recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature) (Tom Givon)

Tue Jul 12 12:10:55 UTC 2011

In support of Tom's comment, this problem spills into the neglect of phonology
in grammaticalization processes.  I am actually responding to reviewer's
comments for a paper of mine which has been accepted to throw out all of the
phonetic detail that point to mechanisms of attrition of phonological material
and impact changes in the morphology.
--
Diane F. Lesley-Neuman
c/o Phonetics Laboratory
Leiden University
Cleveringaplaats 1
Room 111
2311 RA Leiden
The Netherlands

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>    1. Re: recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature) (Tom Givon)
>    2. Re: recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature) (Esa Itkonen)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 05:46:40 -0600
> From: Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature)
> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu
> Message-ID: <4E1AE2A0.7040503 at uoregon.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:53:35 +0300
> From: Esa Itkonen <eitkonen at utu.fi>
> Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] recent paper (Dunn et al. in Nature)
> To: Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>
> Cc: funknet at mailman.rice.edu
> Message-ID: <fbac83601f7c04.4e1b1c7f at utu.fi>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Terms like 'harmony' (? la Lehmann) or 'operator-operand [generalization]' (?
> 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
> >
> >
>
>
> End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 94, Issue 5
> **************************************
>
>