[Lingtyp] Structural congruence as a dimension of language complexity/simplicity

[Matthew Dryer]

Peter,

I don’t know whether my last email answered any of your questions, but 
let me simply respond with a set of assertations. Basically, every 
opinion you express in your email, I agree with:

1. Yes, word order correlations are reflected in grammars

2.Yes, usage and grammar correspond to each other in principled and 
non-arbitrary ways

3.I suspect that Hawkins would agree with me that the notion of OV 
language includes, not only languages where there is a grammatical rule 
specifying that the language is OV but also languages where OV is simply 
more frequent in usage.

4.I too am interested in what grammars of different languages have in 
common and how they differ, much less, I must confess, in the 
differences or similarities in usage

5.I’m not sure what you might mean by “grammars are inaccessible to 
typology (and vice versa)”, but I can’t imagine an interpretation that I 
would agree with, so we must agree on that one too.

The fact that the word order correlations are reflected in grammars 
doesn’t mean that word order correlations are only reflected in 
grammars. Consider a language which lacks a rule saying the language is 
OV but where the actual factors conditioning word order result in a 
higher frequency of OV. Such languages usually have postpositions rather 
than prepositions. But since the grammar doesn’t say the language is OV 
(it’s only OV at the level of usage), the correlation between OV and 
postpositions is not reflected in the grammar. The only reason I’m 
interested in usage in this domain is that any account of the word order 
correlations that attempts to characterize it as a generalization over 
grammars necessarily fails since the correlations go beyond grammar.

There is a difference between being interested in what different 
languages have in common and how they differ and being interested in 
what /grammars of/ different languages have in common and how they 
differ. One cannot understand the word correlations if one is only 
interested in what grammars have in common and how they differ.

Matthew

On 1/20/16 5:54 PM, Peter Arkadiev wrote:
> Matthew,
> I must confess that I failed to understand what you mean, especially 
> by "usage". I have always believed, evidently erroneously, that word 
> order correlations are somehow reflected in grammars, and I have 
> always understood Hawkins claims (as reflected in his 2004 and 2014 
> books) as saying that usage and grammar correspond to each other in 
> principled and non-arbitrary ways. When Hawkins writes, e.g. about the 
> differences between OV and VO languages in chapter 7 of his 2014 book, 
> it is much more abour grammar than about usage - or I must admit that 
> I have grossly misunderstood him.
> But anyway, I am interested in what grammars of different languages 
> have in common and how they differ, much less, I must confess, in the 
> differences or similarities in usage. From what you say it appears to 
> me that grammars are inaccessible to typology (and vice versa) - a 
> conclusion I will never accept.
> But again, perhaps I simply don't understand...
> Best,
> Peter
> -- 
> Peter Arkadiev, PhD
> Institute of Slavic Studies
> Russian Academy of Sciences
> Leninsky prospekt 32-A 119991 Moscow
> peterarkadiev at yandex.ru
> http://www.inslav.ru/ob-institute/sotrudniki/279-peter-arkadiev
> 20.01.2016, 22:32, "Matthew Dryer" <dryer at buffalo.edu>:
>>
>> Peter,
>>
>> The point of classifying the language as SVO is that it behaves like 
>> an SVO language as far as word order correlations are concerned. Not 
>> classifying it as SVO means that one would fail to explain the 
>> correlations. Hawkins’ theory predicts that such a language counts as 
>> SVO. The class of languages I treat as SVO is defined roughly as 
>> those languages where the statistically dominant order in usage is 
>> AVP. There is nothing that the grammars of this set of languages 
>> share: these languages resemble each other only at the level of 
>> usage, not at the level of grammar. Hawkins’ theory predicts that the 
>> set of languages that I classify as SVO should tend to have 
>> prepositions. His theory predicts that the set of languages that have 
>> prepositions need not have anything in common in their grammars, only 
>> at the level of usage.
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>
>> On 1/19/16 2:58 PM, Peter Arkadiev wrote:
>>> Then I can't help asking a very naive question, appearing as though I haven't read the relevant literature (I have): if, as Matthew says, "classifying a language as SVO makes no claim about the categories in the language, nor that these categories determine word order even if the language has such categories", what's the point of classifying the given language as SVO in the first place? If the categories of a particular language can be totally at variance with those notions which typologists employ for comparative purposes, then the fact that a given language happens to be classified as SVO appears to be completely arbitrary and non-informative. Even worse, given this stance regarding the correspondence between comparative concepts and language-particular categories, word order correlations just can't follow, let alone be explained. Correlations between, say, OV and NPost in a given language are and have to be stated in terms of the categories relevant for
>>>   this lan
>>>   g
>>> uage, aren't they? And if such language-particular correlations can be mapped on robustly observed cross-linguistic patterns subject to well-articulated processing explanations such as those advanced by Hawkins, then, by necessity, this mapping cannot be just arbitrary, and vice versa.
>>> Again, I admit that I don't understand something.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Peter

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