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Dear all,<br>
<br>
I also second Frans' comments, and those of Dan, Christian, and
Edith.<br>
<br>
Like many of us typologists, I was "educated" as a student within
the Chomskyan tradition, and then grew up to reject many of its
fundamental tenets. But as noted earlier in this thread, it is
important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And when I
think back to what I was taught in a generativists' Ling 100 course,
one of the things that has withstood the test of time, as well as
subsequent critiques of the generative enterprise, is the existence
of linguistic universals, not just of a more substantive nature such
as those listed by Frans, but also of a somewhat more abstract
character, such as the following random selection:<br>
<br>
• no language derives one sentence from another (eg. to form YN
questions from declaratives) by reversing the order of words in the
sentence.<br>
<br>
• syntax can't count. (Eg. no language forms YN questions from
declaratives by marking the 5th word of the sentence.)<br>
<br>
• when combining constituents A and B, no language does so by
intercolation, eg. one word from A followed by one word from B,
followed by one word from A, etc.<br>
<br>
• all languages build up meaning-bearing signs (words, morphemes)
from smaller non-meaning-bearing units (segments).<br>
<br>
I have heard, in conversations, some of my typologists friends say
that "there are no linguistic universals", but I think that
statements such as the above, and many others like them, are indeed
claims that can be made about all human languages, while not being
things that we would neccessarily expect to find in a language
spoken by litte green people from Alpha Centauri. Thus, statements
such as the above, alongside those listed by Frans, should be part
of the unity that we are seeking within the diversity of human
language.<br>
<br>
David Gil<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/03/2014 20:57, Plank wrote:<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:46DD4454-2FD6-428B-BF08-8C9A1DF57365@uni-konstanz.de"
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<div>Dear typologists,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>typology is about linguistic diversity and unity, right? I
quote from memory, but I'm sure I've seen this claim made in
many a textbook, sinngemaess. At any rate that, this is what
your papers were expected to be about if they were to go into
LT, because the mission statement of that journal wanted them
both, diversity and/in relation to unity. But then, tempora
mutantur, nosque mutamur in illis. Is this dual assignment
water under the bridge, yesteryear's snow, old hat, passé?
Has our professional remit been assuaged? Can we forget the
unity half? So it indeed seems to the most complex and
sophisticated minds.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The annual question of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://Edge.org">Edge.org</a> for 2014 was: </div>
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<div class="view-header">
<h1><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.edge.org/annual-question/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement">WHAT
SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?</a></h1>
</div>
</div>
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<div>One of the candidates nominated for retirement -- alongside
"The Theory of Everything", "Urvogel", "People Are Sheep",
"Languages Conditioning Worldviews", "The Standard Approach to
Meaning", "Culture" (retired twice), "Only Scientists Can Do
Science", "Planck's Cynical View of Scientific Change", and
some 170 other ideas (all at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.edge.org/annual-questions">http://www.edge.org/annual-questions</a>)
-- was "Universal Grammar". I'm copying this contribution in
full below, in case you're not regular followers of Edge.
(Edge ad speak about its business model: <span style=""><em>"To
arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the
most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room
together, and have them ask each other the questions they
are asking themselves."</em></span>) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The sentiment here expressed seems to be gaining
popularity. It is typically vented outside professional fora,
and not only by outsiders who have heard the name Chomsky and
otherwise know little about linguistics, but also by
professionals keen on maximising impact, at the expense of
having to somewhat overdo the rhetorics. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But seriously, can anybody be confident that there are no
universal constraints on how languages can vary from one
another, and that this is a consensus to this effect among
those scholars who ought to know best (typologists,
naturally)? (Replace "languages" by "mental
lexicons-and-grammars" if you're a mentalist or by "doculects"
if you work with corpora.) Is it really anywhere close to the
truth that "basically every proposed universal feature" has
been empirically shown to be invalid through crosslinguistic
research? (Which is different from not having found much
support from acquisition research inspired by the Poverty of
the Stimulus argument. But that does not seem what was at
issue in the present Edge contribution.) Conceivably there is
disagreement on whether linguistic universals are
genetic/innate language-specific biases or have one or another
other explanation. (Such as, perhaps most promising, being
constraints on linguistic change, on transitions rather than
on states.) But that wouldn't be denying that there ARE
universals. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Incidentally, Dan Everett is also on Edge. He wants to
retire an idea seemingly similar: 'The idea that human
behavior is guided by highly specific innate knowledge has
passed its sell-by date. The interesting scientific questions
do not encompass either "instinct" or "innate."' But I'm sure
Dan wouldn't dream of retiring linguistic universals, such as
these (almost) random examples: </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>• Provided a language distinguishes grammatically relevant
lexical classes ("parts of speech"), if there is one for
property concepts, there will also be distinct classes
prototypically accommodating thing/time-stable concepts and
action/time-unstable concepts.</div>
<div>• If words other than those designating action concepts
inflect for tense, words designating action concepts will
inflect for tense, too (notwithstanding the possibility of
nominal tense).</div>
<div>• If nouns inflect (most likely for number), verbs will
inflect, too (most likely for person, number, tense).</div>
<div>• Provided words designating property concepts are divided
in their allegiance between object words and action words in
the grammar of predication, then those designating human
propensities will follow the model of action words and those
designating materials will follow the model of object words.</div>
<div>• Provided a language distinguishes main and dependent
clauses, the morphosyntax and prosody of dependency will take
predictable forms –– too complex to go into here: but it's
all about deficits relative to main clauses. </div>
<div>• Provided a language has numerals, if it has one for 9 it
will also have ones for 1-8, etc. </div>
<div>• Provided a language has numerals, the numeral system
won't have 3, 7, 9, or 11 as a base or as one of its bases
(and I won't enumerate the legitimate bases here: there are
more than have sometimes been recognised: 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10,
12, 20, 60 -- read it up in LT). </div>
<div>• Provided a language has three series of numerals for (i)
counting, (ii) quantifying, (iii) locating in an ordered
sequence, the quantifying forms and/or their constructions
won't be more complex than the others; if there are
differences in complexity, they will be the other way round. </div>
<div>• Syllable weight resides in the rhyme and cannot be
contributed by the onset (or not exclusively -- if you insist,
Dan). </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And so on and on and on. Are the valid/uninvalidated
universals all trivial/superficial, with the
interesting/profound ones all invalid? I'd say that depends
on what sense is made of such descriptive generalisations.
Universals aren't discovered at a glance and aren't
self-explanatory: in-depth analysis and proper sense-making
are integral parts of the typological enterprise together with
the inductive generalising. (Since this seems so dear to the
Edge author, I'm not really sure there are known languages
which entirely fail to distinguish the lexical categories N
and V, if properly analysed.) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Obviously I'm not denying that many items documented in the
Universals Archive (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/">http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/</a>)
are dubious or defunct, especially as I have debunked many
myself. But I'd advise against pushing the baby over the edge
and throwing it out with the bathwater. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Innateness seems to be going through a bad patch in
general: Allison Gopnik also wants it thrown out on Edge.
Encouragingly, Steven Pinker only questions whether "Behavior
= Genes + Environment". And anti-innateness, aka "Radical
Behaviorism", is also up for retirement.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also on Edge, Ian McEwan questions the question
(vindicating Hoelderlin, not on Edge: Was bleibet aber,
stiften die Dichter): Beware of arrogance! Retire nothing!
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If you find the rhetorical questioning of the existence of
universals a waste of time, we can perhaps still take
inspiration from Edge and ask ourselves: Are there ideas in
typology OTHER THAN universals which are ready for retirement?
Your nominations, please! Expect restatements of LT's
mission statement in due course. However, for the time being,
unity is being kept along with diversity. </div>
<div> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Frans Plank </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>PS: If you've been wondering, Planck's Cynical View of
Scientific Change was as follows: "A new scientific truth
does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them
see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
I hate to unretire and out-Planck Planck, but I'm afraid that
may be true of falsehoods, too. </div>
<br>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div class="field-content"><a
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moz-do-not-send="true" typeof="foaf:Image"
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<div class="field-content"><a
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K. Bergen</strong></a></div>
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<div class="field-content"><em>Associate
Professor, Cognitive Science, University of
California, San Diego; Author, Louder Than
Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes
Meaning</em></div>
<div class="field-content"><em><br>
</em></div>
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<div class="views-field views-field-php-3 response-title"> <span
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<p>The world's languages differ to the point of
inscrutability. Knowing the English word "duck"
doesn't help you guess the French "canard" or Japanese
"ahiru." But there are commonalities hidden beneath
the superficial differences. For instance, human
languages tend to have parts of speech (like nouns and
verbs). They tend to have ways to embed propositions
in other ones. ("John knows that Mary thinks that Paul
embeds propositions in other ones.") And so on. But
why?</p>
<p>An influential and appealing explanation is known as
<em>Universal Grammar</em>: core commonalities across
languages exist because they are part of our genetic
endowment. On this view, humans are born with an
innate predisposition to develop languages with very
specific properties. Infants expect to learn a
language that has nouns and verbs, that has sentences
with embedded propositions, and so on.</p>
<p>This could explain not only why languages are similar
but also what it is to be uniquely human and indeed
how children acquire their native language. It may
also seem intuitively plausible, especially to people
who speak several languages: If English (and Spanish…
and French!) have nouns and verbs, why wouldn't every
language? To date, Universal Grammar remains one of
the most visible products of the field of
Linguistics—the one minimally counterintuitive bit
that former students often retain from an introductory
Linguistics class.</p>
<p>But evidence has not been kind to Universal Grammar.
Over the years, field linguists (they're like field
biologists with really good microphones) have reported
that languages are much more diverse than originally
thought. Not all languages have nouns and verbs. Nor
do all languages let you embed propositions in others.
And so it has gone for basically every proposed
universal linguistic feature. The empirical foundation
has crumbled out from under Universal Grammar. We
thought that there might be universals that all
languages share and we sought to explain them on the
basis of innate biases. But as the purportedly
universal features have revealed themselves to be
nothing of the sort, the need to explain them in
categorical terms has evaporated. As a result, what
can plausibly make up the content of Universal Grammar
has become progressively more and more modest over
time. At present, there's evidence that nothing but
perhaps the most general computational principles are
part of our innate language-specific human endowment.</p>
<p>So it's time to retire Universal Grammar. It had a
good run, but there's nothing much it can bring us now
in terms of what we want to know about human language.
It can't reveal much about how language develops in
children—how they learn to articulate sounds, to infer
the meanings of words, to put together words into
sentences, to infer emotions and mental states from
what people say, and so on. And the same is true for
questions about how humans have evolved or how we
differ from other animals. There are ways in which
humans are unique in the animal kingdom and a science
of language ought to be trying to understand these.
But again Universal Grammar, gutted by evidence as it
has been, will not help much.</p>
<p>Of course, it remains important and interesting to
ask what commonalities, superficial and substantial,
tie together the world's languages. There may be hints
there about how human language evolved and how it
develops. But to ignore its diversity is to set aside
the most informative dimension of language.</p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550333
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de">gil@eva.mpg.de</a>
Webpage: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/">http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/</a>
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