"lumpers"

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

[Pat Ryan wrote]

> I must say that I am rather surprised to see the work of several linguists
> dismissed without a reading --- solely on the strength of their alleged lack
> of expertise.

I must agree with Pat here.  The term "lumpers" is exceptionally misleading
since many of the shining stars of our craft (at least in the history of
linguistics in North America) were dedicated "lumpers" during the 30's,
40's, 50's, and well into the 60's and as late as the 70's.  Names like
Edward Sapir, Mary Haas, Carl Voegelin, Benjamin Whorf, George Trager, and
others were all lumpers in the middle part of the last century.  Even today,
besides the obvious "lumpers" who get most of the publicity, there are
scholars to do high-quality work in other areas of linguistics who are
dipping into the waters of "lumping".  Pam Munro and Sydney Lamb spring
immediately to mind.  In Native American studies, the whole idea of the
"Penutian" stock was considered unprovable and a bad idea 20 years ago to
most Amerindianists.  There had even been some good studies that most
American linguists took as a firm disproof of the notion.  But a group of
good scholars continued to work with the topic and have published some very
sound conclusions about the genetic and areal relations on the West Coast
that have validated some parts of the Penutian hypothesis.  They have
convinced many conservative scholars in the field because of their sound
methodology.  Our fellow lister, Scott DeLancey, comes to mind immediately
in this group.  An entire issue of the journal International Journal of
American Linguistics was devoted to the topic a few issues back.

So we can't just dismiss "lumpers" out of hand because they are some very
vaguely defined body of scholars who are pushing the boundaries of our
traditionally accepted language families.  Some popular "lumpers" are not
using really sound methodology in their work (Greenberg & co.), but the
lesser known "lumpers" are using very sound methodology indeed.  Perhaps we
really need to distinguish between those "lumpers" who only publish working
papers with possibly suggestive and unsifted data (Greenberg, et al.) and
those who publish finished proofs with well-analyzed and evaluated data.

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
3200 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, UT  84322-3200

(435) 797-2738 (voice)
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