Excluding Basque data

[Larry Trask]

ECOLING at aol.com writes:

> We may be getting closer to some agreement on issues of fact
> (as distinct from preferences).

[on my comments]

> As far as I understand the rest of his message,
> Trask does NOT take issue with it in what follows.
> He does say it doesn't matter whether the sound-symbolic
> words have different canonical forms from other vocabulary
> or not.

For my purposes now, it doesn't matter.  Correct.

> Trask appears to be equating his criteria
> with "best candidates for native and ancient status".

Not "equating".  I am *proposing* my criteria as the most appropriate ones for
my purposes.  And so far nobody has proposed any other criteria for the
purpose.

[LT]

>> My criteria are devised with Basque in mind.  Other cases may call for
>> a different approach, notably in respect of my third criterion.
>> Whether sound-symbolic words are generally not ancient, I don't know,
>> but I have no particular interest in this question anyway.  I'm only
>> interested in the Basque case.

> This does not respond to my point.  My point was that this appears to
> be a reductio ad absurdum of the approach, because it seems to be
> implied that sound-symbolic items are not good candidates for native
> and ancient status.

In Basque, this appears to be true.  But I make no universal claims.

> That conclusion must I think be false,
> UNLESS one means by it circularly that words which undergo
> reformations not in accordance with the sound laws applicable to
> the bulk of the vocabulary, reformations entirely internal to the
> language in question,

An interesting point.  Amusingly, my most recent paper, to be published early
next year, draws attention to the difficulties posed by certain types of
re-formations for reconstruction -- though not reformations of expressive
words.

By the way, re-formations are not exceptions to sound laws: they are merely
events which obscure the histories of the affected items.

> or even words which persist unchanged despite
> sound changes which apply to other vocabulary, are not native or ancient.

There is no reason to suppose that any significant numbers of such words exist
in Basque.

> To me, it is simply that these words are subject to a different set of
> sound changes (or lack thereof), they are no less native for sure,
> and arguably no less ancient since their antecedents in direct line of
> descent existed in an earlier form of the language.

But still missing the point.  I exclude words from my initial list if they are
not attested early, if they are not widespread in Basque, or if they are shared
with neighboring languages.  I do this regardless of whether I do or do not
suspect the words to be expressive formations.  If most expressive formations
get excluded as a result -- as indeed they do -- that's just tough bananas.

> To doubt that last part seems to be to doubt that earlier forms of
> various languages had sound-symbolic words,

Certainly not.  I do not for a moment suppose that Pre-Basque must have lacked
expressive formations.  But it is a bad mistake to assume that any *particular*
expressive formations in the modern language must be ancient, in the absence of
any evidence for such a conclusion.

> or if they did,
> to doubt that those words are in any reasonable sense cognate
> (parent) to any of the current sound-symbolic words, that is,
> that sound-symbolic words are so unstable as to prevent any
> reasonable sense of inherited vocabulary from being applicable.

I make no such assumption, and I can't imagine why anybody thinks I do.
But we have to have criteria for judging which words are most likely ancient.
We can't ignore those criteria just because of dark suspicions.

> I think most linguists would reject that conclusion.  Perhaps
> there is some way of avoiding it, but it seems to me to follow
> logically.

What "follows logically" is neither here nor there in this case.
The only point being made is that some native and ancient Basque words still
exist today or existed long enough to be recorded, even though they fail to
satisfy my criteria.  I have no doubt this is true.  But it is utterly
irrelevant.

For the seventeenth time, I am *not* trying to sweep up every Basque word that
*might* be ancient.  I am only trying to identify the best candidates for
native and ancient status.  Why is that so hard to understand?

[on the severely localized Basque <pinpirin> (and variants) 'butterfly']

[LT]

>> Now, I consider it most unlikely that the severely localized word
>> <pinpirin> has been in the language for millennia, all that time
>> violating the ordinary phonological structure of the language and
>> refusing to participate in otherwise categorical phonological changes.

> I don't so quickly come to that judgment.
> It appears to be rather common for sound-symbolic words.

I do not come to that judgement "quickly".  I come to it after more than 25
years of studying the history and prehistory of Basque.  If anyone were
interested, I could write a modest essay on the numerous Basque words for
'butterfly', all of which appear to be expressive formations of no great
antiquity.  These words further appear to have been exceptionally unstable.

> As an aside, I will add that I have been interested in this
> problem for a very long time, and have discovered it also in
> the historical changes of deaf communities' "signed languages",
> where sometimes in a pair of etymologically related signs,
> the sign with the more concrete meaning retains its form, while the
> sign with the more abstract meaning undergoes changes
> of execution, what we would refer to as reductions and simplifications.]

Excellent!  I am delighted to see data cited from sign languages, which are
still badly under-represented in our linguistic database.

> The fact that this makes our task harder does not argue for or against
> the validity of the statement that inherited "sound-symbolic" words
> sometimes do not undergo sound changes.  They are nevertheless
> inherited.

Yes: inherited words are inherited.  No quarrel there.

But it does not follow that any particular expressive formations are ancient --
now does it?

Basque <pinpirin> is not ancient because some other sound-symbolic words in
some other languages are ancient -- and I'm pretty sure it's not very ancient
at all.

> Trask suggests that the following example is wrong.
> I should have said that I took it on the authority of
> Dwight Bolinger, a linguist specializing in English linguistics
> who was a president of the Linguistic Society of America,
> who believed that "teeny" was regenerated (I think that was
> his word).

>>> (English "tiny", which went through the great vowel shift,
>>> and "teeny", which did not go through the great vowel shift,
>>> was retained or regenerated or reborrowed from a dialect,
>>> would be a similar case,
>>> unless the dialect-borrowing solution is adopted.)

> [LT]

>> No.  The earlier `tine' went through the GVS normally and produced
>> `tiny', as expected.  The form `teeny', in all likelihodd, is a later
>> re-formation, derived from sound-symbolic factors.  The OED tells me
>> that `teeny' is nowhere recorded before 1825 -- long after the GVS --
>> and suggests that it probably originated in nursery language.

> We are not too far apart here, except that Trask should have said
> "Yes" to the first sentence, which he was actually agreeing with.
> In this next sentence he could have said "No" or "But not" or whatever.
> His "in all likelihood" should be emphasized,
> that is, we really don't know for sure.
> I gave three possible scenarios.
> But the outcome of each of them is the same.
> What is now SPELLED "teeny"
> is pronounced rather similarly to what was earlier SPELLED "tine",
> when the final "e" was still pronounced and the "i" was pronounced
> as in "machine".
> So was it retained or re-formed much later?
> We know that spelling changes lag behind speech.
> And we know that first attestations which we happen to have evidence
> for may be later than first usages, often by a large time span.
> So the conclusion is not obviously the one Trask prefers.

The conclusion of a re-formation is indeed not intrinsically obvious.
But it *is* the conclusion supported by most of the sources I have ever
consulted.  It is also the conclusion best supported by the evidence.

> Trask does not mention the case of French "pavillon / papillon".
> Does he believe that "papillon" was lost and then regenerated,
> and thus "not ancient" or even "not native"?
> I assume he would not want to claim either of the latter two.
> If not, then use that example instead of "tiny / teeny".

I did not comment on this example because I am not familiar with the facts,
that's all.

> [LT]

>> Let's assume this point is valid.  What are the consequences?

>> Well, either sound-symbolic forms conform to the canonical forms of
>> ordinary lexical items, or they do not.  If they do, there is no
>> problem.

> But  Trask has said previously that the
> expressive vocabulary in Basque DOES differ in canonical forms
> from other vocabulary, so he believes the first alternative does not
> apply.

Indeed, but it would cause me no difficulty if it were otherwise.

> Here is his second alternative:

>> If they don't, then, assuming that many of them get into my
>> list in the first place, I'm going to have two sharply distinct groups
>> of words obeying different rules.  Also no problem.

> But Trask himself argues AGAINST the latter case occurring.
> He actively wants to prevent it "in the first place",
> and only to include them later. He says that his preference is
> to exclude nursery words etc.
> He really does want  to prevent the inclusion of nursery and expressive
> forms.  He believes these forms do not follow what he regards as the
> normal sound laws and that they violate
> the normal canonical forms (his comments on "pinpirin").
> Since lack of attestation may correlate with this, use of the criterion
> of lack of sufficiently wide attestation DOES tend to exclude forms
> of certain formal types.
> He says that he wanted to exclude by an explicit criterion,
> but that he is not too unhappy if others don't want that particular
> exclusionary criterion, (? because he believes that ?)
> his other criteria will exclude most nursery words anyhow.

Yes.  I do not exclude <pinpirin>, because its expressive origin is not
blindingly obvious to non-specialists.  But <tu> 'spit' is different: probably
any comparative linguist would at once spot that one as an imitative formation.

> The assumption that "many" of them will get into Trask's list in
> the first place is exactly what much of this discussion has been about,

By my criteria, few words will make it into my list that I personally consider
expressive, true.  That's just the way it is.

If this bothers you -- and it certainly doesn't bother me -- then *what other
criteria* do you endorse for my task?

I've lost track of how many times I've asked this fundamental question.
But I still hear nothing but silence.

May I now safely conclude that Lloyd Anderson has no other explicit criteria to
offer?

If so, why is he continuing to post at such length?

> namely,
> his criteria will tend to prevent many of them from getting into his list.
> Notice again his strong antipathy towards the word "pinpirin":

>> Now, I consider it most unlikely that the severely localized word
>> <pinpirin> has been in the language for millennia, all that time
>> violating the ordinary phonological structure of the language and
>> refusing to participate in otherwise categorical phonological changes.

> (even aside from the fact that "millennia" is not required to reach
> the level of the early Basque of the 16th century which Trask
> otherwise prefers as his starting point for data, to project
> further backwards)

Eh?  I'm interested in finding out something about the Pre-Basque of about 2000
years ago.  Now, by my reckoning, 2000 years is two millennia.

Any hypothetical case of the sort invoked by Lloyd must therefore have remained
in the language for *at least* two millennia, all the while serenely violating
the ordinary phonological constraints of the language and refusing to undergo
the ordinary phonological changes.

The 16th century has nothing to do with it.  This is merely the period of the
first substantial Basque texts.

[LT]

>> Perhaps I haven't made it clear that I am also very interested in
>> characterizing the expressive formations.  But I first want to
>> characterize the forms of ordinary lexical items, before I turn my
>> attention to the expressive formations -- for one thing, because it's
>> easier to see what's special about expressive formations if I already
>> know what ordinary words look like.

> In that case, the best possible way is to include expressive formations
> in the data set from the very beginning, mark the ones we are
> reasonably sure are "expressives" because of their semantics,
> and notice what may be different about them,

Finally a proposal!

Let's see if I understand this.  You are proposing that I should decide *in
advance* which Basque words are of expressive origin, and include these in my
initial list even though they grossly fail my otherwise categorical criteria.

Questions, Lloyd:

1. How do I know in advance which words are of ultimate expressive origin
unless I *first* make up my mind what expressive words look like?

2. I first pick the expressive words and put them into my list, whereupon I
find that the expressive words I have deliberately put into the list because of
their distinctive forms and/or meanings do indeed have distinctive forms and/or
meanings.  Is this not totally circular?  What can I possibly hope to find
other than what I put in to start with?

3. If the deliberately selected words are put into my list even though there
exists no evidence that they are ancient, how can I possibly have any
confidence that my list consists largely of ancient words?

How about some answers?

[on my criteria]

> This explicitly states that the expressives would be mostly
> excluded from his list by his primary criteria.

Yes; I believe this to be correct.

> That comes very
> close to contradicting the possibility that "many" of them could
> be included "in the first place".  We can't have it both ways.

And who has suggested otherwise?

I don't give a damn whether many, few or none of them get in.  I personally
believe that few of them will, that's all.  But the words that go in are the
words that satisfy my criteria.

> [LT]

>> Sure.  But how can I tell that a particular form is rare unless I first
>> determine what the common forms are?

> By contrasting them explicitly, as just pointed out.

Contrasting them *with what*?

> [LT]

>> But what I'm trying to do is precisely to identify the damn
>> strata in the first place.

> Again, best done by including them in the data set,
> and learning how to mark them as belonging to different strata,
> gradually with increasing accuracy.

Poppycock, I'm afraid.  Lloyd, I am afraid you have suggested no procedure at
all for distinguishing strata.  Go ahead: put in all the words you like.
Put in every word in a large Basque dictionary, if you like.

Then what?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

> Larry Trask should use whatever sequence of investigations
> he is most comfortable with.  But he should also be careful
> that he does not allow the order of his investigating various
> strata, an order of his own choosing, not a property inherent
> to the language itself, to bias his conclusions.
> That is, in part, what we have been discussing.

> Trask wants to draw firm conclusions from his initial steps
> with his initially selected strata of the vocabulary,
> and it appears he would not be eager to change those conclusions
> from the later results of investigating other strata.

>> I have also explained that, in addition, I would prefer to exclude
>> obvious nursery words and obvious imitative words at the outset, for
>> excellent reasons.  But I don't mind if others prefer not to do this.
>> It isn't going to make much difference anyway, since very few of these
>> words will satisfy my primary criteria.

> Why should the "primary" criteria be systematically selective of
> one stratum of NATIVE vocabulary against another stratum of NATIVE
> vocabulary.  Should that not be considered a defect in criteria
> which are claimed to be ideal for identifying the best candidates
> for native and ancient vocabulary?

> Rather, the criteria should be advertised for what they then are,
> criteria for identifying ONE stratum WITHIN the native and ancient
> vocabulary, a stratum excluding nursery and expressive words
> (and excluding vocabulary in those semantic domains and
> in those subject matters not dealt with in earliest documents,
> as discussed in another message).

> If the criteria are stated fully explicitly for what they are,
> then the conclusions drawn from them will have their
> inherent limitations made more explicit.
> That will be a courteous service to those who might want
> to use the results.  It of course means the results are less
> sweeping or definitive.  Such are the good consequences
> of being clear and open about what one is doing.

> I will be very glad if it turns out that we are getting somewhat closer.

> Sincerely,
> Lloyd Anderson
> Ecological Linguistics

-- End original message --