From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 8 16:56:14 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 22:56:14 +0600 Subject: phonetic corpus is just a sound picture of a language Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, To my mind, phonetic 'corpus' means simply a collection of TRANSCRIBED texts. What do you think? I call the phonetic corpus of a language just a sound picture of a language. First I select some basic phonetic features. I chose 9 articulatory features. After that I compare these two linguistic objects by Chi-square, Kolmagorov-Smirnov and t-test. My recent studies on the functioning of speech sounds showed that modern Russian has the following distances: Russian - Ukrainian (3.90); Russian - Old Russian (4.71); Russian - Belorussian (5.49); Russian - Czech (6.30); Russian - Sorbian (8,77); Russian - Slovak (10.42); Russian - Serbian (11.62); Russian - Polish (24.99). Do you think it is possible to get my results published in any linguistic journal? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 8 19:53:52 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 01:53:52 +0600 Subject: Similar words consist of similar sounds Message-ID: Dear Funknet members, I am sure it is more usual to take into account the point of lexical similarity, i.e. the number of common words, rather than the sound picture similarity, though similar words consist of similar sounds. How is the similarity of words judged? Unfortunately, it is quite possible that 80% lexical similarity which would allow mutual intelligibility is never the case. How is it possible to measure the mutual intelligibility of words if not by similar sounds. How many % of words which are not similar would break it? One could also ask how one defines the border of "mutual intelligibility." In this case, the decision of dialect vs. language or one linguistic object vs. the other would be based purely on the basis of lexical similarity, let us forget about the phonetic method or any other methods, they are invented. The problem that we discussed in our article on Mansi (Vogul) and Hungarian was: how many similar words there should be to consider a language to belong to the other one. Mansi and Hungarian are believed to be very closely related, though they have only 34% of the similar words of the Swadesh list. It means that 66% of the words are not similar in Mansi and Hungarian. Naturally, a speaker of Mansi does not understand a speaker of Hungarian. It is a proved fact. I think in actual Mansi corpus there are less similar words. Nevertheless, Finno-Ugrists believe Mansi and Hungarian are close related. This is why, Mansi and Hungarian are put together into the Ugric subgroup of the Finno-Ugric language family. Hanty is also put there, though it has only 27% of common words with Hungarian. I think linguists should decide when we must consider two languages to be closely related, that is, to establish the threshold of mutual intelligibility. Surely, it is not 27% or even 34%, as the case with Hanty, Mansi and Hungarian. In my opinion, it should not be less than 70%. Only Komi and Udmurt have 70% of common words. Komi and Udmurt should be called closely related Finno-Ugric languages. What is your opinion? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru directly. Yours most sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev From eitkonen at utu.fi Thu Mar 11 14:02:03 2010 From: eitkonen at utu.fi (Esa Itkonen) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:02:03 +0200 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - "coherentist inductivism" à la Nicholas Rescher. This "third alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. Esa Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen From wcroft at unm.edu Thu Mar 11 17:21:05 2010 From: wcroft at unm.edu (Bill Croft) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:21:05 -0700 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in Itkonen's paper. I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to support categories assumed to exist a priori. Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief method is the semantic map model, which is basically a multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose crosslinguistic formal categories. Bill Croft Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. Studies in Language 31.409-30. ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper Bøye and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language universals. CogniTextes. ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Fri Mar 12 08:11:41 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:11:41 +0100 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I agree with most of Bill's points, but I think that crosslinguistically valid semantic categories are not sufficient for typological comparison. Sometimes we want to make generalizations such as "ergative case is always overtly coded", and "ergative case" cannot be defined in purely semantic terms. Or we want to make generalizations about tense, and again, tense cannot be defined (or at least is not normally defined) in purely semantic terms -- rather, tense is a verbal category with particular semantic properties. So I think Newmeyer (2007) (in Linguistic Typology) made a valid point when he said that typology cannot just be based on semantic categories. Thus, our comparative concepts are not limited to semantically-based concepts, and include concepts that are in part formally based. (This also applies to phonology, where comparative concepts such as "syllable" are not purely phonetically based.) The way I see it, these comparative concepts (and in fact also the semantically-based comparative concepts) are used by typologists as instruments for measuring cross-linguistic variation. They are analogous to measuring instruments in other sciences, and like these, they are conventional (hence Itkonen's term "conventionalist"). In my paper (which is, incidentally, available from my website), I also say that the comparative concepts are "arbitrary" (following Lazard). If somebody proposes a definition of "ergative" that is different from mine, this is not a disagreement of substance, it's just s different comparative concept that is given the same name. (This is very different from the generative view, where categories such as "ergative" are taken to be part of UG, so disagreements about them are disagreements of substance.) Greetings, Martin Bill Croft schrieb: > Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another > alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal > categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers > are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a > number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in > Itkonen's paper. > > I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic > formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in > Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers > (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by > Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by > Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually > impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". > > Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims > they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent > position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological > method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but > crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which > are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained > definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like > "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; > Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). > > I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft > 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic > analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring > distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. > I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to > support categories assumed to exist a priori. > > Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal > categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts > to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief > method is the semantic map model, which is basically a > multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has > been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, > Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, > Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and > others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. > Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the > applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex > datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been > used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist > and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related > multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model > is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose > crosslinguistic formal categories. > > Bill Croft > > > Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in > typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. > > ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic > argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a > language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. > > ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. > Studies in Language 31.409-30. > > ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. > Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and > Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. > > ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. > Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper Bøye and Elisabeth > Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. > > ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language > universals. CogniTextes. > > ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. > Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and > Information. > > ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical > variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. > Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. > > From autotype at uni-leipzig.de Fri Mar 12 09:20:02 2010 From: autotype at uni-leipzig.de (Balthasar Bickel) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:20:02 +0100 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: <4B99F73D.9030603@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I agree that comparative notions are like technical instruments for capturing distributions --- in fact I made this very point explicitly a few years ago -- see http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel/research/papers/universals_cels_bb.pdf). As such, they are clearly "conventionalist". But I don't understand how this is in opposition to being "psychologically real". The way I understand it, something is psychologically real if it can be demonstrated through psychological research, i.e. captured by the metalanguage of psychology, a disciplines which uses "conventionalist" instruments just like we do. From this point of view, the question of whether our descriptive concepts are psychologically real or not is a purely empirical one. Sometimes, linguists' terms correspond well to the terms you need in order to best describe what's going on in the brain (i.e. what we can measure through e.g. ERPs etc.) or what drives pathways of acquisition, sometimes not. Given this, we are still well-advised to try and develop "psychologically adequate" metalanguages. Balthasar _______________________ www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw On Mar 12, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > I agree with most of Bill's points, but I think that crosslinguistically valid semantic categories are not sufficient for typological comparison. Sometimes we want to make generalizations such as "ergative case is always overtly coded", and "ergative case" cannot be defined in purely semantic terms. Or we want to make generalizations about tense, and again, tense cannot be defined (or at least is not normally defined) in purely semantic terms -- rather, tense is a verbal category with particular semantic properties. So I think Newmeyer (2007) (in Linguistic Typology) made a valid point when he said that typology cannot just be based on semantic categories. > > Thus, our comparative concepts are not limited to semantically-based concepts, and include concepts that are in part formally based. (This also applies to phonology, where comparative concepts such as "syllable" are not purely phonetically based.) The way I see it, these comparative concepts (and in fact also the semantically-based comparative concepts) are used by typologists as instruments for measuring cross-linguistic variation. They are analogous to measuring instruments in other sciences, and like these, they are conventional (hence Itkonen's term "conventionalist"). In my paper (which is, incidentally, available from my website), I also say that the comparative concepts are "arbitrary" (following Lazard). > > If somebody proposes a definition of "ergative" that is different from mine, this is not a disagreement of substance, it's just s different comparative concept that is given the same name. (This is very different from the generative view, where categories such as "ergative" are taken to be part of UG, so disagreements about them are disagreements of substance.) > > Greetings, > Martin > > Bill Croft schrieb: >> Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in Itkonen's paper. >> >> I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". >> >> Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). >> >> I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to support categories assumed to exist a priori. >> >> Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief method is the semantic map model, which is basically a multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose crosslinguistic formal categories. >> >> Bill Croft >> >> >> Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. >> >> ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. >> >> ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. Studies in Language 31.409-30. >> >> ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. >> >> ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper Bøye and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. >> >> ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language universals. CogniTextes. >> >> ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. >> >> ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. >> >> > From yutamb at mail.ru Fri Mar 12 13:16:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:16:07 +0600 Subject: What crosslinguistic formal categories can be in phonetics? Message-ID: We read about some crosslinguistic formal categories in semantics. Howver, it is hard to analyze them. I wonder what crosslinguistic formal categories can there be in phonetics? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Sincerely yours Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From yutamb at mail.ru Fri Mar 12 20:29:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:29:07 +0600 Subject: Articulatory Features as the basis for the crosslinguistic research Message-ID: Dear Funcnet scholars, I do not think that formal universal categories particularly in syntax and semantics are easy to state crosslinguistically. On the contrary, I am sure that the articulatory phonetic features can be easily studied crosslinguistically since these articulatory properties are shared by human languages. Therefore, functioning of phonemic groups in speech sound chains may give phonetics a more crosslinguistic commonality regarding the kinds of sounds man makes. That is why, there should be more research on phonotactic distributions across languages. However, I do not know many books and articles in this field for the recent years. Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Remain yours most crosslinguistically Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Mar 12 20:42:41 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:42:41 -0700 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear FUNK people, I have been debating, and vacillating, whether to join in this discussion. First because Esa Itkonen had already raised the very same issues ca. a year ago, and we all had a spirited go at it. But mostly because this discussion reminds me of a book I have just finished reading, Dave Geary's "Male Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences". This may sound less-than-obvious to many of you, but the history of linguistics for the past 100 years is eerily reminiscent of the evolution of male coalitions in Homo sapiens, with inter-coalition warfare and intra-coalition power-struggles--and inevitable splits of new coalitions (see DeWaal's "Chimpanzee Politics", 1982). Let's see: Bloomfield challenged his teacher Hermann Paul's broad-scoped functional-typological coalition and split it, in the process radically narrowing down the domain of investigation to structure on its own and "inductive generalizations". Then Chomsky challenged Bloomfied's structuralist coalition and split it, creating a variant of structuralism--but with apriori Platonic universals propped upon rather frail empirical legs. Soon, Ross-Lakoff-Postal-McCawley challenged Chomsky's coalition and pulled out the Gen Sem faction, challenging autonomous syntax but adding only semantics to the relevant explanartory mix. Then a bunch of us in the 1970s banded together into a new coalition, enlarging the relevant domain of structure's connectivity to communicative function (discourse), cross-language typology (diversity), diachrony (emergence), neuro-cognition (the processor), ontogeny (child language) and phylogeny (evolution). We were deeply interested in universals, but only if they were explanatory and empirically-grounded. It never occurred to us that "theory" was a dirty word, only that "theory" was not synonymous with "formalism". Our notion of "theory" demanded both empirical foundations and explanatory connectivity. But we were also deeply interested in structure--how could a linguist not be?--provided it were studied and explained in its relevant broad connectivity. This was, transparently, a return to the wide-scoped agenda of Hermann Paul, even if we hadn't read his work. So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver, are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. Try as I might, I find it hard to tell scientific substance from coalitional warfare. One of the worst features of Chomsky's legacy to linguistics is his extreme reductionism, his insistence that you are either an empiricist or a rationalist, an inductivist or a deductivist, a universalist or variationist, a theorist or a data-monger, a formalist or a functionalist--with no room in the middle. As Esa and many others have pointed out, these are false dichotomies in the methodology of science, where an intensive cyclic interaction takes place among multiple strategies. But Chomsky's reductionist gambit also mis-represents mature theory-building, where universality and variability are inseparable, being both the products of development (‛emergence') in diachrony, acquisition or evolution. Perhaps some day we will remember to remember that neither the structure-function ‛semiotic' relation nor the conundrum of universality-diversity, nor the central role of development in mediating the inter-dependence between these seeming extremes, are specific to linguistics. They have all been noted long ago in biology and evolution. For a biologically-based phenomenon such as language/culture to cleave to one extreme against the other, and to periodically resurrect these tired old false dichotomies, is not only counter-productive. It is also, perversely enough, an unintended validation of Chomsky's disruptive agenda. Peace, TG ================ Esa Itkonen wrote: > Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - "coherentist inductivism" à la Nicholas Rescher. This "third alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. > > Esa > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > From edith at uwm.edu Sat Mar 13 01:57:05 2010 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith A Moravcsik) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:57:05 -0600 Subject: Re categorization Message-ID: Here are some thoughts regarding four points that arose in the recent exchange among Esa Itkonen, Bill Croft, Martin Haspelmath, Balthasar Bickel, and Tom Givón regarding categorization. I am sorry for the length; I am labeling the sections by topic for easier orientation. (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. What the cognitive tool of category-formation accomplishes is legitimizing what would otherwise appear to be a paradox: that things can be both the same and not the same. As Cecil Brown has remarked, in categorization, we treat different things AS IF they were the same. The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. For example, adjectives are in many ways different in and across languages but if they are the same in at least one respect – whether purely semantic or semantic-and-formal (see Martin H.’s comment) – they form a legitimate category. Or, to take an example from outside language, the class concept “school” will include very different kinds of institutions even if it is applied just within a single culture and if it is applied across cultures, the differences are likely to be even greater; but as long as there is something is common to all instances, lumping them together for a given purpose is not contradictory. (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. Second, the choice of classificatory criteria amounts to a hypothesis as to what might be a fruitful way of sorting things in a given domain (this I believe is Martin H.’s view). If a particular criterion leads to categories whose members turn out to have additional properties in common – i.e. to a cluster concept (cf. Isa I.’s paper) - the criterion has proven to be useful and is thus legit. For example, if the goal is to establish the crosslinguistic distribution of word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, categorizing languages in terms of whether they or do not have #pl- is justified even though outside this goal, the criterion is just one of a huge number of other possible criteria. (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction differ across languages. This seems to hold in other domains of inquiry as well. For example, if the goal is to determine what building materials are used for constructing schools in different cultures, the category of school-building materials ranging over brick, stone, wood, etc. is a crucial concept. However, in a culture where all buildings – whether schools or other structures - are made of bricks, the category of school-building material is irrelevant. This is in contrast with another criterion – say, the ages of children that are required to attend school – that will be relevant both to descriptions of individual cultures and those across cultures. More generally, a category with various sub-categories is relevant for crosslinguistic study but not for a language that exemplifies only a single subcategory. (d) PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY If we are interested in psychological reality, the question is: the psychological reality of what? The answer must be: not individual words and sentences but grammatical concepts and patterns. But if so, the study of the psychological reality of grammatical categories must be a separate task from establishing these categories to begin with. The conventionalist approach to grammatical categories, as cited by Esa I., is therefore necessary: without it, we have no handle on the objects whose psychological reality we want to study. Labeling these distributionally and semantically arrived-at categories as fictions seems to me infelicitous. Something is fictional if it has no empirical basis; but this is not true for these categories. While, indeed, they do not reflect psychological reality, they are based on facts of language structure. - As Balthasar B. pointed out, whether there is or isn’t a match between these descriptive categories and those that emerge from the study of how people acquire, store, and use language is an empirical question. Edith Moravcsik From alec.coupe at gmail.com Sat Mar 13 16:32:13 2010 From: alec.coupe at gmail.com (Alec Coupe) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:32:13 +0800 Subject: PhD in language documentation Message-ID: *PhD in language documentation* *Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore* The Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at Nanyang Technological University , Singapore, invites suitably qualified people to apply to undertake research on a hitherto undescribed (or scantily described) Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic or Indic language of the north-east India/Burma region, leading to a comprehensive grammatical description of that language. This project forms part of a larger initiative to document the languages of north-east India and adjacent regions of Asia. PhD research funding is guaranteed for three years of candidature, with the possibility of extension. The NTU Research Scholarship for international students starts at SIN $2000, rising to SIN $2500 after confirmation. In addition, PhD students can apply for further funding to cover fieldwork expenses. The ideal applicant will have a solid grounding in descriptive linguistics and already hold an MA, or a BA with a good Honours grade. Successful applicants can anticipate doing one year of coursework, followed by three years of empirically-based research. After completion of the coursework year, the candidate will undertake a 9-12 month period of fieldwork that will involve living in the speech community to record, transcribe and analyse linguistic data. S/he will then return to Singapore to complete the first draft of the grammar and prepare the corpus of materials for archiving. A second trip of 3 months will be made in the final year to check the analysis of the data. Interested applicants should apply in the first instance to Dr Alexander Coupe arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg to discuss a possible research project. For further information pertaining to graduate study at NTU, see: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics/Graduate/Pages/default.aspx --- Alexander R. Coupe, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor | Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies | Nanyang Technological University HSS-03-53, 14 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 637332 Tel: (65) 6592-1567 GMT+8h | Fax: (65) 6795-6525 | Email: arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg | Web: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics From edith at uwm.edu Sat Mar 13 17:47:04 2010 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith A Moravcsik) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:47:04 -0600 Subject: Second Call for the Conference on Competing Motivations Message-ID: This is a reminder that the abstract deadline for the conference on competing motivations is Wednesday, March 31. Please see the revised version of the Call for Papers below. It now includes the complete list of invited speakers and their paper titles. Edith Moravcsik, also for Andrej Malchukov ***** CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A CONFERENCE ON COMPETING MOTIVATIONS General We invite papers on the role of competing motivations in the emergence and use of linguistic structures from linguists, psychologists, and others working in related fields. Time and place The three-day conference will take place NOVEMBER 23-25 (TUESDAY-THURSDAY) 2010 at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Organizers The conference is organized by Andrej Malchukov (Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology) and Edith Moravcsik (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (emerita)) and will be sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Program In addition to the papers selected from abstracts and the introductory and closing talks by the conference organizers, there will be twelve invited presentations: Bornkessel-Schlesewski, Ina: Cognitive attractors in language processing? Evidence from neurotypology Dressler, Wolfgang U.: Conflictual vs. convergent vs. interdependent motivations in morphology Du Bois, John: What’s is the point of competing? Motivations from cognition, communication, and convention must converge in the emergence of grammar from discourse Haspelmath, Martin: On system pressure competing with economic motivation Hawkins, John: Competing motivations in grammar, performance and learning: common principles and patterns in three areas of language Heine, Bernd: Competing motivations: internally vs. externally induced language change De Hoop, Helen: Conflicting constraints from grammar and beyond MacWhinney, Brian: How competition works across time Müller, Gereon: Local domains for competition resolution Newmeyer, Frederick: The grammar as a “competitor” in language contact and change Tomasello, Michael: Competing cues to transitivity in child language acquisition Vasishth, Shravan: Expectation and integration cost in parsing The conference website will post the schedule and other relevant information in the Spring: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/10-CompetingMotivations/index.html Topics Competing motivations is a topic coming in different guises in linguistics and related disciplines. In language typology, the concept of competing motivations was explicitly introduced by Du Bois (1985), and since then it has made its way into many contributions including typology textbooks (e.g. Croft 1990; 2003). Currently it is a common trend in functional typology to view the evolution of grammar as resulting from different partly converging but also potentially conflicting functional motivations. An approach to typology where competing motivations (“conflicting constraints”) have been accorded the status of a major theoretical concept is Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004, Müller 2000). In OT, grammatical patterns are viewed as resulting from constraint interaction, and cross-linguistic variation is attributed to different rankings of constraints. A similar approach has been introduced in psycholinguistics under the name of Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney 1989), which addressed the question of how different cues are weighted in language comprehension and language acquisition when the cues are in conflict. These three strands of research have not been totally independent from the start (e.g. OT was inspired by the work in psycholinguistics and cognitive sciences), and recently there have been further signs of the converging tendencies in these fields. On the one hand, with the rise of functional OT (Bresnan & Aissen 2002) conceptual differences of functional typology and OT (see Haspelmath 1999 for discussion) have been reduced, and some recent work explicitly tries to further integrate OT and functional typology (see, e.g., Malchukov 2005; de Hoop & Malchukov 2008). On the other hand, OT shows further convergence with psycholinguistic research, with the rise of OT semantics and bidirectional OT approaches that are concerned with comprehension optimization (de Hoop & Lamers 2006). John Hawkins’ work (2004 et passim) aiming to explain generalizations found in typological and psycholinguistic work in terms of a few general principles grounded in processing goes in the same direction. It seems that these new developments have overcome some of the problems of the early competing motivation approaches noted in the literature (Newmeyer 1998) and are opening new perspectives in the respective disciplines. It should also be noted that there is an increased awareness of the similarities of competing motivations models as practiced within linguistic disciplines and beyond (e.g., in psychological research). The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers from linguistics and other fields that adopt the competing motivation approach in one form or other another, and to promote further integration and cross-fertilization between them. Topics to be addressed include but are not limited to the following: • application of the competing motivation approach to individual languages and cross-linguistically; • application of competition models in psycholinguistic research (both language comprehension and language production); • theoretical questions such as: • What motivations are at work in given domains? • What evidence is there for the existence and the weighting of the constraints? • What factors determine the weightings of the constraints? • How are competing motivations manifested synchronically and diachronically? (cf. Haspelmath’s (1999) notion of ‘diachronic adaptation’ and the research program of ‘evolutionary phonology’ advocated by Blevins (2004)). Submission of abstracts (a) Length: up to one page of text plus up to one page containing possible tables and references (b) Format: The abstract should include the title of the paper and the text of the abstract but not the author’s name or affiliation. The e-mail message to which it is attached should list the title, the author’s name, and the author’s affiliation. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously. Please send the message to both organizers at the following addresses: malchukov at eva.mpg.de edith at uwm.edu (c) Deadline The abstracts should reach us by WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31. Submitters will be notified by FRIDAY, APRIL 30. References: Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. 1987. Competition, variation, and language learning. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, 157–193. Hillsdale, New Jersey; London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Blevins, J. (2004). Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bresnan, J. and J. Aissen (2002). Optionality and functionality: Objections and refutations. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 20, 81–95. Croft, W., 1990. Typology and universals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Du Bois, J.A. 1985. “Competing motivations”. In: Haiman, J. (ed.) Iconicity in syntax. 343-366. Amsterdam: Benjamins, Haspelmath, M. 1999. ‘Optimality and diachronic adaptation.’ Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 18.2: 180-205. Hawkins, John A. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Hoop, H. and M. Lamers. 2006. Incremental distinguishability of subject and object. In L. Kulikov, A. L. Malchukov and P. de Swart (eds.) Case, valency, and transitivity. Amsterdam, John Benjamins. de Hoop, H. and A. Malchukov. 2008. Case-marking strategies. Linguistic Inquiry 39 565–587. Malchukov, A., 2005. Case pattern splits, verb types, and construction competition. In M. Amberber & H. de Hoop (eds.) Competition and variation in natural languages: the case for case, 73-117. Elsevier, Amsterdam, etc. Müller, Gereon. 2000. Elemente der optimalitätstheoretischen Syntax. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. Prince, A. and P. Smolensky (2004). Optimality Theory:constraint interaction in Generative Grammar. Oxford, Blackwell. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Mar 13 18:05:38 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:05:38 -0500 Subject: Re categorization In-Reply-To: <140572583.5338321268445425139.JavaMail.root@mail03.pantherlink.uwm.edu> Message-ID: Edith's summary strikes me as cogent, clear, and convincing. I am sure that this has been discussed by many on this list in one venue or another, but the notion of categorization in phonology and phonetics strikes me as similar, yet less controversial. Take the IPA symbol 'p', a voiceless bilabial occlusive. There are any number of ways that this can be realized in different languages: are the lips mainly flat or slightly rounded? What is the Voice Onset Timing associated with it? How long is the occlusion held? Is the segment best described in acoustic terms or articulatory terms? And so on. Or take the phoneme /p/. Saying that languages 1, 2, and 3 each have a phoneme /p/ is far from the whole story. We need to know what the set of sounds is that the native speakers perceive as /p/. Are there unaspirated and aspirated [p]s? Are there egressive and ingressive? Are [p] and [b] perceived as the same sound in different environments and so on? No two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically. But there is a general place and mode of articulation, more common allophones, similar ranges of speech perception, and so on. The IPA itself, as well as any phonemic system based on it (or any other) are abstractions, to a large degree as 'arbitrary' or conventional as any semantic or syntactic category. But this doesn't mean that we should eschew the IPA or any efforts to talk about sounds and sound structures in crosslinguistically applicable terms. Even with all the variation, the symbols are a good place to begin discussion, even though anyone who has ever done a phonological analysis of a language knows that an individual prose description + sound file of each sound is a vital part of the presentation and explanation of their results. Categorizations are a fine basis for discussion. They may change in many unexpected ways as we get more data. Some will be abandoned. Others will be invented. But that can all be sound empirical science. On the other hand, we do need to be careful not to take an inflexible view of categories, of the type that might say, for example, that a 'passive' has eight features and if a construction has only seven of those features it is not a passive. Wittgenstein's notion of 'family resemblance' comes to mind. The usual rule applies: no one should take a particular term or proposal too seriously. But neither too lightly. Dan Everett On 12 Mar 2010, at 20:57, Edith A Moravcsik wrote: > Here are some thoughts regarding four points that arose in the recent exchange among Esa Itkonen, Bill Croft, Martin Haspelmath, Balthasar Bickel, and Tom Givón regarding categorization. I am sorry for the length; I am labeling the sections by topic for easier orientation. > > (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. What the cognitive tool of category-formation accomplishes is legitimizing what would otherwise appear to be a paradox: that things can be both the same and not the same. As Cecil Brown has remarked, in categorization, we treat different things AS IF they were the same. The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. > > For example, adjectives are in many ways different in and across languages but if they are the same in at least one respect – whether purely semantic or semantic-and-formal (see Martin H.’s comment) – they form a legitimate category. Or, to take an example from outside language, the class concept “school” will include very different kinds of institutions even if it is applied just within a single culture and if it is applied across cultures, the differences are likely to be even greater; but as long as there is something is common to all instances, lumping them together for a given purpose is not contradictory. > > (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. Second, the choice of classificatory criteria amounts to a hypothesis as to what might be a fruitful way of sorting things in a given domain (this I believe is Martin H.’s view). If a particular criterion leads to categories whose members turn out to have additional properties in common – i.e. to a cluster concept (cf. Isa I.’s paper) - the criterion has proven to be useful and is thus legit. > > For example, if the goal is to establish the crosslinguistic distribution of word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, categorizing languages in terms of whether they or do not have #pl- is justified even though outside this goal, the criterion is just one of a huge number of other possible criteria. > > (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > > This seems to hold in other domains of inquiry as well. For example, if the goal is to determine what building materials are used for constructing schools in different cultures, the category of school-building materials ranging over brick, stone, wood, etc. is a crucial concept. However, in a culture where all buildings – whether schools or other structures - are made of bricks, the category of school-building material is irrelevant. This is in contrast with another criterion – say, the ages of children that are required to attend school – that will be relevant both to descriptions of individual cultures and those across cultures. > > More generally, a category with various sub-categories is relevant for crosslinguistic study but not for a language that exemplifies only a single subcategory. > > (d) PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY > If we are interested in psychological reality, the question is: the psychological reality of what? The answer must be: not individual words and sentences but grammatical concepts and patterns. But if so, the study of the psychological reality of grammatical categories must be a separate task from establishing these categories to begin with. The conventionalist approach to grammatical categories, as cited by Esa I., is therefore necessary: without it, we have no handle on the objects whose psychological reality we want to study. > > Labeling these distributionally and semantically arrived-at categories as fictions seems to me infelicitous. Something is fictional if it has no empirical basis; but this is not true for these categories. While, indeed, they do not reflect psychological reality, they are based on facts of language structure. - As Balthasar B. pointed out, whether there is or isn’t a match between these descriptive categories and those that emerge from the study of how people acquire, store, and use language is an empirical question. > > Edith Moravcsik From yutamb at mail.ru Sat Mar 13 19:41:14 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:41:14 +0600 Subject: What is =functional typology=? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, what is functional typology? Is there also unfunctional or infunctional typology? I have been asking a question - What is typology? - for some 45 years and got no answer so far. May be functional typology does exist? Hope to hear from those who knows Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, yutamb at mail.ru From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Mar 14 19:45:34 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:45:34 -0600 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: <4B9D1B1E.6040406@linguistics.ucsb.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Jack. In doing the historical bit, not to mention the primate fun-&-games, I actually withheld my main points. To wit: (a) CATEGORIES--Platonic/Chomskian (either/or absolute/logical) vs. biological/cognitive Prototypes. Ernst Mayr has a beautiful discussion of this in biology, completely compatible with Elinor Rosch. And Esa did a good job of raising this issue, tho he used "clustering" instead of "prototypes", and forgot to cite some people who talked about it before 2001. [My "Syntax: A Functional-Typological Intro. (1984), "Context as Other Minds" (1989), "Bio-Linguistics (2002) and "Context as other minds" (2005) all have chapters on this issue; but the discussion started much earlier; see C. Craig (ed. 1986) "Categorization & Noun Classification"]. (b) UNIVERSALS: We should not let our rejection of Chomskian/Platonic universals blind us to REAL universals, those that are not either/or, but allow a range of flexibility, multi-factored complexity and context-mediated diversity. As in biology again, empirically-responsible linguistic universals do not involve statements such as "all languages have Feature X". This is a Chomskian parody of universals, a mere straw man. Rather, real universals define both universality AND diversity, thus the range of possible--considerable but never unconstrained--variation. This is totally in line with Ernst Mayr (1974) "closed vs. open program" idea. And as in biology, the diversity in some areas of grammar is much more constrained than in others. (c) UNIVERRAL & LINGUISTIC FIELD WORK: Having worked on at least 30 languages over the past 45 years, some of them in considerable depth (1-year plus), I've always found universals the to be the best guideposts for discovering the particulars. Of course, the universals I have in mind are not Platonic/Chomskian but rather Greenbergian/Mayrian. So maybe Matt Dryer (1997; or after his recent foray to New Guinea) would like to teach us about the great, distortive evils of universals in doing field-work. And maybe Martin Haspelmath (2009) would like to teach us about the great, biasing evils of having an--explanatory, widely-connected--unabashedly theoretical perspective. So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive filed work. I am still waiting to hear serious argument why I've been in grave error. (I hear plenty of those in the Church, where dogma prevails). (d) COMPARISON WITHOUT UNIVERSALS: This is a logical issue, of the type that Esa Itkonen is well-known for raising. It is sheer logical nonsense to compare A to B to...Z unless you have some standard terms for the comparison. Of course, you can play semantic games and call your universals terms "desceriptive", "heuristic", "contingent", "inductive", "pragmatic" or "ephemeral". For all I care, you may call them "abracadabra" or "apple pie". But they are still a logical pre-requisite for any meaningful comparison in ANY domain. Nothing special here about linguistics. Just read Aristotle's "Metaphysics". Peace, TG ========= John Du Bois wrote: > Thanks, Talmy. Good words on the range of ideas needed for typology. > ("Semantics" alone is not going to do it.) > > And I share your interest in the parallels with biological > theory/evolution. > > Jack ============ > > Tom Givon wrote: >> >> >> >> Dear FUNK people, >> >> I have been debating, and vacillating, whether to join in this >> discussion. First because Esa Itkonen had already raised the very >> same issues ca. a year ago, and we all had a spirited go at it. But >> mostly because this discussion reminds me of a book I have just >> finished reading, Dave Geary's "Male Female: The Evolution of Human >> Sex Differences". This may sound less-than-obvious to many of you, >> but the history of linguistics for the past 100 years is eerily >> reminiscent of the evolution of male coalitions in Homo sapiens, with >> inter-coalition warfare and intra-coalition power-struggles--and >> inevitable splits of new coalitions (see DeWaal's "Chimpanzee >> Politics", 1982). >> Let's see: Bloomfield challenged his teacher Hermann Paul's >> broad-scoped functional-typological coalition and split it, in the >> process radically narrowing down the domain of investigation to >> structure on its own and "inductive generalizations". Then Chomsky >> challenged Bloomfied's structuralist coalition and split it, creating >> a variant of structuralism--but with apriori Platonic universals >> propped upon rather frail empirical legs. Soon, >> Ross-Lakoff-Postal-McCawley challenged Chomsky's coalition and pulled >> out the Gen Sem faction, challenging autonomous syntax but adding >> only semantics to the relevant explanartory mix. >> Then a bunch of us in the 1970s banded together into a new coalition, >> enlarging the relevant domain of structure's connectivity to >> communicative function (discourse), cross-language typology >> (diversity), diachrony (emergence), neuro-cognition (the processor), >> ontogeny (child language) and phylogeny (evolution). We were deeply >> interested in universals, but only if they were explanatory and >> empirically-grounded. It never occurred to us that "theory" was a >> dirty word, only that "theory" was not synonymous with "formalism". >> Our notion of "theory" demanded both empirical foundations and >> explanatory connectivity. But we were also deeply interested in >> structure--how could a linguist not be?--provided it were studied and >> explained in its relevant broad connectivity. This was, >> transparently, a return to the wide-scoped agenda of Hermann Paul, >> even if we hadn't read his work. So now a new coalition of alpha >> males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver, >> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >> me, profoundly depressing. Try as I might, I find it hard to tell >> scientific substance from coalitional warfare. >> One of the worst features of Chomsky's legacy to linguistics is his >> extreme reductionism, his insistence that you are either an >> empiricist or a rationalist, an inductivist or a deductivist, a >> universalist or variationist, a theorist or a data-monger, a >> formalist or a functionalist--with no room in the middle. As Esa and >> many others have pointed out, these are false dichotomies in the >> methodology of science, where an intensive cyclic interaction takes >> place among multiple strategies. But Chomsky's reductionist gambit >> also mis-represents mature theory-building, where universality and >> variability are inseparable, being both the products of development >> (‛emergence') in diachrony, acquisition or evolution. >> Perhaps some day we will remember to remember that neither the >> structure-function ‛semiotic' relation nor the conundrum of >> universality-diversity, nor the central role of development in >> mediating the inter-dependence between these seeming extremes, are >> specific to linguistics. They have all been noted long ago in biology >> and evolution. For a biologically-based phenomenon such as >> language/culture to cleave to one extreme against the other, and to >> periodically resurrect these tired old false dichotomies, is not only >> counter-productive. It is also, perversely enough, an unintended >> validation of Chomsky's disruptive agenda. >> >> Peace, TG >> >> ================ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Esa Itkonen wrote: >>> Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years >>> concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they >>> universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) >>> useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, >>> namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - >>> "coherentist inductivism" à la Nicholas Rescher. This "third >>> alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article >>> 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which >>> is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full >>> texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at >>> the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku >>> (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. >>> Esa >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >> > From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Sun Mar 14 20:25:58 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:25:58 +0100 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <140572583.5338321268445425139.JavaMail.root@mail03.pantherlink.uwm.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from me: > (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental phonology.) > (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with different structures. > (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance seems to be suited both for language-particular description and cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of what usually goes by the term. In any event, the main point is that a large number of comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need to be kept separate in principle. T. Givón writes: > So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of > Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, because most linguists work on English or some other major language and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary rhetoric. > So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive field work. What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for comparison and explanatory theory). Greetings, Martin Haspelmath From autotype at uni-leipzig.de Mon Mar 15 06:42:17 2010 From: autotype at uni-leipzig.de (Balthasar Bickel) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:42:17 +0100 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <4B9D4656.1090205@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I agree with Dan Everett that abstractions like the IPA are excellent points of departure in fieldwork (what else could we do!), and I also agree with Tom Givon that universals are excellent guideposts in fieldwork. (And so one of the best ways of preparing for fieldwork is still to read a lot of typology literature, in addition to grammars of neighboring languages.) In fact, analyses of individual languages have become better over the past few decades precisely because when we go to the field, we now carry more and more precise analytical notions with us --- all critically informed by comparative work: instead of hunting for 'words' tout court we now look for various rule and constraint domains in phonology and grammar, instead of 'agreement', we are aware of many different varieties of agreement etc., instead 'subject', we look for coding and behaviour of arguments under various conditions etc.. The progress in all this is the same as the progress in typology: typology gets better the more it is based not on gross types that sweep many language-specific distinctions under the carpet, but on the kind of fine-grained notions that we also need in descriptive work. From this point of view, refining the tool set for analyzing an individual language and refining the tool set of typology remains essentially the same enterprise. (I make this argument at length in a recent case study on clause linkage available from my web site: "Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: a multivariate analysis") Terms like 'alignment' look like they are not needed in descriptive work. But in fact we use them in descriptive work all the time when we describe the distribution of, say, a case marker and list the arguments that are covered by the marker. It is true that in typological surveys we usually don't talk about case distributions in terms of lists or sets of arguments but use different statements and notations, e.g. 'S=A vs. P' or 'accusative' etc, but these statements and notations are nothing but reformulations --- often unduly simplified --- of lists of arguments; in fact, one can be computed from the other (which is what we indeed do currently in an AUTOTYP database on grammatical relations). Balthasar Bickel. _______________________ www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 15 11:13:53 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:13:53 +0600 Subject: The most and the least typical Romance language Message-ID: The most and the least typical Romance language. We have computed six Romance languages to measure the phono-typological distances between them. It is possible to find the Romance language which has the shortest distance to all these Romance languages. It is Moldavian. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian 20.24 - Rumanian 20.54 Italian 21.73 -Spanish 30.27 - Portuguese 51.17 - French The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing about you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From amnfn at well.com Mon Mar 15 12:59:19 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:59:19 -0700 Subject: The most and the least typical Romance language In-Reply-To: <8A9729860AF144409E171EB9602024AC@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Yuri, A cursory inspection of your list seems to indicate that the most typical romance languages in phono-typology are the ones that are most conservative and have departed less from the ancestral prototype. Of course, this is a historical perspective, not a typological one. --Aya P.S. Are you thinking that typology is the study of what is most typical? I've never thought of it that way! On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > The most and the least typical Romance language. We have computed six Romance languages to measure the phono-typological distances between them. It is possible to find the Romance language which has the shortest distance to all these Romance languages. It is Moldavian. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: > 17.30 Moldavian > 20.24 - Rumanian > 20.54 Italian > 21.73 -Spanish > 30.27 - Portuguese > 51.17 - French > The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing about you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 15 13:38:18 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:38:18 -0500 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <4B9D4656.1090205@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. Dan On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from me: >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. >> > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental phonology.) >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with different structures. >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance seems to be suited both for language-particular description and cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of what usually goes by the term. > In any event, the main point is that a large number of comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need to be kept separate in principle. > > T. Givón writes: >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, because most linguists work on English or some other major language and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary rhetoric. >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for comparison and explanatory theory). > > Greetings, > Martin Haspelmath > > From geoffnathan at wayne.edu Mon Mar 15 19:36:56 2010 From: geoffnathan at wayne.edu (Geoff Nathan) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:36:56 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea that languages actually have universals of some kind. As a (natural/cognitive) phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have consonants and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger units (words, breath groups, some such...) In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have some particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that have syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of ‘his’ languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few competitors), some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more complex offerings. Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they have a color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will tend to be high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are strong tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color contrasts are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three primary articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to expect that the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial prototype category structure, with central members that just about everybody has, with more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC syllables) being correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the expected more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. Geoffrey S. Nathan Faculty Liaison, C&IT and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > Cc: "Funknet" > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > Dan > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and > Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from > me: > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is > that things can be different in some respects but the same in other > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we > are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring > a contradiction. > >> > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no > two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > phonology.) > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily > (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with > different structures. > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction > differ across languages. > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of > what usually goes by the term. > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > T. Givón writes: > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, > profoundly depressing. > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing > in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, > because most linguists work on English or some other major language > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary > rhetoric. > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > Greetings, > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > From earik at purdue.edu Mon Mar 15 19:57:18 2010 From: earik at purdue.edu (Engin Arik) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:57:18 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1117362332.10082461268681816041.JavaMail.root@starship.merit.edu> Message-ID: I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural human languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. Best, Engin Arik -- Engin Arik, Ph.D. http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ Quoting Geoff Nathan : > If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic > substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea that > languages actually have universals of some kind. As a (natural/cognitive) > phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have consonants > and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger units > (words, breath groups, some such...) > In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have some > particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that have > syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of ‘his’ > languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few competitors), > some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more complex > offerings. > Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they have a > color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will tend to be > high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are strong > tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color contrasts > are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three primary > articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to expect that > the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial prototype > category structure, with central members that just about everybody has, with > more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC syllables) being > correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the expected > more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > > > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > > Cc: "Funknet" > > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think > > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right > > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would > > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > > > Dan > > > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and > > Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from > > me: > > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question > > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds > > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is > > that things can be different in some respects but the same in other > > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we > > are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring > > a contradiction. > > >> > > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the > > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative > > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no > > two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) > > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that > > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and > > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can > > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has > > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that > > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > > phonology.) > > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily > > (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, > > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for > > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice > > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To > > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with > > different structures. > > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are > > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do > > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t think > > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the > > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and > > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, > > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. > > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a > > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > > crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the construction > > differ across languages. > > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance > > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena > > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of > > what usually goes by the term. > > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as > > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need > > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > > > T. Givón writes: > > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a > > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], > > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, > > profoundly depressing. > > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and > > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range > > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing > > in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, > > because most linguists work on English or some other major language > > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert > > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann > > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > > influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition > > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary > > rhetoric. > > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or > > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led > > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if > > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish > > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's > > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with > > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", > > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > > > Greetings, > > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > > > > From geoffnathan at wayne.edu Tue Mar 16 03:43:01 2010 From: geoffnathan at wayne.edu (Geoff Nathan) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:43:01 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1268683038.4b9e911e11792@webmail.purdue.edu> Message-ID: My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Faculty Liaison, C&IT and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: > From: "Engin Arik" > To: "Geoff Nathan" > Cc: "Funknet Funknet" > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural > human > languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. > > Best, > Engin Arik > > -- > Engin Arik, Ph.D. > > http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ > > > > > Quoting Geoff Nathan : > > > If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic > > substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea > that > > languages actually have universals of some kind. As a > (natural/cognitive) > > phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have > consonants > > and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger > units > > (words, breath groups, some such...) > > In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have > some > > particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that > have > > syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of > ‘his’ > > languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few > competitors), > > some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more > complex > > offerings. > > Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they > have a > > color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will > tend to be > > high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are > strong > > tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color > contrasts > > are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three > primary > > articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to > expect that > > the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial > prototype > > category structure, with central members that just about everybody > has, with > > more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC > syllables) being > > correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the > expected > > more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. > > > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > > > ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > > > > > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > > > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > > > Cc: "Funknet" > > > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > > > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > > > > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I > think > > > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > > > > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the > right > > > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that > would > > > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > > > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, > and > > > Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions > from > > > me: > > > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > > > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might > question > > > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on > grounds > > > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > > > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea > is > > > that things can be different in some respects but the same in > other > > > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, > we > > > are justified in assigning them to the same category without > incurring > > > a contradiction. > > > >> > > > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > > > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to > the > > > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > > > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of > comparative > > > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and > no > > > two phonetic segments are exactly the same > cross-linguistically"). > > > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often > implicitly) > > > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions > that > > > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, > and > > > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but > can > > > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd > has > > > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption > that > > > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > > > phonology.) > > > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > > > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are > arbitrarily > > > (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. > However, > > > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria > for > > > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > > > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > > > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the > choice > > > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: > To > > > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > > > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > > > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages > with > > > different structures. > > > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > > > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there > are > > > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that > do > > > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t > think > > > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, > the > > > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, > and > > > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that > is, > > > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any > role. > > > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may > be a > > > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > > > crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the > construction > > > differ across languages. > > > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first > glance > > > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > > > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > > > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > > > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of > phenomena > > > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > > > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture > part of > > > what usually goes by the term. > > > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > > > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such > as > > > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > > > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities > need > > > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > > > > > T. Givón writes: > > > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in > a > > > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann > Paul], > > > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to > me, > > > profoundly depressing. > > > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul > and > > > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true > range > > > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > > > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is > missing > > > in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > > > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and > again, > > > because most linguists work on English or some other major > language > > > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > > > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > > > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, > Gilbert > > > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with > Hermann > > > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > > > influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition > > > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any > revolutionary > > > rhetoric. > > > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb > or > > > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > > > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has > led > > > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- > if > > > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily > distinguish > > > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in > Boas's > > > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, > with > > > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > > > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or > "subject/object", > > > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > > > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > > > > > Greetings, > > > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > > > > > > > From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 16 13:13:28 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:13:28 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1520310132.10127771268710981703.JavaMail.root@starship.merit.edu> Message-ID: Geoff, If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: > My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). > > Geoff > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: > >> From: "Engin Arik" >> To: "Geoff Nathan" >> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> >> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >> human >> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >> >> Best, >> Engin Arik >> >> -- >> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >> >> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >> >> >> >> >> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >> >>> If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >> that >>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >> (natural/cognitive) >>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >> consonants >>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >> units >>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>> In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have >> some >>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >> have >>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >> ‘his’ >>> languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few >> competitors), >>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >> complex >>> offerings. >>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >> have a >>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >> tend to be >>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >> strong >>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >> contrasts >>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >> primary >>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >> expect that >>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >> prototype >>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >> has, with >>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >> syllables) being >>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >> expected >>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>> >>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>> >>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>> >>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> >>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >> think >>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>> >>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >> right >>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >> would >>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>> >>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >> and >>>> Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >> from >>>> me: >>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >> question >>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >> grounds >>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >> is >>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >> other >>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >> we >>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >> incurring >>>> a contradiction. >>>>>> >>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >> the >>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >> comparative >>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >> no >>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >> cross-linguistically"). >>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >> implicitly) >>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >> that >>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >> and >>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >> can >>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >> has >>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >> that >>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>> phonology.) >>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >> arbitrarily >>>> (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >> However, >>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >> for >>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >> choice >>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >> To >>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >> with >>>> different structures. >>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >> are >>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >> do >>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t >> think >>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >> the >>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >> and >>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >> is, >>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >> role. >>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >> be a >>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>> crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the >> construction >>>> differ across languages. >>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >> glance >>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >> phenomena >>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >> part of >>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >> as >>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >> need >>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>> >>>>> T. Givón writes: >>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >> a >>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >> Paul], >>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >> me, >>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >> and >>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >> range >>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >> missing >>>> in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >> again, >>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >> language >>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >> Gilbert >>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >> Hermann >>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>> influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >> revolutionary >>>> rhetoric. >>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >> or >>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >> led >>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >> if >>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >> distinguish >>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >> Boas's >>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >> with >>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >> "subject/object", >>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>> >>>>> Greetings, >>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>> >>>>> >>> > > From macw at cmu.edu Tue Mar 16 14:55:17 2010 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:55:17 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, It seems to me that idea that universals must transcend modality is problematic. Geoff notes that he is referring to universals affecting the oral-aural modality. Within this modality, numerous (often statistical) universals are generated from the properties of the vocal and auditory apparatuses. There are, of course, many other (also often statistical) universals that emerge from "deeper" levels of language processing to which Aya is referring. However, both sets of universals are important and interesting to linguists and psycholinguists. One could push this analysis a bit further to note that universals always hold modulo some equivalent background. In case that Aya raises, we are looking at universals that hold modulo fixing of the oral-aural modality. To take another example, there are universals that hold modulo a particular cut on the contrast between planned and unplanned discourse. Of course, this contrast is more permeable than the split between modalities, but it is still enough to generate important statistical correlations, modulo a certain level of planfulness. There are also dimensions that relate to genre (headlines, poetry, stop signs, war chants, baby talk, etc.) Does this vitiate the notion of universals? I think not. Rather, it simply introduces another dimension into an already highly multidimensional space. Stated generally, universals don't have to be universal across forms of language, but should be universal modulo a particular form of language. -- Brian MacWhinney On Mar 16, 2010, at 9:13 AM, A. Katz wrote: > Geoff, > > If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: > >> My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). >> >> Geoff >> >> Geoffrey S. Nathan >> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >> >> ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: >> >>> From: "Engin Arik" >>> To: "Geoff Nathan" >>> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> >>> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >>> human >>> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >>> >>> Best, >>> Engin Arik >>> >>> -- >>> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >>> >>> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >>> >>>> If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >>> that >>>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >>> (natural/cognitive) >>>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >>> consonants >>>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >>> units >>>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>>> In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have >>> some >>>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >>> have >>>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >>> ‘his’ >>>> languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few >>> competitors), >>>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >>> complex >>>> offerings. >>>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >>> have a >>>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >>> tend to be >>>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >>> strong >>>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >>> contrasts >>>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >>> primary >>>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >>> expect that >>>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >>> prototype >>>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >>> has, with >>>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >>> syllables) being >>>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >>> expected >>>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>>> >>>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>>> >>>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>>> >>>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> >>>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >>> think >>>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>>> >>>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >>> right >>>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >>> would >>>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>>> >>>>> Dan >>>>> >>>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >>> and >>>>> Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >>> from >>>>> me: >>>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >>> question >>>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >>> grounds >>>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >>> is >>>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >>> other >>>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >>> we >>>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >>> incurring >>>>> a contradiction. >>>>>>> >>>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >>> the >>>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >>> comparative >>>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >>> no >>>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >>> cross-linguistically"). >>>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >>> implicitly) >>>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >>> that >>>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >>> and >>>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >>> can >>>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >>> has >>>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >>> that >>>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>>> phonology.) >>>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >>> arbitrarily >>>>> (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >>> However, >>>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >>> for >>>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >>> choice >>>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >>> To >>>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >>> with >>>>> different structures. >>>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >>> are >>>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >>> do >>>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t >>> think >>>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >>> the >>>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >>> and >>>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >>> is, >>>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >>> role. >>>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >>> be a >>>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>>> crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the >>> construction >>>>> differ across languages. >>>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >>> glance >>>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >>> phenomena >>>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >>> part of >>>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >>> as >>>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >>> need >>>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>>> >>>>>> T. Givón writes: >>>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >>> a >>>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >>> Paul], >>>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >>> me, >>>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >>> and >>>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >>> range >>>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >>> missing >>>>> in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >>> again, >>>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >>> language >>>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >>> Gilbert >>>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >>> Hermann >>>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>>> influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >>> revolutionary >>>>> rhetoric. >>>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >>> or >>>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >>> led >>>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >>> if >>>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >>> distinguish >>>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >>> Boas's >>>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >>> with >>>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >>> "subject/object", >>>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>>> >>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >> >> From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 16 16:07:30 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:07:30 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <0C15E2C4-8EBD-45B7-8230-4A9A8EA3E0F2@cmu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, It makes a lot of sense to think of "universals of phonetics", and I think that none of us doubt that there are such universals and that they are worth talking about. However, it would seem that phonetics itself is not a "language universal", as long as articulatory or acoustic issues are dominant in that field and are used as a way of defining contrasts. On the other hand, it would be unfortunate to have a theory of language that did not recognize the correspondences between something like written English and spoken English. Written English is hardly phonetic - it is not a transcription phone by phone (or even phoneme by phoneme) of spoken English -- and yet most of us would agree it's essentially the same language, modalities aside. While most Anglophones learn spoken English first and written English later, it can be done the other way around. Helen Keller learned to spell English and to communicate via finger spelling long before she learned to pronounce it. She was already fluent in written English before she learned how to articulate it. Is there any question that her finger-spelling English and her spoken English were the same language? If they were, then there must be some non-physical way to describe the basic units of English. Contrast this with native speakers of ASL, who actually have to learn a completely different language when they learn English. Best, --Aya On Tue, 16 Mar 2010, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Folks, > > It seems to me that idea that universals must transcend modality is problematic. Geoff notes that he is referring to universals affecting the oral-aural modality. Within this modality, numerous (often statistical) universals are generated from the properties of the vocal and auditory apparatuses. There are, of course, many other (also often statistical) universals that emerge from "deeper" levels of language processing to which Aya is referring. However, both sets of universals are important and interesting to linguists and psycholinguists. > > One could push this analysis a bit further to note that universals always hold modulo some equivalent background. In case that Aya raises, we are looking at universals that hold modulo fixing of the oral-aural modality. To take another example, there are universals that hold modulo a particular cut on the contrast between planned and unplanned discourse. Of course, this contrast is more permeable than the split between modalities, but it is still enough to generate important statistical correlations, modulo a certain level of planfulness. There are also dimensions that relate to genre (headlines, poetry, stop signs, war chants, baby talk, etc.) Does this vitiate the notion of universals? I think not. Rather, it simply introduces another dimension into an already highly multidimensional space. Stated generally, universals don't have to be universal across forms of language, but should be universal modulo a particular form of language. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > > On Mar 16, 2010, at 9:13 AM, A. Katz wrote: > >> Geoff, >> >> If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: >> >>> My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). >>> >>> Geoff >>> >>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>> >>> ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: >>> >>>> From: "Engin Arik" >>>> To: "Geoff Nathan" >>>> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> >>>> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >>>> human >>>> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >>>> >>>> Best, >>>> Engin Arik >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >>>> >>>> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >>>> >>>>> If one doesn’t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>>>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >>>> that >>>>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >>>> (natural/cognitive) >>>>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >>>> consonants >>>>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >>>> units >>>>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>>>> In any case we don’t have to say that all languages MUST have >>>> some >>>>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >>>> have >>>>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >>>> ‘his’ >>>>> languages actually didn’t have syllables, but there are few >>>> competitors), >>>>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >>>> complex >>>>> offerings. >>>>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >>>> have a >>>>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >>>> tend to be >>>>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >>>> strong >>>>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >>>> contrasts >>>>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >>>> primary >>>>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >>>> expect that >>>>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >>>> prototype >>>>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >>>> has, with >>>>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >>>> syllables) being >>>>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >>>> expected >>>>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>>>> >>>>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>>>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>>>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>>>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>>>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>>>> >>>>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> >>>>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >>>> think >>>>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>>>> >>>>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >>>> right >>>>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >>>> would >>>>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>>>> >>>>>> Dan >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >>>> and >>>>>> Tom Givón, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >>>> from >>>>>> me: >>>>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >>>> question >>>>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >>>> grounds >>>>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >>>> is >>>>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >>>> other >>>>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >>>> we >>>>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >>>> incurring >>>>>> a contradiction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >>>> the >>>>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >>>> comparative >>>>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >>>> no >>>>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >>>> cross-linguistically"). >>>>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >>>> implicitly) >>>>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >>>> that >>>>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >>>> and >>>>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >>>> can >>>>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >>>> has >>>>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >>>> that >>>>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>>>> phonology.) >>>>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >>>> arbitrarily >>>>>> (or, in Bill C.’s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >>>> However, >>>>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >>>> for >>>>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >>>> choice >>>>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >>>> To >>>>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >>>> with >>>>>> different structures. >>>>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >>>> are >>>>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >>>> do >>>>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don’t >>>> think >>>>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >>>> the >>>>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >>>> and >>>>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >>>> is, >>>>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >>>> role. >>>>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >>>> be a >>>>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>>>> crosslinguistic typology – even if the details of the >>>> construction >>>>>> differ across languages. >>>>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >>>> glance >>>>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >>>> phenomena >>>>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >>>> part of >>>>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >>>> as >>>>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >>>> need >>>>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> T. Givón writes: >>>>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >>>> a >>>>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >>>> Paul], >>>>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >>>> me, >>>>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >>>> and >>>>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >>>> range >>>>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >>>> missing >>>>>> in Givón's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >>>> again, >>>>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >>>> language >>>>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >>>> Gilbert >>>>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >>>> Hermann >>>>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>>>> influenced by T. Givón as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >>>> revolutionary >>>>>> rhetoric. >>>>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >>>> or >>>>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >>>> led >>>>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >>>> if >>>>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >>>> distinguish >>>>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >>>> Boas's >>>>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >>>> with >>>>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >>>> "subject/object", >>>>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> > > From sclancy at uchicago.edu Tue Mar 16 16:09:26 2010 From: sclancy at uchicago.edu (Steven Clancy) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:09:26 -0500 Subject: Second CFP for SCLC-2010 Conference at Brown University, October 9-11, 2010 Message-ID: Please note: The deadline for submission of abstracts is Friday, April 16, 2010. See below for details. ********************************************************************* The Department of Slavic Languages and the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University present THE TENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SLAVIC COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION (SCLC-2010) October 9-11, 2010 The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA) announces the Call for Papers for the 2010 annual conference. The conference will be held on the campus of Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) on Saturday, October 9 through Monday, October 11, 2010. SCLC-2010 Keynote Speakers Eugene Charniak Brown University Adele E. Goldberg Princeton University Ronald W. Langacker University of California, San Diego CALL FOR PAPERS Abstracts are invited for presentations addressing issues of significance for cognitive linguistics with some bearing on data from the Slavic languages. As long as there is a cognitive orientation, papers may be on synchronic or diachronic topics in any of the traditional areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, or sociolinguistics. In addition to the Slavic Languages, relevant papers on other languages of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are also acceptable. Abstracts may be submitted up until the deadline of April 16, 2010 to Steven Clancy . Abstracts should be approximately 500 words, but strict word limits are not required. Notification of acceptance will be provided by May 31, 2010. Most presentations at SCLC are given in English, but may be in the native (Slavic) language of the presenter. However, if the presentation is not to be made in English we ask that you provide an abstract in English in addition to an abstract in any other SCLA language. MAIN SESSIONS (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) Each presentation for the main sessions will be given 20 minutes and will be followed by a 10-minute discussion period. PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE Saturday, October 9: conference panels beginning in the morning and continue throughout the day, evening reception, keynote address, and conference dinner Sunday, October 10: main sessions and keynote address throughout the day, lunch and dinner Monday, October 11: main sessions and keynote address with conclusion by noon FURTHER INFORMATION Information on transportation, accommodations, and the conference venue will be forthcoming. Please see the conference website for further information. http://languages.uchicago.edu/scla Brown University is located in Providence, Rhode Island and is accessible from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS, 55 miles away) or T.F. Green Airport (PVD) in Providence. We hope you will be able to join us for SCLC-2010. Please forward this call for papers to your colleagues and graduate students who may be interested in presenting or attending. Sincerely, Steven Clancy Tore Nesset Masako Fidler President, SCLA Vice-President, SCLA Conference Organizer and Host, Brown University on behalf of the SCLA officers and the 2010 SCLA organizing committee From yutamb at mail.ru Wed Mar 17 21:14:22 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:14:22 +0600 Subject: Is Latin an Italic or a Romance language by cross-linguistic categ? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, cross-linguistic categorization is quite an interesting topic to discuss. Let us not forget phonetics. Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may give some new clues for language taxonomy or language classification. Some time ago it was a common place in linguistics that Latin is a Romance language. However, according to the modern classification Latin is an Italic language. Nevertheless, we know that Latin is the parent language for all the Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from the phono-typological point of view. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian 18.42 Latin 20.24 - Rumanian 20.54 Italian 21.73 -Spanish 30.27 - Portuguese 51.17 - French The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that Latin is the parent language for all those Romance languages listed above. Actually, Latin has the following phono-typological distances: Latin - Moldavian = 5.58 Latin - Italian = 6.96 Latin - Rumanian = 8.66 Latin - Spanish = 15.09 Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 Latin - French = 45.81 Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin sound picture preserved in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a Romance language but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and return Latin back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words that Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture. Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia From hopper at cmu.edu Wed Mar 17 21:30:41 2010 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:30:41 -0400 Subject: Is Latin an Italic or a Romance language by cross-linguistic categ? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yuri, Thanks for sharing your research with us. Could you tell us how your work relates to that of Fred Agard, who in the 1950s (or early'60s) did a similar project comparing surface phonetic features in Romance? Paul On Wed, March 17, 2010 17:14, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Funknet colleagues, cross-linguistic categorization is quite an > interesting topic to discuss. Let us not forget phonetics. > Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may give some new clues for > language taxonomy or language classification. Some time ago it was a > common place in linguistics that Latin is a Romance language. However, > according to the modern classification Latin is an Italic language. > Nevertheless, we know that Latin is the parent language for all the > Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from the phono-typological > point of view. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to > the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian > 18.42 Latin > 20.24 - Rumanian > 20.54 Italian > 21.73 -Spanish > 30.27 - Portuguese > 51.17 - French > The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to > share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from > the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing from you > to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the > results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, > Novosibirsk, Russia > Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that Latin is the parent > language for all those Romance languages listed above. Actually, Latin > has the following phono-typological distances: Latin - Moldavian = 5.58 > Latin - Italian = 6.96 > Latin - Rumanian = 8.66 > Latin - Spanish = 15.09 > Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 > Latin - French = 45.81 > Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin sound picture preserved > in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a Romance language > but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and return Latin > back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words that > Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that > Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture. > Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do > you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely > Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia > > > -- Paul J. Hopper Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From paul at benjamins.com Fri Mar 19 16:36:32 2010 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:36:32 -0400 Subject: New Benjamins title -Traugott & Trousdale eds.: Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization Message-ID: Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization Edited by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Graeme Trousdale Stanford University / The University of Edinburgh Typological Studies in Language 90 2010. ix, 306 pp. Hardbound 978 90 272 0671 8 / EUR 99.00 / USD 149.00 e-Book – Not yet available 978 90 272 8844 8 / EUR 99.00 / USD 149.00 This volume, which emerged from a workshop at the New Reflections on Grammaticalization 4 conference held at KU Leuven in July 2008, contains a collection of papers which investigate the relationship between synchronic gradience and the apparent gradualness of linguistic change, largely from the perspective of grammaticalization. In addition to versions of the papers presented at the workshop, the volume contains specially commissioned contributions, some of which offer commentaries on a subset of the other articles. The articles address a number of themes central to grammaticalization studies, such as the role of reanalysis and analogy in grammaticalization, the formal modelling of grammaticalization, and the relationship between formal and functional change, using data from a range of languages, and (in some cases) from particular electronic corpora. The volume will be of specific interest to historical linguists working on grammaticalization, and general linguists working on the interface between synchrony and diachrony. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of contents Contributors vii–viii Acknowledgements ix Preface Graeme Trousdale and Elizabeth Closs Traugott 1–18 Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization: How do they intersect? Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Graeme Trousdale 19–44 Grammaticalization, the clausal hierarchy and semantic bleaching Ian Roberts 45–73 Grammatical interference: Subject marker for and the phrasal verb particles out and forth Hendrik De Smet 75–104 Category change in English with and without structural change David Denison 105–128 Features in reanalysis and grammaticalization Elly van Gelderen 129–147 How synchronic gradience makes sense in the light of language change (and vice versa) Anette Rosenbach 149–179 What can synchronic gradience tell us about reanalysis? Verb-first conditionals in written German and Swedish Martin Hilpert 181–201 A paradigmatic approach to language and language change Lene Schøsler 203–220 Grammaticalization and the it-cleft construction Amanda L. Patten 221–243 Grammaticalization in Chinese: A construction-based account Walter Bisang 245–277 Grammaticalization and models of language Nigel Vincent and Kersti Börjars 279–299 Language index 301 Subject index 303–306 Paul Peranteau (paul at benjamins.com) General Manager John Benjamins Publishing Company 763 N. 24th St. Philadelphia PA 19130 Phone: 215 769-3444 Fax: 215 769-3446 John Benjamins Publishing Co. website: http://www.benjamins.com From paul at benjamins.com Fri Mar 19 16:38:48 2010 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:38:48 -0400 Subject: New Benjamins title - M=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=FChleisen=3A_?= Heterogeneity in Word-Formation Patterns Message-ID: Heterogeneity in Word-Formation Patterns A corpus-based analysis of suffixation with -ee and its productivity in English Susanne Mühleisen University of Bayreuth Studies in Language Companion Series 118 2010. xiii, 245 pp. Hardbound 978 90 272 0585 8 / EUR 95.00 / USD 143.00 e-Book – Not yet available 978 90 272 8838 7 / EUR 95.00 / USD 143.00 Postulated word-formation rules often exclude formations that can nevertheless be found in actual usage. This book presents an in-depth investigation of a highly heterogeneous word-formation pattern in English: the formation of nouns by suffixation with -ee. Rather than relying on a single semantic or syntactic framework for analysis, the study combines diachronic, cognitive and language-contact perspectives in order to explain the diversity in the formation and establishment of -ee words. It also seeks to challenge previous measurements of productivity and proposes a new way to investigate the relationship between actual and possible words. By making use of the largest and most up-to-date electronic corpus – the World Wide Web – as a data source, this research adds substantially to the number of attested -ee words. It furthermore analyses this word-formation pattern in different varieties of English (British vs. American English; Australian English). Due to the multiplicity of approaches and analyses it offers, the study is suitable for courses in English word-formation, lexicology, corpus linguistics and historical linguistics. Table of contents Acknowledgments ix List of tables and figures xi–xii List of abbreviations xiii Chapter 1. Introduction: Polysemy, heterogeneity and ambiguity in word-formation patterns 1–18 Chapter 2. Phonological, syntactic and semantic constraints on the formation of -ee words 19–60 Chapter 3. The career of -ee words: A diachronic analysis from medieval legal use to nineteenth-century ironic nonce words 61–90 Chapter 4. Morphology and the lexicon: On creativity and productivity of -ee words 91–119 Chapter 5. A corpus-based analysis of 1,000 potential new -ee words 121–164 Chapter 6. -ee words in varieties of English 165–187 Conclusion. On the study of an individual word-formation pattern: General and particular implications 189–192 Works cited 193–199 Appendix 1. Documentation of established -ee words with their citation sources: A comparison (in alphabetical order) 201–213 Appendix 2. Quantitative analysis of 1,000 potential -ee words (Web-search, February–June 2005) 215–239 Name index 241–242 Subject index 243–245 Paul Peranteau (paul at benjamins.com) General Manager John Benjamins Publishing Company 763 N. 24th St. Philadelphia PA 19130 Phone: 215 769-3444 Fax: 215 769-3446 John Benjamins Publishing Co. website: http://www.benjamins.com From cgenetti at linguistics.ucsb.edu Fri Mar 19 18:17:33 2010 From: cgenetti at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Carol Genetti) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:17:33 -0700 Subject: Annnouncement: InField 2010 at Univeristy of Oregon Message-ID: *** Apologies for cross-postings *** OPEN FOR REGISTRATION Linguists, Students of Linguistics, Community Language Activists InField 2010: INSTITUTE ON FIELD LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION UNIVERSITY OF OREGON Eugene, Oregon USA The Institute on Field Linguistics and Language Documentation is designed for field linguists, graduate students, and language activists to receive training in current techniques and issues in language documentation, language maintenance, and language revitalization. http://logos.uoregon.edu/infield2010/home/index.php Workshops: June 21st - July 2nd Laboratory week: July 5th - July 9th Field Training: July 5th - July 30th REGISTRATION Applications for registration (available on the website) will be processed upon receipt with notification within 14 days. Applications received prior to May 22, 2010 will have priority for housing; applications submitted after May 22 will have higher fees and may not allow access to housing. WORKSHOPS (two weeks of intensive training on a variety of topics and skills) Overviews * Steps in language documentation * Models of language documentation and revitalization * Principles and multimedia tools for sustainable language documentation, maintenance and revitalization Language Maintenance and Revitalization * Pedagogical grammar development * Curriculum development (place- and culture-based) * ACORNS: Acquisition of Restored Native Speech project * Miromaa - "Modern Ways for Ancient Words" * Pedagogical phonetics * Using archival materials for community-based language documentation and revitalization Ethics and Activism * Language community partnerships and respectful linguistic research * Language activism * Life in the Field Technologies * Audio (intermediate and advanced) * Video (intermediate and advanced) * Data management and archiving (intermediate and advanced) * Principles of database design * ELAN (a tool that aligns text to audio and video; introductory and advanced) * Toolbox (a tool to create interlinear glossed text and lexicons; advanced only) * FLEx (a tool to create interlinear glossed text and lexicons) And? * Orthography * Lexicography * Transcription of spoken discourse * Field phonetics * Ethnobiology * Survey methods * Introduction to Linguistics * Grant writing for language activists or linguists LABORATORY WEEK (An opportunity to work on your own projects with the assistance and advice of InField staff) FIELD TRAINING (A four-week intensive apprenticeship in language documentation with native speakers, applying the analytic and data management techniques of the Workshops) * Uyghur (Turkic) Instructor: Arienne Dwyer (University of Kansas) * Northern Paiute (Uto-Aztecan) Instructor: Tim Thornes (U. of Central Arkansas) * TBA Instructor: Sergio Meira ASSOCIATED EVENTS * Northwest Indian Language Institute, (June 21-July 2)** * Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference (June 25-27) * Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference (June 25-27) * 45th International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages (June 25-27) * Hokan-Penutian Languages Conference (June 25-27) FOR APPLICATION AND COMPLETE INFORMATION, POINT YOUR BROWSER TO: http://logos.uoregon.edu/infield2010/registration/index.php/ SPONSORS U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities: Documenting Endangered Languages Program University of Oregon Department of Linguistics ** The Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) will also be hosting its annual Summer Institute (June 21 - July 30), with courses covering topics including Northwest languages, linguistics, and language teaching methods, centered on the theme Language and Place. Participants at InField will also be able to attend NILI courses if they prefer these to some workshops. From eitkonen at utu.fi Mon Mar 22 13:52:33 2010 From: eitkonen at utu.fi (Esa Itkonen) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. concepts based on several types of criteria 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or identical. 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that cannot be non a priori. 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become totally detached from data. 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are mutually consistent. If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. Greenberg, and T. Givón. Esa Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen From amnfn at well.com Mon Mar 22 14:46:55 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Esa, I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. concepts based on several types of criteria > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or identical. > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that cannot be non a priori. > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become totally detached from data. > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are mutually consistent. > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. Greenberg, and T. Givón. > > Esa > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > From bischoff.st at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 20:45:04 2010 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:15:04 -0430 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". Shannon On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) > 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 > From: Esa Itkonen > Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following > claims: > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be > ignored. > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. > concepts based on several types of criteria > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete > nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of > view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of > abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or > identical. > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real > and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that > cannot be non a priori. > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation > between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become > totally detached from data. > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are > mutually consistent. > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to > cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) > to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning > the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue > cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on > following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. > Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. > > Esa > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) > From: "A. Katz" > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > To: Esa Itkonen > Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" > > Esa, > > I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want > to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think > that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather > than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. > > Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our > native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is > produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two > instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is > discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: > > > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the > following claims: > > > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be > ignored. > > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. > concepts based on several types of criteria > > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of > non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however > imperfectly. > > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of > view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of > abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or > identical. > > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real > and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that > cannot be non a priori. > > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback > relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to > become totally detached from data. > > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are > mutually consistent. > > > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to > cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) > to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning > the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue > cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on > following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. > Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. > > > > Esa > > > > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > > > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 > *************************************** > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 22 20:50:54 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:50:54 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <1c1f75a21003221345ib010f50tce40191cf3887e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: > In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree > that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" > and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". > > Shannon > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >> From: Esa Itkonen >> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >> Message-ID: >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >> >> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >> claims: >> >> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >> ignored. >> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >> concepts based on several types of criteria >> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >> identical. >> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >> cannot be non a priori. >> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >> totally detached from data. >> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >> mutually consistent. >> >> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >> >> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >> >> Esa >> >> >> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 2 >> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >> From: "A. Katz" >> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> To: Esa Itkonen >> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >> Message-ID: >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >> >> Esa, >> >> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >> >> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >> >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >> following claims: >>> >>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >> ignored. >>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >> imperfectly. >>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >> identical. >>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >> cannot be non a priori. >>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >> become totally detached from data. >>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >> mutually consistent. >>> >>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>> Esa >>> >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>> >>> >> >> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >> *************************************** >> From tgivon at uoregon.edu Mon Mar 22 22:57:34 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:57:34 -0600 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <709757AF-5440-4431-98E6-3872904080BD@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG ========== Daniel Everett wrote: > It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). > > This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. > > Dan > > > On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: > > >> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >> >> Shannon >> >> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> Message: 1 >>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>> From: Esa Itkonen >>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>> Message-ID: >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>> >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>> claims: >>> >>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>> ignored. >>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>> identical. >>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>> cannot be non a priori. >>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>> totally detached from data. >>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>> mutually consistent. >>> >>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>> Esa >>> >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------ >>> >>> Message: 2 >>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>> From: "A. Katz" >>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> To: Esa Itkonen >>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>> Message-ID: >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>> >>> Esa, >>> >>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>> >>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>> >>> --Aya >>> >>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>> >>> >>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>> >>> following claims: >>> >>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>> >>> ignored. >>> >>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>> >>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> >>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>> >>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>> imperfectly. >>> >>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>> >>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>> identical. >>> >>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>> >>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>> cannot be non a priori. >>> >>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>> >>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>> become totally detached from data. >>> >>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>> >>> mutually consistent. >>> >>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>> >>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>> >>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>>> Esa >>>> >>>> >>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>> *************************************** >>> >>> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 22 23:53:07 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:53:07 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <4BA7F5DE.9000609@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. Peace, Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: > > > > If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG > > ========== > > > Daniel Everett wrote: >> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). >> This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. >> Dan >> >> >> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >> >> >>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>> >>> Shannon >>> >>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>> >>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> Message: 1 >>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>> Message-ID: >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>> >>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>> claims: >>>> >>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>> ignored. >>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>> identical. >>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>> totally detached from data. >>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>> mutually consistent. >>>> >>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>> >>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>> >>>> Esa >>>> >>>> >>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------ >>>> >>>> Message: 2 >>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>> Message-ID: >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>> >>>> Esa, >>>> >>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>> >>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>> >>>> --Aya >>>> >>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>> >>>> following claims: >>>> >>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>> >>>> ignored. >>>> >>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>> >>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>> >>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>> >>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>> imperfectly. >>>> >>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>> >>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>> identical. >>>> >>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>> >>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>> >>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>> >>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>> become totally detached from data. >>>> >>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>> >>>> mutually consistent. >>>> >>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>> >>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>> >>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>> >>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>> >>>>> Esa >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>> *************************************** >>>> >>>> >> >> > From tgivon at uoregon.edu Tue Mar 23 00:06:09 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:06:09 -0600 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <19CD0FC7-21CB-4789-BECF-90DCB167BEBD@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: I think one should not confuse mathematics (which is an axiomatic system that has no facts independent of those created by definition) with science. The science closest to us, biology, is notoriously messy, gradualistic and non-mathematical (Ernst Mayr has a nice comment on this; you can find it in my "Bio-Linguistics, 2002). And quantified methods are just a way of trying to decide between the possible and the probable, especially when testing hypotheses about correlations. And there's no privileged status to phonology here, not that I am aware of. The stock in trade of functionalism in grammar--form/function correlations--is absolutely dependent on quantified methodology, both descriptive and inferential. I think I read you, Dan. I sometime wonder if you really read yourself? TG ========= Daniel Everett wrote: > What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. > > We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. > > But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. > > On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. > > I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. > > Peace, > > Dan > > On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: > > >> >> If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG >> >> ========== >> >> >> Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). >>> This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. >>> Dan >>> >>> >>> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>>> >>>> Shannon >>>> >>>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> Message: 1 >>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>> Message-ID: >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>>> >>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>>> claims: >>>>> >>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>> ignored. >>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>> identical. >>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>>> totally detached from data. >>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>> >>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>> >>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>> >>>>> Esa >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>> >>>>> Message: 2 >>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>> Message-ID: >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>>> >>>>> Esa, >>>>> >>>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>>> >>>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>>> >>>>> --Aya >>>>> >>>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> following claims: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> ignored. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>>> imperfectly. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>> identical. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>>> become totally detached from data. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Esa >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>>> *************************************** >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Tue Mar 23 00:07:32 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:07:32 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <4BA805F1.6040301@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Tom, I don't think we are in disagreement about anything in practice. This is not a productive line of discussion. -- Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 20:06, Tom Givon wrote: > > > I think one should not confuse mathematics (which is an axiomatic system that has no facts independent of those created by definition) with science. The science closest to us, biology, is notoriously messy, gradualistic and non-mathematical (Ernst Mayr has a nice comment on this; you can find it in my "Bio-Linguistics, 2002). And quantified methods are just a way of trying to decide between the possible and the probable, especially when testing hypotheses about correlations. And there's no privileged status to phonology here, not that I am aware of. The stock in trade of functionalism in grammar--form/function correlations--is absolutely dependent on quantified methodology, both descriptive and inferential. I think I read you, Dan. I sometime wonder if you really read yourself? TG > > ========= > > > Daniel Everett wrote: >> What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. >> >> We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. >> >> But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. >> On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. >> >> I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. >> >> Peace, >> >> Dan >> >> On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: >> >> >>> >>> If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG >>> >>> ========== >>> >>> >>> Daniel Everett wrote: >>> >>>> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>>>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>>>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>>>> >>>>> Shannon >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 1 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>>> Message-ID: >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>>>> claims: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>> ignored. >>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>>> identical. >>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>>>> totally detached from data. >>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>>> >>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>>> >>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>>> >>>>>> Esa >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 2 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>>> Message-ID: >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>>>> >>>>>> Esa, >>>>>> >>>>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>>>> >>>>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>>>> >>>>>> --Aya >>>>>> >>>>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>>>> >>>>>> following claims: >>>>>> >>>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>>> >>>>>> ignored. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>>> >>>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>>> >>>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>>>> >>>>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>>>> imperfectly. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>>> >>>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>>> identical. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>>> >>>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>>>> >>>>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>>>> become totally detached from data. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>>> >>>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>>> >>>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>>> >>>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>>> >>>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>>> >>>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>>> >>>>>>> Esa >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>>>> *************************************** >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >> >> > From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Mar 23 07:41:37 2010 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:41:37 +0200 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> Esa Itkonen 03/22/10 3:52 PM >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. Well maybe most people will accept this one as it stands, but not me. The possibility should be kept open that meanings are forms or that they are somehow constituted via certain kinds of forms (check Visetti et al, for example, concerning the 'theory of semantic forms'). It may be that some kinds of semantic forms are even archetypal in nature and therefore crosscutting specific languages. I don't know, but it seems a more promising proposal than the idea that 'categories' are crosscutting universals in this way. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 23 10:10:40 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:10:40 +0600 Subject: Can linguistics restore the parent language by the comparative m Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, the discussion about linguistics is quite interesting. Really, is it the Humanities or Science. If we divide this man activity into Sciences and Arts, then linguistics for the exception of phonetics is Arts. Can linguistics reconstruct some parent language? We know that all the Romance languages have the parent language, i.e. Latin. But can linguists reconstruct Latin on the basis of Italian, Spanish, French and other Romance languages? The answer is NO. If linguistics had been SCience, then it would have been possible. But it is ARTS, thus it is impossible. Or am I mistaken? Looking forward to hearing from you either directly yutamb at mail.ru or via Funknet. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 23 08:23:28 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:23:28 +0600 Subject: Linguistics supresses all the efforts to be SCIENCE Message-ID: To Tom Givon Dear Tom, what is Bio-Linguistics? You are quite correct: biology is messy. Neverthless , it at least tries to be SCIENCE while linguistics supresses all the efforts of the sort. In the reconstruction of proto-language forms linguists ignore statistics. It is especially vivid in Finno-Ugric linguistics. Linguists reconstruct proto-forms on some Finno-Ugric language, often Finish but ignore Mansi (Vogul) or Hanty (Ostjak). So, the way out is to use the occurrence of all the correspondences. What do you think? Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev From Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl Wed Mar 24 09:40:47 2010 From: Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl (Nick Enfield) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:40:47 +0100 Subject: PhD on conversation in lgs of W Africa and S America In-Reply-To: <55b86fca1003130832y1d86b09ewe35aaa591aa8af13@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Call for applications: PhD student positions in the study of language in social interaction, using video recording and analysis of everyday social interaction in a non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America. There are two PhD student positions available in the project group 'Human Sociality and Systems of Language Use' (HSSLU), one working on a non Indo-European language of West Africa, the other on a non Indo-European language of South America. HSSLU is a 5-year project awarded to group leader Nick Enfield to compare systems of language use across diverse cultural settings, as a way of investigating universals and variation in human social behavior. The HSSLU project operates within the Language and Cognition Group at the Max Planck institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. For information on the project, go to: http://www.mpi.nl/institute/research-groups/sociality-and-language-use Successful applicants will be supervised by Enfield and one other member of the research team who has a specialization in the linguistics of the relevant area. The PhD positions run for three years, and will begin on July 1, 2010. Applicants must meet the following four criteria for consideration: (1) an MA degree or equivalent in hand by June 30, 2010; (2) thorough knowledge of a non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America, including both knowledge of technicalities of the language's grammatical and semantic structures, and intuitions about idiomatic use of the language in conversational context; (3) established relations with a speech community, including access to the community for the purposes of standard ethnographic and descriptive linguistic work, including building a large corpus of video-recordings of everyday social interaction among a large variety of speakers and speech situations; (4) a keen interest in the role of language and cognition in human social life. Research will involve 2 to 3 field trips, between 2 and 6 months in length, depending on needs. All equipment and field expenses are provided by the project. Apart from being a 'non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America', there is no particular constraint on which language the student will work on. Both native and non-native speakers of the language in question are welcome to apply, as long as they fulfil the criteria mentioned above. Please mail expressions of interest to Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl. Applications will be considered until the positions are filled. From yutamb at mail.ru Thu Mar 25 14:18:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:18:07 +0600 Subject: what are the news about the origin of Basque? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, what are the news about the origin of Basque? We found it is close to Turkic languages by the phono-typological features. Is it still connected with the Caucasian languages? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Mar 27 11:33:13 2010 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:33:13 +0100 Subject: Is Cognitive Typology possible? In-Reply-To: <9A03FBB2DF8543AA8ECC5AB1FD7BB115@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Dear Yuri, I have produced some PPT-pages to illustrate what Cognitive Typology might be (according to my framework - others will surely take a different perspective). You may want to have a look at: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/%7Ewschulze/COGTYP.ppt (1,3 MB). Alas, it's in German... Best wishes, Wolfgang Am 12.04.2005 21:49, schrieb Yuri Tambovtsev: > Dear colleagues, Is Cognitive Typology possible? If yes, is it a branch of Cognitive Linguistics? What is the difference between Cognitive Linguistics and Incognitive Linguistics? Is not Linguistics (as it is) not cognitive? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Remain yours most thankfully Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > > > -- -- *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 yutamb at mail.ru Sat Mar 27 20:23:04 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 03:23:04 +0700 Subject: COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, I am not joking. I wonder if COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? Or is cognitive typology impossible? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk From hopper at cmu.edu Sat Mar 27 21:50:08 2010 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:50:08 -0400 Subject: COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? In-Reply-To: <88D4F75B07064BFF91A0C07CDC739932@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Yuri, I'm sure no one thinks you were joking. Why not look at Wolfgang Schulze's slides on this topic which he has made available to us? They are extensive and a model of clarity. The later ones in the series deal in depth with these very questions about the "reality" of cognitive typology. There is a full bibliography. Cheers, Paul On Sat, March 27, 2010 16:23, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Funknet colleagues, I am not joking. I wonder if COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY > a myth or reality? Or is cognitive typology impossible? Looking forward > to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, > Novosibirsk > > > -- Paul J. Hopper Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From sepkit at utu.fi Mon Mar 29 05:29:35 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:29:35 +0300 Subject: Final call for papers: Re-thinking synonymy Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple postings) Final call for papers Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ‘Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description’ in Helsinki, October 28-30, 2010. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information (to be added/updated later), is found at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy Traditionally, synonymy refers to a situation where a language has two (or more) linguistic forms for expressing one meaning. Synonymy is by no means uncommon in languages, exemplified also by the large number of synonym dictionaries and thesauri. However, it is important to note that the existence or lack of synonymy is largely a matter of definition. On one hand, if we define synonymy as (very close) semantic similarity or (essentially) identical reference, it definitely exists to some extent in all languages. On the other hand, if we confine the notion to absolute synonymy (comprising not only reference, but also, for example, stylistic and sociolinguistic factors as well as contextual preferences), it becomes less clear whether synonymy really exists. Many theories of grammar (such as Cognitive Grammar and some versions of Construction Grammar) do not acknowledge the concept of synonymy at all. Synonymy seems to militate against the expected relation of meaning and form: a difference in form should always and necessarily correspond to a difference in meaning. However, within these theories (and within linguistics in general), a recurring topic of study is lexical, constructional, functional and formal similarity. In addition, current research seems to steer clear of synonymy (and sameness), but at the same time puts a great deal of emphasis on similarities, e.g. when and why two or more constructions with seemingly similar meanings are used as each other's alternatives. But where does the boundary lie between the two, i.e. when do we cross over from synonymy to mere similarity, or vice versa, and, moreover, how different can two constructions or expressions be and yet still be considered similar in terms of their meaning/ function? Do all synonymous expressions share a common conceptual (abstract) schema, and are the formal differences merely ‘coincidental’? What is the relation between these schemas and lexical (i.e. ‘traditional’) synonymy? The idea of the symposium is to challenge linguists both to re-think the synonymy and sameness of linguistic expressions and to approach the concept of synonymy from a broader perspective. What we propose is that synonymy is best seen as sameness or similarity of forms and functions – whether words, constructions or syntactic structures – not only as a notion related to lexical semantics. For example, many languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, allow the expression of location through both cases and adpositions, and many languages have both intransitive and transitive reflexive forms; these expressions may be identical in meaning in certain contexts, but upon closer examination they also display differences. In brief: Does a difference in form always correspond to a difference in meaning/function? If so, is there any justification for the validity of the notion of synonymy in linguistic description? If synonymy really exists on some level, do we need to broaden the concept of synonymy and if so, how? What does the way that synonymy has been studied tell us about language and, perhaps as interestingly, about linguistics? We welcome contributions dealing with synonymy from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), ranging from studies of lexical, functional and formal synonymy to studies of synonymy within and across languages. Possible topics for talks include (but are by no means not restricted to) the following: - The role of synonymy in linguistic theory - Corpus-based studies of (lexical/functional) synonymy - Psycholinguistic studies of synonymy/processing of synonymy - Seemingly synonymous/similar categories across languages (e.g. dative, reflexive, person, tense, deixis etc.), comparability of functions across languages - The role of synonymy in lexical typology: do ‘identical’ lexemes in different languages express identical/similar meanings? - Translatability of lexemes - The development of synonymy; competition of synonymous forms in grammaticalization/lexicalization - Synonymy in different theories of grammar - The relation between lexical (‘traditional’) synonymy and functional synonymy - Potential differences between sameness and similarity; is the distinction meaningful or necessary? - What does synonymy (at any level/in any form) reveal about language? - What motivates the use of seemingly synonymous forms? Context, meaning, sociolinguistic factors, disambiguation, verbal semantics etc. - The synonymy of syntactic structural variants (e.g. differences in comparative constructions) - Synonymy of constructions within and across languages - Semantic vs. pragmatic synonymy The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words excluding data, tables and references) is April 16, 2010. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (synonymy-2010 /at/ Helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified about acceptance by May 15, 2010. The book of abstracts will be published on the web pages of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy/abstracts.shtml Body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Is the paper meant as a section paper or, a poster, or a workshop Workshops The deadline for submitting workshop proposals was March 15. Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentation by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven) Martin Haspelmath (MPI, Leipzig) Beth Levin (Stanford University) Scientific committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Denis Creissels (University of Lyon) Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Stefan Gries (UCSB) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Tromsø) Jarmo Jantunen (University of Oulu) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Sally Rice (University of Alberta) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Bernhard Wälchli (University of Berne) Organizing committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Seppo Kittilä (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyröläinen (University of Turku) Maarit Niemelä (University of Oulu) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Joensuu) Jouni Rostila (University of Tampere) Turo Vartiainen (University of Helsinki) Laura Visapää (University of Helsinki) Registration The registration deadline is October 1, 2010. An on-line registration form to the symposium will appear on the webpage of the symposium after the evaluation of abstracts. Registration fees General: 100 Euro Members of the association: 80 Euro Undergraduate students: 50 Euro Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance by bank transfer, if at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH). However, we may also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival in case bank transfer is not possible. If you have paid via bank transfer from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring a COPY of the original transaction receipt with you and present it upon registration. Conference venue University of Helsinki Contact Please send all queries to synonymy-2010 /at/ helsinki.fi From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 30 12:02:10 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:02:10 +0700 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? Message-ID: Johanna Nichols wrote: Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. Johanna Nichols = Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 30 12:59:57 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:59:57 -0700 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yuri, I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring up an interesting topic. In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that they can be examined and corrected. Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! Here's to having good peers! Best, --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Johanna Nichols wrote: > Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more > important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer > review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I > don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. > Johanna Nichols = > Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Tue Mar 30 14:53:39 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:39 -0500 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. Dan On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > Yuri, > > I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring up an interesting topic. > > In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that they can be examined and corrected. > > Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! > > Here's to having good peers! > > Best, > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > >> Johanna Nichols wrote: >> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more >> important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer >> review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I >> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. >> Johanna Nichols = >> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk >> >> From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Tue Mar 30 16:20:57 2010 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:20:57 -0600 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters around... Lise On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett wrote: > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine > that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I > let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. > Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are > shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their > criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to > respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of > the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is > superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the > process, even the particularly nasty ones. > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if > Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > and the usefulness of peer review. > > Dan > > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > >> Yuri, >> >> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring >> up an interesting topic. >> >> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves >> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer >> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from >> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just >> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, >> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that >> they can be examined and corrected. >> >> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our >> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep >> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers >> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and >> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! >> >> Here's to having good peers! >> >> Best, >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: >> >>> Johanna Nichols wrote: >>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more >>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers >>> is. Peer >>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from >>> pseudoscience that I >>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. >>> Johanna Nichols = >>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, >>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had >>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average >>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you >>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not >>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be >>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk >>> >>> > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Fellow, Linguistic Society of America Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder From john at research.haifa.ac.il Tue Mar 30 16:15:15 2010 From: john at research.haifa.ac.il (john at research.haifa.ac.il) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:15:15 +0300 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: <14B8BC90-075E-4449-B27C-964E33ADF3D5@colorado.edu> Message-ID: I agree. I wish you (Dan) had given me this idea long ago. John Quoting Lise Menn : > That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I > wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters > around... > Lise > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett wrote: > > > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine > > that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I > > let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. > > Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are > > shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their > > criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to > > respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of > > the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is > > superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the > > process, even the particularly nasty ones. > > > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if > > Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > > and the usefulness of peer review. > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > > > >> Yuri, > >> > >> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring > >> up an interesting topic. > >> > >> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves > >> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer > >> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from > >> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just > >> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, > >> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that > >> they can be examined and corrected. > >> > >> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our > >> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep > >> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers > >> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and > >> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! > >> > >> Here's to having good peers! > >> > >> Best, > >> > >> --Aya > >> > >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > >> > >> > >> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > >> > >>> Johanna Nichols wrote: > >>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more > >>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers > >>> is. Peer > >>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from > >>> pseudoscience that I > >>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. > >>> Johanna Nichols = > >>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, > >>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had > >>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average > >>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you > >>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not > >>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be > >>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > >>> > >>> > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 > 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 > Boulder CO 80302 > http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html > > Professor Emerita of Linguistics > Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science > University of Colorado > > Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] > Fellow, Linguistic Society of America > > Campus Mail Address: > UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science > > Campus Physical Address: > CINC 234 > 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University From bkbergen at cogsci.ucsd.edu Tue Mar 30 16:34:26 2010 From: bkbergen at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Benjamin Bergen) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:34:26 -0700 Subject: abstract submission open: joint meeting of CSDL and ESLP Message-ID: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Joint meeting of: The Conceptual Structure Discourse, and Language Conference (CSDL) and The Embodied and Situated Language Processing Workshop (ESLP) San Diego, California September 16-19, 2010. http://embodiedlanguage.org/csdl_eslp.html Keynote Speakers: Michael Arbib, USC Lera Boroditsky, Stanford University Craig Chambers, UTM Matthew Crocker, U Saarbruecken Vic Ferreira, UC San Diego Adele Goldberg, Princeton George Lakoff, UC Berkeley Teenie Matlock, UC Merced Fey Parrill, Case Western Gabriella Vigliocco, University College London Rolf Zwaan, University of Rotterdam Submissions: We welcome submissions of abstracts for oral or poster presentations on topics related to language and cognition, including but not limited to embodiment, situatedness, language use, figurative language, grammatical constructions, gesture, comprehension, production, and learning. Successful submissions will address theoretically important issues using appropriate empirical methods, such as linguistic analysis, corpus analysis, computational modeling, behavioral experimentation, electrophysiology, and brain imaging. Abstracts can now be submitted electronically, and must be submitted by the deadline of April 30, 2010. They will be reviewed anonymously by expert reviewers, and authors will be notified with decisions by early June, 2010. Support for students: Through National Science Foundation support, the meeting is able to provide up to $250 in funding to support travel costs and registration fees for 25 students participating in this meeting. Students may request to be considered for support using the form to appear on the meeting's website. Reviews of abstract submissions will be entirely independent of and unaffected by requests for support. Schedule: The goal of this joint meeting is to foster interdisciplinary interactions. To this end, the first day of the meeting (September 16th) will feature tutorials on "Experimental and Computational Research Methods for Cognitive Linguists" and "Cognitive Linguistics Research for Experimentalists". These will be taught by the invited speakers and are intended to provide basic familiarity with the tools, vocabulary, and practices of the relevant disciplines. More details on the tutorial topics will become available on the website. Research presentations will start on the afternoon of September 16th and run through the afternoon of September 19th in a single-session format. Aside from the keynote speakers, there will be competitive slots for 20-minute oral presentations as well as poster sessions. About the meeting: CSDL, the biennial meeting of the North American branch of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, was first held in San Diego in 1994. Cognitive Linguistics is the cover term for a collection of approaches to language that focus heavily on the "embodiment" of language. Under the rubric of embodiment, cognitive linguists investigate the extent to which form depends on meaning, function, and use, as well as ways in which language use depends on non-linguistic neurocognitive systems. (For more on previous CSDLs: http://www.cogling.org/csdlconfs.shtml) ESLP 2010 is the third event in a workshop series that started in 2007. The first goal of the conference is to bring together researchers working on the interaction of language and visual/motor processing in embodied, situated, and language-for-action research traditions. A further focus is on uniting converging and complementary evidence from three different methods (behavioral, neuropsychological, and computational). The first meeting led to the publication of a special issue on embodied language processing in Brain and Language (to appear in March 2010). ESLP took place again in June, 2009 in Rotterdam, in association with the international Cognitive Science Society Conference in Amsterdam (see http://embodiedlanguage.org/). This meeting brings together two populations of researchers - cognitive linguists on the one hand and psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists studying embodied and situated language processing on the other. There are substantial gains to be made by bringing these two communities together. They share an interest in investigating how language and its structure depend upon situated use and embodied cognition, but differ in their methods and many of their assumptions. Cognitive linguists typically use traditional methods of linguistic analysis (corpus methods, elicitation, native speaker judgments) to develop nuanced and theoretically sophisticated accounts of how language is embodied how language structure depends upon constraints imposed by known properties of the human brain and body. They additionally focus on how language use affects language structure and language change. The ESLP community (psycholinguists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists) typically use experimental and computational methods to ask questions about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying linguistic embodiment, and about the neural and cognitive mechanisms when language is processed in its grounded physical and social contexts situatedness. For more information, please consult the meeting website: http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/pknoeferle/csdl_eslp/home.html. If you have further questions, please contact the conference organizers, Ben Bergen (UCSD) and Pia Knoeferle (Bielefeld University), at csdl.eslp at gmail.com. +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ Benjamin K. Bergen Associate Professor, Department of Cognitive Science University of California, San Diego bkbergen at ucsd.edu http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/ Director, Language and Cognition Lab http://www2.hawaii.edu/~bergen/lcl/ Associate Editor, Cognitive Linguistics http://www.cogling.group.shef.ac.uk/ +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Wed Mar 31 09:32:29 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0200 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <14B8BC90-075E-4449-B27C-964E33ADF3D5@colorado.edu> Message-ID: Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her way to please the reviewers. I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with recommended revisions" or "reject". If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to take. So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. Martin Haspelmath Lise Menn wrote: > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that > has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let > students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I > show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at > how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I > show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the > reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original > version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and > that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the > particularly nasty ones. > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan > can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > and the usefulness of peer review. > > Dan -- Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Wed Mar 31 19:42:26 2010 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:42:26 -0600 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <4BB316AD.2010309@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I'm not sure about that, Martin. The author always has the option of seeking another journal if s/he gets a 'revise/resubmit'. I've been on both sides of that recommendation, and in all of my cases, the problem was not a matter of the theory, but of how much a single paper could accomplish and/or of needing restructuring in order to make a coherent argument. Lise On Mar 31, 2010, at 3:32 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in > my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in > the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting > better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she > goes out of her way to please the reviewers. > > I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be > avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with > recommended revisions" or "reject". > > If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can > then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds > helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he > doesn't want to take. > > So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the > positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative > effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a > paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the > paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for > publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. > > Martin Haspelmath > > Lise Menn wrote: >> I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is >> an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on >> writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms >> of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal >> editor. I let students read it without telling them what the >> judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal >> reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some >> reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it >> has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No >> matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree >> that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers >> were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. >> >> This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of >> submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel >> like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And >> that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the >> class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. >> >> Dan > > > -- > Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) > Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher > Platz 6 > D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) > +49-341-980 1616 > > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Fellow, Linguistic Society of America Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Mar 31 19:50:24 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:50:24 -0500 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <9B8E2B46-D3CA-430B-8CEA-3B028F83414A@colorado.edu> Message-ID: I agree, Lise. I am still not quite understanding the problem with 'revise and resubmit'. Seems like a perfectly sensible recommendation. I have occasionally decided to submit papers elsewhere because I disagreed with the recommendations of the reviewers. There are plenty of journals, after all (though this doesn't completely rule out the possibility that the same reviewer might get the same ms in succession from more than one journal). And on at least two occasions that I can remember, an article of mine that received a very negative review was nevertheless still published in the journal - without revision - (in one case in the most competitive theoretical journal at that time) because the editor thought that the referee had blown it. The editor said explicitly that he was setting aside the referee report (the paper fell within his area of expertise). My own impression is that most editors and referees are competent and reasonable and that the process still works well. But I also think that there are times when self-publishing can make more sense. Rarely. But not never. What am I missing, Martin? Dan On Mar 31, 2010, at 2:42 PM, Lise Menn wrote: > I'm not sure about that, Martin. The author always has the option of seeking another journal if s/he gets a 'revise/resubmit'. I've been on both sides of that recommendation, and in all of my cases, the problem was not a matter of the theory, but of how much a single paper could accomplish and/or of needing restructuring in order to make a coherent argument. > Lise > > On Mar 31, 2010, at 3:32 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > >> Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her way to please the reviewers. >> >> I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with recommended revisions" or "reject". >> >> If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to take. >> >> So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. >> >> Martin Haspelmath >> >> Lise Menn wrote: >>> I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. >>> >>> This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. >>> >>> Dan >> >> >> -- >> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) >> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 >> D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 >> >> >> >> >> > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 > 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 > Boulder CO 80302 > http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html > > Professor Emerita of Linguistics > Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science > University of Colorado > > Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] > Fellow, Linguistic Society of America > > Campus Mail Address: > UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science > > Campus Physical Address: > CINC 234 > 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder > > > From bischoff.st at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 23:02:13 2010 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:32:13 -0430 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 20 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would like to echo Martin's comments...I had a paper on finite state morphology reviewed poorly because there was "no reference to the work of Chomsky". The paper had nothing to do with formal linguistics and was in no way germane to generative linguistics, so there was no way to reference Chomsky. Not having tenure, and being constantly reminded of the need to publish, it would be disingenuous of me to say that such comments always went unheeded. However, they did for that particular paper. Paul Postal has an interesting chapter on the review process for grant funding that some might find interesting in his "Skeptical Linguistic Essays" (which was available online at his NYU website last year). Shannon On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 12:30 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. peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping (Martin Haspelmath) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0200 > From: Martin Haspelmath > Subject: [FUNKNET] peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: <4BB316AD.2010309 at eva.mpg.de> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my > experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the > direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The > author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her > way to please the reviewers. > > I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be > avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with > recommended revisions" or "reject". > > If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then > make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, > while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to > take. > > So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive > effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that > arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of > reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the > editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not > be to shape the paper. > > Martin Haspelmath > > Lise Menn wrote: > > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that > > has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let > > students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I > > show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at > > how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I > > show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the > > reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original > > version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and > > that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the > > particularly nasty ones. > > > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan > > can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > > and the usefulness of peer review. > > > > Dan > > > -- > Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) > Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 > D-04103 Leipzig > Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 > > > > > > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 20 > *************************************** > From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 8 16:56:14 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 22:56:14 +0600 Subject: phonetic corpus is just a sound picture of a language Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, To my mind, phonetic 'corpus' means simply a collection of TRANSCRIBED texts. What do you think? I call the phonetic corpus of a language just a sound picture of a language. First I select some basic phonetic features. I chose 9 articulatory features. After that I compare these two linguistic objects by Chi-square, Kolmagorov-Smirnov and t-test. My recent studies on the functioning of speech sounds showed that modern Russian has the following distances: Russian - Ukrainian (3.90); Russian - Old Russian (4.71); Russian - Belorussian (5.49); Russian - Czech (6.30); Russian - Sorbian (8,77); Russian - Slovak (10.42); Russian - Serbian (11.62); Russian - Polish (24.99). Do you think it is possible to get my results published in any linguistic journal? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 8 19:53:52 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 01:53:52 +0600 Subject: Similar words consist of similar sounds Message-ID: Dear Funknet members, I am sure it is more usual to take into account the point of lexical similarity, i.e. the number of common words, rather than the sound picture similarity, though similar words consist of similar sounds. How is the similarity of words judged? Unfortunately, it is quite possible that 80% lexical similarity which would allow mutual intelligibility is never the case. How is it possible to measure the mutual intelligibility of words if not by similar sounds. How many % of words which are not similar would break it? One could also ask how one defines the border of "mutual intelligibility." In this case, the decision of dialect vs. language or one linguistic object vs. the other would be based purely on the basis of lexical similarity, let us forget about the phonetic method or any other methods, they are invented. The problem that we discussed in our article on Mansi (Vogul) and Hungarian was: how many similar words there should be to consider a language to belong to the other one. Mansi and Hungarian are believed to be very closely related, though they have only 34% of the similar words of the Swadesh list. It means that 66% of the words are not similar in Mansi and Hungarian. Naturally, a speaker of Mansi does not understand a speaker of Hungarian. It is a proved fact. I think in actual Mansi corpus there are less similar words. Nevertheless, Finno-Ugrists believe Mansi and Hungarian are close related. This is why, Mansi and Hungarian are put together into the Ugric subgroup of the Finno-Ugric language family. Hanty is also put there, though it has only 27% of common words with Hungarian. I think linguists should decide when we must consider two languages to be closely related, that is, to establish the threshold of mutual intelligibility. Surely, it is not 27% or even 34%, as the case with Hanty, Mansi and Hungarian. In my opinion, it should not be less than 70%. Only Komi and Udmurt have 70% of common words. Komi and Udmurt should be called closely related Finno-Ugric languages. What is your opinion? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru directly. Yours most sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev From eitkonen at utu.fi Thu Mar 11 14:02:03 2010 From: eitkonen at utu.fi (Esa Itkonen) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:02:03 +0200 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - "coherentist inductivism" ? la Nicholas Rescher. This "third alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. Esa Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen From wcroft at unm.edu Thu Mar 11 17:21:05 2010 From: wcroft at unm.edu (Bill Croft) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:21:05 -0700 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in Itkonen's paper. I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to support categories assumed to exist a priori. Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief method is the semantic map model, which is basically a multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose crosslinguistic formal categories. Bill Croft Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. Studies in Language 31.409-30. ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper B?ye and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language universals. CogniTextes. ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Fri Mar 12 08:11:41 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:11:41 +0100 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I agree with most of Bill's points, but I think that crosslinguistically valid semantic categories are not sufficient for typological comparison. Sometimes we want to make generalizations such as "ergative case is always overtly coded", and "ergative case" cannot be defined in purely semantic terms. Or we want to make generalizations about tense, and again, tense cannot be defined (or at least is not normally defined) in purely semantic terms -- rather, tense is a verbal category with particular semantic properties. So I think Newmeyer (2007) (in Linguistic Typology) made a valid point when he said that typology cannot just be based on semantic categories. Thus, our comparative concepts are not limited to semantically-based concepts, and include concepts that are in part formally based. (This also applies to phonology, where comparative concepts such as "syllable" are not purely phonetically based.) The way I see it, these comparative concepts (and in fact also the semantically-based comparative concepts) are used by typologists as instruments for measuring cross-linguistic variation. They are analogous to measuring instruments in other sciences, and like these, they are conventional (hence Itkonen's term "conventionalist"). In my paper (which is, incidentally, available from my website), I also say that the comparative concepts are "arbitrary" (following Lazard). If somebody proposes a definition of "ergative" that is different from mine, this is not a disagreement of substance, it's just s different comparative concept that is given the same name. (This is very different from the generative view, where categories such as "ergative" are taken to be part of UG, so disagreements about them are disagreements of substance.) Greetings, Martin Bill Croft schrieb: > Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another > alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal > categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers > are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a > number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in > Itkonen's paper. > > I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic > formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in > Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers > (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by > Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by > Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually > impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". > > Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims > they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent > position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological > method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but > crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which > are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained > definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like > "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; > Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). > > I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft > 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic > analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring > distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. > I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to > support categories assumed to exist a priori. > > Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal > categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts > to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief > method is the semantic map model, which is basically a > multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has > been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, > Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, > Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and > others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. > Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the > applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex > datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been > used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist > and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related > multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model > is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose > crosslinguistic formal categories. > > Bill Croft > > > Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in > typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. > > ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic > argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a > language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. > > ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. > Studies in Language 31.409-30. > > ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. > Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and > Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. > > ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. > Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper B?ye and Elisabeth > Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. > > ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language > universals. CogniTextes. > > ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. > Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and > Information. > > ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical > variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. > Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. > > From autotype at uni-leipzig.de Fri Mar 12 09:20:02 2010 From: autotype at uni-leipzig.de (Balthasar Bickel) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:20:02 +0100 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: <4B99F73D.9030603@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I agree that comparative notions are like technical instruments for capturing distributions --- in fact I made this very point explicitly a few years ago -- see http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel/research/papers/universals_cels_bb.pdf). As such, they are clearly "conventionalist". But I don't understand how this is in opposition to being "psychologically real". The way I understand it, something is psychologically real if it can be demonstrated through psychological research, i.e. captured by the metalanguage of psychology, a disciplines which uses "conventionalist" instruments just like we do. From this point of view, the question of whether our descriptive concepts are psychologically real or not is a purely empirical one. Sometimes, linguists' terms correspond well to the terms you need in order to best describe what's going on in the brain (i.e. what we can measure through e.g. ERPs etc.) or what drives pathways of acquisition, sometimes not. Given this, we are still well-advised to try and develop "psychologically adequate" metalanguages. Balthasar _______________________ www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw On Mar 12, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > I agree with most of Bill's points, but I think that crosslinguistically valid semantic categories are not sufficient for typological comparison. Sometimes we want to make generalizations such as "ergative case is always overtly coded", and "ergative case" cannot be defined in purely semantic terms. Or we want to make generalizations about tense, and again, tense cannot be defined (or at least is not normally defined) in purely semantic terms -- rather, tense is a verbal category with particular semantic properties. So I think Newmeyer (2007) (in Linguistic Typology) made a valid point when he said that typology cannot just be based on semantic categories. > > Thus, our comparative concepts are not limited to semantically-based concepts, and include concepts that are in part formally based. (This also applies to phonology, where comparative concepts such as "syllable" are not purely phonetically based.) The way I see it, these comparative concepts (and in fact also the semantically-based comparative concepts) are used by typologists as instruments for measuring cross-linguistic variation. They are analogous to measuring instruments in other sciences, and like these, they are conventional (hence Itkonen's term "conventionalist"). In my paper (which is, incidentally, available from my website), I also say that the comparative concepts are "arbitrary" (following Lazard). > > If somebody proposes a definition of "ergative" that is different from mine, this is not a disagreement of substance, it's just s different comparative concept that is given the same name. (This is very different from the generative view, where categories such as "ergative" are taken to be part of UG, so disagreements about them are disagreements of substance.) > > Greetings, > Martin > > Bill Croft schrieb: >> Esa Itkonen's comment (and paper) does not consider another alternative, namely that the notion of crosslinguistic formal categories is a counterproductive fiction (the only options he offers are "psychologically real entity" and "useful fiction"). There are a number of misinterpretations of my position and that of Haspelmath in Itkonen's paper. >> >> I do not subscribe to a "conventionalist" view of crosslinguistic formal categories; I argue that they do not exist at all, not just in Radical Construction Grammar but in a number of follow-on papers (Croft 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010). This is the same position taken by Martin Haspelmath in a passage from an unpublished 2008 paper cited by Itkonen: "the adoption of categorial universalism has actually impeded, not facilitated, crosslinguistic research". >> >> Itkonen presents some quotations from Haspelmath's paper and claims they are contradictory. In fact they present a coherent and consistent position, one which I also advocate and is part of the typological method: crosslinguistic formal linguistic categories are invalid, but crosslinguistic comparison can be based on semantic categories which are crosslinguistically valid - albeit in terms of fine-grained definitions of situation types, not broad conceptual categories like "IN [containment]" (see Croft 2001, chapter 3; Croft to appear a, b; Croft and Poole 2008:31-33). >> >> I do not reject the distributional method (Croft 2001:45-46; Croft 2010:344-45). It is the only valid method of formal linguistic analysis, if done carefully and thoroughly - that is, not ignoring distributional facts that don't match up or don't match expectations. I do reject the opportunistic use of selective distributional facts to support categories assumed to exist a priori. >> >> Finally, and most importantly, abandoning crosslinguistic formal categories allows typologists to develop valild methods and concepts to understand crosslinguistic diversity and universals. The chief method is the semantic map model, which is basically a multidimensional generalization of implicational hierarchies. It has been used productively by many typologists including Lloyd Anderson, Suzanne Kemmer, Martin Haspelmath, Leon Stassen, Johan van der Auwera, Andrej Malchukov, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Eva Schultze-Berndt, and others to whom I apologize for not remembering to name here. Multidimensional scaling can be used in order to extend the applicability of the semantic map model to larger and more complex datasets (Croft and Poole 2008, Croft to appear a, b). MDS has been used in this way by Stephen Levinson & Sergio Meira, Michelle Feist and Steven Clancy; Melissa Bowerman & Asifa Majid have used related multivariate techniques for the same purposes. The semantic map model is an empirical inductive method, but it does not presuppose crosslinguistic formal categories. >> >> Bill Croft >> >> >> Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Gammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. >> >> ------. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech and syntactic argumentation [Commentary on Evans and Osada, Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes]. Linguistic Typology 9.431-41. >> >> ------. 2007. Beyond Aristotle and gradience: a reply to Aarts. Studies in Language 31.409-30. >> >> ------. 2009. Methods for finding language universals in syntax. Universals of language today, ed. Sergio Scalise, Elisabetta Magni and Antonietta Bisetto, 145-64. Berlin: Springer. >> >> ------. 2010. Ten unwarranted assumptions in syntactic argumentation. Language usage and language structure, ed. Kasper B?ye and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, 313-50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. >> >> ------. To appear a. Relativity, linguistic variation and language universals. CogniTextes. >> >> ------. To appear b. Exemplar semantics. To appear in a volume ed. Seana Coulson. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. >> >> ------ and Keith T. Poole. 2008. Inferring universals from grammatical variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis. Theoretical Linguistics 34.1-37. >> >> > From yutamb at mail.ru Fri Mar 12 13:16:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:16:07 +0600 Subject: What crosslinguistic formal categories can be in phonetics? Message-ID: We read about some crosslinguistic formal categories in semantics. Howver, it is hard to analyze them. I wonder what crosslinguistic formal categories can there be in phonetics? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Sincerely yours Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From yutamb at mail.ru Fri Mar 12 20:29:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:29:07 +0600 Subject: Articulatory Features as the basis for the crosslinguistic research Message-ID: Dear Funcnet scholars, I do not think that formal universal categories particularly in syntax and semantics are easy to state crosslinguistically. On the contrary, I am sure that the articulatory phonetic features can be easily studied crosslinguistically since these articulatory properties are shared by human languages. Therefore, functioning of phonemic groups in speech sound chains may give phonetics a more crosslinguistic commonality regarding the kinds of sounds man makes. That is why, there should be more research on phonotactic distributions across languages. However, I do not know many books and articles in this field for the recent years. Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Remain yours most crosslinguistically Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Mar 12 20:42:41 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:42:41 -0700 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear FUNK people, I have been debating, and vacillating, whether to join in this discussion. First because Esa Itkonen had already raised the very same issues ca. a year ago, and we all had a spirited go at it. But mostly because this discussion reminds me of a book I have just finished reading, Dave Geary's "Male Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences". This may sound less-than-obvious to many of you, but the history of linguistics for the past 100 years is eerily reminiscent of the evolution of male coalitions in Homo sapiens, with inter-coalition warfare and intra-coalition power-struggles--and inevitable splits of new coalitions (see DeWaal's "Chimpanzee Politics", 1982). Let's see: Bloomfield challenged his teacher Hermann Paul's broad-scoped functional-typological coalition and split it, in the process radically narrowing down the domain of investigation to structure on its own and "inductive generalizations". Then Chomsky challenged Bloomfied's structuralist coalition and split it, creating a variant of structuralism--but with apriori Platonic universals propped upon rather frail empirical legs. Soon, Ross-Lakoff-Postal-McCawley challenged Chomsky's coalition and pulled out the Gen Sem faction, challenging autonomous syntax but adding only semantics to the relevant explanartory mix. Then a bunch of us in the 1970s banded together into a new coalition, enlarging the relevant domain of structure's connectivity to communicative function (discourse), cross-language typology (diversity), diachrony (emergence), neuro-cognition (the processor), ontogeny (child language) and phylogeny (evolution). We were deeply interested in universals, but only if they were explanatory and empirically-grounded. It never occurred to us that "theory" was a dirty word, only that "theory" was not synonymous with "formalism". Our notion of "theory" demanded both empirical foundations and explanatory connectivity. But we were also deeply interested in structure--how could a linguist not be?--provided it were studied and explained in its relevant broad connectivity. This was, transparently, a return to the wide-scoped agenda of Hermann Paul, even if we hadn't read his work. So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver, are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. Try as I might, I find it hard to tell scientific substance from coalitional warfare. One of the worst features of Chomsky's legacy to linguistics is his extreme reductionism, his insistence that you are either an empiricist or a rationalist, an inductivist or a deductivist, a universalist or variationist, a theorist or a data-monger, a formalist or a functionalist--with no room in the middle. As Esa and many others have pointed out, these are false dichotomies in the methodology of science, where an intensive cyclic interaction takes place among multiple strategies. But Chomsky's reductionist gambit also mis-represents mature theory-building, where universality and variability are inseparable, being both the products of development (?emergence') in diachrony, acquisition or evolution. Perhaps some day we will remember to remember that neither the structure-function ?semiotic' relation nor the conundrum of universality-diversity, nor the central role of development in mediating the inter-dependence between these seeming extremes, are specific to linguistics. They have all been noted long ago in biology and evolution. For a biologically-based phenomenon such as language/culture to cleave to one extreme against the other, and to periodically resurrect these tired old false dichotomies, is not only counter-productive. It is also, perversely enough, an unintended validation of Chomsky's disruptive agenda. Peace, TG ================ Esa Itkonen wrote: > Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - "coherentist inductivism" ? la Nicholas Rescher. This "third alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. > > Esa > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > From edith at uwm.edu Sat Mar 13 01:57:05 2010 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith A Moravcsik) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:57:05 -0600 Subject: Re categorization Message-ID: Here are some thoughts regarding four points that arose in the recent exchange among Esa Itkonen, Bill Croft, Martin Haspelmath, Balthasar Bickel, and Tom Giv?n regarding categorization. I am sorry for the length; I am labeling the sections by topic for easier orientation. (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. What the cognitive tool of category-formation accomplishes is legitimizing what would otherwise appear to be a paradox: that things can be both the same and not the same. As Cecil Brown has remarked, in categorization, we treat different things AS IF they were the same. The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. For example, adjectives are in many ways different in and across languages but if they are the same in at least one respect ? whether purely semantic or semantic-and-formal (see Martin H.?s comment) ? they form a legitimate category. Or, to take an example from outside language, the class concept ?school? will include very different kinds of institutions even if it is applied just within a single culture and if it is applied across cultures, the differences are likely to be even greater; but as long as there is something is common to all instances, lumping them together for a given purpose is not contradictory. (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.?s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. Second, the choice of classificatory criteria amounts to a hypothesis as to what might be a fruitful way of sorting things in a given domain (this I believe is Martin H.?s view). If a particular criterion leads to categories whose members turn out to have additional properties in common ? i.e. to a cluster concept (cf. Isa I.?s paper) - the criterion has proven to be useful and is thus legit. For example, if the goal is to establish the crosslinguistic distribution of word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, categorizing languages in terms of whether they or do not have #pl- is justified even though outside this goal, the criterion is just one of a huge number of other possible criteria. (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don?t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology ? even if the details of the construction differ across languages. This seems to hold in other domains of inquiry as well. For example, if the goal is to determine what building materials are used for constructing schools in different cultures, the category of school-building materials ranging over brick, stone, wood, etc. is a crucial concept. However, in a culture where all buildings ? whether schools or other structures - are made of bricks, the category of school-building material is irrelevant. This is in contrast with another criterion ? say, the ages of children that are required to attend school ? that will be relevant both to descriptions of individual cultures and those across cultures. More generally, a category with various sub-categories is relevant for crosslinguistic study but not for a language that exemplifies only a single subcategory. (d) PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY If we are interested in psychological reality, the question is: the psychological reality of what? The answer must be: not individual words and sentences but grammatical concepts and patterns. But if so, the study of the psychological reality of grammatical categories must be a separate task from establishing these categories to begin with. The conventionalist approach to grammatical categories, as cited by Esa I., is therefore necessary: without it, we have no handle on the objects whose psychological reality we want to study. Labeling these distributionally and semantically arrived-at categories as fictions seems to me infelicitous. Something is fictional if it has no empirical basis; but this is not true for these categories. While, indeed, they do not reflect psychological reality, they are based on facts of language structure. - As Balthasar B. pointed out, whether there is or isn?t a match between these descriptive categories and those that emerge from the study of how people acquire, store, and use language is an empirical question. Edith Moravcsik From alec.coupe at gmail.com Sat Mar 13 16:32:13 2010 From: alec.coupe at gmail.com (Alec Coupe) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:32:13 +0800 Subject: PhD in language documentation Message-ID: *PhD in language documentation* *Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore* The Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at Nanyang Technological University , Singapore, invites suitably qualified people to apply to undertake research on a hitherto undescribed (or scantily described) Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic or Indic language of the north-east India/Burma region, leading to a comprehensive grammatical description of that language. This project forms part of a larger initiative to document the languages of north-east India and adjacent regions of Asia. PhD research funding is guaranteed for three years of candidature, with the possibility of extension. The NTU Research Scholarship for international students starts at SIN $2000, rising to SIN $2500 after confirmation. In addition, PhD students can apply for further funding to cover fieldwork expenses. The ideal applicant will have a solid grounding in descriptive linguistics and already hold an MA, or a BA with a good Honours grade. Successful applicants can anticipate doing one year of coursework, followed by three years of empirically-based research. After completion of the coursework year, the candidate will undertake a 9-12 month period of fieldwork that will involve living in the speech community to record, transcribe and analyse linguistic data. S/he will then return to Singapore to complete the first draft of the grammar and prepare the corpus of materials for archiving. A second trip of 3 months will be made in the final year to check the analysis of the data. Interested applicants should apply in the first instance to Dr Alexander Coupe arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg to discuss a possible research project. For further information pertaining to graduate study at NTU, see: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics/Graduate/Pages/default.aspx --- Alexander R. Coupe, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor | Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies | Nanyang Technological University HSS-03-53, 14 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 637332 Tel: (65) 6592-1567 GMT+8h | Fax: (65) 6795-6525 | Email: arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg | Web: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics From edith at uwm.edu Sat Mar 13 17:47:04 2010 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith A Moravcsik) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:47:04 -0600 Subject: Second Call for the Conference on Competing Motivations Message-ID: This is a reminder that the abstract deadline for the conference on competing motivations is Wednesday, March 31. Please see the revised version of the Call for Papers below. It now includes the complete list of invited speakers and their paper titles. Edith Moravcsik, also for Andrej Malchukov ***** CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A CONFERENCE ON COMPETING MOTIVATIONS General We invite papers on the role of competing motivations in the emergence and use of linguistic structures from linguists, psychologists, and others working in related fields. Time and place The three-day conference will take place NOVEMBER 23-25 (TUESDAY-THURSDAY) 2010 at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Organizers The conference is organized by Andrej Malchukov (Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology) and Edith Moravcsik (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (emerita)) and will be sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Program In addition to the papers selected from abstracts and the introductory and closing talks by the conference organizers, there will be twelve invited presentations: Bornkessel-Schlesewski, Ina: Cognitive attractors in language processing? Evidence from neurotypology Dressler, Wolfgang U.: Conflictual vs. convergent vs. interdependent motivations in morphology Du Bois, John: What?s is the point of competing? Motivations from cognition, communication, and convention must converge in the emergence of grammar from discourse Haspelmath, Martin: On system pressure competing with economic motivation Hawkins, John: Competing motivations in grammar, performance and learning: common principles and patterns in three areas of language Heine, Bernd: Competing motivations: internally vs. externally induced language change De Hoop, Helen: Conflicting constraints from grammar and beyond MacWhinney, Brian: How competition works across time M?ller, Gereon: Local domains for competition resolution Newmeyer, Frederick: The grammar as a ?competitor? in language contact and change Tomasello, Michael: Competing cues to transitivity in child language acquisition Vasishth, Shravan: Expectation and integration cost in parsing The conference website will post the schedule and other relevant information in the Spring: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/10-CompetingMotivations/index.html Topics Competing motivations is a topic coming in different guises in linguistics and related disciplines. In language typology, the concept of competing motivations was explicitly introduced by Du Bois (1985), and since then it has made its way into many contributions including typology textbooks (e.g. Croft 1990; 2003). Currently it is a common trend in functional typology to view the evolution of grammar as resulting from different partly converging but also potentially conflicting functional motivations. An approach to typology where competing motivations (?conflicting constraints?) have been accorded the status of a major theoretical concept is Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004, M?ller 2000). In OT, grammatical patterns are viewed as resulting from constraint interaction, and cross-linguistic variation is attributed to different rankings of constraints. A similar approach has been introduced in psycholinguistics under the name of Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney 1989), which addressed the question of how different cues are weighted in language comprehension and language acquisition when the cues are in conflict. These three strands of research have not been totally independent from the start (e.g. OT was inspired by the work in psycholinguistics and cognitive sciences), and recently there have been further signs of the converging tendencies in these fields. On the one hand, with the rise of functional OT (Bresnan & Aissen 2002) conceptual differences of functional typology and OT (see Haspelmath 1999 for discussion) have been reduced, and some recent work explicitly tries to further integrate OT and functional typology (see, e.g., Malchukov 2005; de Hoop & Malchukov 2008). On the other hand, OT shows further convergence with psycholinguistic research, with the rise of OT semantics and bidirectional OT approaches that are concerned with comprehension optimization (de Hoop & Lamers 2006). John Hawkins? work (2004 et passim) aiming to explain generalizations found in typological and psycholinguistic work in terms of a few general principles grounded in processing goes in the same direction. It seems that these new developments have overcome some of the problems of the early competing motivation approaches noted in the literature (Newmeyer 1998) and are opening new perspectives in the respective disciplines. It should also be noted that there is an increased awareness of the similarities of competing motivations models as practiced within linguistic disciplines and beyond (e.g., in psychological research). The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers from linguistics and other fields that adopt the competing motivation approach in one form or other another, and to promote further integration and cross-fertilization between them. Topics to be addressed include but are not limited to the following: ? application of the competing motivation approach to individual languages and cross-linguistically; ? application of competition models in psycholinguistic research (both language comprehension and language production); ? theoretical questions such as: ? What motivations are at work in given domains? ? What evidence is there for the existence and the weighting of the constraints? ? What factors determine the weightings of the constraints? ? How are competing motivations manifested synchronically and diachronically? (cf. Haspelmath?s (1999) notion of ?diachronic adaptation? and the research program of ?evolutionary phonology? advocated by Blevins (2004)). Submission of abstracts (a) Length: up to one page of text plus up to one page containing possible tables and references (b) Format: The abstract should include the title of the paper and the text of the abstract but not the author?s name or affiliation. The e-mail message to which it is attached should list the title, the author?s name, and the author?s affiliation. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously. Please send the message to both organizers at the following addresses: malchukov at eva.mpg.de edith at uwm.edu (c) Deadline The abstracts should reach us by WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31. Submitters will be notified by FRIDAY, APRIL 30. References: Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. 1987. Competition, variation, and language learning. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, 157?193. Hillsdale, New Jersey; London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Blevins, J. (2004). Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bresnan, J. and J. Aissen (2002). Optionality and functionality: Objections and refutations. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 20, 81?95. Croft, W., 1990. Typology and universals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Du Bois, J.A. 1985. ?Competing motivations?. In: Haiman, J. (ed.) Iconicity in syntax. 343-366. Amsterdam: Benjamins, Haspelmath, M. 1999. ?Optimality and diachronic adaptation.? Zeitschrift f?r Sprachwissenschaft 18.2: 180-205. Hawkins, John A. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Hoop, H. and M. Lamers. 2006. Incremental distinguishability of subject and object. In L. Kulikov, A. L. Malchukov and P. de Swart (eds.) Case, valency, and transitivity. Amsterdam, John Benjamins. de Hoop, H. and A. Malchukov. 2008. Case-marking strategies. Linguistic Inquiry 39 565?587. Malchukov, A., 2005. Case pattern splits, verb types, and construction competition. In M. Amberber & H. de Hoop (eds.) Competition and variation in natural languages: the case for case, 73-117. Elsevier, Amsterdam, etc. M?ller, Gereon. 2000. Elemente der optimalit?tstheoretischen Syntax. T?bingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. Prince, A. and P. Smolensky (2004). Optimality Theory:constraint interaction in Generative Grammar. Oxford, Blackwell. From dlevere at ilstu.edu Sat Mar 13 18:05:38 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:05:38 -0500 Subject: Re categorization In-Reply-To: <140572583.5338321268445425139.JavaMail.root@mail03.pantherlink.uwm.edu> Message-ID: Edith's summary strikes me as cogent, clear, and convincing. I am sure that this has been discussed by many on this list in one venue or another, but the notion of categorization in phonology and phonetics strikes me as similar, yet less controversial. Take the IPA symbol 'p', a voiceless bilabial occlusive. There are any number of ways that this can be realized in different languages: are the lips mainly flat or slightly rounded? What is the Voice Onset Timing associated with it? How long is the occlusion held? Is the segment best described in acoustic terms or articulatory terms? And so on. Or take the phoneme /p/. Saying that languages 1, 2, and 3 each have a phoneme /p/ is far from the whole story. We need to know what the set of sounds is that the native speakers perceive as /p/. Are there unaspirated and aspirated [p]s? Are there egressive and ingressive? Are [p] and [b] perceived as the same sound in different environments and so on? No two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically. But there is a general place and mode of articulation, more common allophones, similar ranges of speech perception, and so on. The IPA itself, as well as any phonemic system based on it (or any other) are abstractions, to a large degree as 'arbitrary' or conventional as any semantic or syntactic category. But this doesn't mean that we should eschew the IPA or any efforts to talk about sounds and sound structures in crosslinguistically applicable terms. Even with all the variation, the symbols are a good place to begin discussion, even though anyone who has ever done a phonological analysis of a language knows that an individual prose description + sound file of each sound is a vital part of the presentation and explanation of their results. Categorizations are a fine basis for discussion. They may change in many unexpected ways as we get more data. Some will be abandoned. Others will be invented. But that can all be sound empirical science. On the other hand, we do need to be careful not to take an inflexible view of categories, of the type that might say, for example, that a 'passive' has eight features and if a construction has only seven of those features it is not a passive. Wittgenstein's notion of 'family resemblance' comes to mind. The usual rule applies: no one should take a particular term or proposal too seriously. But neither too lightly. Dan Everett On 12 Mar 2010, at 20:57, Edith A Moravcsik wrote: > Here are some thoughts regarding four points that arose in the recent exchange among Esa Itkonen, Bill Croft, Martin Haspelmath, Balthasar Bickel, and Tom Giv?n regarding categorization. I am sorry for the length; I am labeling the sections by topic for easier orientation. > > (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. What the cognitive tool of category-formation accomplishes is legitimizing what would otherwise appear to be a paradox: that things can be both the same and not the same. As Cecil Brown has remarked, in categorization, we treat different things AS IF they were the same. The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. > > For example, adjectives are in many ways different in and across languages but if they are the same in at least one respect ? whether purely semantic or semantic-and-formal (see Martin H.?s comment) ? they form a legitimate category. Or, to take an example from outside language, the class concept ?school? will include very different kinds of institutions even if it is applied just within a single culture and if it is applied across cultures, the differences are likely to be even greater; but as long as there is something is common to all instances, lumping them together for a given purpose is not contradictory. > > (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.?s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. Second, the choice of classificatory criteria amounts to a hypothesis as to what might be a fruitful way of sorting things in a given domain (this I believe is Martin H.?s view). If a particular criterion leads to categories whose members turn out to have additional properties in common ? i.e. to a cluster concept (cf. Isa I.?s paper) - the criterion has proven to be useful and is thus legit. > > For example, if the goal is to establish the crosslinguistic distribution of word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, categorizing languages in terms of whether they or do not have #pl- is justified even though outside this goal, the criterion is just one of a huge number of other possible criteria. > > (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don?t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology ? even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > > This seems to hold in other domains of inquiry as well. For example, if the goal is to determine what building materials are used for constructing schools in different cultures, the category of school-building materials ranging over brick, stone, wood, etc. is a crucial concept. However, in a culture where all buildings ? whether schools or other structures - are made of bricks, the category of school-building material is irrelevant. This is in contrast with another criterion ? say, the ages of children that are required to attend school ? that will be relevant both to descriptions of individual cultures and those across cultures. > > More generally, a category with various sub-categories is relevant for crosslinguistic study but not for a language that exemplifies only a single subcategory. > > (d) PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY > If we are interested in psychological reality, the question is: the psychological reality of what? The answer must be: not individual words and sentences but grammatical concepts and patterns. But if so, the study of the psychological reality of grammatical categories must be a separate task from establishing these categories to begin with. The conventionalist approach to grammatical categories, as cited by Esa I., is therefore necessary: without it, we have no handle on the objects whose psychological reality we want to study. > > Labeling these distributionally and semantically arrived-at categories as fictions seems to me infelicitous. Something is fictional if it has no empirical basis; but this is not true for these categories. While, indeed, they do not reflect psychological reality, they are based on facts of language structure. - As Balthasar B. pointed out, whether there is or isn?t a match between these descriptive categories and those that emerge from the study of how people acquire, store, and use language is an empirical question. > > Edith Moravcsik From yutamb at mail.ru Sat Mar 13 19:41:14 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:41:14 +0600 Subject: What is =functional typology=? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, what is functional typology? Is there also unfunctional or infunctional typology? I have been asking a question - What is typology? - for some 45 years and got no answer so far. May be functional typology does exist? Hope to hear from those who knows Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, yutamb at mail.ru From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Mar 14 19:45:34 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:45:34 -0600 Subject: Cross-linguistic categories - what are they? In-Reply-To: <4B9D1B1E.6040406@linguistics.ucsb.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Jack. In doing the historical bit, not to mention the primate fun-&-games, I actually withheld my main points. To wit: (a) CATEGORIES--Platonic/Chomskian (either/or absolute/logical) vs. biological/cognitive Prototypes. Ernst Mayr has a beautiful discussion of this in biology, completely compatible with Elinor Rosch. And Esa did a good job of raising this issue, tho he used "clustering" instead of "prototypes", and forgot to cite some people who talked about it before 2001. [My "Syntax: A Functional-Typological Intro. (1984), "Context as Other Minds" (1989), "Bio-Linguistics (2002) and "Context as other minds" (2005) all have chapters on this issue; but the discussion started much earlier; see C. Craig (ed. 1986) "Categorization & Noun Classification"]. (b) UNIVERSALS: We should not let our rejection of Chomskian/Platonic universals blind us to REAL universals, those that are not either/or, but allow a range of flexibility, multi-factored complexity and context-mediated diversity. As in biology again, empirically-responsible linguistic universals do not involve statements such as "all languages have Feature X". This is a Chomskian parody of universals, a mere straw man. Rather, real universals define both universality AND diversity, thus the range of possible--considerable but never unconstrained--variation. This is totally in line with Ernst Mayr (1974) "closed vs. open program" idea. And as in biology, the diversity in some areas of grammar is much more constrained than in others. (c) UNIVERRAL & LINGUISTIC FIELD WORK: Having worked on at least 30 languages over the past 45 years, some of them in considerable depth (1-year plus), I've always found universals the to be the best guideposts for discovering the particulars. Of course, the universals I have in mind are not Platonic/Chomskian but rather Greenbergian/Mayrian. So maybe Matt Dryer (1997; or after his recent foray to New Guinea) would like to teach us about the great, distortive evils of universals in doing field-work. And maybe Martin Haspelmath (2009) would like to teach us about the great, biasing evils of having an--explanatory, widely-connected--unabashedly theoretical perspective. So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive filed work. I am still waiting to hear serious argument why I've been in grave error. (I hear plenty of those in the Church, where dogma prevails). (d) COMPARISON WITHOUT UNIVERSALS: This is a logical issue, of the type that Esa Itkonen is well-known for raising. It is sheer logical nonsense to compare A to B to...Z unless you have some standard terms for the comparison. Of course, you can play semantic games and call your universals terms "desceriptive", "heuristic", "contingent", "inductive", "pragmatic" or "ephemeral". For all I care, you may call them "abracadabra" or "apple pie". But they are still a logical pre-requisite for any meaningful comparison in ANY domain. Nothing special here about linguistics. Just read Aristotle's "Metaphysics". Peace, TG ========= John Du Bois wrote: > Thanks, Talmy. Good words on the range of ideas needed for typology. > ("Semantics" alone is not going to do it.) > > And I share your interest in the parallels with biological > theory/evolution. > > Jack ============ > > Tom Givon wrote: >> >> >> >> Dear FUNK people, >> >> I have been debating, and vacillating, whether to join in this >> discussion. First because Esa Itkonen had already raised the very >> same issues ca. a year ago, and we all had a spirited go at it. But >> mostly because this discussion reminds me of a book I have just >> finished reading, Dave Geary's "Male Female: The Evolution of Human >> Sex Differences". This may sound less-than-obvious to many of you, >> but the history of linguistics for the past 100 years is eerily >> reminiscent of the evolution of male coalitions in Homo sapiens, with >> inter-coalition warfare and intra-coalition power-struggles--and >> inevitable splits of new coalitions (see DeWaal's "Chimpanzee >> Politics", 1982). >> Let's see: Bloomfield challenged his teacher Hermann Paul's >> broad-scoped functional-typological coalition and split it, in the >> process radically narrowing down the domain of investigation to >> structure on its own and "inductive generalizations". Then Chomsky >> challenged Bloomfied's structuralist coalition and split it, creating >> a variant of structuralism--but with apriori Platonic universals >> propped upon rather frail empirical legs. Soon, >> Ross-Lakoff-Postal-McCawley challenged Chomsky's coalition and pulled >> out the Gen Sem faction, challenging autonomous syntax but adding >> only semantics to the relevant explanartory mix. >> Then a bunch of us in the 1970s banded together into a new coalition, >> enlarging the relevant domain of structure's connectivity to >> communicative function (discourse), cross-language typology >> (diversity), diachrony (emergence), neuro-cognition (the processor), >> ontogeny (child language) and phylogeny (evolution). We were deeply >> interested in universals, but only if they were explanatory and >> empirically-grounded. It never occurred to us that "theory" was a >> dirty word, only that "theory" was not synonymous with "formalism". >> Our notion of "theory" demanded both empirical foundations and >> explanatory connectivity. But we were also deeply interested in >> structure--how could a linguist not be?--provided it were studied and >> explained in its relevant broad connectivity. This was, >> transparently, a return to the wide-scoped agenda of Hermann Paul, >> even if we hadn't read his work. So now a new coalition of alpha >> males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver, >> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >> me, profoundly depressing. Try as I might, I find it hard to tell >> scientific substance from coalitional warfare. >> One of the worst features of Chomsky's legacy to linguistics is his >> extreme reductionism, his insistence that you are either an >> empiricist or a rationalist, an inductivist or a deductivist, a >> universalist or variationist, a theorist or a data-monger, a >> formalist or a functionalist--with no room in the middle. As Esa and >> many others have pointed out, these are false dichotomies in the >> methodology of science, where an intensive cyclic interaction takes >> place among multiple strategies. But Chomsky's reductionist gambit >> also mis-represents mature theory-building, where universality and >> variability are inseparable, being both the products of development >> (???emergence') in diachrony, acquisition or evolution. >> Perhaps some day we will remember to remember that neither the >> structure-function ???semiotic' relation nor the conundrum of >> universality-diversity, nor the central role of development in >> mediating the inter-dependence between these seeming extremes, are >> specific to linguistics. They have all been noted long ago in biology >> and evolution. For a biologically-based phenomenon such as >> language/culture to cleave to one extreme against the other, and to >> periodically resurrect these tired old false dichotomies, is not only >> counter-productive. It is also, perversely enough, an unintended >> validation of Chomsky's disruptive agenda. >> >> Peace, TG >> >> ================ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Esa Itkonen wrote: >>> Dear Funknetters: A debate has been going on in recent years >>> concerning the nature of cross-linguistic categories. Are they >>> universally valid psychologically real entities or (nothing but) >>> useful fictions? I think there is room for a third alternative, >>> namely one that exemplifies - to use a very refined expression - >>> "coherentist inductivism" ? la Nicholas Rescher. This "third >>> alternative" is expounded more fully on my homepage, in the article >>> 'Concerning the role of induction in typological linguistics', which >>> is at the moment the latest entry in the list "available as full >>> texts". This is the written version of a talk that will be given at >>> the 4th Language - Culture - Mind conference, to be held in Turku >>> (Finland), June 21-23, 2010. >>> Esa >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >> > From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Sun Mar 14 20:25:58 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:25:58 +0100 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <140572583.5338321268445425139.JavaMail.root@mail03.pantherlink.uwm.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and Tom Giv?n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from me: > (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental phonology.) > (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.?s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with different structures. > (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don?t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology ? even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance seems to be suited both for language-particular description and cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of what usually goes by the term. In any event, the main point is that a large number of comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need to be kept separate in principle. T. Giv?n writes: > So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of > Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing in Giv?n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, because most linguists work on English or some other major language and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly influenced by T. Giv?n as well, so I don't see any "coalition warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary rhetoric. > So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive field work. What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for comparison and explanatory theory). Greetings, Martin Haspelmath From autotype at uni-leipzig.de Mon Mar 15 06:42:17 2010 From: autotype at uni-leipzig.de (Balthasar Bickel) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:42:17 +0100 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <4B9D4656.1090205@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I agree with Dan Everett that abstractions like the IPA are excellent points of departure in fieldwork (what else could we do!), and I also agree with Tom Givon that universals are excellent guideposts in fieldwork. (And so one of the best ways of preparing for fieldwork is still to read a lot of typology literature, in addition to grammars of neighboring languages.) In fact, analyses of individual languages have become better over the past few decades precisely because when we go to the field, we now carry more and more precise analytical notions with us --- all critically informed by comparative work: instead of hunting for 'words' tout court we now look for various rule and constraint domains in phonology and grammar, instead of 'agreement', we are aware of many different varieties of agreement etc., instead 'subject', we look for coding and behaviour of arguments under various conditions etc.. The progress in all this is the same as the progress in typology: typology gets better the more it is based not on gross types that sweep many language-specific distinctions under the carpet, but on the kind of fine-grained notions that we also need in descriptive work. From this point of view, refining the tool set for analyzing an individual language and refining the tool set of typology remains essentially the same enterprise. (I make this argument at length in a recent case study on clause linkage available from my web site: "Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: a multivariate analysis") Terms like 'alignment' look like they are not needed in descriptive work. But in fact we use them in descriptive work all the time when we describe the distribution of, say, a case marker and list the arguments that are covered by the marker. It is true that in typological surveys we usually don't talk about case distributions in terms of lists or sets of arguments but use different statements and notations, e.g. 'S=A vs. P' or 'accusative' etc, but these statements and notations are nothing but reformulations --- often unduly simplified --- of lists of arguments; in fact, one can be computed from the other (which is what we indeed do currently in an AUTOTYP database on grammatical relations). Balthasar Bickel. _______________________ www.uni-leipzig.de/~bickel www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw From yutamb at mail.ru Mon Mar 15 11:13:53 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:13:53 +0600 Subject: The most and the least typical Romance language Message-ID: The most and the least typical Romance language. We have computed six Romance languages to measure the phono-typological distances between them. It is possible to find the Romance language which has the shortest distance to all these Romance languages. It is Moldavian. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian 20.24 - Rumanian 20.54 Italian 21.73 -Spanish 30.27 - Portuguese 51.17 - French The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing about you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. From amnfn at well.com Mon Mar 15 12:59:19 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:59:19 -0700 Subject: The most and the least typical Romance language In-Reply-To: <8A9729860AF144409E171EB9602024AC@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Yuri, A cursory inspection of your list seems to indicate that the most typical romance languages in phono-typology are the ones that are most conservative and have departed less from the ancestral prototype. Of course, this is a historical perspective, not a typological one. --Aya P.S. Are you thinking that typology is the study of what is most typical? I've never thought of it that way! On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > The most and the least typical Romance language. We have computed six Romance languages to measure the phono-typological distances between them. It is possible to find the Romance language which has the shortest distance to all these Romance languages. It is Moldavian. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: > 17.30 Moldavian > 20.24 - Rumanian > 20.54 Italian > 21.73 -Spanish > 30.27 - Portuguese > 51.17 - French > The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing about you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 15 13:38:18 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:38:18 -0500 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <4B9D4656.1090205@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. Dan On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and Tom Giv?n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from me: >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds that the members of any one of these categories differ from each other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is that things can be different in some respects but the same in other respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring a contradiction. >> > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental phonology.) >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily (or, in Bill C.?s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with different structures. >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don?t think this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a crosslinguistic typology ? even if the details of the construction differ across languages. > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance seems to be suited both for language-particular description and cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of what usually goes by the term. > In any event, the main point is that a large number of comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need to be kept separate in principle. > > T. Giv?n writes: >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, profoundly depressing. > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing in Giv?n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, because most linguists work on English or some other major language and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly influenced by T. Giv?n as well, so I don't see any "coalition warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary rhetoric. >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for comparison and explanatory theory). > > Greetings, > Martin Haspelmath > > From geoffnathan at wayne.edu Mon Mar 15 19:36:56 2010 From: geoffnathan at wayne.edu (Geoff Nathan) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:36:56 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If one doesn?t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea that languages actually have universals of some kind. As a (natural/cognitive) phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have consonants and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger units (words, breath groups, some such...) In any case we don?t have to say that all languages MUST have some particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that have syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of ?his? languages actually didn?t have syllables, but there are few competitors), some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more complex offerings. Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they have a color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will tend to be high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are strong tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color contrasts are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three primary articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to expect that the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial prototype category structure, with central members that just about everybody has, with more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC syllables) being correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the expected more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. Geoffrey S. Nathan Faculty Liaison, C&IT and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > Cc: "Funknet" > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > Dan > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and > Tom Giv?n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from > me: > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is > that things can be different in some respects but the same in other > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we > are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring > a contradiction. > >> > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no > two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > phonology.) > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily > (or, in Bill C.?s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with > different structures. > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don?t think > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > crosslinguistic typology ? even if the details of the construction > differ across languages. > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of > what usually goes by the term. > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > T. Giv?n writes: > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, > profoundly depressing. > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing > in Giv?n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, > because most linguists work on English or some other major language > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > influenced by T. Giv?n as well, so I don't see any "coalition > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary > rhetoric. > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > Greetings, > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > From earik at purdue.edu Mon Mar 15 19:57:18 2010 From: earik at purdue.edu (Engin Arik) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:57:18 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1117362332.10082461268681816041.JavaMail.root@starship.merit.edu> Message-ID: I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural human languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. Best, Engin Arik -- Engin Arik, Ph.D. http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ Quoting Geoff Nathan : > If one doesn???t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic > substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea that > languages actually have universals of some kind. As a (natural/cognitive) > phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have consonants > and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger units > (words, breath groups, some such...) > In any case we don???t have to say that all languages MUST have some > particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that have > syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of ???his??? > languages actually didn???t have syllables, but there are few competitors), > some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more complex > offerings. > Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they have a > color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will tend to be > high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are strong > tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color contrasts > are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three primary > articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to expect that > the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial prototype > category structure, with central members that just about everybody has, with > more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC syllables) being > correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the expected > more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > > > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > > Cc: "Funknet" > > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I think > > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the right > > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that would > > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > > > Dan > > > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, and > > Tom Giv??n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions from > > me: > > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might question > > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on grounds > > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea is > > that things can be different in some respects but the same in other > > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, we > > are justified in assigning them to the same category without incurring > > a contradiction. > > >> > > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to the > > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of comparative > > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and no > > two phonetic segments are exactly the same cross-linguistically"). > > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often implicitly) > > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions that > > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, and > > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but can > > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd has > > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption that > > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > > phonology.) > > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are arbitrarily > > (or, in Bill C.???s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. However, > > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria for > > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the choice > > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: To > > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages with > > different structures. > > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there are > > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that do > > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don???t think > > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, the > > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, and > > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that is, > > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any role. > > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may be a > > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > > crosslinguistic typology ??? even if the details of the construction > > differ across languages. > > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first glance > > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of phenomena > > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture part of > > what usually goes by the term. > > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such as > > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities need > > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > > > T. Giv??n writes: > > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in a > > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann Paul], > > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to me, > > profoundly depressing. > > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul and > > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true range > > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is missing > > in Giv??n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and again, > > because most linguists work on English or some other major language > > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, Gilbert > > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with Hermann > > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > > influenced by T. Giv??n as well, so I don't see any "coalition > > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any revolutionary > > rhetoric. > > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb or > > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has led > > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- if > > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily distinguish > > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in Boas's > > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, with > > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or "subject/object", > > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > > > Greetings, > > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > > > > From geoffnathan at wayne.edu Tue Mar 16 03:43:01 2010 From: geoffnathan at wayne.edu (Geoff Nathan) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:43:01 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1268683038.4b9e911e11792@webmail.purdue.edu> Message-ID: My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Faculty Liaison, C&IT and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: > From: "Engin Arik" > To: "Geoff Nathan" > Cc: "Funknet Funknet" > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural > human > languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. > > Best, > Engin Arik > > -- > Engin Arik, Ph.D. > > http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ > > > > > Quoting Geoff Nathan : > > > If one doesn???t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic > > substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea > that > > languages actually have universals of some kind. As a > (natural/cognitive) > > phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have > consonants > > and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger > units > > (words, breath groups, some such...) > > In any case we don???t have to say that all languages MUST have > some > > particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that > have > > syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of > ???his??? > > languages actually didn???t have syllables, but there are few > competitors), > > some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more > complex > > offerings. > > Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they > have a > > color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will > tend to be > > high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are > strong > > tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color > contrasts > > are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three > primary > > articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to > expect that > > the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial > prototype > > category structure, with central members that just about everybody > has, with > > more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC > syllables) being > > correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the > expected > > more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. > > > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > > > ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: > > > > > From: "Daniel L. Everett" > > > To: "Martin Haspelmath" > > > Cc: "Funknet" > > > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii > > > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > > > > > > As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I > think > > > everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. > > > > > > Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the > right > > > direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that > would > > > not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > > > > > > > Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, > and > > > Tom Giv??n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions > from > > > me: > > > >> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION > > > >> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might > question > > > the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on > grounds > > > that the members of any one of these categories differ from each > > > other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea > is > > > that things can be different in some respects but the same in > other > > > respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, > we > > > are justified in assigning them to the same category without > incurring > > > a contradiction. > > > >> > > > > Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative > > > concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to > the > > > descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan > > > Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of > comparative > > > concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and > no > > > two phonetic segments are exactly the same > cross-linguistically"). > > > > Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often > implicitly) > > > that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions > that > > > descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, > and > > > that categories in different languages are not just similar, but > can > > > be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd > has > > > pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption > that > > > something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental > > > phonology.) > > > >> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION > > > >> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are > arbitrarily > > > (or, in Bill C.???s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. > However, > > > there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria > for > > > categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the > > > choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. > > > > I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for > > > language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the > choice > > > of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: > To > > > describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are > > > different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly > > > limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages > with > > > different structures. > > > >> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS > > > >> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there > are > > > categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that > do > > > not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don???t > think > > > this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, > the > > > concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, > and > > > other types is important but in the grammar of a language that > is, > > > say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any > role. > > > However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may > be a > > > useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a > > > crosslinguistic typology ??? even if the details of the > construction > > > differ across languages. > > > > "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first > glance > > > seems to be suited both for language-particular description and > > > cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb > > > agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across > > > languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of > phenomena > > > that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and > > > whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture > part of > > > what usually goes by the term. > > > > In any event, the main point is that a large number of > > > comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such > as > > > alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are > > > irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities > need > > > to be kept separate in principle. > > > > > > > > T. Giv??n writes: > > > >> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in > a > > > reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann > Paul], > > > are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to > me, > > > profoundly depressing. > > > > I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul > and > > > the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true > range > > > of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the > > > languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is > missing > > > in Giv??n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical > > > differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and > again, > > > because most linguists work on English or some other major > language > > > and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive > > > simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial > > > particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, > Gilbert > > > Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with > Hermann > > > Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly > > > influenced by T. Giv??n as well, so I don't see any "coalition > > > warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any > revolutionary > > > rhetoric. > > > >> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb > or > > > subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be > > > indispensable in my own descriptive field work. > > > > What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has > led > > > to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- > if > > > one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily > distinguish > > > what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in > Boas's > > > time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, > with > > > precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of > > > intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or > "subject/object", > > > or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for > > > comparison and explanatory theory). > > > > > > > > Greetings, > > > > Martin Haspelmath > > > > > > > > > > From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 16 13:13:28 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:13:28 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <1520310132.10127771268710981703.JavaMail.root@starship.merit.edu> Message-ID: Geoff, If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: > My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). > > Geoff > > Geoffrey S. Nathan > Faculty Liaison, C&IT > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) > > ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: > >> From: "Engin Arik" >> To: "Geoff Nathan" >> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> >> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >> human >> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >> >> Best, >> Engin Arik >> >> -- >> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >> >> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >> >> >> >> >> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >> >>> If one doesn???t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >> that >>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >> (natural/cognitive) >>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >> consonants >>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >> units >>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>> In any case we don???t have to say that all languages MUST have >> some >>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >> have >>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >> ???his??? >>> languages actually didn???t have syllables, but there are few >> competitors), >>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >> complex >>> offerings. >>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >> have a >>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >> tend to be >>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >> strong >>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >> contrasts >>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >> primary >>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >> expect that >>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >> prototype >>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >> has, with >>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >> syllables) being >>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >> expected >>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>> >>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>> >>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>> >>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> >>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >> think >>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>> >>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >> right >>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >> would >>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>> >>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >> and >>>> Tom Giv??n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >> from >>>> me: >>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >> question >>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >> grounds >>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >> is >>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >> other >>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >> we >>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >> incurring >>>> a contradiction. >>>>>> >>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >> the >>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >> comparative >>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >> no >>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >> cross-linguistically"). >>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >> implicitly) >>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >> that >>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >> and >>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >> can >>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >> has >>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >> that >>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>> phonology.) >>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >> arbitrarily >>>> (or, in Bill C.???s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >> However, >>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >> for >>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >> choice >>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >> To >>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >> with >>>> different structures. >>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >> are >>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >> do >>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don???t >> think >>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >> the >>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >> and >>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >> is, >>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >> role. >>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >> be a >>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>> crosslinguistic typology ??? even if the details of the >> construction >>>> differ across languages. >>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >> glance >>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >> phenomena >>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >> part of >>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >> as >>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >> need >>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>> >>>>> T. Giv??n writes: >>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >> a >>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >> Paul], >>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >> me, >>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >> and >>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >> range >>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >> missing >>>> in Giv??n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >> again, >>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >> language >>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >> Gilbert >>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >> Hermann >>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>> influenced by T. Giv??n as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >> revolutionary >>>> rhetoric. >>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >> or >>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >> led >>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >> if >>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >> distinguish >>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >> Boas's >>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >> with >>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >> "subject/object", >>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>> >>>>> Greetings, >>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>> >>>>> >>> > > From macw at cmu.edu Tue Mar 16 14:55:17 2010 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:55:17 -0400 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, It seems to me that idea that universals must transcend modality is problematic. Geoff notes that he is referring to universals affecting the oral-aural modality. Within this modality, numerous (often statistical) universals are generated from the properties of the vocal and auditory apparatuses. There are, of course, many other (also often statistical) universals that emerge from "deeper" levels of language processing to which Aya is referring. However, both sets of universals are important and interesting to linguists and psycholinguists. One could push this analysis a bit further to note that universals always hold modulo some equivalent background. In case that Aya raises, we are looking at universals that hold modulo fixing of the oral-aural modality. To take another example, there are universals that hold modulo a particular cut on the contrast between planned and unplanned discourse. Of course, this contrast is more permeable than the split between modalities, but it is still enough to generate important statistical correlations, modulo a certain level of planfulness. There are also dimensions that relate to genre (headlines, poetry, stop signs, war chants, baby talk, etc.) Does this vitiate the notion of universals? I think not. Rather, it simply introduces another dimension into an already highly multidimensional space. Stated generally, universals don't have to be universal across forms of language, but should be universal modulo a particular form of language. -- Brian MacWhinney On Mar 16, 2010, at 9:13 AM, A. Katz wrote: > Geoff, > > If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: > >> My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). >> >> Geoff >> >> Geoffrey S. Nathan >> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >> >> ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: >> >>> From: "Engin Arik" >>> To: "Geoff Nathan" >>> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> >>> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >>> human >>> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >>> >>> Best, >>> Engin Arik >>> >>> -- >>> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >>> >>> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >>> >>>> If one doesn???t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >>> that >>>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >>> (natural/cognitive) >>>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >>> consonants >>>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >>> units >>>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>>> In any case we don???t have to say that all languages MUST have >>> some >>>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >>> have >>>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >>> ???his??? >>>> languages actually didn???t have syllables, but there are few >>> competitors), >>>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >>> complex >>>> offerings. >>>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >>> have a >>>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >>> tend to be >>>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >>> strong >>>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >>> contrasts >>>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >>> primary >>>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >>> expect that >>>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >>> prototype >>>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >>> has, with >>>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >>> syllables) being >>>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >>> expected >>>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>>> >>>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>>> >>>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>>> >>>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> >>>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >>> think >>>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>>> >>>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >>> right >>>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >>> would >>>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>>> >>>>> Dan >>>>> >>>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >>> and >>>>> Tom Giv??n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >>> from >>>>> me: >>>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >>> question >>>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >>> grounds >>>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >>> is >>>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >>> other >>>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >>> we >>>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >>> incurring >>>>> a contradiction. >>>>>>> >>>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >>> the >>>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >>> comparative >>>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >>> no >>>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >>> cross-linguistically"). >>>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >>> implicitly) >>>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >>> that >>>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >>> and >>>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >>> can >>>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >>> has >>>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >>> that >>>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>>> phonology.) >>>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >>> arbitrarily >>>>> (or, in Bill C.???s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >>> However, >>>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >>> for >>>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >>> choice >>>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >>> To >>>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >>> with >>>>> different structures. >>>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >>> are >>>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >>> do >>>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don???t >>> think >>>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >>> the >>>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >>> and >>>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >>> is, >>>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >>> role. >>>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >>> be a >>>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>>> crosslinguistic typology ??? even if the details of the >>> construction >>>>> differ across languages. >>>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >>> glance >>>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >>> phenomena >>>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >>> part of >>>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >>> as >>>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >>> need >>>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>>> >>>>>> T. Giv??n writes: >>>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >>> a >>>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >>> Paul], >>>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >>> me, >>>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >>> and >>>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >>> range >>>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >>> missing >>>>> in Giv??n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >>> again, >>>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >>> language >>>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >>> Gilbert >>>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >>> Hermann >>>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>>> influenced by T. Giv??n as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >>> revolutionary >>>>> rhetoric. >>>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >>> or >>>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >>> led >>>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >>> if >>>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >>> distinguish >>>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >>> Boas's >>>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >>> with >>>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >>> "subject/object", >>>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>>> >>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >> >> From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 16 16:07:30 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:07:30 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: <0C15E2C4-8EBD-45B7-8230-4A9A8EA3E0F2@cmu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, It makes a lot of sense to think of "universals of phonetics", and I think that none of us doubt that there are such universals and that they are worth talking about. However, it would seem that phonetics itself is not a "language universal", as long as articulatory or acoustic issues are dominant in that field and are used as a way of defining contrasts. On the other hand, it would be unfortunate to have a theory of language that did not recognize the correspondences between something like written English and spoken English. Written English is hardly phonetic - it is not a transcription phone by phone (or even phoneme by phoneme) of spoken English -- and yet most of us would agree it's essentially the same language, modalities aside. While most Anglophones learn spoken English first and written English later, it can be done the other way around. Helen Keller learned to spell English and to communicate via finger spelling long before she learned to pronounce it. She was already fluent in written English before she learned how to articulate it. Is there any question that her finger-spelling English and her spoken English were the same language? If they were, then there must be some non-physical way to describe the basic units of English. Contrast this with native speakers of ASL, who actually have to learn a completely different language when they learn English. Best, --Aya On Tue, 16 Mar 2010, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Folks, > > It seems to me that idea that universals must transcend modality is problematic. Geoff notes that he is referring to universals affecting the oral-aural modality. Within this modality, numerous (often statistical) universals are generated from the properties of the vocal and auditory apparatuses. There are, of course, many other (also often statistical) universals that emerge from "deeper" levels of language processing to which Aya is referring. However, both sets of universals are important and interesting to linguists and psycholinguists. > > One could push this analysis a bit further to note that universals always hold modulo some equivalent background. In case that Aya raises, we are looking at universals that hold modulo fixing of the oral-aural modality. To take another example, there are universals that hold modulo a particular cut on the contrast between planned and unplanned discourse. Of course, this contrast is more permeable than the split between modalities, but it is still enough to generate important statistical correlations, modulo a certain level of planfulness. There are also dimensions that relate to genre (headlines, poetry, stop signs, war chants, baby talk, etc.) Does this vitiate the notion of universals? I think not. Rather, it simply introduces another dimension into an already highly multidimensional space. Stated generally, universals don't have to be universal across forms of language, but should be universal modulo a particular form of language. > > -- Brian MacWhinney > > > On Mar 16, 2010, at 9:13 AM, A. Katz wrote: > >> Geoff, >> >> If there are real language universals, don't you think that they transcend modality? If the meaning is in the constrasts, and not in the physical ways the contrasts are encoded, shouldn't language universals address only that level of abstraction that is the same across sensual modalities? >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Geoff Nathan wrote: >> >>> My comments about phonological universals apply only to spoken phonologies, whose nature is shaped by the fact that they produced by vocal tracts and perceived (primarily but not exclusively) by auditory systems. Sign languages have phonologies too, and appear to have their own corresponding universals, but of course will be different because they are based in different modalities (hands and arms and facial expressions), and I know much less about how they work. But I would still expect a similar set of prototype-category shaped universals (bilateral symmetry, for example, seems to be one of the driving forces driving sound change). >>> >>> Geoff >>> >>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>> >>> ----- "Engin Arik" wrote: >>> >>>> From: "Engin Arik" >>>> To: "Geoff Nathan" >>>> Cc: "Funknet Funknet" >>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 9:57:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> >>>> I think we shouldn't forget about sign languages which are natural >>>> human >>>> languages before making cross-linguistic generalizations. >>>> >>>> Best, >>>> Engin Arik >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Engin Arik, Ph.D. >>>> >>>> http://sites.google.com/site/enginarikweb/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Quoting Geoff Nathan : >>>> >>>>> If one doesn???t assume Aristotelian-flavoring for cross-linguistic >>>>> substantive categories one can be much happier and retain the idea >>>> that >>>>> languages actually have universals of some kind. As a >>>> (natural/cognitive) >>>>> phonologist I am happy to say that pretty much all languages have >>>> consonants >>>>> and vowels, syllables, probably feet and perhaps somewhat larger >>>> units >>>>> (words, breath groups, some such...) >>>>> In any case we don???t have to say that all languages MUST have >>>> some >>>>> particular structure, but we can note that, say, all languages that >>>> have >>>>> syllables have CV syllables (Larry Hyman argued that one of >>>> ???his??? >>>>> languages actually didn???t have syllables, but there are few >>>> competitors), >>>>> some subset have CVC syllables, and a smaller subset have more >>>> complex >>>>> offerings. >>>>> Similarly, all languages have a vowel height contrast, and if they >>>> have a >>>>> color contrast (labial/round vs. palatal/front) those vowels will >>>> tend to be >>>>> high rather than mid. But, although nothing is absolute, there are >>>> strong >>>>> tendencies that have perceptual and/or motoric explanations (color >>>> contrasts >>>>> are easy to perceive, stop contrasts that cluster in the three >>>> primary >>>>> articulatory regions are easiest to make). This would lead us to >>>> expect that >>>>> the distribution of categories will follow the typical radial >>>> prototype >>>>> category structure, with central members that just about everybody >>>> has, with >>>>> more peripheral members (say front rounded vowels, or CCVCCC >>>> syllables) being >>>>> correspondingly more scarce and presupposing the existence of the >>>> expected >>>>> more prototypical /i/ or /u/ and CV syllables. >>>>> >>>>> Geoffrey S. Nathan >>>>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT >>>>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program >>>>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) >>>>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics) >>>>> >>>>> ----- "Daniel L. Everett" wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> From: "Daniel L. Everett" >>>>>> To: "Martin Haspelmath" >>>>>> Cc: "Funknet" >>>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 3:38:18 AM GMT -10:00 Hawaii >>>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> >>>>>> As I read this discussion, including Tom G's and Martin H's, I >>>> think >>>>>> everyone is right. I am not seeing a conflict here. >>>>>> >>>>>> Balthasar's use of multivariate analysis seems like exactly the >>>> right >>>>>> direction to me. Something the young whippersnappers get that >>>> would >>>>>> not have occurred to most field researchers 30 years ago. >>>>>> >>>>>> Dan >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 3:25 PM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Thanks, Edith Moravcsik, for the systematization of the issues, >>>> and >>>>>> Tom Giv??n, for a historical perspective. Here are some reactions >>>> from >>>>>> me: >>>>>>>> (a) THE LEGITIMACY OF CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>>> Following Bill C., Martin H. and Matthew Dryer, one might >>>> question >>>>>> the legitimacy of crosslinguistic grammatical categories on >>>> grounds >>>>>> that the members of any one of these categories differ from each >>>>>> other. I cannot see why this is a problem. ... The key to the idea >>>> is >>>>>> that things can be different in some respects but the same in >>>> other >>>>>> respect. Thus, as long as there is some likeness among entities, >>>> we >>>>>> are justified in assigning them to the same category without >>>> incurring >>>>>> a contradiction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yes, of course -- such categories are what I call "comparative >>>>>> concepts". The crucial point is that they are not identical to >>>> the >>>>>> descriptive categories that we use to analyze languages. As Dan >>>>>> Everett points out, the IPA is very useful as a set of >>>> comparative >>>>>> concepts in phonetics/phonology, even though "no two phonemes and >>>> no >>>>>> two phonetic segments are exactly the same >>>> cross-linguistically"). >>>>>>> Many linguists (not just generativists) assume (often >>>> implicitly) >>>>>> that the notions that typologists work with are also the notions >>>> that >>>>>> descriptive linguists working on a single language should use, >>>> and >>>>>> that categories in different languages are not just similar, but >>>> can >>>>>> be equated. This is what I object to. (For phonology, Bob Ladd >>>> has >>>>>> pointed out that many phonologists have worked with the asumption >>>> that >>>>>> something like the IPA is a universal alphabet of segmental >>>>>> phonology.) >>>>>>>> (b) CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIZATION >>>>>>>> In an absolute sense, criteria of classification are >>>> arbitrarily >>>>>> (or, in Bill C.???s terminology, opportunistically) chosen. >>>> However, >>>>>> there are two ways to justify them. First, if we choose criteria >>>> for >>>>>> categorization so that they serve a particular research goal, the >>>>>> choice becomes principled instead of being arbitrary. >>>>>>> I think the choice of criteria for descriptive categories (for >>>>>> language-particular analyses) is much less arbitrary than the >>>> choice >>>>>> of criteria for comparative concepts, because the goal is simple: >>>> To >>>>>> describe the language in a consistent and complete way. There are >>>>>> different ways of doing this, but the possibilities are fairly >>>>>> limited, compared to the possibilities of comparing languages >>>> with >>>>>> different structures. >>>>>>>> (c) LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC VERSUS COMPARATIVE CONCEPTS >>>>>>>> It seems to me that Martin H. is right in saying that there >>>> are >>>>>> categories that are useful in crosslinguistic comparison but that >>>> do >>>>>> not play a role in individual language descriptions; but I don???t >>>> think >>>>>> this is necessarily so. For example, in a crosslinguistic study, >>>> the >>>>>> concept of argument alignment varying over accusative, ergative, >>>> and >>>>>> other types is important but in the grammar of a language that >>>> is, >>>>>> say, purely ergatively structured, the concept will not play any >>>> role. >>>>>> However, another concept, such as of subject-verb agreement, may >>>> be a >>>>>> useful category both in single-language grammars and also in a >>>>>> crosslinguistic typology ??? even if the details of the >>>> construction >>>>>> differ across languages. >>>>>>> "Agreement" is indeed a highly general concept that at first >>>> glance >>>>>> seems to be suited both for language-particular description and >>>>>> cross-linguistic comparison (but of course not "subject-verb >>>>>> agreement", because the meaning "subject" varies strongly across >>>>>> languages). But as Corbett (2006) has shown, the kinds of >>>> phenomena >>>>>> that linguists subsume under "agreement" are fairly diverse, and >>>>>> whatever precise definition one chooses, one will only capture >>>> part of >>>>>> what usually goes by the term. >>>>>>> In any event, the main point is that a large number of >>>>>> comparative concepts are irrelevant in language description (such >>>> as >>>>>> alignment), and a large number of descriptive categories are >>>>>> irrelevant in language comparison, so the two kinds of entities >>>> need >>>>>> to be kept separate in principle. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> T. Giv??n writes: >>>>>>>> So now a new coalition of alpha males are splitting off and, in >>>> a >>>>>> reprise of Bloomfield's maneuver [of splitting off from Hermann >>>> Paul], >>>>>> are narrowing the domain once again. This history is, leastwise to >>>> me, >>>>>> profoundly depressing. >>>>>>> I don't see any narrowing of the domain anywhere. Hermann Paul >>>> and >>>>>> the neogrammarians were narrow in that they disregarded the true >>>> range >>>>>> of cross-linguistic variation, largely limiting themselves to the >>>>>> languages of the European nation states. Franz Boas's name is >>>> missing >>>>>> in Giv??n's historical narrative -- his lesson on the radical >>>>>> differences between languages needs to be re-taught again and >>>> again, >>>>>> because most linguists work on English or some other major >>>> language >>>>>> and forget the lesson too easily (not to mention the seductive >>>>>> simplicity of innate universal grammar). The categorial >>>>>> particularist position advocated by Matthew Dryer, Bill Croft, >>>> Gilbert >>>>>> Lazard, Sonia Cristofaro and myself is fully consonant with >>>> Hermann >>>>>> Paul, Franz Boas, and Joseph Greenberg, and we were all strongly >>>>>> influenced by T. Giv??n as well, so I don't see any "coalition >>>>>> warfare". Just normal scientific debate, without any >>>> revolutionary >>>>>> rhetoric. >>>>>>>> So far, I have found "universal" categories such as noun/verb >>>> or >>>>>> subject/object, and the complex theory behind them, to be >>>>>> indispensable in my own descriptive field work. >>>>>>> What is clear is that the Greenbergian typological approach has >>>> led >>>>>> to much more interesting (and transparent) descriptive grammars -- >>>> if >>>>>> one doesn't know at all what to expect, one cannot easily >>>> distinguish >>>>>> what is banal from what is special (cf. Dryer 2006). But as in >>>> Boas's >>>>>> time, a good grammar describes the language in its own terms, >>>> with >>>>>> precisely defined language-particular categories, not in terms of >>>>>> intuitive pretheoretical concepts of "noun/verb" or >>>> "subject/object", >>>>>> or in terms of vague prototypes (crucial as these often are for >>>>>> comparison and explanatory theory). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>>> Martin Haspelmath >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> > > From sclancy at uchicago.edu Tue Mar 16 16:09:26 2010 From: sclancy at uchicago.edu (Steven Clancy) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:09:26 -0500 Subject: Second CFP for SCLC-2010 Conference at Brown University, October 9-11, 2010 Message-ID: Please note: The deadline for submission of abstracts is Friday, April 16, 2010. See below for details. ********************************************************************* The Department of Slavic Languages and the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University present THE TENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SLAVIC COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION (SCLC-2010) October 9-11, 2010 The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA) announces the Call for Papers for the 2010 annual conference. The conference will be held on the campus of Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) on Saturday, October 9 through Monday, October 11, 2010. SCLC-2010 Keynote Speakers Eugene Charniak Brown University Adele E. Goldberg Princeton University Ronald W. Langacker University of California, San Diego CALL FOR PAPERS Abstracts are invited for presentations addressing issues of significance for cognitive linguistics with some bearing on data from the Slavic languages. As long as there is a cognitive orientation, papers may be on synchronic or diachronic topics in any of the traditional areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, or sociolinguistics. In addition to the Slavic Languages, relevant papers on other languages of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are also acceptable. Abstracts may be submitted up until the deadline of April 16, 2010 to Steven Clancy . Abstracts should be approximately 500 words, but strict word limits are not required. Notification of acceptance will be provided by May 31, 2010. Most presentations at SCLC are given in English, but may be in the native (Slavic) language of the presenter. However, if the presentation is not to be made in English we ask that you provide an abstract in English in addition to an abstract in any other SCLA language. MAIN SESSIONS (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) Each presentation for the main sessions will be given 20 minutes and will be followed by a 10-minute discussion period. PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE Saturday, October 9: conference panels beginning in the morning and continue throughout the day, evening reception, keynote address, and conference dinner Sunday, October 10: main sessions and keynote address throughout the day, lunch and dinner Monday, October 11: main sessions and keynote address with conclusion by noon FURTHER INFORMATION Information on transportation, accommodations, and the conference venue will be forthcoming. Please see the conference website for further information. http://languages.uchicago.edu/scla Brown University is located in Providence, Rhode Island and is accessible from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS, 55 miles away) or T.F. Green Airport (PVD) in Providence. We hope you will be able to join us for SCLC-2010. Please forward this call for papers to your colleagues and graduate students who may be interested in presenting or attending. Sincerely, Steven Clancy Tore Nesset Masako Fidler President, SCLA Vice-President, SCLA Conference Organizer and Host, Brown University on behalf of the SCLA officers and the 2010 SCLA organizing committee From yutamb at mail.ru Wed Mar 17 21:14:22 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:14:22 +0600 Subject: Is Latin an Italic or a Romance language by cross-linguistic categ? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, cross-linguistic categorization is quite an interesting topic to discuss. Let us not forget phonetics. Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may give some new clues for language taxonomy or language classification. Some time ago it was a common place in linguistics that Latin is a Romance language. However, according to the modern classification Latin is an Italic language. Nevertheless, we know that Latin is the parent language for all the Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from the phono-typological point of view. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian 18.42 Latin 20.24 - Rumanian 20.54 Italian 21.73 -Spanish 30.27 - Portuguese 51.17 - French The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that Latin is the parent language for all those Romance languages listed above. Actually, Latin has the following phono-typological distances: Latin - Moldavian = 5.58 Latin - Italian = 6.96 Latin - Rumanian = 8.66 Latin - Spanish = 15.09 Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 Latin - French = 45.81 Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin sound picture preserved in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a Romance language but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and return Latin back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words that Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture. Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia From hopper at cmu.edu Wed Mar 17 21:30:41 2010 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:30:41 -0400 Subject: Is Latin an Italic or a Romance language by cross-linguistic categ? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yuri, Thanks for sharing your research with us. Could you tell us how your work relates to that of Fred Agard, who in the 1950s (or early'60s) did a similar project comparing surface phonetic features in Romance? Paul On Wed, March 17, 2010 17:14, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Funknet colleagues, cross-linguistic categorization is quite an > interesting topic to discuss. Let us not forget phonetics. > Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may give some new clues for > language taxonomy or language classification. Some time ago it was a > common place in linguistics that Latin is a Romance language. However, > according to the modern classification Latin is an Italic language. > Nevertheless, we know that Latin is the parent language for all the > Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from the phono-typological > point of view. The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to > the centre of the Romance languages: 17.30 Moldavian > 18.42 Latin > 20.24 - Rumanian > 20.54 Italian > 21.73 -Spanish > 30.27 - Portuguese > 51.17 - French > The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to > share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from > the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing from you > to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do you advise me to publish the > results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, > Novosibirsk, Russia > Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that Latin is the parent > language for all those Romance languages listed above. Actually, Latin > has the following phono-typological distances: Latin - Moldavian = 5.58 > Latin - Italian = 6.96 > Latin - Rumanian = 8.66 > Latin - Spanish = 15.09 > Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 > Latin - French = 45.81 > Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin sound picture preserved > in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a Romance language > but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and return Latin > back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words that > Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that > Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture. > Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru in what journal do > you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely > Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia > > > -- Paul J. Hopper Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From paul at benjamins.com Fri Mar 19 16:36:32 2010 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:36:32 -0400 Subject: New Benjamins title -Traugott & Trousdale eds.: Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization Message-ID: Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization Edited by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Graeme Trousdale Stanford University / The University of Edinburgh Typological Studies in Language 90 2010. ix, 306 pp. Hardbound 978 90 272 0671 8 / EUR 99.00 / USD 149.00 e-Book ? Not yet available 978 90 272 8844 8 / EUR 99.00 / USD 149.00 This volume, which emerged from a workshop at the New Reflections on Grammaticalization 4 conference held at KU Leuven in July 2008, contains a collection of papers which investigate the relationship between synchronic gradience and the apparent gradualness of linguistic change, largely from the perspective of grammaticalization. In addition to versions of the papers presented at the workshop, the volume contains specially commissioned contributions, some of which offer commentaries on a subset of the other articles. The articles address a number of themes central to grammaticalization studies, such as the role of reanalysis and analogy in grammaticalization, the formal modelling of grammaticalization, and the relationship between formal and functional change, using data from a range of languages, and (in some cases) from particular electronic corpora. The volume will be of specific interest to historical linguists working on grammaticalization, and general linguists working on the interface between synchrony and diachrony. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of contents Contributors vii?viii Acknowledgements ix Preface Graeme Trousdale and Elizabeth Closs Traugott 1?18 Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization: How do they intersect? Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Graeme Trousdale 19?44 Grammaticalization, the clausal hierarchy and semantic bleaching Ian Roberts 45?73 Grammatical interference: Subject marker for and the phrasal verb particles out and forth Hendrik De Smet 75?104 Category change in English with and without structural change David Denison 105?128 Features in reanalysis and grammaticalization Elly van Gelderen 129?147 How synchronic gradience makes sense in the light of language change (and vice versa) Anette Rosenbach 149?179 What can synchronic gradience tell us about reanalysis? Verb-first conditionals in written German and Swedish Martin Hilpert 181?201 A paradigmatic approach to language and language change Lene Sch?sler 203?220 Grammaticalization and the it-cleft construction Amanda L. Patten 221?243 Grammaticalization in Chinese: A construction-based account Walter Bisang 245?277 Grammaticalization and models of language Nigel Vincent and Kersti B?rjars 279?299 Language index 301 Subject index 303?306 Paul Peranteau (paul at benjamins.com) General Manager John Benjamins Publishing Company 763 N. 24th St. Philadelphia PA 19130 Phone: 215 769-3444 Fax: 215 769-3446 John Benjamins Publishing Co. website: http://www.benjamins.com From paul at benjamins.com Fri Mar 19 16:38:48 2010 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:38:48 -0400 Subject: New Benjamins title - M=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=FChleisen=3A_?= Heterogeneity in Word-Formation Patterns Message-ID: Heterogeneity in Word-Formation Patterns A corpus-based analysis of suffixation with -ee and its productivity in English Susanne M?hleisen University of Bayreuth Studies in Language Companion Series 118 2010. xiii, 245 pp. Hardbound 978 90 272 0585 8 / EUR 95.00 / USD 143.00 e-Book ? Not yet available 978 90 272 8838 7 / EUR 95.00 / USD 143.00 Postulated word-formation rules often exclude formations that can nevertheless be found in actual usage. This book presents an in-depth investigation of a highly heterogeneous word-formation pattern in English: the formation of nouns by suffixation with -ee. Rather than relying on a single semantic or syntactic framework for analysis, the study combines diachronic, cognitive and language-contact perspectives in order to explain the diversity in the formation and establishment of -ee words. It also seeks to challenge previous measurements of productivity and proposes a new way to investigate the relationship between actual and possible words. By making use of the largest and most up-to-date electronic corpus ? the World Wide Web ? as a data source, this research adds substantially to the number of attested -ee words. It furthermore analyses this word-formation pattern in different varieties of English (British vs. American English; Australian English). Due to the multiplicity of approaches and analyses it offers, the study is suitable for courses in English word-formation, lexicology, corpus linguistics and historical linguistics. Table of contents Acknowledgments ix List of tables and figures xi?xii List of abbreviations xiii Chapter 1. Introduction: Polysemy, heterogeneity and ambiguity in word-formation patterns 1?18 Chapter 2. Phonological, syntactic and semantic constraints on the formation of -ee words 19?60 Chapter 3. The career of -ee words: A diachronic analysis from medieval legal use to nineteenth-century ironic nonce words 61?90 Chapter 4. Morphology and the lexicon: On creativity and productivity of -ee words 91?119 Chapter 5. A corpus-based analysis of 1,000 potential new -ee words 121?164 Chapter 6. -ee words in varieties of English 165?187 Conclusion. On the study of an individual word-formation pattern: General and particular implications 189?192 Works cited 193?199 Appendix 1. Documentation of established -ee words with their citation sources: A comparison (in alphabetical order) 201?213 Appendix 2. Quantitative analysis of 1,000 potential -ee words (Web-search, February?June 2005) 215?239 Name index 241?242 Subject index 243?245 Paul Peranteau (paul at benjamins.com) General Manager John Benjamins Publishing Company 763 N. 24th St. Philadelphia PA 19130 Phone: 215 769-3444 Fax: 215 769-3446 John Benjamins Publishing Co. website: http://www.benjamins.com From cgenetti at linguistics.ucsb.edu Fri Mar 19 18:17:33 2010 From: cgenetti at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Carol Genetti) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:17:33 -0700 Subject: Annnouncement: InField 2010 at Univeristy of Oregon Message-ID: *** Apologies for cross-postings *** OPEN FOR REGISTRATION Linguists, Students of Linguistics, Community Language Activists InField 2010: INSTITUTE ON FIELD LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION UNIVERSITY OF OREGON Eugene, Oregon USA The Institute on Field Linguistics and Language Documentation is designed for field linguists, graduate students, and language activists to receive training in current techniques and issues in language documentation, language maintenance, and language revitalization. http://logos.uoregon.edu/infield2010/home/index.php Workshops: June 21st - July 2nd Laboratory week: July 5th - July 9th Field Training: July 5th - July 30th REGISTRATION Applications for registration (available on the website) will be processed upon receipt with notification within 14 days. Applications received prior to May 22, 2010 will have priority for housing; applications submitted after May 22 will have higher fees and may not allow access to housing. WORKSHOPS (two weeks of intensive training on a variety of topics and skills) Overviews * Steps in language documentation * Models of language documentation and revitalization * Principles and multimedia tools for sustainable language documentation, maintenance and revitalization Language Maintenance and Revitalization * Pedagogical grammar development * Curriculum development (place- and culture-based) * ACORNS: Acquisition of Restored Native Speech project * Miromaa - "Modern Ways for Ancient Words" * Pedagogical phonetics * Using archival materials for community-based language documentation and revitalization Ethics and Activism * Language community partnerships and respectful linguistic research * Language activism * Life in the Field Technologies * Audio (intermediate and advanced) * Video (intermediate and advanced) * Data management and archiving (intermediate and advanced) * Principles of database design * ELAN (a tool that aligns text to audio and video; introductory and advanced) * Toolbox (a tool to create interlinear glossed text and lexicons; advanced only) * FLEx (a tool to create interlinear glossed text and lexicons) And? * Orthography * Lexicography * Transcription of spoken discourse * Field phonetics * Ethnobiology * Survey methods * Introduction to Linguistics * Grant writing for language activists or linguists LABORATORY WEEK (An opportunity to work on your own projects with the assistance and advice of InField staff) FIELD TRAINING (A four-week intensive apprenticeship in language documentation with native speakers, applying the analytic and data management techniques of the Workshops) * Uyghur (Turkic) Instructor: Arienne Dwyer (University of Kansas) * Northern Paiute (Uto-Aztecan) Instructor: Tim Thornes (U. of Central Arkansas) * TBA Instructor: Sergio Meira ASSOCIATED EVENTS * Northwest Indian Language Institute, (June 21-July 2)** * Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference (June 25-27) * Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference (June 25-27) * 45th International Conference on Salish and Neighboring Languages (June 25-27) * Hokan-Penutian Languages Conference (June 25-27) FOR APPLICATION AND COMPLETE INFORMATION, POINT YOUR BROWSER TO: http://logos.uoregon.edu/infield2010/registration/index.php/ SPONSORS U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities: Documenting Endangered Languages Program University of Oregon Department of Linguistics ** The Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) will also be hosting its annual Summer Institute (June 21 - July 30), with courses covering topics including Northwest languages, linguistics, and language teaching methods, centered on the theme Language and Place. Participants at InField will also be able to attend NILI courses if they prefer these to some workshops. From eitkonen at utu.fi Mon Mar 22 13:52:33 2010 From: eitkonen at utu.fi (Esa Itkonen) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. concepts based on several types of criteria 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or identical. 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that cannot be non a priori. 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become totally detached from data. 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are mutually consistent. If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. Esa Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen From amnfn at well.com Mon Mar 22 14:46:55 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Esa, I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. concepts based on several types of criteria > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or identical. > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that cannot be non a priori. > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become totally detached from data. > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are mutually consistent. > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. > > Esa > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > From bischoff.st at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 20:45:04 2010 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:15:04 -0430 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". Shannon On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) > 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 > From: Esa Itkonen > Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following > claims: > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be > ignored. > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. > concepts based on several types of criteria > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete > nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of > view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of > abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or > identical. > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real > and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that > cannot be non a priori. > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation > between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become > totally detached from data. > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are > mutually consistent. > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to > cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) > to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning > the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue > cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on > following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. > Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. > > Esa > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) > From: "A. Katz" > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization > To: Esa Itkonen > Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" > > Esa, > > I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want > to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think > that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather > than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. > > Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our > native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is > produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two > instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is > discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: > > > Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the > following claims: > > > > 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be > ignored. > > 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. > concepts based on several types of criteria > > 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of > non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however > imperfectly. > > 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of > view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of > abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or > identical. > > 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real > and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that > cannot be non a priori. > > 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. > > 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback > relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to > become totally detached from data. > > 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are > mutually consistent. > > > > If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to > cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) > to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning > the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). > > > > Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue > cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on > following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. > Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. > > > > Esa > > > > > > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen > > > > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 > *************************************** > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 22 20:50:54 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:50:54 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <1c1f75a21003221345ib010f50tce40191cf3887e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: > In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree > that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" > and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". > > Shannon > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >> From: Esa Itkonen >> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >> Message-ID: >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >> >> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >> claims: >> >> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >> ignored. >> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >> concepts based on several types of criteria >> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >> identical. >> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >> cannot be non a priori. >> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >> totally detached from data. >> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >> mutually consistent. >> >> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >> >> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >> >> Esa >> >> >> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 2 >> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >> From: "A. Katz" >> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >> To: Esa Itkonen >> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >> Message-ID: >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >> >> Esa, >> >> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >> >> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >> >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >> following claims: >>> >>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >> ignored. >>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >> imperfectly. >>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >> identical. >>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >> cannot be non a priori. >>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >> become totally detached from data. >>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >> mutually consistent. >>> >>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>> Esa >>> >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>> >>> >> >> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >> *************************************** >> From tgivon at uoregon.edu Mon Mar 22 22:57:34 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:57:34 -0600 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <709757AF-5440-4431-98E6-3872904080BD@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG ========== Daniel Everett wrote: > It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). > > This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. > > Dan > > > On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: > > >> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >> >> Shannon >> >> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> Message: 1 >>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>> From: Esa Itkonen >>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>> Message-ID: >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>> >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>> claims: >>> >>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>> ignored. >>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>> identical. >>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>> cannot be non a priori. >>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>> totally detached from data. >>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>> mutually consistent. >>> >>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>> Esa >>> >>> >>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------ >>> >>> Message: 2 >>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>> From: "A. Katz" >>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>> To: Esa Itkonen >>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>> Message-ID: >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>> >>> Esa, >>> >>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>> >>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>> >>> --Aya >>> >>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>> >>> >>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>> >>> following claims: >>> >>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>> >>> ignored. >>> >>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>> >>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>> >>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>> >>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>> imperfectly. >>> >>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>> >>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>> identical. >>> >>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>> >>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>> cannot be non a priori. >>> >>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>> >>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>> become totally detached from data. >>> >>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>> >>> mutually consistent. >>> >>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>> >>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>> >>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>> >>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>> >>>> Esa >>>> >>>> >>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>> *************************************** >>> >>> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Mon Mar 22 23:53:07 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:53:07 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <4BA7F5DE.9000609@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. Peace, Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: > > > > If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG > > ========== > > > Daniel Everett wrote: >> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). >> This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. >> Dan >> >> >> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >> >> >>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>> >>> Shannon >>> >>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>> >>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> Message: 1 >>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>> Message-ID: >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>> >>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>> claims: >>>> >>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>> ignored. >>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>> identical. >>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>> totally detached from data. >>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>> mutually consistent. >>>> >>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>> >>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>> >>>> Esa >>>> >>>> >>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------ >>>> >>>> Message: 2 >>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>> Message-ID: >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>> >>>> Esa, >>>> >>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>> >>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>> >>>> --Aya >>>> >>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>> >>>> following claims: >>>> >>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>> >>>> ignored. >>>> >>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>> >>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>> >>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>> >>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>> imperfectly. >>>> >>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>> >>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>> identical. >>>> >>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>> >>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>> >>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>> >>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>> become totally detached from data. >>>> >>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>> >>>> mutually consistent. >>>> >>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>> >>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>> >>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>> >>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>> >>>>> Esa >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>> *************************************** >>>> >>>> >> >> > From tgivon at uoregon.edu Tue Mar 23 00:06:09 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:06:09 -0600 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <19CD0FC7-21CB-4789-BECF-90DCB167BEBD@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: I think one should not confuse mathematics (which is an axiomatic system that has no facts independent of those created by definition) with science. The science closest to us, biology, is notoriously messy, gradualistic and non-mathematical (Ernst Mayr has a nice comment on this; you can find it in my "Bio-Linguistics, 2002). And quantified methods are just a way of trying to decide between the possible and the probable, especially when testing hypotheses about correlations. And there's no privileged status to phonology here, not that I am aware of. The stock in trade of functionalism in grammar--form/function correlations--is absolutely dependent on quantified methodology, both descriptive and inferential. I think I read you, Dan. I sometime wonder if you really read yourself? TG ========= Daniel Everett wrote: > What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. > > We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. > > But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. > > On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. > > I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. > > Peace, > > Dan > > On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: > > >> >> If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG >> >> ========== >> >> >> Daniel Everett wrote: >> >>> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). >>> This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. >>> Dan >>> >>> >>> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>>> >>>> Shannon >>>> >>>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> Message: 1 >>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>> Message-ID: >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>>> >>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>>> claims: >>>>> >>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>> ignored. >>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>> identical. >>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>>> totally detached from data. >>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>> >>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>> >>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>> >>>>> Esa >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>> >>>>> Message: 2 >>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>> Message-ID: >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>>> >>>>> Esa, >>>>> >>>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>>> >>>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>>> >>>>> --Aya >>>>> >>>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> following claims: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> ignored. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>>> imperfectly. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>> identical. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>>> become totally detached from data. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Esa >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>>> *************************************** >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Tue Mar 23 00:07:32 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel Everett) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:07:32 -0400 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <4BA805F1.6040301@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Tom, I don't think we are in disagreement about anything in practice. This is not a productive line of discussion. -- Dan On 22 Mar 2010, at 20:06, Tom Givon wrote: > > > I think one should not confuse mathematics (which is an axiomatic system that has no facts independent of those created by definition) with science. The science closest to us, biology, is notoriously messy, gradualistic and non-mathematical (Ernst Mayr has a nice comment on this; you can find it in my "Bio-Linguistics, 2002). And quantified methods are just a way of trying to decide between the possible and the probable, especially when testing hypotheses about correlations. And there's no privileged status to phonology here, not that I am aware of. The stock in trade of functionalism in grammar--form/function correlations--is absolutely dependent on quantified methodology, both descriptive and inferential. I think I read you, Dan. I sometime wonder if you really read yourself? TG > > ========= > > > Daniel Everett wrote: >> What's the cop-out, Tom? Sounds like you didn't read all that carefully. There are places where mathematical rigor is possible and places where it is less likely. There are areas of linguistic study that are akin to physics and areas of linguistics that are closer to the study of literature. >> >> We do our best to bring all the rigor we can to all we do. >> >> But thinking that 'science' is somehow a higher calling than the humanities seems to have little support. I think it is just silly to say that without striving to be scientific we cannot be taken seriously. Speech Acts is something to take very seriously and the notion has been ever since Austin proposed it. But I don't see anything that I would call 'science' in any but the loosest sense in 'How to do things with words'. >> On the other hand, let me repeat, quantitative methods in linguistics is vital. I'd be happy to discuss some recent work in Piraha intonation that uses such methods in calculating the relationship between VOT and intonational breaks. There are papers of this type on my website, especially under phonology and phonetics. >> >> I don't worry about the label I put on what I do. If others find it useful and it can be tested (which is another form of usefulness), I am happy. Anyway, no point arguing about this. It gets to 'essentialism' which is never useful. >> >> Peace, >> >> Dan >> >> On 22 Mar 2010, at 18:57, Tom Givon wrote: >> >> >>> >>> If I have ever heard a cop-out, this one surely takes the cake. Unless we feel bound by some of the basic assumptions and methods of science, however diluted those may be by our yet-incomplete understanding, we are doomed to continue like the rest of the humanities and so-called social sciences, where anything goes, where "this is your opinion but I've got mine" is a winning argument (or a show-stopper), where disagreements are settled not by facts and rational methodology but by rhetorics--and may the best screamer prevail. This is not to say that we understand language well enough yet to see our way clearly through the tangle of facts, theory and method. After all these years, many of us still struggle. But if some sense of science is not what we strive for, we forfeit the right to be taken seriously. TG >>> >>> ========== >>> >>> >>> Daniel Everett wrote: >>> >>>> It isn't clear to me why anyone would want linguistics to be a science in the first place. Some aspects of the study of language, e.g. phonetics, seem eminently scientific or open to mathematical study, but many of the most important components, such as the study of discourse and diachrony, seem to fall squarely in the humanities (even though they too can benefit from rigorous quantitative methods at times). I don't understand why that would be anything to be embarrassed about, as though the maturity of a specific discipline meant that it would move from the humanities to science (even though I know that many sciences have indeed emerged from philosophy in a broad definition of that term). This just sounds like 'microscope envy'. Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> On 22 Mar 2010, at 16:45, s.t. bischoff wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> In regards to the claims below tangentially, I wonder how many would agree >>>>> that (1) linguistics is a "proto-science" rather than a "mature science" >>>>> and (2) language is a "meso-object" thus linguistics is a "meso-science". >>>>> >>>>> Shannon >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 12:30 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. cross-linguistic categorization (Esa Itkonen) >>>>>> 2. Re: cross-linguistic categorization (A. Katz) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 1 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:52:33 +0200 >>>>>> From: Esa Itkonen >>>>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>>> Message-ID: >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following >>>>>> claims: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>> ignored. >>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of non-discrete >>>>>> nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however imperfectly. >>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>>> identical. >>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback relation >>>>>> between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to become >>>>>> totally detached from data. >>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>>> >>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>>> >>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>>> >>>>>> Esa >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 2 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:46:55 -0700 (PDT) >>>>>> From: "A. Katz" >>>>>> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] cross-linguistic categorization >>>>>> To: Esa Itkonen >>>>>> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu >>>>>> Message-ID: >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" >>>>>> >>>>>> Esa, >>>>>> >>>>>> I agree with most of the things on your list. One claim that I would want >>>>>> to modify, though, is (3) about the concepts being non-discrete. I think >>>>>> that while the system that supports language in humans is analog rather >>>>>> than digital, the concepts lend themselves to a digital (discrete) model. >>>>>> >>>>>> Yes and No are discrete concepts. When we listen for a /b/ phoneme in our >>>>>> native language, we either hear it or we don't. Never mind that it is >>>>>> produced in many different ways by many different individuals and no two >>>>>> instances are exactly the same. That's just the hardware. The concept is >>>>>> discrete. It's either a /b/ or it's not. >>>>>> >>>>>> --Aya >>>>>> >>>>>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Esa Itkonen wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the >>>>>>> >>>>>> following claims: >>>>>> >>>>>>> 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be >>>>>>> >>>>>> ignored. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 2) Most if not all of the time we are dealing with cluster concepts, i.e. >>>>>>> >>>>>> concepts based on several types of criteria >>>>>> >>>>>>> 3) Most if not all of the psychological/social concepts are of >>>>>>> >>>>>> non-discrete nature, and the description should reflect this fact, however >>>>>> imperfectly. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 4) Any given entity may be viewed from several (non-arbitrary) points of >>>>>>> >>>>>> view, which entails that, depending on the point of view (or level of >>>>>> abstraction) two entities A and B may be different, partly similar, or >>>>>> identical. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 5) It is just as wrong to claim all categories to me psychologically real >>>>>>> >>>>>> and to claim them to be psychologically non-real. This is something that >>>>>> cannot be non a priori. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 6) It is better to know many languages than few languages. >>>>>>> 7) Science is an on-going process, with a ('dialectical') feedback >>>>>>> >>>>>> relation between data and theory, which makes it impossible for theory to >>>>>> become totally detached from data. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 8) When forwarding several claims, one should make sure that they are >>>>>>> >>>>>> mutually consistent. >>>>>> >>>>>>> If one accepts these claims and tries to consistently apply them to >>>>>>> >>>>>> cross-linguistic data, it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) >>>>>> to arrive at a result very different from what was given in my 'Concerning >>>>>> the Role of Induction in Typological Linguistics' (cf. my homepage). >>>>>> >>>>>>> Still, things should be seen in perspective. The differences at issue >>>>>>> >>>>>> cannot go very deep, since everybody seems to agree - grosso modo - on >>>>>> following the lead of such trail-blazers as H. Paul, N.S, Trubetzkoy, J. >>>>>> Greenberg, and T. Giv?n. >>>>>> >>>>>>> Esa >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 12 >>>>>> *************************************** >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >> >> > From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Mar 23 07:41:37 2010 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:41:37 +0200 Subject: cross-linguistic categorization In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> Esa Itkonen 03/22/10 3:52 PM >>> Dear Funknetters: Many if not most people would subscribe to the following claims: 1) Meaning and form are two different things, and neither should be ignored. Well maybe most people will accept this one as it stands, but not me. The possibility should be kept open that meanings are forms or that they are somehow constituted via certain kinds of forms (check Visetti et al, for example, concerning the 'theory of semantic forms'). It may be that some kinds of semantic forms are even archetypal in nature and therefore crosscutting specific languages. I don't know, but it seems a more promising proposal than the idea that 'categories' are crosscutting universals in this way. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 23 10:10:40 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:10:40 +0600 Subject: Can linguistics restore the parent language by the comparative m Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, the discussion about linguistics is quite interesting. Really, is it the Humanities or Science. If we divide this man activity into Sciences and Arts, then linguistics for the exception of phonetics is Arts. Can linguistics reconstruct some parent language? We know that all the Romance languages have the parent language, i.e. Latin. But can linguists reconstruct Latin on the basis of Italian, Spanish, French and other Romance languages? The answer is NO. If linguistics had been SCience, then it would have been possible. But it is ARTS, thus it is impossible. Or am I mistaken? Looking forward to hearing from you either directly yutamb at mail.ru or via Funknet. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 23 08:23:28 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:23:28 +0600 Subject: Linguistics supresses all the efforts to be SCIENCE Message-ID: To Tom Givon Dear Tom, what is Bio-Linguistics? You are quite correct: biology is messy. Neverthless , it at least tries to be SCIENCE while linguistics supresses all the efforts of the sort. In the reconstruction of proto-language forms linguists ignore statistics. It is especially vivid in Finno-Ugric linguistics. Linguists reconstruct proto-forms on some Finno-Ugric language, often Finish but ignore Mansi (Vogul) or Hanty (Ostjak). So, the way out is to use the occurrence of all the correspondences. What do you think? Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev From Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl Wed Mar 24 09:40:47 2010 From: Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl (Nick Enfield) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:40:47 +0100 Subject: PhD on conversation in lgs of W Africa and S America In-Reply-To: <55b86fca1003130832y1d86b09ewe35aaa591aa8af13@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Call for applications: PhD student positions in the study of language in social interaction, using video recording and analysis of everyday social interaction in a non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America. There are two PhD student positions available in the project group 'Human Sociality and Systems of Language Use' (HSSLU), one working on a non Indo-European language of West Africa, the other on a non Indo-European language of South America. HSSLU is a 5-year project awarded to group leader Nick Enfield to compare systems of language use across diverse cultural settings, as a way of investigating universals and variation in human social behavior. The HSSLU project operates within the Language and Cognition Group at the Max Planck institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. For information on the project, go to: http://www.mpi.nl/institute/research-groups/sociality-and-language-use Successful applicants will be supervised by Enfield and one other member of the research team who has a specialization in the linguistics of the relevant area. The PhD positions run for three years, and will begin on July 1, 2010. Applicants must meet the following four criteria for consideration: (1) an MA degree or equivalent in hand by June 30, 2010; (2) thorough knowledge of a non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America, including both knowledge of technicalities of the language's grammatical and semantic structures, and intuitions about idiomatic use of the language in conversational context; (3) established relations with a speech community, including access to the community for the purposes of standard ethnographic and descriptive linguistic work, including building a large corpus of video-recordings of everyday social interaction among a large variety of speakers and speech situations; (4) a keen interest in the role of language and cognition in human social life. Research will involve 2 to 3 field trips, between 2 and 6 months in length, depending on needs. All equipment and field expenses are provided by the project. Apart from being a 'non Indo-European language of West Africa or South America', there is no particular constraint on which language the student will work on. Both native and non-native speakers of the language in question are welcome to apply, as long as they fulfil the criteria mentioned above. Please mail expressions of interest to Nick.Enfield at mpi.nl. Applications will be considered until the positions are filled. From yutamb at mail.ru Thu Mar 25 14:18:07 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:18:07 +0600 Subject: what are the news about the origin of Basque? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, what are the news about the origin of Basque? We found it is close to Turkic languages by the phono-typological features. Is it still connected with the Caucasian languages? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Sat Mar 27 11:33:13 2010 From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:33:13 +0100 Subject: Is Cognitive Typology possible? In-Reply-To: <9A03FBB2DF8543AA8ECC5AB1FD7BB115@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Dear Yuri, I have produced some PPT-pages to illustrate what Cognitive Typology might be (according to my framework - others will surely take a different perspective). You may want to have a look at: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/%7Ewschulze/COGTYP.ppt (1,3 MB). Alas, it's in German... Best wishes, Wolfgang Am 12.04.2005 21:49, schrieb Yuri Tambovtsev: > Dear colleagues, Is Cognitive Typology possible? If yes, is it a branch of Cognitive Linguistics? What is the difference between Cognitive Linguistics and Incognitive Linguistics? Is not Linguistics (as it is) not cognitive? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Remain yours most thankfully Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > > > -- -- *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 yutamb at mail.ru Sat Mar 27 20:23:04 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 03:23:04 +0700 Subject: COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? Message-ID: Dear Funknet colleagues, I am not joking. I wonder if COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? Or is cognitive typology impossible? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk From hopper at cmu.edu Sat Mar 27 21:50:08 2010 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:50:08 -0400 Subject: COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY a myth or reality? In-Reply-To: <88D4F75B07064BFF91A0C07CDC739932@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: Yuri, I'm sure no one thinks you were joking. Why not look at Wolfgang Schulze's slides on this topic which he has made available to us? They are extensive and a model of clarity. The later ones in the series deal in depth with these very questions about the "reality" of cognitive typology. There is a full bibliography. Cheers, Paul On Sat, March 27, 2010 16:23, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Funknet colleagues, I am not joking. I wonder if COGNITIVE TYPOLOGY > a myth or reality? Or is cognitive typology impossible? Looking forward > to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, > Novosibirsk > > > -- Paul J. Hopper Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 From sepkit at utu.fi Mon Mar 29 05:29:35 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:29:35 +0300 Subject: Final call for papers: Re-thinking synonymy Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple postings) Final call for papers Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ?Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description? in Helsinki, October 28-30, 2010. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information (to be added/updated later), is found at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy Traditionally, synonymy refers to a situation where a language has two (or more) linguistic forms for expressing one meaning. Synonymy is by no means uncommon in languages, exemplified also by the large number of synonym dictionaries and thesauri. However, it is important to note that the existence or lack of synonymy is largely a matter of definition. On one hand, if we define synonymy as (very close) semantic similarity or (essentially) identical reference, it definitely exists to some extent in all languages. On the other hand, if we confine the notion to absolute synonymy (comprising not only reference, but also, for example, stylistic and sociolinguistic factors as well as contextual preferences), it becomes less clear whether synonymy really exists. Many theories of grammar (such as Cognitive Grammar and some versions of Construction Grammar) do not acknowledge the concept of synonymy at all. Synonymy seems to militate against the expected relation of meaning and form: a difference in form should always and necessarily correspond to a difference in meaning. However, within these theories (and within linguistics in general), a recurring topic of study is lexical, constructional, functional and formal similarity. In addition, current research seems to steer clear of synonymy (and sameness), but at the same time puts a great deal of emphasis on similarities, e.g. when and why two or more constructions with seemingly similar meanings are used as each other's alternatives. But where does the boundary lie between the two, i.e. when do we cross over from synonymy to mere similarity, or vice versa, and, moreover, how different can two constructions or expressions be and yet still be considered similar in terms of their meaning/ function? Do all synonymous expressions share a common conceptual (abstract) schema, and are the formal differences merely ?coincidental?? What is the relation between these schemas and lexical (i.e. ?traditional?) synonymy? The idea of the symposium is to challenge linguists both to re-think the synonymy and sameness of linguistic expressions and to approach the concept of synonymy from a broader perspective. What we propose is that synonymy is best seen as sameness or similarity of forms and functions ? whether words, constructions or syntactic structures ? not only as a notion related to lexical semantics. For example, many languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, allow the expression of location through both cases and adpositions, and many languages have both intransitive and transitive reflexive forms; these expressions may be identical in meaning in certain contexts, but upon closer examination they also display differences. In brief: Does a difference in form always correspond to a difference in meaning/function? If so, is there any justification for the validity of the notion of synonymy in linguistic description? If synonymy really exists on some level, do we need to broaden the concept of synonymy and if so, how? What does the way that synonymy has been studied tell us about language and, perhaps as interestingly, about linguistics? We welcome contributions dealing with synonymy from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), ranging from studies of lexical, functional and formal synonymy to studies of synonymy within and across languages. Possible topics for talks include (but are by no means not restricted to) the following: - The role of synonymy in linguistic theory - Corpus-based studies of (lexical/functional) synonymy - Psycholinguistic studies of synonymy/processing of synonymy - Seemingly synonymous/similar categories across languages (e.g. dative, reflexive, person, tense, deixis etc.), comparability of functions across languages - The role of synonymy in lexical typology: do ?identical? lexemes in different languages express identical/similar meanings? - Translatability of lexemes - The development of synonymy; competition of synonymous forms in grammaticalization/lexicalization - Synonymy in different theories of grammar - The relation between lexical (?traditional?) synonymy and functional synonymy - Potential differences between sameness and similarity; is the distinction meaningful or necessary? - What does synonymy (at any level/in any form) reveal about language? - What motivates the use of seemingly synonymous forms? Context, meaning, sociolinguistic factors, disambiguation, verbal semantics etc. - The synonymy of syntactic structural variants (e.g. differences in comparative constructions) - Synonymy of constructions within and across languages - Semantic vs. pragmatic synonymy The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words excluding data, tables and references) is April 16, 2010. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (synonymy-2010 /at/ Helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified about acceptance by May 15, 2010. The book of abstracts will be published on the web pages of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy/abstracts.shtml Body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Is the paper meant as a section paper or, a poster, or a workshop Workshops The deadline for submitting workshop proposals was March 15. Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentation by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven) Martin Haspelmath (MPI, Leipzig) Beth Levin (Stanford University) Scientific committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Denis Creissels (University of Lyon) Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Stefan Gries (UCSB) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Troms?) Jarmo Jantunen (University of Oulu) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Sally Rice (University of Alberta) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Bernhard W?lchli (University of Berne) Organizing committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Seppo Kittil? (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyr?l?inen (University of Turku) Maarit Niemel? (University of Oulu) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Joensuu) Jouni Rostila (University of Tampere) Turo Vartiainen (University of Helsinki) Laura Visap?? (University of Helsinki) Registration The registration deadline is October 1, 2010. An on-line registration form to the symposium will appear on the webpage of the symposium after the evaluation of abstracts. Registration fees General: 100 Euro Members of the association: 80 Euro Undergraduate students: 50 Euro Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance by bank transfer, if at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH). However, we may also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival in case bank transfer is not possible. If you have paid via bank transfer from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring a COPY of the original transaction receipt with you and present it upon registration. Conference venue University of Helsinki Contact Please send all queries to synonymy-2010 /at/ helsinki.fi From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Mar 30 12:02:10 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:02:10 +0700 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? Message-ID: Johanna Nichols wrote: Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. Johanna Nichols = Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk From amnfn at well.com Tue Mar 30 12:59:57 2010 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:59:57 -0700 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yuri, I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring up an interesting topic. In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that they can be examined and corrected. Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! Here's to having good peers! Best, --Aya http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Johanna Nichols wrote: > Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more > important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer > review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I > don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. > Johanna Nichols = > Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > > From dlevere at ilstu.edu Tue Mar 30 14:53:39 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:39 -0500 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. Dan On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > Yuri, > > I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring up an interesting topic. > > In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that they can be examined and corrected. > > Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! > > Here's to having good peers! > > Best, > > --Aya > > http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > > > On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > >> Johanna Nichols wrote: >> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more >> important function of journal publication than boosting careers is. Peer >> review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I >> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. >> Johanna Nichols = >> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk >> >> From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Tue Mar 30 16:20:57 2010 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:20:57 -0600 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters around... Lise On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett wrote: > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine > that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I > let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. > Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are > shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their > criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to > respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of > the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is > superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the > process, even the particularly nasty ones. > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if > Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > and the usefulness of peer review. > > Dan > > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > >> Yuri, >> >> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring >> up an interesting topic. >> >> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves >> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer >> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from >> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just >> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, >> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that >> they can be examined and corrected. >> >> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our >> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep >> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers >> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and >> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! >> >> Here's to having good peers! >> >> Best, >> >> --Aya >> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz >> >> >> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: >> >>> Johanna Nichols wrote: >>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more >>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers >>> is. Peer >>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from >>> pseudoscience that I >>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. >>> Johanna Nichols = >>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, >>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had >>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average >>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you >>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not >>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be >>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk >>> >>> > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Fellow, Linguistic Society of America Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder From john at research.haifa.ac.il Tue Mar 30 16:15:15 2010 From: john at research.haifa.ac.il (john at research.haifa.ac.il) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:15:15 +0300 Subject: Is Peer reviewing so essential? In-Reply-To: <14B8BC90-075E-4449-B27C-964E33ADF3D5@colorado.edu> Message-ID: I agree. I wish you (Dan) had given me this idea long ago. John Quoting Lise Menn : > That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I > wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters > around... > Lise > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett wrote: > > > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine > > that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I > > let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. > > Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are > > shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their > > criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to > > respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of > > the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is > > superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the > > process, even the particularly nasty ones. > > > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if > > Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > > and the usefulness of peer review. > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote: > > > >> Yuri, > >> > >> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring > >> up an interesting topic. > >> > >> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves > >> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer > >> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from > >> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just > >> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here, > >> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that > >> they can be examined and corrected. > >> > >> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our > >> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep > >> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers > >> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and > >> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not! > >> > >> Here's to having good peers! > >> > >> Best, > >> > >> --Aya > >> > >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz > >> > >> > >> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > >> > >>> Johanna Nichols wrote: > >>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more > >>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers > >>> is. Peer > >>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from > >>> pseudoscience that I > >>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often. > >>> Johanna Nichols = > >>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's, > >>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had > >>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average > >>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you > >>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not > >>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be > >>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk > >>> > >>> > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 > 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 > Boulder CO 80302 > http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html > > Professor Emerita of Linguistics > Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science > University of Colorado > > Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] > Fellow, Linguistic Society of America > > Campus Mail Address: > UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science > > Campus Physical Address: > CINC 234 > 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University From bkbergen at cogsci.ucsd.edu Tue Mar 30 16:34:26 2010 From: bkbergen at cogsci.ucsd.edu (Benjamin Bergen) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:34:26 -0700 Subject: abstract submission open: joint meeting of CSDL and ESLP Message-ID: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Joint meeting of: The Conceptual Structure Discourse, and Language Conference (CSDL) and The Embodied and Situated Language Processing Workshop (ESLP) San Diego, California September 16-19, 2010. http://embodiedlanguage.org/csdl_eslp.html Keynote Speakers: Michael Arbib, USC Lera Boroditsky, Stanford University Craig Chambers, UTM Matthew Crocker, U Saarbruecken Vic Ferreira, UC San Diego Adele Goldberg, Princeton George Lakoff, UC Berkeley Teenie Matlock, UC Merced Fey Parrill, Case Western Gabriella Vigliocco, University College London Rolf Zwaan, University of Rotterdam Submissions: We welcome submissions of abstracts for oral or poster presentations on topics related to language and cognition, including but not limited to embodiment, situatedness, language use, figurative language, grammatical constructions, gesture, comprehension, production, and learning. Successful submissions will address theoretically important issues using appropriate empirical methods, such as linguistic analysis, corpus analysis, computational modeling, behavioral experimentation, electrophysiology, and brain imaging. Abstracts can now be submitted electronically, and must be submitted by the deadline of April 30, 2010. They will be reviewed anonymously by expert reviewers, and authors will be notified with decisions by early June, 2010. Support for students: Through National Science Foundation support, the meeting is able to provide up to $250 in funding to support travel costs and registration fees for 25 students participating in this meeting. Students may request to be considered for support using the form to appear on the meeting's website. Reviews of abstract submissions will be entirely independent of and unaffected by requests for support. Schedule: The goal of this joint meeting is to foster interdisciplinary interactions. To this end, the first day of the meeting (September 16th) will feature tutorials on "Experimental and Computational Research Methods for Cognitive Linguists" and "Cognitive Linguistics Research for Experimentalists". These will be taught by the invited speakers and are intended to provide basic familiarity with the tools, vocabulary, and practices of the relevant disciplines. More details on the tutorial topics will become available on the website. Research presentations will start on the afternoon of September 16th and run through the afternoon of September 19th in a single-session format. Aside from the keynote speakers, there will be competitive slots for 20-minute oral presentations as well as poster sessions. About the meeting: CSDL, the biennial meeting of the North American branch of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, was first held in San Diego in 1994. Cognitive Linguistics is the cover term for a collection of approaches to language that focus heavily on the "embodiment" of language. Under the rubric of embodiment, cognitive linguists investigate the extent to which form depends on meaning, function, and use, as well as ways in which language use depends on non-linguistic neurocognitive systems. (For more on previous CSDLs: http://www.cogling.org/csdlconfs.shtml) ESLP 2010 is the third event in a workshop series that started in 2007. The first goal of the conference is to bring together researchers working on the interaction of language and visual/motor processing in embodied, situated, and language-for-action research traditions. A further focus is on uniting converging and complementary evidence from three different methods (behavioral, neuropsychological, and computational). The first meeting led to the publication of a special issue on embodied language processing in Brain and Language (to appear in March 2010). ESLP took place again in June, 2009 in Rotterdam, in association with the international Cognitive Science Society Conference in Amsterdam (see http://embodiedlanguage.org/). This meeting brings together two populations of researchers - cognitive linguists on the one hand and psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists studying embodied and situated language processing on the other. There are substantial gains to be made by bringing these two communities together. They share an interest in investigating how language and its structure depend upon situated use and embodied cognition, but differ in their methods and many of their assumptions. Cognitive linguists typically use traditional methods of linguistic analysis (corpus methods, elicitation, native speaker judgments) to develop nuanced and theoretically sophisticated accounts of how language is embodied how language structure depends upon constraints imposed by known properties of the human brain and body. They additionally focus on how language use affects language structure and language change. The ESLP community (psycholinguists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists) typically use experimental and computational methods to ask questions about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying linguistic embodiment, and about the neural and cognitive mechanisms when language is processed in its grounded physical and social contexts situatedness. For more information, please consult the meeting website: http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/pknoeferle/csdl_eslp/home.html. If you have further questions, please contact the conference organizers, Ben Bergen (UCSD) and Pia Knoeferle (Bielefeld University), at csdl.eslp at gmail.com. +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ Benjamin K. Bergen Associate Professor, Department of Cognitive Science University of California, San Diego bkbergen at ucsd.edu http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/ Director, Language and Cognition Lab http://www2.hawaii.edu/~bergen/lcl/ Associate Editor, Cognitive Linguistics http://www.cogling.group.shef.ac.uk/ +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Wed Mar 31 09:32:29 2010 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0200 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <14B8BC90-075E-4449-B27C-964E33ADF3D5@colorado.edu> Message-ID: Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her way to please the reviewers. I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with recommended revisions" or "reject". If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to take. So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. Martin Haspelmath Lise Menn wrote: > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that > has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let > students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I > show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at > how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I > show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the > reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original > version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and > that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the > particularly nasty ones. > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan > can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > and the usefulness of peer review. > > Dan -- Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Wed Mar 31 19:42:26 2010 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:42:26 -0600 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <4BB316AD.2010309@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: I'm not sure about that, Martin. The author always has the option of seeking another journal if s/he gets a 'revise/resubmit'. I've been on both sides of that recommendation, and in all of my cases, the problem was not a matter of the theory, but of how much a single paper could accomplish and/or of needing restructuring in order to make a coherent argument. Lise On Mar 31, 2010, at 3:32 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in > my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in > the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting > better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she > goes out of her way to please the reviewers. > > I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be > avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with > recommended revisions" or "reject". > > If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can > then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds > helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he > doesn't want to take. > > So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the > positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative > effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a > paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the > paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for > publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. > > Martin Haspelmath > > Lise Menn wrote: >> I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is >> an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on >> writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms >> of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal >> editor. I let students read it without telling them what the >> judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal >> reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some >> reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it >> has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No >> matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree >> that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers >> were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. >> >> This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of >> submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel >> like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And >> that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the >> class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. >> >> Dan > > > -- > Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) > Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher > Platz 6 > D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) > +49-341-980 1616 > > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Fellow, Linguistic Society of America Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder From dlevere at ilstu.edu Wed Mar 31 19:50:24 2010 From: dlevere at ilstu.edu (Daniel L. Everett) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:50:24 -0500 Subject: peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping In-Reply-To: <9B8E2B46-D3CA-430B-8CEA-3B028F83414A@colorado.edu> Message-ID: I agree, Lise. I am still not quite understanding the problem with 'revise and resubmit'. Seems like a perfectly sensible recommendation. I have occasionally decided to submit papers elsewhere because I disagreed with the recommendations of the reviewers. There are plenty of journals, after all (though this doesn't completely rule out the possibility that the same reviewer might get the same ms in succession from more than one journal). And on at least two occasions that I can remember, an article of mine that received a very negative review was nevertheless still published in the journal - without revision - (in one case in the most competitive theoretical journal at that time) because the editor thought that the referee had blown it. The editor said explicitly that he was setting aside the referee report (the paper fell within his area of expertise). My own impression is that most editors and referees are competent and reasonable and that the process still works well. But I also think that there are times when self-publishing can make more sense. Rarely. But not never. What am I missing, Martin? Dan On Mar 31, 2010, at 2:42 PM, Lise Menn wrote: > I'm not sure about that, Martin. The author always has the option of seeking another journal if s/he gets a 'revise/resubmit'. I've been on both sides of that recommendation, and in all of my cases, the problem was not a matter of the theory, but of how much a single paper could accomplish and/or of needing restructuring in order to make a coherent argument. > Lise > > On Mar 31, 2010, at 3:32 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote: > >> Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her way to please the reviewers. >> >> I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with recommended revisions" or "reject". >> >> If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to take. >> >> So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not be to shape the paper. >> >> Martin Haspelmath >> >> Lise Menn wrote: >>> I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the particularly nasty ones. >>> >>> This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing and the usefulness of peer review. >>> >>> Dan >> >> >> -- >> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) >> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 >> D-04103 Leipzig Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 >> >> >> >> >> > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 > 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 > Boulder CO 80302 > http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html > > Professor Emerita of Linguistics > Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science > University of Colorado > > Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] > Fellow, Linguistic Society of America > > Campus Mail Address: > UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science > > Campus Physical Address: > CINC 234 > 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder > > > From bischoff.st at gmail.com Wed Mar 31 23:02:13 2010 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:32:13 -0430 Subject: FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 20 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I would like to echo Martin's comments...I had a paper on finite state morphology reviewed poorly because there was "no reference to the work of Chomsky". The paper had nothing to do with formal linguistics and was in no way germane to generative linguistics, so there was no way to reference Chomsky. Not having tenure, and being constantly reminded of the need to publish, it would be disingenuous of me to say that such comments always went unheeded. However, they did for that particular paper. Paul Postal has an interesting chapter on the review process for grant funding that some might find interesting in his "Skeptical Linguistic Essays" (which was available online at his NYU website last year). Shannon On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 12:30 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. peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping (Martin Haspelmath) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0200 > From: Martin Haspelmath > Subject: [FUNKNET] peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping > To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Message-ID: <4BB316AD.2010309 at eva.mpg.de> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my > experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the > direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The > author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her > way to please the reviewers. > > I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be > avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with > recommended revisions" or "reject". > > If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then > make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, > while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to > take. > > So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive > effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that > arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of > reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the > editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not > be to shape the paper. > > Martin Haspelmath > > Lise Menn wrote: > > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an > > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing > > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine that > > has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I let > > students read it without telling them what the judgement was. Then I > > show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are shocked at > > how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their criticisms. Then I > > show them the ms after it has been corrected to respond to the > > reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of the original > > version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is superior and > > that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the process, even the > > particularly nasty ones. > > > > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission > > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if Dan > > can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is > > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing > > and the usefulness of peer review. > > > > Dan > > > -- > Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de) > Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 > D-04103 Leipzig > Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616 > > > > > > > > End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 78, Issue 20 > *************************************** >