Respect goes both ways!

[ECOLING at aol.com]

The obligation of respect goes both ways!
Yes it certainly does.
It is owed even to those with whom we disagree,
and even if they are not professionals in our field.
There is an obligation to gracefully acknowledge their
contributions where they are correct,
even if they are wrong about some other things.

I am once again extremely disappointed at the lack of respect
shown by members of my chosen profession for someone
who is not a professional in historical-comparative linguistics,
who has made some invalid points,
and also some valid points they have not been willing to acknowledge.

Two members of this list have replied to my post
defending Steve Long on certain limited issues only.
Since it is not really important who the individuals are
who have not shown the appropriate respect to Long,
I will for the most part not name names (only once,
when necessary for a citation from a person's other work).

Especially one of those who disagrees with Steve Long on some issues
appears to be changing the terms of discussion
in order to maintain their position that Steve Long is universally wrong,
(or if right, only trivially, meaninglessly so).
He denies the validity of a technical definition and
does not follow through the logical consequences of
that definition which he himself recognizes in practice.
Of course it is easier to criticize a target set up by the critic himself
for the purpose, than to criticize what others have actually said.

This same correspondent in a previous debate REPEATEDLY
changed the terms of discussion
from "what has Greenberg done"
to "what has Greenberg claimed he has done",
while denying he had so changed the discussion.
Of course it is easier to criticize the value of some things Greenberg
claims he has done than to criticize what Greenberg has actually done.

So what?
Certainly not part of co-operative content-focused
discussions or debates.

That kind of debating tactic needs to be seen for what it is.

***

Point 1 in defense of Steve Long on one specific

>> Family Tree representations can be much improved.
>
>Sure, but this is not news.  We linguists have realized since family
>trees were invented that they represent considerably less than the whole
>truth.  The literature is full of proposals for improving our trees.
>But it's hard.  Linguistic reality is so complex that highly realistic
>trees become imossible to interpret in a useful way.

My point was that Steve Long said family tree representations had some
problems, and that he was correct in one of the problems he identified,
specifically that as often displayed they can make it look as if there are
innovations on one branch, not on another,
without being explicit about whether this is the case or not.
Later discussions said BOTH that there could be innovations on
both branches, AND that in several cases there might not be innovations
on one branch.  This rather highlights the problem, does not dispose of it.

An appropriate response might be to say that the particular failure that
Steve Long was pointing to has been noted in the literature, and that
the solutions proposed are A, B, and C...
Of course there may be complexities, as noted in the quote above,
and of course if one pushes the level of detail sufficiently,
trees like any other visual diagram become impossible to interpret easily.
However, pointing that out is not a constructive
nor a respectful response to Steve Long.
Another respondent pointed out similarly that one cannot mark
EVERY innovation on the branches of a tree.  While obviously true,
that is not directly relevant to my point which was that SOME
should be marked (I did not specify that every one should be).
Presumably the ones marked should be the salient ones,
those considered most important or secure by the historical linguists.
It is also quite beside Steve Long's original point.

Since correspondents apparently believe that Family Trees can be
improved, it would not have hurt to say so.
Saying "it is a complicated matter" does not excuse one from the
obligation to promptly say one agrees when in fact one does agree.

The second correspondent's reply concerning Point 1. actually notes
that one can choose a middle-road position:

>If you want, you can just include the "best hits"  of the innovations in
>each branch,

That was a co-operative response, to the point of the substance.

But regarding especially the first correspondent's reaction on
this Point 1, ...

I would like to see where the particular respondents
were PREVIOUSLY gracious and respectful of Steve Long
in expressing publicly on the list that he was correct in ANY part of this
(and, just incidentally, respectful of the rights of our many silent readers
to have accurate information communicated to us by professionals).
Or can that not be acknowledged for fear it might lead someone
to treat something else Steve writes (right or wrong) with more respect?
What is the problem here?
Politics, it would seem.
As my teacher James McCawley once said,

"Madison Ave. Si,
 Pennsylvania Ave. No"

In other words, he was saying that advertising is OK,
but not political manipulation of the terms of debate.
(In a world in which we have seen even more abuses of marketing
than when Jim McCawley made that statement,
I wonder whether he would still maintain the
first half of the above quote without modification?)

***

Point 2 in defense of Steve Long on a second specific
(there were additional specific points beyond these two,
which the commentors did not choose to respond to
-- please go back to the original message defending
Steve Long for those points, I will not repeat them here)

I pointed out that Steve was correct in a very limited technical sense
that a language and its descendent
could exist AT THE SAME TIME
IF WE USE A DEFINITION of "SAME" vs. of "DIFFERENT" LANGUAGE
which was commonly being used on this list.
That is all.
It says nothing about  what happens if we use other definitions.
I was explicit in my earlier message:
"Using that definition, Steve was right."
(We can regard this as a PARADOX of the definition;
I wish I had used the term "paradox" in my earlier posts on this topic)

One of those correspondents I believe failed to mention
my explicit statement that I was not proposing my own definitions
but using definitions which had recently been used on this list?
At least, I missed mention of this if it was there.
The other said that was not his own definition, but see below
for evidence that it is in practice a part of his definition at least!
(And if it actually were a definition he did not use,
then his own definition would be non-responsive, non-co-operative,
irrelevant to that part of the discussion,
though it could be quite legitimate to explore his own definition
in a different part of the discussion, not pretending to be a response.)

[LA]
>> Parent and daugher languages can indeed in theory co-exist,
>> exactly as Steve Long said.

[response]
>No, they can't, as I'll try to show below.

[LA]
> I use here the definition of distinctness of "languages" preferred by
> most linguists, including the experts on this list, that is, fuzzily,
> "forms of speech which are mutually unintelligible".

[I could have stated that slightly better as a definition of "same language"
vs. "different language", but no matter]

[response]
>Sorry, but I don't think this is the definition of `languages' used by
>most linguists.  If anything, it's closer to the man-in-the-street's
>perception.  Linguists are aware that mutual intelligibility or the lack
>of it is only one of many factors which may help to determine whether
>varieties are best regarded as two languages or as a single language.
>I could cite examples for hours -- Chinese, Italian, Dyirbal -- but I'll
>leave that now.

The above seems to be EXACTLY THE REVERSE of the bulk of the
recent discussion which said that political and cultural reasons may lead
people to call very different languages by the same name,
as if they were the same language.  (Note the counterfactual.)
Folks-in-the-street are perhaps even MORE aware than linguists
of many of the other factors other than mutual intelligibility,
which they normally do not think of at all.

Unless of course the writer literally means as he writes
that mutual intelligibility is "one of many factors which may help to
determine whether varieties are best regarded as two languages
or as a single language".  Note the "one of", in which case the
response should have been not "NO, WRONG", but
"YES, WITH ADDITIONAL SPECIFICATIONS".

Even in that case, a co-operative response
would have been to very carefully craft examples in which the other
factors also operate in a way those who stated the paradox would
want them to, to try to see whether the paradox would still stand
with the more complex definition.  Manipulating the other factors
for descendents A vs. B of mother M can indeed be done, I feel sure,
so that B would be a "different" language by the more complex definition,
while A would be the "same" language as M by that more complex
definition.  But it is not my responsibility to do so.

And I think the objectors would still object,
because they would take even the tiniest change,
contrary to their own definitions of WHATEVER kind,
to force A and B to both be distinct languages from M
if either one were admitted to be so.  Not on an empirical basis,
but on a purely definitional basis.  Take the following as
evidence that they would object on a priori grounds,
not on empirical grounds at all!

>I stick by
>my claim that the following situation cannot exist among natively learned
>languages:
>
>          A
>         / \
>        A   B
>
>where the right branch has innovated and the left has undergone no change
>whatever.  This is true whether A and B are mutually intelligible or not.
>I am not interested in debating this point any further.

This looks like a refusal to deal in empirical facts,
rather choosing to define the problem away, by using the phrase
"undergone no change whatever".
Circularly, any language will change very slightly over the course
of only a few days.  So defining the problem away in this
case is completely uninteresting, because purely definitional.
I was dealing with an empirical situation, not with pure words.

If we treat the above position as an EMPIRICAL claim
then the following claim is almost certainly false:
**
that given two dialect areas of a language in different areas,
it is not possible that
over the same time span for each area,
one dialect can change almost not at all,
the other area change so substantially as to become mutually
unintelligible with the former beyond some measurable criterion.

**

I was not discussing other possible definitions,
I was discussing a common highly technical definition,
mutual intelligibility, about which I was completely explicit.
The paradox can almost certainly be reformulated,
whatever definition of "distinct language" one prefers,
as long as it is not circularly contorted to exclude the empirical
possibility that dialects of a language can change
at radically different rates.

I believe the political-cultural identifications of "language"
are much closer to the man-in-the-street's definition
than is the highly technical definition of mutual intelligibility,
which I believe most linguists do prefer
at least in some contexts of distinguishing language from dialect.
It is often mentioned, so at the very least, it is cavalier to simply
treat it as inappropriate.
Further, these two components of possible definitions
were contrasted in our earlier discussions.

It is extremely rude to discuss B and pretend to defeat A which was
explicitly clear and was not the same as B.
A good debating technique, perhaps effective
under some circumstances, but not forthright or co-operative.
Gracious co-operation requires that one discuss what
it is perfectly obvious that other people mean, not something one
substitutes for it.  It is certainly often simpler to try to ridicule
something people did not say than what they actually did say.

(One of the two correspondents also asked at the end of their message
where I got my degree.  Since that is of course irrelevant to the
content under discussion, it is ad hominem, and given the rest of this
supposed debate, I suspect it is a prelude to another avenue of attack,
to attempt to discredit someone who is defending Steve Long,
even if that defense is explicitly on only a couple of limited points.
So I answered the irrelevancy privately.)

One correspondent believes they have defeated the claim thusly,
while quoting at first from Pete Gray, who was trying to be helpful
by pointing out that a part of the disagreement might arise because
people were discussing different questions:

>[Pete Gray]
>
>>> Imagine a situation where a group of speakers of a language go and settle
>>> elsewhere, where substrate and other factors make their language change
>>> swiftly, while those who stayed at home enjoy a very much slower rate
>>> of change.
>>> After some years, and political upheaval, we can see a situation
>>> where the settlers are deemed to be speaking a different language from
>>> that which they brought with them years before.
>
>>> I suspect that [one contributor] is saying that the stay-at-homes are
>>> also speaking a different language, by definition;
>>> while some others are saying
>>> that if the changes are few enough, it should be defined as the parent
>>> language.   And of course, both sides are right - which is why there
>>> is so little understanding on both sides.
>>> The debate is ultimately based simply
>>> on our definition of what a single language is.

[response]
>But we have no such definition, nor do I believe that one is possible.

[LA]
>> If we now apply the definition to a situation of one mother M and
>> two dialects A and B, where one dialect A has changed so little in
>> say 100 years that we have no excuse for saying M and A are
>> different languages, by our standard definition of different vs.
>> same language, we must by that definition say they are the same
>> language (and NOT merely for political reasons, one of a zillion red
>> herrings in this discussion),

[respondent]
>Right.  So a language can co-exist with its own descendant?
>I don't think so, and I think this conclusion can be destroyed by what
>Llyod elsewhere calls "simple logic".

The correspondent now proceeds BOTH to evade the
common-sense version of what Pete Gray pointed to above,
and also to evade the technical formulation given earlier.

The common-sense version is that in the same time frame,
one dialect of a language may change so little that we consider it
for all practical purposes the same as its parent,
while another dialect of that same language can change substantially
so that we consider it a separate language.  (Presumably
when this happens, the social conditions causing the greater change
will also involve the kinds of political-cultural divides which would
trigger the correspondent's preferred definitions for "distinct
language", as for example if some of the speakers of the mother
language migrated to an area where they mixed with numerous
speakers of some substrate language, while other speakers of the
mother language did not so migrate or mingle.)

The more technical version of the same uses the technical definition
of mutual intelligibility used by some PROFESSIONALS
(note, not laymen) to define the same dilemma.

The correspondent also proceeds to use an example
WHICH DOES NOT FIT THE CONDITIONS LAID DOWN
above, and is therefore irrelevant to the paradox as it was
posed, as if that example were a counterexample.
The correspondent also proceeds to put words in my mouth
which are certainly contrary to what I would ever say,
and I think obviously contrary to what anyone else would want
to say, even to what any other sane person would believe
I would say, given my care to specify "mutual intelligibility"
as a technical definition I was using for the purposes of the discussion.

>Is the English of 1999 "the same language" as the English of 1998?
>I take it that Lloyd and Steve would at once answer "yes".

Probably I would, if we are talking about the same dialect.
I can conceive of very unusual circumstances in which I would
have to answer "no" if different dialects are concerned.
Even this initial posing of an example is not careful to state
"among people P" and "among the same people P" for earlier and later times,
is not as careful as my recent formulation of
the statement of the definitional paradox.
How Steve Long would answer I should not speculate about.
Lumping Steve Long and me is another sign of lack of care
and precision, and one manifestation of
lack of respect by the correspondent.

>So: is the English of 1998 "the same language" as the English of 1997?
>If you answered "yes" the first time, you must answer "yes" now.

No, that does not follow.  The relation is not transitive.

I am sure the correspondent knows perfectly well it is not transitive.
So why bring up this kind of an example and act as if the persons
being criticized believed the relation is transitive?

>But you can see where this leading.  If the answer is "yes", then, by
>transitivity, the English of 1999 is "the same language" as the English
>of King Alfred the Great 1000 years ago.  Are you happy with this?  The
>two varieties are not at all mutually comprehensible, since the changes
>in 1000 years have been dramatic.

And therefore,
since the correspondent knows I would not want to answer yes
(it is the most elementarily obvious conclusion from what I have written
previously) it is obvious that the relation I used the definition of
is not transitive, the correspondent has proven that.
Isn't that interesting!
The definition I made explicit was not a transitive definition
(which goes unremarked by the correspondent).
What an odd coincidence!
Surely I could not have been careful
enough to think this through in advance?
Nor knowledgeable enough to know this in advance?
Must be a coincidence.

The correspondent here is using a different definition,
and just incidentally, it seems to be a definition of "language"
more used by the man-on-the-street (i.e. a political-cultural definition).
I believe earlier discussions were explicit that this was more
the man-on-the-street's definition.

I have not previously accused the correpondent of being an ignorant
layman, though that is apparently what the correspondent is accusing
me and Steve Long of being (in more than one way).

The correspondent seems simply unwilling to face the fact that
one particular technical definition of
what makes two dialects distinct languages,
a definition used by some professional linguists
(and part of the definition used by almost all),
carries with it a paradoxical answer that yes,
what Steve Long said is in principle possible,
a language and a descendant distinct language can co-exist.

Inconvenient, perhaps, but a consequence of that technical definition.
Not my technical definition,
rather one used by many professional linguists
when using "same language" in an ideal sense,
not colored by political or cultural preferences of users.
And, just perhaps, co-operativeness would dictate that one should
propose another more easily operationalized definition.
Remember that for those who use that definition, they all recognize
that intelligibility is a matter of degree,
the fact that the definition necessarily involves fuzzy borderline
examples does not bother them, that is just the nature of reality.
But in the meantime, graciousness and respect for others
would dictate that one discusses USING that definition,
or admit that one's discussion is simply not relevant to the point raised
about the paradox.
(As stated above, even using what the commentor prefers as
a definition, the paradox probably remains in the same form.)

Here is the consequence of trying to deny the conclusion by
clever manipulations of words (quoted from my previous message).
The correspondent does not deal with this -- to do so would reveal
that the correspondent was changing definitions and thus not defeating
the claim actually made about the paradox, but some other straw-man
claim set up by the correspondent in order to knock it down.

[LA]
>Now if we wish to deny this conclusion,
>I can only see doing it by changing the definition of "same language",
>though that would be cheating,
>or by admitting explicitly that in this context we
>DO NOT MEAN THE SAME THING as we did in other contexts
>by "same language" and "different language".
>(In other words, that no matter how small the difference is between
>M and A, in this context of discussion we will insist they are not the
>same language. Probably because our symbol system, our family tree,
>is influencing how we think about reality, is substituting itself for the
>reality which it is supposed to faithfully represent!)

Evidence that this was the correct analysis of the strategy of debate
is provided by the absolutist phrase "undergone no change whatever"
used in one of the responses received this weekend.

One correspondent ends by saying:

>In sum, I firmly believe that the question `Are related varieties A and
>B the same language or different languages?' is one devoid of
>linguistic content.  And all discussions predicated upon the belief that
>this is a linguistically meaningful question with a linguistically
>meaningful answer are badly misguided.

Steve Long this morning sent me a reference to p.177 of Larry Trask's
"Historical Linguistics" where he claims to be quoting Trask to the effect
that regional varieties of a language
"would eventually become so different from one another that
they would cease to be mutually comprehensible at all,
and we would be forced to speak, not of different dialects,
but of different languages."
Here it appears that Trask is indeed using just the criterion he says
he does not use, at least as a part of his definition which in this
case is a determining part.
Even if the quotation Long sent me is within a
context of a criticism of the technical "mutually intelligible"
definition, it still demonstrates that Trask CAN think logically
using this definition, and come to the exact same conclusion
as I believe anyone else.  Simply common sense.
If so, why does he refuse to do so in the present discussion on our
email list?
Is the reference Steve Long sent me correct, anyone?

Even before receiving this reference,
I wrote the following paragraph:
If the correspondent really believes there is NO acceptable technical
definition of "same language" vs, "different language",
then perhaps the correspondent should simply have said that
and declined to participate in this discussion.
Or hand their linguistic diploma back to the institution which granted it.
To discuss the question presupposes that one thinks the terms
actually mean something.  And the correspondent apparently actually
does think they mean something, witness the example about
modern English and the English of 1000.  We can't have it both ways.

The other recent correspondent replies to the defense of selected
limited points made by Steve Long by beginning:

>Your post is so very long that I am only going to respond to a few major
>points.  It's really hard to wade thru a post when it gets this long.

Length is necessary when the respondents change the definitions
and do other things which greatly confuse the discussion.
Returning to clarity, while being fair to everyone, is a lot of work.
I personally resent having to do that work.
But the issue of respect is important enough I am willing to do it,
repeatedly if need be, to deal with further red herrings.

This debate would have been very much shorter,
more amicable, and more productive, if the correspondents
had simply admitted, yes, Steve Long is correct technically
about points (a,b,c), and co-operatively discussed with him
what might be practically done about the problems he had identified,
how much information about common innovations might be
placed on the branches of a tree, that perhaps it is wiser to
NOT have a continuous line which could be regarded as a "stem",
or whatever else they wished to suggest.
It is perfectly appropriate to point out at the same time
that Steve Long was wrong about other points (d,e,f,...).

We got instead a stonewalling on every point that Steve raised,
as if his status as not a professional in this field required
that we demolish his every argument, whether the individual
arguments had merit or not.  Probably not in every case,
but this response was a massive pattern by some correspondents.

***

One of the correspondents writes:

>I think that Steve
>and Lloyd are both gravely wrong on certain fundamental points.

Notice the magisterial tone, "fundamental points",
unspecified even in what follows, like the Joe McCarthy hit list,
very much like the words "fundamentally flawed"
which have become a code among academics in reviewing books
for "worthless, unprofessional, do not read that author".

>I think both have fallen badly into the reification fallacy.  The
>reification fallacy lies in inventing a name, and then concluding that,
>since we have a name, there must exist something "out there" for the
>name to refer to.
>
>In the linguistic case, the fallacy lies in assuming that names like
>`English', `German' and `Italian' must designate actual entities in the
>real world, because the names exist.

I am absolutely not guilty of the simplistic error of reification in this
matter.
That correspondent can of course not quote any words I have
said which substantiate such a charge, since the correspondent
also uses language names ("English" or "German" or "Italian", for example).
Especially since the definition I was using explicitly denies it,
by laying down a criterion for "different language" which blocks
mere continuation of a language name by maintaining tradition,
and forces one explicitly to recognize instability, continuous change.

He is arguing against something it is perfectly legitimate to argue against.
BUT he is arguing against something I have not given any evidence
of believing.

I think the correspondent knows perfectly well
I have not made that error.
In which case I believe what he said is slanderous or libelous
(take your pick, email is a strange being).

It is also a red herring, because the definitional paradox
stands on its own.
(Even if I had made the error, which I did not,
it would be irrelevant to the logic of the definitional paradox.)

Progress in many sciences consists in recognizing that
seeming paradoxes are not so very odd after all,
that we may not have understood what some of the consequences
might be for definitions commonly used.

We could have avoided most of this by not trying to evade
the paradox with verbal slight-of-hand,
and that would itself have been much easier if
principles of respect for all were more generally adhered to.

Especially the obligation to try to find the positive and useful
in everyone's contributions.

***

Sincerely,
Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics