recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature)

[Esa Itkonen]

Terms like 'harmony' (à la Lehmann) or 'operator-operand [generalization]' (à la Vennemann) 
seem ad hoc and therefore easy to ignore, until one realizes (assuming that one is savvy enough
to do so) that they are just more or less arbitrary designations for ANALOGY; and this may well
turn out to be  true of 'regularization' as well. In the tradition of von Humboldt, Whitney, and Paul,
analogy is the single most important force in language. I have tried to prove this in my 2005 book
 'Analogy as structure and process' (where Lehmann and Vennemann are duly mentioned 
among many, many others). Incidentally, this book was characterized as "the summa of current
 analogy research" by one (clearly very competent) reviewer. Now, important as it is, analogy does
 not of course explain everything, and maybe this is the case with Greenberg correlations. But one should
never rule it out a priori. This is one lesson that can be safely drawn from the history of our discipline.

Esa  

Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>
Date: Monday, July 11, 2011 2:46 pm
Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature)
To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu


>  
>  I think Florian makes some very good points, and I am looking forward 
> to 
>  reading the actual studies he cited. My concern with our (all of 
> us's) 
>  functional theories is that they are usually observations about the 
>  final (synchronic) product of the protracted diachronic process(es) 
> that 
>  create grammatical structures. From my perspective, we need to look 
> at 
>  how functional-adaptive factors operate during the process itself. In 
> 
>  other words, we need to find a way of studying the mechanisms (and 
> exact 
>  loci) where universal principles exert their influence on emerging 
>  structures. As we operate now, a lot of our functional observation 
> are 
>  both ad-hoc & post-hoc. This of course reminds me of the "iconicity 
> era" 
>  of the 1980s, when we were busy observing that the resultant emerging 
> 
>  structures were "iconic", but paid no attention to the biological 
>  processes via which such iconicity arose. So for those of you who 
> would 
>  like to consider themselves "cognitive", this is, to my mind, the 
> real 
>  challenge. And obviously, experimental studies of on-line behavior 
> are a 
>  big chunk of trying to understand the mechanisms of emergence. TG
>  
>  ==================
>  
>  On 7/9/2011 1:47 PM, T. Florian Jaeger wrote:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > I share Martin's view that the hypothesis that 'universals' are the 
> direct
>  > product of diachronic pathways is absolutely compatible with both functional
>  > and non-functional explanations (by the Croft et al, submitted to LT
>  > discusses the Dunn et al paper and what they do and do not show in 
> detail).
>  > There is now a growing body of work that investigates this claim more
>  > directly by looking at biases operating during the acquisition of artificial
>  > grammars. This work has revealed strong biases to 'regularize' 
> (reduce the
>  > conditional entropy of morphological or word order alternations, e.g.
>  > Hudsan-Kam and Newport, 2005, 2009; Kirby et al. 2008; Smith and Wonnacut,
>  > 2010; Gutman, 2011). This work has replicated Greenbergian 
> universals in the
>  > lab, although most universals remain untested in this terminology
>  > (e.g. Christiansen, 2000; Culbertson and Smolensky, forthcoming a, 
> b; Tily
>  > et al., 2011). In addition and more recently, this work has also directly
>  > addressed whether considerations about processing or communication 
> (not
>  > quite the same) affect the acquisition of word order and case-marking
>  > systems (Fedzechkina et al., 2011, forthcoming). This work is 
> summarized in
>  > a very short commentary on Dunn et al.'s article that Harry Tily 
> and I
>  > submitted to LT (see link below).
>  >
>  > This line of research is beginning to explore the link between acquisition
>  > and diachronic pathways (e.g. via iterated artificial language learning).
>  > Both functional and non-functional explanations for changes are being
>  > explored.
>  >
>  > I also wanted to add that, in addition to Dryer's and Hawkins's
>  > processing-based accounts, there are now also information theoretic 
> accounts
>  > that make predictions about the development of word order (and other)
>  > alternations based on considerations about efficient and robust information
>  > transfer (cf. Shannon, 1948). These formal accounts can be seen as 
> quite
>  > similar to some hypotheses mentioned in your [Tom's] work). See for 
> example,
>  > Maurits et al (2010-NIPS,
>  > http://www.psychology.adelaide.edu.au/personalpages/staff/amyperfors/papers/mauritsetal10nips-wordorderuid.pdf).
>  > These accounts test the predictions of a framework laid out in 
> Genzel and
>  > Charniak (2002), Aylett and Turk (2004), Jaeger (2006, 2010) and 
> Levy and
>  > Jaeger (2007). In this work, choices in production are linked to
>  > considerations about efficient and robust communication through a noisy
>  > channel. Most of this work has focused on reduction phenomena (incl.
>  > relativizer and complementizers omission, contraction of auxiliaries,
>  > phonetic reduction, argument omission, prononominalization, etc.; 
> for a
>  > overview and references, see Jaeger, 2010,
>  > http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0010028510000083), but 
> Maurits
>  > et al provide the first extension to word order choices (see also Gallo
>  > (2011,
>  > https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action?itemId=13759&itemFileId=31899)
>  > for the same principle at work beyond intra-clausal planning.
>  >
>  > Florian
>  >
>  >
>  > Links to papers that I have links to are given below. The first paper
>  > contains all references mentioned above:
>  >
>  > Tily and Jaeger (submitted commentary on Dunn et al):
>  > http://rochester.academia.edu/tiflo/Papers/674181/Tily_H._and_Jaeger_T.F._submitted._Complementing_quantitative_typology_with_behavioral_approaches_Evidence_for_typological_universals
>  >
>  > Fedzechkina et al (2011):
>  > http://rochester.academia.edu/tiflo/Papers/674181/Tily_H._and_Jaeger_T.F._submitted._Complementing_quantitative_typology_with_behavioral_approaches_Evidence_for_typological_universals
>  >
>  > Tily et al (2011):
>  > http://rochester.academia.edu/tiflo/Papers/674181/Tily_H._and_Jaeger_T.F._submitted._Complementing_quantitative_typology_with_behavioral_approaches_Evidence_for_typological_universals
>  
>