From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Tue Dec 1 15:29:16 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:29:16 +0000 Subject: FINAL CFP: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From Gramis2010 at ua.ac.be Fri Dec 4 07:59:59 2009 From: Gramis2010 at ua.ac.be (Gramis2010) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 08:59:59 +0100 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GRAMMATICALIZATION AND (INTER)SUBJECTIFICATION NOVEMBER 11-13, 2010 - BRUSSELS (BELGIUM) Conference website: http://webh01.ua.ac.be/gramis/conference/conference.html We invite papers dealing with any aspect of the processes of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification, both empirical and conceptual, from any theoretical angle, but we are especially interested in papers dealing with * the interaction between the processes of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification; * the relation of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification to other mechanisms of language change, including, most notably, analogy; and * processes of degrammaticalization and de-(inter)subjectification: how (in)frequent are they, what kinds of factors trigger them, and what mechanisms are at work in them? Presentations are 20 minutes, followed by 5 minutes discussion. Abstracts of max. 4000 characters (i.e. app. 500 words; including references) should be submitted via the conference website. Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 15, 2010 Notification of acceptance: late March, 2010 Information regarding registration, accommodation and other practical matters will be provided in the second circular, to be distributed early 2010, and will be posted on the conference website as soon as they are available. Plenary speakers: Kasper Boye/Peter Harder Hilary Chappell Bernd Heine Heiko Narrog Muriel Norde Organizers: Johan van der Auwera & Jan Nuyts (Antwerp) From Jordan.Zlatev at ling.lu.se Fri Dec 4 08:27:32 2009 From: Jordan.Zlatev at ling.lu.se (Jordan Zlatev) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:27:32 +0100 Subject: Final CFP: Language, Culture Mind 2010 Message-ID: Final call for papers - Language, Culture and Mind (LCM 4) http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/fin/LCM4/ We send this final announcement that the 4th International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind (LCM 4) will be held in Turku, Finland, at Åbo Akademi University, 21st-23rd June 2010. Note: The deadline for abstract submission is Dec 15, 2009! The goals of LCM conferences are to contribute to situating the study of language in a contemporary interdisciplinary dialogue (involving linguistics, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, semiotics and other related fields), and to promote a better integration of cognitive and cultural perspectives in empirical and theoretical studies of language. Confirmed plenary speakers: * Associate Prof. Jukka Hyönä, University of Turku * Prof. Peggy Miller, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana * Prof. Cornelia Müller, Berlin Gesture Centre and Europa Universität Viadrina * Prof. Bradd Shore, Emory University, Atlanta * Prof. Dan Zahavi, Centre for Subjectivity Research, Copenhagen Round tables (with invited participants): * Intersubjectivity and Lifeworld: Constituted in language or consciousness? * Theorizing language, culture, and mind: in honour of Claude Levi Strauss * Multimodality and embodiment in communication and language The International LCM committee invites the submission of abstracts for presentations (oral and posters), on topics including but not limited to: * biological and cultural co-evolution * comparative study of communication systems * cognitive and cultural schematization in language * emergence of language in ontogeny and phylogeny * language in social interaction and multi-modal communication * language, intersubjectivity and normativity * language and thought, emotion and consciousness Abstracts of up to 500 words, including references, should be sent to lcm4turku at gmail.com as an attachment, in pdf or rtf format. Indicate if the abstract is for an oral or poster presentation. Note that there will be proper poster session(s), with one minute self-presentations to the audience in the plenary hall, just before the poster session. The deadline for abstract submission is Dec 15, 2009. Please see the homesite for additional information on abstract formatting. Registration for the conference should be done through the online registration form; see http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/fin/LCM4/registration.html. The fees for the LCM conference are: * Early registration (until 1st March 2010): 140 euros (110 euros for members of SALC) * Late registration (from 2nd March 2010 to 1st May 2010): 165 euros (125 euros for members of SALC) * Reduced registration fee (see registration form): 125 euros (90 euros for members of SALC) * The Finnish Evening 70 euros (60 euros for members of SALC) The registration fee includes lunch and coffee breaks during the conference, admission to all scientific sessions, all congress materials and administration costs. The Finnish evening fee includes a steam ship trip, dinner and sauna (swimming), and Finnish tango music. Important dates * Deadline for abstract submission 15 Dec 2009 * Notification of acceptance 15 Feb 2010 * Last date for early registration 1 Mar 2010 * Last date for registration 1 May 2010 * Final program publication 15th May 2010 The international LCM committee * Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Language and Communication * Carlos Cornejo, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Psychology * Barbara Fultner, Denison University, Philosophy * Anders Hougaard, University of Southern Denmark, Social Cognition * Esa Itkonen, University of Turku, Linguistics * John Lucy, University of Chicago, Comparative Human Development and Psychology * Aliyah Morgenstern, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Linguistics * Chris Sinha, University of Portsmouth, Psychology * Daniel Wolk, University of Kurdistan Hawler, Sociology * Jordan Zlatev, Lund University, Linguistics/Cognitive Semiotics LCM4 Local organizing committee * Urpo Nikanne, Åbo Akademi University, Finnish language * Anneli Pajunen, University of Tampere, Finnish languge * Esa Itkonen, University of Turku, General linguistics From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 9 10:24:13 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:24:13 +0000 Subject: 3rd Call for Papers: CADAAD 2010 Message-ID: 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson(University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak(University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge(University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl(University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to discourse at cadaad.org by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com Wed Dec 9 16:55:18 2009 From: Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com (Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 17:55:18 +0100 Subject: TOC Language and Cognition Volume 1/Issue 2 Message-ID: Language and Cognition Volume 1/Issue 2 is now available. Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation in spontaneous speech Harry Tily, Susanne Gahl, Inbal Arnon, Neal Snider, Anubha Kothari, Joan Bresnan Causers in English, Korean, and Chinese and the individuation of events Phillip Wolff, Ga-hyun Jeon, Yu Li Correlation versus prediction in children's word learning: Cross-linguistic evidence and simulations Eliana Colunga, Linda B. Smith, Michael Gasser Toward a theory of semantic representation Gabriella Vigliocco, Lotte Meteyard, Mark Andrews, Stavroula Kousta The sensory-motor theory of semantics: Evidence from functional imaging Uta Noppeney Reviews Contents Volume 1 (2009) For free abstracts, please visit http://www.reference-global.com/toc/langcog/2009/1/2 For more information on the journal and for free online access to Volume 1/Issue 1, please visit http://www.degruyter.com/journals/langcog/detailEn.cfm Julia Ulrich Product Manager DE GRUYTER Genthiner Str. 13 10785 Berlin, Germany T +49 (0)30.260 05-173 F +49 (0)30.260 05-322 julia.ulrich at degruyter.com www.degruyter.com Verlag Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. Genthiner Str. 13. 10785 Berlin. Sitz Berlin. Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HR A 2065. Rechtsform: Kommanditgesellschaft. Komplementär: de Gruyter Verlagsbeteiligungs GmbH, Sitz Berlin, Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HR B 46487. Geschäftsführer: Dr. Sven Fund Beiratsvorsitzender: Dr. Bernd Balzereit Sign up for our free electronic newsletter at www.degruyter.com/newsletter P sustainable thinking...please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to From bischoff.st at gmail.com Sun Dec 13 14:58:31 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:58:31 -0400 Subject: Null arguments Message-ID: Hi all, I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. Thanks, Shannon From smalamud at brandeis.edu Mon Dec 14 05:07:23 2009 From: smalamud at brandeis.edu (Sophia A. Malamud) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:07:23 -0500 Subject: null subjects Message-ID: Hello, The first thing that comes to mind are some Centering studies that relate null subjects to salience DiEugenio 1998 and others from the Centering Theory in Discourse book, and also subsequent work. Best, Sophia On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:00 PM, wrote: > Send FUNKNET mailing list submissions to >        funknet at mailman.rice.edu > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit >        https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/funknet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to >        funknet-request at mailman.rice.edu > > You can reach the person managing the list at >        funknet-owner at mailman.rice.edu > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of FUNKNET digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > >   1. Null arguments (s.t. bischoff) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:58:31 -0400 > From: "s.t. bischoff" > Subject: [FUNKNET] Null arguments > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: >        <1c1f75a20912130658v7e8f8c82m76cb2e163621eb91 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hi all, > > I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null > arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in > various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. > > Thanks, > Shannon > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 75, Issue 4 > ************************************** > From lesleyne at msu.edu Mon Dec 14 15:33:38 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:33:38 -0500 Subject: Null arguments In-Reply-To: <1c1f75a20912130658v7e8f8c82m76cb2e163621eb91@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID:  A good place to start would be a 1999 CLS presentation made by Hartwell Francis, Laura Michaelis and Michelle Gregory titled "Are lexical subjects deviant?"" ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Quoting "s.t. bischoff" : > Hi all, > > I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null > arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in > various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. > > Thanks, > Shannon > > From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 16 11:46:10 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:46:10 +0000 Subject: EXTENDED DEADLINE: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: EXTENDED DEADLINE - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org Dear colleagues, We have had an overwhelming response to our call for papers and a number of requests for extensions to the deadline for abstracts. Accordingly, we welcome submissions of abstracts until 31 December 2009. The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 31 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 13:17:36 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties Message-ID: Folks, I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. Thanks very much in advance for your answers. Dan ** 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From hopper at cmu.edu Fri Dec 18 16:04:58 2009 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:04:58 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <7AB90346-F99A-43F6-A96D-E9BB803DD770@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Typologists and Funknetters, It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. - Paul On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: > Folks, > > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of > the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! > Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of > languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am > interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset > of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a > whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would > particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult > in rarer languages. > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > > Dan > ** > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not > counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker > of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no > words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words > like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for > embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no > structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. > No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' > (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case > that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes > that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' > > > -- Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper Senior Fellow Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg Albertstr. 19 D-79104 Freiburg and Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From lachlan_mackenzie at hotmail.com Fri Dec 18 16:31:50 2009 From: lachlan_mackenzie at hotmail.com (Lachlan Mackenzie) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:31:50 +0000 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <7AB90346-F99A-43F6-A96D-E9BB803DD770@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Dan Just last week I was on the examinations board for a doctoral thesis defended at VU University Amsterdam which was a grammar of a language with most of the properties you list. The language is Mamaindê, a Northern Nambikwara language of Mato Grosso, Brazil, the author is David M. Eberhard and the supervisor Leo Wetzels. The thesis is available on line from http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. Best wishes, Lachlan Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie Researcher at ILTEC Honorary professor at VU Amsterdam Editor of Functions of Language Research Manager of SCIMITAR ILTEC Rua Conde de Redondo 74 - 5 1150-109 Lisboa Portugal fax: 0031 84 7217087 cellphone: 00351 9 65026923 Visit my website! > From: dlevere at ilstu.edu > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 > To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG; FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: [FUNKNET] Query on structural properties > > Folks, > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > Dan > ** > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). > 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. > 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). > 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). > 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). > 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . > 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') > 9. No long-distance dependencies: > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From amnfn at well.com Fri Dec 18 16:34:05 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:34:05 -0800 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: Paul, That's an interesting observation about conversational English. Surely, it must depend on the conversational context, too. And, I assume, that when given the appropriate contextual constraint, your observation is true of every language when used conversationally? --Aya On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Department of English > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA 15213 > > > From amnfn at well.com Fri Dec 18 16:39:01 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:39:01 -0800 Subject: Rejected posting to LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG (fwd) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, I got a message that I can't post from my well.com account, but I always have before. Can someone help me with that? --Aya Katz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:34:09 -0500 From: "LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG LISTSERV Server (15.5)" To: amnfn at WELL.COM Subject: Rejected posting to LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG You are not authorized to send mail to the LINGTYP list from your amnfn at WELL.COM account. You might be authorized to post to the list from another account, or perhaps when using another mail program configured to use a different email address. However, LISTSERV has no way to associate this other account or address with yours. If you need assistance or if you have any questions regarding the policy of the LINGTYP list, please contact the list owners at LINGTYP-request at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 17:01:51 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:01:51 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: I think Paul is right about this. I wouldn't use the term 'primitive' however, unless there were a well-worked out theory of the evolution of linguistic structure. Even then, such a theory would need to include discourse - quite a tall order. At the level of discourse Piraha, to take a random example, has plenty of recursion. Theories which explicitly attempt to account for discourse will not be surprised at the existence of such 'continua', as Paul puts it. Only syntactocentric theories would be, I think. But my inchoate program is to look at specific structural markers. (Not the semantics. Of course the lack of an epistemic verb in a language would have nothing to say at all about whether the language can express epistemic concepts, etc.) How common/rare are some (or their absence)? Do some absences cluster together? (That is a *very* hard one to establish, clearly.) Can these be tested psycholinguistically, via corpora, etc? Lots of questions that interest me. Of course, a culture or language could lack all of the things just mentioned at one level and have them at another. That is part of the program. If anyone on the other side of the pond wants to flame me, you will have your chance to do so in person in February at the German Linguistic Society meetings in Berlin where I will be talking (one of the four plenary lectures) on culture and language. But just use words, OK? No bricks, etc. Love & Peace, Dan On 18 Dec 2009, at 11:04, Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Department of English > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA 15213 > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 17:03:05 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:03:05 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Lachlan. I know both David and Leo quite well and have known about some of Mamainde's features for a while. I look forward to reading the thesis. Dan On 18 Dec 2009, at 11:31, Lachlan Mackenzie wrote: > Dear Dan > > Just last week I was on the examinations board for a doctoral thesis defended at VU University Amsterdam which was a grammar of a language with most of the properties you list. The language is Mamaindê, a Northern Nambikwara language of Mato Grosso, Brazil, the author is David M. Eberhard and the supervisor Leo Wetzels. The thesis is available on line from http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. > > Best wishes, > > Lachlan > > > > > > Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie > > Researcher at ILTEC > Honorary professor at VU Amsterdam > Editor of Functions of Language > Research Manager of SCIMITAR > > ILTEC > Rua Conde de Redondo 74 - 5 > 1150-109 Lisboa > Portugal > > fax: 0031 84 7217087 > cellphone: 00351 9 65026923 > > Visit my website! > > > > > > From: dlevere at ilstu.edu > > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 > > To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG; FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu > > Subject: [FUNKNET] Query on structural properties > > > > Folks, > > > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. > > > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > > > Dan > > ** > > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). > > 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. > > 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). > > 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). > > 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). > > 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . > > 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') > > 9. No long-distance dependencies: > > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Dec 18 23:06:34 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:06:34 -0700 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations between grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it as a matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it into two dimensions. First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals was really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus ultimately diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on topic-prominent languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into this tho didn't quite know how to digest it. But what they described was a dimention of grammaticalization. And they were looking at serial-verb languages, which (at least at some stage of their diachrony) are notoriously under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li was suggesting at the time (in private comm.) that Chinese was a pidgin language. My own view at the time (and still now) was that he was looking only at written Chinese, and that the Spoken language had already gone 2,500 years worth of granmmaticalization. Still, for each area (functional domain) of grammar, one could find languages that are under-grammaticalize. But this simply means that they are at a low point on the diachronic cycle. And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier papers) has recently shown that if you look very carefully, you can see early stages of grammaticalization in the intonation packaging (in her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). So cross language differences often boil down to where in the grammaticalization cycle a language--or particular grammar-coded domains within it--is/are. Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him would be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, intimate, isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, compared to his description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the max? And, how come within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at least two successive grammaticalization cycles--during a period where there was no cultural change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a relatively-recent pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the Chinese contact area Charles Li talked about, such pidginization (prior to Archaeic Chinese) has certainly has certainly been documented. Merry Christmass to y'all, TG ================ Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> >> > > > From jbybee at unm.edu Sat Dec 19 00:03:06 2009 From: jbybee at unm.edu (Joan Bybee) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:03:06 -0700 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C0AFA.1030807@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: I think Tom is correct that some languages take grammaticalization further than others, and this applies to both form and meaning (as shown in The evolution of language 1994 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca). Our data suggest not that this is just where a language is on the cycle, but rather that it can be a stable feature of a language. Otherwise all languages would have structures at all stages of grammaticalization. Instead, what happens in languages that do not grammaticalize enough to reach the stage of inflection is that newly grammaticalizing structures take over and replace the maturing ones before they get a chance to go too far. I suspect that this is related to a cultural/discourse phenomenon--the type of inferences a speaker/hearer makes in conversation. This is articulated in my paper in Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicted to T. Givon (1997). See also discussion on southeast Asian languages by Walter. Bisang. Dan Everett should also look at R. Perkins Grammar, Deixis and Culture 1992 for a methodologically excellent study of the relation between certain cultural features and grammar. Joan Bybee Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations > between grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it > as a matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it > into two dimensions. > > First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level > spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. > Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this > point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that > spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since > written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real > thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals > was really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) > language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. > > The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus > ultimately diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on > topic-prominent languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into > this tho didn't quite know how to digest it. But what they described > was a dimention of grammaticalization. And they were looking at > serial-verb languages, which (at least at some stage of their > diachrony) are notoriously under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li > was suggesting at the time (in private comm.) that Chinese was a > pidgin language. My own view at the time (and still now) was that he > was looking only at written Chinese, and that the Spoken language had > already gone 2,500 years worth of granmmaticalization. Still, for each > area (functional domain) of grammar, one could find languages that are > under-grammaticalize. But this simply means that they are at a low > point on the diachronic cycle. And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier > papers) has recently shown that if you look very carefully, you can > see early stages of grammaticalization in the intonation packaging (in > her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). So cross language differences > often boil down to where in the grammaticalization cycle a > language--or particular grammar-coded domains within it--is/are. > > Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him > would be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, > intimate, isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, > compared to his description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the > max? And, how come within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at > least two successive grammaticalization cycles--during a period where > there was no cultural change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a > relatively-recent pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the > Chinese contact area Charles Li talked about, such pidginization > (prior to Archaeic Chinese) has certainly has certainly been documented. > > Merry Christmass to y'all, TG > > ================ > > > > > Paul Hopper wrote: > >> Dear Typologists and Funknetters, >> >> It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good >> quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be >> statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be >> formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a >> language >> to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) >> >> We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a >> discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several >> months >> now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. >> >> - Paul >> >> >> On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >> >>> Folks, >>> >>> >>> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative >>> rarity of >>> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >>> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in >>> knowing of >>> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next >>> I am >>> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any >>> subset >>> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list >>> as a >>> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >>> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to >>> consult >>> in rarer languages. >>> >>> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >>> >>> >>> Dan >>> ** >>> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs >>> (not >>> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic >>> marker >>> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >>> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no >>> words >>> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong >>> evidence for >>> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >>> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) >>> . 7. >>> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >>> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you >>> left' >>> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >>> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John >>> believes >>> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >>> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 02:11:12 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:11:12 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C183A.10706@unm.edu> Message-ID: Dear All, The remarks by Tom and Joan are, as one would expect, extremely useful and interesting. Let me address myself first to Tom. Tom suggests that my research program is Whorfian. In fact, it is the opposite of Whorf. Whereas Whorf, Sapir, Herder, and others raised the question of the degree of influence that grammar could have on cognition, my program, suggested a bit by Boas and Sapir, is mainly concerned with how culture can affect grammar. As far as I know, Whorf never concerned himself with the effects of culture on grammar. Here is a summary of various positions: Cognition, Grammar, Culture Connections Constraint Relationship Representative Theory 1. cognition --> grammar Chomsky's Universal Grammar 2. grammar --> cognition Linguistic Relativity (Whorf) 3. cognition --> culture Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's work on color terms 4. grammar --> culture Greg Urban's work on discourse-centered culture 5. culture --> cognition Long term effects on thinking of cultural restrictions on certain behaviors 6. culture --> grammar Ethnogrammar; individual forms structured by culture I believe that there are different, yet non-exclusive, relations between culture, cognition, and grammar. My program, such as it is, falls under number 6. I think that box number one is probably the null set, though it might have something in it that no one has yet discovered. The others are all active and viable connections, each associated with a different research program. I discuss this all in more detail in my book, Don't sleep there are snakes, which is now available in Korean (Courrier), in the UK (Profile) and in the USA (Pantheon and Vintage), and soon to be available in German (February - http://www.amazon.de/Das-glücklichste-Volk-Pirahã-Indianern-Amazonas/dp/3421043078/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259941204&sr=8-3), French, Thai, Mandarin, and Japanese. Grammaticalization clearly is relevant in 'freeze framing' various connections, including culture and grammar. Nothing in my own thought or research is incompatible with grammaticalization. It plays a vital role in any complete theory of diachronic or synchronic linguistics. Tom's term - 'society of intimates' - has been very helpful to me. The Utes might be a society of intimates. The Pirahas certainly are. So why aren't all societies of intimates grammatically similar? Why doesn't Ute have the characteristics of Piraha or vice-versa? Because no single cultural value is going to be responsible for all the culture-grammar connections one might discover. Culture, like Language, is an abstraction, an idealization. In Everett and Sakel (to appear), we propose a methodology for studying linkage between grammatical chararacteristics and cultural characteristics. One must first identify cultural values, in a non-circular manner, and then identify grammatical phenomena. We then suggest ways of establishing non-circular connections and relations of causality between such pairs. Piraha is not only a society of intimates, but it has a particularly strong value of 'immediacy of experience'. I discuss such issues in more detail in Don't sleep. If Piraha has suffered some sort of cultural trauma, e.g. the conquest by Europeans that began in the 16th century, then this certainly could have dramatically affected their culture and its connections with their language/grammar/grammatical constructions. On the other hand, we know that their culture and language today look pretty much like they did in 1784, when the first written records begin to appear. So whatever their culture & language were like before then, that is irrelevant to the fact that they have been in a relative period of stasis since then. Diachronic studies and grammaticalization are vital to my program ultimately. This is because I simply want to understand language as well as I can. Because I do not believe in Universal Grammar or much at all in the way of genetic constraints on the shapes of grammars, I have to look to other explanans for similarities between languages of the world. This is in fact the subject of my book, Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool, to appear in late 2010 (Pantheon in the US, Profile in the UK). Joan - thanks for the reference! Ultimately, I see nothing incompatible with anything Tom has said and what I have said. I simply believe that culture plays a larger part than some other linguists do in shaping grammar and other aspects of cognitive life. Yesterday, GEO magazine published a large story about my work in German (it will ultimately appear in all 20 languages in which GEO is published). In that story, Chomsky says that it is ridiculous to think that culture could affect grammar because three year olds know nothing/little about culture and much about grammar. That seems false. Much of culture is learned and transmitted nonverbally from birth. Perhaps before birth. I give examples in Everett (2008). I believe that all humans are born with a similar genetic endowment, encompassing intelligence, body size, etc. I am not 'searching for primitive languages'. I am interested in learning more about the culture-grammar interface as one part of the symbiosis between grammar, culture, and cognition. Cheers, Dan Everett, Daniel L. and Jeanette Sakel. forthcoming. Linguistic Fieldword: A Student Guide. Cambridge University Press, Red Series. Everett, Daniel L. 2008. Don't sleep there are snakes: life and language in the Amazonian jungle. Vintage Departure Series. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 08:01:47 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:01:47 -0600 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Randy LaPolla's post includes the statement that: > > As each society is unique, each language will be unique I agree completely. Each culture-grammar pairing is unique. Randy also says, as Sapir did, that the relationships between current states of the grammar and culture are often no longer discoverable. No disagreement from me. And no disagreement from me for the rest of Randy's post either. Let me first give a very broad distinction between culture vs. society, since I am interested in both, but primarily the former. Culture includes the values whereby peoples get meaning out of the world around them. Society is largely the set of constraints that regulate group behavior. (Very simplistic. Just trying to brush off the targets a bit.) For example, take a culture like the Pirahas. If all the Pirahas decided one morning to move to LA, their language would change, their values and their constraints would change. Any original connections could be lost and we would not even be able to detect this after a while. New connections would be developed over time. This is why it is much more difficult to do field research outside of the community, rather than a single speaker in, say, a linguistic classroom. (People who list 'field research' on their vitae when they have only engaged in the latter are using this term in a sense I reject.) Only in the community can the linguist even hope to explore the vestiges of values that might have affected grammar. And even there it will often be impossible to find testable connections. On the other hand, in certain situations around the world, where we find monolingual communities in relative geographical and cultural isolation (especially when we know something about the period of isolation and the conditions leading up to it), it becomes slightly more feasible to study culture-grammar connections. These are never obvious, always subtle, very difficult to argue for in a non-circular manner. But not impossible. Because each language-culture pairing is unique, the loss of even a single language is irrecoverable and tragic for the speakers (if they survive the loss) and the rest of the world. Field research is more urgent and more important. Field research en loco even more so. Clifford Geertz was clear in pointing out, as the late, great Peter Ladefoged and I tried to be in our paper 'The problem of phonetic rarities', that some of the most important lessons from our conspecifics come from differences, quirks, oddities, and unexpected extensions of the parameters of our linguistic, cognitive, and cultural possibilities. Understanding these possibilities is the enterprise that I think most of us are committed to. None of us is interested in showing that this or that language is inferior to any other - any more than a physicist is interested in showing that the trajectory of this object through the air was 'inferior' to the trajectory of another object. The idea doesn't even make sense to a scientist. Rather, I think we are interested in understanding how the language works and how it got to be the way it is. Languages have a way of evolving to fit their cultural niche, as cultures also evolve to fit their languages. Not always possible to see the connections or to conclusively establish them. But this co-evolution means that there is no such thing as an inferior language, except when it comes to fail to fit its niche. But in such cases, the language & culture will evolve quickly to fit one another. Evolution in this sense is on-going. Grammaticalization is one part of it. In this enterprise, it is also vital (but rarely possible) that field research be conducted in teams of linguists, anthropologists, and psychologists. If Sapir was right, psychology and linguistics are subfields of anthropology. Still not a bad idea. Dan ***** On the question of the relationship between culture and cognition on the one hand, and language structure on the other, while there are times we can find a ‘smoking gun’ which clearly can show a relationship between some aspect of culture/cognition and some aspect of the grammar, I don’t think it is very useful to argue from these cases, as it implies that there are some aspects of grammar that are related to culture/cognition and some that aren’t, it implies that the motivation for the grammaticalisation or lexicalisation of some form is always going to be transparent, and it implies that there is always a recognisable one-to-one correspondence between some aspect of culture/cognition and language structure. If we take grammaticalisation seriously, that is, if we understand that all aspects of grammar are the result of grammaticalisation, and we understand that grammaticalisation (and lexicalisation) is the conventionalisation of repeated patterns of use (using the same form to constrain the addressee’s interpretation of the speaker’s communicative intention in the same way over and over again), then there must by logical necessity be a connection between all conventionalised aspects of language and the culture/cognition of the speakers, otherwise the speakers would not have used those particular forms in those particular ways over and over again to constrain the interpretation of that particular semantic domain in that particular way, to the extent that the forms became conventionalized. That is, constraining the interpretation of that particular semantic domain in that way must have been important for them, important enough for them to put the extra effort into constraining the interpretation in that way. It often isn’t possible to see what the motivations for the original grammaticalisation or lexicalization was, as once something is conventionalised, it will often stay in the language even after the original motivation is no longer there (e.g. using dial even though telephone no longer have dials), and forms can change in shape (e.g. an onomatopoetic form becoming non-onomatopoetic through sound change) or use (extended in new ways that reflect a different motivation) once they are conventionalized. There can also be competing motivations over time, such as what happened in the loss and re-creation of the singular/plural distinction of second person pronouns in English. As each society is unique, each language will be unique in terms of which semantic domains the speakers will decide to constrain the interpretation of (e.g. tense or no tense), in terms of the extent to which they will constrain the interpretation of that particular domain (e.g. one past tense or three?), and in terms of the particular form used to constrain it. There is no logical necessity that societies with certain characteristics will necessarily end up conventionalising the same sorts of structures. Randy --- Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA (???? Chair of Linguistics Director, Research Centre for Linguistic Typology La Trobe University, VIC 3086 AUSTRALIA Tel.: +61 3 9479-2555; FAX: +61 3 9479-1520 RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/ Linguistics: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/ The Tibeto-Burman Domain: http://tibeto-burman.net/ Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area: http://stedt.berkeley.edu/ltba/ Location of RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/location.htm -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Dec 19 08:17:37 2009 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:17:37 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4EBFBC5C-C271-4CC5-9000-C4FA732B5C42@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Dan, Tom and others, [obviously, both FUNKNET and LINGTYP are involved in this discussion, so please excuse double posting]: Whether or not the three 'domains' language (here in terms of grammar), cognition, and culture are seen as being related or mutually conditioning the 'shape' of the domains (in which direction so ever), naturally depends from how these 'domains' are defined. I have to admit that in quite a number of proposals that map 'language' (>'grammar') onto 'culture' (or vice versa), the term 'culture' is hardly ever defined or defined in a way that would be compatible with proposals stemming from contemporary 'culturology' and sociology (here, I use the term 'culturology' in a very trivial sense that should not evoke commitment to a special 'cultural theory'). 'Culture' is often used in a rather pre-scientific, folk-philosophic sense, entailing lots of biases and prejudices concerning the properties, values, and relevance of 'culture' and being themselves again part of the 'cultural paradigm' of a community, both in terms of folk-ideology and scientific/philosophic debates (compare for instance the discussion on 'culture' in times of Johann Gottfried Herder as opposed to that initiated e.g. by the proponents of the Eurasianic Hypothesis (Trubetzkoy and others) soon after the October Revolution). There are so many ways of approaching the domain of 'culture' (or of dismissing it at all!), that any speculation about the type of relationship present (or not) in the above-mentioned triad should at the very first fix the/ locus observandi/ of the scientific 'spectator'. This is also relevant because the 'spectator' has to make sure that (s)he does not simply perpetuate often highly problematic, nevertheless 'lived' folk-models of 'culture'. Also, the 'spectator' should make clear that his/her theoretical model as well as his/her methods of classifying, delimiting, defining, and generalizing culture and cultural features is compatible with those methods applied for doing the same with language and/or cognition. The dyadic tableau proposed by Dan in fact is a triad (or even more, in case you include domains like 'environment' or 'habitat' [which reminds me of some kind of Neo-Lamarckism] and sociology in a broader sense). If ever these domains can be kept apart, we would logically arrive at at least 13 different models, as listed below (L = language (here > Grammar/Lexicon), T = Cognition ('Thought'), C = Culture), -> conditioning/effecting/hierarchical 'higher', || = not relation. L -> T -> C L -> C -> T L -> T || C L -> C || T L || C || T T -> C -> L T -> L -> C T -> C || L T -> L || C C -> T -> L C -> L -> T C -> T || L C -> L || T This tableau is not exhaustive, because it neglects the parameter of 'identity'. That means that some models may say that Language /is/ Cognition or Culture, not just a separate phenomenon related to one of them (or vice versa). Hence we should add: C=T || L C=L || T C=T -> L C=L -> T L=T || C L=C || T L=T -> C L=C -> T T=C || L T=L || C T=C -> L T=L -> C This would give us 12 additional models (now 25 in total). The thing becomes even more complex, if we specify the type of dependency: "-> " may e.g. be described in terms of one or more of the four Aristotelian causa-types (/causa efficiens, causa finalis, causa formalis, causa materialis/) [again 22 options, according to my calculus]. All this would end up in at least 25*22 models (if my rather basic knowledge of mathematics is correct), disregarding the different definitions (and hence descriptive 'types') of Language, Cognition, and Culture that may affect the choice of the relevant causa-types as well as the final description of a given dependency. To make it even more complex: We have to 'decide' whether an assumed relationship is given synchronically or just a 'petrified' reflex of older mechanisms, no longer 'active' within the dynamics of the actual domains. This naturally includes the unproven hypothesis that whatever we think of characterizing Language, Culture, or Cognition today has been the 'same' since human language (etc.) has arisen. But it is a matter of debate to ascertain the possibility and plausibility of such a projection (top put it into simple terms (for Culture): The concept of Culture is a cultural fact, and as cultures change, the concept of Culture changes too, both in cultural practices and the corresponding folk-models - with the effect that one [practiced] concept of Culture may influence e.g. Language, while others do or did not. In other words: There still is lot to do (albeit much has been done so far) to reach a theoretically and methodologically 'sound' basis for describing effects (what kind soever) among the three domains Language, Cognition, and Culture and to avoid impressionistic and intuitive statements. All this also presupposes some kind of 'reification' of the domains at issue, that is to turn the observed phenomena (Language, Cognition, Culture) into describable, more or less time-stable 'objects' with properties agreed upon by the scientific community (without neglecting to fix and make public one's own /locus observandi/). One final point: we all know that our own scientific thinking is not only driven by our personal history, by our scientific traditions, by the 'scientific habitat' we [have to] live in, and the data we deal with etc., but also by the (covert or overt) assimilation of actual models of the 'world', that is of those global paradigms that are current and sometimes trendy. The revitalization of the concept of Culture (itself being 'detected' in th late 18th century and popularized as a social (~political) model in the 19th century) is grounded in the growing relevance of relativistic models since the 1980ies, both in Western societies and Western concepts of science. Just as the orientation towards Cognition has developed into a clandestine 'must' since the declaration of the 21st century as the 'Century of the Brain', Culture, and, more specifically, Cultures have become a new societal model serving as a highly visible landmark in public and scientific discourse. This reminds me of the historicism and 'culturalism' in the 19th century, deeply engraved in the paradigm of Romantics. A nice example of how these two perspectives are even linked together is given by the recent program of /Cultural Neurosciences/. I know that we cannot escape from being being shaped in our 'thinking' by such public paradigms, but we should at least try to formulate this impact and to describe it as being part of our thinking (with all its consequences). Linguistics is a 'cultural and societal fact', and hence it is not amazing at all that it changes just as the paradigms present a given culture change.... Best wishes, Wolfgang -- *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze * ---------------------------------------------------------- /Primary contact: / Institut für Allgemeine & Typologische Sprachwissenschaft Dept. II / F 13 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Ludwigstraße 25 Postanschrift / Postal address: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 München Tel.: 0049-(0)89-2180-2486 (Secretary) 0049-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office) Fax: 0049-(0)89-2180-16567 // 0049-(0)89-2180-5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de /// Wolfgang.Schulze at lmu.de Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/schulze/index.html http://www.wolfgangschulze.in-devir.com ---------------------------------------------------------- /Second contact: / Katedra Germanistiký Fakulta humanitných vied Univerzita Mateja Béla / Banská Bystrica Tajovského 40 SK-97401 Banská Bystrica Tel: (00421)-(0)48-4465108 Fax: (00421)-(0)48-4465512 Email: Schulze at fhv.umb.sk Web: http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze ---------------------------------------------------------- From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Dec 19 08:28:56 2009 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:28:56 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties - my two tables Message-ID: Dear friends, I just saw that the two tables in my last post do not show up properly in the FUNKNET version. Below, I give you another 'simple' version of these tables. Sorry for all inconveniences! Best wishes, Wolfgang a. L -> T -> C L -> C -> T L -> T || C L -> C || T L || C || T T -> C -> L T -> L -> C T -> C || L T -> L || C C -> T -> L C -> L -> T C -> T || L C -> L || T b. C=T || L C=L || T C=T -> L C=L -> T L=T || C L=C || T L=T -> C L=C -> T T=C || L T=L || C T=C -> L T=L -> C -- *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze * ---------------------------------------------------------- /Primary contact: / Institut für Allgemeine & Typologische Sprachwissenschaft Dept. II / F 13 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Ludwigstraße 25 Postanschrift / Postal address: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 München Tel.: 0049-(0)89-2180-2486 (Secretary) 0049-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office) Fax: 0049-(0)89-2180-16567 // 0049-(0)89-2180-5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de /// Wolfgang.Schulze at lmu.de Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/schulze/index.html http://www.wolfgangschulze.in-devir.com ---------------------------------------------------------- /Second contact: / Katedra Germanistiký Fakulta humanitných vied Univerzita Mateja Béla / Banská Bystrica Tajovského 40 SK-97401 Banská Bystrica Tel: (00421)-(0)48-4465108 Fax: (00421)-(0)48-4465512 Email: Schulze at fhv.umb.sk Web: http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze ---------------------------------------------------------- From oesten at ling.su.se Sat Dec 19 08:34:10 2009 From: oesten at ling.su.se (=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=96sten_Dahl?=) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:34:10 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C0AFA.1030807@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Although Tom talks in his posting below about "under-grammaticalizing" in different domains of a language, it is still worth emphasizing that Pirahã is not at all pidgin-like. Languages that have "undergone a relatively-recent pidginization cycle" would be expected to have no or little inflectional morphology. Pirahã, on the other hand, has a rather complex morphology, especially with regard to verbs. The lack of grammaticalized subordinate constructions appears to be a different story. I do not know if there is evidence for a link to a pidginization cycle for that kind of phenomenon in any language. - Östen On 2009-12-19, at 00:06, Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations between > grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it as a > matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it into > two dimensions. > > First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level > spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. > Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this > point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that > spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since > written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real > thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals was > really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) > language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. > > The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus ultimately > diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on topic-prominent > languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into this tho didn't > quite know how to digest it. But what they described was a dimention of > grammaticalization. And they were looking at serial-verb languages, > which (at least at some stage of their diachrony) are notoriously > under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li was suggesting at the time (in > private comm.) that Chinese was a pidgin language. My own view at the > time (and still now) was that he was looking only at written Chinese, > and that the Spoken language had already gone 2,500 years worth of > granmmaticalization. Still, for each area (functional domain) of > grammar, one could find languages that are under-grammaticalize. But > this simply means that they are at a low point on the diachronic cycle. > And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier papers) has recently shown that if > you look very carefully, you can see early stages of grammaticalization > in the intonation packaging (in her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). > So cross language differences often boil down to where in the > grammaticalization cycle a language--or particular grammar-coded domains > within it--is/are. > > Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him would > be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, intimate, > isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, compared to his > description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the max? And, how come > within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at least two successive > grammaticalization cycles--during a period where there was no cultural > change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a relatively-recent > pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the Chinese contact area > Charles Li talked about, such pidginization (prior to Archaeic Chinese) > has certainly has certainly been documented. > > Merry Christmass to y'all, TG > > ================ > > > > > Paul Hopper wrote: >> Dear Typologists and Funknetters, >> >> It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good >> quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be >> statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be >> formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language >> to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) >> >> We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a >> discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months >> now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. >> >> - Paul >> >> >> On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> Folks, >>> >>> >>> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >>> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >>> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >>> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >>> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >>> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >>> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >>> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >>> in rarer languages. >>> >>> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >>> >>> >>> Dan >>> ** >>> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >>> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >>> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >>> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >>> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >>> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >>> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >>> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >>> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >>> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >>> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >>> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >>> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 12:48:38 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:48:38 -0600 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C8C21.9040706@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> Message-ID: Wolfgang, Osten, and all, I agree that culture, language, and cognition are bandied about without much effort to define them. I try to do this in my book. Most anthropologists deny the existence of some concrete entity, Culture, just as linguists recognize that there is no such entity, Language. Both are idealizations. Your tables become much more complicated when we break culture down into individual values and language into individual constructions, rules, principles, etc. Not only that, as I also say in the book and many other places, the relationships are not binary. It's just that the major research programs around them are based on binary relationships, wrongly in my opinion. They are symbiotically related to each other and to other things, such as biology, material existence, and so on. The issues are much more complex than even your charts. Osten is right about Piraha morphology. It is extremely complex. Every Piraha verb has as many as 65,000-100,000 possible forms depending on how finely the suffixes are split (sometimes I realize how difficult it is to distinguish valid divisions, e.g. English -ed and -s from things that Hjemslev warned about e.g. the th- of then, though, than, etc. or the wh- of why, when, and what). Piraha is no pidgin language! It is an incredibly complex and rich system that chooses to place the majority of its morphosyntactic complexity in discourse and word structure rather than sentences and phrases. Dan -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 20:46:15 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:46:15 -0600 Subject: excessive criticism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Joan, I have no ideas about what anyone's motives are, including yours, just as you don't know mine. I am only going to answer your post because it is misleading about the nature of my own post. I have conducted field research for more than 30 years on more than 20 languages. The output of that work includes two full grammars and articles on every topic from acoustic phonetics to typology to historical linguistics to formal semantics, syntax, and morphology. However good or bad my research has been, I am nevertheless well aware that there are multiple functional ways of marking the items in my query. But, surprise, the particular study I have in mind is interested initially only in the particular formal devices I mentioned. If anyone has written a grammar using as a guideline, or merely one of many sources, the Lingua Descriptive Questionnaire prepared by Comrie and Smith, they will have frequently encountered the frustration of being asked 'Does the language have 'x'?' and knowing that (i) no, it doesn't but (ii) it has other ways of marking it. Yet a goal of the LDQ, to continue with just that example, is to find out which formal devices are used in language after language. So a specific question in the LDQ is not after all the ways something can be expressed, but whether this or that particular way of expressing it is employed. So far as I know, there is no study whatsoever providing a statistical study of the items I mentioned. And there is no universal agreement among typologists about them. Hence my question. On the other hand, if someone wants to tell me read the 'f'ing manual', fine. But tell me where to buy it first, OK? If the answers to my questions are common knowledge, I will eat my hat. Cheers, Dan Quoting Joan Bresnan : > I think that the criticism of Prof Leiss is excessive. It verges on > pillorying. Wasn't she merely observing what typologists know to be > true: that the grammars of languages which lack the familiar > structures and markers found in English, for example, often have > unfamiliar but functionally equivalent means in their own grammars? > Her advice, as I took it, was to inform oneself about such typological > variation before querying this forum. > > On computer technology forums, this is rather like the rude advice > often given to newcomers to inform themselves before wasting the time > of the experts: RTFM ("Read the F*ing Manual"). It is rude and > impatient, but not a crime. > > -- > Joan Bresnan > Stanford University > http://www.stanford.edu/~bresnan/ > -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Dec 21 14:29:20 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:29:20 -0500 Subject: Summary to date on 'Query on structural properties' Message-ID: On December 18, I posted the following query to FUNKNET: Folks, I am interested in beginning a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. Thanks very much in advance for your answers. Dan ** 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?'; 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' Here are some of the responses I have received so far on my query (I have not checked this out yet, so I accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the suggestions). I should add that there were several responses that addressed the issue of culture and language. I did not ask about that, however. So I won't include those in the summary. It did seem that a few readers imagined more to my questions than I actually asked. I asked about specific syntactic properties, not about alternate functional realizations. Both are important. But I didn't ask about both. With respect to the absence of multiple modification, one reader suggests that Maori might prohibit this as well. A couple of readers pointed out to me that cognitive, factive, and epistemic verbs are often derived from perceptual verbs, e.g. 'to hear' (understand); 'to see' (learn, know, etc.). I am aware of this, however, and it wasn't part of the question. What I am after is lexically or morphosyntactically distinct verbs; With regard to morphosyntactic markers of subordination, it was suggested that Iroquois, Athabaskan, and other families and languages, e.g. Arawak lack nonfinite clauses and also lack markers of subordination. With regard to conjunctive and disjunctive particles, Tom Givon responded that Ute lacks both 'or' and 'and'. For the absence of complement clauses, it was suggested that many serial-verb languages might lack complementation. Givon's Genesis of Syntactic Complexity, chapter four, summarizes data and discussions of this topic. It was also pointed out that Marianne Mithun's work on the intonational aspects of the development of complementation in Mohawk is particularly relevant. On the absence of multiple modification, it was suggested by Tom Givon that multiple modification itself is "perhaps the product of an earlier paratactic pattern, piling more modifiers after intonational breaks". On the absence of scope from one clause to another (point 8 of my query), a couple of readers suggested that most languages lack them, apart from the artificial examples of formal linguistics; On long-distance dependencies, Tom Givon says that "Once you look at discourse, ALL languages have long-distance dependencies. You find them in paragraph-level clause chaining, and they eventually grammaticalized (parataxis > syntaxis) into syntactic constructions." I completely agree with Tom on this. However, I was not asking about discourse, but about sentence-level syntax. I think that the failure of some theories to include discourse in their notion of 'grammar' is a serious shortcoming. Lachlan Mackenzie referred me to the new PhD dissertation defended at Vrie University Amsterdam by David Eberhard on Mamainde (supervisor Leo Wetzels) which manifests, he claims, many of the properties of my list. That dissertation can be downloaded at: http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. Joan Bybee, Paul Hopper, Tom Givon, and others underscored the importance of diachrony and grammaticalization in studying this type of phenomenon (a position I agree strongly with). More than one reader referred me as well to Bybee's chapter in Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givon (1997). See also discussion on southeast Asian languages by Walter. Bisang. Alex Francois offers some answers based on his work in Oceania. The sources he provides are: François, Alexandre. 2002. Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 522. Canberra: Australian National University and François, Alexandre. (in prep). A grammar of Teanu, the language of Vanikoro... I didn't cite the actual answers because they mainly concerned alternative functional strategies for realizing complementizers and subordination. Again, however, that is not quite what I was after. Thanks to everyone who responded. Apparently, the lack of these syntactic markers is not very common. I will be looking into this further and would love to hear from others on this list. Sincerely, Dan Everett From tgivon at uoregon.edu Wed Dec 23 15:56:14 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:56:14 -0700 Subject: long-distance control Message-ID: Dear FUNK people, I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. Best, TG From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 16:06:50 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:06:50 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: <4B323D9E.6060300@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Let me add that I agree completely with Tom. I agree that the sentence-discourse dichotomy is largely a false one. In fact, when an MIT linguist's book on antecedent contained deletion came out several years ago, I wrote him to point out that many of the same phenomena operate across sentence boundaries, so that the solution to the problems would have to be discourse-based. In fact, the hypothesis that I have reacted to most over the past couple of years, in my syntax work at least, has been the sentence-based proposals (since they implicitly assume the Minimalist Program) of Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002). My most recent statement on that particular research program was posted to my website yesterday: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/docs/Another%20reply%20to%20Nevins.pdf Dan And now for a shameless plug. Yesterday NPR joined the London Sunday Times and Blackwell's Booksellers in choosing my book as one of the 'best books of 2009': http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121515579 On 23 Dec 2009, at 10:56, Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dear FUNK people, > > I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. > > An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. > > First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. > > Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. > > Best, TG > From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Wed Dec 23 18:41:39 2009 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:41:39 -0800 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Interesting exchange between Dan and Tom. In cognitive linguistics, we go perhaps one step further. The powers of recursion, and more generally integration, lie in the human capacity to build vast networks of mental spaces with no discernable limits on the depth of embedding or the iteration of integrations. Discourse, narratives, the cultural evolution of mathematics, religious thought, all display these powers. What's remarkable about sentence syntax is actually how little recursion it has (as a formal combinatorial system), compared to meaning construction. This is because language only needs to prompt for the recursive thought processes. It does not reflect them directly. Gilles _________ Gilles Fauconnier Department of Cognitive Science University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 18:56:16 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:56:16 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This also makes perfect sense to me, Gilles. I cite this research in my new book, Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool, to appear late next year or early 2011. This is similar to a point I make in a paper to appear in a volume on recursion being edited by Peggy Speas and Tom Roeper, where I argue that recursion is vital to thought and serves as a tool in language which can, among other things, increase the information rate of individual sentences. Even tests for embedding in grammars depend to a large degree on arbitrary distinctions between sentences vs. discourse. Intonation, for example, can take a single multiclausal sentence or several sentences (e.g. intonational paragraphs) in its scope. Herb Simon's 1962 paper on the Architecture of Complexity discusses the importance of recursive handling of information across a range of tasks, including organizing a small watch repair business - the nonrecursive approach to watch repair will fail if competing with a recursive approach because it is less efficient, less able to take interruptions in construction of watches. Phil Lieberman has an interesting new paper to appear "The creative capacity of language, in what manner is it unique, and who had it? in which he argues for the importance of 'reiteration' as a more general case of which recursion is a subcase. -- Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 13:41, Gilles Fauconnier wrote: > > Interesting exchange between Dan and Tom. In cognitive linguistics, we go perhaps one step further. The powers of recursion, and more generally integration, lie in the human capacity to build vast networks of mental spaces with no discernable limits on the depth of embedding or the iteration of integrations. Discourse, narratives, the cultural evolution of mathematics, religious thought, all display these powers. > > What's remarkable about sentence syntax is actually how little recursion it has (as a formal combinatorial system), compared to meaning construction. This is because language only needs to prompt for the > recursive thought processes. It does not reflect them directly. > > Gilles > _________ > > > Gilles Fauconnier > Department of Cognitive Science > University of California San Diego > La Jolla CA 92093 > > E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu > http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Dec 23 20:27:22 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:27:22 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear FunkNetters, I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) On Dec 23, 2009, at 11:06 AM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Let me add that I agree completely with Tom. I agree that the sentence-discourse dichotomy is largely a false one. In fact, when an MIT linguist's book on antecedent contained deletion came out several years ago, I wrote him to point out that many of the same phenomena operate across sentence boundaries, so that the solution to the problems would have to be discourse-based. > > In fact, the hypothesis that I have reacted to most over the past couple of years, in my syntax work at least, has been the sentence-based proposals (since they implicitly assume the Minimalist Program) of Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002). > > My most recent statement on that particular research program was posted to my website yesterday: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/docs/Another%20reply%20to%20Nevins.pdf > > Dan > > And now for a shameless plug. Yesterday NPR joined the London Sunday Times and Blackwell's Booksellers in choosing my book as one of the 'best books of 2009': http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121515579 > > > > > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 10:56, Tom Givon wrote: > >> >> >> Dear FUNK people, >> >> I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. >> >> An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. >> >> First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. >> >> Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. >> >> Best, TG >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 21:04:08 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:04:08 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Brian, Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called “finite-state grammars.” Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a “phrase-structure grammar” is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirahã raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirahã language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirahã, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dear FunkNetters, > > I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? > > Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). > > -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Dec 23 22:03:55 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:03:55 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: <735D9660-5A08-42DA-8C6F-4417ED9B9A75@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dan, Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirahã fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. -- Brian MacWhinney On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Brian, > > Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: > ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called “finite-state grammars.” Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a “phrase-structure grammar” is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) > > I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: > > "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirahã raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirahã language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirahã, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." > > The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: > > (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' > > Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: > > (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. > > The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: > > (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' > > In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. > > Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). > > For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. > > Dan > > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > >> Dear FunkNetters, >> >> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >> >> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >> >> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 00:57:24 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:57:24 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Brian, The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dan, > > Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirahã fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Brian, >> >> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called “finite-state grammars.” Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a “phrase-structure grammar” is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >> >> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >> >> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirahã raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirahã language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirahã, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >> >> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >> >> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >> >> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >> >> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >> >> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >> >> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >> >> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >> >> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >> >> Dan >> >> >> >> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> >>> Dear FunkNetters, >>> >>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>> >>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>> >>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>> >> >> > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 01:00:39 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:00:39 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Correction: 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. Cooperation would also require it. Not merely competition. Dan From macw at cmu.edu Thu Dec 24 02:35:56 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:35:56 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dan, Our current understanding of neural processing requires that recursion in the brain must recursion in grammar in evolutionary terms. Recursion requires a stack and a processor that operates on the stack. The brain provides a (highly limited) simulation of the operation of a stack in the form of item-based memory. The items in the pseudo-stack can be syllables, words, phrases, or propositions. Activation of items in this stack can be achieved by the establishment of cortical loops that create working memories often with support from the hippocampus. The contents of these memories can then be inserted in a second concept being formulated. Voilá, you have recursion. Because the properties of cortical areas and the patterns of connectivity vary, it is certainly true that memory works in slightly different ways to store the results of these various levels of linguistic structure, just as it works in slightly different ways to store the results of spatial navigation, visual search, musical themes, and so on. But, in each case, the operation is one of storage and then reinsertion of the stored product in the next unit. Recursion is available in any system that is able to simulate stacks and a processor that works on the stacks. Of the four views you note, I have the greatest difficulty with idea that recursion has to be "reinvented" evolutionarily inside each module. Why would a module reinvent a general process to which it already has access. In the case of gap filling in questions with initial wh fillers, the actual processing involves a communication between anterior syntactic and posterior lexical areas. So, even in this parade example of sentence-internal recursion, the stacked is relying on one "module" and the processor on another. Recursion arises from pre-existing mnemonic and processing methods, but how these methods are used is up to language, thought, and culture, as you are arguing. Again, it seems that the interesting issue with Pirahã and languages of this type is about the methods they choose for creating fillers and filling gaps (i.e. push and pop from stacks) and which methods they seem to avoid. -- Brian MacWhinney On Dec 23, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Brian, > > The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. > > There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). > > A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: > > 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. > > 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) > > 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). > > 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. > > Dan > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > >> Dan, >> >> Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirahã fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. >> >> -- Brian MacWhinney >> >> On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> Brian, >>> >>> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >>> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called “finite-state grammars.” Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a “phrase-structure grammar” is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >>> >>> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >>> >>> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirahã raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirahã language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirahã, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >>> >>> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >>> >>> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >>> >>> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >>> >>> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >>> >>> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >>> >>> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >>> >>> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >>> >>> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >>> >>> Dan >>> >>> >>> >>> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>> >>>> Dear FunkNetters, >>>> >>>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>>> >>>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>>> >>>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>>> >>> >>> >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 02:47:16 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:47:16 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This reminds me a bit of some of the points in Michael Devitt's book, Ignorance of Language, in which he argues that language mirrors the mind rather than the other way around so, in a sense, grammar lacks psychological reality because it is epiphenomenal. I agree that repeated recursion in separate modules is not particularly appealing, but some researchers like the idea of massive redundancy between and/or autonomy of components, so it is still an empirical issue, however implausible a priori. I think that the possibilities I mention would make sense largely if one believed in the mind as distinct in some way from the brain, which I do not. Our reasoning contains ideas within ideas. Some might say that that kind of conceptual reasoning involves a recursive rule, e.g. Merge, and that this Merge began in language and moved to reason. From the brain-focused perspective you offer, that of course is a misguided way of putting things. Your last sentence makes eminent sense to me. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 21:35, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dan, > > Our current understanding of neural processing requires that recursion in the brain must recursion in grammar in evolutionary terms. Recursion requires a stack and a processor that operates on the stack. The brain provides a (highly limited) simulation of the operation of a stack in the form of item-based memory. The items in the pseudo-stack can be syllables, words, phrases, or propositions. Activation of items in this stack can be achieved by the establishment of cortical loops that create working memories often with support from the hippocampus. The contents of these memories can then be inserted in a second concept being formulated. Voilá, you have recursion. > Because the properties of cortical areas and the patterns of connectivity vary, it is certainly true that memory works in slightly different ways to store the results of these various levels of linguistic structure, just as it works in slightly different ways to store the results of spatial navigation, visual search, musical themes, and so on. But, in each case, the operation is one of storage and then reinsertion of the stored product in the next unit. Recursion is available in any system that is able to simulate stacks and a processor that works on the stacks. > Of the four views you note, I have the greatest difficulty with idea that recursion has to be "reinvented" evolutionarily inside each module. Why would a module reinvent a general process to which it already has access. In the case of gap filling in questions with initial wh fillers, the actual processing involves a communication between anterior syntactic and posterior lexical areas. So, even in this parade example of sentence-internal recursion, the stacked is relying on one "module" and the processor on another. > Recursion arises from pre-existing mnemonic and processing methods, but how these methods are used is up to language, thought, and culture, as you are arguing. Again, it seems that the interesting issue with Pirahã and languages of this type is about the methods they choose for creating fillers and filling gaps (i.e. push and pop from stacks) and which methods they seem to avoid. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > On Dec 23, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Brian, >> >> The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. >> >> There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). >> >> A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: >> >> 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. >> >> 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) >> >> 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). >> >> 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. >> >> Dan >> >> >> On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> >>> Dan, >>> >>> Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirahã fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. >>> >>> -- Brian MacWhinney >>> >>> On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: >>> >>>> Brian, >>>> >>>> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >>>> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called “finite-state grammars.” Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a “phrase-structure grammar” is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >>>> >>>> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >>>> >>>> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirahã raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirahã language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirahã, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >>>> >>>> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >>>> >>>> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>>> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>>> >>>> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >>>> >>>> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >>>> >>>> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >>>> >>>> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >>>> >>>> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >>>> >>>> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >>>> >>>> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>>> >>>>> Dear FunkNetters, >>>>> >>>>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>>>> >>>>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirahãn type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>>>> >>>>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> > From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 30 13:52:07 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:52:07 +0000 Subject: CADAAD 2010 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". See http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2010_conference for details. In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. Kind regards, Chris Hart -- Dr Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 30 13:53:39 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:53:39 +0000 Subject: CADAAD 2010 Final Call for Papers Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". See http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2010_conference for details. In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. Kind regards, Chris Hart -- Dr Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From sepkit at utu.fi Thu Dec 31 08:24:10 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:24:10 +0200 Subject: Reminder: Case in Uralic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings and happy new year to everyone!) Uralic Case Workshop of the 14th International Morphology Meeting Budapest, Hungary, May 14th and 15th, 2010 Seppo Kittilä and Anne Tamm This workshop is devoted to the study of case systems in Uralic languages. The Uralic languages are well known for their rich case inventories. However, most studies of Uralic cases deal with the rather extensively studied Hungarian, Finnish and perhaps Estonian cases and case systems. Cases of other Uralic languages have been studied to a much lesser extent. The goal of this workshop is to fill that void by giving a fuller picture of case systems of Uralic languages (including dialects). We thus especially encourage contributions dealing with lesser-studied Uralic languages (such as Samoyedic, Mari, Mordvinian, Sami languages and Khanty). The workshop consists of two parts. The first part of the workshop clarifies the phenomena, the terminology and the comparability of the data in the individual languages, as specific to Uralic and in more general terms. The goal is to accumulate knowledge about the case systems of each language, and about the specific cases in Uralic languages and dialects. Firstly, we plan ‘case studies of case’, such as genitive, partitive, abessive, locatives, comitative etc. in Uralic languages, both in individual languages and across (Uralic) languages. Secondly, we invite papers on more general issues, such as the 'Uralicness' of the case systems and cases. Please send your anonymous abstract, maximum 2 pages (including examples and references), and the same abstract containing your data and named yournameabstract.pdf, by January 15, 2010 to the organizers Seppo Kittilä and Anne Tamm, seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi and anne.tamm at unifi.it . Authors will be notified about the acceptance status of their paper by January 31. For updates and more information about the workshop, please consult our workspace at The webpage of the main event (The 14th International Morphology Meeting) is found at . Since the participants of the workshop on Uralic case need to register to the main event, please consult the website for details of registration, accommodation, the venue, and several other practical issues. From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Tue Dec 1 15:29:16 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:29:16 +0000 Subject: FINAL CFP: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From Gramis2010 at ua.ac.be Fri Dec 4 07:59:59 2009 From: Gramis2010 at ua.ac.be (Gramis2010) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 08:59:59 +0100 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GRAMMATICALIZATION AND (INTER)SUBJECTIFICATION NOVEMBER 11-13, 2010 - BRUSSELS (BELGIUM) Conference website: http://webh01.ua.ac.be/gramis/conference/conference.html We invite papers dealing with any aspect of the processes of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification, both empirical and conceptual, from any theoretical angle, but we are especially interested in papers dealing with * the interaction between the processes of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification; * the relation of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification to other mechanisms of language change, including, most notably, analogy; and * processes of degrammaticalization and de-(inter)subjectification: how (in)frequent are they, what kinds of factors trigger them, and what mechanisms are at work in them? Presentations are 20 minutes, followed by 5 minutes discussion. Abstracts of max. 4000 characters (i.e. app. 500 words; including references) should be submitted via the conference website. Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 15, 2010 Notification of acceptance: late March, 2010 Information regarding registration, accommodation and other practical matters will be provided in the second circular, to be distributed early 2010, and will be posted on the conference website as soon as they are available. Plenary speakers: Kasper Boye/Peter Harder Hilary Chappell Bernd Heine Heiko Narrog Muriel Norde Organizers: Johan van der Auwera & Jan Nuyts (Antwerp) From Jordan.Zlatev at ling.lu.se Fri Dec 4 08:27:32 2009 From: Jordan.Zlatev at ling.lu.se (Jordan Zlatev) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:27:32 +0100 Subject: Final CFP: Language, Culture Mind 2010 Message-ID: Final call for papers - Language, Culture and Mind (LCM 4) http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/fin/LCM4/ We send this final announcement that the 4th International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind (LCM 4) will be held in Turku, Finland, at ?bo Akademi University, 21st-23rd June 2010. Note: The deadline for abstract submission is Dec 15, 2009! The goals of LCM conferences are to contribute to situating the study of language in a contemporary interdisciplinary dialogue (involving linguistics, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, semiotics and other related fields), and to promote a better integration of cognitive and cultural perspectives in empirical and theoretical studies of language. Confirmed plenary speakers: * Associate Prof. Jukka Hy?n?, University of Turku * Prof. Peggy Miller, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana * Prof. Cornelia M?ller, Berlin Gesture Centre and Europa Universit?t Viadrina * Prof. Bradd Shore, Emory University, Atlanta * Prof. Dan Zahavi, Centre for Subjectivity Research, Copenhagen Round tables (with invited participants): * Intersubjectivity and Lifeworld: Constituted in language or consciousness? * Theorizing language, culture, and mind: in honour of Claude Levi Strauss * Multimodality and embodiment in communication and language The International LCM committee invites the submission of abstracts for presentations (oral and posters), on topics including but not limited to: * biological and cultural co-evolution * comparative study of communication systems * cognitive and cultural schematization in language * emergence of language in ontogeny and phylogeny * language in social interaction and multi-modal communication * language, intersubjectivity and normativity * language and thought, emotion and consciousness Abstracts of up to 500 words, including references, should be sent to lcm4turku at gmail.com as an attachment, in pdf or rtf format. Indicate if the abstract is for an oral or poster presentation. Note that there will be proper poster session(s), with one minute self-presentations to the audience in the plenary hall, just before the poster session. The deadline for abstract submission is Dec 15, 2009. Please see the homesite for additional information on abstract formatting. Registration for the conference should be done through the online registration form; see http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/fin/LCM4/registration.html. The fees for the LCM conference are: * Early registration (until 1st March 2010): 140 euros (110 euros for members of SALC) * Late registration (from 2nd March 2010 to 1st May 2010): 165 euros (125 euros for members of SALC) * Reduced registration fee (see registration form): 125 euros (90 euros for members of SALC) * The Finnish Evening 70 euros (60 euros for members of SALC) The registration fee includes lunch and coffee breaks during the conference, admission to all scientific sessions, all congress materials and administration costs. The Finnish evening fee includes a steam ship trip, dinner and sauna (swimming), and Finnish tango music. Important dates * Deadline for abstract submission 15 Dec 2009 * Notification of acceptance 15 Feb 2010 * Last date for early registration 1 Mar 2010 * Last date for registration 1 May 2010 * Final program publication 15th May 2010 The international LCM committee * Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Language and Communication * Carlos Cornejo, Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica de Chile, Psychology * Barbara Fultner, Denison University, Philosophy * Anders Hougaard, University of Southern Denmark, Social Cognition * Esa Itkonen, University of Turku, Linguistics * John Lucy, University of Chicago, Comparative Human Development and Psychology * Aliyah Morgenstern, Universit? Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Linguistics * Chris Sinha, University of Portsmouth, Psychology * Daniel Wolk, University of Kurdistan Hawler, Sociology * Jordan Zlatev, Lund University, Linguistics/Cognitive Semiotics LCM4 Local organizing committee * Urpo Nikanne, ?bo Akademi University, Finnish language * Anneli Pajunen, University of Tampere, Finnish languge * Esa Itkonen, University of Turku, General linguistics From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 9 10:24:13 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:24:13 +0000 Subject: 3rd Call for Papers: CADAAD 2010 Message-ID: 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson(University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak(University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge(University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl(University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to discourse at cadaad.org by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com Wed Dec 9 16:55:18 2009 From: Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com (Julia.Ulrich at degruyter.com) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 17:55:18 +0100 Subject: TOC Language and Cognition Volume 1/Issue 2 Message-ID: Language and Cognition Volume 1/Issue 2 is now available. Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation in spontaneous speech Harry Tily, Susanne Gahl, Inbal Arnon, Neal Snider, Anubha Kothari, Joan Bresnan Causers in English, Korean, and Chinese and the individuation of events Phillip Wolff, Ga-hyun Jeon, Yu Li Correlation versus prediction in children's word learning: Cross-linguistic evidence and simulations Eliana Colunga, Linda B. Smith, Michael Gasser Toward a theory of semantic representation Gabriella Vigliocco, Lotte Meteyard, Mark Andrews, Stavroula Kousta The sensory-motor theory of semantics: Evidence from functional imaging Uta Noppeney Reviews Contents Volume 1 (2009) For free abstracts, please visit http://www.reference-global.com/toc/langcog/2009/1/2 For more information on the journal and for free online access to Volume 1/Issue 1, please visit http://www.degruyter.com/journals/langcog/detailEn.cfm Julia Ulrich Product Manager DE GRUYTER Genthiner Str. 13 10785 Berlin, Germany T +49 (0)30.260 05-173 F +49 (0)30.260 05-322 julia.ulrich at degruyter.com www.degruyter.com Verlag Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. Genthiner Str. 13. 10785 Berlin. Sitz Berlin. Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HR A 2065. Rechtsform: Kommanditgesellschaft. Komplement?r: de Gruyter Verlagsbeteiligungs GmbH, Sitz Berlin, Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HR B 46487. Gesch?ftsf?hrer: Dr. Sven Fund Beiratsvorsitzender: Dr. Bernd Balzereit Sign up for our free electronic newsletter at www.degruyter.com/newsletter P sustainable thinking...please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to From bischoff.st at gmail.com Sun Dec 13 14:58:31 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:58:31 -0400 Subject: Null arguments Message-ID: Hi all, I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. Thanks, Shannon From smalamud at brandeis.edu Mon Dec 14 05:07:23 2009 From: smalamud at brandeis.edu (Sophia A. Malamud) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:07:23 -0500 Subject: null subjects Message-ID: Hello, The first thing that comes to mind are some Centering studies that relate null subjects to salience DiEugenio 1998 and others from the Centering Theory in Discourse book, and also subsequent work. Best, Sophia On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:00 PM, wrote: > Send FUNKNET mailing list submissions to > ? ? ? ?funknet at mailman.rice.edu > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > ? ? ? ?https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/funknet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > ? ? ? ?funknet-request at mailman.rice.edu > > You can reach the person managing the list at > ? ? ? ?funknet-owner at mailman.rice.edu > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of FUNKNET digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > ? 1. Null arguments (s.t. bischoff) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:58:31 -0400 > From: "s.t. bischoff" > Subject: [FUNKNET] Null arguments > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: > ? ? ? ?<1c1f75a20912130658v7e8f8c82m76cb2e163621eb91 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hi all, > > I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null > arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in > various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. > > Thanks, > Shannon > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 75, Issue 4 > ************************************** > From lesleyne at msu.edu Mon Dec 14 15:33:38 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:33:38 -0500 Subject: Null arguments In-Reply-To: <1c1f75a20912130658v7e8f8c82m76cb2e163621eb91@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ?A good place to start would be a 1999 CLS presentation made by Hartwell Francis, Laura Michaelis and Michelle Gregory titled "Are lexical subjects deviant?"" ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Quoting "s.t. bischoff" : > Hi all, > > I was wondering if anyone might have some suggested readings on null > arguments from a functional perspective? Specifically, I'm interested in > various accounts of omitted subjects and objects in speech and writing. > > Thanks, > Shannon > > From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 16 11:46:10 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:46:10 +0000 Subject: EXTENDED DEADLINE: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: EXTENDED DEADLINE - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org Dear colleagues, We have had an overwhelming response to our call for papers and a number of requests for extensions to the deadline for abstracts. Accordingly, we welcome submissions of abstracts until 31 December 2009. The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 31 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 13:17:36 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties Message-ID: Folks, I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. Thanks very much in advance for your answers. Dan ** 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From hopper at cmu.edu Fri Dec 18 16:04:58 2009 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:04:58 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <7AB90346-F99A-43F6-A96D-E9BB803DD770@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Typologists and Funknetters, It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. - Paul On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: > Folks, > > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of > the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! > Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of > languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am > interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset > of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a > whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would > particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult > in rarer languages. > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > > Dan > ** > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not > counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker > of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no > words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words > like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for > embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no > structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. > No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' > (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case > that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes > that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' > > > -- Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper Senior Fellow Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg Albertstr. 19 D-79104 Freiburg and Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From lachlan_mackenzie at hotmail.com Fri Dec 18 16:31:50 2009 From: lachlan_mackenzie at hotmail.com (Lachlan Mackenzie) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:31:50 +0000 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <7AB90346-F99A-43F6-A96D-E9BB803DD770@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Dan Just last week I was on the examinations board for a doctoral thesis defended at VU University Amsterdam which was a grammar of a language with most of the properties you list. The language is Mamaind?, a Northern Nambikwara language of Mato Grosso, Brazil, the author is David M. Eberhard and the supervisor Leo Wetzels. The thesis is available on line from http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. Best wishes, Lachlan Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie Researcher at ILTEC Honorary professor at VU Amsterdam Editor of Functions of Language Research Manager of SCIMITAR ILTEC Rua Conde de Redondo 74 - 5 1150-109 Lisboa Portugal fax: 0031 84 7217087 cellphone: 00351 9 65026923 Visit my website! > From: dlevere at ilstu.edu > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 > To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG; FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: [FUNKNET] Query on structural properties > > Folks, > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > Dan > ** > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). > 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. > 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). > 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). > 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). > 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . > 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') > 9. No long-distance dependencies: > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From amnfn at well.com Fri Dec 18 16:34:05 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:34:05 -0800 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: Paul, That's an interesting observation about conversational English. Surely, it must depend on the conversational context, too. And, I assume, that when given the appropriate contextual constraint, your observation is true of every language when used conversationally? --Aya On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Department of English > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA 15213 > > > From amnfn at well.com Fri Dec 18 16:39:01 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:39:01 -0800 Subject: Rejected posting to LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG (fwd) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, I got a message that I can't post from my well.com account, but I always have before. Can someone help me with that? --Aya Katz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:34:09 -0500 From: "LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG LISTSERV Server (15.5)" To: amnfn at WELL.COM Subject: Rejected posting to LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG You are not authorized to send mail to the LINGTYP list from your amnfn at WELL.COM account. You might be authorized to post to the list from another account, or perhaps when using another mail program configured to use a different email address. However, LISTSERV has no way to associate this other account or address with yours. If you need assistance or if you have any questions regarding the policy of the LINGTYP list, please contact the list owners at LINGTYP-request at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 17:01:51 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:01:51 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: I think Paul is right about this. I wouldn't use the term 'primitive' however, unless there were a well-worked out theory of the evolution of linguistic structure. Even then, such a theory would need to include discourse - quite a tall order. At the level of discourse Piraha, to take a random example, has plenty of recursion. Theories which explicitly attempt to account for discourse will not be surprised at the existence of such 'continua', as Paul puts it. Only syntactocentric theories would be, I think. But my inchoate program is to look at specific structural markers. (Not the semantics. Of course the lack of an epistemic verb in a language would have nothing to say at all about whether the language can express epistemic concepts, etc.) How common/rare are some (or their absence)? Do some absences cluster together? (That is a *very* hard one to establish, clearly.) Can these be tested psycholinguistically, via corpora, etc? Lots of questions that interest me. Of course, a culture or language could lack all of the things just mentioned at one level and have them at another. That is part of the program. If anyone on the other side of the pond wants to flame me, you will have your chance to do so in person in February at the German Linguistic Society meetings in Berlin where I will be talking (one of the four plenary lectures) on culture and language. But just use words, OK? No bricks, etc. Love & Peace, Dan On 18 Dec 2009, at 11:04, Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Department of English > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA 15213 > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Fri Dec 18 17:03:05 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:03:05 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Lachlan. I know both David and Leo quite well and have known about some of Mamainde's features for a while. I look forward to reading the thesis. Dan On 18 Dec 2009, at 11:31, Lachlan Mackenzie wrote: > Dear Dan > > Just last week I was on the examinations board for a doctoral thesis defended at VU University Amsterdam which was a grammar of a language with most of the properties you list. The language is Mamaind?, a Northern Nambikwara language of Mato Grosso, Brazil, the author is David M. Eberhard and the supervisor Leo Wetzels. The thesis is available on line from http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. > > Best wishes, > > Lachlan > > > > > > Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie > > Researcher at ILTEC > Honorary professor at VU Amsterdam > Editor of Functions of Language > Research Manager of SCIMITAR > > ILTEC > Rua Conde de Redondo 74 - 5 > 1150-109 Lisboa > Portugal > > fax: 0031 84 7217087 > cellphone: 00351 9 65026923 > > Visit my website! > > > > > > From: dlevere at ilstu.edu > > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:36 -0500 > > To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG; FUNKNET at mailman.rice.edu > > Subject: [FUNKNET] Query on structural properties > > > > Folks, > > > > I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. > > > > Thanks very much in advance for your answers. > > > > Dan > > ** > > 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). > > 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. > > 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). > > 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). > > 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). > > 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . > > 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). > > 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') > > 9. No long-distance dependencies: > > 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > > 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Dec 18 23:06:34 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:06:34 -0700 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <38a3584fe95a4b4175fed6aaebf679ad.squirrel@webmail.andrew.cmu.edu> Message-ID: Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations between grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it as a matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it into two dimensions. First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals was really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus ultimately diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on topic-prominent languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into this tho didn't quite know how to digest it. But what they described was a dimention of grammaticalization. And they were looking at serial-verb languages, which (at least at some stage of their diachrony) are notoriously under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li was suggesting at the time (in private comm.) that Chinese was a pidgin language. My own view at the time (and still now) was that he was looking only at written Chinese, and that the Spoken language had already gone 2,500 years worth of granmmaticalization. Still, for each area (functional domain) of grammar, one could find languages that are under-grammaticalize. But this simply means that they are at a low point on the diachronic cycle. And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier papers) has recently shown that if you look very carefully, you can see early stages of grammaticalization in the intonation packaging (in her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). So cross language differences often boil down to where in the grammaticalization cycle a language--or particular grammar-coded domains within it--is/are. Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him would be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, intimate, isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, compared to his description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the max? And, how come within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at least two successive grammaticalization cycles--during a period where there was no cultural change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a relatively-recent pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the Chinese contact area Charles Li talked about, such pidginization (prior to Archaeic Chinese) has certainly has certainly been documented. Merry Christmass to y'all, TG ================ Paul Hopper wrote: > Dear Typologists and Funknetters, > > It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good > quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be > statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be > formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language > to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) > > We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a > discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months > now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. > > - Paul > > > On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Folks, >> >> >> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >> in rarer languages. >> >> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >> >> >> Dan >> ** >> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> >> >> > > > From jbybee at unm.edu Sat Dec 19 00:03:06 2009 From: jbybee at unm.edu (Joan Bybee) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:03:06 -0700 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C0AFA.1030807@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: I think Tom is correct that some languages take grammaticalization further than others, and this applies to both form and meaning (as shown in The evolution of language 1994 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca). Our data suggest not that this is just where a language is on the cycle, but rather that it can be a stable feature of a language. Otherwise all languages would have structures at all stages of grammaticalization. Instead, what happens in languages that do not grammaticalize enough to reach the stage of inflection is that newly grammaticalizing structures take over and replace the maturing ones before they get a chance to go too far. I suspect that this is related to a cultural/discourse phenomenon--the type of inferences a speaker/hearer makes in conversation. This is articulated in my paper in Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicted to T. Givon (1997). See also discussion on southeast Asian languages by Walter. Bisang. Dan Everett should also look at R. Perkins Grammar, Deixis and Culture 1992 for a methodologically excellent study of the relation between certain cultural features and grammar. Joan Bybee Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations > between grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it > as a matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it > into two dimensions. > > First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level > spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. > Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this > point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that > spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since > written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real > thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals > was really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) > language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. > > The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus > ultimately diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on > topic-prominent languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into > this tho didn't quite know how to digest it. But what they described > was a dimention of grammaticalization. And they were looking at > serial-verb languages, which (at least at some stage of their > diachrony) are notoriously under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li > was suggesting at the time (in private comm.) that Chinese was a > pidgin language. My own view at the time (and still now) was that he > was looking only at written Chinese, and that the Spoken language had > already gone 2,500 years worth of granmmaticalization. Still, for each > area (functional domain) of grammar, one could find languages that are > under-grammaticalize. But this simply means that they are at a low > point on the diachronic cycle. And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier > papers) has recently shown that if you look very carefully, you can > see early stages of grammaticalization in the intonation packaging (in > her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). So cross language differences > often boil down to where in the grammaticalization cycle a > language--or particular grammar-coded domains within it--is/are. > > Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him > would be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, > intimate, isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, > compared to his description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the > max? And, how come within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at > least two successive grammaticalization cycles--during a period where > there was no cultural change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a > relatively-recent pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the > Chinese contact area Charles Li talked about, such pidginization > (prior to Archaeic Chinese) has certainly has certainly been documented. > > Merry Christmass to y'all, TG > > ================ > > > > > Paul Hopper wrote: > >> Dear Typologists and Funknetters, >> >> It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good >> quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be >> statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be >> formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a >> language >> to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) >> >> We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a >> discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several >> months >> now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. >> >> - Paul >> >> >> On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >> >>> Folks, >>> >>> >>> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative >>> rarity of >>> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >>> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in >>> knowing of >>> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next >>> I am >>> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any >>> subset >>> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list >>> as a >>> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >>> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to >>> consult >>> in rarer languages. >>> >>> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >>> >>> >>> Dan >>> ** >>> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs >>> (not >>> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic >>> marker >>> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >>> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no >>> words >>> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong >>> evidence for >>> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >>> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) >>> . 7. >>> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >>> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you >>> left' >>> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >>> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John >>> believes >>> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >>> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 02:11:12 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:11:12 -0500 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C183A.10706@unm.edu> Message-ID: Dear All, The remarks by Tom and Joan are, as one would expect, extremely useful and interesting. Let me address myself first to Tom. Tom suggests that my research program is Whorfian. In fact, it is the opposite of Whorf. Whereas Whorf, Sapir, Herder, and others raised the question of the degree of influence that grammar could have on cognition, my program, suggested a bit by Boas and Sapir, is mainly concerned with how culture can affect grammar. As far as I know, Whorf never concerned himself with the effects of culture on grammar. Here is a summary of various positions: Cognition, Grammar, Culture Connections Constraint Relationship Representative Theory 1. cognition --> grammar Chomsky's Universal Grammar 2. grammar --> cognition Linguistic Relativity (Whorf) 3. cognition --> culture Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's work on color terms 4. grammar --> culture Greg Urban's work on discourse-centered culture 5. culture --> cognition Long term effects on thinking of cultural restrictions on certain behaviors 6. culture --> grammar Ethnogrammar; individual forms structured by culture I believe that there are different, yet non-exclusive, relations between culture, cognition, and grammar. My program, such as it is, falls under number 6. I think that box number one is probably the null set, though it might have something in it that no one has yet discovered. The others are all active and viable connections, each associated with a different research program. I discuss this all in more detail in my book, Don't sleep there are snakes, which is now available in Korean (Courrier), in the UK (Profile) and in the USA (Pantheon and Vintage), and soon to be available in German (February - http://www.amazon.de/Das-gl?cklichste-Volk-Pirah?-Indianern-Amazonas/dp/3421043078/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259941204&sr=8-3), French, Thai, Mandarin, and Japanese. Grammaticalization clearly is relevant in 'freeze framing' various connections, including culture and grammar. Nothing in my own thought or research is incompatible with grammaticalization. It plays a vital role in any complete theory of diachronic or synchronic linguistics. Tom's term - 'society of intimates' - has been very helpful to me. The Utes might be a society of intimates. The Pirahas certainly are. So why aren't all societies of intimates grammatically similar? Why doesn't Ute have the characteristics of Piraha or vice-versa? Because no single cultural value is going to be responsible for all the culture-grammar connections one might discover. Culture, like Language, is an abstraction, an idealization. In Everett and Sakel (to appear), we propose a methodology for studying linkage between grammatical chararacteristics and cultural characteristics. One must first identify cultural values, in a non-circular manner, and then identify grammatical phenomena. We then suggest ways of establishing non-circular connections and relations of causality between such pairs. Piraha is not only a society of intimates, but it has a particularly strong value of 'immediacy of experience'. I discuss such issues in more detail in Don't sleep. If Piraha has suffered some sort of cultural trauma, e.g. the conquest by Europeans that began in the 16th century, then this certainly could have dramatically affected their culture and its connections with their language/grammar/grammatical constructions. On the other hand, we know that their culture and language today look pretty much like they did in 1784, when the first written records begin to appear. So whatever their culture & language were like before then, that is irrelevant to the fact that they have been in a relative period of stasis since then. Diachronic studies and grammaticalization are vital to my program ultimately. This is because I simply want to understand language as well as I can. Because I do not believe in Universal Grammar or much at all in the way of genetic constraints on the shapes of grammars, I have to look to other explanans for similarities between languages of the world. This is in fact the subject of my book, Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool, to appear in late 2010 (Pantheon in the US, Profile in the UK). Joan - thanks for the reference! Ultimately, I see nothing incompatible with anything Tom has said and what I have said. I simply believe that culture plays a larger part than some other linguists do in shaping grammar and other aspects of cognitive life. Yesterday, GEO magazine published a large story about my work in German (it will ultimately appear in all 20 languages in which GEO is published). In that story, Chomsky says that it is ridiculous to think that culture could affect grammar because three year olds know nothing/little about culture and much about grammar. That seems false. Much of culture is learned and transmitted nonverbally from birth. Perhaps before birth. I give examples in Everett (2008). I believe that all humans are born with a similar genetic endowment, encompassing intelligence, body size, etc. I am not 'searching for primitive languages'. I am interested in learning more about the culture-grammar interface as one part of the symbiosis between grammar, culture, and cognition. Cheers, Dan Everett, Daniel L. and Jeanette Sakel. forthcoming. Linguistic Fieldword: A Student Guide. Cambridge University Press, Red Series. Everett, Daniel L. 2008. Don't sleep there are snakes: life and language in the Amazonian jungle. Vintage Departure Series. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 08:01:47 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:01:47 -0600 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Randy LaPolla's post includes the statement that: > > As each society is unique, each language will be unique I agree completely. Each culture-grammar pairing is unique. Randy also says, as Sapir did, that the relationships between current states of the grammar and culture are often no longer discoverable. No disagreement from me. And no disagreement from me for the rest of Randy's post either. Let me first give a very broad distinction between culture vs. society, since I am interested in both, but primarily the former. Culture includes the values whereby peoples get meaning out of the world around them. Society is largely the set of constraints that regulate group behavior. (Very simplistic. Just trying to brush off the targets a bit.) For example, take a culture like the Pirahas. If all the Pirahas decided one morning to move to LA, their language would change, their values and their constraints would change. Any original connections could be lost and we would not even be able to detect this after a while. New connections would be developed over time. This is why it is much more difficult to do field research outside of the community, rather than a single speaker in, say, a linguistic classroom. (People who list 'field research' on their vitae when they have only engaged in the latter are using this term in a sense I reject.) Only in the community can the linguist even hope to explore the vestiges of values that might have affected grammar. And even there it will often be impossible to find testable connections. On the other hand, in certain situations around the world, where we find monolingual communities in relative geographical and cultural isolation (especially when we know something about the period of isolation and the conditions leading up to it), it becomes slightly more feasible to study culture-grammar connections. These are never obvious, always subtle, very difficult to argue for in a non-circular manner. But not impossible. Because each language-culture pairing is unique, the loss of even a single language is irrecoverable and tragic for the speakers (if they survive the loss) and the rest of the world. Field research is more urgent and more important. Field research en loco even more so. Clifford Geertz was clear in pointing out, as the late, great Peter Ladefoged and I tried to be in our paper 'The problem of phonetic rarities', that some of the most important lessons from our conspecifics come from differences, quirks, oddities, and unexpected extensions of the parameters of our linguistic, cognitive, and cultural possibilities. Understanding these possibilities is the enterprise that I think most of us are committed to. None of us is interested in showing that this or that language is inferior to any other - any more than a physicist is interested in showing that the trajectory of this object through the air was 'inferior' to the trajectory of another object. The idea doesn't even make sense to a scientist. Rather, I think we are interested in understanding how the language works and how it got to be the way it is. Languages have a way of evolving to fit their cultural niche, as cultures also evolve to fit their languages. Not always possible to see the connections or to conclusively establish them. But this co-evolution means that there is no such thing as an inferior language, except when it comes to fail to fit its niche. But in such cases, the language & culture will evolve quickly to fit one another. Evolution in this sense is on-going. Grammaticalization is one part of it. In this enterprise, it is also vital (but rarely possible) that field research be conducted in teams of linguists, anthropologists, and psychologists. If Sapir was right, psychology and linguistics are subfields of anthropology. Still not a bad idea. Dan ***** On the question of the relationship between culture and cognition on the one hand, and language structure on the other, while there are times we can find a ?smoking gun? which clearly can show a relationship between some aspect of culture/cognition and some aspect of the grammar, I don?t think it is very useful to argue from these cases, as it implies that there are some aspects of grammar that are related to culture/cognition and some that aren?t, it implies that the motivation for the grammaticalisation or lexicalisation of some form is always going to be transparent, and it implies that there is always a recognisable one-to-one correspondence between some aspect of culture/cognition and language structure. If we take grammaticalisation seriously, that is, if we understand that all aspects of grammar are the result of grammaticalisation, and we understand that grammaticalisation (and lexicalisation) is the conventionalisation of repeated patterns of use (using the same form to constrain the addressee?s interpretation of the speaker?s communicative intention in the same way over and over again), then there must by logical necessity be a connection between all conventionalised aspects of language and the culture/cognition of the speakers, otherwise the speakers would not have used those particular forms in those particular ways over and over again to constrain the interpretation of that particular semantic domain in that particular way, to the extent that the forms became conventionalized. That is, constraining the interpretation of that particular semantic domain in that way must have been important for them, important enough for them to put the extra effort into constraining the interpretation in that way. It often isn?t possible to see what the motivations for the original grammaticalisation or lexicalization was, as once something is conventionalised, it will often stay in the language even after the original motivation is no longer there (e.g. using dial even though telephone no longer have dials), and forms can change in shape (e.g. an onomatopoetic form becoming non-onomatopoetic through sound change) or use (extended in new ways that reflect a different motivation) once they are conventionalized. There can also be competing motivations over time, such as what happened in the loss and re-creation of the singular/plural distinction of second person pronouns in English. As each society is unique, each language will be unique in terms of which semantic domains the speakers will decide to constrain the interpretation of (e.g. tense or no tense), in terms of the extent to which they will constrain the interpretation of that particular domain (e.g. one past tense or three?), and in terms of the particular form used to constrain it. There is no logical necessity that societies with certain characteristics will necessarily end up conventionalising the same sorts of structures. Randy --- Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA (???? Chair of Linguistics Director, Research Centre for Linguistic Typology La Trobe University, VIC 3086 AUSTRALIA Tel.: +61 3 9479-2555; FAX: +61 3 9479-1520 RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/ Linguistics: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/ The Tibeto-Burman Domain: http://tibeto-burman.net/ Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area: http://stedt.berkeley.edu/ltba/ Location of RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/location.htm -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Dec 19 08:17:37 2009 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:17:37 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4EBFBC5C-C271-4CC5-9000-C4FA732B5C42@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Dan, Tom and others, [obviously, both FUNKNET and LINGTYP are involved in this discussion, so please excuse double posting]: Whether or not the three 'domains' language (here in terms of grammar), cognition, and culture are seen as being related or mutually conditioning the 'shape' of the domains (in which direction so ever), naturally depends from how these 'domains' are defined. I have to admit that in quite a number of proposals that map 'language' (>'grammar') onto 'culture' (or vice versa), the term 'culture' is hardly ever defined or defined in a way that would be compatible with proposals stemming from contemporary 'culturology' and sociology (here, I use the term 'culturology' in a very trivial sense that should not evoke commitment to a special 'cultural theory'). 'Culture' is often used in a rather pre-scientific, folk-philosophic sense, entailing lots of biases and prejudices concerning the properties, values, and relevance of 'culture' and being themselves again part of the 'cultural paradigm' of a community, both in terms of folk-ideology and scientific/philosophic debates (compare for instance the discussion on 'culture' in times of Johann Gottfried Herder as opposed to that initiated e.g. by the proponents of the Eurasianic Hypothesis (Trubetzkoy and others) soon after the October Revolution). There are so many ways of approaching the domain of 'culture' (or of dismissing it at all!), that any speculation about the type of relationship present (or not) in the above-mentioned triad should at the very first fix the/ locus observandi/ of the scientific 'spectator'. This is also relevant because the 'spectator' has to make sure that (s)he does not simply perpetuate often highly problematic, nevertheless 'lived' folk-models of 'culture'. Also, the 'spectator' should make clear that his/her theoretical model as well as his/her methods of classifying, delimiting, defining, and generalizing culture and cultural features is compatible with those methods applied for doing the same with language and/or cognition. The dyadic tableau proposed by Dan in fact is a triad (or even more, in case you include domains like 'environment' or 'habitat' [which reminds me of some kind of Neo-Lamarckism] and sociology in a broader sense). If ever these domains can be kept apart, we would logically arrive at at least 13 different models, as listed below (L = language (here > Grammar/Lexicon), T = Cognition ('Thought'), C = Culture), -> conditioning/effecting/hierarchical 'higher', || = not relation. L -> T -> C L -> C -> T L -> T || C L -> C || T L || C || T T -> C -> L T -> L -> C T -> C || L T -> L || C C -> T -> L C -> L -> T C -> T || L C -> L || T This tableau is not exhaustive, because it neglects the parameter of 'identity'. That means that some models may say that Language /is/ Cognition or Culture, not just a separate phenomenon related to one of them (or vice versa). Hence we should add: C=T || L C=L || T C=T -> L C=L -> T L=T || C L=C || T L=T -> C L=C -> T T=C || L T=L || C T=C -> L T=L -> C This would give us 12 additional models (now 25 in total). The thing becomes even more complex, if we specify the type of dependency: "-> " may e.g. be described in terms of one or more of the four Aristotelian causa-types (/causa efficiens, causa finalis, causa formalis, causa materialis/) [again 22 options, according to my calculus]. All this would end up in at least 25*22 models (if my rather basic knowledge of mathematics is correct), disregarding the different definitions (and hence descriptive 'types') of Language, Cognition, and Culture that may affect the choice of the relevant causa-types as well as the final description of a given dependency. To make it even more complex: We have to 'decide' whether an assumed relationship is given synchronically or just a 'petrified' reflex of older mechanisms, no longer 'active' within the dynamics of the actual domains. This naturally includes the unproven hypothesis that whatever we think of characterizing Language, Culture, or Cognition today has been the 'same' since human language (etc.) has arisen. But it is a matter of debate to ascertain the possibility and plausibility of such a projection (top put it into simple terms (for Culture): The concept of Culture is a cultural fact, and as cultures change, the concept of Culture changes too, both in cultural practices and the corresponding folk-models - with the effect that one [practiced] concept of Culture may influence e.g. Language, while others do or did not. In other words: There still is lot to do (albeit much has been done so far) to reach a theoretically and methodologically 'sound' basis for describing effects (what kind soever) among the three domains Language, Cognition, and Culture and to avoid impressionistic and intuitive statements. All this also presupposes some kind of 'reification' of the domains at issue, that is to turn the observed phenomena (Language, Cognition, Culture) into describable, more or less time-stable 'objects' with properties agreed upon by the scientific community (without neglecting to fix and make public one's own /locus observandi/). One final point: we all know that our own scientific thinking is not only driven by our personal history, by our scientific traditions, by the 'scientific habitat' we [have to] live in, and the data we deal with etc., but also by the (covert or overt) assimilation of actual models of the 'world', that is of those global paradigms that are current and sometimes trendy. The revitalization of the concept of Culture (itself being 'detected' in th late 18th century and popularized as a social (~political) model in the 19th century) is grounded in the growing relevance of relativistic models since the 1980ies, both in Western societies and Western concepts of science. Just as the orientation towards Cognition has developed into a clandestine 'must' since the declaration of the 21st century as the 'Century of the Brain', Culture, and, more specifically, Cultures have become a new societal model serving as a highly visible landmark in public and scientific discourse. This reminds me of the historicism and 'culturalism' in the 19th century, deeply engraved in the paradigm of Romantics. A nice example of how these two perspectives are even linked together is given by the recent program of /Cultural Neurosciences/. I know that we cannot escape from being being shaped in our 'thinking' by such public paradigms, but we should at least try to formulate this impact and to describe it as being part of our thinking (with all its consequences). Linguistics is a 'cultural and societal fact', and hence it is not amazing at all that it changes just as the paradigms present a given culture change.... Best wishes, Wolfgang -- *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze * ---------------------------------------------------------- /Primary contact: / Institut f?r Allgemeine & Typologische Sprachwissenschaft Dept. II / F 13 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen Ludwigstra?e 25 Postanschrift / Postal address: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 M?nchen Tel.: 0049-(0)89-2180-2486 (Secretary) 0049-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office) Fax: 0049-(0)89-2180-16567 // 0049-(0)89-2180-5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de /// Wolfgang.Schulze at lmu.de Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/schulze/index.html http://www.wolfgangschulze.in-devir.com ---------------------------------------------------------- /Second contact: / Katedra Germanistik? Fakulta humanitn?ch vied Univerzita Mateja B?la / Bansk? Bystrica Tajovsk?ho 40 SK-97401 Bansk? Bystrica Tel: (00421)-(0)48-4465108 Fax: (00421)-(0)48-4465512 Email: Schulze at fhv.umb.sk Web: http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze ---------------------------------------------------------- From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Dec 19 08:28:56 2009 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:28:56 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties - my two tables Message-ID: Dear friends, I just saw that the two tables in my last post do not show up properly in the FUNKNET version. Below, I give you another 'simple' version of these tables. Sorry for all inconveniences! Best wishes, Wolfgang a. L -> T -> C L -> C -> T L -> T || C L -> C || T L || C || T T -> C -> L T -> L -> C T -> C || L T -> L || C C -> T -> L C -> L -> T C -> T || L C -> L || T b. C=T || L C=L || T C=T -> L C=L -> T L=T || C L=C || T L=T -> C L=C -> T T=C || L T=L || C T=C -> L T=L -> C -- *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze * ---------------------------------------------------------- /Primary contact: / Institut f?r Allgemeine & Typologische Sprachwissenschaft Dept. II / F 13 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen Ludwigstra?e 25 Postanschrift / Postal address: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 M?nchen Tel.: 0049-(0)89-2180-2486 (Secretary) 0049-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office) Fax: 0049-(0)89-2180-16567 // 0049-(0)89-2180-5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de /// Wolfgang.Schulze at lmu.de Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/schulze/index.html http://www.wolfgangschulze.in-devir.com ---------------------------------------------------------- /Second contact: / Katedra Germanistik? Fakulta humanitn?ch vied Univerzita Mateja B?la / Bansk? Bystrica Tajovsk?ho 40 SK-97401 Bansk? Bystrica Tel: (00421)-(0)48-4465108 Fax: (00421)-(0)48-4465512 Email: Schulze at fhv.umb.sk Web: http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze ---------------------------------------------------------- From oesten at ling.su.se Sat Dec 19 08:34:10 2009 From: oesten at ling.su.se (=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=96sten_Dahl?=) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:34:10 +0100 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C0AFA.1030807@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Although Tom talks in his posting below about "under-grammaticalizing" in different domains of a language, it is still worth emphasizing that Pirah? is not at all pidgin-like. Languages that have "undergone a relatively-recent pidginization cycle" would be expected to have no or little inflectional morphology. Pirah?, on the other hand, has a rather complex morphology, especially with regard to verbs. The lack of grammaticalized subordinate constructions appears to be a different story. I do not know if there is evidence for a link to a pidginization cycle for that kind of phenomenon in any language. - ?sten On 2009-12-19, at 00:06, Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dan's agenda, if I understand it, has been to find correlations between > grammar & culture. Whorf re-heated? I would rather look at it as a > matter of Degree of Grammaticalization, where one could factor it into > two dimensions. > > First, as pointed out by Paul, at the frequency distribution level > spoken language is always less grammaticalized than written language. > Two old papers (Keenan/Ochs & T. Bennett 1977; Givon 1979) made this > point. I my own article (also a chapter in OUG 1979), I suggested that > spoken language is more pidgin-like, i.e. less grammaticalized. Since > written language is a superficial artifact piggy-backed on the real > thing, one may say that what riled Dan against Chomskian universals was > really that they have always been based on well-planned (written) > language, and Dan was dealing with a real language. > > The other dimension is cross-language typological--qand thus ultimately > diachronic. Li and Thompson (1976) in a paper on topic-prominent > languages (vs. subject-prominent ones) stumbled into this tho didn't > quite know how to digest it. But what they described was a dimention of > grammaticalization. And they were looking at serial-verb languages, > which (at least at some stage of their diachrony) are notoriously > under-grammaticalized. Indeed, Charles Li was suggesting at the time (in > private comm.) that Chinese was a pidgin language. My own view at the > time (and still now) was that he was looking only at written Chinese, > and that the Spoken language had already gone 2,500 years worth of > granmmaticalization. Still, for each area (functional domain) of > grammar, one could find languages that are under-grammaticalize. But > this simply means that they are at a low point on the diachronic cycle. > And Marianne Mithun (2009 and earlier papers) has recently shown that if > you look very carefully, you can see early stages of grammaticalization > in the intonation packaging (in her case, Iroquois subordinate clauses). > So cross language differences often boil down to where in the > grammaticalization cycle a language--or particular grammar-coded domains > within it--is/are. > > Coming back to Dan's cross-cultural obsession, my question to him would > be (well, has been...): Ute is as much the product of a small, intimate, > isolated, stone-age society as Pirha. So how come Ute, compared to his > description of Piraha, is over-grammaticalized to the max? And, how come > within a single Ute domain (passives) I can find at least two successive > grammaticalization cycles--during a period where there was no cultural > change? Could it be that Piraha had undergone a relatively-recent > pidginization cycle prior to meeting Dan? In the Chinese contact area > Charles Li talked about, such pidginization (prior to Archaeic Chinese) > has certainly has certainly been documented. > > Merry Christmass to y'all, TG > > ================ > > > > > Paul Hopper wrote: >> Dear Typologists and Funknetters, >> >> It's interesting that many of the items on Dan's list would be good >> quantitative characterizations of conversational English; they would be >> statistical but not grammatical constraints. Dan's project might be >> formulated as: How far along this continuum is it possible for a language >> to go? (Is Spoken English a 'primitive' language?) >> >> We learned last year in Funknet how a single angry "flame" can torpedo a >> discussion group--Funknet has been basically quiescent for several months >> now. A pity. The best way to deal with a flame is to ignore it. >> >> - Paul >> >> >> On Fri, December 18, 2009 08:17, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> Folks, >>> >>> >>> I am interested in beginnng a statistical study on the relative rarity of >>> the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! >>> Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of >>> languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am >>> interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset >>> of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a >>> whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would >>> particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult >>> in rarer languages. >>> >>> Thanks very much in advance for your answers. >>> >>> >>> Dan >>> ** >>> 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not >>> counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker >>> of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no >>> words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words >>> like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for >>> embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no >>> structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. >>> No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). >>> 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' >>> (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case >>> that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes >>> that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: >>> 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 12:48:38 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:48:38 -0600 Subject: Query on structural properties In-Reply-To: <4B2C8C21.9040706@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> Message-ID: Wolfgang, Osten, and all, I agree that culture, language, and cognition are bandied about without much effort to define them. I try to do this in my book. Most anthropologists deny the existence of some concrete entity, Culture, just as linguists recognize that there is no such entity, Language. Both are idealizations. Your tables become much more complicated when we break culture down into individual values and language into individual constructions, rules, principles, etc. Not only that, as I also say in the book and many other places, the relationships are not binary. It's just that the major research programs around them are based on binary relationships, wrongly in my opinion. They are symbiotically related to each other and to other things, such as biology, material existence, and so on. The issues are much more complex than even your charts. Osten is right about Piraha morphology. It is extremely complex. Every Piraha verb has as many as 65,000-100,000 possible forms depending on how finely the suffixes are split (sometimes I realize how difficult it is to distinguish valid divisions, e.g. English -ed and -s from things that Hjemslev warned about e.g. the th- of then, though, than, etc. or the wh- of why, when, and what). Piraha is no pidgin language! It is an incredibly complex and rich system that chooses to place the majority of its morphosyntactic complexity in discourse and word structure rather than sentences and phrases. Dan -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Dec 19 20:46:15 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (dlevere at ilstu.edu) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:46:15 -0600 Subject: excessive criticism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Joan, I have no ideas about what anyone's motives are, including yours, just as you don't know mine. I am only going to answer your post because it is misleading about the nature of my own post. I have conducted field research for more than 30 years on more than 20 languages. The output of that work includes two full grammars and articles on every topic from acoustic phonetics to typology to historical linguistics to formal semantics, syntax, and morphology. However good or bad my research has been, I am nevertheless well aware that there are multiple functional ways of marking the items in my query. But, surprise, the particular study I have in mind is interested initially only in the particular formal devices I mentioned. If anyone has written a grammar using as a guideline, or merely one of many sources, the Lingua Descriptive Questionnaire prepared by Comrie and Smith, they will have frequently encountered the frustration of being asked 'Does the language have 'x'?' and knowing that (i) no, it doesn't but (ii) it has other ways of marking it. Yet a goal of the LDQ, to continue with just that example, is to find out which formal devices are used in language after language. So a specific question in the LDQ is not after all the ways something can be expressed, but whether this or that particular way of expressing it is employed. So far as I know, there is no study whatsoever providing a statistical study of the items I mentioned. And there is no universal agreement among typologists about them. Hence my question. On the other hand, if someone wants to tell me read the 'f'ing manual', fine. But tell me where to buy it first, OK? If the answers to my questions are common knowledge, I will eat my hat. Cheers, Dan Quoting Joan Bresnan : > I think that the criticism of Prof Leiss is excessive. It verges on > pillorying. Wasn't she merely observing what typologists know to be > true: that the grammars of languages which lack the familiar > structures and markers found in English, for example, often have > unfamiliar but functionally equivalent means in their own grammars? > Her advice, as I took it, was to inform oneself about such typological > variation before querying this forum. > > On computer technology forums, this is rather like the rude advice > often given to newcomers to inform themselves before wasting the time > of the experts: RTFM ("Read the F*ing Manual"). It is rude and > impatient, but not a crime. > > -- > Joan Bresnan > Stanford University > http://www.stanford.edu/~bresnan/ > -------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Dec 21 14:29:20 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:29:20 -0500 Subject: Summary to date on 'Query on structural properties' Message-ID: On December 18, I posted the following query to FUNKNET: Folks, I am interested in beginning a statistical study on the relative rarity of the following patterns (this query will not be the basis for the study! Just a tool to start gathering data). I am first interested in knowing of languages that have any one of the specific properties below. Next I am interested in learning of any languages that are described by any subset of these. Please respond to me individually, rather than to the list as a whole. I will post a summary if there are enough responses. I would particularly appreciate any suggestions for particular corpora to consult in rarer languages. Thanks very much in advance for your answers. Dan ** 1. The language lacks independent factive verbs and epistemic verbs (not counting the verb 'to see'). 2. The language has no morphosyntactic marker of subordination. 3. It has no coordinating disjunctive particles (no words like 'or'). 4. It has no coordinating conjunctive particle (no words like 'and'). 5. No unambiguous complement clauses (no strong evidence for embedding as opposed to juxtaposition). 6. No multiple possession (no structures like 'John's father's son' - whether pre or postnominal) . 7. No multiple modification (no structures like 'two big red apples'). 8. No scope from one clause into another: 'John does not believe you left' (where 'not' can negate 'believe' or 'left', as in 'It is not the case that John believes that you left' vs. 'It is the case that John believes that you did not leave') 9. No long-distance dependencies: 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?'; 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' Here are some of the responses I have received so far on my query (I have not checked this out yet, so I accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the suggestions). I should add that there were several responses that addressed the issue of culture and language. I did not ask about that, however. So I won't include those in the summary. It did seem that a few readers imagined more to my questions than I actually asked. I asked about specific syntactic properties, not about alternate functional realizations. Both are important. But I didn't ask about both. With respect to the absence of multiple modification, one reader suggests that Maori might prohibit this as well. A couple of readers pointed out to me that cognitive, factive, and epistemic verbs are often derived from perceptual verbs, e.g. 'to hear' (understand); 'to see' (learn, know, etc.). I am aware of this, however, and it wasn't part of the question. What I am after is lexically or morphosyntactically distinct verbs; With regard to morphosyntactic markers of subordination, it was suggested that Iroquois, Athabaskan, and other families and languages, e.g. Arawak lack nonfinite clauses and also lack markers of subordination. With regard to conjunctive and disjunctive particles, Tom Givon responded that Ute lacks both 'or' and 'and'. For the absence of complement clauses, it was suggested that many serial-verb languages might lack complementation. Givon's Genesis of Syntactic Complexity, chapter four, summarizes data and discussions of this topic. It was also pointed out that Marianne Mithun's work on the intonational aspects of the development of complementation in Mohawk is particularly relevant. On the absence of multiple modification, it was suggested by Tom Givon that multiple modification itself is "perhaps the product of an earlier paratactic pattern, piling more modifiers after intonational breaks". On the absence of scope from one clause to another (point 8 of my query), a couple of readers suggested that most languages lack them, apart from the artificial examples of formal linguistics; On long-distance dependencies, Tom Givon says that "Once you look at discourse, ALL languages have long-distance dependencies. You find them in paragraph-level clause chaining, and they eventually grammaticalized (parataxis > syntaxis) into syntactic constructions." I completely agree with Tom on this. However, I was not asking about discourse, but about sentence-level syntax. I think that the failure of some theories to include discourse in their notion of 'grammar' is a serious shortcoming. Lachlan Mackenzie referred me to the new PhD dissertation defended at Vrie University Amsterdam by David Eberhard on Mamainde (supervisor Leo Wetzels) which manifests, he claims, many of the properties of my list. That dissertation can be downloaded at: http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html. Joan Bybee, Paul Hopper, Tom Givon, and others underscored the importance of diachrony and grammaticalization in studying this type of phenomenon (a position I agree strongly with). More than one reader referred me as well to Bybee's chapter in Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givon (1997). See also discussion on southeast Asian languages by Walter. Bisang. Alex Francois offers some answers based on his work in Oceania. The sources he provides are: Fran?ois, Alexandre. 2002. Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 522. Canberra: Australian National University and Fran?ois, Alexandre. (in prep). A grammar of Teanu, the language of Vanikoro... I didn't cite the actual answers because they mainly concerned alternative functional strategies for realizing complementizers and subordination. Again, however, that is not quite what I was after. Thanks to everyone who responded. Apparently, the lack of these syntactic markers is not very common. I will be looking into this further and would love to hear from others on this list. Sincerely, Dan Everett From tgivon at uoregon.edu Wed Dec 23 15:56:14 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:56:14 -0700 Subject: long-distance control Message-ID: Dear FUNK people, I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. Best, TG From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 16:06:50 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:06:50 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: <4B323D9E.6060300@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Let me add that I agree completely with Tom. I agree that the sentence-discourse dichotomy is largely a false one. In fact, when an MIT linguist's book on antecedent contained deletion came out several years ago, I wrote him to point out that many of the same phenomena operate across sentence boundaries, so that the solution to the problems would have to be discourse-based. In fact, the hypothesis that I have reacted to most over the past couple of years, in my syntax work at least, has been the sentence-based proposals (since they implicitly assume the Minimalist Program) of Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002). My most recent statement on that particular research program was posted to my website yesterday: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/docs/Another%20reply%20to%20Nevins.pdf Dan And now for a shameless plug. Yesterday NPR joined the London Sunday Times and Blackwell's Booksellers in choosing my book as one of the 'best books of 2009': http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121515579 On 23 Dec 2009, at 10:56, Tom Givon wrote: > > > Dear FUNK people, > > I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. > > An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. > > First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. > > Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. > > Best, TG > From faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu Wed Dec 23 18:41:39 2009 From: faucon at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Gilles Fauconnier) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:41:39 -0800 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Interesting exchange between Dan and Tom. In cognitive linguistics, we go perhaps one step further. The powers of recursion, and more generally integration, lie in the human capacity to build vast networks of mental spaces with no discernable limits on the depth of embedding or the iteration of integrations. Discourse, narratives, the cultural evolution of mathematics, religious thought, all display these powers. What's remarkable about sentence syntax is actually how little recursion it has (as a formal combinatorial system), compared to meaning construction. This is because language only needs to prompt for the recursive thought processes. It does not reflect them directly. Gilles _________ Gilles Fauconnier Department of Cognitive Science University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 18:56:16 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:56:16 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This also makes perfect sense to me, Gilles. I cite this research in my new book, Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool, to appear late next year or early 2011. This is similar to a point I make in a paper to appear in a volume on recursion being edited by Peggy Speas and Tom Roeper, where I argue that recursion is vital to thought and serves as a tool in language which can, among other things, increase the information rate of individual sentences. Even tests for embedding in grammars depend to a large degree on arbitrary distinctions between sentences vs. discourse. Intonation, for example, can take a single multiclausal sentence or several sentences (e.g. intonational paragraphs) in its scope. Herb Simon's 1962 paper on the Architecture of Complexity discusses the importance of recursive handling of information across a range of tasks, including organizing a small watch repair business - the nonrecursive approach to watch repair will fail if competing with a recursive approach because it is less efficient, less able to take interruptions in construction of watches. Phil Lieberman has an interesting new paper to appear "The creative capacity of language, in what manner is it unique, and who had it? in which he argues for the importance of 'reiteration' as a more general case of which recursion is a subcase. -- Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 13:41, Gilles Fauconnier wrote: > > Interesting exchange between Dan and Tom. In cognitive linguistics, we go perhaps one step further. The powers of recursion, and more generally integration, lie in the human capacity to build vast networks of mental spaces with no discernable limits on the depth of embedding or the iteration of integrations. Discourse, narratives, the cultural evolution of mathematics, religious thought, all display these powers. > > What's remarkable about sentence syntax is actually how little recursion it has (as a formal combinatorial system), compared to meaning construction. This is because language only needs to prompt for the > recursive thought processes. It does not reflect them directly. > > Gilles > _________ > > > Gilles Fauconnier > Department of Cognitive Science > University of California San Diego > La Jolla CA 92093 > > E-mail gfauconnier at ucsd.edu > http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/ > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Dec 23 20:27:22 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:27:22 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear FunkNetters, I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) On Dec 23, 2009, at 11:06 AM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Let me add that I agree completely with Tom. I agree that the sentence-discourse dichotomy is largely a false one. In fact, when an MIT linguist's book on antecedent contained deletion came out several years ago, I wrote him to point out that many of the same phenomena operate across sentence boundaries, so that the solution to the problems would have to be discourse-based. > > In fact, the hypothesis that I have reacted to most over the past couple of years, in my syntax work at least, has been the sentence-based proposals (since they implicitly assume the Minimalist Program) of Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002). > > My most recent statement on that particular research program was posted to my website yesterday: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/docs/Another%20reply%20to%20Nevins.pdf > > Dan > > And now for a shameless plug. Yesterday NPR joined the London Sunday Times and Blackwell's Booksellers in choosing my book as one of the 'best books of 2009': http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121515579 > > > > > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 10:56, Tom Givon wrote: > >> >> >> Dear FUNK people, >> >> I thought maybe just a short reply to one item in Dan's summary might be useful. >> >> An important principle known to all of us, certainly to Dan, is that different languages perform the same (or similar) communicative functions by different structural means. This has been, at least to my understanding, the very gist of cross-language grammatical typology. Now, if we restrict our discussion of "long distance relations" to only those found in sentence-level (i.e. complex-clause-level) constructions, we devalue this principle in two important ways. >> >> First synchronically: Languages in which V-complements and REL-clauses are still handles paratactically by fiat then "lack long-distance relations". They perform the same communicative functions, observe the same long-distance government-and-control constrains, but across adjacent paratactic chunks (clause-chains). So the study of government-and-control would be deprived of important typological data, which are "outside the pale". This is precisely how Chomsky could possibly view "pro-drop" as typologically weird subtraction of grammar, rather than as what it really is: the most natural & wide-spread communicative device in human (and non-human) communication. >> >> Second and (to me) more important--diachronically: As far as I can see, all syntactically-complex constructions are diachronic condensations of paratactic constructions that perform the same communicative function--albeit more ambiguously. Two chapters in my "Genesis of Syntactic Complexity"(2009, chs 4, 5) document these processes exhaustively for diachrony, and two others (chs 8,9) for child language. Marianne Mithun's recent work on the early stage of this process of "condensation"--merger of intonation contours (combined with changes in world-level intonation, most commonly de-stressing) is particularly relevant here. What many works on this topic show, I think, is that the change from parataxis to syntaxis in the genesis of complex syntactic construction is gradual and often subtle. So that following Dan's implicit distinction between "sentence level syntax" and discourse/clause-chaining is not going to be all that easy. But more to the point--is it going to be desirable? Illuminating? As Paul Hopper noted in his early response to Dan, the usage frequency difference is often no more than, say, 95% vs. 100%. To give an example: The use of zero-anaphora subject in clause-chained discourse is predictable at the 95% level (co-referent found in adjacent clause). In REL-clauses & (equi-subject) V-complements it is 100%. So while we try to understand (communicatively, cognitively, neurologically, whatever) why 100% predictability of syntacticized constructions is important (i.e. adaptive)--that is, what is the sadaptive impetus for the rise of morpho-syntax?-- it would be counter-productive to draw the kind of hard-&-fast distinction that Dan would have us draw. >> >> Best, TG >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Dec 23 21:04:08 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:04:08 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Brian, Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called ?finite-state grammars.? Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a ?phrase-structure grammar? is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirah? raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirah? language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirah?, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dear FunkNetters, > > I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? > > Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). > > -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Dec 23 22:03:55 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:03:55 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: <735D9660-5A08-42DA-8C6F-4417ED9B9A75@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dan, Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirah? fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. -- Brian MacWhinney On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Brian, > > Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: > ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called ?finite-state grammars.? Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a ?phrase-structure grammar? is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) > > I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: > > "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirah? raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirah? language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirah?, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." > > The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: > > (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' > b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' > > Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: > > (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. > > The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: > > (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' > > In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. > > Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). > > For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. > > Dan > > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > >> Dear FunkNetters, >> >> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >> >> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >> >> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 00:57:24 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:57:24 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Brian, The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dan, > > Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirah? fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Brian, >> >> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called ?finite-state grammars.? Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a ?phrase-structure grammar? is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >> >> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >> >> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirah? raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirah? language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirah?, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >> >> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >> >> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >> >> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >> >> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >> >> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >> >> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >> >> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >> >> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >> >> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >> >> Dan >> >> >> >> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> >>> Dear FunkNetters, >>> >>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>> >>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>> >>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>> >> >> > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 01:00:39 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:00:39 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Correction: 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. Cooperation would also require it. Not merely competition. Dan From macw at cmu.edu Thu Dec 24 02:35:56 2009 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:35:56 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dan, Our current understanding of neural processing requires that recursion in the brain must recursion in grammar in evolutionary terms. Recursion requires a stack and a processor that operates on the stack. The brain provides a (highly limited) simulation of the operation of a stack in the form of item-based memory. The items in the pseudo-stack can be syllables, words, phrases, or propositions. Activation of items in this stack can be achieved by the establishment of cortical loops that create working memories often with support from the hippocampus. The contents of these memories can then be inserted in a second concept being formulated. Voil?, you have recursion. Because the properties of cortical areas and the patterns of connectivity vary, it is certainly true that memory works in slightly different ways to store the results of these various levels of linguistic structure, just as it works in slightly different ways to store the results of spatial navigation, visual search, musical themes, and so on. But, in each case, the operation is one of storage and then reinsertion of the stored product in the next unit. Recursion is available in any system that is able to simulate stacks and a processor that works on the stacks. Of the four views you note, I have the greatest difficulty with idea that recursion has to be "reinvented" evolutionarily inside each module. Why would a module reinvent a general process to which it already has access. In the case of gap filling in questions with initial wh fillers, the actual processing involves a communication between anterior syntactic and posterior lexical areas. So, even in this parade example of sentence-internal recursion, the stacked is relying on one "module" and the processor on another. Recursion arises from pre-existing mnemonic and processing methods, but how these methods are used is up to language, thought, and culture, as you are arguing. Again, it seems that the interesting issue with Pirah? and languages of this type is about the methods they choose for creating fillers and filling gaps (i.e. push and pop from stacks) and which methods they seem to avoid. -- Brian MacWhinney On Dec 23, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > Brian, > > The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. > > There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). > > A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: > > 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. > > 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) > > 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). > > 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. > > Dan > > > On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > >> Dan, >> >> Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirah? fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. >> >> -- Brian MacWhinney >> >> On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> Brian, >>> >>> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >>> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called ?finite-state grammars.? Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a ?phrase-structure grammar? is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >>> >>> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >>> >>> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirah? raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirah? language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirah?, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >>> >>> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >>> >>> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>> >>> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >>> >>> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >>> >>> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >>> >>> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >>> >>> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >>> >>> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >>> >>> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >>> >>> Dan >>> >>> >>> >>> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>> >>>> Dear FunkNetters, >>>> >>>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>>> >>>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>>> >>>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>>> >>> >>> >> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Thu Dec 24 02:47:16 2009 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:47:16 -0500 Subject: long-distance control In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This reminds me a bit of some of the points in Michael Devitt's book, Ignorance of Language, in which he argues that language mirrors the mind rather than the other way around so, in a sense, grammar lacks psychological reality because it is epiphenomenal. I agree that repeated recursion in separate modules is not particularly appealing, but some researchers like the idea of massive redundancy between and/or autonomy of components, so it is still an empirical issue, however implausible a priori. I think that the possibilities I mention would make sense largely if one believed in the mind as distinct in some way from the brain, which I do not. Our reasoning contains ideas within ideas. Some might say that that kind of conceptual reasoning involves a recursive rule, e.g. Merge, and that this Merge began in language and moved to reason. From the brain-focused perspective you offer, that of course is a misguided way of putting things. Your last sentence makes eminent sense to me. Dan On 23 Dec 2009, at 21:35, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dan, > > Our current understanding of neural processing requires that recursion in the brain must recursion in grammar in evolutionary terms. Recursion requires a stack and a processor that operates on the stack. The brain provides a (highly limited) simulation of the operation of a stack in the form of item-based memory. The items in the pseudo-stack can be syllables, words, phrases, or propositions. Activation of items in this stack can be achieved by the establishment of cortical loops that create working memories often with support from the hippocampus. The contents of these memories can then be inserted in a second concept being formulated. Voil?, you have recursion. > Because the properties of cortical areas and the patterns of connectivity vary, it is certainly true that memory works in slightly different ways to store the results of these various levels of linguistic structure, just as it works in slightly different ways to store the results of spatial navigation, visual search, musical themes, and so on. But, in each case, the operation is one of storage and then reinsertion of the stored product in the next unit. Recursion is available in any system that is able to simulate stacks and a processor that works on the stacks. > Of the four views you note, I have the greatest difficulty with idea that recursion has to be "reinvented" evolutionarily inside each module. Why would a module reinvent a general process to which it already has access. In the case of gap filling in questions with initial wh fillers, the actual processing involves a communication between anterior syntactic and posterior lexical areas. So, even in this parade example of sentence-internal recursion, the stacked is relying on one "module" and the processor on another. > Recursion arises from pre-existing mnemonic and processing methods, but how these methods are used is up to language, thought, and culture, as you are arguing. Again, it seems that the interesting issue with Pirah? and languages of this type is about the methods they choose for creating fillers and filling gaps (i.e. push and pop from stacks) and which methods they seem to avoid. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > On Dec 23, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: > >> Brian, >> >> The reason that languages like Piraha, perhaps Hixkaryana, and perhaps Warlpiri and others, are important to the discussion is that if you can show that a language lacks recursion in the sentential syntax, but has it in the discourse, then it becomes possible to argue empirically for the idea that recursion in the brain precedes recursion in grammar. >> >> There is an alternative, though, which is that each cognitive module has its own recursion. Some researchers, such as Tom Roeper, have suggested this, at least informally, in questions to me after my presentation at the recursion conference last May at U Mass (the first ever conference on recursion was held at Illinois State in 2007, co-sponsored by ISU and the Max Planck Institute for Ev Anthro in Leipzig). >> >> A lot of research would need to be done to sort out the different possibilities, but here they are: >> >> 1. Innate recursion in language leads to more intelligent primates by jumping into general cognition. >> >> 2. Innate recursion exists in various cognitive modules (vision, language, etc.) >> >> 3. Innate recursion is a property of general cognition and can be 'delegated' to discourse and/or sentential syntax according to different principles (my hypothesis is that culture plays a role). >> >> 4. Recursion is not innate so much as a solution that the brain must adopt (a la Herbert Simon) in order to compete with conspecifics in the management of information. >> >> Dan >> >> >> On 23 Dec 2009, at 17:03, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> >>> Dan, >>> >>> Good reply and clarification. The idea of focusing on the process of gap filling helps a lot. Perhaps we could phrase the question this way: how do people/languages fill gaps? English speakers tend to fill them from other material inside the sentence. We could think of languages or people that do this as "word string oriented gap fillers". Chinese and Pirah? fill gaps not from the word strings that are in their echoic memory, but directly from the mental models they have constructed to support their own discourse or from their interlocutors' discourses. I think all of us (Givon, Everett, Fauconnier, Simon ...) would agree that recursion preexists language (although HCF apparently do not). So, the issue seems to be about whether and how a language comes to "download" the natural (probably mammalian) recursive processes utilized by mental models into grammaticalized forms that operate first on word strings and then, only at the second remove, on the mental models. >>> >>> -- Brian MacWhinney >>> >>> On Dec 23, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Daniel Everett wrote: >>> >>>> Brian, >>>> >>>> Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch make a big deal of long-distance dependencies: >>>> ""At the lowest level of the hierarchy are rule systems that are limited to local dependencies, a subcategory of so-called ?finite-state grammars.? Despite their attractive simplicity, such rule systems are inadequate to capture any human language. Natural languages go beyond purely local structure by including a capacity for recursive embedding of phrases within phrases, which can lead to statistical regularities that are separated by an arbitrary number of words or phrases long-distance, hierarchical relationships are found in all natural languages for which, at a minimum, a ?phrase-structure grammar? is necessary. It is a foundational observation of modern generative linguistics that, to capture a natural language, a grammar must include such capabilities." HC&F (2002:1577) >>>> >>>> I reply to this in the paper just put up on my webpage, mentioned earlier today, as follows: >>>> >>>> "Whether humans choose a finite vs. phrase structure grammar is precisely the empirical point that Pirah? raises. The 'infinity' of the Pirah? language, for example, might lie outside the grammar in the Chomskyan sense - in discourse - via the ability to fashion stories out of sentences rather than sentences out of phrases. There could, in other words, be a longest sentence in Pirah?, yet not a longest story. If that were the case, then NP&R would be wrong, since Merge applies only to form sentences and phrases from lexical items. And HC&F would be misguided by failing to relate the general property of recursion to stories in lieu of or in addition to recursion in sentences. Theories that do not have anything to say about facts external to sentences (e.g. all versions of Chomskyan theory) cannot appeal to discourse, thought, etc. for support for their theory of grammar, e.g. the role that recursion plays in the FLN. To beat this horse another way, recursion could be responsible for the infinitude of natural languages in a way unanticipated by Chomskyan theory, by allowing infinity to be a property of discourses, rather than sentences." >>>> >>>> The kinds of examples that are standardly adduced for long-distance dependencies include: >>>> >>>> (1) a. 'Who do you think John believes __ (that Bill saw__)?' >>>> b. 'Ann, I think he told me he tried to like ___' >>>> >>>> Piraha does not have structures like this. However, Piraha does have gaps. There are both places where pronouns are 'understood' (what generative theory calls/ed 'empty categories') and there is some displacement of constituents (all described by me in various places). But the gaps are not like those in (1). There are structures like: >>>> >>>> (2) 'Dan did not used to speak Piraha. His children did not know either. Neveretheless __ knows well now.' , where the gap refers back to 'Dan'. >>>> >>>> The latter example is a long-distance dependency involving a gap, but it is not a fact about sentential structure, but discourse structure. Generative theory itself recognizes the difference, e.g. work by Huang in the mid 80s on the difference between pro-drop and missing objects in languages like Brazilian Portuguese: >>>> >>>> (3) __ Coloca __ ai. '(You) put (it) there.' >>>> >>>> In (3) the subject gap behaves like a regular pronoun but the object gap like a discourse variable, according to some analyses. >>>> >>>> Whether or not long-distance dependencies are different kinds of things within and without the sentence depends on the functional strategies for questions, topics, etc. exercised by a particular language. But there aren't studies comparing and contrasting the different notions that I know of (which probably only shows my ignorance). >>>> >>>> For functionalists, the Piraha data might be rare, but it shouldn't be a shock, because - if I am right - these data simply suggest that the 'infinitude' produced by the computational system of Piraha is found in discourses, not in sentences. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 23 Dec 2009, at 15:27, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>>> >>>>> Dear FunkNetters, >>>>> >>>>> I am puzzled that no one has questioned the merger of long-distance relations into a single type or a single process, as advocated by Givon and Everett. I tend to think of pronominal anaphora as the prototypical case of a long-distance discourse process, although devices such as class inclusion ("the bus" referring anaphorically or even cataphorically to "the vehicle) are relevant too. For sentence-internal long-distance processes, I assume that we are thinking about things like the placement of wh-words at the beginning of English sentences. If we look at just these two cases, do we really want to say that the two domains/processes are cognitively equivalent? In the discourse case, the reference is established in mental space and processing involves re-invoking that referent. In the within-sentence case for English wh placement, processing is radically different. The referent is unknown. In fact there is no problem or issue with referent identification. Instead, we are typically trying to fill verb argument structures that have been morphed around, possibly to serve the interests of focal marking (as opposed to methods such as wh in situ or sentence final question markers etc.). I see good reasons to link up the discourse anaphoric processes to relativization and complementation, but not to things like wh placement. If we focus on relativization, is the non-repetition of the head what makes it long-distance? But the distance in that case is not the same as for wh, right? Perhaps we don't want to talk about long-distance, but just about gaps. But then does the existence of resumptive pronouns in the relative clause mean that the language is no longer "long distance" for that construction? >>>>> >>>>> Basically, I am not sure that the notion of "long distance" in itself provides any leverage and I am curious whether the real issue with Pirah?n type languages is the non-presence of gaps (whatever those are). >>>>> >>>>> -- Puzzled in Pittsburgh (Brian MacWhinney) >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> > From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 30 13:52:07 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:52:07 +0000 Subject: CADAAD 2010 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". See http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2010_conference for details. In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. Kind regards, Chris Hart -- Dr Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Wed Dec 30 13:53:39 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:53:39 +0000 Subject: CADAAD 2010 Final Call for Papers Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". See http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2010_conference for details. In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of ideology, identity and interaction. Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * Identities in discourse * Political communication * Language in the news * Language in the new media * Discourse of advertising * Institutional discourse * Language and globalisation * Business communication * Scientific discourse * Health communication * Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. Kind regards, Chris Hart -- Dr Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From sepkit at utu.fi Thu Dec 31 08:24:10 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:24:10 +0200 Subject: Reminder: Case in Uralic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings and happy new year to everyone!) Uralic Case Workshop of the 14th International Morphology Meeting Budapest, Hungary, May 14th and 15th, 2010 Seppo Kittil? and Anne Tamm This workshop is devoted to the study of case systems in Uralic languages. The Uralic languages are well known for their rich case inventories. However, most studies of Uralic cases deal with the rather extensively studied Hungarian, Finnish and perhaps Estonian cases and case systems. Cases of other Uralic languages have been studied to a much lesser extent. The goal of this workshop is to fill that void by giving a fuller picture of case systems of Uralic languages (including dialects). We thus especially encourage contributions dealing with lesser-studied Uralic languages (such as Samoyedic, Mari, Mordvinian, Sami languages and Khanty). The workshop consists of two parts. The first part of the workshop clarifies the phenomena, the terminology and the comparability of the data in the individual languages, as specific to Uralic and in more general terms. The goal is to accumulate knowledge about the case systems of each language, and about the specific cases in Uralic languages and dialects. Firstly, we plan ?case studies of case?, such as genitive, partitive, abessive, locatives, comitative etc. in Uralic languages, both in individual languages and across (Uralic) languages. Secondly, we invite papers on more general issues, such as the 'Uralicness' of the case systems and cases. Please send your anonymous abstract, maximum 2 pages (including examples and references), and the same abstract containing your data and named yournameabstract.pdf, by January 15, 2010 to the organizers Seppo Kittil? and Anne Tamm, seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi and anne.tamm at unifi.it . Authors will be notified about the acceptance status of their paper by January 31. For updates and more information about the workshop, please consult our workspace at The webpage of the main event (The 14th International Morphology Meeting) is found at . Since the participants of the workshop on Uralic case need to register to the main event, please consult the website for details of registration, accommodation, the venue, and several other practical issues.