Trivial Truths and Genetic "Patterns"

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/6/01 11:18:00 PM, alderson+mail at panix.com writes:

<< The total set of reconstructed forms, based on all the forms attested in
the group of languages under examination, is considered to be a single
language.  Period.  By definition.  Period. >>

Well, I'm sure if you punctuate it enough, it will surely end up being true.

Actually, you put yourself in a logical bind here that I'm sure you will
understand if you consider it carefully and unemotionally.

The Lehmann quote very prudently avoids this equation between "forms" and
"languages."  ("In using the comparative method, we contrast forms of two or
more related languages to determine the precise relationship between THESE
FORMS.  We indicate this relationship most simply by reconstructing THE FORMS
from which they developed." Caps mine.)

The reason this is wise is that it avoids a conclusion that the comparative
method in and of does not support in the very example you described earlier.

In fact, you give a clear example of where the comparative method - applied
to "a larger set of languages" - will reconstruct the total set of related
forms into not one, but three different languages.

In a message titled "Re: The Single Parent Question" dated 7/5/01 3:21:49 PM,
alderson+mail at panix.com writes:

<< ...if we found a group of languages descended from a prehistoric Michif,
we could not reconstruct the two parents thereof.  You are probably
correct.... from the point of view of the comparative method, these languages
do *not* have two parents, but only one, the paleo-Michif.

If, on the other hand, we were dealing with a larger set of languages, some
descended from the left-hand parent of paleo-Michif; some, the right-parent;
and some from paleo-Michif itself, we could (if the events in question were
not so far in the past as to prevent our dull tools from working at all) in
principle work out the relations of all and sundry. >>

Please observe carefully where you've arrived in this last paragraph.  You
have used the comparative method on languages linked by various systematic
correspondences.  And the result you forecast is that with the application of
the method in this situation you will have ended up reconstructing three
languages - not one.  And one of those reconstructed languages will contain
what you know are TWO genetically distinct sets of forms.

In other words, repeating your words above: << The total set of reconstructed
forms, based on all the forms attested in the group of languages under
examination, is considered to be a single language.>> is not the case in the
example you give.

In fact, the "total set of reconstructed forms" yielded by the application of
the method in the example you give MUST be three reconstructed languages.
Because you CANNOT reconstruct the two ancestors accurately UNLESS you
recognize that there are two distinct sets of systematic correspondences in
the already reconstructed language "paleo-Mistif."  This means that you are
using less than "the total set of reconstructed forms" that you've already
identified in "paleo-Mischif" to also reconstruct the left-handed parent.
And less than the "total set" to also reconstruct the right-handed parent.

The comparative method triangulates back to a single set of reconstructed
forms.  It does not triangulate back to a whole language.  And, in the
example you give, "the total set of reconstructed forms" - multiple
triangulations - yields three different reconstructed languages.

I understand the comparative method enough to know that you cannot count
apples and end up with oranges.  What in fact the method does is compare
forms and find correspondences that show common descent, not whole languages
or all the possible genetic aspects of a reconstructed language.  In the
example you give, multiple applications of the method to the same data yield
multiple reconstructions, each using only a subset of the total reconstructed
forms.  And so the "total set of reconstructed forms" does not equal one
language.  The definition you give is not coherent.

Of course, equating a reconstructed set of forms to a "language" does not
only create a logical incoherence.  If two languages share noun morphology
alone (as in the Niger-Kordofanian example), it is patently absurd to call
the resulting reconstructions a "language."  The processes that created the
correspondences do not all call for the existence of a third language, even
if they do establish descent from a common form.  And the comparative method
establishes descent from a common set of forms, but it can say nothing else
about the relationship of the remainder of those two languages.  Inferences
may be drawn.  But that is what they are at best - inferences, not part of
the method itself.

If this equation of forms to a single language is by definition, a careful
look at the operation as you yourself described it shows that the definition
is logically faulty.  And that has nothing to do with me, so personal remarks
and brow-beating won't change it.

Steve Long