
describes _some_ of the structure.

We don't need to find a "pragmatic middle" between generative grammar rules
and emergent generalization, one is a model for the competence of language,
the other for its performance. They are just different things.

To be fair to Tom it is a common confusion, but he should not use it to
dismiss emergent generalization as the only candidate for a model of language
performance.

> The contrast that was drawn was actually between "generative" and
> "emergent". From my individual point of view, it is the difference between
> stasis and change.

This might be the core source of confusion. I keep getting this perspective
that sees emergence (what I call emergent generalization) only as an
explanation for how general categories change. I see it as an explanation for
the language performance underlying the perception of categories as well.

This is something I am trying to clear up.

> From my point of view, it's plain that the "pragmatic middle" is not a
> compromise, but a recognition that generative analysis captures a certain
> facet of the phenomenon, but does not capture it all or explain its
> existence.

I'll accept that. Though I can't help feeling that calling theoretical
duality a "pragmatic middle" is doing something of a violence to the language.

Anyway, that still leaves us looking for a model which "explains its
existence". I think emergent generalization is such a model.

-Rob


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Mon Apr 14 05:23:53 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 01:23:53 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences2
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.2003.012353.EDT.>

I WROTE:
In a message dated 4/13/03 8:22:39 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
<< Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system (emergent
generalization) specifying performance.  >>

I'll let Prof Givon respond as and if he chooses.  But I think if you take a
close look, you'll see you are having your cake and eating it too.  If one
admits the generative model cannot exclude performance, it is hard to see why
one would turn around and use performance in distinction to a generative
model.

The comparison TG made is valid precisely because that the distinction
between competence and performance is artificial and non-operational.  And
there's nothing in the generative model that prevents it being a model for
performance.

Generative grammar rules MUST describe performance, no matter what the
theoretical positioning.  There is no such thing as "rules describing
competence" that exclude performance.  Because "competence" refers to nothing
else than the capabilities and constraints on performance.  It has no meaning
otherwise.  The only contact with reality generative grammar has is in its
relation to performance.  If it has nothing to say about performance, it has
nothing to say.

It is preposterous to say a model that states a human is "competent" to jump
20 feet has nothing to do with a model "specifying" that a human can
"perform" a 20 foot jump.  And so there is no reason to distinguish models on
that basis.

Since generative grammar must be about performance, the real question is what
kind of performance it does refer to.

A completely different problem is confusing "emergence" with "performance".
They are not congruent.  Once again, "emergence" classically is the situation
where a new combination is greater than the sum of its parts.  No matter how
much performance may involve new, emergent elements, it does not need to.  In
the inherently ruled phenomenon of language, there is obviously an ubiquitous
element that cannot be called emergent.  In fact, generative grammar can be
seen as a model describing the non-emergence element of language.

Once again, the glaring problem I think you've run into here is the big blind
spot caused by structural analysis.  The difference between the "generative"
and "emergent" elements of language appear to reflect two different functions
of language structure.  Unless one separates these functions, the validity of
one element always seems to lose out in theory to the other.  Both elements
are functionally valid and language structure may be seen as at best a
compromise between the two.

And, on second thought, it is interesting to contrast "competence" versus
"performance" in an operational, synchronic way.  We have the hypothetical
language "competence" of non-human primates with its apparent constraints on
language structure.  Then we have, a little later on the evolutionary tree,
human language performance that "out-performs" that earlier competence.  Does
this mean the generative model is wrong from an evolutionary perspective?  Of
course not.  What it tells us is that human linguistic competence --
generative grammar -- is not a static event, but an evolving one.  And that
suggests understanding how that evolution occurred is key to understanding
human language.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Mon Apr 14 23:57:10 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:57:10 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences2
In-Reply-To: <7e.37be5967.2bcb9fe9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.2003.115710.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Steve,

On Monday 14 April 2003 5:23 pm, you wrote:
> In a message dated 4/13/03 8:22:39 PM, rjfreeman at email.com writes:
> << Exactly, that is why I say Tom was confused. He was opposing these two
> different things as if they conflicted. Generative grammar rules are rules
> describing competence. Why then does he compare them with a system
> (emergent generalization) specifying performance.  >>
>
> I'll let Prof Givon respond as and if he chooses.  But I think if you take
> a close look, you'll see you are having your cake and eating it too.  If
> one admits the generative model cannot exclude performance, it is hard to
> see why one would turn around and use performance in distinction to a
> generative model.

I think it was a describes/explains thing. As I understand it the generative
model described performance without ever pretending to explain it. That's how
I understand the distinction, anyway.

There needs to be a performance for it to be described, but the description
is not the same as the thing itself.

An analogy is a sketch, which describes an object, but nobody should mistake
it for the real thing.

Another analogy I like is an animation, where you can see movement, but the
movement doesn't exist.

> The comparison TG made is valid precisely because that the distinction
> between competence and performance is artificial and non-operational.  And
> there's nothing in the generative model that prevents it being a model for
> performance.

Then it would be invalid precisely because there is a distinction. That's a
core tenet of generativism, isn't it?

In latter years people tried to build generatively motivated models of
language performance. But such rule-based performance models have proved
unsuccessful.

As I said, far from 90% I would be surprised if Tom can produce a _single_
sentence which is comprehensively described by grammar rules. 90% is more
like the number which can be _partially_ described by any single consistent
set.

Papers like the classic by Pawley and Syder give a good discussion of this
failure of rules to completely describe (let alone explain) performance.

> Generative grammar rules MUST describe performance, no matter what the
> theoretical positioning.  There is no such thing as "rules describing
> competence" that exclude performance.  Because "competence" refers to
> nothing else than the capabilities and constraints on performance.  It has
> no meaning otherwise.  The only contact with reality generative grammar has
> is in its relation to performance.  If it has nothing to say about
> performance, it has nothing to say.

Yes, but description need not be complete, and it need not explain.

> It is preposterous to say a model that states a human is "competent" to
> jump 20 feet has nothing to do with a model "specifying" that a human can
> "perform" a 20 foot jump.  And so there is no reason to distinguish models
> on that basis.

But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
wheels might do a fine job." You presented that as an example of the
distinction between function and form, but I think it illustrates the
distinction between competency and system equally well.

Once again the animation analogy is a favourite of mine. The system moves,
but the movement of the system is lateral to the perceived movement.

For an example of how description is different from system which I feel has
particular relevance for language, consider a system which consists of a
group of people, say 10 sportsmen and 5 academics. Now lets say that this
group also contains 7 men and 8 women. What is the true nature of this
system, man/woman or sportsman/academic? Both perspectives describe a
competency of the system (to be split into two), but in general both
competencies will not apply at the same time. Organize the system according
to profession and you will disorganize it w.r.t. gender, and vice versa.

The classes are competencies of the system (spit into man/woman or
sportsman/academic) but the nature of the system is a bunch of individuals
and it is irreducibly to be completely modelled only as such.

If you try to model such a system based on one competency or another (let
there be two classes of people X and Y) you will always be chasing your tail.

Description is different from system.

> A completely different problem is confusing "emergence" with "performance".
> They are not congruent.  Once again, "emergence" classically is the
> situation where a new combination is greater than the sum of its parts.  No
> matter how much performance may involve new, emergent elements, it does not
> need to.

It does not need to, but it can, and (under communicative and social pressure
I'm sure) it does. And it can specify those new elements down to the level of
performance. Therefore it can be seen as a performance model.

Though I am not sure if it is seen so classically. I am mostly interested in
emergent paradigmatic categories, not emergent syntagmatic elements, and not
even emergent paradigmatic elements, but categories, like those traditionally
called noun and verb. Such emergent categories allow you to specify syntax
very exactly, and flexibly.

> In the inherently ruled phenomenon of language, there is
> obviously an ubiquitous element that cannot be called emergent.  In fact,
> generative grammar can be seen as a model describing the non-emergence
> element of language.

Yes, I agree with that. I don't think the actual rules of generative grammars
tell us much, though, the forms that are described; only the parameters they
have in common, the types of forms, their connectedness or "topology", if you
like.

I think it is probably just the fact that they specify generalities in terms
of context free substitution which is important.

Identifying that "connectedness" is to my mind a concrete contribution of
generativism. It indicates the "principles and parameters" which need to
channel our model of language, without saying anything about the engine, the
driving force of that model, which I think is the urge to generalize.

> Once again, the glaring problem I think you've run into here is the big
> blind spot caused by structural analysis.  The difference between the
> "generative" and "emergent" elements of language appear to reflect two
> different functions of language structure.  Unless one separates these
> functions, the validity of one element always seems to lose out in theory
> to the other.  Both elements are functionally valid and language structure
> may be seen as at best a compromise between the two.

I don't think this has anything to do with the functional/structural
distinction. Functionalism is a shoe in for this theory though, because it
gives contrast, the systemic network, priority over category. So the
underlying theory of Functionalism says the same thing as I am saying, that
category is a description, but is not fundamental.

I have a hunch the the contrasts of a systemic network are just the flip side
of the generalization which I see as the engine of emergent structure. It was
this parallel which first got me interested in Functionalism.

> And, on second thought, it is interesting to contrast "competence" versus
> "performance" in an operational, synchronic way.  We have the hypothetical
> language "competence" of non-human primates with its apparent constraints
> on language structure.  Then we have, a little later on the evolutionary
> tree, human language performance that "out-performs" that earlier
> competence.  Does this mean the generative model is wrong from an
> evolutionary perspective?  Of course not.  What it tells us is that human
> linguistic competence -- generative grammar -- is not a static event, but
> an evolving one.  And that suggests understanding how that evolution
> occurred is key to understanding human language.

I don't think generative grammar rules themselves are a product of biological
evolution, though perhaps their "context free connectedness" is. I'm sure the
actual forms of language are the natural result, and a reflection, of the
human tendency to find order in the world. Just as Functionalism says
language is an expression of our tendency to find meaning in contrast. The
search for order in the case of language is perhaps parameterized according
to "substitution independently of context" (CFG). There is a bunch of vocal
specific stuff, there is greater complexity in the order found by humans, but
other than that I think the parameters on the generalizations made (or
alternatively the contrasts) is the only inherited component.

That's just a hypothesis, of course.

-Rob


From Salinas17 at AOL.COM  Tue Apr 15 06:02:55 2003
From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 02:02:55 EDT
Subject: The Reality of Sentences3
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.2003.020255.EDT.>

In a message dated 4/14/03 8:09:49 PM, rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM writes:
<< But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
wheels might do a fine job.">>

That was definitely not the point.  The point was that there may be more than
one system -- more precisely structure -- that achieves the same function.
But neither my legs or wheels will get me to the moon.  In this world, there
is a high degree of dependency between structure and function.  That is why
both birds and airplanes have wings.  Some functions are served by a very
limited choice of structural solutions.

In fact, ideally, what a structure "is" should be precisely equivalent to
what it "does." In the case of a Swiss Army knife, the structure is
specifically dictated by all the things that Swiss Army knives are supposed
to do.  In the case of language, structure should ideally be what structure
does.  When there is a discrepency between what WE THINK language does and
WHAT WE THINK the structure of language is, it suggests something is missing.
 Because language is inherently structured, the first place to look for the
problem is in our understanding of the function of language -- what does
language do?

<< You presented that as an example of the distinction between function and
form, but I think it illustrates the distinction between competency and
system equally well. >>

Language follows rules.  If it didn't, it would be gibberish and have no
function.  You cannot understand legs without understanding walking.  And you
cannot understand walking without understanding legs.

When an archaeologist finds a tool whose purpose is unknown, his only chance
at identifying its function is hypothesizing some use from its structure.
And then to try it out and see if that hypothesis works.

There's no question that language is rule governed.  There is no question
that the human ability to generate those rules is in some ways universal.  So
a big question becomes, if this is the structure, what forces produced that
structure?  From a naturalistic point of view, we can't assume that it
dropped out of heaven.  So we need to be able to explain that structure in
terms of the functions it served or serves.  (And I don't mean something like
"human language allowed us to cooperate" - ants cooperate.  The intricacy of
language structure presents the most serious problem to a functional
analysis.  Why is  grammar effective in the operation of human language?
What contingencies shaped the parts?)

I think that some linguists have been a bit guilty of assuming that we
understand language's functions well enough to justify looking at structure
alone.  But that does not make their observations about structure wrong.  It
simply affects the theoretical conclusions that are drawn from those
observations.

<<I'm sure the actual forms of language are the natural result, and a
reflection, of the human tendency to find order in the world.>>

If finding order in the world was all it was about, then there would be no
need for speech.  We could all do it on our own.  I'm pretty sure that human
language had a lot more to do with finding dinner than with finding order.
And that it was the world that imposed its "order" on language, not the other
way around.

<<Just as Functionalism says language is an expression of our tendency to
find meaning in contrast.>>

A more proper functional analysis says the meaning of a word is the effect it
has.  Contrast without consequence has no meaning.

Steve Long


From rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM  Wed Apr 16 03:01:27 2003
From: rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM (Rob Freeman)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 15:01:27 +1200
Subject: The Reality of Sentences3
In-Reply-To: <66.30e08953.2bccfa8f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.2003.150127.1200.RJFREEMAN@EMAIL.COM>

Steve,

I think you are taking your adherence to functional orthodoxy a little far
here. Function may be a key determinant of language, but it is not the only
thing in the world.

I almost feel like joining Tom Givon and running from the 100%'ers.

In a final attempt to explain my position let me push the movie analogy and
say that while I don't believe movies should be best described as some kind
of "pragmatic middle" between puppet and picture, I also don't think they can
be completely explained by our functional need to be entertained.

However much an alien might never fully understand movies without
understanding the human need to be entertained.

No more will language be completely explained by the human need to eat.

To tie up, in this analogy your assertion that "language follows rules",
"there's no question that language is rule governed" would be equivalent to
saying "movies have movement, there is no question they contain movement". My
original assertion that "there is no grammar" might be something like "the
pictures in movies don't move". I leave it to you to ascertain which is true,
and I'll leave it to Tom to tell us what a mechanism for a movie which
consisted of a "pragmatic middle" between moving puppets and static pictures
might be.

I'll stick with my assertion that a model of movies needs to be fundamentally
based on photography, and that objects in the pictures don't move, but that
the illusion of movement is continually being created by successions of new
combinations of photographs. Similarly grammar rules don't exist, but the
illusion of grammar rules is continually being created by successions of new
combinations of examples of language use.

Maybe I'll be branded as too narrowly, 100% a "cameraman", but I don't see
us "making movies" any other way.

Best,

Rob

On Tuesday 15 April 2003 6:02 pm, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/14/03 8:09:49 PM, rjfreeman at EMAIL.COM writes:
> << But your own point in your last message was that what a system can do is
> largely independent of what a system is. "Where legs are not available,
> wheels might do a fine job.">>
>
> That was definitely not the point.  The point was that there may be more
> than one system -- more precisely structure -- that achieves the same
> function. But neither my legs or wheels will get me to the moon.  In this
> world, there is a high degree of dependency between structure and function.
>  That is why both birds and airplanes have wings.  Some functions are
> served by a very limited choice of structural solutions.
>
> In fact, ideally, what a structure "is" should be precisely equivalent to
> what it "does." In the case of a Swiss Army knife, the structure is
> specifically dictated by all the things that Swiss Army knives are supposed
> to do.  In the case of language, structure should ideally be what structure
> does.  When there is a discrepency between what WE THINK language does and
> WHAT WE THINK the structure of language is, it suggests something is
> missing. Because language is inherently structured, the first place to look
> for the problem is in our understanding of the function of language -- what
> does language do?
>
> << You presented that as an example of the distinction between function and
> form, but I think it illustrates the distinction between competency and
> system equally well. >>
>
> Language follows rules.  If it didn't, it would be gibberish and have no
> function.  You cannot understand legs without understanding walking.  And
> you cannot understand walking without understanding legs.
>
> When an archaeologist finds a tool whose purpose is unknown, his only
> chance at identifying its function is hypothesizing some use from its
> structure. And then to try it out and see if that hypothesis works.
>
> There's no question that language is rule governed.  There is no question
> that the human ability to generate those rules is in some ways universal.
> So a big question becomes, if this is the structure, what forces produced
> that structure?  From a naturalistic point of view, we can't assume that it
> dropped out of heaven.  So we need to be able to explain that structure in
> terms of the functions it served or serves.  (And I don't mean something
> like "human language allowed us to cooperate" - ants cooperate.  The
> intricacy of language structure presents the most serious problem to a
> functional analysis.  Why is  grammar effective in the operation of human
> language? What contingencies shaped the parts?)
>
> I think that some linguists have been a bit guilty of assuming that we
> understand language's functions well enough to justify looking at structure
> alone.  But that does not make their observations about structure wrong.
> It simply affects the theoretical conclusions that are drawn from those
> observations.
>
> <<I'm sure the actual forms of language are the natural result, and a
> reflection, of the human tendency to find order in the world.>>
>
> If finding order in the world was all it was about, then there would be no
> need for speech.  We could all do it on our own.  I'm pretty sure that
> human language had a lot more to do with finding dinner than with finding
> order. And that it was the world that imposed its "order" on language, not
> the other way around.
>
> <<Just as Functionalism says language is an expression of our tendency to
> find meaning in contrast.>>
>
> A more proper functional analysis says the meaning of a word is the effect
> it has.  Contrast without consequence has no meaning.
>
> Steve Long


From l.lagerwerf at scw.vu.nl  Wed Apr 16 10:22:11 2003
From: l.lagerwerf at scw.vu.nl (Luuk Lagerwerf)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 12:22:11 +0200
Subject: Reminder May,
 1st: deadline Multidisciplinary Approaches to Discourse,
 October 22-25, 2003
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.2003.122211.0200.>

For those interested in the workshop MAD'03
(with apologies for those who are not),

In this email, we want to remind you of the deadline for submitting papers:
May 1st, 2003.

For more information and call for papers, please visit:

 http://home.scw.vu.nl/~lagerwerf/Mad03Web/index.htm

More information about registration and prices is now available.

Further schedule:
Deadline (full papers): May 1st, 2003
Notice of acceptance: July 1st, 2003
Deliverance final papers: August 1st, 2003

Kind regards,

Luuk Lagerwerf.


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 14:33:46 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 15:33:46 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.153346.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> Wari', Amazonian, shows agreement and syntax typical of what Dryer
>> (1986) has treated as obligatorily anti-dative or Van Valin & La
>> Polla (1997, 270ff) treat as a 'primary-object pattern'. That is, in
>> simple transitive clauses the AGENT and PATIENT both trigger
>> agreement on the verb. In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the
>> RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs agreement on the verb. The
>> PATIENT argument in these clauses appears as the object of a
>> preposition (Wari' is V-IO-O-S). Pronouns in Wari' may not bear the
>> RECIPIENT role. My question is this: Are there other languages like
>> this? Some hypothetical examples of what I mean are:
>>
>> (1) a. I hit him.
>>      b. Bill hit me.
>>      c. Mary saw you.
>>
>> In 1a-c, the verb would agree in Wari' with both subject/agent and
>> object/patient, regardless of whether these are NPs or pronouns -
>> they may also be zero, but the verb will still show agreement.
>>
>> (2) a. I gave Mary of the book. (I gave the book to Mary) - VERB
>> agrees with 'Mary' and 'I'.
>>      b. *I gave her of the book. (Even though the verb agreement will
>> be for 1 person singular and 3 singular feminine)
>>
>>
>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>>
>> -- Dan
>>


********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 14:49:53 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 15:49:53 +0100
Subject: examples of Wari'
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.154953.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Folks,

I should have included these before, since it seems to make it harder
to follow without actually including some examples ('duh')

(1)     *Mi     nam             con             hwam    cam     cwa'    tarama'.
                na-m
give    3srp/p-3sf      prep:3sm        fish    f       this:m/f        man

'The man gave her the fish.'

(2)     Mi      nam             con             hwam    Hatem   tarama'.
                na-m
give    3srp/p-3sf      prep:3sm        fish    f:name  man

'The man gave Hatem the fish.'

(3)     Maqui'  na      co      ma'.
        come    3s:rp/p m       that:prox:hearer

        'He came.' (lit: 'That masculine being/thing near you came.')

(4)     Querec  nam             cam ma'         Xijam.
                na-m
        see     3sr:p/p-3sf     f that:prox:hearer      m:name.

        'Xijam saw her.' (lit: 'Xijam saw that woman/girl.')


Ex. (1) is ungrammatical. The pronoun cannot reference RECIPIENT/GOAL
(the pronominal paradigm is 100% periphrastic, see Everett in progress
for more details). Example (2) is fine, with a proper name instead of a
pronoun. Example (3) is fine, with pronoun as subject, as is (4) with
pronoun as object. No other word orders are possible.

Again, I am not asking for analysis, but whether this pattern rings any
bells as it were - does anyone know of a similar case? No doubt it will
be obvious and reveal my astounding ignorance, but I am willing to
tolerate the humiliation if I get a good answer.

Dan



********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dparvaz at UNM.EDU  Wed Apr 23 15:21:14 2003
From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (dparvaz at UNM.EDU)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 09:21:14 -0600
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.092114.0600.>

> In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs
> agreement on the verb.
>
> [much snippage]
>
> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?

In the sign languages that I work in -- American Sign Language (ASL) and the Sign
Language of Jordan -- those verbs which do have Subject/Object agreement, AND are
showing a kind of ditransitive relation (like the prototype 'give') typically agree with
AGENT and RECIPIENT/GOAL. These verbs typically move in space between their
arguments.

So, in ASL a verb like HIT, a citation form of which looks something like...

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/H/W1634.htm

... (QuickTime required) starts with the "hitter" and moves to the "hittee" --
definitely moving between AGENT and PATIENT. However, in the case of GIVE...

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/G/W1443.htm

... the agreement is as you stated in your question.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Dan.


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 15:28:04 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 16:28:04 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <1051111274.3ea6af6a9dedf@webmail.unm.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.162804.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

Thanks. But it wasn't the agreement pattern that I meant to be asking
about. That pattern is well-established in work by Dryer, Van Valin &
LaPolla, and many others. In RRG it even has a name, Primary Object
agreement. But my question had to do with the prohibition of pronouns
serving as RECIPIENTS/GOALS or indirect objects (the choice between GF
labels vs. semantic role labels depends on your favorite analysis of
dative shift/anti-dative).

-- Dan



On Wednesday, April 23, 2003, at 04:21  pm, dparvaz at UNM.EDU wrote:

>> In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the RECIPIENT/GOAL which
>> triggers/governs
>> agreement on the verb.
>>
>> [much snippage]
>>
>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>
> In the sign languages that I work in -- American Sign Language (ASL)
> and the Sign
> Language of Jordan -- those verbs which do have Subject/Object
> agreement, AND are
> showing a kind of ditransitive relation (like the prototype 'give')
> typically agree with
> AGENT and RECIPIENT/GOAL. These verbs typically move in space between
> their
> arguments.
>
> So, in ASL a verb like HIT, a citation form of which looks something
> like...
>
> http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/H/W1634.htm
>
> ... (QuickTime required) starts with the "hitter" and moves to the
> "hittee" --
> definitely moving between AGENT and PATIENT. However, in the case of
> GIVE...
>
> http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/G/W1443.htm
>
> ... the agreement is as you stated in your question.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan.
>
>
********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf


From dryer at BUFFALO.EDU  Wed Apr 23 17:00:27 2003
From: dryer at BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew Dryer)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:00:27 -0400
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <9783A6B0-7598-11D7-9C7A-000393D73F38@man.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.130027.0400.>

Contrary to what Dan Everett says, the approach if my 1986 paper (Primary
objects, secondary objects, and antidative) would not analyse Wari' as a
language with obligatory antidative.  In fact, Wari' is exactly the sort of
language I proposed the notions of primary object and secondary object for.


Although I still believe that the notions of primary object and secondary
object are a useful way of viewing languages like Wari', I no longer think
the notion of antidative is a useful notion for describing languages like
English where we find two constructions for semantically ditransitive
clauses.  Rather, the two constructions should simply be analysed as
alternative syntactic frames, not related by rule.  However, even in the
framework of my 1986 paper, I would not analyse any language as having an
obligatory antidative, since one of the primary purposes of the notions of
primary and secondary object is to provide a way to avoid describing
languages like Wari' as involving an obligatory dative rule, a popular
approach to such languages both within relational grammar and outside
relational grammar (e.g. in the work of Givon).

I also would argue that Dan's use of the term 'patient' is possibly
Eurocentric.  He applies this term both to the single object in
monotransitive clauses ('I hit HIM') and to the thing other than the
recipient in ditransitive clauses ('I gave Mary THE BOOK').  This makes it
look like there is a mismatch between semantic roles and object categories
in a language with a primary object - secondary object distinction.  While
I think that the direct object - indirect object distinction aligns more
closely with semantic roles than the primary object - secondary object
distinction, I think one should be careful about using semantic labels like
'patient' in this way.  It is a bit like saying that an ergative language
uses the ergative case for transitive agents and the absolutive case for
intransitive agents.

Finally, it isn't clear to me what Dan is asking.  When he says that the
recipient cannot be a pronoun, does he mean that it cannot be an
independent pronoun, but must be realized entirely by the verb morphology?
There are certainly languages where this is true, not only for recipients,
but also for subjects and/or objects.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 3:33 PM +0100 Dan Everett
<dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK> wrote:

>>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> Wari', Amazonian, shows agreement and syntax typical of what Dryer
>>> (1986) has treated as obligatorily anti-dative or Van Valin & La
>>> Polla (1997, 270ff) treat as a 'primary-object pattern'. That is, in
>>> simple transitive clauses the AGENT and PATIENT both trigger
>>> agreement on the verb. In di-transitive clauses, however, it is the
>>> RECIPIENT/GOAL which triggers/governs agreement on the verb. The
>>> PATIENT argument in these clauses appears as the object of a
>>> preposition (Wari' is V-IO-O-S). Pronouns in Wari' may not bear the
>>> RECIPIENT role. My question is this: Are there other languages like
>>> this? Some hypothetical examples of what I mean are:
>>>
>>> (1) a. I hit him.
>>>      b. Bill hit me.
>>>      c. Mary saw you.
>>>
>>> In 1a-c, the verb would agree in Wari' with both subject/agent and
>>> object/patient, regardless of whether these are NPs or pronouns -
>>> they may also be zero, but the verb will still show agreement.
>>>
>>> (2) a. I gave Mary of the book. (I gave the book to Mary) - VERB
>>> agrees with 'Mary' and 'I'.
>>>      b. *I gave her of the book. (Even though the verb agreement will
>>> be for 1 person singular and 3 singular feminine)
>>>
>>>
>>> Again, does anyone know of other languages with this pattern?
>>>
>>> -- Dan
>>>
>
>
> ********************
> Daniel L. Everett
> Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Manchester
> Manchester, UK
> M13 9PL
> Phone: 44-161-275-3158
> Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
> http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
> 'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf
>
>
>


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Wed Apr 23 18:19:08 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 12:19:08 -0600
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <562095.1051102827@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.121908.0600.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean "the
relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there is no
relationship between them", or something else?

I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do, but
not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some non-conscious
cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.

I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
what I'm trying to clarify.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 11:00 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

<snip>

Although I still believe that the notions of primary object and secondary
object are a useful way of viewing languages like Wari', I no longer think
the notion of antidative is a useful notion for describing languages like
English where we find two constructions for semantically ditransitive
clauses.  Rather, the two constructions should simply be analysed as
alternative syntactic frames, not related by rule.

<snap>
---
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From dryer at BUFFALO.EDU  Wed Apr 23 18:35:19 2003
From: dryer at BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew Dryer)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 14:35:19 -0400
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNOENBDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.143519.0400.>

In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy


From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Wed Apr 23 18:50:13 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 19:50:13 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <562095.1051102827@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.23.APR.2003.195013.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 6:00 PM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


Contrary to what Dan Everett says, the approach if my 1986 paper
(Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative) would not analyse
Wari' as a language with obligatory antidative.  In fact, Wari' is
exactly the sort of language I proposed the notions of primary object
and secondary object for.


>Right, Matthew. I should have avoided reference to your work since this
is not what the posting was about. I was simply trying to get your
reference in. I should have left it vague. Your paper doesn't really
enter into my current research at all, I was just trying to get the
appropriate references. So the rest of your posting, except for what is
below is a red-herring, that I introduced, so apologies.


Finally, it isn't clear to me what Dan is asking.  When he says that the
recipient cannot be a pronoun, does he mean that it cannot be an
independent pronoun, but must be realized entirely by the verb
morphology? There are certainly languages where this is true, not only
for recipients, but also for subjects and/or objects.

> You got it, Matthew. This is what I am asking. Romance languages often
restrict pronouns to subject position, for example, using clitics
elsewhere. Wari' only allows verb morphology or NPs/proper names for the
indirect object/Recipient. But you didn't give an example of a language
that has exactly the Wari' restriction. Do you have one?

Dan


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Thu Apr 24 15:57:54 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:57:54 -0500
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <904745.1051108519@dryer.ss.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.105754.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and "Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc. and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb (say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's a
sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU  Thu Apr 24 17:38:35 2003
From: ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Ellen F. Prince)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 13:38:35 EDT
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns.
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.133835.EDT.ELLEN@CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU>

Kindly spare the wild claims for me. Of course, you can always
donate the LSA something, as penance.

:-) :-) :-)

Ellen Prince



------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:57:54 -0500
From:    David Tuggy <david_tuggy at SIL.ORG>
To:      FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and "Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc. and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb (say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's a
sure thing.

Not?

- --David Tuggy

- -----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary" is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

- --On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
- ---
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------- End of Forwarded Message


From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Fri Apr 25 00:15:46 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:15:46 -0500
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <001001c30a8c$b9c6ab50$44d2df80@Vaio>
Message-ID: <THU.24.APR.2003.191546.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or not)
is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not fully
bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so forth. I
guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of this kind
can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable definitions by which it
can. I was maintaining that I think there are systematic relationships of
that non-absolute sort which hold between the two types of constructions,
and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me the
whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something not
clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could say
"mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn and I'll
fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not causing a
change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are there.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Payne [mailto:tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:10 PM
To: 'David Tuggy'
Subject: RE: Primary object languages & pronouns


Dear David

  If the verb does not involve motion (transfer of an object from agent
to recipient), then the oblique object is possible, but not the shifted
version:

Mow the lawn for me.
??Mow me the lawn.

 What you say is correct: If "falp" is a non-motional change of state
verb, and "Falp me that blivit" is possible, then "Falp that blivit for
me" is also possible, but not necessarily the other way around. In order
to be shifted, the dative thing must be construable as a recipient, even
if it is also (and maybe basically) a beneficiary. Non-transfer verbs
effectively *become* transfer verbs when put into a dative shift
construction.

He blew the whistle for me.
He blew me the whistle.

The second one, it seems to me, means "transferred the whistle to me by
means of blowing," rather than being a paraphrase of the first one.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and
"Give
that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to me", etc.
and
able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist
in
its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types of
structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that
if a
new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I
can
say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and
convey
very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion verb
(say
"falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's
a
sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary"
is
derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the
secondary
object to primary object and demotes the primary object to chomeur.  I
am
skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of a
systematic relationship between the two syntactic frames in English, but
if
they are, the awareness is akin to awareness of other nonproductive
patterns, and unlike the awareness of more productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean
> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or
"there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you
do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive
correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Fri Apr 25 05:29:32 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 06:29:32 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNKEOEDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.25.APR.2003.062932.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Payne [mailto:tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:10 PM
To: 'David Tuggy'
Subject: RE: Primary object languages & pronouns


Dear David

  If the verb does not involve motion (transfer of an object from agent
to recipient), then the oblique object is possible, but not the shifted
version:

Mow the lawn for me.
??Mow me the lawn.

 What you say is correct: If "falp" is a non-motional change of state
verb, and "Falp me that blivit" is possible, then "Falp that blivit for
me" is also possible, but not necessarily the other way around. In order
to be shifted, the dative thing must be construable as a recipient, even
if it is also (and maybe basically) a beneficiary. Non-transfer verbs
effectively *become* transfer verbs when put into a dative shift
construction.

He blew the whistle for me.
He blew me the whistle.

The second one, it seems to me, means "transferred the whistle to me by
means of blowing," rather than being a paraphrase of the first one.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and
"Give that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to
me", etc. and able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist
in its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types
of structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that
if a new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I
can say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and
convey very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion
verb (say "falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most
probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's
a sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary"
is derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the
secondary object to primary object and demotes the primary object to
chomeur.  I am skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or
unconsciously, of a systematic relationship between the two syntactic
frames in English, but if they are, the awareness is akin to awareness
of other nonproductive patterns, and unlike the awareness of more
productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean

> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or
"there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you
do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive
correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG  Sat Apr 26 23:18:10 2003
From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy)
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 18:18:10 -0500
Subject: FW: Primary object languages & pronouns
Message-ID: <SAT.26.APR.2003.181810.0500.DAVIDTUGGY@SIL.ORG>

I would rather you had said "dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially ... me in English, may not be typical of all such structures",
and "different patterns will show up if you examine examples using names or
NPs". The examples with "me" or other pronouns are perfectly good data too,
and I see no call for a value judgment such that some kinds are deemed
"better" than others.

But I agree they do not behave in every way exactly alike. (It underscores
once more the subtlety of these constructions and thus of the interrelations
between them.) It would indeed be much harder to use a proper name or
(other) NP in "Eat me some hallacas". An explanation that helps me
understand why (though not one that would let me predict that no language
could do it differently) is that in "Eat me some hallacas" the benefit that
will accrue to the dative from the accomplishment of the process is so
subjective as to be difficult to perceive in the case of anyone other than
oneself. (Benefit of that or a similar sort is probably to be taken as
definitional for "ethical" datives.) If I say "Eat Tom some hallacas" I am
assuming that your eating hallacas will give Tom such a subjective
satisfaction, and usually I do not know that. I can construct contexts, of
course. If I were going to Venezuela and in our family email group my mother
were to tell me "eat me some hallacas while you're down there", I could
later list as one of my accomplishments for the trip "I ate Mom some
hallacas" (or better, interestingly, "I ate Mom her hallacas".) It would be
stretching the norms, but I might well do it, and my family would understand
it and even enjoy it.

The patterns that will show up if you just look at proper name or NP datives
will probably come closer to a Highest Common Factor for the construction as
a whole than what you will find if you look at pronouns, esp. "me". So if
you're looking for an H.C.F. I suppose that is "better". But their
centrality to the category is questionable at best. I haven't done any stats
on it, but I'd bet a study of datives in natural speech would find an
overwhelming preponderance of pronouns, especially 1st and 2nd person
pronouns, over proper names or (other) NP's. The patterns the pronoun cases
display are important too.

--David


-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Dan Everett
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 12:30 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

---
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From dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK  Sun Apr 27 05:02:19 2003
From: dan.everett at MAN.AC.UK (Dan Everett)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 06:02:19 +0100
Subject: Primary object languages & pronouns
In-Reply-To: <BPEDICCCHOIPNNOHDADNAEPIDIAA.david_tuggy@sil.org>
Message-ID: <SUN.27.APR.2003.060219.0100.DAN.EVERETT@MAN.AC.UK>

David,

Dative-Shift has been defined in a certain way for certain verbs. Now, I
do not necessarily think that (in fact I disagree with) 'Recipes for
Constructions' such that a sentence X must have properties 1-15 in order
to count as an exemplar of Construction A (though this is fairly
standard practice in some circles, e.g. 'Oh, that is not a Passive,
because it lacks a form of the verb 'to be' or a 'by-phrase', etc.). On
the other hand, when trying to counter-exemplify a construction that has
been mainly exemplified with full NPs, the *best* counter-example is one
with full-NPs. Those are better counter-examples because they cannot be
rejected by those wanting to defend the 'Recipe view of A/Dative-Shift'
as related to some other phenomenon, e.g. ethical dative
clitics/pronouns/agreement (and the so-called ethical dative does indeed
encompass all three).

It is in the context of such a debate that a value-judgment to the
effect that one type of data is more pertinent for the discussion than
another is exactly what is called for.

But of course this does not mean that one says that in absolute terms,
i.e. outside of context, that one datum is more valuable or better than
another.

In fact, data mean nothing outside of contexts of discussion in any
case, but that is a different matter.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 12:18 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: FW: Primary object languages & pronouns


I would rather you had said "dative-shift types of examples with
pronouns, especially ... me in English, may not be typical of all such
structures", and "different patterns will show up if you examine
examples using names or NPs". The examples with "me" or other pronouns
are perfectly good data too, and I see no call for a value judgment such
that some kinds are deemed "better" than others.

But I agree they do not behave in every way exactly alike. (It
underscores once more the subtlety of these constructions and thus of
the interrelations between them.) It would indeed be much harder to use
a proper name or
(other) NP in "Eat me some hallacas". An explanation that helps me
understand why (though not one that would let me predict that no
language could do it differently) is that in "Eat me some hallacas" the
benefit that will accrue to the dative from the accomplishment of the
process is so subjective as to be difficult to perceive in the case of
anyone other than oneself. (Benefit of that or a similar sort is
probably to be taken as definitional for "ethical" datives.) If I say
"Eat Tom some hallacas" I am assuming that your eating hallacas will
give Tom such a subjective satisfaction, and usually I do not know that.
I can construct contexts, of course. If I were going to Venezuela and in
our family email group my mother were to tell me "eat me some hallacas
while you're down there", I could later list as one of my
accomplishments for the trip "I ate Mom some hallacas" (or better,
interestingly, "I ate Mom her hallacas".) It would be stretching the
norms, but I might well do it, and my family would understand it and
even enjoy it.

The patterns that will show up if you just look at proper name or NP
datives will probably come closer to a Highest Common Factor for the
construction as a whole than what you will find if you look at pronouns,
esp. "me". So if you're looking for an H.C.F. I suppose that is
"better". But their centrality to the category is questionable at best.
I haven't done any stats on it, but I'd bet a study of datives in
natural speech would find an overwhelming preponderance of pronouns,
especially 1st and 2nd person pronouns, over proper names or (other)
NP's. The patterns the pronoun cases display are important too.

--David


-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Dan Everett
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 12:30 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan


.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
Arts Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns


True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

---
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From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Tue Apr 29 08:31:46 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 03:31:46 -0500
Subject: Conference in Honor of David McNeill
Message-ID: <TUE.29.APR.2003.033146.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

Posted on behalf of Fey Parrill, University of Chicago
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

(Department Chairs: please forward this announcement to your
department.) (We apologize for duplicate postings.)


Dear colleagues,
At the end of the month we will be closing reservations for the banquet
dinner which follows the conference in honor of David McNeill, to be
held this summer at the University of Chicago (although registration for
the conference itself will remain open). We would like to take this
opportunity to invite you again to register for this wonderful event!

The Organizing Committee of the Festschrift for David McNeill,
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of
Chicago, is pleased to announce a one-day conference to be held in his
honor June 8, 2003, at the University of Chicago.
Speakers:
Adam Kendon
Starkey Duncan
Chuck Goodwin
Michael Silverstein
John Haviland
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Geoffery Beattie
Janet Bavelas
Scott Liddell and Marit Vogt-Svendsen
Dan Slobin and Nini Hoiting

For more information (and to register for the conference):
http://mcneilllab.uchicago.edu/fest.html
For anyone with special needs (wheelchair accessibility, sign
interpreting, assisted listening devices, etc) please contact Amy
Franklin <alfrankl at uchicago.edu>


From kemmer at RICE.EDU  Wed Apr 30 13:35:54 2003
From: kemmer at RICE.EDU (Suzanne Kemmer)
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 08:35:54 -0500
Subject: 8th Int. Cognitive Ling. Conference:  Prereg and new URL
Message-ID: <WED.30.APR.2003.083554.0500.KEMMER@RICE.EDU>

From: Suzanne Kemmer <kemmer at rice.edu>
Date: Wed Apr 30, 2003  08:33:15  AM US/Central
To: Funknet <funknet at rice.edu>
Subject:

Preregistration is now open for the 8th International Cognitive
Linguistics
Association, July 20-25, 2003 at the University of La Rioja, Logro?o,
Spain.

There is a newly updated Conference Home Page with a new URL:

http://www.unirioja.es/dptos/dfm/sub/congresos/LingCog/ICLA_2003_Main.htm

The Preliminary Schedule is also available on the site in PDF format.

The deadline for preregistration at reduced fees is June 1, 2003
(postmark date)
Ordinary registration will be taken through the conference in July.

Organizer: Francisco Jose Ruiz De Mendoza
francisco.ruiz at dfm.unirioja.es