From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Jun  4 19:35:31 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:35:31 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <THU.4.JUN.1998.153531.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Space permitting (and I anticipate some interesting conversations with
my editor), I hope to include in my dictionary entries for the
symbols, abbreviations and Graeco-Latin phrases commonly used in
philological work, since these little beggars are often hard to look
up.  Below is a list of the entries I have so far.  Are there any
obvious omissions or errors?  All advice gratefully received.
Naturally, items in common use outside our field will not be entered.
 
Symbols:
 
angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
angle brackets `< >': sets off material inserted in an edition of a
text because it appears to have been omitted by the scribe
 
asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double asterisk
sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on reconstructions); (2)
marks "expected" but unattested form; (3) marks form as impossible
(double asterisk occasionally used here)
 
capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form, such
as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
 
dagger: (1) marks word as having no known etymology; (2) marks
language as extinct
 
exclamation mark `!': marks proposed etymology as implausible or absurd
 
parentheses `( )': (1) marks variant forms compactly, as in
"<mintz(a)>" = "<mintz> or <mintza>"; (2) = square brackets (sense 1);
(3) sets off non-cognate material in comparanda
 
pipe `|': indicates uncertain segment in reconstructed form; e.g.,
*<lap|ba> = *<lapa> or *<laba>
 
plus sign `+': (1) in an etymology, indicates sequence of forms
themselves otherwise explained; (2) = asterisk (sense 1)
 
question mark `?': marks almost anything as doubtful
 
slash `/': = swung dash
 
square brackets `[ ]': (1) in a reconstructed form, marks material of
doubtful or variable presence, as in "*<mil[i]ga>" = "*<miliga> or
*<milga>"; (2) (also parentheses) sets off lacuna in edition of a
text, possibly filled by editor's suggestion; single bracket used if
lacuna occurs at end of line
 
swung dash (tilde) `~' (also slash): separates variant forms
 
Abbreviations
 
cf.: introduces cognate of cited form [I want to put this in because
most of my students believe it means "comes from", and wind up telling
me that half the words of English are taken from Sanskrit]
 
id.: same meaning as last form glossed
 
s.v. (s.u.): look up this word in the reference cited
 
vel sim.: or something similar
 
Phrases:
 
hapax (legomenon): word or form recorded only once
 
lectio difficilior: that one of several variants which is hardest to
account for
 
lucus a non lucendo: deriving a word from one of more-or-less opposite
meaning
 
(maybe also `punctum delens', but I can't generally include terms
specific to writing systems)
 
I hope I've already got all the traditional and IE stuff like
`tenuis', `media aspirata', `muta cum liquida', `schwa secundum' and
`s-mobile'.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From hbzs22 at post.tau.ac.il  Fri Jun  5 17:53:09 1998
From: hbzs22 at post.tau.ac.il (Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 13:53:09 EDT
Subject: Pragma99
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.135309.EDT.HBZS22@POST.TAU.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
                      Call for Papers
 
                              PRAGMA99
 
                 International Pragmatics Conference on
                     PRAGMATICS AND NEGOTIATION
                           June 13-16, 1999
        Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                        Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
                                Israel
 
The main theme of this conference is the pragmatics of negotiation,
interpreted in a very broad sense.  Interlocutors engage in negotiations
about every aspect of their interaction -  such as floor access and topic
selection, contextual assumptions, conversational goals, and the
(mis)interpretation and repair of their messages. Topics such as
cross-cultural and cross-gender (mis)communications, conversational
procedures in disputes and collaborations, argumentation practices, and
effects of assumptions and goals on the negotiating strategies of
interlocutors are of special interest for this conference.
 
The conference will be interdisciplinary, bringing together pragmaticists,
linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists and political
scientists. We are soliciting papers on all issues relevant to the theme
of the conference, as well as papers in other areas of pragmatics and
dialogue analysis.
 
The conference will include plenary addresses, regular session lectures,
and organized panels around any of the relevant topics. Among the plenary
speakers: Elinor Ochs (UCLA), Itamar Rabinovitch (Tel Aviv University),
Emanual Schegloff (UCLA), Thomas Schelling (University of Maryland),
Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University), Deborah Tannen (Georgetown
University), Ruth Wodak (University of Vienna).
 
Presentation of regular session lectures is 30 minutes long, with a
subsequent discussion of 10 minutes. Panels take the form of a series of
closely related lectures on a specific topic, which may or may not be
directly related to the special topic of the conference. They may consist
of one, two or three units of 120 minutes.  Within each panel unit a
maximum of four 20-minute presentations are given consecutively, followed
by a minimum of 30 minutes of discussion (either devoted entirely to an
open discussion, or taken up in part by comments by a discussant or
discussants). Panels are composed of contributions attracted by panel
organizers, combined with individually submitted papers when judged
appropriate by the Program Committee in consultation with the panel
organizers. Typically, written versions or extensive outlines of all panel
contributions should be available before the conference to facilitate
discussion.
 
 
SUBMISSIONS
Abstracts for papers and panels should be submitted in the following
format:
1. For papers - five copies of an anonymous abstract (up to 300 words).
2. For panels - a preliminary proposal of one page, detailing title, area
of interest, name of organizer(s) and invited participants to be sent by
August 1, 1998. Organizers of approved panels will then be invited to
submit a full set of abstracts, including: a. a brief description of the
topic area,  b. a list of participants (with full details, see below), c.
abstracts by each of the participants by November 1, 1998.
3. In all cases, a page stating: a. title, b. audiovisual/computer
request, and c. for each author: I. Full name and affiliation; II. Current
address; III. E-mail address; IV. Fax number.
 
Deadline for submission of abstracts: Nov. 1, 1998.  Abstracts may be sent
by hard copy, disk, or e-mail to Pragma99, Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv
University, Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL. E-mail: pragma99 at post.tau.ac.il
Date of notification: March 1, 1999.
 
PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Mira Ariel, Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, Jonathan Berg,
Anat Biletzki, Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Marcelo Dascal, Nomi Erteschik-Shir,
Tamar Katriel, Ruth Manor,  George-Elia Sarfati, Elda Weizman, Yael Ziv.
 
 ============================================================
                PRAGMA99 REGISTRATION FORM
 
Please send the following information, accompanied by cheque payable to
Tel-Aviv University in the amount of US$75 if paid before November 1,
1998, otherwise US$100, to
 
        Pragma99
        Faculty of Humanities
        Tel Aviv University
        Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL
 
 
Dr./Mr./Mrs./Ms./ Name:__________________________
 
Address:_______________________________________________
 
University/Organization:___________________________________
 
Email:__________________________
 
Fax:____________________(Home)_______________(Office)
 
Telephone:____________________(Home)_____________(Office)
 
 
Signature:_____________________             Date:________________
 
Those wishing to pay by credit card should provide the following
information:
 
   Type of Credit Card: Mastercard/Visa/American Express
 
   Name as it appears on Credit Card:
 
   Sum of Paymnt: US$__________
 
   Card No.________________________
 
   Expiration Date: __________________
 
   Date:_______________  Signature: _____________________
 
 
**********
Those wishing to present a paper should follow the instructions above.
Hotel information will be provided after registration.
The International Association for Dialogue Analysis is co-sponsoring a
part of our conference, which will be devoted to "Negotiation as a
Dialogic Concept." For further information, contact Edda Weigand (e-mail:
weigand at uni-muenster.de).
 
==========================================================
 
[Forms can also be returned by fax to 972-3-6407839, or by e-mail to
pragma99 at post.tau.ac.il  . ]


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Fri Jun  5 15:16:04 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:16:04 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0yhdy3-0005df-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.111604.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
 
Larry, this is a most useful list.
A comment or two below:
 
>
>angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
It's often used for a sound change within a single language (which is
usually not covered by the idea of etymology): could you rephrase it as
"the direction of a sound change"?
 
>asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double asterisk
>sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on reconstructions); (2)
>marks "expected" but unattested form; (3) marks form as impossible
>(double asterisk occasionally used here)
 
As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus phonetic
script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and "**" for denying
the form's existence (your point 3); could you enter "**" as a separate
entry?
 
>capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form, such
>as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
 
Would you be able to give a complete list?
 
>plus sign `+': (1) in an etymology, indicates sequence of forms
>themselves otherwise explained; (2) = asterisk (sense 1)
 
Do you mean "sequence of morphemes in a lexical item"? Sometimes both:
an asterisk attached to two morphemes (or more) joined by the
"+" (or sometimes, joined by the "-") indicates the proposed
reconstructable but unattested juncture of two otherwise attested
morphemes (as used by Harri Meier, for example).
 
>swung dash (tilde) `~' (also slash): separates variant forms
 
Only if printed at waist-height; the actual tilde, which, to be a
tilde, appears above the written letter, indicates nasality. Not all
printers can be trusted to get the height right, in my experience (I
mean the machines, not the human beings).
 
>hapax (legomenon): word or form recorded only once
 
Say  "recorded in writing"?
 
>lectio difficilior: that one of several variants which is hardest to
>account for.
 
        Yes, and which is therefore more likely to be *right* (since
scribes are less likely to have corrected towards it).
 
                                        RW


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jun  6 14:49:58 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 10:49:58 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JUN.1998.104958.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have encountered a certain slipperiness in the use of the term
`cognate' in connection with borrowing.
 
Take an example.  Late Latin *<caveola> ~ *<gaveola> `small enclosed
place' is the direct ancestor of Old French <jaiole> `jail', of Old
Spanish <javola> (modern <jaula>) `cell', and of Occitan <cayola>
`cage'.  These Romance words are cognate in any definition.
 
But English `jail' is borrowed from the Old French word, Basque
<txabola> `hut, cabin' is borrowed from the Old Spanish word, and
Basque <kaiola> `cage' is borrowed from the Occitan word.  So: would
you be happy to say that English `jail' is
 
(a) "cognate" with its Old French source?
(b) "cognate" with the other Romance words?
(c) "cognate" with the Basque words?
 
Where your answer is "no", what brief label would you attach to the
historical connection between these words?
 
Existing textbooks of HL are generally rather hazy on this point.  At
least three of them don't even have an entry for `cognate' in the
index -- which I find amazing.  Two or three expressly define
`cognates' as `words (or other elements) having a common ancestry', or
words to that effect, which would appear undeniably to include the
cases of cognation by borrowing, but then go on to imply strongly that
cognates necessarily form part of a genetic relationship.
 
Oh, and one final query.  General dictionaries of English consistently
recognize the phrase `cognate languages'.  Would everybody agree that
this usage is now defunct in favor of `(genetically) related
languages'?
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jun  7 02:35:29 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 22:35:29 EDT
Subject: Genetically related
In-Reply-To: <E0yiGOd-0001j4-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JUN.1998.223529.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
While this is a widely used phrase, I think it
is quite problematic because it bugs and confuses
biologists, with whom we inreasingly do have
to deal, and hence I prefer genealogically
related, but I do not know if anybody else
has adopted this usage.


From erickson at hawaii.edu  Sun Jun  7 17:18:33 1998
From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 13:18:33 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <SUN.7.JUN.1998.131833.EDT.ERICKSON@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
this question:
 
What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
 
Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
than a...
 
I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
 
Best,
 
Blaine Erickson
erickson at hawaii.edu


From mfcepdd at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Mon Jun  8 14:53:19 1998
From: mfcepdd at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:53:19 EDT
Subject: 10th ICEHL
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.105319.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
10th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
Manchester, 21-26 August 1998
 
Our conference website is now, apparently, fully operational again
after having been wholly or partly unobtainable outside Manchester
for a few days, for technical reasons we don't yet know. Apologies to
anyone who was inconvenienced.  Please let us know if there are
still any problems.
 
On the WWW  you will find a list of plenary and ordinary papers,
many of the abstracts, a ** provisional ** programme, information on
workshops and associated activities, and lots of other stuff on the
venue and the city.  Detailed travel information will be added later
this month.
 
If you have any queries, please address them to
     10icehl at man.ac.uk
 
Thank you.
(Prof.) David Denison
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
        Organising Committee, 10ICEHL
        Dept of English and American Studies
        University of Manchester  |  Manchester M13 9PL  |  U.K.
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/projects/10icehl.htm (WWW)
10icehl at man.ac.uk (e-mail)  +44 (0)161-275 3256 (fax)


From jrader at m-w.com  Mon Jun  8 14:45:05 1998
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:45:05 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104505.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In lexicography entities like this are sometimes broadly referred to as ghost
 words,
though that term perhaps more usually covers false lemmas that arise
from manuscript misreadings or editorial errors.  I'm not sure your
example would be accurately characterized as a misreading.
 
Jim Rader
 
>
> Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
> this question:
>
> What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
> created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
> Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
> which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
> seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
> than a...
>
> I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
>
> Best,
>
> Blaine Erickson
> erickson at hawaii.edu
>


From jrader at m-w.com  Mon Jun  8 14:44:50 1998
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:44:50 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104450.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I recall that Eric Hamp avoided the use of the word <cognate> as
a linguistics term, though I was never sure if he did so because he
had a very narrow definition of it, or because he felt its ambiguity
rendered it useless in precise characterization of  linguistic
relatedness.  My own sense is that <cognate> ought to refer only to
strict linguistic sibling relationships and to forms that are exactly
matchable segment for segment; otherwise it's not distinct from
<related>.  But that's only a personal predisposition.
 
Jim Rader
 
> I have encountered a certain slipperiness in the use of the term
> `cognate' in connection with borrowing.
>
>


From MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Mon Jun  8 14:41:39 1998
From: MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (Richard Hogg)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:41:39 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104139.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Some further notes, partly with reference to Roger Wright's comments.
 
> >angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
There is also a helpful convention whereby angled brackets are used
to show strictly graphemic material, e.g. "[v] is represented by
<b>"
 
 
> >asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double
> >asterisk sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on
> >reconstructions); (2) marks "expected" but unattested form; (3)
> >marks form as impossible (double asterisk occasionally used here)
>
> As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus
> phonetic script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and
> "**" for denying the form's existence (your point 3); could you
> enter "**" as a separate entry?
 
Can I support Roger strongly. I think it is now becoming standard, at
least in OE, to use ** for impossible forms. Not only that, but such
a convention is vital.
 
> >capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form,
> >such as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
>
> Would you be able to give a complete list?
 
I doubt that you could, and many of these are ambiguous - think of
the meanings of "D"!
 
 
********************************************************************************
 **********************
Richard M. Hogg            Tel: +44(0)161 275 3164
Department of English      Fax: +44(0)161 275 3256
  and American Studies     e-mail: r.m.hogg at man.ac.uk
University of Manchester   web:
 http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/staff/rmh/home.htm
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
********************************************************************************
 **********************


From Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au  Mon Jun  8 14:41:15 1998
From: Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au (Harold Koch)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:41:15 EDT
Subject: Trask terms etc
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104115.EDT.HAROLD.KOCH@ANU.EDU.AU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
1. Borrowing terminology.
The discipline is badly in need of some standardised terms, other than
"cognate", for (a) words related by borrowing, and (b) words related by
either cognation or borrowing, that is, a generic term that encompasses
"cognate" and whatever (a) should be called. I hope Larry makes some
recommendations in this area.
 
In comparing the vocabulary of two (or more) languages that are both
genetically related and liable to have borrowed from one another (this is
a common situation in Australia), one tries to gather together all the
words that are "related" in some sense-- possibly called "tentative (b)s",
then sort out the "cognates" from the "loans"-- i.e. (a)s--, then work out
the direction of the "loans". In the last step there is perhaps a further
problem with the term "loanword"; can it be used symmetrically?
 
To illustrate the problem-- If I decide that Warlpiri wapirti and Kaytetye
apeyte (both 'pencil yam') are related by borrowing, can I refer to both of
them as "loanwords" before I have decided on the direction of borrowing? If
I decide that the direction was from Kaytetye to Warlpiri, I can say that
Warlpiri wapirti is a loanword from Kaytetye, but can I say that Kaytetye
apeyte is a loanword into Warlpiri, or is there another available term? I
am aware of Crowley's proposal to use "copy" instead of "loanword", but can
this term be used symmetrically?
 
You can see that I think the working comparativist needs terms for each of
the following: (1) a word or pair of words related either by
cognation/inheritance or borrowin- a cover term (2) a word or pair of words
related by cognation /inheritance-- here "cognate" is established, (3) a
word or pair of words related by borrowing, without specification of the
direction of borrowing, (4) a word related to another by the fact that the
former is a copy of the latter-- this seems to be the focal meaning of
"loanword" (5) a word related to another by the fact that former is the
original from which the latter is a copy.
 
2. Borrowing symbols
It would be useful to try to institutionalise some symbols for specifying
borrowing in etymological entries. I have suggested and been using the
following (in contrast to > and < for inheritance):
 
A <- B: A is borrowed from /is a copy of B
A -> B: A is borrowed to become B / is copied as B
A <-> B: A and B are in a borrowing relationship of indeterminate direction.
 
Cf. H. Koch 1983, Etymology and dictionary-making for Australian languages
(with examples from Kaytej). In Peter Austin (ed.), Papers in Australian
Linguisitcs No. 15: Australian Aboriginal lexicography (Pacific Linguistics
A-66) Canberra: Dept of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies,
Australian National University; 149-173.
 
3. Symbolisation of proportional analogy
Should the various formalisms that have been used to represent proportional
analogy be given in the symbol guide, or can they all be assumed to be
understood from some other discipline?
A quick check in HL textbooks yields at least these three:
1) sow : sows = cow : x (Bloomfield)
2) stone:stones::hand:X (Arlotto)
3) stikker/stak = nikker/X (Anttila)
 
4. Ghost words
I believe the term Blaine Erickson (7 June) is seeking is traditionally
called a "ghost word" (or "mot phantome" in French).
 
Harold Koch, Senior Lecturer
Department of Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
 
Telephone:  (02) 6249 3203 (direct) / ..3026 (messages)
(overseas) 61 2 6249 3203
Fax:  (02) 6 279 8214
(overseas) 61 2 6279 8214
email:  Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Mon Jun  8 14:39:54 1998
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:39:54 EDT
Subject: Query: term
In-Reply-To: <98Jun7.005600hwt.188961(10)@uhunix5.its.Hawaii.Edu>
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.103954.EDT.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
>this question:
>
>What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
>Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
>which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
>seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
>than a...
 
 
Ghostword.
 
St. G.
 
Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu  Mon Jun  8 14:39:37 1998
From: peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu (Peter A. Michalove)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:39:37 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.103937.EDT.PETERM@HERCULES.GEOLOGY.UIUC.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ghost form?
 
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
>this question:
>
>What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
>Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
>which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
>seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
>than a...
>
>I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
>
>Best,
>
>Blaine Erickson
>erickson at hawaii.edu
 
Peter A. Michalove
peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu
Assistant to the Head
Department of Geology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
(217) 244-3190


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jun  9 18:53:42 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:53:42 EDT
Subject: Sum: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.145342.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
My query the other day about symbols and abbreviations has elicited
only a modest number of responses, but these have been extremely
useful.  I've had various suggestions for improving entries, and a
number of suggestions for further entries.  I won't bother to list
all these here, but I'm taking them all very seriously, and I'll
incorporate as many of them as I can.
 
But I do have a length limit, imposed on me by my editor on day one,
and I'm surely going to be exceeding this.  Unless I can sweet-talk
my editor into some additional space, there will have to be some hard
choices made about what to include.  All arguments for persuading
editors will be gratefully received.  I assume that, after the
initial flurry of library purchases, the book will probably sell
about 27 copies a year, and I need to persuade my editor that those
vital 27 people care more about coverage than about price.
 
After all, my HL textbook was a hundred pages over contract length,
which caused a certain amount of consternation at Arnold, but we
eventually managed to work something out without cutting anything.
 
A few general points have arisen.  For one thing, it is very clear
that there exists considerable variation in the use of certain
devices, most notably the several kinds of brackets.  Here I can do
little except to note the usages that occur.
 
For another, I now have four quite distinct uses for the double
asterisk, as follows: (1) to mark a "second-level" reconstruction,
one itself based upon reconstructions; (2) to mark a reconstruction
as doubtful (I would have thought `?*' might be preferable here); (3)
to mark a form as non-existent rather than as merely unattested; (4)
to mark a form as impossible rather than as merely non-existent.
I've received various recommendations here, and I'm listening, but
I'll still have to enter the attested uses.
 
Several people advised me to provide the full Latin forms lying behind
the various abbreviations.  OK; I can do this, though I'm not always
certain just what things like `om.' and `add.' might be abbreviating.
 
A number of people asked me to include angle brackets for orthographic
transcriptions, square brackets for phonetic transcriptions, and
slashes for phonemic transcriptions.  Well, because of space
limitations, my general policy is not to include anything typical of
general linguistics and not confined to historical work.  I'm
assuming any reader will have at least an elementary knowledge of
general linguistics (I have to assume that), and that anything
unfamiliar can readily be looked up in other reference works.  Still,
it's perhaps true that philologists use angle brackets for
orthographic renderings far more frequently than anybody else, so
I'll think about it.
 
One or two people also suggested the inclusion of Latin abbreviations
of a more general kind, like `q.v.', `sc.' and `v. supra'.  My
original intention was to exclude these, on the ground that they are
not even peculiar to linguistics, let alone to historical linguistics,
and that they can readily be looked up even in an ordinary English
dictionary.  But I'm having second thoughts.  For one thing,
philologists perhaps use these things far more regularly than do most
other people.  For another, ordinary dictionaries, I now find, are
often not particularly helpful in explaining these things.  My
favorite British dictionary defines `q.v.' as `quod vide', and then
provides no entry for `quod vide', which I consider less than
maximally illuminating.  And most dictionaries don't enter `sc.' at
all.  So maybe there's a good case for including these things.
Anyway, I have a weakness for any opportunity to harangue the world
about what I see as the proper use of `cf.': I *really* do not like
the now almost universal tendency among linguists (except
philologists) to use this thing merely to mean `see, consult'.  No
doubt I am a tedious old fart, but I have to have at least one bee in
my bonnet, even if I wind up being bracketed with Prince Charles.
 
(Yesterday Prince Charles made a speech declaring that we shouldn't
grow genetically engineered tomatoes because God doesn't want us to,
and this morning's Times gave him an editorial solemnly approving
these words of wisdom.  I only know this because the newsboy delivered
the Times this morning by mistake instead of the Guardian -- I don't
actually *read* the Times.  But I digress.)
 
The thing is that every thumbs-up either increases the length of the
book, leading to possible shouts from my editor, or forces me to
exclude something else, leading to deep depression.  Life is hard.
 
I could, of course, reverse some earlier policy decisions to make
room.  For example, at present I am trying to include brief entries
for at least the more prominent extinct ancient languages, on the
ground that many users will be particularly interested in finding out
just what the hell Ligurian or Lepontic or Amorite might be.  But
maybe there are better uses of the space.  Sigh.
 
When I started this project, one of my colleagues expressed surprise
that HL had enough terms to fill a dictionary.  Well, if any of you
out there are losing sleep over this, you can sleep soundly tonight.
IE alone has enough terms to fill a small dictionary, especially since
most of them have German equivalents often used in English (I mean,
you did want to look up `grammatischer Wechsel', now, didn't you?), and
all these youngsters are busily coining terms like `metatypy',
`exaptation', `Bill Peters effect', and `accretion zone', and you've
probably forgotten the finer points of Shaxmatov's Law, and you can't
quite remember what Polnoglasie is, and the grammaticalization people
have invented a whole battery of terms that didn't exist when I was a
student, and...and now I find that we don't even agree about what
`cognate' means (see my next summary, after I've finished marking my
next pile of exam scripts).
 
Anyway, I will be pleased to receive further suggestions (of any kind)
until well into the summer.  I hope to submit the book by the end of
August, or by the end of September at the latest.
 
My thanks to Johanna Nichols, Bobby Bryant, Richard Coates, Roger
Wright, Marisa Lohr, Peter Michalove, Max Wheeler, Jacob Baltuch,
Anna Morpurgo Davies, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Tore Janson, Richard
Krause, Sam Martin, and Richard Hogg.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca  Tue Jun  9 18:46:31 1998
From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:46:31 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
In-Reply-To: <13175178743736@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.144631.EDT.JHEWSON@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Jim Rader wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I recall that Eric Hamp avoided the use of the word <cognate> as
> a linguistics term, though I was never sure if he did so because he
> had a very narrow definition of it, or because he felt its ambiguity
> rendered it useless in precise characterization of  linguistic
> relatedness.  My own sense is that <cognate> ought to refer only to
> strict linguistic sibling relationships and to forms that are exactly
> matchable segment for segment; otherwise it's not distinct from
> <related>.  But that's only a personal predisposition.
 
The question is further complicated by the fact that borrowings, if they
take the form of calques, may also be genuine cognates. This may result in
the reconstruction of words for modern European artefacts in Amerindian or
African protolanguages that long predate European contact. Such calques
can be the result of at least two different processes, as follows.
 
1. If speakers of closely related language B borrow a word from language A
using their own phonology, they may may quite accidentally use
correspondences that are strictly historical. Cree, Fox, and Ojibway have
words for `gun, shoot with a gun' that are perfectly cognate, but if the
order of borrowing were from Fox to Ojibway to Cree, the correspondences
could be phonological accidents, given, for example, that Plains Cree
does not have the `sh' of F and O, and would automatically replace it with
`s'. Proto-Algonkian *_pa:shkesikani_ `gun'. F pa:shkesikani, O
pa:shkisikan, C. pa:skisikan.
 
2. If the transmission were different, the phonological accident is no
longer probable (O has both `shk' and `sk'), and what has happened
is that the borrowers have recognized the word formatives of the source
language and replaced them with the cognate formatives of their own:
_pa:shk_ `burst'; _esi_ `by heat'; _kani_ `nominal'.  This is clearly
what has happened with the Cree, Menomini, and Ojibway words for `church',
which are perfectly cognate, but composed of the easily recognized
formatives `prayer + building'. (Strictly speaking it is the formatives,
not the words, that are cognate).
 
English borrowed many nautical words from Dutch which were cognate, but
without calquing, so that we now have both `boom' and native `beam'. If
calquing had taken place we would have had `shipper' instead of `skipper'.
Such `uncalqued' borrowings from closely related languages are a different
kind of problem that is especially notable in the Australian data, as
pointed out by Harold Koch.
 
 
 
John Hewson                                     tel: (709)737-8131
University Research Professor                   fax: (709)737-4000
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jun  9 14:46:55 1998
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:46:55 EDT
Subject: "Ghostwords"
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.104655.EDT.RICHARDC@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Accepting Jim Rader's point that ghostwords are normally false
lemmas, some other term is needed for an "othered" form that has been
taken as a base-form (in some loose sense). If Latin-based
terminology is still widely acceptable, _abductum_ would do the
trick; it is also defensible in the light of _abduction_ as a term
for the "reasoning" which produces some of the instances.
 
Richard Coates
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jun 10 19:12:24 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 15:12:24 EDT
Subject: Sum: `cognate'
Message-ID: <WED.10.JUN.1998.151224.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In response to my query about the use of `cognate', I received the
modest total of eleven responses.  And (I'm getting used to this)
there was no consensus.  Four people endorsed the strict use of
`cognate', the sense in which no borrowing is involved.  One more
appeared to do the same, but was less explicit.  One person preferred
an even narrower sense of the term, by which cognates are only
cognate if all their segments are cognate.  But two people endorsed
the broad use of the term, by which words which are related by
borrowing may also be described as `cognate'.  The remaining
respondents took no view.
 
So I guess I must write an essay describing the multiple uses of the
term, with a cautionary note about the widespread (?) preference for
the narrower use.
 
I might mention that I already have an entry for `oblique cognates'.
Oblique cognates are words that share an ultimate common origin of
some kind but are not derived from identical etyma.  For example,
English `feather', according to Watkins, derives from PIE *<pet-ra:->,
while Greek <pteron> `wing, feather' derives from PIE *<pt-ero->, two
different formations based upon the PIE root *<pet-> `fly'.  And I
suppose the IE `tooth' words might constitute another such case, since
Latin requires PIE *<dent->, Greek and most of Germanic require PIE
*<dont->, and Gothic requires PIE *<dnt->.  This example is cited
under the entry for `tooth problem', the name of the problem which
these forms illustrate.
 
A couple of respondents drew attention to a variety of complex
scenarios, most of which have no recognized names.  There does exist,
though, the term `loan nativization', applied to cases of borrowing
from closely related languages, in which either the foreign segments
are systematically replaced by the corresponding native segments
(corresponding, that is, according to the regular systematic
correspondences between the two languages), thereby producing
something that looks wholly native, or the foreign morphemes are
systematically replaced by cognate native morphemes, thereby producing
something that looks for all the world like a purely native formation
(this is a kind of calquing).  Some of the examples cited would appear
to fall under this heading, but not all.
 
On `cognate languages', there was general agreement that this term is
no longer in regular use.  However, three people objected to our
standard term, `genetically related languages', on the ground that it
puzzles or annoys biologists and other non-linguists, and they
suggested alternative terms.  Be that as it may, `genetic
relationship' is our established term, so it has to go in, though I
can perhaps add a note pointing out the possibly misleading nature of
the term.
 
A couple of people also raised other issues which I won't pursue here,
since I have several piles of exam scripts waiting for me, and more to
come.
 
My thanks to Sally Thomason, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Claire Bowen,
Richard Coates, Roger Wright, Jim Rader, Harold Koch, Steven
Schaufele, Max Wheeler, John Hewson and Henry Hoenigswald.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jun 10 14:29:57 1998
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:29:57 EDT
Subject: *, ** and raised crosses
Message-ID: <WED.10.JUN.1998.102957.EDT.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Richard Hogg <MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk> writes:
 
> As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus
> phonetic script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and
> "**" for denying the form's existence (your point 3); could you
> enter "**" as a separate entry?
 
I recommend the raised cross for reconstructed forms (respecting,
of course, the usage of cited authors), and the asterisk for incorrect
forms. Two crosses will then mark reconstructions of the second
degree, and two asterisks, extremely bad or universally impossible
forms.
 
This is the kind of notation you more or less have to use if you move,
as I do, between historical linguistics and and grammatical description,
without wanting to become inconsistent with yourself or schizophrenic.
 
Hello, Richard!
 
Theo Vennemann
10 June 1998


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Thu Jun 11 10:53:59 1998
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 06:53:59 EDT
Subject: "Ghostwords"
In-Reply-To: <E0yjNAo-0000Zg-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.11.JUN.1998.065359.EDT.WHITING@CC.HELSINKI.FI>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 8 Jun 1998 Jim Rader <jrader at m-w.com> wrote:
>
> In lexicography entities like this are sometimes broadly referred to as
> ghost words, though that term perhaps more usually covers false lemmas
> that arise from manuscript misreadings or editorial errors.
<snip>
>
>>
<snip>
>> What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>> created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
<snip>
>>
>> Blaine Erickson
>> erickson at hawaii.edu
 
In cuneiform studies, false lemmata are often referred to as 'phantoms'
(presumably based more closely on French 'mot phantome').  False lemmata
are not infrequent in this field, usually resulting from the misreading
or misinterpretation of a cuneiform sign.  In this case, though, the
misinterpretation leading to the false lemma has not been made by
a native speaker of the language (there being none left).
 
I would see this as different, however, from a 'ghost' word such as
modern English <ye> used as an archaizing writing for 'the', but
pronounced /ye:/ (as in Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe), which is based on early
typesetters' use of <y> as the letter most closely resembling the
English letter _thorn_.  On the other hand, ye is not really a ghost
since it does have an existence, albeit a very limited one.
 
 
Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Jun 11 14:36:07 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:36:07 EDT
Subject: Q: `lemma'
Message-ID: <THU.11.JUN.1998.103607.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Me again.  This time I'm asking about the use of `lemma'.  The
general sense of this seems to be something like `a linguistic form
heading some discussion or accompanied by an explanation', but in
practice usage varies somewhat.  At the moment, I have four distinct
definitions, as follows, all of them attested somewhere:
 
1. A headword in a dictionary.
 
2. A reconstructed or attested form which serves to head a list of
linguistic forms which are descended from it.
 
3. A historically attested form representing a reconstructed form.
 
4. A cited linguistic form accompanied by a gloss.
 
Senses 2 and 3 are perhaps slightly conflicting.  For example, Calvert
Watkins, in his dictionary of PIE roots, quite explicitly defines a
lemma as a historically attested form continuing a reconstructed root,
and cites as an example the entry for PIE *<ekwo-> `horse',
represented by (1) Latin <equus> and (2) Greek <hippos>, in which the
Latin and Greek words are for Watkins the lemmas (lemmata).  Here I
would have said that *<ekwo-> was most obviously the lemma, though I
can see the point of applying the term also to each of the
subheadings, but I'm puzzled about the statement that a lemma is
"historically attested".  And, of course, in many entries some of the
enumerated subheads are themselves reconstructed, not attested, as for
example when PIE *<gwou-> `ox, bull, cow' is followed by (1)
Proto-Germanic *<ko:uz> and (2) Latin <bo:s>, among others.  By
Watkins's definition, <bo:s> is a lemma here but *<ko:uz> is not,
which appears to make very little sense.
 
On definition 4, it is not clear to me whether the intention is to
include only roots, stems and lexical items, or whether inflected
forms should also be included.  So, for example, if I cite Basque
<ikusi> `see', then <ikusi>, a lexical item in its citation form,
would be a lemma (at least for some people), but what about its
inflected form <dakusat> `I see it'?  Is <dakusat> here also a lemma?
 
All comments gratefully received.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Fri Jun 12 15:30:04 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 11:30:04 EDT
Subject: *, ** and raised crosses
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JUN.1998.113004.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The identity of * in both synchronic and diachronic studies has always
struck me as non-gratuitious.  It means "unattested" in either case.  So,
in diachrony it indicates a reconstruction, as a *relevant* unattested
form.  In synchrony it also means "unattested" in a *relevant* way,
generally on the basis of a "grammaticality" judgment (but, in the best
cases, consistent with lack of documentation of occurrence).  Otherwise it
does not come up (unless you consider "dialect" disagreements, which should
be relevant to diachrony / language change -- otherwise, they're usually
called "idiolect" disagreements) .  Because of the interests of synchrony
it remains to further interpretation as to whether or not the synchronic
use of * has diachronic implications.  It does if the *ed example
previously occurred in the language, but no longer does.  Householder, who
I think is credited with the synchronic extention of the symbol, built in
the possibility of a diachronic consideration.  I like it.  It would be
interesting if ** correlated with second-level reconstruction, as Venemann
suggests, and with "even less expected" in synchronic analyses.  But I
don't really think it's as useful as simply the single *, and it could be
misleading in its pretentions to greater precision.  -- Benji


From martinez at eucmos.sim.ucm.es  Sat Jun 13 13:02:41 1998
From: martinez at eucmos.sim.ucm.es (Javier Martinez)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 09:02:41 EDT
Subject: New Book: Celtiberian
Message-ID: <SAT.13.JUN.1998.090241.EDT.MARTINEZ@EUCMOS.SIM.UCM.ES>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
******Apologies for cross-posting*****
 
INTRODUCCION AL CELTIBERICO
by Carlos JORDAN COLERA, University of Zaragoza 1998.
With a Prologue by Francisco Villar.
 
Introduction to the Celtiberian language is the first manual of this
language to appear in the market.  As Francisco Villar writes in the
preface to the book "Its timing is perfect. This book not only will help
 
the growing community of specialists in Celtiberian but it will also be
useful to anyone who engages in philological or linguistic research on
this language. It will
help our college students in courses of Celtiberian and it will be a
useful tool for historians and researchers on Antiquity of the Iberian
Peninsula... Differences apart, this manual is to Celtiberian language
what La Lange Galoise by P.Y. Lambert is to Gaulish."
 
The book is divided in four chapters. Chapters I and II exposes the
phonetic-phonological and morphological features of the language.  Using
 
a comparative framework, the author describes the Indoeuropean, Celtic
and actual Celtiberic features, trying to define those that seem more
certain.
Additionally chapters I and II deal with the celtiberian wrinting
system.  Chapters III and IV entitled "Documents in celtiberian language
 
and paleohispanic writing system" and "Documents in celtiberian language
 
and latin alphabet" deal with the typological classification of the
documents (coins, graffitti, tombstones, documents of hospitality and
other documents).  The author proposes an ordering based on increasing
morpho-syntactic complexity. All possible readings and comments on each
of them are given as well.
The book closes with a linguistic features list, a word index and a
copious bibliography.
 
June 1988   259 pp; many illustrations
 ISBN-84-920431-6-4.
Universidad de Zaragoza


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jun 14 03:17:18 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:17:18 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0yhdy3-0005df-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SAT.13.JUN.1998.231718.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have one suggestion.  The way Larry presents the
information is misleading in one important way.
You mention each possible use of each symbol
but do not indiacte the systems of oppositions
they enter into. Thus, it may be that in philology
some people use parens for what other people mark
with square brackets, but the information that is
missing is what the systems in use are.  This would
really be useful to have, esp. for those like me
who are not too familiar with said systems.  It
would also be good to be told which systems
are more widely used or considered standard.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sun Jun 14 12:53:00 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 08:53:00 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.980613210529.4443B-100000@breakout.rs.itd.umich.edu> from "manaster@umich.edu" at Jun 13,
 98 11:17:18 pm
Message-ID: <SUN.14.JUN.1998.085300.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexis M R writes:
 
> I have one suggestion.  The way Larry presents the
> information is misleading in one important way.
> You mention each possible use of each symbol
> but do not indiacte the systems of oppositions
> they enter into. Thus, it may be that in philology
> some people use parens for what other people mark
> with square brackets, but the information that is
> missing is what the systems in use are.  This would
> really be useful to have, esp. for those like me
> who are not too familiar with said systems.  It
> would also be good to be told which systems
> are more widely used or considered standard.
 
This is a very reasonable point.  But my problem is that I am writing
a dictionary, not a handbook, and so all I can reasonably do is to
enter things alphabetically.  Entering the symbols has already proved
a nuisance, of course.  At the moment, I am entering each symbol
alphabetically under its name, and I plan to list the symbols with
their names in an introduction.  Possibly, though, it might be more
efficient to enter all the symbols in a group at the end of the
dictionary, though in this case I will lose the names unless I just
stick them in somewhat awkwardly.
 
As usual, all advice gratefully received.  But remember that I have a
length limit, and that I'm writing a dictionary.  Following up
Alexis's suggestion would probably require one or more appendices --
fine by me, but there's a limit to what I can squeeze in without
giving my editor heart failure.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Jun 15 11:02:09 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 07:02:09 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0ylCFN-0006yS-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <MON.15.JUN.1998.070209.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
How about this? In your alphabetical definitions, you
could say, "in system 1" or "in the dominant system"
or thelike, and if you choose to say "system 1",
you'd only need a very brief intro to define 1, 2,
etc.  Aside from that, if you cannot get this into
your dictionary, please consider distributing such
info online to your friends and admirers.
 
BTW, I tried to get the OED, which is planning
a whole new edition, to include non-alphabetic
signs, but they won't do it.  They also won't
include proper etymologies, or, my favorite
suggestion, definitions of linguistic terms
that make it clear that almost of them
HAVE no standard intensional definitions
anymore.  AMR
 
On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
>
> As usual, all advice gratefully received.  But remember that I have a
> length limit, and that I'm writing a dictionary.  Following up
> Alexis's suggestion would probably require one or more appendices --
> fine by me, but there's a limit to what I can squeeze in without
> giving my editor heart failure.
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From lsa at lsadc.org  Tue Jun 16 21:13:57 1998
From: lsa at lsadc.org (LSA)
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 17:13:57 EDT
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JUN.1998.171357.EDT.LSA@LSADC.ORG>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The June 1998 LSA Bulletin (No. 160) is now available at the Society's
website (http://www.lsadc.org).


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 19 16:30:12 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 12:30:12 EDT
Subject: Sum: term
In-Reply-To: <m0xsXTY-0006MiC@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JUN.1998.123012.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
since the proposition is an assumption; I don't believe anyone is going to
prove that languages are equicomplex in the near future, but the
proposition can be used to explain the phenomena you have observed.
 
 
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> A few days ago I posted a request for a term.  Once again, the
> phenomenon I wanted a name for was this: a change that leads to
> simplification in one domain often produces a simultaneous
> complication in another domain.
>
> The most familiar examples of this phenomenon, of course, involve
> phonological simplifications and morphological complications, but
> that's not the only possibility, as I perhaps should have pointed out
> in my original query.  For example, syntagmatic phonological
> simplifications can produce paradigmatic phonological complications,
> as when palatalization in palatalizing environments produces new
> marked segments, like the Czech fricative trill.  Then again,
> analogical leveling (morphological simplification) can produce new
> alternations in stems that formerly didn't alternate (morphological
> complication), as has happened in some varieties of Serbo-Croatian (if
> I'm still allowed to use that name).
>
> The motive for my query was this.  As many of you know, I am compiling
> a dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics.  Now, in
> recent years, we have coined a rather large number of terms in the
> field, and I've noticed that good names have been coined for a number
> of familiar phenomena for which we formerly had no names; examples are
> `actualization' (Timberlake), `metatypy' (Ross), `pandemic
> irregularity' (Blust), `exaptation' (Lass), and `phonogenesis'
> (Hopper), not to mention the memorable `morphanization' (Matisoff).
>
> But I haven't found a recognized name for the phenomenon I'm
> interested in here.  But, since the phenomenon, as Steven Schaufele
> has pointed out, is such a fundamental one in our field, it seems to
> me that we really ought to have a name for it.  Hence my query.
>
> Fifteen people replied, and the first thing to report is that there
> does indeed appear to be no recognized name for the phenomenon.
> Almost everyone had one or more suggestions to make, but no two people
> suggested the same term (though in one case two people came fairly
> close).  A couple of people suggested terms which they themselves had
> apparently used in print, but I guess those proposals haven't caught
> on yet.
>
> Anyway, here are the terms proposed, or most of them.  I omit a couple
> of totally facetious suggestions, and one or two which were so
> exceedingly long that I don't think they can be considered as terms.
> A couple of people, I think, thought that I was asking specifically
> for a label for the conversion of phonology into morphology, but in
> fact I have in mind something more general than that.
>
> BLINDNESS PRINCIPLE
> CODE SHIFT
> DIACHRONIC COMPENSATION
> EQUILIBRIUM
> HYDRA'S RAZOR
> LOCAL IMPROVEMENT
> LOCAL SIMPLIFICATION
> MARKEDNESS CONFLICT
> MORPHOLOGIZATION OF PHONOLOGICAL RULES
> NATURALNESS CONFLICT
> SCHLIMMBESSERUNG
> SIMPLEXIFICATION
> STURTEVANT'S PARADOX (unspecified variation on)
> TRADE-OFF
> TUNNEL VISION PRINCIPLE
>
> Right.  Now what do I do?  Call for a vote?  Organize a competition
> with five distinguished judges and a prize of two weeks in the PIE
> homeland of your choice?  Close my eyes and stick a pin?  Ask Roger
> Lass what the biologists call it?  Coin my own term and hope everybody
> buys the book and believes me?  Or should I just admit defeat and not
> include any term for this, on the not unreasonable ground that
> dictionaries shouldn't be including words that don't exist?
>
> Damned if I know.  But it *would* be nice if we had *some* name for
> this.  Otherwise, how can we persuade our students it's important if
> we haven't got a name for it?  I mean, I don't recall that so many
> Americans go hot and bothered about visiting ever more soldiers and
> bombs on the Vietnamese until somebody decided that what was happening
> was `escalation', and then suddenly escalation was a hot issue.
>
> Anyway, my thanks to Jacob Baltuch, Vit Bubenik, Miguel Carrasquer
> Vidal, John Costello, Guy Deutscher, Hans-Olav Engel, Ralf-Stefan
> Georg, Harold Koch, Bh. Krishnamurti, Paul Lloyd, Gary Miller, Steven
> Schaufele, Theo Vennemann, Benji Wald, and Roger Wright.
>
> (Hey -- how come no women?)
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 19 22:11:15 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 18:11:15 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b04af54a94ba722@[128.97.154.193]>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JUN.1998.181115.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The following is a belated response to the problems that you raised. I
hope that it helps or at least does not add to the existing confusion.
 
In discussing the meaning of a term like 'genetic relationship' it helps
to distinguish between our theory of what it is and (on the other hand)
what we do to demonstrate why we should believe that a genetic
relationship exists between two or more languages. Theoretically (and by
definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
language. To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
the original unitary language.
 
Collateral similarities not organized as systematic
correspondences are not acceptable evidence of separate continuations of
an earlier unitary language. We do not know enough about the distributions
of phonemic similarities. Presumably if we did, we might be able to
provide an estimate of the value of the Greenbergian collections.
Systematic correspondences adhered to rigorously, allowing nevertheless
for deviant correspondences attributable to metathesis or analogic change
among some others, provide an approach to a qualitative collection of
evidence for a genetic interrelationship. The collection must be of
sufficient magnitude and/or quality to exclude any possibility
of being attributed to chance or borrowing. Similarity correspondences
between homosemantic or homeosemantic pairs of items do not escape the
likelihood of being due to chance. The hypothesis of interrelationship is
an explanation of collateral correspondences, or, if you wish, is
an inference from the collection of items paired by satisfying the demand
for collateral correspondences.
 
Greenberg's organization of African languages into four families was
successful because it could be shown that their respective linguistic
material exhibit collateral correspondences. The
fact that he was led to his conclusion through what he calls 'mass
comparison' based on apparent similarities is beside the point, though it
suggests the possiblity (not the likelihood, which is required in
scientific determinations) that there might be a relationship.
However speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk. A
language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of pairs
of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
with any of theirs. In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
inheritances'. The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
innovations, the latter including borrowings.
The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
not mix (under natural circumstances). Creoles are either aberrant
dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
different languages if they are not. In the latter case its first native
speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
languages that contributed linguistic material to it. (Of course it is
conceivable that today we might be able to concoct a dialect chain to
connect two contemporary languages, but it is hard to see what purpose it
would serve and therefore why we should carry that possiblity into our
method.)
 
 
 
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, benji wald wrote:
 
> There is a point about "genetic relationship" that I think is worth
> considering, because I think both sides on various controversies about it
> tend to ignore it.  To begin with, we can take Ruhlen Merritt's fallacious
> argument that reconstruction presupposes genetic relationship, which he
> takes to mean that genetic relationship has already been "established"
> before comparative reconstruction can begin.  For him it is established on
> the basis of the kinds of Greenbergian mass comparisons which have figured
> (or been attempted to figure) most recently in this list in the discussion
> of the relationship between Dravidian and the African families -- and,
> admittedly, in Greenberg's division of African languages into four genetic
> families, now generally accepted -- but not without further testing and
> refinement.  Against the mass comparison method, other historical linguists
> have inevitably argued about the confounding effects of borrowing and
> chance resemblances.  My thought, as follows, is that when we talk about
> genetic relationships among LANGUAGES, rather than parts of the lexicon,
> morphology etc etc, both sides obscure something.
>
> Thus, first, against Merritt's argument.  He's absolutely wrong.  Mass
> comparison gives the basis for a genetic HYPOTHESIS.  Comparative
> reconstruction TESTS that hypothesis.  Without it nothing has been proven,
> not genetic relationship, borrowing or chance resemblance.
>
> Next, to the extent that a comparative reconstruction is successful it does
> NOT demonstrate that the "languages" involved are genetically related, but
> only that those PARTS of the languages which are reconstructed are
> genetically related.  Of course, it provides confidence that other parts of
> those languages are also genetically related, but, again, that is only
> DEMONSTRATED when reliable comparative reconstruction is performed on those
> other parts.  Otherwise, it remains only a possibility.  Creoles and mized
> languages show that genetic relationship of some parts of a set of
> languages do not always presuppose that other parts of the same languages
> are necessarily GENETICALLY related.  And indeed, it is well-known that all
> languages borrow as well as genetically inherit.
>
> Thus, speaking about genetic relationship among "languages" as "wholes" is
> loose talk.  The internal structure of trees intending to show branching
> genetic relationships are always a problem because different parts of a set
> of languages are not always related in the same way.  Innovations begin in
> different areas and have different spreads according to the time of contact
> and subsequent events.  This is well-known from dialect geography, but adds
> confusion to arguments about genetic relationship.  Sometimes, it does
> little harm, but when we are in the mass comparison stage, it can result in
> much futile argument.
>
> Having said this, I admit that the poor quality of Winter's data and
> arguments have been worth pointing out.  But I see no reason to postpone my
> thoughts until more competent proposals flare up.
> --  Benji
>


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Sat Jun 20 20:07:42 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 16:07:42 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <SAT.20.JUN.1998.160742.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
of native speakers". If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers? Then you've
got a break in the succession right there. Why worry about "speakers"
in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
as a relatioship between *systems* without worrying about the details of
the transmission.


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 22 18:08:50 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 14:08:50 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b02b1b346779cd7@[128.97.208.83]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.140850.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> Isidore Dyen writes:
>
> >Theoretically (and by
> >definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
> >separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
> >language.
>
> The distinction between "unitary" and "uniform" leads to problems, as we'll
> see.  For the moment, I suppose that "not uniform" is mentioned because all
> observable "languages" are of that kind.  At the same time, most of them
> are assumed to have evolved from a single "system".  Already some hedging
> is necessary since it is problematic that "Black English/Ebonics" or
> whatever you call it, is descended "unitarily" along with "the King's
> English" (and "Webster's"), and Sranan is so different that from most
> "Englishes" that the issue doesn't even arise in a useful way.
 
The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
Perhaps you would prefer a new term like 'hololect' instead of the term
language; a hololect is unitary and composed of dialects. Dialects are
connected ot each other in a hololect through a chain of pairs of mutually
intelligible dialects. This is our or at least my conception of the
way the realm of the world's language can be viewed and i it is in this
sence that they are wholes. It does not matter to me whether you find this
interesting or not, but if I then assume that this type of realm has
persisted from the origination of languages through a succession of native
speakers, I can make inferences about the history of languages
including to some extent the shapes that appeared in their earlier
stages. Again it does not matter whether you consider this interesting.
Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
sense and are thus irrelevant.
Another assumption is that there are different hololects in our world.
Chinese and English are different hololects. Likewise English and German
are different hololects. The fact that from a practical point of view the
meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
languages.
Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
These assumptions can be regarded as part of a set of definitions and
theories that permit us to deal with the past of languages. They are not
all the assumptions. More will appear.
 
 
> Dyen continues:
>
> >To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
> >same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
> >correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
> >them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
> >stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
> >collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
> >the original unitary language.
>
> Fine.  And collateral correspondences work for much of the BE and Sranan
> *lexicon* with other "English".  But the "whole" I referred to that Dyen
> quotes (see below) includes morphology, syntax etc, for which BE is
> problematic in some cases, and Sranan is more generally unlikely (and no
> one tries to derive Sranan syntax from Old English, let alone
> Indo-European).
>
> (NB.  I'm taking liberties with Sranan as "English" for the sake of Dyen's
> points on  genetic relationship, since no one considers Sranan "English"
> (as far as I know, certainly not the speakers, or those familiar with the
> language).  Maybe we should be discussing whether "Flemish" is "Dutch"?  Or
> whether Catalan and Provencal are the "same" language?  I'm anticipating
> Dyen's mutual intelligibility criterion for a "unitary" "language"
> (discussed below).
>
> Dyen goes on to later say:
>
> >...speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk.
>
> I said it was, with respect to the assumption of genetic relationship on
> the basis of partial reconstruction (usually of some lexical material),
> which is what he is responding to in context .  He immediately continues to
> say
>
> > A  language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of
 pairs
> >of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
> >each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
> >with any of theirs.
>
> The last statement is false.  There is no way to set a boundary to
> distinguish one "language" from *some* other on the basis of mutual
> intelligibility.  There is no "technical" sense of the word "language" that
> can do this in practice, i.e., that corresponds to something observable
> and/or, in some way, testable.  It is a vacuous attempt at a definition of
> "language" (in a "technical" sense).  Historical linguists do not concern
> themselves technically with the notion of "mutual intelligibility".  As
> soon as we have lack of "uniformity" we already have the possibility
> (indeed the virtual certainty) of "mutual unintelligbility" on some point
> or other.  That has nothing to do with whether we are dealing with two
> "languages" or two "dialects" of ONE language.  The claim made in the last
> statement is not helpful, as far as I can see.  Is it meant to apply to the
> difference between obviously distinct languages like "English" and
> "Chinese" and/or to distinct related branches like "Slavic" and "Germanic"?
> That is not a problem, and it is not related to the problems I raised
> above.
>
  See my comments above.
 
> Meanwhile, he continues:
>
> >In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
> >'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
> >'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
> >inheritances'.
>
> Obviously "languages" descend from "wholes".  The problem is that their
> parts may descend from the parts of different "wholes", and to some extent
> they always do. Just how much of a "language" continues the "whole" of some
> earlier single language is determined by extensive research -- never
> completed, but sometimes overwhelmingly favoring one former "whole" over
> others.  My point was that you don't know how much of an observed language
> descends from some former single "whole" until you do the research.  The
> historical literature on syntax, and to a lesser extent on phonology, is
> loaded with suggestions about "borrowing" as motivation or actuation for
> this or that change.  That already presupposes (not always validly) that
> "inheritance" has already been established for relevant, though different,
> points.  "Relevant but different", now how does that work?  The most
> vulnerable assumption, I think Dyen would concede, is that if much
> vocabulary and even some morphology, is shared by two "languages" then they
> *must be* genetically related as WHOLES even if most of their syntaxes are
> historically unrelated.  (The "bad" literature, e.g., attempting to
> exclusively derive peculiarities of Afrikaans from random localised Dutch
> dialects, or BE from random localised British dialects, shows the dogmatic
> operation of such assumptions; they turn out to be historically
> problematic, and the least that can be said is that they show that whatever
> changes they are used to explain are presumably "possible" *internal*
> changes in the some variety of the "language" at issue.  Beyond that, a
> factual historical account of the evolution of the varieties in question
> remains problematic, once the methodological dogma is dismissed as
> misleading.)
 
 
If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
the first nad only language) in the world. I sympathize with our
impatience with certain types of attribution, but this should only
motivate you to do better.
 >
> Next,
> >The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
> >innovations, the latter including borrowings.
>
> No conceptual problem here.  Much practical problem.
>
> >The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
> >represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
> >succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
> >the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
>
> As might be assumed from what I said above, this is not an interesting or
> even practical criterion for "language".  It only serves my suspicion that
> Dyen has major = unproblematic branching in a tree model in mind.  The
> changes themselves are what's most interesting in historical linguistics,
> and what one change has to do with another -- if anything -- often a
> difficult problem to solve.  This has nothing to do with the difference
> between "dialects" and "languages", I repeat here for emphasis.  Of course,
> loss of mutual intelligibility with time, presumably accumulation of
> changes, is also interesting, but has hardly been studied.  As I said
> before, it is particularly interesting to study within a SINGLE "language".
> Branching becomes problematic when one branch shares features mutually
> excluded between two other branches and both are innovative features.  Then
> we have a branching problem which is identical to the ubiquitous branching
> problems in classifying "mutually intelligible" dialects of a single
> "language".
>
> >It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
> >not mix (under natural circumstances).
>
> That assumption is known not to be valid, notwithstanding the resistance
> that cannot resist asserting that mixture is "rare". (Since code-switching
> is extremely common, the assertion seems to claim that mixture does not
> arise from grammatically conditioned code-switching.)  BTW, without pencil
> and paper, mixing can only occur under natural circumstances.  One cannot
> intentionally spontaneously mix languages the way they have arisen in
> nature, e.g., Michif, Aleut-Russian, whatever, i.e., switch between
> languages on the basis of the grammatical category.
>
> Creoles are either aberrant
> >dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
> >different languages if they are not.
>
> What "chain"?  Is this the chain of mutual intelligibility?  If so, how
> does that have anything to do with the "unitary" origin of the "creole"
> within that chain?  Maybe Dyen is thinking of some kind of relatively
> radical "restructuring" which he might insist on viewing as "internal
> change" and thus continuation of a unitary "language".  Otherwise, what's
> the point?
>
The point is to maintain the nature ot the hololect. The term creole is
applied to some dialects that are, though aberrant still part of a large
whole by virtue of being connected to it by pairs of mutually intelligible
speakers whereas others are not.
 
> >In the latter case its first native
> >speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
> >languages that contributed linguistic material to it.
>
> I'm not sure what the point of this consideration is.  Is it about
> "convergence", which I suppose from Dyen's perspective is cumulative
> borrowing from the base to the creole?  Again, in the case of Hawaiian
> Pidgin, i.e., an English-based creole, that is not the case any more than
> it is the case for all kinds of dialects of English regardless of their
> ancestry.  And in practical terms we must now realise that "mutual
> intelligibility" is a theoretical notion which has not been defined in
> Dyen's perspective.  It remains to be seen, for example, whether some
> English-speaking area in the Midwest US would find "Hawaiian Pidgin" or
> Glasgow (working class) English more difficult to understand.  And it does
> not strike me that the results would be relevant to Dyen's proposal.  Would
> they refute it if Glasgow was more difficult to understand than Hawaiian P?
> To take an extreme example, a makeshift pidgin based on English would
> probably be easier to understand for a relevant group of English-speakers
> than Glasgow English for comparable messages.  Yet, such a pidgin as a
> WHOLE hardly descends from (Old) English (indeed a makeshift pidgin is not
> a "whole" in the sense that any historical language is, or in any sense
> amenable to linguistic analysis), while, for the sake of argument, Glasgow
> English as a WHOLE does descend from (Old) English.
 
No. The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
least one and so a dialect of that one.
Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
 
A child born into such an environment might acquire that pidgin as his
first language, thus introducing it as a member of the native languages of
the world. We have no record of the appearance of such languages prior to
the period of colonialism.
 
> I appreciate Dyen's attempt to articulate the traditional assumptions of
> "genetic relationship", but I question the success of that attempt.  I find
> the part about "mutual intelligibility" least succesful, and unnecessary.
> -- Benji
>
See discussion above. Enjoy. ID.


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 22 15:19:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 11:19:42 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v01530504b1b1bfebe6b6@[194.134.29.16]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.111942.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
I wonder how you think languages continue in exicstence if not through a
succession of native speakers. Do y;ou think that Latin continued as a
spoken language to be considered on a par with French through Church or
medieval Latin? Do you think that linguists do not make d distinction
between a language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic linguistics
be regarded as applying to artificial languages? To dead languages after
death? I am looking forqward to your replies. ID
 
 
 
On Sat, 20 Jun 1998, Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Isidore Dyen wrote:
>
> >The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
> >represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
> >succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
> >the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
>
> What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
> it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
> of native speakers". If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
> did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
> French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers? Then you've
> got a break in the succession right there. Why worry about "speakers"
> in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
> as a relatioship between *systems* without worrying about the details of
> the transmission.
>


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Mon Jun 22 14:39:58 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:39:58 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v01530504b1b1bfebe6b6@[194.134.29.16]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103958.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Dr Baltuch was sceptical of the following:
 
>>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
But this seems right, surely.
 
>What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
>it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
>of native speakers".
 
Yes, indeed it did.
 
>If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
>did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
>French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers?
 
This used to be assumed, yes, but unfortunately research into the
evidence (rather than the theory) hasn't supported it. Indeed, it seems
probable that these "substratum" effects were lessening as time went on,
and the Latin of the Roman Empire showed less such divergence at the end
of the Empire than it had at its start. Considerable evolution, of
course, but not such divergence as to disturb communication, and quite
possibly convergence. Mutual intelligibility over a wide area seems
(from the historical evidence) to have applied for several centuries
after that. (Mutual intelligibility does not mean total similarity, of
course). So, since I agree with Professor Dyen here, I wouldn't want to
refer to "French" till long after the initial Gaulish-Latin-learning
scenario envisaged above.
        If we want to blame the emergence of French onto non-Latin
speakers (and most of us don't), then Franks are a better bet than
Gauls; if we wish to use Romance as a case study, almost any Romance
language is a better example than French (which is a special case for
several reasons).
 
> Why worry about "speakers"
>in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
>as a relationship between *systems* without worrying about the details
>of the transmission.
 
Because we are talking about real people here, that's why.
                                                                RW


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Mon Jun 22 14:39:06 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:39:06 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103906.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen writes:
 
>Theoretically (and by
>definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
>separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
>language.
 
The distinction between "unitary" and "uniform" leads to problems, as we'll
see.  For the moment, I suppose that "not uniform" is mentioned because all
observable "languages" are of that kind.  At the same time, most of them
are assumed to have evolved from a single "system".  Already some hedging
is necessary since it is problematic that "Black English/Ebonics" or
whatever you call it, is descended "unitarily" along with "the King's
English" (and "Webster's"), and Sranan is so different that from most
"Englishes" that the issue doesn't even arise in a useful way.
 
Dyen continues:
 
>To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
>same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
>correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
>them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
>stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
>collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
>the original unitary language.
 
Fine.  And collateral correspondences work for much of the BE and Sranan
*lexicon* with other "English".  But the "whole" I referred to that Dyen
quotes (see below) includes morphology, syntax etc, for which BE is
problematic in some cases, and Sranan is more generally unlikely (and no
one tries to derive Sranan syntax from Old English, let alone
Indo-European).
 
(NB.  I'm taking liberties with Sranan as "English" for the sake of Dyen's
points on  genetic relationship, since no one considers Sranan "English"
(as far as I know, certainly not the speakers, or those familiar with the
language).  Maybe we should be discussing whether "Flemish" is "Dutch"?  Or
whether Catalan and Provencal are the "same" language?  I'm anticipating
Dyen's mutual intelligibility criterion for a "unitary" "language"
(discussed below).
 
Dyen goes on to later say:
 
>...speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk.
 
I said it was, with respect to the assumption of genetic relationship on
the basis of partial reconstruction (usually of some lexical material),
which is what he is responding to in context .  He immediately continues to
say
 
> A  language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of pairs
>of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
>each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
>with any of theirs.
 
The last statement is false.  There is no way to set a boundary to
distinguish one "language" from *some* other on the basis of mutual
intelligibility.  There is no "technical" sense of the word "language" that
can do this in practice, i.e., that corresponds to something observable
and/or, in some way, testable.  It is a vacuous attempt at a definition of
"language" (in a "technical" sense).  Historical linguists do not concern
themselves technically with the notion of "mutual intelligibility".  As
soon as we have lack of "uniformity" we already have the possibility
(indeed the virtual certainty) of "mutual unintelligbility" on some point
or other.  That has nothing to do with whether we are dealing with two
"languages" or two "dialects" of ONE language.  The claim made in the last
statement is not helpful, as far as I can see.  Is it meant to apply to the
difference between obviously distinct languages like "English" and
"Chinese" and/or to distinct related branches like "Slavic" and "Germanic"?
That is not a problem, and it is not related to the problems I raised
above.
 
Meanwhile, he continues:
 
>In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
>'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
>'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
>inheritances'.
 
Obviously "languages" descend from "wholes".  The problem is that their
parts may descend from the parts of different "wholes", and to some extent
they always do. Just how much of a "language" continues the "whole" of some
earlier single language is determined by extensive research -- never
completed, but sometimes overwhelmingly favoring one former "whole" over
others.  My point was that you don't know how much of an observed language
descends from some former single "whole" until you do the research.  The
historical literature on syntax, and to a lesser extent on phonology, is
loaded with suggestions about "borrowing" as motivation or actuation for
this or that change.  That already presupposes (not always validly) that
"inheritance" has already been established for relevant, though different,
points.  "Relevant but different", now how does that work?  The most
vulnerable assumption, I think Dyen would concede, is that if much
vocabulary and even some morphology, is shared by two "languages" then they
*must be* genetically related as WHOLES even if most of their syntaxes are
historically unrelated.  (The "bad" literature, e.g., attempting to
exclusively derive peculiarities of Afrikaans from random localised Dutch
dialects, or BE from random localised British dialects, shows the dogmatic
operation of such assumptions; they turn out to be historically
problematic, and the least that can be said is that they show that whatever
changes they are used to explain are presumably "possible" *internal*
changes in the some variety of the "language" at issue.  Beyond that, a
factual historical account of the evolution of the varieties in question
remains problematic, once the methodological dogma is dismissed as
misleading.)
 
Next,
>The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
>innovations, the latter including borrowings.
 
No conceptual problem here.  Much practical problem.
 
>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
As might be assumed from what I said above, this is not an interesting or
even practical criterion for "language".  It only serves my suspicion that
Dyen has major = unproblematic branching in a tree model in mind.  The
changes themselves are what's most interesting in historical linguistics,
and what one change has to do with another -- if anything -- often a
difficult problem to solve.  This has nothing to do with the difference
between "dialects" and "languages", I repeat here for emphasis.  Of course,
loss of mutual intelligibility with time, presumably accumulation of
changes, is also interesting, but has hardly been studied.  As I said
before, it is particularly interesting to study within a SINGLE "language".
Branching becomes problematic when one branch shares features mutually
excluded between two other branches and both are innovative features.  Then
we have a branching problem which is identical to the ubiquitous branching
problems in classifying "mutually intelligible" dialects of a single
"language".
 
>It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
>not mix (under natural circumstances).
 
That assumption is known not to be valid, notwithstanding the resistance
that cannot resist asserting that mixture is "rare". (Since code-switching
is extremely common, the assertion seems to claim that mixture does not
arise from grammatically conditioned code-switching.)  BTW, without pencil
and paper, mixing can only occur under natural circumstances.  One cannot
intentionally spontaneously mix languages the way they have arisen in
nature, e.g., Michif, Aleut-Russian, whatever, i.e., switch between
languages on the basis of the grammatical category.
 
Creoles are either aberrant
>dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
>different languages if they are not.
 
What "chain"?  Is this the chain of mutual intelligibility?  If so, how
does that have anything to do with the "unitary" origin of the "creole"
within that chain?  Maybe Dyen is thinking of some kind of relatively
radical "restructuring" which he might insist on viewing as "internal
change" and thus continuation of a unitary "language".  Otherwise, what's
the point?
 
>In the latter case its first native
>speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
>languages that contributed linguistic material to it.
 
I'm not sure what the point of this consideration is.  Is it about
"convergence", which I suppose from Dyen's perspective is cumulative
borrowing from the base to the creole?  Again, in the case of Hawaiian
Pidgin, i.e., an English-based creole, that is not the case any more than
it is the case for all kinds of dialects of English regardless of their
ancestry.  And in practical terms we must now realise that "mutual
intelligibility" is a theoretical notion which has not been defined in
Dyen's perspective.  It remains to be seen, for example, whether some
English-speaking area in the Midwest US would find "Hawaiian Pidgin" or
Glasgow (working class) English more difficult to understand.  And it does
not strike me that the results would be relevant to Dyen's proposal.  Would
they refute it if Glasgow was more difficult to understand than Hawaiian P?
To take an extreme example, a makeshift pidgin based on English would
probably be easier to understand for a relevant group of English-speakers
than Glasgow English for comparable messages.  Yet, such a pidgin as a
WHOLE hardly descends from (Old) English (indeed a makeshift pidgin is not
a "whole" in the sense that any historical language is, or in any sense
amenable to linguistic analysis), while, for the sake of argument, Glasgow
English as a WHOLE does descend from (Old) English.
 
I appreciate Dyen's attempt to articulate the traditional assumptions of
"genetic relationship", but I question the success of that attempt.  I find
the part about "mutual intelligibility" least succesful, and unnecessary.
-- Benji


From msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il  Mon Jun 22 14:36:09 1998
From: msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il (Daniel Baum)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:36:09 EDT
Subject: Suggestion for new Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103609.EDT.MSDBAUM@MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
If anyone would be interested in subscribing to, and participating in, a new
list, devoted to Indo-Iranian linguistics i.e. Vedic and Avestan phonology,
morphology, syntax and text linguistics, etc. I would be willing to set it
up and look after it.
 
I personally, as an (apprentice) Indo-Iranist and Vedicist have always felt
that such a list is missing. If anyone else feels the same, I would be happy
to fill the gap.
 
Daniel Baum
msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il
Home Page http://www.angelfire.com/il/dbaum
Tel: ++972-2-583-6634; Mob. ++972-51-972-829


From d_anderson at indo-european.org  Mon Jun 22 14:35:39 1998
From: d_anderson at indo-european.org (Deborah W. Anderson)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:35:39 EDT
Subject: IE Bulletin
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103539.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A new issue of the INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIES BULLETIN (formerly "IE
Newsletter") has appeared.  It contains news, listings of new books,
upcoming conferences and summer schools, new electronic resources for
IE, IE books available for review in Word and Language as well as
essays.
 
Among the essays in the May/June 1998 issue are:
-- "A Review of Recent Armenological Research" by Bert Vaux
--  "Recent Developments in Venetic" by Rex Wallace
--  "The Kangjiashimenzi Petroglyphs in Western China" by Jeannine
Davis-Kimball
 
Other short reports:
--highlights of the Special Session on Indo-European Subbgrouping and
Internal Relations (held as part of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Meeting, Feb. 14, 1998) by Andrew Garrett --summary of the Tagung on
the Carian-Greek Bilingual from Kaunos (October 31-November 1, 1997,
Feusisberg, Switzerland) by H. Craig Melchert --brief review of
_Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture_ (ed. by J. P. Mallory and D.
Q. Adams) by Alfred Bammesberger
 
The Bulletin is officially affiliated with the Indo-European Studies
program at UCLA.  Contribution levels (which pay for this bi-annual
newsletter and support IE activities) are $10 for students, $20 for
others ($25 for those outside the continental U.S.).   Checks should
be made payable to "FAIES/UCLA Foundation" and sent to: FAIES, 2143
Kelton Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90025.  Credit cards are also accepted.
Eurochecks are not being accepted at this time.
 
For further information, please contact:
dwanders at socrates.berkeley.edu.


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Tue Jun 23 02:11:06 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 22:11:06 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.221106.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
>I wonder how you think languages continue in exicstence if not through a
>succession of native speakers. Do y;ou think that Latin continued as a
>spoken language to be considered on a par with French through Church or
>medieval Latin? Do you think that linguists do not make d distinction
>between a language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
>one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic linguistics
>be regarded as applying to artificial languages? To dead languages after
>death? I am looking forqward to your replies. ID
 
I had gotten this first and answered it in email. I didn't realize it
was also being posted and didn't keep my email answer to Isidore Dyen.
If he wishes, he may post it and answer it here.
 
I don't know if this is worth so much discussion. If you don't like
French, think of the relationship between biblical Hebrew and modern
Hebrew. Is it a genetic relationship? If transmission thru native
speakers is a requisite for a genetic relationship to exist, then the
answer should clearly be negative. Is that what most linguists would say?
That modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language but an isolate?


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Tue Jun 23 16:16:47 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 12:16:47 EDT
Subject: Q: term
In-Reply-To: <m0xr1yG-0006MXC@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JUN.1998.121647.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At the risk of being repetitious (since I believe I have made the
suggestion elsewhere I suggest that you use the term 'equicomplexity
theory'.
 
 
On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I'm looking for a term.  The phenomenon in question is extremely
> familiar, but I don't know of an accepted name for it.
>
> The phenomenon is this: a linguistic change which simplifies one
> subsystem of a language may complicate another subsystem.
>
> A typical example is the history of Spanish mid vowels.  Earlier
> Spanish had two low-mid vowels and two high-mid vowels; the low-mid
> vowels were *automatically* diphthongized under stress, while the
> high-mid vowels were not.  But then the two low-mid vowels merged
> with the two higher ones.  This change simplified the phonological
> system by removing two phonemes, but it greatly complicated the
> morphology: the formerly automatic and transparent diphthongizations
> became totally unpredictable and opaque, since some instances of the
> new /e/ and /o/ diphthongized while others did not.
>
> Does anybody know of an accepted label for this phenomenon, which I
> suppose we might elevate to the status of a "principle"?  If not,
> wuld anybody like to propose one?
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> England
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Tue Jun 23 22:18:14 1998
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (Ed Robertson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:18:14 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JUN.1998.181814.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen asks:
 
> Do you think that linguists do not make distinction between a
> language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
> one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic
> linguistics be regarded as applying to artificial languages?
> To dead languages after death?
 
It cannot be true to say that languages with no native speakers
are not alive. When Neo-Melanesian was a pidgin it couldn't have
been anything else than alive. When it became a creole with
native speakers it did so by historical linguistic processes which
involved a continuity of speakers who were not necessarily native.
 
Genetic linguistics also applies in certain cases to languages of
'artificial' origin. Although the first documented instance of a
native speaker of Esperanto is 1910, Ido came into existence three
years earlier. This largely involved people who were previously
fluent speakers of Esperanto, and the *inheritance* of a central
lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic language core
from its parent. (Ido's very name ('offspring') underlines this
fact). Like languages of 'natural' origin, this inherited core was
modified by borrowing, planning, and plain ordinary change.
 
The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
(but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
on other languages.
 
In the case of the revival of Cornish, where there is virtually no
historical continuity in terms of speakers between late medieval
Cornish and the revived version, I think we have to say that the
revived version is only 'influenced' by its predecessor, however
similar it might be. But we can say that the three competing versions
of 20th century Cornish are genetically related to one another,
because both 'Modern' Cornish and 'Common' Cornish were created by
fluent (non-native) speakers of 'Unified' Cornish.
 
Ed. Robertson
ERobert52 at aol.com


From Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl  Wed Jun 24 11:03:45 1998
From: Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl (Wouter Kusters)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:03:45 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.94.980619101203.7858A-100000@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.070345.EDT.WOUTER.KUSTERS@LET.UVA.NL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
> Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
> languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
> equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
> introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
> elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
> equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
> since the proposition is an assumption;
 
I wonder in what sense this can be called a theory when what is proposed
is not more than a kind of dogma: All languages must be equally complex.
When it were a theory it would be embedded and connected to other
theories, further it should be falsifiable, which it is probably not. There
are many examples of language changes which are obviously simplifying (cf.
Trudgill 1992, etc. on Scandinavian cases, Werner 1987 on Germanic,
Andersen 1988 on diverse European languages and dialects, Muhlhausler,
Thurston 1992(?) on Melanesian, Versteegh on Arabic varieties, and so on)
But of course if you want to stick to such a kind of 'theory' you can
always claim that 'somewhere' in the grammar, phonology, semantics or
even pragmatics there MUST be an opposite change towards more complexity.
So the theory of equicomplexity is either unfalsifiable either false.
 
Further I would be very interested in a mechanism which can measure the
amount of complexity in a whole language and which can cause the
same amount of complexity to appear or disappear elsewhere. If this
mechanism is anyway connected to the capacity of the brain, I would be
interested in how proponents of the equicomplexity theory handle
bilingualism.
 
 
 
Wouter Kusters
University of Amsterdam


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Wed Jun 24 19:54:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:54:42 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.980624122102.7937C-100000@cclsun01>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155442.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I regard a theory as a proposition that is assumptive in nature and
concerns change in the universe. Of course in linguistic science we
restrict our interest ot the changes of languages. I recognize that for
some, perhaps all linguistic scientists, and perhaps all scientists, my
view of the nature of a theory may be regarded as heretical, useless, or
worse, but I believe it is helpful to distinguish between theory as I have
defined it, and hypothesis.
I define a hypothesis as a proposition that explains data on the basis of
a theory and go on to distingusih hypotheses that are inferences from
those which are speculative. An inference is a hypothesis that is superior
to any other hypothesis that is claimed to explain the same data, whereas
a speculation does not have this characteristic.
 
It is in this sense that the equicomplexity of (natural) languages is a
theory. It can be the basis to explain the type of phenomenon that was
brought up for discussion. Its general utility is one that needs to be
tested in the form of the hypotheses that can be based on it, one of which
you have suggested. I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
based is not worth proposing.
 
The measurement of a language for any purpose--i.e. regardless of the
theory of equicomplexity--is a complex matter itself. We think of some
languages as being more complex than others, usually the ones we think of
as more difficult than others, so that it is very common to think f one's
own language as easy and others as difficult.
 
Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
equation.
 
Your question about bilingualism should go on to raise the question of
trilingualism, quatrilingualism and so on. But then there is no test by
which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of hhis two
languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
matter, more.
At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
worse languages. What we do have are languages that have fared morfe
successfully in competition with other languages, but are no better than
the less successful languages. On this basis we could form a theory of the
equioptimality (or equipessimality) of languages, to which in any case I
subscribe.
 
 
 
On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Wouter Kusters wrote:
 
>
>
> On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Isidore Dyen wrote:
>
> > ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> > I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
> > Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
> > languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
> > equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
> > introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
> > elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
> > equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
> > since the proposition is an assumption;
>
> I wonder in what sense this can be called a theory when what is proposed
> is not more than a kind of dogma: All languages must be equally complex.
> When it were a theory it would be embedded and connected to other
> theories, further it should be falsifiable, which it is probably not. There
> are many examples of language changes which are obviously simplifying (cf.
> Trudgill 1992, etc. on Scandinavian cases, Werner 1987 on Germanic,
> Andersen 1988 on diverse European languages and dialects, Muhlhausler,
> Thurston 1992(?) on Melanesian, Versteegh on Arabic varieties, and so on)
> But of course if you want to stick to such a kind of 'theory' you can
> always claim that 'somewhere' in the grammar, phonology, semantics or
> even pragmatics there MUST be an opposite change towards more complexity.
> So the theory of equicomplexity is either unfalsifiable either false.
>
> Further I would be very interested in a mechanism which can measure the
> amount of complexity in a whole language and which can cause the
> same amount of complexity to appear or disappear elsewhere. If this
> mechanism is anyway connected to the capacity of the brain, I would be
> interested in how proponents of the equicomplexity theory handle
> bilingualism.
>
>
>
> Wouter Kusters
> University of Amsterdam
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Wed Jun 24 19:53:49 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:53:49 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <6f610d61.3590280e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155349.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 ERobert52 at aol.com wrote:
 
It may help if I say that I view the origin of creole languages as the
birth of a new language, not a continuation of any (or either) of the
languages that have contributed to its formation. The basis of this view
is precisely that the first native speaker is not mutually intelligible
with any other native speaker, though obviously mutually intelligible with
other speakers for whom it is a secondary language. [Please note the
restriction to creole languages; creole dialects are still connected with
non-creole dialects in a common language.]
 
There is nothing sacred in a definition, but what is desirable is one that
works. I restrict the term 'genetic relationship' to native languages,
i.e. non-artificial languages. Cornish does not lose its genetic
relationship because it was revived, but it nay matter at some point
whether the Cornish feature was present in its first native state or
found only in its revived state. The same can be said of Hebrew; a revived
language can not be regarded as a continyous language in principle even if
for some purposes the difference may turn out not to matter.It seems
obvious that the genetic relationship of Cornish and Hebrew depends on
their first state of continuity, not their revival.
 
 > Isidore Dyen asks:
>
> > Do you think that linguists do not make distinction between a
> > language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
> > one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic
> > linguistics be regarded as applying to artificial languages?
> > To dead languages after death?
>
> It cannot be true to say that languages with no native speakers
> are not alive. When Neo-Melanesian was a pidgin it couldn't have
> been anything else than alive. When it became a creole with
> native speakers it did so by historical linguistic processes which
> involved a continuity of speakers who were not necessarily native.
>
> Genetic linguistics also applies in certain cases to languages of
> 'artificial' origin. Although the first documented instance of a
> native speaker of Esperanto is 1910, Ido came into existence three
> years earlier. This largely involved people who were previously
> fluent speakers of Esperanto, and the *inheritance* of a central
> lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic language core
> from its parent. (Ido's very name ('offspring') underlines this
> fact). Like languages of 'natural' origin, this inherited core was
> modified by borrowing, planning, and plain ordinary change.
>
> The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
> after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
> (but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
> the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
> the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
> genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
> on other languages.
>
> In the case of the revival of Cornish, where there is virtually no
> historical continuity in terms of speakers between late medieval
> Cornish and the revived version, I think we have to say that the
> revived version is only 'influenced' by its predecessor, however
> similar it might be. But we can say that the three competing versions
> of 20th century Cornish are genetically related to one another,
> because both 'Modern' Cornish and 'Common' Cornish were created by
> fluent (non-native) speakers of 'Unified' Cornish.
>
> Ed. Robertson
> ERobert52 at aol.com
>
>
>
>
>
>


From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca  Wed Jun 24 19:53:15 1998
From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:53:15 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <6f610d61.3590280e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155315.EDT.JHEWSON@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Ed Robertson wrote:
 
> The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
> after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
> (but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
> the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
> the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
> genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
> on other languages.
 
For the sake of its amusement value, I want to comment that the above
statement is not quite true.
 
Dialects of Medieval Latin developed early because of influence and
interference from the substrate. Linguistic evolution of the substrates
also affected the regional pronunciations, so that _caelum_ was pronounced
with ch by the Italians, ts by the Germans, and s by the French and the
English. Having said that, please try to imagine what the pronunciation of
English Medieval Latin became after the Great Vowel Shift...  Where the
Anglicans maintained Latin titles, you can still hear Venite to rhyme with
nighty, and Te Deum to rhyme with tedium.
 
The eventual result was a Babel that prompted a major international
reform in the teaching of Latin pronunciation earlier in this century.
Instead of picking one of the national versions of medieval Latin, a
return was made in the schools to Ist C BC and the pronunciation of Cicero
(Tsitsero in German, Siseron in French, and Chicherone in Italian, and now
Kikero of course). I doubt if there is anyone alive today who learned any
pronunciation other than the classical, except in the Roman Catholic
church, where the Italian medieval pronunciation has always prevailed.
(Since this latter pronunciation is the one surviving `dialect' of
ML, it is the one that should be learned by singers for the singing of
Medieval Latin texts).
 
 
John Hewson, FRSC                               tel: (709)737-8131
University Research Professor                   fax: (709)737-4000
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9


From erickson at hawaii.edu  Wed Jun 24 22:20:11 1998
From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 18:20:11 EDT
Subject: Ghost Word
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.182011.EDT.ERICKSON@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
My thanks to all who have responded, both on- and off-list, to my
question about non-words that appear in dictionaries nonetheless.
 
The "winner" (for greatest number of entries) is _ghost word_: a
non-existent word created by lexicographers and appearing in their
dictionaries.
 
Other terms proferred were lexical ghost, false lemma, and abductum.
 
Thank you all again.
 
Best,
 
Blaine Erickson
erickson at hawaii.edu


From senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu  Thu Jun 25 10:36:34 1998
From: senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu (Tom R. Wier)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:36:34 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.063634.EDT.SENORBIGGLES@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
John Hewson wrote:
 
>  I doubt if there is anyone alive today who learned any
> pronunciation other than the classical, except in the Roman Catholic
> church, where the Italian medieval pronunciation has always prevailed.
 
FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
seem to do the same thing.
 
 
=======================================
Tom Wier <twier at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
 
God is subtle, but he is not malicious. -A. Einstein
=======================================


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Thu Jun 25 10:42:17 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:42:17 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980624141847.5238A-100000@plato.ucs.mun.ca>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.064217.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
 
John Hewson's comments on Medieval Latin (whether or not amusing) are
absolutely right; the establishment of Medieval Latin, conceptually
differentiated from the contemporary Romance (probably, I say, about 800
A.D., but others disagree) was based, in its phonetic aspect, on the
requirement that every written letter (of the traditional orthography of
every word) should have a corresponding pronunciation, but that single
requirement came to be all that Medieval Latin phonetics eventually had
in common in different areas.
                                        RW
 
 
On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, John Hewson wrote:
 
>For the sake of its amusement value .....
>Dialects of Medieval Latin developed early because of influence and
>interference from the substrate. Linguistic evolution of the substrates
>also affected the regional pronunciations, so that _caelum_ was pronounced
>with ch by the Italians, ts by the Germans, and s by the French and the
>English....


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Thu Jun 25 15:11:48 1998
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:11:48 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <35918E71.7A9BA188@mail.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.111148.EDT.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
>FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
>about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
>Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
>forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
>("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
>through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
>rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
>seem to do the same thing.
 
OK, to set the record straight (although this means a tiny digression from
the subject of this thread).
In our grammar schools there's still some competition between the
[ts]-pronunciation and the classical [k]-one. Mostly the classical school
won the day, but there are occasional pockets where  that zetacism survives
(usually accompanied by some kind of "but how can we know?"-argument).
Well, we do know, and I don't think the old ways are still much followed
these days by the younger generation (as far as that generation enjoys some
exposure to Latin at all, regardless of the pronunciation).
But apart from that dwindling habit, there are other instances where a
considerable German accent is still heard in our (and I'm afraid, if I
don't pay attention, mostly also my) Latin: diphthongs /ae/, /oe/ are
mostly pronounced with the vowels heard in /Kaese/ or /Moehre/, /v/ is
usually pron. like <v> in "Wiese" (terrible !), the combination -gn- like
in "Luegner" (and not like -ngn-, like it should be; occasionally you can
even hear /sicknum/ instead of /singnum/), quantity is mostly disregarded
which proves fatal once the poets are read aso. And, probably worst of all,
in the Northern half at least of the German-speaking area, initial s-
mostly gets off with a *voiced* pronunciation (brrr!).
Needless to say that these quite barbarian habits are to be met with in the
pronunciation of learners and teachers (who should know better, but more
often than not don't).
 
(BTW, the German teacher you asked, certainly wasn't a Latin teacher at the
same time, for if so, she would doubtlessly have picked the correct verb to
conjugate, which would have sounded in her mouth like [jatsit], etc. (and
the verb form in the quote is of course /esto/, but there may be
conflicting sources ...).
 
Regards,
 
St. G.
 
Small addendum: most people here who use the classical pronunciation of <c>
as [k] maintain a rather strict distinction between speaking (or reading
aloud) Latin in context, where the classical school wins, but use the
zetacistic pronunciation when mentioning a well-known Roman name within
german discourse. There, even for me, it is still [Tsitsero] and [Tsaesar],
everything else would be regarded pedantic (or not be understood, as a more
likely alternative).
 
Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From lingnost at au.dk  Thu Jun 25 15:10:16 1998
From: lingnost at au.dk (Norbert Strade)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:10:16 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <35918E71.7A9BA188@mail.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.111016.EDT.LINGNOST@AU.DK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Tom R. Wier wrote:
 
> FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
> about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
> Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
> forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
> ("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
> through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
> rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
> seem to do the same thing.
 
I believe this is a question of age. During the 60s and 70s, most German
schools introduced the "classical" pronunciation.
 
Best regards,
Norbert


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 26 20:59:54 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:59:54 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00b1b8b814d634@[128.97.208.82]>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.165954.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> A few points in response to Dyen's last comments.
>
> He begins with:
> >The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
>
> I offered the notion "descend from a SINGLE *system*.  But D did not pick
> up on this.  Later in his message he writes:
>
My point was very simple. The term 'language' is used under a variety of
definitions. I meant to indicate that as I was using the term a language
was a chain of pairs of mutually intelligible dialects and thus ended when
the chain ran out. This makes the term language strictly defined. What I
mean by mutual intelligibility for these purposes is being able
communicate with each other in their native dialect. This definition
produces a first (or native) language dialectology in which a language is
unitary. The term dialect is difficult; the term itself is used in such a
variety of ways, that in effect the definition a language given above
really appeals to the intuition in the matter of dialects. However it is
assumed that no two individuals whose speech-types are in the same
language are the same. Of course the term dialect is also applied to
collections of speech-types
that share a particular feature or some collection of features. [Here
'feature' is used for some relevant speech phenomenon, not in the
meaning it has in phonology.] In any case I believe it doesn't matter much
which definition of duialect you use.
 
 
 
> >If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
> >part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
> >stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
> >observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
> >uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
> >the first nad only language) in the world.
>
> This does not seem to be a matter of definition, but a claim of
> "monogenetic" descent of all the world's languages.  We once discussed this
> on the list, with inevitable disagreement among discussants.  I don't see
> the logical connection between the assumption that languages don't mix (a
> false assumption in any case, in my understanding of what D is claiming)
> and that they all descend from "Proto-World".
 
Let us be clear. An assumption as I use it can not be false or arguable.
If you don't want to use that assumption, stick in one of your own or
disregard it in your approach to language history. But if languages
are permitted to mix, that is, if a language boundary between two
languages is permitted to dissolve, then the kind of inferences that we make
regarding the past hstory of a language must take the possibility of
mixing into account. The consequence is that the hypothesis of a
protolanguage becomes unavailable unless the possibility of mixture can be
ruled out. That is the function of the assumption. In a first language
dialectology applied through time, once a language has been
formed, its being disjoint cannot be destroyed. If you are willing to give
that up, I would say you are giving the power of the comparative method.
 
> > It does not matter to me whether you find this
> >interesting or not, ....Again it does not matter whether you consider this
> >interesting.
> >Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
> >sense and are thus irrelevant.
>
> This is a misunderstanding of my use of "uninteresting" in the context of
> the discussion.  I did not mean "boring", which would indeed be subjective,
> and even disrepectful.  I meant "uninsightful", "does not lead to further
> discoveries about the nature of linguistic change and what it implies to
> help provide an optimally clear, useful and further enlightening concept of
> genetic relationship".  I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I
> generally use the word "uninteresting" sparingly, to avoid such
> misunderstanding.
 
I suggest you don't use it at all. It is judgmental. You can disagree with
another's propositions or decline to use his assumptions. I have not
characterized your views in any way though I am aware of them from others
and have considered them. Since you have expressed them, I have tried to
show why I say what I do. I am not seeking to appear insightful or to say
insightful things. I am rather interested in presenting a consistent set
of propositions that I find useful in the comparative study of languages
If you don't find them useful...
 
 > > >The fact that from a practical point of view the
> >meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
> >determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
> >of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
> >function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
> >languages.
>
> Mutual intelligibility is, in fact, a very interesting and complex topic.
> The assumption that intelligibility between "pairs" of dialects is "mutual"
> is one of its interesting features -- and is questionable to begin with.
> Mutual exposure between neighbouring dialects can be assymetrical for
> social reasons, limiting intelligibility in one direction more than the
> other.  What is left when the variable of exposure is factored out, e.g.,
> on first hearing a neighbouring dialect, is another part of the whole
> story.  That involves to what extent knowledge of one dialect allows
> "prediction" of possible (intelligible/decipherable) features of another
> one, cf. extendability of the notion of "dialect" and "built-in" dynamics
> of possible linguistic change.  The broadest question that can be asked in
> this line of thought is what enables speakers to learn another lect
> (dia-/holo-) once they have learned one (or several if all first and
> simultaneously).
>
> Then, as I was suggesting with my comments about "intelligbility" within a
> single language (or hololect, if you want), it is a matter of degree.  It
> is clear that in the "no mixing" dogma, D wants to shut the door to
> convergence of dialects, which would make them more mutually intelligible,
> but that is at least as problematic as his dogma against mixing of
> languages/hololects.  Clearly convergence does occur, making dialects/lects
> in contact more similar, and it happens through communication.  D seems a
> little tunnel-vision in considering only divergence leading eventually to
> loss of intelligibility and ultimately to separate hololects.  That is only
> part of the story of possible outcomes of linguistic change, as any dialect
> atlas will amply demonstrate (-- more on this below).
>
> >Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
> >disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
>
> That is the issue of "missing links", say, the ones that would definitively
> demonstrate that Germanic and Slavic descend from a tree node that excludes
> the other IE languages (whoops, I missed Baltic), or that Mongolian and
> Turkic are related (and closer than Manchu) -- if any of this is true.  It
> is indeed very interesting, but it is not the only possibility for loss of
> mutual intelligibility or emergence of distinct hololects (even excluding
> creoles and mixture for the moment).  But then D did not claim that this is
> the only way hololects develop -- at least not in the passage above.
> However, I'm not sure he allows himself any other way given his
> "definition" of hololects as chains of mutually intelligible pairs of
> dialects.  Is such a definition adequate for examining the facts of the
> real world of linguistic diversity?   A serious question of historical fact
> arises if all "transitional" dialects are seen as results of progressive
> divergence (joined by "links") rather than recognizing the possibility that
> some are convergent, due to "mixture" (or does D claim that only different
> hololects that can't mix, but dialects of the same hololect can?  Anyway,
> whatever he claims can't mix; WHY can't they? That can't be a matter of
> defintion.)
 
What you are getting into here is that given the definition of a language
as above, the inference that a prior stage of a language was (disjoint)
language or rather a dialect of a more extensive language might bre
difficult or impossible, whereas in some instances, the decision to be
made is obvious.
I should add that I find the term 'dogma' a pejorative term. I don't
characterize your statements. There is not reason to characterize mine.
We don't have to agree, and it is immaterial to me whether you agree with
what I say. I have entered into our discussion on the basis that I have
something to say that you might wish to consider. But if you don't
wish to...
 
 ma >
> >Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
> >in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
> >in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
> >intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
>
> But mutual intelligibility is a matter of degree.  No doubt English
> speakers understood, say, West African pidgin English in its early stages
> better than Africans unfamiliar with either English or the developing
> pidgin, if only because of (much of) the vocabulary.  D seems to
> acknowledge the point about degree of mutual intelligibility in stating:
 
The view is available that zero mutual intelligibility occurs.
>
> >The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
> >unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
> >linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
> >least one and so a dialect of that one.
>
> The logic is fine.  But is the implication that the "creole" is a
> (non-native) "dialect" until it develops unintelligibility?  Or is it a
> claim that a "creole" must start out unintelligible to speakers of its
> base.  That does not seem to be the case for Hawaiian Creole.  It does not
> seem to have been less intelligible to speakers of English than the
> Hawaiian pidgin it developed from, and that was intelligible to a
> functional extent.  Despite the logic, a missing fact is that the pidgin
> and the creole, as is generally the case, were mutually intelligible. Does
> that make the pidgin anhd the creole part of a hololect?  Then are pidgins
> necessarily hololects?  Well, certainly not makeshift pidgins.  They're not
> hololects because they're not "whole" (even as single entities -- if that
> makes sense).  And yet they serve certain interests of communication and
> presuppose, actually provide, a certain degree of "mutual" intelligiblity
> among speakers.  No, this mutual intelligibility issues has to be taken
> more seriously and its implications sorted out.  I still think D uses the
> concept to no avail in circumscribing a "language" or "hololect".  I don't
> see its relevance to linguistic evolution.
 
 
I failed to make the point that I work with assumption of a first language
dialectology. It is therefore possible for the first speaker of a creole
to communicate with speakers of its antecedent pidgin, for whom obviously the
pidgin (by definition) is a scond language.
 
> NB: one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
> can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
> another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  But only "some",
> since speakers can accomodate to any dialect or hololect (by becoming by
> bilingual) given sufficient exposure, and thus mutual intelligibility is
> not a "given" thing but an acquired thing (apart from what I suggested
> earlier).  Such acquisition often plays a role in change, where it is
> caused by contact between/among different communities, rather than where it
> is simply an individual matter for some traveller or whatever.
>
Without being disrespectful, let me suggest that you have used the term
'assume' above in the sense of 'conclude' or 'infer', not in its ological
sense. I don't object to l/ay terminology; I am not a logician. It is just
that you have called my assumptions 'dogmas', which I object to. It is
however important to try to keep the logical relation between our views in
order. I can not guarantee that I always succeed in this, but I try. As
for the rest of your statements, they refer to only some of the
complexities of the interaction between intercommunicants.
 
 > With regard to bilingualism, D wrote in a different message:
>
> >... there is no test by
> which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of his two
> languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
> is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
> >matter, more.
>
> In principle there is no difference between the problem involved in "equal
> control of two languages" and the problem of deciding when a monolingual
> speaker has "fully" acquired his(/her) first language.  In both cases,
> there are various practical tests used to evaluate such "control".  Of
> course, we still have much to learn about the problem, and all impressions
> are approximative.  Some, perhaps most, linguists even go so far as to
> claim that languages change because speakers don't fully acquire
> (pre-existing versions of) their first language (I'm not among them).  In
> bilingual communities such issues are even more problematic, because
> bilinguals are generally judged by monolingual standards, and the
> difference between "change" and "lack of complete acquisition" is even more
> contentious.  A lot more is known than is suggested by D's first point
> above, but a lot remains to be explored, and in many cases it is not clear
> if "equal control" is an appropriate question to apply to the relevant
> bilingual phenomena.
 
I believe that you have begun to touch on the very important question that
deals with the time at which an individual can be said on the average to
be in control of his native language. If I suggest at the end of the first
decade of his life, I imagine I might attract some disbelief. For certain
purposes however, it strikes me as being not an unreasonable expectation.


From Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl  Fri Jun 26 17:04:29 1998
From: Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl (Wouter Kusters)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:04:29 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.94.980624143137.5996C-100000@minerva.cis.yale.e du>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.130429.EDT.WOUTER.KUSTERS@LET.UVA.NL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At 15:26 24-06-98 -0400, Isidore Dyen wrote:
>....I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
>tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
>a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
>based is not worth proposing.
 
My use of the word 'theory' was indeed a bit old-fashioned Popperian, and
in fact I completely agree with this Kuhnian idea.
 
>Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
>apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
>distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
>so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
>and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
>commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
>structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
>equation.
Two languages like Russian versus Navaho are indeed very difficult to
measure on their difference in complexity. But why not taking two more
closely related languages which differ only on one level, and in which the
difference is obviously one of complexity (take Anem vs. Lusi in New
Britain according to Thurston, or Shaba Swahili vs. Zanzibar Swahili). How
does the theory of equicomplexity account for that?
I think in these cases the theory of equicomplexity or at least its related
hypotheses make the wrong predictions. In my opinion this theory can only
make right statements, when you do not know what complexity actually
comprises.
The moment you define (a subpart of) complexity as e.g. 'irregularity in
the morphology', (i.e. semantically intransparent relations between meaning
and form), you can see that the intuitions of ordinary people, and the
problems which arise in second language learning, and the structural
differences between languages which have a status as lingua franca and
languages which have a more 'ethnic' status, all point in the same
direction, i.e. that there are differences in complexity between languages.
 
>At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
>are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
>not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
>worse languages.
This may be true but has nothing to do with the complexity of languages.
Bacteria are simpler than mammals, but this does not mean that the one is
better or worse accommodated to the circumstances. In the world of language
also, there exist different circumstances, under which languages prosper.
The circumstances under which a 'contact language' grows are different from
the circumstances of an 'ethnic' language.
So, I think you can find differences in complexity, on the condition that
you do not equal the complexity of a language with its 'value'. Measuring
complexity may be hard, measuring the 'value' of a language is even harder.
 
Wouter Kusters
University of Amsterdam.


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Fri Jun 26 16:31:56 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:31:56 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.123156.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A few points in response to Dyen's last comments.
 
He begins with:
>The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
 
I offered the notion "descend from a SINGLE *system*.  But D did not pick
up on this.  Later in his message he writes:
 
>If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
>part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
>stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
>observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
>uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
>the first nad only language) in the world.
 
This does not seem to be a matter of definition, but a claim of
"monogenetic" descent of all the world's languages.  We once discussed this
on the list, with inevitable disagreement among discussants.  I don't see
the logical connection between the assumption that languages don't mix (a
false assumption in any case, in my understanding of what D is claiming)
and that they all descend from "Proto-World".
 
>It does not matter to me whether you find this
>interesting or not, ....Again it does not matter whether you consider this
>interesting.
>Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
>sense and are thus irrelevant.
 
This is a misunderstanding of my use of "uninteresting" in the context of
the discussion.  I did not mean "boring", which would indeed be subjective,
and even disrepectful.  I meant "uninsightful", "does not lead to further
discoveries about the nature of linguistic change and what it implies to
help provide an optimally clear, useful and further enlightening concept of
genetic relationship".  I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I
generally use the word "uninteresting" sparingly, to avoid such
misunderstanding.
 
>The fact that from a practical point of view the
>meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
>determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
>of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
>function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
>languages.
 
Mutual intelligibility is, in fact, a very interesting and complex topic.
The assumption that intelligibility between "pairs" of dialects is "mutual"
is one of its interesting features -- and is questionable to begin with.
Mutual exposure between neighbouring dialects can be assymetrical for
social reasons, limiting intelligibility in one direction more than the
other.  What is left when the variable of exposure is factored out, e.g.,
on first hearing a neighbouring dialect, is another part of the whole
story.  That involves to what extent knowledge of one dialect allows
"prediction" of possible (intelligible/decipherable) features of another
one, cf. extendability of the notion of "dialect" and "built-in" dynamics
of possible linguistic change.  The broadest question that can be asked in
this line of thought is what enables speakers to learn another lect
(dia-/holo-) once they have learned one (or several if all first and
simultaneously).
 
Then, as I was suggesting with my comments about "intelligbility" within a
single language (or hololect, if you want), it is a matter of degree.  It
is clear that in the "no mixing" dogma, D wants to shut the door to
convergence of dialects, which would make them more mutually intelligible,
but that is at least as problematic as his dogma against mixing of
languages/hololects.  Clearly convergence does occur, making dialects/lects
in contact more similar, and it happens through communication.  D seems a
little tunnel-vision in considering only divergence leading eventually to
loss of intelligibility and ultimately to separate hololects.  That is only
part of the story of possible outcomes of linguistic change, as any dialect
atlas will amply demonstrate (-- more on this below).
 
>Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
>disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
 
That is the issue of "missing links", say, the ones that would definitively
demonstrate that Germanic and Slavic descend from a tree node that excludes
the other IE languages (whoops, I missed Baltic), or that Mongolian and
Turkic are related (and closer than Manchu) -- if any of this is true.  It
is indeed very interesting, but it is not the only possibility for loss of
mutual intelligibility or emergence of distinct hololects (even excluding
creoles and mixture for the moment).  But then D did not claim that this is
the only way hololects develop -- at least not in the passage above.
However, I'm not sure he allows himself any other way given his
"definition" of hololects as chains of mutually intelligible pairs of
dialects.  Is such a definition adequate for examining the facts of the
real world of linguistic diversity?   A serious question of historical fact
arises if all "transitional" dialects are seen as results of progressive
divergence (joined by "links") rather than recognizing the possibility that
some are convergent, due to "mixture" (or does D claim that only different
hololects that can't mix, but dialects of the same hololect can?  Anyway,
whatever he claims can't mix; WHY can't they? That can't be a matter of
defintion.)
 
>Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
>in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
>in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
>intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
 
But mutual intelligibility is a matter of degree.  No doubt English
speakers understood, say, West African pidgin English in its early stages
better than Africans unfamiliar with either English or the developing
pidgin, if only because of (much of) the vocabulary.  D seems to
acknowledge the point about degree of mutual intelligibility in stating:
 
>The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
>unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
>linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
>least one and so a dialect of that one.
 
The logic is fine.  But is the implication that the "creole" is a
(non-native) "dialect" until it develops unintelligibility?  Or is it a
claim that a "creole" must start out unintelligible to speakers of its
base.  That does not seem to be the case for Hawaiian Creole.  It does not
seem to have been less intelligible to speakers of English than the
Hawaiian pidgin it developed from, and that was intelligible to a
functional extent.  Despite the logic, a missing fact is that the pidgin
and the creole, as is generally the case, were mutually intelligible. Does
that make the pidgin anhd the creole part of a hololect?  Then are pidgins
necessarily hololects?  Well, certainly not makeshift pidgins.  They're not
hololects because they're not "whole" (even as single entities -- if that
makes sense).  And yet they serve certain interests of communication and
presuppose, actually provide, a certain degree of "mutual" intelligiblity
among speakers.  No, this mutual intelligibility issues has to be taken
more seriously and its implications sorted out.  I still think D uses the
concept to no avail in circumscribing a "language" or "hololect".  I don't
see its relevance to linguistic evolution.
 
NB: one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  But only "some",
since speakers can accomodate to any dialect or hololect (by becoming by
bilingual) given sufficient exposure, and thus mutual intelligibility is
not a "given" thing but an acquired thing (apart from what I suggested
earlier).  Such acquisition often plays a role in change, where it is
caused by contact between/among different communities, rather than where it
is simply an individual matter for some traveller or whatever.
 
With regard to bilingualism, D wrote in a different message:
 
>... there is no test by
which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of his two
languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
>matter, more.
 
In principle there is no difference between the problem involved in "equal
control of two languages" and the problem of deciding when a monolingual
speaker has "fully" acquired his(/her) first language.  In both cases,
there are various practical tests used to evaluate such "control".  Of
course, we still have much to learn about the problem, and all impressions
are approximative.  Some, perhaps most, linguists even go so far as to
claim that languages change because speakers don't fully acquire
(pre-existing versions of) their first language (I'm not among them).  In
bilingual communities such issues are even more problematic, because
bilinguals are generally judged by monolingual standards, and the
difference between "change" and "lack of complete acquisition" is even more
contentious.  A lot more is known than is suggested by D's first point
above, but a lot remains to be explored, and in many cases it is not clear
if "equal control" is an appropriate question to apply to the relevant
bilingual phenomena.


From msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il  Fri Jun 26 16:29:15 1998
From: msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il (Daniel Baum)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:29:15 EDT
Subject: ANNOUNCE - Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.122915.EDT.MSDBAUM@MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
After receiving a good response to my previous postings, this is to announce
the formation of a new Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list.
 
All those who answered the previous posting should have received a personal
invitation to join.
 
 
List description
============
 
This is a list for the discussion of Indo-Iranian linguistics. While the
main focus of the list will be Vedic and Avestan, discussion of any
Indo-Iranian linguistic topic will be welcome.
 
All aspects of these languages, e.g. phonology, morphology, syntax, text
linguistics, and historical and comparative linguistics may be discussed,
while any other language, whether non-IE Indian, or other branches of IE,
will be considered off-topic unless it is relevant in some way to
Indo-Iranian.
 
All linguistic "schools' are welcome, as long as the topic of discussion
remains Indo-Iranian.
 
To subscribe, send an empty message to indo_iranian-subscribe at makelist.com
 
Daniel Baum
msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il
Home Page http://www.angelfire.com/il/dbaum
Tel: ++972-2-583-6634; Mob. ++972-51-972-829


From senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu  Sat Jun 27 18:32:04 1998
From: senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu (Tom Wier)
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 14:32:04 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <SAT.27.JUN.1998.143204.EDT.SENORBIGGLES@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ralf-Stefan Georg sagte:
 
> Well, we do know, and I don't think the old ways are still much followed
> these days by the younger generation (as far as that generation enjoys some
> exposure to Latin at all, regardless of the pronunciation).
 
Might this mean that most (or many) of those who learned Latin still speak
withthe [ts] pronunciation? That is, because fewer learn the language today,
and the older ones learned it with the nonclassical pronunciation, who are
more numerous.
 
> But apart from that dwindling habit, there are other instances where a
> considerable German accent is still heard in our (and I'm afraid, if I
> don't pay attention, mostly also my) Latin: diphthongs /ae/, /oe/ are
> mostly pronounced with the vowels heard in /Kaese/ or /Moehre/, /v/ is
> usually pron. like <v> in "Wiese" (terrible !), the combination -gn- like
> in "Luegner" (and not like -ngn-, like it should be; occasionally you can
> even hear /sicknum/ instead of /singnum/), quantity is mostly disregarded
> which proves fatal once the poets are read aso.
 
Well, the same goes for here. I don't think many are very knowledgeable
about the /ngn/ pronunciation. As for vowel quantity, I don't think they even
teach it unless they're going over poetry.
 
> (BTW, the German teacher you asked, certainly wasn't a Latin teacher at the
> same time, for if so, she would doubtlessly have picked the correct verb to
> conjugate, which would have sounded in her mouth like [jatsit], etc. (and
> the verb form in the quote is of course /esto/, but there may be
> conflicting sources ...).
 
No, she was my German teacher while I was taking Latin at the sametime.
I doubt if she had read any Latin in decades, but I distinctly remember
hearing her say [jatset]. As for /esto/, everywhere I've ever seen it, it's
always been "Alea iacta _est_".
 
> Small addendum: most people here who use the classical pronunciation of <c>
> as [k] maintain a rather strict distinction between speaking (or reading
> aloud) Latin in context, where the classical school wins, but use the
> zetacistic pronunciation when mentioning a well-known Roman name within
> german discourse. There, even for me, it is still [Tsitsero] and [Tsaesar],
> everything else would be regarded pedantic (or not be understood, as a more
> likely alternative).
 
Exactly the same situation here. If the person has taken Latin, they
pretty much always keep with the accepted local nonclassical
pronunciation as you have said: /sIs at rou/ and /siz at r/
instead of /kikero/ and /kaisar/.
 
=======================================
Tom Wier <twier at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
 
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
  -A. Einstein
=======================================


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Sat Jun 27 18:40:49 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 14:40:49 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance (was Re: Complexity in language)
Message-ID: <SAT.27.JUN.1998.144049.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
(In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
are from one another).


From bdbryant at mail.utexas.edu  Sun Jun 28 17:20:11 1998
From: bdbryant at mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant)
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:20:11 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance
Message-ID: <SUN.28.JUN.1998.132011.EDT.BDBRYANT@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
> Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
> have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
> surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
> for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
> there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
> (In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
> are from one another).
 
I have a specific proposal for this, and am in fact actively pursuing it.
But rather than discussing research that may not pan out, perhaps we should
discuss the broader issue your question brings up -- it may be beneficial
to have some general agreement about the meaning of such metrics *before*
people start using them to support specific claims.
 
In particular, what would such a metric tell us?  It is tempting to believe
that more closely related languages will be more similar under such a
metric, but there may be problems with this notion.
 
It is certain that measurements on an individual feature would be
unreliable indicators of relatedness, for instance if the chosen feature
happened to be "areal" rather than "ancestral".  Moreover, although it is
*tempting* to believe that a measurement across all the properties of a
language in aggregate, or at least across a sufficiently large subset of
such properties, would show smaller distances for more closely related
languages, it is not altogether *certain* that this is so.  (I would in
fact follow the temptation as my null hypothesis, but how would I validate
it if it led me to an outrageous conclusion and you challenged me on it?)
 
Even with measurements in hand and suitable assumptions about their
relevance for relatedness, problems would remain.  For example, I would
expect that a valid metric would show English as being more related to
French than German is, and likewise that English is more related to German
than French is.  But what exactly does that mean?  In particular, if we
worked exclusively with interlingual distances for these three languages
and tried to build a family tree by blind numerical methods such as
constructing a minimal spanning tree, the probable result is that English
would appear as the parent of French and German.  Adding additional
languages would of course provide separate evidence for a more nearly
correct tree, but it would still be quite difficult, perhaps impossible, to
"iron out" the conflicting claims offered by the various measurements.
Furthermore, if you view language change in terms of waves rather than
cladistics, the picture becomes murky in ways that are difficult even to
visualize.
 
Clearly, we should make use of any tools that come available; but they will
always have to be applied with every bit as much caution and well informed
judgment as have any of the traditional tools of the trade.  I anticipate
that we will have such metrics within about 20 years -- I hope to have some
very rudimentary results within 2-3 years -- but I also suspect that such
metrics will never count for more than the most tenuous circumstantial
evidence in cases where historical relations are not already well
understood by other means.
 
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Sun Jun 28 17:29:19 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:29:19 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980626170914.0068e15c@mail.let.uva.nl>
Message-ID: <SUN.28.JUN.1998.132919.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Wouter Kusters wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 15:26 24-06-98 -0400, Isidore Dyen wrote:
> >....I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
> >tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
> >a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
> >based is not worth proposing.
>
> My use of the word 'theory' was indeed a bit old-fashioned Popperian, and
> in fact I completely agree with this Kuhnian idea.
>
> >Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
> >apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
> >distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
> >so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
> >and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
> >commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
> >structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
> >equation.
> Two languages like Russian versus Navaho are indeed very difficult to
> measure on their difference in complexity. But why not taking two more
> closely related languages which differ only on one level, and in which the
> difference is obviously one of complexity (take Anem vs. Lusi in New
> Britain according to Thurston, or Shaba Swahili vs. Zanzibar Swahili). How
> does the theory of equicomplexity account for that?
> I think in these cases the theory of equicomplexity or at least its related
> hypotheses make the wrong predictions. In my opinion this theory can only
> make right statements, when you do not know what complexity actually
> comprises.
> The moment you define (a subpart of) complexity as e.g. 'irregularity in
> the morphology', (i.e. semantically intransparent relations between meaning
> and form), you can see that the intuitions of ordinary people, and the
> problems which arise in second language learning, and the structural
> differences between languages which have a status as lingua franca and
> languages which have a more 'ethnic' status, all point in the same
> direction, i.e. that there are differences in complexity between languages.
 
It appears to me that trying to compare the complexity of two
similar languages does not lead in the direction of a measure. Languages
do the same thing as means of oral communication.
The measure of complexity would indicate a difference of efficiency, that
is a difference in the amount of effort to achieve the same result. Since
the mechanism using a language (the human being) is taken to be the same
everywhere, the difference in efficiency could reasonably be identified as
a difference of complexity. Effectively then, if natural languages are
equiefficient, then they are equicomplex. All of them with the exception
of the creole langaguages are products of millennia of change. It would be
difficult to detect any change in their efficiency in the past, but the
same consideration would suggest that equiefficiency and thus
equicomplexity was the order of the day. It may be hard to believe that
this was always trueand therefore the way to test this assumption might be
to see in what way it could be true, i.e. what measure leads to an
equation.
 
> >At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
> >are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
> >not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
> >worse languages.
> This may be true but has nothing to do with the complexity of languages.
> Bacteria are simpler than mammals, but this does not mean that the one is
> better or worse accommodated to the circumstances. In the world of language
> also, there exist different circumstances, under which languages prosper.
> The circumstances under which a 'contact language' grows are different from
> the circumstances of an 'ethnic' language.
> So, I think you can find differences in complexity, on the condition that
> you do not equal the complexity of a language with its 'value'. Measuring
> complexity may be hard, measuring the 'value' of a language is even harder.
It is rather easy to see differences in complexity among languages in
parts of languages. The problem concerns the totality of languages.
>
> Wouter Kusters
> University of Amsterdam.
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 29 22:34:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:34:42 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance (was Re: Complexity in language)
In-Reply-To: <v01530508b1baa7d631dc@[194.134.29.33]>
Message-ID: <MON.29.JUN.1998.183442.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
You might wish tpo distinguish between 'linguistic distance' a measure
which would be typological and thus a measure of the difference in a
contrastive comparison and 'genetic distance' a measure of the distance
between two related languages perhaps as it might be found in a
family-tree. The latter has been transmuted into a spatial representation
by J.Kruskal via multidimensional scaling based on lexicostatistical
percentages. I am not sure whether any one has tried to measure
contrastive distance though that may be directly attackable. ID
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
> have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
> surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
> for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
> there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
> (In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
> are from one another).
>


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Jun  4 19:35:31 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:35:31 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <THU.4.JUN.1998.153531.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Space permitting (and I anticipate some interesting conversations with
my editor), I hope to include in my dictionary entries for the
symbols, abbreviations and Graeco-Latin phrases commonly used in
philological work, since these little beggars are often hard to look
up.  Below is a list of the entries I have so far.  Are there any
obvious omissions or errors?  All advice gratefully received.
Naturally, items in common use outside our field will not be entered.
 
Symbols:
 
angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
angle brackets `< >': sets off material inserted in an edition of a
text because it appears to have been omitted by the scribe
 
asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double asterisk
sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on reconstructions); (2)
marks "expected" but unattested form; (3) marks form as impossible
(double asterisk occasionally used here)
 
capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form, such
as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
 
dagger: (1) marks word as having no known etymology; (2) marks
language as extinct
 
exclamation mark `!': marks proposed etymology as implausible or absurd
 
parentheses `( )': (1) marks variant forms compactly, as in
"<mintz(a)>" = "<mintz> or <mintza>"; (2) = square brackets (sense 1);
(3) sets off non-cognate material in comparanda
 
pipe `|': indicates uncertain segment in reconstructed form; e.g.,
*<lap|ba> = *<lapa> or *<laba>
 
plus sign `+': (1) in an etymology, indicates sequence of forms
themselves otherwise explained; (2) = asterisk (sense 1)
 
question mark `?': marks almost anything as doubtful
 
slash `/': = swung dash
 
square brackets `[ ]': (1) in a reconstructed form, marks material of
doubtful or variable presence, as in "*<mil[i]ga>" = "*<miliga> or
*<milga>"; (2) (also parentheses) sets off lacuna in edition of a
text, possibly filled by editor's suggestion; single bracket used if
lacuna occurs at end of line
 
swung dash (tilde) `~' (also slash): separates variant forms
 
Abbreviations
 
cf.: introduces cognate of cited form [I want to put this in because
most of my students believe it means "comes from", and wind up telling
me that half the words of English are taken from Sanskrit]
 
id.: same meaning as last form glossed
 
s.v. (s.u.): look up this word in the reference cited
 
vel sim.: or something similar
 
Phrases:
 
hapax (legomenon): word or form recorded only once
 
lectio difficilior: that one of several variants which is hardest to
account for
 
lucus a non lucendo: deriving a word from one of more-or-less opposite
meaning
 
(maybe also `punctum delens', but I can't generally include terms
specific to writing systems)
 
I hope I've already got all the traditional and IE stuff like
`tenuis', `media aspirata', `muta cum liquida', `schwa secundum' and
`s-mobile'.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From hbzs22 at post.tau.ac.il  Fri Jun  5 17:53:09 1998
From: hbzs22 at post.tau.ac.il (Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 13:53:09 EDT
Subject: Pragma99
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.135309.EDT.HBZS22@POST.TAU.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
                      Call for Papers
 
                              PRAGMA99
 
                 International Pragmatics Conference on
                     PRAGMATICS AND NEGOTIATION
                           June 13-16, 1999
        Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                        Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
                                Israel
 
The main theme of this conference is the pragmatics of negotiation,
interpreted in a very broad sense.  Interlocutors engage in negotiations
about every aspect of their interaction -  such as floor access and topic
selection, contextual assumptions, conversational goals, and the
(mis)interpretation and repair of their messages. Topics such as
cross-cultural and cross-gender (mis)communications, conversational
procedures in disputes and collaborations, argumentation practices, and
effects of assumptions and goals on the negotiating strategies of
interlocutors are of special interest for this conference.
 
The conference will be interdisciplinary, bringing together pragmaticists,
linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists and political
scientists. We are soliciting papers on all issues relevant to the theme
of the conference, as well as papers in other areas of pragmatics and
dialogue analysis.
 
The conference will include plenary addresses, regular session lectures,
and organized panels around any of the relevant topics. Among the plenary
speakers: Elinor Ochs (UCLA), Itamar Rabinovitch (Tel Aviv University),
Emanual Schegloff (UCLA), Thomas Schelling (University of Maryland),
Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University), Deborah Tannen (Georgetown
University), Ruth Wodak (University of Vienna).
 
Presentation of regular session lectures is 30 minutes long, with a
subsequent discussion of 10 minutes. Panels take the form of a series of
closely related lectures on a specific topic, which may or may not be
directly related to the special topic of the conference. They may consist
of one, two or three units of 120 minutes.  Within each panel unit a
maximum of four 20-minute presentations are given consecutively, followed
by a minimum of 30 minutes of discussion (either devoted entirely to an
open discussion, or taken up in part by comments by a discussant or
discussants). Panels are composed of contributions attracted by panel
organizers, combined with individually submitted papers when judged
appropriate by the Program Committee in consultation with the panel
organizers. Typically, written versions or extensive outlines of all panel
contributions should be available before the conference to facilitate
discussion.
 
 
SUBMISSIONS
Abstracts for papers and panels should be submitted in the following
format:
1. For papers - five copies of an anonymous abstract (up to 300 words).
2. For panels - a preliminary proposal of one page, detailing title, area
of interest, name of organizer(s) and invited participants to be sent by
August 1, 1998. Organizers of approved panels will then be invited to
submit a full set of abstracts, including: a. a brief description of the
topic area,  b. a list of participants (with full details, see below), c.
abstracts by each of the participants by November 1, 1998.
3. In all cases, a page stating: a. title, b. audiovisual/computer
request, and c. for each author: I. Full name and affiliation; II. Current
address; III. E-mail address; IV. Fax number.
 
Deadline for submission of abstracts: Nov. 1, 1998.  Abstracts may be sent
by hard copy, disk, or e-mail to Pragma99, Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv
University, Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL. E-mail: pragma99 at post.tau.ac.il
Date of notification: March 1, 1999.
 
PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Mira Ariel, Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, Jonathan Berg,
Anat Biletzki, Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Marcelo Dascal, Nomi Erteschik-Shir,
Tamar Katriel, Ruth Manor,  George-Elia Sarfati, Elda Weizman, Yael Ziv.
 
 ============================================================
                PRAGMA99 REGISTRATION FORM
 
Please send the following information, accompanied by cheque payable to
Tel-Aviv University in the amount of US$75 if paid before November 1,
1998, otherwise US$100, to
 
        Pragma99
        Faculty of Humanities
        Tel Aviv University
        Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL
 
 
Dr./Mr./Mrs./Ms./ Name:__________________________
 
Address:_______________________________________________
 
University/Organization:___________________________________
 
Email:__________________________
 
Fax:____________________(Home)_______________(Office)
 
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information:
 
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Those wishing to present a paper should follow the instructions above.
Hotel information will be provided after registration.
The International Association for Dialogue Analysis is co-sponsoring a
part of our conference, which will be devoted to "Negotiation as a
Dialogic Concept." For further information, contact Edda Weigand (e-mail:
weigand at uni-muenster.de).
 
==========================================================
 
[Forms can also be returned by fax to 972-3-6407839, or by e-mail to
pragma99 at post.tau.ac.il  . ]


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Fri Jun  5 15:16:04 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:16:04 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0yhdy3-0005df-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.111604.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
 
Larry, this is a most useful list.
A comment or two below:
 
>
>angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
It's often used for a sound change within a single language (which is
usually not covered by the idea of etymology): could you rephrase it as
"the direction of a sound change"?
 
>asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double asterisk
>sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on reconstructions); (2)
>marks "expected" but unattested form; (3) marks form as impossible
>(double asterisk occasionally used here)
 
As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus phonetic
script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and "**" for denying
the form's existence (your point 3); could you enter "**" as a separate
entry?
 
>capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form, such
>as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
 
Would you be able to give a complete list?
 
>plus sign `+': (1) in an etymology, indicates sequence of forms
>themselves otherwise explained; (2) = asterisk (sense 1)
 
Do you mean "sequence of morphemes in a lexical item"? Sometimes both:
an asterisk attached to two morphemes (or more) joined by the
"+" (or sometimes, joined by the "-") indicates the proposed
reconstructable but unattested juncture of two otherwise attested
morphemes (as used by Harri Meier, for example).
 
>swung dash (tilde) `~' (also slash): separates variant forms
 
Only if printed at waist-height; the actual tilde, which, to be a
tilde, appears above the written letter, indicates nasality. Not all
printers can be trusted to get the height right, in my experience (I
mean the machines, not the human beings).
 
>hapax (legomenon): word or form recorded only once
 
Say  "recorded in writing"?
 
>lectio difficilior: that one of several variants which is hardest to
>account for.
 
        Yes, and which is therefore more likely to be *right* (since
scribes are less likely to have corrected towards it).
 
                                        RW


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jun  6 14:49:58 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 10:49:58 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JUN.1998.104958.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have encountered a certain slipperiness in the use of the term
`cognate' in connection with borrowing.
 
Take an example.  Late Latin *<caveola> ~ *<gaveola> `small enclosed
place' is the direct ancestor of Old French <jaiole> `jail', of Old
Spanish <javola> (modern <jaula>) `cell', and of Occitan <cayola>
`cage'.  These Romance words are cognate in any definition.
 
But English `jail' is borrowed from the Old French word, Basque
<txabola> `hut, cabin' is borrowed from the Old Spanish word, and
Basque <kaiola> `cage' is borrowed from the Occitan word.  So: would
you be happy to say that English `jail' is
 
(a) "cognate" with its Old French source?
(b) "cognate" with the other Romance words?
(c) "cognate" with the Basque words?
 
Where your answer is "no", what brief label would you attach to the
historical connection between these words?
 
Existing textbooks of HL are generally rather hazy on this point.  At
least three of them don't even have an entry for `cognate' in the
index -- which I find amazing.  Two or three expressly define
`cognates' as `words (or other elements) having a common ancestry', or
words to that effect, which would appear undeniably to include the
cases of cognation by borrowing, but then go on to imply strongly that
cognates necessarily form part of a genetic relationship.
 
Oh, and one final query.  General dictionaries of English consistently
recognize the phrase `cognate languages'.  Would everybody agree that
this usage is now defunct in favor of `(genetically) related
languages'?
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jun  7 02:35:29 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 22:35:29 EDT
Subject: Genetically related
In-Reply-To: <E0yiGOd-0001j4-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JUN.1998.223529.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
While this is a widely used phrase, I think it
is quite problematic because it bugs and confuses
biologists, with whom we inreasingly do have
to deal, and hence I prefer genealogically
related, but I do not know if anybody else
has adopted this usage.


From erickson at hawaii.edu  Sun Jun  7 17:18:33 1998
From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 13:18:33 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <SUN.7.JUN.1998.131833.EDT.ERICKSON@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
this question:
 
What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
 
Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
than a...
 
I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
 
Best,
 
Blaine Erickson
erickson at hawaii.edu


From mfcepdd at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Mon Jun  8 14:53:19 1998
From: mfcepdd at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:53:19 EDT
Subject: 10th ICEHL
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.105319.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
10th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
Manchester, 21-26 August 1998
 
Our conference website is now, apparently, fully operational again
after having been wholly or partly unobtainable outside Manchester
for a few days, for technical reasons we don't yet know. Apologies to
anyone who was inconvenienced.  Please let us know if there are
still any problems.
 
On the WWW  you will find a list of plenary and ordinary papers,
many of the abstracts, a ** provisional ** programme, information on
workshops and associated activities, and lots of other stuff on the
venue and the city.  Detailed travel information will be added later
this month.
 
If you have any queries, please address them to
     10icehl at man.ac.uk
 
Thank you.
(Prof.) David Denison
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
        Organising Committee, 10ICEHL
        Dept of English and American Studies
        University of Manchester  |  Manchester M13 9PL  |  U.K.
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/projects/10icehl.htm (WWW)
10icehl at man.ac.uk (e-mail)  +44 (0)161-275 3256 (fax)


From jrader at m-w.com  Mon Jun  8 14:45:05 1998
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:45:05 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104505.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In lexicography entities like this are sometimes broadly referred to as ghost
 words,
though that term perhaps more usually covers false lemmas that arise
from manuscript misreadings or editorial errors.  I'm not sure your
example would be accurately characterized as a misreading.
 
Jim Rader
 
>
> Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
> this question:
>
> What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
> created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
> Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
> which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
> seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
> than a...
>
> I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
>
> Best,
>
> Blaine Erickson
> erickson at hawaii.edu
>


From jrader at m-w.com  Mon Jun  8 14:44:50 1998
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:44:50 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104450.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I recall that Eric Hamp avoided the use of the word <cognate> as
a linguistics term, though I was never sure if he did so because he
had a very narrow definition of it, or because he felt its ambiguity
rendered it useless in precise characterization of  linguistic
relatedness.  My own sense is that <cognate> ought to refer only to
strict linguistic sibling relationships and to forms that are exactly
matchable segment for segment; otherwise it's not distinct from
<related>.  But that's only a personal predisposition.
 
Jim Rader
 
> I have encountered a certain slipperiness in the use of the term
> `cognate' in connection with borrowing.
>
>


From MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Mon Jun  8 14:41:39 1998
From: MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (Richard Hogg)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:41:39 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104139.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Some further notes, partly with reference to Roger Wright's comments.
 
> >angle bracket `<' or `>': shows direction of an etymology
 
There is also a helpful convention whereby angled brackets are used
to show strictly graphemic material, e.g. "[v] is represented by
<b>"
 
 
> >asterisk `*': (1) (also `+') marks reconstructed form (double
> >asterisk sometimes used to mark reconstruction based on
> >reconstructions); (2) marks "expected" but unattested form; (3)
> >marks form as impossible (double asterisk occasionally used here)
>
> As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus
> phonetic script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and
> "**" for denying the form's existence (your point 3); could you
> enter "**" as a separate entry?
 
Can I support Roger strongly. I think it is now becoming standard, at
least in OE, to use ** for impossible forms. Not only that, but such
a convention is vital.
 
> >capital letter: represents generic segment in reconstructed form,
> >such as N for `unspecified nasal' or V for `unspecified vowel'
>
> Would you be able to give a complete list?
 
I doubt that you could, and many of these are ambiguous - think of
the meanings of "D"!
 
 
********************************************************************************
 **********************
Richard M. Hogg            Tel: +44(0)161 275 3164
Department of English      Fax: +44(0)161 275 3256
  and American Studies     e-mail: r.m.hogg at man.ac.uk
University of Manchester   web:
 http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/staff/rmh/home.htm
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
********************************************************************************
 **********************


From Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au  Mon Jun  8 14:41:15 1998
From: Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au (Harold Koch)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:41:15 EDT
Subject: Trask terms etc
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.104115.EDT.HAROLD.KOCH@ANU.EDU.AU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
1. Borrowing terminology.
The discipline is badly in need of some standardised terms, other than
"cognate", for (a) words related by borrowing, and (b) words related by
either cognation or borrowing, that is, a generic term that encompasses
"cognate" and whatever (a) should be called. I hope Larry makes some
recommendations in this area.
 
In comparing the vocabulary of two (or more) languages that are both
genetically related and liable to have borrowed from one another (this is
a common situation in Australia), one tries to gather together all the
words that are "related" in some sense-- possibly called "tentative (b)s",
then sort out the "cognates" from the "loans"-- i.e. (a)s--, then work out
the direction of the "loans". In the last step there is perhaps a further
problem with the term "loanword"; can it be used symmetrically?
 
To illustrate the problem-- If I decide that Warlpiri wapirti and Kaytetye
apeyte (both 'pencil yam') are related by borrowing, can I refer to both of
them as "loanwords" before I have decided on the direction of borrowing? If
I decide that the direction was from Kaytetye to Warlpiri, I can say that
Warlpiri wapirti is a loanword from Kaytetye, but can I say that Kaytetye
apeyte is a loanword into Warlpiri, or is there another available term? I
am aware of Crowley's proposal to use "copy" instead of "loanword", but can
this term be used symmetrically?
 
You can see that I think the working comparativist needs terms for each of
the following: (1) a word or pair of words related either by
cognation/inheritance or borrowin- a cover term (2) a word or pair of words
related by cognation /inheritance-- here "cognate" is established, (3) a
word or pair of words related by borrowing, without specification of the
direction of borrowing, (4) a word related to another by the fact that the
former is a copy of the latter-- this seems to be the focal meaning of
"loanword" (5) a word related to another by the fact that former is the
original from which the latter is a copy.
 
2. Borrowing symbols
It would be useful to try to institutionalise some symbols for specifying
borrowing in etymological entries. I have suggested and been using the
following (in contrast to > and < for inheritance):
 
A <- B: A is borrowed from /is a copy of B
A -> B: A is borrowed to become B / is copied as B
A <-> B: A and B are in a borrowing relationship of indeterminate direction.
 
Cf. H. Koch 1983, Etymology and dictionary-making for Australian languages
(with examples from Kaytej). In Peter Austin (ed.), Papers in Australian
Linguisitcs No. 15: Australian Aboriginal lexicography (Pacific Linguistics
A-66) Canberra: Dept of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies,
Australian National University; 149-173.
 
3. Symbolisation of proportional analogy
Should the various formalisms that have been used to represent proportional
analogy be given in the symbol guide, or can they all be assumed to be
understood from some other discipline?
A quick check in HL textbooks yields at least these three:
1) sow : sows = cow : x (Bloomfield)
2) stone:stones::hand:X (Arlotto)
3) stikker/stak = nikker/X (Anttila)
 
4. Ghost words
I believe the term Blaine Erickson (7 June) is seeking is traditionally
called a "ghost word" (or "mot phantome" in French).
 
Harold Koch, Senior Lecturer
Department of Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
 
Telephone:  (02) 6249 3203 (direct) / ..3026 (messages)
(overseas) 61 2 6249 3203
Fax:  (02) 6 279 8214
(overseas) 61 2 6279 8214
email:  Harold.Koch at anu.edu.au


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Mon Jun  8 14:39:54 1998
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:39:54 EDT
Subject: Query: term
In-Reply-To: <98Jun7.005600hwt.188961(10)@uhunix5.its.Hawaii.Edu>
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.103954.EDT.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
>this question:
>
>What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
>Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
>which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
>seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
>than a...
 
 
Ghostword.
 
St. G.
 
Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu  Mon Jun  8 14:39:37 1998
From: peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu (Peter A. Michalove)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:39:37 EDT
Subject: Query: term
Message-ID: <MON.8.JUN.1998.103937.EDT.PETERM@HERCULES.GEOLOGY.UIUC.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ghost form?
 
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>Larry Trask's list of symbols and abbreviations prompts me to ask
>this question:
>
>What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
>
>Specifically, I am thinking of the Old Japanese "word" _ma_ 'horse,'
>which is a sandhi form of _uma_.  However, some dictionary editors
>seem to think it was a word, but in my opinion, _ma_ is nothing more
>than a...
>
>I don't know what term to use here.  Do you?
>
>Best,
>
>Blaine Erickson
>erickson at hawaii.edu
 
Peter A. Michalove
peterm at hercules.geology.uiuc.edu
Assistant to the Head
Department of Geology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
(217) 244-3190


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jun  9 18:53:42 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:53:42 EDT
Subject: Sum: symbols and abbreviations
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.145342.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
My query the other day about symbols and abbreviations has elicited
only a modest number of responses, but these have been extremely
useful.  I've had various suggestions for improving entries, and a
number of suggestions for further entries.  I won't bother to list
all these here, but I'm taking them all very seriously, and I'll
incorporate as many of them as I can.
 
But I do have a length limit, imposed on me by my editor on day one,
and I'm surely going to be exceeding this.  Unless I can sweet-talk
my editor into some additional space, there will have to be some hard
choices made about what to include.  All arguments for persuading
editors will be gratefully received.  I assume that, after the
initial flurry of library purchases, the book will probably sell
about 27 copies a year, and I need to persuade my editor that those
vital 27 people care more about coverage than about price.
 
After all, my HL textbook was a hundred pages over contract length,
which caused a certain amount of consternation at Arnold, but we
eventually managed to work something out without cutting anything.
 
A few general points have arisen.  For one thing, it is very clear
that there exists considerable variation in the use of certain
devices, most notably the several kinds of brackets.  Here I can do
little except to note the usages that occur.
 
For another, I now have four quite distinct uses for the double
asterisk, as follows: (1) to mark a "second-level" reconstruction,
one itself based upon reconstructions; (2) to mark a reconstruction
as doubtful (I would have thought `?*' might be preferable here); (3)
to mark a form as non-existent rather than as merely unattested; (4)
to mark a form as impossible rather than as merely non-existent.
I've received various recommendations here, and I'm listening, but
I'll still have to enter the attested uses.
 
Several people advised me to provide the full Latin forms lying behind
the various abbreviations.  OK; I can do this, though I'm not always
certain just what things like `om.' and `add.' might be abbreviating.
 
A number of people asked me to include angle brackets for orthographic
transcriptions, square brackets for phonetic transcriptions, and
slashes for phonemic transcriptions.  Well, because of space
limitations, my general policy is not to include anything typical of
general linguistics and not confined to historical work.  I'm
assuming any reader will have at least an elementary knowledge of
general linguistics (I have to assume that), and that anything
unfamiliar can readily be looked up in other reference works.  Still,
it's perhaps true that philologists use angle brackets for
orthographic renderings far more frequently than anybody else, so
I'll think about it.
 
One or two people also suggested the inclusion of Latin abbreviations
of a more general kind, like `q.v.', `sc.' and `v. supra'.  My
original intention was to exclude these, on the ground that they are
not even peculiar to linguistics, let alone to historical linguistics,
and that they can readily be looked up even in an ordinary English
dictionary.  But I'm having second thoughts.  For one thing,
philologists perhaps use these things far more regularly than do most
other people.  For another, ordinary dictionaries, I now find, are
often not particularly helpful in explaining these things.  My
favorite British dictionary defines `q.v.' as `quod vide', and then
provides no entry for `quod vide', which I consider less than
maximally illuminating.  And most dictionaries don't enter `sc.' at
all.  So maybe there's a good case for including these things.
Anyway, I have a weakness for any opportunity to harangue the world
about what I see as the proper use of `cf.': I *really* do not like
the now almost universal tendency among linguists (except
philologists) to use this thing merely to mean `see, consult'.  No
doubt I am a tedious old fart, but I have to have at least one bee in
my bonnet, even if I wind up being bracketed with Prince Charles.
 
(Yesterday Prince Charles made a speech declaring that we shouldn't
grow genetically engineered tomatoes because God doesn't want us to,
and this morning's Times gave him an editorial solemnly approving
these words of wisdom.  I only know this because the newsboy delivered
the Times this morning by mistake instead of the Guardian -- I don't
actually *read* the Times.  But I digress.)
 
The thing is that every thumbs-up either increases the length of the
book, leading to possible shouts from my editor, or forces me to
exclude something else, leading to deep depression.  Life is hard.
 
I could, of course, reverse some earlier policy decisions to make
room.  For example, at present I am trying to include brief entries
for at least the more prominent extinct ancient languages, on the
ground that many users will be particularly interested in finding out
just what the hell Ligurian or Lepontic or Amorite might be.  But
maybe there are better uses of the space.  Sigh.
 
When I started this project, one of my colleagues expressed surprise
that HL had enough terms to fill a dictionary.  Well, if any of you
out there are losing sleep over this, you can sleep soundly tonight.
IE alone has enough terms to fill a small dictionary, especially since
most of them have German equivalents often used in English (I mean,
you did want to look up `grammatischer Wechsel', now, didn't you?), and
all these youngsters are busily coining terms like `metatypy',
`exaptation', `Bill Peters effect', and `accretion zone', and you've
probably forgotten the finer points of Shaxmatov's Law, and you can't
quite remember what Polnoglasie is, and the grammaticalization people
have invented a whole battery of terms that didn't exist when I was a
student, and...and now I find that we don't even agree about what
`cognate' means (see my next summary, after I've finished marking my
next pile of exam scripts).
 
Anyway, I will be pleased to receive further suggestions (of any kind)
until well into the summer.  I hope to submit the book by the end of
August, or by the end of September at the latest.
 
My thanks to Johanna Nichols, Bobby Bryant, Richard Coates, Roger
Wright, Marisa Lohr, Peter Michalove, Max Wheeler, Jacob Baltuch,
Anna Morpurgo Davies, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Tore Janson, Richard
Krause, Sam Martin, and Richard Hogg.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca  Tue Jun  9 18:46:31 1998
From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:46:31 EDT
Subject: Q: "cognate" by borrowing
In-Reply-To: <13175178743736@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.144631.EDT.JHEWSON@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Jim Rader wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I recall that Eric Hamp avoided the use of the word <cognate> as
> a linguistics term, though I was never sure if he did so because he
> had a very narrow definition of it, or because he felt its ambiguity
> rendered it useless in precise characterization of  linguistic
> relatedness.  My own sense is that <cognate> ought to refer only to
> strict linguistic sibling relationships and to forms that are exactly
> matchable segment for segment; otherwise it's not distinct from
> <related>.  But that's only a personal predisposition.
 
The question is further complicated by the fact that borrowings, if they
take the form of calques, may also be genuine cognates. This may result in
the reconstruction of words for modern European artefacts in Amerindian or
African protolanguages that long predate European contact. Such calques
can be the result of at least two different processes, as follows.
 
1. If speakers of closely related language B borrow a word from language A
using their own phonology, they may may quite accidentally use
correspondences that are strictly historical. Cree, Fox, and Ojibway have
words for `gun, shoot with a gun' that are perfectly cognate, but if the
order of borrowing were from Fox to Ojibway to Cree, the correspondences
could be phonological accidents, given, for example, that Plains Cree
does not have the `sh' of F and O, and would automatically replace it with
`s'. Proto-Algonkian *_pa:shkesikani_ `gun'. F pa:shkesikani, O
pa:shkisikan, C. pa:skisikan.
 
2. If the transmission were different, the phonological accident is no
longer probable (O has both `shk' and `sk'), and what has happened
is that the borrowers have recognized the word formatives of the source
language and replaced them with the cognate formatives of their own:
_pa:shk_ `burst'; _esi_ `by heat'; _kani_ `nominal'.  This is clearly
what has happened with the Cree, Menomini, and Ojibway words for `church',
which are perfectly cognate, but composed of the easily recognized
formatives `prayer + building'. (Strictly speaking it is the formatives,
not the words, that are cognate).
 
English borrowed many nautical words from Dutch which were cognate, but
without calquing, so that we now have both `boom' and native `beam'. If
calquing had taken place we would have had `shipper' instead of `skipper'.
Such `uncalqued' borrowings from closely related languages are a different
kind of problem that is especially notable in the Australian data, as
pointed out by Harold Koch.
 
 
 
John Hewson                                     tel: (709)737-8131
University Research Professor                   fax: (709)737-4000
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jun  9 14:46:55 1998
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:46:55 EDT
Subject: "Ghostwords"
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JUN.1998.104655.EDT.RICHARDC@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Accepting Jim Rader's point that ghostwords are normally false
lemmas, some other term is needed for an "othered" form that has been
taken as a base-form (in some loose sense). If Latin-based
terminology is still widely acceptable, _abductum_ would do the
trick; it is also defensible in the light of _abduction_ as a term
for the "reasoning" which produces some of the instances.
 
Richard Coates
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jun 10 19:12:24 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 15:12:24 EDT
Subject: Sum: `cognate'
Message-ID: <WED.10.JUN.1998.151224.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In response to my query about the use of `cognate', I received the
modest total of eleven responses.  And (I'm getting used to this)
there was no consensus.  Four people endorsed the strict use of
`cognate', the sense in which no borrowing is involved.  One more
appeared to do the same, but was less explicit.  One person preferred
an even narrower sense of the term, by which cognates are only
cognate if all their segments are cognate.  But two people endorsed
the broad use of the term, by which words which are related by
borrowing may also be described as `cognate'.  The remaining
respondents took no view.
 
So I guess I must write an essay describing the multiple uses of the
term, with a cautionary note about the widespread (?) preference for
the narrower use.
 
I might mention that I already have an entry for `oblique cognates'.
Oblique cognates are words that share an ultimate common origin of
some kind but are not derived from identical etyma.  For example,
English `feather', according to Watkins, derives from PIE *<pet-ra:->,
while Greek <pteron> `wing, feather' derives from PIE *<pt-ero->, two
different formations based upon the PIE root *<pet-> `fly'.  And I
suppose the IE `tooth' words might constitute another such case, since
Latin requires PIE *<dent->, Greek and most of Germanic require PIE
*<dont->, and Gothic requires PIE *<dnt->.  This example is cited
under the entry for `tooth problem', the name of the problem which
these forms illustrate.
 
A couple of respondents drew attention to a variety of complex
scenarios, most of which have no recognized names.  There does exist,
though, the term `loan nativization', applied to cases of borrowing
from closely related languages, in which either the foreign segments
are systematically replaced by the corresponding native segments
(corresponding, that is, according to the regular systematic
correspondences between the two languages), thereby producing
something that looks wholly native, or the foreign morphemes are
systematically replaced by cognate native morphemes, thereby producing
something that looks for all the world like a purely native formation
(this is a kind of calquing).  Some of the examples cited would appear
to fall under this heading, but not all.
 
On `cognate languages', there was general agreement that this term is
no longer in regular use.  However, three people objected to our
standard term, `genetically related languages', on the ground that it
puzzles or annoys biologists and other non-linguists, and they
suggested alternative terms.  Be that as it may, `genetic
relationship' is our established term, so it has to go in, though I
can perhaps add a note pointing out the possibly misleading nature of
the term.
 
A couple of people also raised other issues which I won't pursue here,
since I have several piles of exam scripts waiting for me, and more to
come.
 
My thanks to Sally Thomason, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Claire Bowen,
Richard Coates, Roger Wright, Jim Rader, Harold Koch, Steven
Schaufele, Max Wheeler, John Hewson and Henry Hoenigswald.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jun 10 14:29:57 1998
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:29:57 EDT
Subject: *, ** and raised crosses
Message-ID: <WED.10.JUN.1998.102957.EDT.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Richard Hogg <MFCEPRH at fs1.art.man.ac.uk> writes:
 
> As you know, I have long been arguing for the use of "*" [plus
> phonetic script] for postulating reconstructable spoken forms, and
> "**" for denying the form's existence (your point 3); could you
> enter "**" as a separate entry?
 
I recommend the raised cross for reconstructed forms (respecting,
of course, the usage of cited authors), and the asterisk for incorrect
forms. Two crosses will then mark reconstructions of the second
degree, and two asterisks, extremely bad or universally impossible
forms.
 
This is the kind of notation you more or less have to use if you move,
as I do, between historical linguistics and and grammatical description,
without wanting to become inconsistent with yourself or schizophrenic.
 
Hello, Richard!
 
Theo Vennemann
10 June 1998


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Thu Jun 11 10:53:59 1998
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 06:53:59 EDT
Subject: "Ghostwords"
In-Reply-To: <E0yjNAo-0000Zg-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.11.JUN.1998.065359.EDT.WHITING@CC.HELSINKI.FI>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 8 Jun 1998 Jim Rader <jrader at m-w.com> wrote:
>
> In lexicography entities like this are sometimes broadly referred to as
> ghost words, though that term perhaps more usually covers false lemmas
> that arise from manuscript misreadings or editorial errors.
<snip>
>
>>
<snip>
>> What is the term (if there is one) for a "false" word inadvertently
>> created by later generations, perhaps by misreading a text?
<snip>
>>
>> Blaine Erickson
>> erickson at hawaii.edu
 
In cuneiform studies, false lemmata are often referred to as 'phantoms'
(presumably based more closely on French 'mot phantome').  False lemmata
are not infrequent in this field, usually resulting from the misreading
or misinterpretation of a cuneiform sign.  In this case, though, the
misinterpretation leading to the false lemma has not been made by
a native speaker of the language (there being none left).
 
I would see this as different, however, from a 'ghost' word such as
modern English <ye> used as an archaizing writing for 'the', but
pronounced /ye:/ (as in Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe), which is based on early
typesetters' use of <y> as the letter most closely resembling the
English letter _thorn_.  On the other hand, ye is not really a ghost
since it does have an existence, albeit a very limited one.
 
 
Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Jun 11 14:36:07 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:36:07 EDT
Subject: Q: `lemma'
Message-ID: <THU.11.JUN.1998.103607.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Me again.  This time I'm asking about the use of `lemma'.  The
general sense of this seems to be something like `a linguistic form
heading some discussion or accompanied by an explanation', but in
practice usage varies somewhat.  At the moment, I have four distinct
definitions, as follows, all of them attested somewhere:
 
1. A headword in a dictionary.
 
2. A reconstructed or attested form which serves to head a list of
linguistic forms which are descended from it.
 
3. A historically attested form representing a reconstructed form.
 
4. A cited linguistic form accompanied by a gloss.
 
Senses 2 and 3 are perhaps slightly conflicting.  For example, Calvert
Watkins, in his dictionary of PIE roots, quite explicitly defines a
lemma as a historically attested form continuing a reconstructed root,
and cites as an example the entry for PIE *<ekwo-> `horse',
represented by (1) Latin <equus> and (2) Greek <hippos>, in which the
Latin and Greek words are for Watkins the lemmas (lemmata).  Here I
would have said that *<ekwo-> was most obviously the lemma, though I
can see the point of applying the term also to each of the
subheadings, but I'm puzzled about the statement that a lemma is
"historically attested".  And, of course, in many entries some of the
enumerated subheads are themselves reconstructed, not attested, as for
example when PIE *<gwou-> `ox, bull, cow' is followed by (1)
Proto-Germanic *<ko:uz> and (2) Latin <bo:s>, among others.  By
Watkins's definition, <bo:s> is a lemma here but *<ko:uz> is not,
which appears to make very little sense.
 
On definition 4, it is not clear to me whether the intention is to
include only roots, stems and lexical items, or whether inflected
forms should also be included.  So, for example, if I cite Basque
<ikusi> `see', then <ikusi>, a lexical item in its citation form,
would be a lemma (at least for some people), but what about its
inflected form <dakusat> `I see it'?  Is <dakusat> here also a lemma?
 
All comments gratefully received.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Fri Jun 12 15:30:04 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 11:30:04 EDT
Subject: *, ** and raised crosses
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JUN.1998.113004.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The identity of * in both synchronic and diachronic studies has always
struck me as non-gratuitious.  It means "unattested" in either case.  So,
in diachrony it indicates a reconstruction, as a *relevant* unattested
form.  In synchrony it also means "unattested" in a *relevant* way,
generally on the basis of a "grammaticality" judgment (but, in the best
cases, consistent with lack of documentation of occurrence).  Otherwise it
does not come up (unless you consider "dialect" disagreements, which should
be relevant to diachrony / language change -- otherwise, they're usually
called "idiolect" disagreements) .  Because of the interests of synchrony
it remains to further interpretation as to whether or not the synchronic
use of * has diachronic implications.  It does if the *ed example
previously occurred in the language, but no longer does.  Householder, who
I think is credited with the synchronic extention of the symbol, built in
the possibility of a diachronic consideration.  I like it.  It would be
interesting if ** correlated with second-level reconstruction, as Venemann
suggests, and with "even less expected" in synchronic analyses.  But I
don't really think it's as useful as simply the single *, and it could be
misleading in its pretentions to greater precision.  -- Benji


From martinez at eucmos.sim.ucm.es  Sat Jun 13 13:02:41 1998
From: martinez at eucmos.sim.ucm.es (Javier Martinez)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 09:02:41 EDT
Subject: New Book: Celtiberian
Message-ID: <SAT.13.JUN.1998.090241.EDT.MARTINEZ@EUCMOS.SIM.UCM.ES>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
******Apologies for cross-posting*****
 
INTRODUCCION AL CELTIBERICO
by Carlos JORDAN COLERA, University of Zaragoza 1998.
With a Prologue by Francisco Villar.
 
Introduction to the Celtiberian language is the first manual of this
language to appear in the market.  As Francisco Villar writes in the
preface to the book "Its timing is perfect. This book not only will help
 
the growing community of specialists in Celtiberian but it will also be
useful to anyone who engages in philological or linguistic research on
this language. It will
help our college students in courses of Celtiberian and it will be a
useful tool for historians and researchers on Antiquity of the Iberian
Peninsula... Differences apart, this manual is to Celtiberian language
what La Lange Galoise by P.Y. Lambert is to Gaulish."
 
The book is divided in four chapters. Chapters I and II exposes the
phonetic-phonological and morphological features of the language.  Using
 
a comparative framework, the author describes the Indoeuropean, Celtic
and actual Celtiberic features, trying to define those that seem more
certain.
Additionally chapters I and II deal with the celtiberian wrinting
system.  Chapters III and IV entitled "Documents in celtiberian language
 
and paleohispanic writing system" and "Documents in celtiberian language
 
and latin alphabet" deal with the typological classification of the
documents (coins, graffitti, tombstones, documents of hospitality and
other documents).  The author proposes an ordering based on increasing
morpho-syntactic complexity. All possible readings and comments on each
of them are given as well.
The book closes with a linguistic features list, a word index and a
copious bibliography.
 
June 1988   259 pp; many illustrations
 ISBN-84-920431-6-4.
Universidad de Zaragoza


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jun 14 03:17:18 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:17:18 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0yhdy3-0005df-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SAT.13.JUN.1998.231718.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have one suggestion.  The way Larry presents the
information is misleading in one important way.
You mention each possible use of each symbol
but do not indiacte the systems of oppositions
they enter into. Thus, it may be that in philology
some people use parens for what other people mark
with square brackets, but the information that is
missing is what the systems in use are.  This would
really be useful to have, esp. for those like me
who are not too familiar with said systems.  It
would also be good to be told which systems
are more widely used or considered standard.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sun Jun 14 12:53:00 1998
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 08:53:00 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.980613210529.4443B-100000@breakout.rs.itd.umich.edu> from "manaster@umich.edu" at Jun 13,
 98 11:17:18 pm
Message-ID: <SUN.14.JUN.1998.085300.EDT.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexis M R writes:
 
> I have one suggestion.  The way Larry presents the
> information is misleading in one important way.
> You mention each possible use of each symbol
> but do not indiacte the systems of oppositions
> they enter into. Thus, it may be that in philology
> some people use parens for what other people mark
> with square brackets, but the information that is
> missing is what the systems in use are.  This would
> really be useful to have, esp. for those like me
> who are not too familiar with said systems.  It
> would also be good to be told which systems
> are more widely used or considered standard.
 
This is a very reasonable point.  But my problem is that I am writing
a dictionary, not a handbook, and so all I can reasonably do is to
enter things alphabetically.  Entering the symbols has already proved
a nuisance, of course.  At the moment, I am entering each symbol
alphabetically under its name, and I plan to list the symbols with
their names in an introduction.  Possibly, though, it might be more
efficient to enter all the symbols in a group at the end of the
dictionary, though in this case I will lose the names unless I just
stick them in somewhat awkwardly.
 
As usual, all advice gratefully received.  But remember that I have a
length limit, and that I'm writing a dictionary.  Following up
Alexis's suggestion would probably require one or more appendices --
fine by me, but there's a limit to what I can squeeze in without
giving my editor heart failure.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Jun 15 11:02:09 1998
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 07:02:09 EDT
Subject: Q: symbols and abbreviations
In-Reply-To: <E0ylCFN-0006yS-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <MON.15.JUN.1998.070209.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
How about this? In your alphabetical definitions, you
could say, "in system 1" or "in the dominant system"
or thelike, and if you choose to say "system 1",
you'd only need a very brief intro to define 1, 2,
etc.  Aside from that, if you cannot get this into
your dictionary, please consider distributing such
info online to your friends and admirers.
 
BTW, I tried to get the OED, which is planning
a whole new edition, to include non-alphabetic
signs, but they won't do it.  They also won't
include proper etymologies, or, my favorite
suggestion, definitions of linguistic terms
that make it clear that almost of them
HAVE no standard intensional definitions
anymore.  AMR
 
On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
>
> As usual, all advice gratefully received.  But remember that I have a
> length limit, and that I'm writing a dictionary.  Following up
> Alexis's suggestion would probably require one or more appendices --
> fine by me, but there's a limit to what I can squeeze in without
> giving my editor heart failure.
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From lsa at lsadc.org  Tue Jun 16 21:13:57 1998
From: lsa at lsadc.org (LSA)
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 17:13:57 EDT
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JUN.1998.171357.EDT.LSA@LSADC.ORG>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The June 1998 LSA Bulletin (No. 160) is now available at the Society's
website (http://www.lsadc.org).


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 19 16:30:12 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 12:30:12 EDT
Subject: Sum: term
In-Reply-To: <m0xsXTY-0006MiC@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JUN.1998.123012.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
since the proposition is an assumption; I don't believe anyone is going to
prove that languages are equicomplex in the near future, but the
proposition can be used to explain the phenomena you have observed.
 
 
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> A few days ago I posted a request for a term.  Once again, the
> phenomenon I wanted a name for was this: a change that leads to
> simplification in one domain often produces a simultaneous
> complication in another domain.
>
> The most familiar examples of this phenomenon, of course, involve
> phonological simplifications and morphological complications, but
> that's not the only possibility, as I perhaps should have pointed out
> in my original query.  For example, syntagmatic phonological
> simplifications can produce paradigmatic phonological complications,
> as when palatalization in palatalizing environments produces new
> marked segments, like the Czech fricative trill.  Then again,
> analogical leveling (morphological simplification) can produce new
> alternations in stems that formerly didn't alternate (morphological
> complication), as has happened in some varieties of Serbo-Croatian (if
> I'm still allowed to use that name).
>
> The motive for my query was this.  As many of you know, I am compiling
> a dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics.  Now, in
> recent years, we have coined a rather large number of terms in the
> field, and I've noticed that good names have been coined for a number
> of familiar phenomena for which we formerly had no names; examples are
> `actualization' (Timberlake), `metatypy' (Ross), `pandemic
> irregularity' (Blust), `exaptation' (Lass), and `phonogenesis'
> (Hopper), not to mention the memorable `morphanization' (Matisoff).
>
> But I haven't found a recognized name for the phenomenon I'm
> interested in here.  But, since the phenomenon, as Steven Schaufele
> has pointed out, is such a fundamental one in our field, it seems to
> me that we really ought to have a name for it.  Hence my query.
>
> Fifteen people replied, and the first thing to report is that there
> does indeed appear to be no recognized name for the phenomenon.
> Almost everyone had one or more suggestions to make, but no two people
> suggested the same term (though in one case two people came fairly
> close).  A couple of people suggested terms which they themselves had
> apparently used in print, but I guess those proposals haven't caught
> on yet.
>
> Anyway, here are the terms proposed, or most of them.  I omit a couple
> of totally facetious suggestions, and one or two which were so
> exceedingly long that I don't think they can be considered as terms.
> A couple of people, I think, thought that I was asking specifically
> for a label for the conversion of phonology into morphology, but in
> fact I have in mind something more general than that.
>
> BLINDNESS PRINCIPLE
> CODE SHIFT
> DIACHRONIC COMPENSATION
> EQUILIBRIUM
> HYDRA'S RAZOR
> LOCAL IMPROVEMENT
> LOCAL SIMPLIFICATION
> MARKEDNESS CONFLICT
> MORPHOLOGIZATION OF PHONOLOGICAL RULES
> NATURALNESS CONFLICT
> SCHLIMMBESSERUNG
> SIMPLEXIFICATION
> STURTEVANT'S PARADOX (unspecified variation on)
> TRADE-OFF
> TUNNEL VISION PRINCIPLE
>
> Right.  Now what do I do?  Call for a vote?  Organize a competition
> with five distinguished judges and a prize of two weeks in the PIE
> homeland of your choice?  Close my eyes and stick a pin?  Ask Roger
> Lass what the biologists call it?  Coin my own term and hope everybody
> buys the book and believes me?  Or should I just admit defeat and not
> include any term for this, on the not unreasonable ground that
> dictionaries shouldn't be including words that don't exist?
>
> Damned if I know.  But it *would* be nice if we had *some* name for
> this.  Otherwise, how can we persuade our students it's important if
> we haven't got a name for it?  I mean, I don't recall that so many
> Americans go hot and bothered about visiting ever more soldiers and
> bombs on the Vietnamese until somebody decided that what was happening
> was `escalation', and then suddenly escalation was a hot issue.
>
> Anyway, my thanks to Jacob Baltuch, Vit Bubenik, Miguel Carrasquer
> Vidal, John Costello, Guy Deutscher, Hans-Olav Engel, Ralf-Stefan
> Georg, Harold Koch, Bh. Krishnamurti, Paul Lloyd, Gary Miller, Steven
> Schaufele, Theo Vennemann, Benji Wald, and Roger Wright.
>
> (Hey -- how come no women?)
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 19 22:11:15 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 18:11:15 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b04af54a94ba722@[128.97.154.193]>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JUN.1998.181115.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The following is a belated response to the problems that you raised. I
hope that it helps or at least does not add to the existing confusion.
 
In discussing the meaning of a term like 'genetic relationship' it helps
to distinguish between our theory of what it is and (on the other hand)
what we do to demonstrate why we should believe that a genetic
relationship exists between two or more languages. Theoretically (and by
definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
language. To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
the original unitary language.
 
Collateral similarities not organized as systematic
correspondences are not acceptable evidence of separate continuations of
an earlier unitary language. We do not know enough about the distributions
of phonemic similarities. Presumably if we did, we might be able to
provide an estimate of the value of the Greenbergian collections.
Systematic correspondences adhered to rigorously, allowing nevertheless
for deviant correspondences attributable to metathesis or analogic change
among some others, provide an approach to a qualitative collection of
evidence for a genetic interrelationship. The collection must be of
sufficient magnitude and/or quality to exclude any possibility
of being attributed to chance or borrowing. Similarity correspondences
between homosemantic or homeosemantic pairs of items do not escape the
likelihood of being due to chance. The hypothesis of interrelationship is
an explanation of collateral correspondences, or, if you wish, is
an inference from the collection of items paired by satisfying the demand
for collateral correspondences.
 
Greenberg's organization of African languages into four families was
successful because it could be shown that their respective linguistic
material exhibit collateral correspondences. The
fact that he was led to his conclusion through what he calls 'mass
comparison' based on apparent similarities is beside the point, though it
suggests the possiblity (not the likelihood, which is required in
scientific determinations) that there might be a relationship.
However speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk. A
language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of pairs
of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
with any of theirs. In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
inheritances'. The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
innovations, the latter including borrowings.
The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
not mix (under natural circumstances). Creoles are either aberrant
dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
different languages if they are not. In the latter case its first native
speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
languages that contributed linguistic material to it. (Of course it is
conceivable that today we might be able to concoct a dialect chain to
connect two contemporary languages, but it is hard to see what purpose it
would serve and therefore why we should carry that possiblity into our
method.)
 
 
 
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, benji wald wrote:
 
> There is a point about "genetic relationship" that I think is worth
> considering, because I think both sides on various controversies about it
> tend to ignore it.  To begin with, we can take Ruhlen Merritt's fallacious
> argument that reconstruction presupposes genetic relationship, which he
> takes to mean that genetic relationship has already been "established"
> before comparative reconstruction can begin.  For him it is established on
> the basis of the kinds of Greenbergian mass comparisons which have figured
> (or been attempted to figure) most recently in this list in the discussion
> of the relationship between Dravidian and the African families -- and,
> admittedly, in Greenberg's division of African languages into four genetic
> families, now generally accepted -- but not without further testing and
> refinement.  Against the mass comparison method, other historical linguists
> have inevitably argued about the confounding effects of borrowing and
> chance resemblances.  My thought, as follows, is that when we talk about
> genetic relationships among LANGUAGES, rather than parts of the lexicon,
> morphology etc etc, both sides obscure something.
>
> Thus, first, against Merritt's argument.  He's absolutely wrong.  Mass
> comparison gives the basis for a genetic HYPOTHESIS.  Comparative
> reconstruction TESTS that hypothesis.  Without it nothing has been proven,
> not genetic relationship, borrowing or chance resemblance.
>
> Next, to the extent that a comparative reconstruction is successful it does
> NOT demonstrate that the "languages" involved are genetically related, but
> only that those PARTS of the languages which are reconstructed are
> genetically related.  Of course, it provides confidence that other parts of
> those languages are also genetically related, but, again, that is only
> DEMONSTRATED when reliable comparative reconstruction is performed on those
> other parts.  Otherwise, it remains only a possibility.  Creoles and mized
> languages show that genetic relationship of some parts of a set of
> languages do not always presuppose that other parts of the same languages
> are necessarily GENETICALLY related.  And indeed, it is well-known that all
> languages borrow as well as genetically inherit.
>
> Thus, speaking about genetic relationship among "languages" as "wholes" is
> loose talk.  The internal structure of trees intending to show branching
> genetic relationships are always a problem because different parts of a set
> of languages are not always related in the same way.  Innovations begin in
> different areas and have different spreads according to the time of contact
> and subsequent events.  This is well-known from dialect geography, but adds
> confusion to arguments about genetic relationship.  Sometimes, it does
> little harm, but when we are in the mass comparison stage, it can result in
> much futile argument.
>
> Having said this, I admit that the poor quality of Winter's data and
> arguments have been worth pointing out.  But I see no reason to postpone my
> thoughts until more competent proposals flare up.
> --  Benji
>


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Sat Jun 20 20:07:42 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 16:07:42 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <SAT.20.JUN.1998.160742.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
of native speakers". If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers? Then you've
got a break in the succession right there. Why worry about "speakers"
in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
as a relatioship between *systems* without worrying about the details of
the transmission.


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 22 18:08:50 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 14:08:50 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b02b1b346779cd7@[128.97.208.83]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.140850.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> Isidore Dyen writes:
>
> >Theoretically (and by
> >definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
> >separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
> >language.
>
> The distinction between "unitary" and "uniform" leads to problems, as we'll
> see.  For the moment, I suppose that "not uniform" is mentioned because all
> observable "languages" are of that kind.  At the same time, most of them
> are assumed to have evolved from a single "system".  Already some hedging
> is necessary since it is problematic that "Black English/Ebonics" or
> whatever you call it, is descended "unitarily" along with "the King's
> English" (and "Webster's"), and Sranan is so different that from most
> "Englishes" that the issue doesn't even arise in a useful way.
 
The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
Perhaps you would prefer a new term like 'hololect' instead of the term
language; a hololect is unitary and composed of dialects. Dialects are
connected ot each other in a hololect through a chain of pairs of mutually
intelligible dialects. This is our or at least my conception of the
way the realm of the world's language can be viewed and i it is in this
sence that they are wholes. It does not matter to me whether you find this
interesting or not, but if I then assume that this type of realm has
persisted from the origination of languages through a succession of native
speakers, I can make inferences about the history of languages
including to some extent the shapes that appeared in their earlier
stages. Again it does not matter whether you consider this interesting.
Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
sense and are thus irrelevant.
Another assumption is that there are different hololects in our world.
Chinese and English are different hololects. Likewise English and German
are different hololects. The fact that from a practical point of view the
meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
languages.
Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
These assumptions can be regarded as part of a set of definitions and
theories that permit us to deal with the past of languages. They are not
all the assumptions. More will appear.
 
 
> Dyen continues:
>
> >To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
> >same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
> >correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
> >them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
> >stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
> >collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
> >the original unitary language.
>
> Fine.  And collateral correspondences work for much of the BE and Sranan
> *lexicon* with other "English".  But the "whole" I referred to that Dyen
> quotes (see below) includes morphology, syntax etc, for which BE is
> problematic in some cases, and Sranan is more generally unlikely (and no
> one tries to derive Sranan syntax from Old English, let alone
> Indo-European).
>
> (NB.  I'm taking liberties with Sranan as "English" for the sake of Dyen's
> points on  genetic relationship, since no one considers Sranan "English"
> (as far as I know, certainly not the speakers, or those familiar with the
> language).  Maybe we should be discussing whether "Flemish" is "Dutch"?  Or
> whether Catalan and Provencal are the "same" language?  I'm anticipating
> Dyen's mutual intelligibility criterion for a "unitary" "language"
> (discussed below).
>
> Dyen goes on to later say:
>
> >...speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk.
>
> I said it was, with respect to the assumption of genetic relationship on
> the basis of partial reconstruction (usually of some lexical material),
> which is what he is responding to in context .  He immediately continues to
> say
>
> > A  language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of
 pairs
> >of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
> >each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
> >with any of theirs.
>
> The last statement is false.  There is no way to set a boundary to
> distinguish one "language" from *some* other on the basis of mutual
> intelligibility.  There is no "technical" sense of the word "language" that
> can do this in practice, i.e., that corresponds to something observable
> and/or, in some way, testable.  It is a vacuous attempt at a definition of
> "language" (in a "technical" sense).  Historical linguists do not concern
> themselves technically with the notion of "mutual intelligibility".  As
> soon as we have lack of "uniformity" we already have the possibility
> (indeed the virtual certainty) of "mutual unintelligbility" on some point
> or other.  That has nothing to do with whether we are dealing with two
> "languages" or two "dialects" of ONE language.  The claim made in the last
> statement is not helpful, as far as I can see.  Is it meant to apply to the
> difference between obviously distinct languages like "English" and
> "Chinese" and/or to distinct related branches like "Slavic" and "Germanic"?
> That is not a problem, and it is not related to the problems I raised
> above.
>
  See my comments above.
 
> Meanwhile, he continues:
>
> >In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
> >'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
> >'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
> >inheritances'.
>
> Obviously "languages" descend from "wholes".  The problem is that their
> parts may descend from the parts of different "wholes", and to some extent
> they always do. Just how much of a "language" continues the "whole" of some
> earlier single language is determined by extensive research -- never
> completed, but sometimes overwhelmingly favoring one former "whole" over
> others.  My point was that you don't know how much of an observed language
> descends from some former single "whole" until you do the research.  The
> historical literature on syntax, and to a lesser extent on phonology, is
> loaded with suggestions about "borrowing" as motivation or actuation for
> this or that change.  That already presupposes (not always validly) that
> "inheritance" has already been established for relevant, though different,
> points.  "Relevant but different", now how does that work?  The most
> vulnerable assumption, I think Dyen would concede, is that if much
> vocabulary and even some morphology, is shared by two "languages" then they
> *must be* genetically related as WHOLES even if most of their syntaxes are
> historically unrelated.  (The "bad" literature, e.g., attempting to
> exclusively derive peculiarities of Afrikaans from random localised Dutch
> dialects, or BE from random localised British dialects, shows the dogmatic
> operation of such assumptions; they turn out to be historically
> problematic, and the least that can be said is that they show that whatever
> changes they are used to explain are presumably "possible" *internal*
> changes in the some variety of the "language" at issue.  Beyond that, a
> factual historical account of the evolution of the varieties in question
> remains problematic, once the methodological dogma is dismissed as
> misleading.)
 
 
If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
the first nad only language) in the world. I sympathize with our
impatience with certain types of attribution, but this should only
motivate you to do better.
 >
> Next,
> >The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
> >innovations, the latter including borrowings.
>
> No conceptual problem here.  Much practical problem.
>
> >The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
> >represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
> >succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
> >the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
>
> As might be assumed from what I said above, this is not an interesting or
> even practical criterion for "language".  It only serves my suspicion that
> Dyen has major = unproblematic branching in a tree model in mind.  The
> changes themselves are what's most interesting in historical linguistics,
> and what one change has to do with another -- if anything -- often a
> difficult problem to solve.  This has nothing to do with the difference
> between "dialects" and "languages", I repeat here for emphasis.  Of course,
> loss of mutual intelligibility with time, presumably accumulation of
> changes, is also interesting, but has hardly been studied.  As I said
> before, it is particularly interesting to study within a SINGLE "language".
> Branching becomes problematic when one branch shares features mutually
> excluded between two other branches and both are innovative features.  Then
> we have a branching problem which is identical to the ubiquitous branching
> problems in classifying "mutually intelligible" dialects of a single
> "language".
>
> >It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
> >not mix (under natural circumstances).
>
> That assumption is known not to be valid, notwithstanding the resistance
> that cannot resist asserting that mixture is "rare". (Since code-switching
> is extremely common, the assertion seems to claim that mixture does not
> arise from grammatically conditioned code-switching.)  BTW, without pencil
> and paper, mixing can only occur under natural circumstances.  One cannot
> intentionally spontaneously mix languages the way they have arisen in
> nature, e.g., Michif, Aleut-Russian, whatever, i.e., switch between
> languages on the basis of the grammatical category.
>
> Creoles are either aberrant
> >dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
> >different languages if they are not.
>
> What "chain"?  Is this the chain of mutual intelligibility?  If so, how
> does that have anything to do with the "unitary" origin of the "creole"
> within that chain?  Maybe Dyen is thinking of some kind of relatively
> radical "restructuring" which he might insist on viewing as "internal
> change" and thus continuation of a unitary "language".  Otherwise, what's
> the point?
>
The point is to maintain the nature ot the hololect. The term creole is
applied to some dialects that are, though aberrant still part of a large
whole by virtue of being connected to it by pairs of mutually intelligible
speakers whereas others are not.
 
> >In the latter case its first native
> >speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
> >languages that contributed linguistic material to it.
>
> I'm not sure what the point of this consideration is.  Is it about
> "convergence", which I suppose from Dyen's perspective is cumulative
> borrowing from the base to the creole?  Again, in the case of Hawaiian
> Pidgin, i.e., an English-based creole, that is not the case any more than
> it is the case for all kinds of dialects of English regardless of their
> ancestry.  And in practical terms we must now realise that "mutual
> intelligibility" is a theoretical notion which has not been defined in
> Dyen's perspective.  It remains to be seen, for example, whether some
> English-speaking area in the Midwest US would find "Hawaiian Pidgin" or
> Glasgow (working class) English more difficult to understand.  And it does
> not strike me that the results would be relevant to Dyen's proposal.  Would
> they refute it if Glasgow was more difficult to understand than Hawaiian P?
> To take an extreme example, a makeshift pidgin based on English would
> probably be easier to understand for a relevant group of English-speakers
> than Glasgow English for comparable messages.  Yet, such a pidgin as a
> WHOLE hardly descends from (Old) English (indeed a makeshift pidgin is not
> a "whole" in the sense that any historical language is, or in any sense
> amenable to linguistic analysis), while, for the sake of argument, Glasgow
> English as a WHOLE does descend from (Old) English.
 
No. The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
least one and so a dialect of that one.
Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
 
A child born into such an environment might acquire that pidgin as his
first language, thus introducing it as a member of the native languages of
the world. We have no record of the appearance of such languages prior to
the period of colonialism.
 
> I appreciate Dyen's attempt to articulate the traditional assumptions of
> "genetic relationship", but I question the success of that attempt.  I find
> the part about "mutual intelligibility" least succesful, and unnecessary.
> -- Benji
>
See discussion above. Enjoy. ID.


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 22 15:19:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 11:19:42 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v01530504b1b1bfebe6b6@[194.134.29.16]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.111942.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
I wonder how you think languages continue in exicstence if not through a
succession of native speakers. Do y;ou think that Latin continued as a
spoken language to be considered on a par with French through Church or
medieval Latin? Do you think that linguists do not make d distinction
between a language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic linguistics
be regarded as applying to artificial languages? To dead languages after
death? I am looking forqward to your replies. ID
 
 
 
On Sat, 20 Jun 1998, Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Isidore Dyen wrote:
>
> >The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
> >represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
> >succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
> >the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
>
> What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
> it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
> of native speakers". If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
> did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
> French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers? Then you've
> got a break in the succession right there. Why worry about "speakers"
> in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
> as a relatioship between *systems* without worrying about the details of
> the transmission.
>


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Mon Jun 22 14:39:58 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:39:58 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v01530504b1b1bfebe6b6@[194.134.29.16]>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103958.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Dr Baltuch was sceptical of the following:
 
>>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
But this seems right, surely.
 
>What do "native speakers" have to do in all of this? As far as I know
>it is not likely that Latin developped into French "via a succession
>of native speakers".
 
Yes, indeed it did.
 
>If the first generation of Gauls who adopted Latin
>did not have Latin nannies isn't it likely that the starting point of
>French was a form of Latin spoken by non-native speakers?
 
This used to be assumed, yes, but unfortunately research into the
evidence (rather than the theory) hasn't supported it. Indeed, it seems
probable that these "substratum" effects were lessening as time went on,
and the Latin of the Roman Empire showed less such divergence at the end
of the Empire than it had at its start. Considerable evolution, of
course, but not such divergence as to disturb communication, and quite
possibly convergence. Mutual intelligibility over a wide area seems
(from the historical evidence) to have applied for several centuries
after that. (Mutual intelligibility does not mean total similarity, of
course). So, since I agree with Professor Dyen here, I wouldn't want to
refer to "French" till long after the initial Gaulish-Latin-learning
scenario envisaged above.
        If we want to blame the emergence of French onto non-Latin
speakers (and most of us don't), then Franks are a better bet than
Gauls; if we wish to use Romance as a case study, almost any Romance
language is a better example than French (which is a special case for
several reasons).
 
> Why worry about "speakers"
>in the first place? I thought a linguistic relationship could be defined
>as a relationship between *systems* without worrying about the details
>of the transmission.
 
Because we are talking about real people here, that's why.
                                                                RW


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Mon Jun 22 14:39:06 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:39:06 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103906.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen writes:
 
>Theoretically (and by
>definition) two languages are interrelated (related to each other) if they
>separately continue what was once a unitary (but not necessarily uniform)
>language.
 
The distinction between "unitary" and "uniform" leads to problems, as we'll
see.  For the moment, I suppose that "not uniform" is mentioned because all
observable "languages" are of that kind.  At the same time, most of them
are assumed to have evolved from a single "system".  Already some hedging
is necessary since it is problematic that "Black English/Ebonics" or
whatever you call it, is descended "unitarily" along with "the King's
English" (and "Webster's"), and Sranan is so different that from most
"Englishes" that the issue doesn't even arise in a useful way.
 
Dyen continues:
 
>To demonstrate that it is likely that two languages continue the
>same unitary language it is necessary to show that they exhibit systematic
>correspondences, better called collateral correspondences to distinguish
>them from lineal correspondences that a language shares with its earlier
>stages. It is these separate lineal correspondences that form the
>collateral correspondences that are used in the reconstruction of forms of
>the original unitary language.
 
Fine.  And collateral correspondences work for much of the BE and Sranan
*lexicon* with other "English".  But the "whole" I referred to that Dyen
quotes (see below) includes morphology, syntax etc, for which BE is
problematic in some cases, and Sranan is more generally unlikely (and no
one tries to derive Sranan syntax from Old English, let alone
Indo-European).
 
(NB.  I'm taking liberties with Sranan as "English" for the sake of Dyen's
points on  genetic relationship, since no one considers Sranan "English"
(as far as I know, certainly not the speakers, or those familiar with the
language).  Maybe we should be discussing whether "Flemish" is "Dutch"?  Or
whether Catalan and Provencal are the "same" language?  I'm anticipating
Dyen's mutual intelligibility criterion for a "unitary" "language"
(discussed below).
 
Dyen goes on to later say:
 
>...speaking about languages as 'wholes' is not loose talk.
 
I said it was, with respect to the assumption of genetic relationship on
the basis of partial reconstruction (usually of some lexical material),
which is what he is responding to in context .  He immediately continues to
say
 
> A  language, technically as opposed to a dialect, is a bounded chain of pairs
>of mutually intelligible dialects. It has a boundary that it shares with
>each other language since none of its dialects is mutually intelligible
>with any of theirs.
 
The last statement is false.  There is no way to set a boundary to
distinguish one "language" from *some* other on the basis of mutual
intelligibility.  There is no "technical" sense of the word "language" that
can do this in practice, i.e., that corresponds to something observable
and/or, in some way, testable.  It is a vacuous attempt at a definition of
"language" (in a "technical" sense).  Historical linguists do not concern
themselves technically with the notion of "mutual intelligibility".  As
soon as we have lack of "uniformity" we already have the possibility
(indeed the virtual certainty) of "mutual unintelligbility" on some point
or other.  That has nothing to do with whether we are dealing with two
"languages" or two "dialects" of ONE language.  The claim made in the last
statement is not helpful, as far as I can see.  Is it meant to apply to the
difference between obviously distinct languages like "English" and
"Chinese" and/or to distinct related branches like "Slavic" and "Germanic"?
That is not a problem, and it is not related to the problems I raised
above.
 
Meanwhile, he continues:
 
>In this sense it is a whole. What you speak of as
>'genetically related' parts--with the implication that some parts are not
>'genetically related'--are more commonly called 'cognate' or 'shared
>inheritances'.
 
Obviously "languages" descend from "wholes".  The problem is that their
parts may descend from the parts of different "wholes", and to some extent
they always do. Just how much of a "language" continues the "whole" of some
earlier single language is determined by extensive research -- never
completed, but sometimes overwhelmingly favoring one former "whole" over
others.  My point was that you don't know how much of an observed language
descends from some former single "whole" until you do the research.  The
historical literature on syntax, and to a lesser extent on phonology, is
loaded with suggestions about "borrowing" as motivation or actuation for
this or that change.  That already presupposes (not always validly) that
"inheritance" has already been established for relevant, though different,
points.  "Relevant but different", now how does that work?  The most
vulnerable assumption, I think Dyen would concede, is that if much
vocabulary and even some morphology, is shared by two "languages" then they
*must be* genetically related as WHOLES even if most of their syntaxes are
historically unrelated.  (The "bad" literature, e.g., attempting to
exclusively derive peculiarities of Afrikaans from random localised Dutch
dialects, or BE from random localised British dialects, shows the dogmatic
operation of such assumptions; they turn out to be historically
problematic, and the least that can be said is that they show that whatever
changes they are used to explain are presumably "possible" *internal*
changes in the some variety of the "language" at issue.  Beyond that, a
factual historical account of the evolution of the varieties in question
remains problematic, once the methodological dogma is dismissed as
misleading.)
 
Next,
>The remainders are composed of individual inheritances and
>innovations, the latter including borrowings.
 
No conceptual problem here.  Much practical problem.
 
>The reason interrelated languages are treated as wholes is that each
>represents a separate continuation of the original unitary language via a
>succession of native speakers, their separation occurring at the moment
>the last cross-pair of mutually intelligible speakers had vanished.
 
As might be assumed from what I said above, this is not an interesting or
even practical criterion for "language".  It only serves my suspicion that
Dyen has major = unproblematic branching in a tree model in mind.  The
changes themselves are what's most interesting in historical linguistics,
and what one change has to do with another -- if anything -- often a
difficult problem to solve.  This has nothing to do with the difference
between "dialects" and "languages", I repeat here for emphasis.  Of course,
loss of mutual intelligibility with time, presumably accumulation of
changes, is also interesting, but has hardly been studied.  As I said
before, it is particularly interesting to study within a SINGLE "language".
Branching becomes problematic when one branch shares features mutually
excluded between two other branches and both are innovative features.  Then
we have a branching problem which is identical to the ubiquitous branching
problems in classifying "mutually intelligible" dialects of a single
"language".
 
>It is an assumption of the comparative method that different languages do
>not mix (under natural circumstances).
 
That assumption is known not to be valid, notwithstanding the resistance
that cannot resist asserting that mixture is "rare". (Since code-switching
is extremely common, the assertion seems to claim that mixture does not
arise from grammatically conditioned code-switching.)  BTW, without pencil
and paper, mixing can only occur under natural circumstances.  One cannot
intentionally spontaneously mix languages the way they have arisen in
nature, e.g., Michif, Aleut-Russian, whatever, i.e., switch between
languages on the basis of the grammatical category.
 
Creoles are either aberrant
>dialects if they are still part of a chain with other dialects or
>different languages if they are not.
 
What "chain"?  Is this the chain of mutual intelligibility?  If so, how
does that have anything to do with the "unitary" origin of the "creole"
within that chain?  Maybe Dyen is thinking of some kind of relatively
radical "restructuring" which he might insist on viewing as "internal
change" and thus continuation of a unitary "language".  Otherwise, what's
the point?
 
>In the latter case its first native
>speaker was not mutually intelligible with any dialect of any of the
>languages that contributed linguistic material to it.
 
I'm not sure what the point of this consideration is.  Is it about
"convergence", which I suppose from Dyen's perspective is cumulative
borrowing from the base to the creole?  Again, in the case of Hawaiian
Pidgin, i.e., an English-based creole, that is not the case any more than
it is the case for all kinds of dialects of English regardless of their
ancestry.  And in practical terms we must now realise that "mutual
intelligibility" is a theoretical notion which has not been defined in
Dyen's perspective.  It remains to be seen, for example, whether some
English-speaking area in the Midwest US would find "Hawaiian Pidgin" or
Glasgow (working class) English more difficult to understand.  And it does
not strike me that the results would be relevant to Dyen's proposal.  Would
they refute it if Glasgow was more difficult to understand than Hawaiian P?
To take an extreme example, a makeshift pidgin based on English would
probably be easier to understand for a relevant group of English-speakers
than Glasgow English for comparable messages.  Yet, such a pidgin as a
WHOLE hardly descends from (Old) English (indeed a makeshift pidgin is not
a "whole" in the sense that any historical language is, or in any sense
amenable to linguistic analysis), while, for the sake of argument, Glasgow
English as a WHOLE does descend from (Old) English.
 
I appreciate Dyen's attempt to articulate the traditional assumptions of
"genetic relationship", but I question the success of that attempt.  I find
the part about "mutual intelligibility" least succesful, and unnecessary.
-- Benji


From msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il  Mon Jun 22 14:36:09 1998
From: msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il (Daniel Baum)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:36:09 EDT
Subject: Suggestion for new Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103609.EDT.MSDBAUM@MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
If anyone would be interested in subscribing to, and participating in, a new
list, devoted to Indo-Iranian linguistics i.e. Vedic and Avestan phonology,
morphology, syntax and text linguistics, etc. I would be willing to set it
up and look after it.
 
I personally, as an (apprentice) Indo-Iranist and Vedicist have always felt
that such a list is missing. If anyone else feels the same, I would be happy
to fill the gap.
 
Daniel Baum
msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il
Home Page http://www.angelfire.com/il/dbaum
Tel: ++972-2-583-6634; Mob. ++972-51-972-829


From d_anderson at indo-european.org  Mon Jun 22 14:35:39 1998
From: d_anderson at indo-european.org (Deborah W. Anderson)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:35:39 EDT
Subject: IE Bulletin
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.103539.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A new issue of the INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIES BULLETIN (formerly "IE
Newsletter") has appeared.  It contains news, listings of new books,
upcoming conferences and summer schools, new electronic resources for
IE, IE books available for review in Word and Language as well as
essays.
 
Among the essays in the May/June 1998 issue are:
-- "A Review of Recent Armenological Research" by Bert Vaux
--  "Recent Developments in Venetic" by Rex Wallace
--  "The Kangjiashimenzi Petroglyphs in Western China" by Jeannine
Davis-Kimball
 
Other short reports:
--highlights of the Special Session on Indo-European Subbgrouping and
Internal Relations (held as part of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Meeting, Feb. 14, 1998) by Andrew Garrett --summary of the Tagung on
the Carian-Greek Bilingual from Kaunos (October 31-November 1, 1997,
Feusisberg, Switzerland) by H. Craig Melchert --brief review of
_Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture_ (ed. by J. P. Mallory and D.
Q. Adams) by Alfred Bammesberger
 
The Bulletin is officially affiliated with the Indo-European Studies
program at UCLA.  Contribution levels (which pay for this bi-annual
newsletter and support IE activities) are $10 for students, $20 for
others ($25 for those outside the continental U.S.).   Checks should
be made payable to "FAIES/UCLA Foundation" and sent to: FAIES, 2143
Kelton Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90025.  Credit cards are also accepted.
Eurochecks are not being accepted at this time.
 
For further information, please contact:
dwanders at socrates.berkeley.edu.


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Tue Jun 23 02:11:06 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 22:11:06 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <MON.22.JUN.1998.221106.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
>I wonder how you think languages continue in exicstence if not through a
>succession of native speakers. Do y;ou think that Latin continued as a
>spoken language to be considered on a par with French through Church or
>medieval Latin? Do you think that linguists do not make d distinction
>between a language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
>one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic linguistics
>be regarded as applying to artificial languages? To dead languages after
>death? I am looking forqward to your replies. ID
 
I had gotten this first and answered it in email. I didn't realize it
was also being posted and didn't keep my email answer to Isidore Dyen.
If he wishes, he may post it and answer it here.
 
I don't know if this is worth so much discussion. If you don't like
French, think of the relationship between biblical Hebrew and modern
Hebrew. Is it a genetic relationship? If transmission thru native
speakers is a requisite for a genetic relationship to exist, then the
answer should clearly be negative. Is that what most linguists would say?
That modern Hebrew is not a Semitic language but an isolate?


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Tue Jun 23 16:16:47 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 12:16:47 EDT
Subject: Q: term
In-Reply-To: <m0xr1yG-0006MXC@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JUN.1998.121647.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At the risk of being repetitious (since I believe I have made the
suggestion elsewhere I suggest that you use the term 'equicomplexity
theory'.
 
 
On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I'm looking for a term.  The phenomenon in question is extremely
> familiar, but I don't know of an accepted name for it.
>
> The phenomenon is this: a linguistic change which simplifies one
> subsystem of a language may complicate another subsystem.
>
> A typical example is the history of Spanish mid vowels.  Earlier
> Spanish had two low-mid vowels and two high-mid vowels; the low-mid
> vowels were *automatically* diphthongized under stress, while the
> high-mid vowels were not.  But then the two low-mid vowels merged
> with the two higher ones.  This change simplified the phonological
> system by removing two phonemes, but it greatly complicated the
> morphology: the formerly automatic and transparent diphthongizations
> became totally unpredictable and opaque, since some instances of the
> new /e/ and /o/ diphthongized while others did not.
>
> Does anybody know of an accepted label for this phenomenon, which I
> suppose we might elevate to the status of a "principle"?  If not,
> wuld anybody like to propose one?
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> England
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Tue Jun 23 22:18:14 1998
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (Ed Robertson)
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:18:14 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JUN.1998.181814.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Isidore Dyen asks:
 
> Do you think that linguists do not make distinction between a
> language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
> one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic
> linguistics be regarded as applying to artificial languages?
> To dead languages after death?
 
It cannot be true to say that languages with no native speakers
are not alive. When Neo-Melanesian was a pidgin it couldn't have
been anything else than alive. When it became a creole with
native speakers it did so by historical linguistic processes which
involved a continuity of speakers who were not necessarily native.
 
Genetic linguistics also applies in certain cases to languages of
'artificial' origin. Although the first documented instance of a
native speaker of Esperanto is 1910, Ido came into existence three
years earlier. This largely involved people who were previously
fluent speakers of Esperanto, and the *inheritance* of a central
lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic language core
from its parent. (Ido's very name ('offspring') underlines this
fact). Like languages of 'natural' origin, this inherited core was
modified by borrowing, planning, and plain ordinary change.
 
The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
(but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
on other languages.
 
In the case of the revival of Cornish, where there is virtually no
historical continuity in terms of speakers between late medieval
Cornish and the revived version, I think we have to say that the
revived version is only 'influenced' by its predecessor, however
similar it might be. But we can say that the three competing versions
of 20th century Cornish are genetically related to one another,
because both 'Modern' Cornish and 'Common' Cornish were created by
fluent (non-native) speakers of 'Unified' Cornish.
 
Ed. Robertson
ERobert52 at aol.com


From Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl  Wed Jun 24 11:03:45 1998
From: Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl (Wouter Kusters)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:03:45 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.94.980619101203.7858A-100000@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.070345.EDT.WOUTER.KUSTERS@LET.UVA.NL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Isidore Dyen wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
> Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
> languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
> equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
> introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
> elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
> equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
> since the proposition is an assumption;
 
I wonder in what sense this can be called a theory when what is proposed
is not more than a kind of dogma: All languages must be equally complex.
When it were a theory it would be embedded and connected to other
theories, further it should be falsifiable, which it is probably not. There
are many examples of language changes which are obviously simplifying (cf.
Trudgill 1992, etc. on Scandinavian cases, Werner 1987 on Germanic,
Andersen 1988 on diverse European languages and dialects, Muhlhausler,
Thurston 1992(?) on Melanesian, Versteegh on Arabic varieties, and so on)
But of course if you want to stick to such a kind of 'theory' you can
always claim that 'somewhere' in the grammar, phonology, semantics or
even pragmatics there MUST be an opposite change towards more complexity.
So the theory of equicomplexity is either unfalsifiable either false.
 
Further I would be very interested in a mechanism which can measure the
amount of complexity in a whole language and which can cause the
same amount of complexity to appear or disappear elsewhere. If this
mechanism is anyway connected to the capacity of the brain, I would be
interested in how proponents of the equicomplexity theory handle
bilingualism.
 
 
 
Wouter Kusters
University of Amsterdam


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Wed Jun 24 19:54:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:54:42 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.980624122102.7937C-100000@cclsun01>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155442.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I regard a theory as a proposition that is assumptive in nature and
concerns change in the universe. Of course in linguistic science we
restrict our interest ot the changes of languages. I recognize that for
some, perhaps all linguistic scientists, and perhaps all scientists, my
view of the nature of a theory may be regarded as heretical, useless, or
worse, but I believe it is helpful to distinguish between theory as I have
defined it, and hypothesis.
I define a hypothesis as a proposition that explains data on the basis of
a theory and go on to distingusih hypotheses that are inferences from
those which are speculative. An inference is a hypothesis that is superior
to any other hypothesis that is claimed to explain the same data, whereas
a speculation does not have this characteristic.
 
It is in this sense that the equicomplexity of (natural) languages is a
theory. It can be the basis to explain the type of phenomenon that was
brought up for discussion. Its general utility is one that needs to be
tested in the form of the hypotheses that can be based on it, one of which
you have suggested. I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
based is not worth proposing.
 
The measurement of a language for any purpose--i.e. regardless of the
theory of equicomplexity--is a complex matter itself. We think of some
languages as being more complex than others, usually the ones we think of
as more difficult than others, so that it is very common to think f one's
own language as easy and others as difficult.
 
Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
equation.
 
Your question about bilingualism should go on to raise the question of
trilingualism, quatrilingualism and so on. But then there is no test by
which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of hhis two
languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
matter, more.
At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
worse languages. What we do have are languages that have fared morfe
successfully in competition with other languages, but are no better than
the less successful languages. On this basis we could form a theory of the
equioptimality (or equipessimality) of languages, to which in any case I
subscribe.
 
 
 
On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Wouter Kusters wrote:
 
>
>
> On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Isidore Dyen wrote:
>
> > ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> > I am responding to what appears below. I gave a paper some time ago at a
> > Lacus forum that got published in which I spoke of the equicomplexity of
> > languages. The paper proposed the theory that all natural languages were
> > equally complex. The consequence is that any change that
> > introduces complication anywhere requires a compensatory simplification
> > elsewhere nad vice versa. A simple name for what is involved might be the
> > equicomplexity principle, but, as I see it, what is involved is a theory,
> > since the proposition is an assumption;
>
> I wonder in what sense this can be called a theory when what is proposed
> is not more than a kind of dogma: All languages must be equally complex.
> When it were a theory it would be embedded and connected to other
> theories, further it should be falsifiable, which it is probably not. There
> are many examples of language changes which are obviously simplifying (cf.
> Trudgill 1992, etc. on Scandinavian cases, Werner 1987 on Germanic,
> Andersen 1988 on diverse European languages and dialects, Muhlhausler,
> Thurston 1992(?) on Melanesian, Versteegh on Arabic varieties, and so on)
> But of course if you want to stick to such a kind of 'theory' you can
> always claim that 'somewhere' in the grammar, phonology, semantics or
> even pragmatics there MUST be an opposite change towards more complexity.
> So the theory of equicomplexity is either unfalsifiable either false.
>
> Further I would be very interested in a mechanism which can measure the
> amount of complexity in a whole language and which can cause the
> same amount of complexity to appear or disappear elsewhere. If this
> mechanism is anyway connected to the capacity of the brain, I would be
> interested in how proponents of the equicomplexity theory handle
> bilingualism.
>
>
>
> Wouter Kusters
> University of Amsterdam
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Wed Jun 24 19:53:49 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:53:49 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <6f610d61.3590280e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155349.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 ERobert52 at aol.com wrote:
 
It may help if I say that I view the origin of creole languages as the
birth of a new language, not a continuation of any (or either) of the
languages that have contributed to its formation. The basis of this view
is precisely that the first native speaker is not mutually intelligible
with any other native speaker, though obviously mutually intelligible with
other speakers for whom it is a secondary language. [Please note the
restriction to creole languages; creole dialects are still connected with
non-creole dialects in a common language.]
 
There is nothing sacred in a definition, but what is desirable is one that
works. I restrict the term 'genetic relationship' to native languages,
i.e. non-artificial languages. Cornish does not lose its genetic
relationship because it was revived, but it nay matter at some point
whether the Cornish feature was present in its first native state or
found only in its revived state. The same can be said of Hebrew; a revived
language can not be regarded as a continyous language in principle even if
for some purposes the difference may turn out not to matter.It seems
obvious that the genetic relationship of Cornish and Hebrew depends on
their first state of continuity, not their revival.
 
 > Isidore Dyen asks:
>
> > Do you think that linguists do not make distinction between a
> > language that has first or native speakers as being alive and
> > one that is dead, that is, has no native speakers? Can genetic
> > linguistics be regarded as applying to artificial languages?
> > To dead languages after death?
>
> It cannot be true to say that languages with no native speakers
> are not alive. When Neo-Melanesian was a pidgin it couldn't have
> been anything else than alive. When it became a creole with
> native speakers it did so by historical linguistic processes which
> involved a continuity of speakers who were not necessarily native.
>
> Genetic linguistics also applies in certain cases to languages of
> 'artificial' origin. Although the first documented instance of a
> native speaker of Esperanto is 1910, Ido came into existence three
> years earlier. This largely involved people who were previously
> fluent speakers of Esperanto, and the *inheritance* of a central
> lexical, phonological, morphological and syntactic language core
> from its parent. (Ido's very name ('offspring') underlines this
> fact). Like languages of 'natural' origin, this inherited core was
> modified by borrowing, planning, and plain ordinary change.
>
> The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
> after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
> (but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
> the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
> the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
> genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
> on other languages.
>
> In the case of the revival of Cornish, where there is virtually no
> historical continuity in terms of speakers between late medieval
> Cornish and the revived version, I think we have to say that the
> revived version is only 'influenced' by its predecessor, however
> similar it might be. But we can say that the three competing versions
> of 20th century Cornish are genetically related to one another,
> because both 'Modern' Cornish and 'Common' Cornish were created by
> fluent (non-native) speakers of 'Unified' Cornish.
>
> Ed. Robertson
> ERobert52 at aol.com
>
>
>
>
>
>


From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca  Wed Jun 24 19:53:15 1998
From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:53:15 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <6f610d61.3590280e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.155315.EDT.JHEWSON@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Ed Robertson wrote:
 
> The case of dead languages is less clear. They can exert influence
> after death, particularly if there is still a community of fluent
> (but non-native) speakers, as in e.g. Medieval Latin. However, here
> the continued existence of a non-native linguistic community (e.g.
> the Catholic priesthood) did not give rise at that time to
> genetically related daughter languages, but simply to 'influence'
> on other languages.
 
For the sake of its amusement value, I want to comment that the above
statement is not quite true.
 
Dialects of Medieval Latin developed early because of influence and
interference from the substrate. Linguistic evolution of the substrates
also affected the regional pronunciations, so that _caelum_ was pronounced
with ch by the Italians, ts by the Germans, and s by the French and the
English. Having said that, please try to imagine what the pronunciation of
English Medieval Latin became after the Great Vowel Shift...  Where the
Anglicans maintained Latin titles, you can still hear Venite to rhyme with
nighty, and Te Deum to rhyme with tedium.
 
The eventual result was a Babel that prompted a major international
reform in the teaching of Latin pronunciation earlier in this century.
Instead of picking one of the national versions of medieval Latin, a
return was made in the schools to Ist C BC and the pronunciation of Cicero
(Tsitsero in German, Siseron in French, and Chicherone in Italian, and now
Kikero of course). I doubt if there is anyone alive today who learned any
pronunciation other than the classical, except in the Roman Catholic
church, where the Italian medieval pronunciation has always prevailed.
(Since this latter pronunciation is the one surviving `dialect' of
ML, it is the one that should be learned by singers for the singing of
Medieval Latin texts).
 
 
John Hewson, FRSC                               tel: (709)737-8131
University Research Professor                   fax: (709)737-4000
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9


From erickson at hawaii.edu  Wed Jun 24 22:20:11 1998
From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson)
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 18:20:11 EDT
Subject: Ghost Word
Message-ID: <WED.24.JUN.1998.182011.EDT.ERICKSON@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
My thanks to all who have responded, both on- and off-list, to my
question about non-words that appear in dictionaries nonetheless.
 
The "winner" (for greatest number of entries) is _ghost word_: a
non-existent word created by lexicographers and appearing in their
dictionaries.
 
Other terms proferred were lexical ghost, false lemma, and abductum.
 
Thank you all again.
 
Best,
 
Blaine Erickson
erickson at hawaii.edu


From senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu  Thu Jun 25 10:36:34 1998
From: senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu (Tom R. Wier)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:36:34 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.063634.EDT.SENORBIGGLES@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
John Hewson wrote:
 
>  I doubt if there is anyone alive today who learned any
> pronunciation other than the classical, except in the Roman Catholic
> church, where the Italian medieval pronunciation has always prevailed.
 
FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
seem to do the same thing.
 
 
=======================================
Tom Wier <twier at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
 
God is subtle, but he is not malicious. -A. Einstein
=======================================


From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk  Thu Jun 25 10:42:17 1998
From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:42:17 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980624141847.5238A-100000@plato.ucs.mun.ca>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.064217.EDT.ROGER.WRIGHT@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
 
John Hewson's comments on Medieval Latin (whether or not amusing) are
absolutely right; the establishment of Medieval Latin, conceptually
differentiated from the contemporary Romance (probably, I say, about 800
A.D., but others disagree) was based, in its phonetic aspect, on the
requirement that every written letter (of the traditional orthography of
every word) should have a corresponding pronunciation, but that single
requirement came to be all that Medieval Latin phonetics eventually had
in common in different areas.
                                        RW
 
 
On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, John Hewson wrote:
 
>For the sake of its amusement value .....
>Dialects of Medieval Latin developed early because of influence and
>interference from the substrate. Linguistic evolution of the substrates
>also affected the regional pronunciations, so that _caelum_ was pronounced
>with ch by the Italians, ts by the Germans, and s by the French and the
>English....


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Thu Jun 25 15:11:48 1998
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:11:48 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <35918E71.7A9BA188@mail.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.111148.EDT.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
>FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
>about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
>Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
>forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
>("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
>through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
>rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
>seem to do the same thing.
 
OK, to set the record straight (although this means a tiny digression from
the subject of this thread).
In our grammar schools there's still some competition between the
[ts]-pronunciation and the classical [k]-one. Mostly the classical school
won the day, but there are occasional pockets where  that zetacism survives
(usually accompanied by some kind of "but how can we know?"-argument).
Well, we do know, and I don't think the old ways are still much followed
these days by the younger generation (as far as that generation enjoys some
exposure to Latin at all, regardless of the pronunciation).
But apart from that dwindling habit, there are other instances where a
considerable German accent is still heard in our (and I'm afraid, if I
don't pay attention, mostly also my) Latin: diphthongs /ae/, /oe/ are
mostly pronounced with the vowels heard in /Kaese/ or /Moehre/, /v/ is
usually pron. like <v> in "Wiese" (terrible !), the combination -gn- like
in "Luegner" (and not like -ngn-, like it should be; occasionally you can
even hear /sicknum/ instead of /singnum/), quantity is mostly disregarded
which proves fatal once the poets are read aso. And, probably worst of all,
in the Northern half at least of the German-speaking area, initial s-
mostly gets off with a *voiced* pronunciation (brrr!).
Needless to say that these quite barbarian habits are to be met with in the
pronunciation of learners and teachers (who should know better, but more
often than not don't).
 
(BTW, the German teacher you asked, certainly wasn't a Latin teacher at the
same time, for if so, she would doubtlessly have picked the correct verb to
conjugate, which would have sounded in her mouth like [jatsit], etc. (and
the verb form in the quote is of course /esto/, but there may be
conflicting sources ...).
 
Regards,
 
St. G.
 
Small addendum: most people here who use the classical pronunciation of <c>
as [k] maintain a rather strict distinction between speaking (or reading
aloud) Latin in context, where the classical school wins, but use the
zetacistic pronunciation when mentioning a well-known Roman name within
german discourse. There, even for me, it is still [Tsitsero] and [Tsaesar],
everything else would be regarded pedantic (or not be understood, as a more
likely alternative).
 
Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From lingnost at au.dk  Thu Jun 25 15:10:16 1998
From: lingnost at au.dk (Norbert Strade)
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:10:16 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <35918E71.7A9BA188@mail.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.25.JUN.1998.111016.EDT.LINGNOST@AU.DK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Tom R. Wier wrote:
 
> FWIW, I spoke to my German teacher once back in highschool
> about taking Latin. Apparently, the Germans still pronounce
> Latin as if it were German, or almost so. I remember having
> forgotten Caesar's famous quote while crossing the Rubicon,
> ("Alea iacta est") and when trying to remember it, she went
> through the whole present paradigm to herself, saying [jatset]
> rather than [jaket], the classical way. Other Germans I've known
> seem to do the same thing.
 
I believe this is a question of age. During the 60s and 70s, most German
schools introduced the "classical" pronunciation.
 
Best regards,
Norbert


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Fri Jun 26 20:59:54 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:59:54 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00b1b8b814d634@[128.97.208.82]>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.165954.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, bwald wrote:
 
> A few points in response to Dyen's last comments.
>
> He begins with:
> >The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
>
> I offered the notion "descend from a SINGLE *system*.  But D did not pick
> up on this.  Later in his message he writes:
>
My point was very simple. The term 'language' is used under a variety of
definitions. I meant to indicate that as I was using the term a language
was a chain of pairs of mutually intelligible dialects and thus ended when
the chain ran out. This makes the term language strictly defined. What I
mean by mutual intelligibility for these purposes is being able
communicate with each other in their native dialect. This definition
produces a first (or native) language dialectology in which a language is
unitary. The term dialect is difficult; the term itself is used in such a
variety of ways, that in effect the definition a language given above
really appeals to the intuition in the matter of dialects. However it is
assumed that no two individuals whose speech-types are in the same
language are the same. Of course the term dialect is also applied to
collections of speech-types
that share a particular feature or some collection of features. [Here
'feature' is used for some relevant speech phenomenon, not in the
meaning it has in phonology.] In any case I believe it doesn't matter much
which definition of duialect you use.
 
 
 
> >If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
> >part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
> >stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
> >observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
> >uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
> >the first nad only language) in the world.
>
> This does not seem to be a matter of definition, but a claim of
> "monogenetic" descent of all the world's languages.  We once discussed this
> on the list, with inevitable disagreement among discussants.  I don't see
> the logical connection between the assumption that languages don't mix (a
> false assumption in any case, in my understanding of what D is claiming)
> and that they all descend from "Proto-World".
 
Let us be clear. An assumption as I use it can not be false or arguable.
If you don't want to use that assumption, stick in one of your own or
disregard it in your approach to language history. But if languages
are permitted to mix, that is, if a language boundary between two
languages is permitted to dissolve, then the kind of inferences that we make
regarding the past hstory of a language must take the possibility of
mixing into account. The consequence is that the hypothesis of a
protolanguage becomes unavailable unless the possibility of mixture can be
ruled out. That is the function of the assumption. In a first language
dialectology applied through time, once a language has been
formed, its being disjoint cannot be destroyed. If you are willing to give
that up, I would say you are giving the power of the comparative method.
 
> > It does not matter to me whether you find this
> >interesting or not, ....Again it does not matter whether you consider this
> >interesting.
> >Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
> >sense and are thus irrelevant.
>
> This is a misunderstanding of my use of "uninteresting" in the context of
> the discussion.  I did not mean "boring", which would indeed be subjective,
> and even disrepectful.  I meant "uninsightful", "does not lead to further
> discoveries about the nature of linguistic change and what it implies to
> help provide an optimally clear, useful and further enlightening concept of
> genetic relationship".  I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I
> generally use the word "uninteresting" sparingly, to avoid such
> misunderstanding.
 
I suggest you don't use it at all. It is judgmental. You can disagree with
another's propositions or decline to use his assumptions. I have not
characterized your views in any way though I am aware of them from others
and have considered them. Since you have expressed them, I have tried to
show why I say what I do. I am not seeking to appear insightful or to say
insightful things. I am rather interested in presenting a consistent set
of propositions that I find useful in the comparative study of languages
If you don't find them useful...
 
 > > >The fact that from a practical point of view the
> >meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
> >determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
> >of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
> >function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
> >languages.
>
> Mutual intelligibility is, in fact, a very interesting and complex topic.
> The assumption that intelligibility between "pairs" of dialects is "mutual"
> is one of its interesting features -- and is questionable to begin with.
> Mutual exposure between neighbouring dialects can be assymetrical for
> social reasons, limiting intelligibility in one direction more than the
> other.  What is left when the variable of exposure is factored out, e.g.,
> on first hearing a neighbouring dialect, is another part of the whole
> story.  That involves to what extent knowledge of one dialect allows
> "prediction" of possible (intelligible/decipherable) features of another
> one, cf. extendability of the notion of "dialect" and "built-in" dynamics
> of possible linguistic change.  The broadest question that can be asked in
> this line of thought is what enables speakers to learn another lect
> (dia-/holo-) once they have learned one (or several if all first and
> simultaneously).
>
> Then, as I was suggesting with my comments about "intelligbility" within a
> single language (or hololect, if you want), it is a matter of degree.  It
> is clear that in the "no mixing" dogma, D wants to shut the door to
> convergence of dialects, which would make them more mutually intelligible,
> but that is at least as problematic as his dogma against mixing of
> languages/hololects.  Clearly convergence does occur, making dialects/lects
> in contact more similar, and it happens through communication.  D seems a
> little tunnel-vision in considering only divergence leading eventually to
> loss of intelligibility and ultimately to separate hololects.  That is only
> part of the story of possible outcomes of linguistic change, as any dialect
> atlas will amply demonstrate (-- more on this below).
>
> >Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
> >disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
>
> That is the issue of "missing links", say, the ones that would definitively
> demonstrate that Germanic and Slavic descend from a tree node that excludes
> the other IE languages (whoops, I missed Baltic), or that Mongolian and
> Turkic are related (and closer than Manchu) -- if any of this is true.  It
> is indeed very interesting, but it is not the only possibility for loss of
> mutual intelligibility or emergence of distinct hololects (even excluding
> creoles and mixture for the moment).  But then D did not claim that this is
> the only way hololects develop -- at least not in the passage above.
> However, I'm not sure he allows himself any other way given his
> "definition" of hololects as chains of mutually intelligible pairs of
> dialects.  Is such a definition adequate for examining the facts of the
> real world of linguistic diversity?   A serious question of historical fact
> arises if all "transitional" dialects are seen as results of progressive
> divergence (joined by "links") rather than recognizing the possibility that
> some are convergent, due to "mixture" (or does D claim that only different
> hololects that can't mix, but dialects of the same hololect can?  Anyway,
> whatever he claims can't mix; WHY can't they? That can't be a matter of
> defintion.)
 
What you are getting into here is that given the definition of a language
as above, the inference that a prior stage of a language was (disjoint)
language or rather a dialect of a more extensive language might bre
difficult or impossible, whereas in some instances, the decision to be
made is obvious.
I should add that I find the term 'dogma' a pejorative term. I don't
characterize your statements. There is not reason to characterize mine.
We don't have to agree, and it is immaterial to me whether you agree with
what I say. I have entered into our discussion on the basis that I have
something to say that you might wish to consider. But if you don't
wish to...
 
 ma >
> >Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
> >in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
> >in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
> >intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
>
> But mutual intelligibility is a matter of degree.  No doubt English
> speakers understood, say, West African pidgin English in its early stages
> better than Africans unfamiliar with either English or the developing
> pidgin, if only because of (much of) the vocabulary.  D seems to
> acknowledge the point about degree of mutual intelligibility in stating:
 
The view is available that zero mutual intelligibility occurs.
>
> >The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
> >unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
> >linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
> >least one and so a dialect of that one.
>
> The logic is fine.  But is the implication that the "creole" is a
> (non-native) "dialect" until it develops unintelligibility?  Or is it a
> claim that a "creole" must start out unintelligible to speakers of its
> base.  That does not seem to be the case for Hawaiian Creole.  It does not
> seem to have been less intelligible to speakers of English than the
> Hawaiian pidgin it developed from, and that was intelligible to a
> functional extent.  Despite the logic, a missing fact is that the pidgin
> and the creole, as is generally the case, were mutually intelligible. Does
> that make the pidgin anhd the creole part of a hololect?  Then are pidgins
> necessarily hololects?  Well, certainly not makeshift pidgins.  They're not
> hololects because they're not "whole" (even as single entities -- if that
> makes sense).  And yet they serve certain interests of communication and
> presuppose, actually provide, a certain degree of "mutual" intelligiblity
> among speakers.  No, this mutual intelligibility issues has to be taken
> more seriously and its implications sorted out.  I still think D uses the
> concept to no avail in circumscribing a "language" or "hololect".  I don't
> see its relevance to linguistic evolution.
 
 
I failed to make the point that I work with assumption of a first language
dialectology. It is therefore possible for the first speaker of a creole
to communicate with speakers of its antecedent pidgin, for whom obviously the
pidgin (by definition) is a scond language.
 
> NB: one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
> can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
> another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  But only "some",
> since speakers can accomodate to any dialect or hololect (by becoming by
> bilingual) given sufficient exposure, and thus mutual intelligibility is
> not a "given" thing but an acquired thing (apart from what I suggested
> earlier).  Such acquisition often plays a role in change, where it is
> caused by contact between/among different communities, rather than where it
> is simply an individual matter for some traveller or whatever.
>
Without being disrespectful, let me suggest that you have used the term
'assume' above in the sense of 'conclude' or 'infer', not in its ological
sense. I don't object to l/ay terminology; I am not a logician. It is just
that you have called my assumptions 'dogmas', which I object to. It is
however important to try to keep the logical relation between our views in
order. I can not guarantee that I always succeed in this, but I try. As
for the rest of your statements, they refer to only some of the
complexities of the interaction between intercommunicants.
 
 > With regard to bilingualism, D wrote in a different message:
>
> >... there is no test by
> which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of his two
> languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
> is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
> >matter, more.
>
> In principle there is no difference between the problem involved in "equal
> control of two languages" and the problem of deciding when a monolingual
> speaker has "fully" acquired his(/her) first language.  In both cases,
> there are various practical tests used to evaluate such "control".  Of
> course, we still have much to learn about the problem, and all impressions
> are approximative.  Some, perhaps most, linguists even go so far as to
> claim that languages change because speakers don't fully acquire
> (pre-existing versions of) their first language (I'm not among them).  In
> bilingual communities such issues are even more problematic, because
> bilinguals are generally judged by monolingual standards, and the
> difference between "change" and "lack of complete acquisition" is even more
> contentious.  A lot more is known than is suggested by D's first point
> above, but a lot remains to be explored, and in many cases it is not clear
> if "equal control" is an appropriate question to apply to the relevant
> bilingual phenomena.
 
I believe that you have begun to touch on the very important question that
deals with the time at which an individual can be said on the average to
be in control of his native language. If I suggest at the end of the first
decade of his life, I imagine I might attract some disbelief. For certain
purposes however, it strikes me as being not an unreasonable expectation.


From Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl  Fri Jun 26 17:04:29 1998
From: Wouter.Kusters at let.uva.nl (Wouter Kusters)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:04:29 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.94.980624143137.5996C-100000@minerva.cis.yale.e du>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.130429.EDT.WOUTER.KUSTERS@LET.UVA.NL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At 15:26 24-06-98 -0400, Isidore Dyen wrote:
>....I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
>tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
>a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
>based is not worth proposing.
 
My use of the word 'theory' was indeed a bit old-fashioned Popperian, and
in fact I completely agree with this Kuhnian idea.
 
>Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
>apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
>distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
>so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
>and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
>commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
>structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
>equation.
Two languages like Russian versus Navaho are indeed very difficult to
measure on their difference in complexity. But why not taking two more
closely related languages which differ only on one level, and in which the
difference is obviously one of complexity (take Anem vs. Lusi in New
Britain according to Thurston, or Shaba Swahili vs. Zanzibar Swahili). How
does the theory of equicomplexity account for that?
I think in these cases the theory of equicomplexity or at least its related
hypotheses make the wrong predictions. In my opinion this theory can only
make right statements, when you do not know what complexity actually
comprises.
The moment you define (a subpart of) complexity as e.g. 'irregularity in
the morphology', (i.e. semantically intransparent relations between meaning
and form), you can see that the intuitions of ordinary people, and the
problems which arise in second language learning, and the structural
differences between languages which have a status as lingua franca and
languages which have a more 'ethnic' status, all point in the same
direction, i.e. that there are differences in complexity between languages.
 
>At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
>are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
>not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
>worse languages.
This may be true but has nothing to do with the complexity of languages.
Bacteria are simpler than mammals, but this does not mean that the one is
better or worse accommodated to the circumstances. In the world of language
also, there exist different circumstances, under which languages prosper.
The circumstances under which a 'contact language' grows are different from
the circumstances of an 'ethnic' language.
So, I think you can find differences in complexity, on the condition that
you do not equal the complexity of a language with its 'value'. Measuring
complexity may be hard, measuring the 'value' of a language is even harder.
 
Wouter Kusters
University of Amsterdam.


From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU  Fri Jun 26 16:31:56 1998
From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:31:56 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.123156.EDT.BWALD@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A few points in response to Dyen's last comments.
 
He begins with:
>The assumption that languages are unitary is a matter of definition.
 
I offered the notion "descend from a SINGLE *system*.  But D did not pick
up on this.  Later in his message he writes:
 
>If languages as hololects are assumed to be wholes, it follows that any
>part of a language has descended from a hololect which was its earlier
>stage. It is assumed that hololects do not mix. Under this assumption each
>observed hololect is the endpoint of an infinite (i.e.
>uninterrupted) sequence of stages originating in the first hololect (i.e.
>the first nad only language) in the world.
 
This does not seem to be a matter of definition, but a claim of
"monogenetic" descent of all the world's languages.  We once discussed this
on the list, with inevitable disagreement among discussants.  I don't see
the logical connection between the assumption that languages don't mix (a
false assumption in any case, in my understanding of what D is claiming)
and that they all descend from "Proto-World".
 
>It does not matter to me whether you find this
>interesting or not, ....Again it does not matter whether you consider this
>interesting.
>Such assertions of interest are personal and not subject to proof in any
>sense and are thus irrelevant.
 
This is a misunderstanding of my use of "uninteresting" in the context of
the discussion.  I did not mean "boring", which would indeed be subjective,
and even disrepectful.  I meant "uninsightful", "does not lead to further
discoveries about the nature of linguistic change and what it implies to
help provide an optimally clear, useful and further enlightening concept of
genetic relationship".  I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I
generally use the word "uninteresting" sparingly, to avoid such
misunderstanding.
 
>The fact that from a practical point of view the
>meaning of 'mutual intelligibility' is not refined enough to permit us to
>determine in every single case whether it is present or absent is a matter
>of a lack of scholarly interest, but its direct relation to the primary
>function of language recommends it as a criterion for classifying
>languages.
 
Mutual intelligibility is, in fact, a very interesting and complex topic.
The assumption that intelligibility between "pairs" of dialects is "mutual"
is one of its interesting features -- and is questionable to begin with.
Mutual exposure between neighbouring dialects can be assymetrical for
social reasons, limiting intelligibility in one direction more than the
other.  What is left when the variable of exposure is factored out, e.g.,
on first hearing a neighbouring dialect, is another part of the whole
story.  That involves to what extent knowledge of one dialect allows
"prediction" of possible (intelligible/decipherable) features of another
one, cf. extendability of the notion of "dialect" and "built-in" dynamics
of possible linguistic change.  The broadest question that can be asked in
this line of thought is what enables speakers to learn another lect
(dia-/holo-) once they have learned one (or several if all first and
simultaneously).
 
Then, as I was suggesting with my comments about "intelligbility" within a
single language (or hololect, if you want), it is a matter of degree.  It
is clear that in the "no mixing" dogma, D wants to shut the door to
convergence of dialects, which would make them more mutually intelligible,
but that is at least as problematic as his dogma against mixing of
languages/hololects.  Clearly convergence does occur, making dialects/lects
in contact more similar, and it happens through communication.  D seems a
little tunnel-vision in considering only divergence leading eventually to
loss of intelligibility and ultimately to separate hololects.  That is only
part of the story of possible outcomes of linguistic change, as any dialect
atlas will amply demonstrate (-- more on this below).
 
>Another assumption is that one hololect can become two by the
>disappearance of any connecting pair of mutually intelligible dialects.
 
That is the issue of "missing links", say, the ones that would definitively
demonstrate that Germanic and Slavic descend from a tree node that excludes
the other IE languages (whoops, I missed Baltic), or that Mongolian and
Turkic are related (and closer than Manchu) -- if any of this is true.  It
is indeed very interesting, but it is not the only possibility for loss of
mutual intelligibility or emergence of distinct hololects (even excluding
creoles and mixture for the moment).  But then D did not claim that this is
the only way hololects develop -- at least not in the passage above.
However, I'm not sure he allows himself any other way given his
"definition" of hololects as chains of mutually intelligible pairs of
dialects.  Is such a definition adequate for examining the facts of the
real world of linguistic diversity?   A serious question of historical fact
arises if all "transitional" dialects are seen as results of progressive
divergence (joined by "links") rather than recognizing the possibility that
some are convergent, due to "mixture" (or does D claim that only different
hololects that can't mix, but dialects of the same hololect can?  Anyway,
whatever he claims can't mix; WHY can't they? That can't be a matter of
defintion.)
 
>Creole hololects originate in situations in which a number of langages are
>in competition and a pidgin develops for the convenience of all, but is
>in the first place a second (non-native language) for all and not mutually
>intelligible with any of the contributing languages.
 
But mutual intelligibility is a matter of degree.  No doubt English
speakers understood, say, West African pidgin English in its early stages
better than Africans unfamiliar with either English or the developing
pidgin, if only because of (much of) the vocabulary.  D seems to
acknowledge the point about degree of mutual intelligibility in stating:
 
>The point is this: a creole hololect must be mutually
>unintellibligible at its start with those from which it draws its
>linguistic matter, for if not, then it is mutually intelligible with at
>least one and so a dialect of that one.
 
The logic is fine.  But is the implication that the "creole" is a
(non-native) "dialect" until it develops unintelligibility?  Or is it a
claim that a "creole" must start out unintelligible to speakers of its
base.  That does not seem to be the case for Hawaiian Creole.  It does not
seem to have been less intelligible to speakers of English than the
Hawaiian pidgin it developed from, and that was intelligible to a
functional extent.  Despite the logic, a missing fact is that the pidgin
and the creole, as is generally the case, were mutually intelligible. Does
that make the pidgin anhd the creole part of a hololect?  Then are pidgins
necessarily hololects?  Well, certainly not makeshift pidgins.  They're not
hololects because they're not "whole" (even as single entities -- if that
makes sense).  And yet they serve certain interests of communication and
presuppose, actually provide, a certain degree of "mutual" intelligiblity
among speakers.  No, this mutual intelligibility issues has to be taken
more seriously and its implications sorted out.  I still think D uses the
concept to no avail in circumscribing a "language" or "hololect".  I don't
see its relevance to linguistic evolution.
 
NB: one might be tempted to assume that only through mutual intelligibility
can dialects influence each other and changes spread from one dialect to
another -- and there is no doubt some truth to this.  But only "some",
since speakers can accomodate to any dialect or hololect (by becoming by
bilingual) given sufficient exposure, and thus mutual intelligibility is
not a "given" thing but an acquired thing (apart from what I suggested
earlier).  Such acquisition often plays a role in change, where it is
caused by contact between/among different communities, rather than where it
is simply an individual matter for some traveller or whatever.
 
With regard to bilingualism, D wrote in a different message:
 
>... there is no test by
which we attempt to find out whether a bilingual's control of his two
languages is equal or for example whether the complexity that the brain
is dealing with is double that for a monolingual or less or, for that
>matter, more.
 
In principle there is no difference between the problem involved in "equal
control of two languages" and the problem of deciding when a monolingual
speaker has "fully" acquired his(/her) first language.  In both cases,
there are various practical tests used to evaluate such "control".  Of
course, we still have much to learn about the problem, and all impressions
are approximative.  Some, perhaps most, linguists even go so far as to
claim that languages change because speakers don't fully acquire
(pre-existing versions of) their first language (I'm not among them).  In
bilingual communities such issues are even more problematic, because
bilinguals are generally judged by monolingual standards, and the
difference between "change" and "lack of complete acquisition" is even more
contentious.  A lot more is known than is suggested by D's first point
above, but a lot remains to be explored, and in many cases it is not clear
if "equal control" is an appropriate question to apply to the relevant
bilingual phenomena.


From msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il  Fri Jun 26 16:29:15 1998
From: msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il (Daniel Baum)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:29:15 EDT
Subject: ANNOUNCE - Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JUN.1998.122915.EDT.MSDBAUM@MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
After receiving a good response to my previous postings, this is to announce
the formation of a new Indo-Iranian linguistics mailing list.
 
All those who answered the previous posting should have received a personal
invitation to join.
 
 
List description
============
 
This is a list for the discussion of Indo-Iranian linguistics. While the
main focus of the list will be Vedic and Avestan, discussion of any
Indo-Iranian linguistic topic will be welcome.
 
All aspects of these languages, e.g. phonology, morphology, syntax, text
linguistics, and historical and comparative linguistics may be discussed,
while any other language, whether non-IE Indian, or other branches of IE,
will be considered off-topic unless it is relevant in some way to
Indo-Iranian.
 
All linguistic "schools' are welcome, as long as the topic of discussion
remains Indo-Iranian.
 
To subscribe, send an empty message to indo_iranian-subscribe at makelist.com
 
Daniel Baum
msdbaum at mscc.huji.ac.il
Home Page http://www.angelfire.com/il/dbaum
Tel: ++972-2-583-6634; Mob. ++972-51-972-829


From senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu  Sat Jun 27 18:32:04 1998
From: senorbiggles at mail.utexas.edu (Tom Wier)
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 14:32:04 EDT
Subject: the meaning of "genetic relationship"
Message-ID: <SAT.27.JUN.1998.143204.EDT.SENORBIGGLES@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ralf-Stefan Georg sagte:
 
> Well, we do know, and I don't think the old ways are still much followed
> these days by the younger generation (as far as that generation enjoys some
> exposure to Latin at all, regardless of the pronunciation).
 
Might this mean that most (or many) of those who learned Latin still speak
withthe [ts] pronunciation? That is, because fewer learn the language today,
and the older ones learned it with the nonclassical pronunciation, who are
more numerous.
 
> But apart from that dwindling habit, there are other instances where a
> considerable German accent is still heard in our (and I'm afraid, if I
> don't pay attention, mostly also my) Latin: diphthongs /ae/, /oe/ are
> mostly pronounced with the vowels heard in /Kaese/ or /Moehre/, /v/ is
> usually pron. like <v> in "Wiese" (terrible !), the combination -gn- like
> in "Luegner" (and not like -ngn-, like it should be; occasionally you can
> even hear /sicknum/ instead of /singnum/), quantity is mostly disregarded
> which proves fatal once the poets are read aso.
 
Well, the same goes for here. I don't think many are very knowledgeable
about the /ngn/ pronunciation. As for vowel quantity, I don't think they even
teach it unless they're going over poetry.
 
> (BTW, the German teacher you asked, certainly wasn't a Latin teacher at the
> same time, for if so, she would doubtlessly have picked the correct verb to
> conjugate, which would have sounded in her mouth like [jatsit], etc. (and
> the verb form in the quote is of course /esto/, but there may be
> conflicting sources ...).
 
No, she was my German teacher while I was taking Latin at the sametime.
I doubt if she had read any Latin in decades, but I distinctly remember
hearing her say [jatset]. As for /esto/, everywhere I've ever seen it, it's
always been "Alea iacta _est_".
 
> Small addendum: most people here who use the classical pronunciation of <c>
> as [k] maintain a rather strict distinction between speaking (or reading
> aloud) Latin in context, where the classical school wins, but use the
> zetacistic pronunciation when mentioning a well-known Roman name within
> german discourse. There, even for me, it is still [Tsitsero] and [Tsaesar],
> everything else would be regarded pedantic (or not be understood, as a more
> likely alternative).
 
Exactly the same situation here. If the person has taken Latin, they
pretty much always keep with the accepted local nonclassical
pronunciation as you have said: /sIs at rou/ and /siz at r/
instead of /kikero/ and /kaisar/.
 
=======================================
Tom Wier <twier at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
 
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
  -A. Einstein
=======================================


From jacob.baltuch at euronet.be  Sat Jun 27 18:40:49 1998
From: jacob.baltuch at euronet.be (Jacob Baltuch)
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 14:40:49 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance (was Re: Complexity in language)
Message-ID: <SAT.27.JUN.1998.144049.EDT.JACOB.BALTUCH@EURONET.BE>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
(In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
are from one another).


From bdbryant at mail.utexas.edu  Sun Jun 28 17:20:11 1998
From: bdbryant at mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant)
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:20:11 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance
Message-ID: <SUN.28.JUN.1998.132011.EDT.BDBRYANT@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
> Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
> have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
> surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
> for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
> there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
> (In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
> are from one another).
 
I have a specific proposal for this, and am in fact actively pursuing it.
But rather than discussing research that may not pan out, perhaps we should
discuss the broader issue your question brings up -- it may be beneficial
to have some general agreement about the meaning of such metrics *before*
people start using them to support specific claims.
 
In particular, what would such a metric tell us?  It is tempting to believe
that more closely related languages will be more similar under such a
metric, but there may be problems with this notion.
 
It is certain that measurements on an individual feature would be
unreliable indicators of relatedness, for instance if the chosen feature
happened to be "areal" rather than "ancestral".  Moreover, although it is
*tempting* to believe that a measurement across all the properties of a
language in aggregate, or at least across a sufficiently large subset of
such properties, would show smaller distances for more closely related
languages, it is not altogether *certain* that this is so.  (I would in
fact follow the temptation as my null hypothesis, but how would I validate
it if it led me to an outrageous conclusion and you challenged me on it?)
 
Even with measurements in hand and suitable assumptions about their
relevance for relatedness, problems would remain.  For example, I would
expect that a valid metric would show English as being more related to
French than German is, and likewise that English is more related to German
than French is.  But what exactly does that mean?  In particular, if we
worked exclusively with interlingual distances for these three languages
and tried to build a family tree by blind numerical methods such as
constructing a minimal spanning tree, the probable result is that English
would appear as the parent of French and German.  Adding additional
languages would of course provide separate evidence for a more nearly
correct tree, but it would still be quite difficult, perhaps impossible, to
"iron out" the conflicting claims offered by the various measurements.
Furthermore, if you view language change in terms of waves rather than
cladistics, the picture becomes murky in ways that are difficult even to
visualize.
 
Clearly, we should make use of any tools that come available; but they will
always have to be applied with every bit as much caution and well informed
judgment as have any of the traditional tools of the trade.  I anticipate
that we will have such metrics within about 20 years -- I hope to have some
very rudimentary results within 2-3 years -- but I also suspect that such
metrics will never count for more than the most tenuous circumstantial
evidence in cases where historical relations are not already well
understood by other means.
 
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Sun Jun 28 17:29:19 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:29:19 EDT
Subject: Complexity in language
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980626170914.0068e15c@mail.let.uva.nl>
Message-ID: <SUN.28.JUN.1998.132919.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Wouter Kusters wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 15:26 24-06-98 -0400, Isidore Dyen wrote:
> >....I should add that, as I see it, theories can no be
> >tested--they can only be revised or replaced--but the hypotheses based on
> >a theory can be tested. Obviously a theory on which no hypothesis can be
> >based is not worth proposing.
>
> My use of the word 'theory' was indeed a bit old-fashioned Popperian, and
> in fact I completely agree with this Kuhnian idea.
>
> >Perhaps the greatest complication in measuring a language directly is the
> >apparent incommensurability of its parts. How can the inventory and
> >distribution of the phonemes, which a appear to be measurable, be measured
> >so that it is commensurable with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon,
> >and/or the semantics and how are the latter four to be reduced to
> >commensurability. The theory of equicomplexity implies that these
> >structures, when measured in different languages, will somehow form an
> >equation.
> Two languages like Russian versus Navaho are indeed very difficult to
> measure on their difference in complexity. But why not taking two more
> closely related languages which differ only on one level, and in which the
> difference is obviously one of complexity (take Anem vs. Lusi in New
> Britain according to Thurston, or Shaba Swahili vs. Zanzibar Swahili). How
> does the theory of equicomplexity account for that?
> I think in these cases the theory of equicomplexity or at least its related
> hypotheses make the wrong predictions. In my opinion this theory can only
> make right statements, when you do not know what complexity actually
> comprises.
> The moment you define (a subpart of) complexity as e.g. 'irregularity in
> the morphology', (i.e. semantically intransparent relations between meaning
> and form), you can see that the intuitions of ordinary people, and the
> problems which arise in second language learning, and the structural
> differences between languages which have a status as lingua franca and
> languages which have a more 'ethnic' status, all point in the same
> direction, i.e. that there are differences in complexity between languages.
 
It appears to me that trying to compare the complexity of two
similar languages does not lead in the direction of a measure. Languages
do the same thing as means of oral communication.
The measure of complexity would indicate a difference of efficiency, that
is a difference in the amount of effort to achieve the same result. Since
the mechanism using a language (the human being) is taken to be the same
everywhere, the difference in efficiency could reasonably be identified as
a difference of complexity. Effectively then, if natural languages are
equiefficient, then they are equicomplex. All of them with the exception
of the creole langaguages are products of millennia of change. It would be
difficult to detect any change in their efficiency in the past, but the
same consideration would suggest that equiefficiency and thus
equicomplexity was the order of the day. It may be hard to believe that
this was always trueand therefore the way to test this assumption might be
to see in what way it could be true, i.e. what measure leads to an
equation.
 
> >At the same time it should be remembered that the ntuarl languages that we
> >are dealing with are the product of a long period of evolution that did
> >not produce better languages, as far as we can tell, or, for that matter,
> >worse languages.
> This may be true but has nothing to do with the complexity of languages.
> Bacteria are simpler than mammals, but this does not mean that the one is
> better or worse accommodated to the circumstances. In the world of language
> also, there exist different circumstances, under which languages prosper.
> The circumstances under which a 'contact language' grows are different from
> the circumstances of an 'ethnic' language.
> So, I think you can find differences in complexity, on the condition that
> you do not equal the complexity of a language with its 'value'. Measuring
> complexity may be hard, measuring the 'value' of a language is even harder.
It is rather easy to see differences in complexity among languages in
parts of languages. The problem concerns the totality of languages.
>
> Wouter Kusters
> University of Amsterdam.
>


From isidore.dyen at yale.edu  Mon Jun 29 22:34:42 1998
From: isidore.dyen at yale.edu (Isidore Dyen)
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:34:42 EDT
Subject: Q: linguistic distance (was Re: Complexity in language)
In-Reply-To: <v01530508b1baa7d631dc@[194.134.29.33]>
Message-ID: <MON.29.JUN.1998.183442.EDT.ISIDORE.DYEN@YALE.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Jacob Baltuch wrote:
 
You might wish tpo distinguish between 'linguistic distance' a measure
which would be typological and thus a measure of the difference in a
contrastive comparison and 'genetic distance' a measure of the distance
between two related languages perhaps as it might be found in a
family-tree. The latter has been transmuted into a spatial representation
by J.Kruskal via multidimensional scaling based on lexicostatistical
percentages. I am not sure whether any one has tried to measure
contrastive distance though that may be directly attackable. ID
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Some problems in defining a global complexity measure of a language
> have been mentioned. One of the problems seems to be the "incommen-
> surability" (to use Isidore Dyen's term) of measures of complexity
> for various sub-systems. I'm wondering if there is any thoughts out
> there on the problems involved in defining "linguistic distance"?
> (In the sense of a metric that would measure how different languages
> are from one another).
>