<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Dear Typologists, etc.,<br><br>One take on the existence of language universals that I've recently become aware of is an incidental effect of some work reported in<br><br>Holman, Eric W., Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, and E. Anthon Eff. 2014. <strong>Inheritance and diffusion of language and culture: A comparative perspective.</strong> <em>Social Evolution & History</em> 14.2<br>
<br></div>(download from <a href="http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/wichmann_publ.html">http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/wichmann_publ.html</a>)<br><br></div>The essential finding (for this discussion) is that no languages are more than about 65% different (Figure 1; I've tried to attach it here). Short of some notion of universals, I don't see how we would account for this.<br>
<br></div>-Mark<br><br><img alt="Inline images 1" src="cid:ii_14692e92ff543210" height="339.55436241610744" width="412.00000000000006"><br><div><div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On 13 June 2014 04:11, Graziano Sava' <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:grsava@gmail.com" target="_blank">grsava@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><p style="margin-bottom:0in">Dear all,</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">even though the discussion on the
existence of language universals was suspended some time ago, I still
would like to share my opinion on this subject in relation with
language documentation and description, language typology and other
linguistic and non-linguistic human sciences.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">In my opinion language universals do
exist. The problem is at the state of our knowledge of individual
languages they cannot be discovered. The deny of language universals
by science experts is probably due to the constant contradictions of
proposed language universals that go beyond basic things. And the
more languages of the hundreds that have not been documented and
described so far (am I allowed to say 80% of the world's languages,
without mentioning HOW they are described?) the stronger will be the
evidence against supposed language universals, even those that are
considered absolutely untouchable at the present state of our
knowledge.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">The contradiction of hypotheses improve
analysis is any scientific field. However, due to the lack of
comparative material, the search of language universals opposing
previous hypothesis is becoming such a constant that as a linguist I
wonder if the main message that we should transmit to the scientific
community at large is that we are also and mainly extremely busy to
document and describe languages worldwide and we are doing it not to
prove or disprove language universal but the show are languages are
different, individually.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Showing how language are is the duty of
language documentation and description. The search of language
universals is the aim of language typology. But the three disciplines
language documentation and description, search of language universals
and language typology should be kept apart. The creation of
typologically-informed grammars that wants to prove language
universals does not make sense since grammar writing should result
in the formalisation of a unique coding system of meaning “ou tout
se tient” which is determined by the ancestral social, cultural,
psychologic, philosophic and genetic development of a speech
community. Also language typology should be differentiated by the
search of language universal. For the moment language typology seems
to have as main aim to determine language universals. It searches
language types that converge. However, in order to get renewed credit
it should limit its scope differentiating types that converge at an
areal level with the help of sister linguistic disciplines such as
areal linguistics, genetic linguistics, sociolinguistics,
anthropological linguistics, as well as anthropology and human
genetics.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">When one day, hundreds and hundreds
years from now, all the languages of the worlds will be duly
described and we will know so well their development that we can
track how they change, linguistics, and language typology in
particular, will become a real prescriptive science. At that moment
we will also prove Chomsky's idea of the biological basis of
language, something that cannon be proven now, again, for the lack of
grammars.</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in">Graziano Sava'</p></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-03-12 1:10 GMT+03:00 Balthasar Bickel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch" target="_blank">balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch</a>></span>:<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear all<br>
<br>
In response to Frans’s worries about the visibility of universals research, I guess it is fair to say that universals in the classical sense are somewhat in a crisis. There are reasons:<br>
- absolute universals can’t be established by samples (see a nice recent paper by Piantadosi & Gibson in Cogn. Science), especially as we can’t be sure about the population from which our samples are drawn (e.g. what survived the human populations bottlenecks 20-60ky ago?)<br>
- absolute universals can be established by fighting counterexamples (re-analyzing them, explaining them away, adding additional conditions etc), but that has always had a touch of arbitrariness<br>
- absolute universals can be established by considerations of explanatory adequacy à la Chomsky, but that has become ever more problematic given recent demonstrations of learnability of CFGs (e.g. Perfors et al. in Cognition 2011) and given Chomsky's retreat to recursion in the mathematical sense, i.e. something which characterizes computation in far more cognitive domains than language and which allows for a vast array of formulating specific grammars and thereby for an equally vast array of possible proposals for formal universals.<br>
- statistical universals can be established based on samples, but there is a serious risk of formulating spurious correlations (see a nice study here by Roberts & Winters in PloS One 2013). It’s not enough to develop just-so stories and post-hoc explanations of the generalizations one happens to find in a sample. (Perhaps indeed many of us had had enough of this, and this might explain why we now see less proposals of implicational universals and the like than in the last century.)<br>
<br>
What is needed is detailed research on *causal* theories that predict specific systematic biases in how languages change, regardless of time and space, and robust quantitative methods that are able to capture such biases. No easy task, and a task that obviously requires more than linguistics. (I guess I agree on this with Wolfgang Schulze.)<br>
<br>
Balthasar.<br>
<br>
<br>
PS to avoid misunderstandings: I am not saying there can’t be solid universals like ‘languages don’t count’, to pick one of David’s examples. I just think we should do better than proposing descriptive generalizations. (But I am not going to enter the debate about science :-)<br>
<br>
<br>
-----------------------------------------<br>
<a href="http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/bickel_en.html" target="_blank">http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/bickel_en.html</a><br>
</blockquote></div></div></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><font>Graziano Savà - PhD Leiden (African Languages and Linguistics)</font><br><br>Postdoc DoBeS-Volkswagenstiftung / Hamburg University<br>
<a href="http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/index.php?id=172&L=1" target="_blank">http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/index.php?id=172&L=1</a><br>
<br>Personal links<br><a href="http://www.grazianosava.altervista.org" target="_blank">www.grazianosava.altervista.org</a><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy8kfVR0rGo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy8kfVR0rGo</a><br>
<a href="http://uni-hamburg.academia.edu/GrazianoSav%C3%A0" target="_blank">http://uni-hamburg.academia.edu/GrazianoSav%C3%A0</a><br><br><br>Blog<br><a href="http://endangeredlanguagesblog.blogspot.com/?spref=fb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div>
<span>endangeredlanguagesblog.blogspot.com</span></div></a>
<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>