On Edge

[Bernhard Waelchli]

Dear all,

One thing that worries me about the recent “universal grammar” 
discussion on this list is that it is mostly led by people who are at 
least half a generation older than ego (and I am not particularly 
young). So which of the following options might explain this pattern if 
it is not a mere coincidence?

(1) Younger typologists do not dare to make any statements if it comes 
to the really important and difficult issues in the field.

(2) The question of universal grammar has recently become quite 
uninteresting (I do not say “solved” or “irrelevant”, but “uninteresting”).

(3) Younger people are too busy with other stuff (or too slow in making 
their postings).

(4) ???


I can only speak for myself. For me, it is (2) that applies. This is not 
because I am easily bored by linguistic questions. I find research in 
universals very interesting and the same holds - even more so - for the 
study of grammar. It is just that my experience tells me (maybe my 
experience is wrong, but it is mostly what I have learned from older 
typologists' work) that universals in grammatical structures are an 
unlikely combination (not an impossible one!) if there are not obvious 
functional motivations for them, about as unlikely as polysynthesis is 
in creole languages. Of course, it may be thrilling to study 
polysynthesis in creole languages just because it is unlikely to occur, 
I would approve of this as an exciting - if difficult - undertaking, 
which might be unrewarding in results, because the most interesting 
phenomena of polysynthesis are most likely to be found somewhere else. 
If somebody is interested in universals of human language and 
communication, I would recommend him/her to start first of all for 
instance with discourse phenomena, historical processes, language 
acquisition (e.g., Tomasello’s intention-reading and pattern-finding), 
or why not the work of human ethologists such as I. Eibl-Eibelsfeld who 
investigated such issues as whether it is true that people in all 
cultures rise their eyebrows and smile if they see somebody they know 
(which is very much as relevant for communication as grammar, and who 
knows: perhaps such things are innate in humans, at least this is more 
likely than the innateness of syntactic constituents).
And, as far as particular aspects of grammar are concerned there is a 
great many other exciting issues to consider. (But I would not try to 
argue that issues that I find less promising to pursue as a researcher 
myself are less scientific than those I am interested in.)
Yes, "Edge" overgeneralizes a bit, Frans is certainly right that not all 
claims for universals in grammar have been proven wrong.

Best wishes

Bernhard

PS: By the way other attested numeral bases Frans chose not to mention 
are 27 (Nalca, Una, Yale), 23 (Kobon) and 25 (Eipo).
PPS:  Please, do not understand my posting as a defense of Planck's 
Cynical View of Scientific Change.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20140311/82bdae9d/attachment.htm>