Concerning WALS

[Matthew Dryer]

Tom,

I think you're imagining a difference in belief where there isn't one. 
There is no belief behind WALS that typology can be theory-neutral (in any 
sense of "theory") and no sense in which WALS is based on Bloomfieldian 
empiricism.  If there's a difference in anything, it's simply a difference 
in taste and interest.

But let me address one, ultimately terminological, issue.  You seem to 
think that theory means explanation.  But the theoretical questions that 
I'm most interested in are questions of the form "What are languages like?" 
I'm interested in theories about the range of typological variation and the 
limits on this variation.  I'm also interested in theories about why 
languages are the way they are, but for me those questions are more like a 
hobby than the core of what I do as a linguist.  There are a number of 
reasons for this.  For one thing, theories about why languages are the way 
they are "neigh meaningless" if what they are explaining isn't true or even 
if what they purport to explain is something that we don't know yet if it's 
true or not.  There is a huge body of literature from the past 40 years 
that falls into this category.  Unfortunately, Tom, that includes some of 
your work.  For another, even if the explanandum is something that we can 
be fairly confident of, hypotheses about why languages are the way they are 
ultimately just that, hypotheses.  All too often, they are untestable and 
unfalsifiable and always will be.  Now I don't want to sound like a Martin 
Joos and say that we shouldn't be asking such questions or trying to answer 
them.  I'm just explaining why I personally am more interested in 
theoretical questions about what languages are like.  But that's ultimately 
just a matter of taste, not really any different from why I chose to be a 
linguist rather than something else.  I'm glad that there are others whose 
tastes have led them to devote their energy to questions of explanation, 
especially you, I might add, since in my opinion no linguist has come up 
with more interesting hypotheses over the past 35 years than you have.  But 
let's not confuse these differences in taste with differences in belief.

But I do object to your trying to use the term "theory" exclusively for 
questions of explanation.  I think you do Greenberg a disservice when you 
say "Greenberg's work in typology has been theoretical from the very start, 
in at least three senses I am aware of: (a) the work on markedness of 
categories; (b) The work on the diachronic foundations of typology; (c) His 
later forays into diachrony and evolution."  You miss a very important 
fourth sense: his work on what languages are like. Greenberg loved reading 
grammars.  His unique contribution to the field resulted from the fact that 
he was interested in what languages were like in a way that none of his 
contemporaries were.

Of course, you're free to use the word "theory" as you wish and you're free 
to object to how I use the word.  But that's not a substantive issue either.

Matthew

--On Thursday, November 6, 2008 10:06 AM -0700 Tom Givon 
<tgivon at uoregon.edu> wrote:

>
>
> I think Martin, perhaps inadvertently, articulated the concern that some
> of us have felt about the WALS project from its very inception--it's
> relentless a-theoretical perspective. To me, this project has chosen to
> follow the old empiricist lisonception  (vis Bloomfield,  Carnap, etc.)
> that facts are, somehow, theory- independent, and that one can do a
> theory-free typology. This is done by two implicit moves: First, by
> defining grammatical phenomena purely structurally, rather than grouping
> them by the* grammaticalized functional domains* that underlie them And
> second, by leaving *diachrony* out of the equation. To my mind, the
> geographical distribution of grammatical phenomena is neigh meaningless
> without considering the diachrony of the particular languages (or
> families) in the region. It is of course true that a project could choose
> to be less ambitious, and simply give us "pure facts", perhaps in
> anticipation that theory-oriented people would later on use those facts
> to build their theories. But I have to agree with Hanson (and, for that
> matter, Chomsky, perish the thought...) that in science facts are never
> theory-neutral, and that to propose to do a science of "pure facts", even
> as a preliminary exercise to  subsequent theory-building, is the height
> of self delusion.
>
> Cheers,  TG
>
> =========
>
>
>
> Martin Haspelmath wrote:
>> Dear Esa,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for writing this detailed commentary on the World Atlas
>> of Language Structures (WALS). This is the most detailed review that
>> has been written, and we are very grateful for it. Many of the
>> individual points of criticism are well-taken, and the WALS authors
>> should take them into account in future editions. (We're planning
>> future online editions of WALS, see the free online version at
>> http://wals.info.)
>>
>> Just one comment, concerning one of your major points:
>>
>> You write (p. 1): "The reader of WALS is encouraged ... to seek
>> *correlations* between the results of different chapters, and this
>> clearly presupposes a high degree of compatibility between the views
>> of different authors."
>>
>> Well, I would say: To find true correlations, the chapters must be
>> sufficiently correct, but they don't necessarily have to be very
>> compatible, certainly not in terminology. Suppose you want to link
>> case-marking and plural marking, and ask whether affixal case-marking
>> (as opposed to adpositional marking) correlates with affixal plural
>> marking (as opposed to pluralization by number words). Then even if
>> the two chapters use different definitions of "affixal", you might
>> still get a true correlation. But it will of course be a correlation
>> between affixal(1) case-marking and affixal(2) pluralization, not
>> between "affixal (tout court) case-marking and pluralization".
>>
>> My view is that typological definitions are inherently
>> linguist-specific, and as such the typological concepts of different
>> linguists are bound to be different (unless a Chomsky-like figure
>> comes along and imposes widespread "agreement by authority"). So care
>> has to be taken in interpreting WALS correlations, of course. But this
>> is not a flaw in the design of the project.
>>
>> Typology cannot be based on some kind of "definitive" set of
>> grammatical concepts, because there is no such list (or if there is,
>> i.e. if UG exists after all, we're so far away from knowing what it is
>> that it's irrelevant for practical purposes). Each language has its
>> own categories, so typologists necessarily have to make up their
>> comparative concepts that give them the most interesting results.
>>
>> (For more on this, see my paper "Comparative concepts and descriptive
>> categories in cross-linguistic studies", on my website under "Papers
>> and handouts".)
>>
>> Martin Haspelmath
>>
>> Esa Itkonen wrote:
>>> Dear Funknetters: By all accounts, World Atlas of Language Structures
>>> (= WALS) is a monumental achievement. Still, two intrepid Finnish
>>> linguists (= myself & Anneli Pajunen) have ventured to write a
>>> 30-page commentary on it, available on the homepage below. Enjoy!
>>>
>>> Esa Itkonen
>>>
>>>
>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen
>>>
>>
>
>