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Unfortunately, to many people (not only generativists) it isn't
obvious at all that "classifying languages typologically does not
entail that the terms employed in the typological classification
correspond to categories in the language" (in other words, that
comparative concepts are distinct from descriptive categories).<br>
<br>
It seems that the default assumption of many people when they hear a
term like "dative" or "clitic" is that they are concepts like
"copper" or "red fox", i.e. natural kinds that exist independently
of individual language systems, just as red foxes can be recognized
independently of their habitats, and copper can even be recognized
independently of the planet on which is occurs. This is false, but
it hasn't been very widely recognized.<br>
<br>
In the 1980s, typologists discovered the important differences
between agents, topics, and syntactic pivots (as noted by Randy),
but such more fine-grained categories are still not sufficient for
describing any language. Agents can be different across languages,
topics can be different, and syntactic pivots can be different.
Thus, even "agent", "topic" and "pivot" can only be used as
comparative concepts, not as universally applicable descriptive
categories that would somehow have the same meaning in different
languages.<br>
<br>
Thus, it is not just confusing terminology (like Y.R. Chao's
"subject"), but also the presupposition that categories can be
carried over from one language to another that has confused
linguists.<br>
<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 19.01.16 07:52, Matthew Dryer wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:569DDD3D.4000001@buffalo.edu" type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Randy says that calling Chinese SVO
implies that Chinese has such categories. I am surprised that he
would say that. I would have thought it was obvious that
classifying languages typologically does not entail that the
terms employed in the typological classification correspond to
categories in the language. Nor does it mean that these
categories determine or are determined by word order. I have
certainly made that clear in my work that 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.<br>
<br>
Matthew<br>
<br>
On 1/18/16 7:42 PM, Randy John LaPolla (Prof) wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:2A374FEB-177D-460A-80CF-C11D256CEE24@ntu.edu.sg"
type="cite"> <font class="" face="Verdana" size="4">Dan’s point
is very important. For example, most people describing
languages do not know how to distinguish agents, topics, and
syntactic pivots (“subject”), and just call anything that
occurs initially as “subject”. Sometimes even when the
linguist is clear on the difference, they still use the word
“subject”. E.g. Y. R. Chao, in his grammar of spoken Chinese,
clearly stated there is nothing like what is referred to as
“subject” in English, as all clauses are simply topic-comment,
but he still used the term “subject” for what he said was
purely a topic. This has confused generations of linguists,
and they call Chinese SVO, which not only implies that Chinese
has such categories, but also that these categories either
determine or are determined by word order. See the following
paper arguing against the use of such shortcuts, and arguing
for more careful determination of the factors determining word
order in a language:</font>
<div class=""><font class="" face="Verdana" size="4"><br
class="">
</font></div>
<div class="">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3pt; margin-left:18pt;
text-align:justify; text-indent:-18pt; line-height:15pt"> <span
class="" style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU">LaPolla,
Randy J. & Dory Poa. 2006. On describing word order. <i
class="">Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of
Grammar Writing, </i>ed. by Felix Ameka, Alan Dench,
& Nicholas Evans, 269-295. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3pt; margin-left:18pt;
text-align:justify; text-indent:-18pt; line-height:15pt"> <span
class="" style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU"> </span><span
class="" lang="EN-US"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf"
class=""><span class="" style="font-size:12pt"
lang="EN-AU">http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf</span></a></span><span
class="" style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU"></span></p>
<div class="">
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><font class="" face="Verdana" size="4">Randy</font></div>
<div class="">
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br class="">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On 19 Jan 2016, at 10:21 am, Everett,
Daniel <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:DEVERETT@bentley.edu" class="">DEVERETT@bentley.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div dir="auto" class="">
<div class="">One of the biggest problems in
this regard that I have noticed is in grammars
of individual languages. Fieldworkers
sometimes confuse semantic and formal
categories in the grammars, classifying as a
syntactic structure a semantic category. If
typologists are not careful writers/readers of
grammars they may bring such confusions into
their typological studies. Sounds obvious. But
not always so. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Dan<br class="">
<br class="">
Sent from my iPhone</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
On Jan 18, 2016, at 21:11, Matthew Dryer <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>>
wrote:<br class="">
<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">
<p class="MsoNormal">I agree entirely with
Jan on the need to distinguish semantic
categories and formal categories. In
fact, in a paper of mine that is I have
nearly completed revising, I have an
entire section arguing that generative
approaches fail to note the fact that a
given semantic category often has many
different formal expressions over
different languages and that this is
problematic for implicit assumptions
that equate semantic categories with
formal categories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But Jan seems to
think that this presents some sort of
problem for the work I have done in word
order typology.<span class="" style="">
</span>He says “<span class=""
style="font-family:Times"
lang="UZ-CYR">When these authors
subsequently formulate rules and
principles on the basis of the data
they collected, the semantic category
labels (Adjective, Genitive, Relative
Clause, but also e.g. Demonstrative
and Numeral) appear to stand for <u
class="">formal</u> categories, i.e.
categories whose members are defined
on the basis of structural or
morphosyntactic criteria</span>”. But
this is false. They stand for semantic
categories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jan seems to think
that it is somehow a problem that a
given semantic category may have many
different formal realizations across
different languages. However, neither in
his email nor in his 2009 paper in LT
does he explain why he sees this as a
problem.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is, I admit, a
<i class="" style="">potential</i>
problem.<span class="" style=""> </span>Namely,
it might be the case that for the
purposes of word order correlations, the
syntactic realization of a semantic
category makes a major difference and
that lumping the different syntactic
realizations together is obscuring these
differences. That is why I have spent
considerable time over the years
collecting data, not only on word order
in particular languages, but also on the
syntactic realization in these
languages, precisely to examine
empirically whether the syntactic
realization makes a difference. The
result is that while the syntactic
realization sometimes makes a small
difference, it is overall irrelevant: by
and large, generalizations over semantic
categories apply the same, regardless of
the syntactic realization.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<span class="" style="">Matthew</span> <br
class="">
<br class="">
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</style>On 1/18/16 4:41 AM, Jan Rijkhoff wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="">I think
the last word has not been said about
Greenbergian word order correlations,
mainly because semantic categories and
formal categories have not always been
clearly distinguished in
post-Greenberg (1963) word order
studies (Rijkhoff 2009a).* For
example, both Hawkins (1983: 12) and
Dryer (1992: 120) claimed that they
followed Greenberg (1963: 74) in
‘basically applying semantic criteria’
to identify members of the same
category across languages, but in
practice these semantically defined
forms and constructions are treated as
formal entities. </p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">If Hawkins
and Dryer applied semantic criteria in
their cross-linguistic studies, this
implies, for example, that their
semantic category Adjective must also
have included verbal and nominal
expressions of adjectival notions
(such as relative clauses and
genitives), which are typically used
in languages that lack a dedicated
class of adjectives:</p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="text-autospace:none"><u
class=""><span class="" style="">Kiribati
</span></u><span class="" style="">(Ross
1998: 90)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="text-autospace:none"><span
class="" style="">(1)<i class=""> </i><i
class="" style="">te<span class=""
style=""> </span>uee<span
class="" style=""> </span>ae<span
class="" style=""> </span>e<span
class="" style=""> </span>
tikiraoi</i><span class=""
style=""> </span>(relative
clause)</span><span class=""
style=""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="text-autospace:none"><span
class="" style=""><span class=""
style=""> </span>art<span
class="" style=""> </span></span><span
class="" style="">flower <span
class=""
style="font-variant:small-caps">rel
</span>3<span class=""
style="font-variant:small-caps">sg.s
<span class="" style=""></span></span>be.pretty<span
class="" style=""> </span>
</span><span class="" style=""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="text-autospace:none"><span
class="" style=""><span class=""
style=""> </span>‘a pretty
flower’ (lit. ‘a flower that
pretties’)<span class="" style="">
</span></span></p>
<div class="" style=""><span class=""
style=""> </span><br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><u
class=""><span class="" style="">Makwe</span></u><span
class="" style=""> (Devos 2008: 136)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span
class="" style="">(2)<span class=""
style=""></span><i class=""
style=""> muú-nu<span class=""
style=""> </span>w-á=ki-búúli</i><span
class="" style="">
</span>(genitive)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span
class="" style=""><span class=""
style=""> </span><span
class=""
style="font-variant:small-caps">nc1</span>-person
<span class=""
style="font-variant:small-caps">
pp1-gen=nc7</span>-silence</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span
class="" style=""> ‘a silent
person’ (lit. ‘person of silence’)</span></p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Relative
Clause and Genitive are, however, also
semantic categories in their own right
in word order studies by Dryer and
Hawkins.</p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">When these
authors subsequently formulate rules
and principles on the basis of the
data they collected, the semantic
category labels (Adjective, Genitive,
Relative Clause, but also e.g.
Demonstrative and Numeral) appear to
stand for <u class="">formal</u>
categories, i.e. categories whose
members are defined on the basis of
structural or morphosyntactic
criteria. This apparent change of
category is not explained, but can be
seen in the case of the ‘Heaviness
Serialization Principle’ (Hawkins
1983: 90-91) and the ‘Branching
Direction Theory’ (Dryer 1992).</p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-right:13.75pt;
text-autospace:none">Hawkins defined
‘heaviness’ in terms of such
non-semantic criteria as (a) length
and quantity of morphemes, (b)
quantity of words, (c) syntactic depth
of branching nodes, and (d) inclusion
of dominated constituents. </p>
<div class=""
style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="text-align:justify;
text-justify:inter-ideograph;
page-break-after:avoid;
text-autospace:none"> <span class=""
style="" lang="EN-GB">(3)<span
class="" style=""><i class=""> </i>
</span><i class="" style="">Heaviness
Serialization Principle</i></span><span
class="" style="" lang="EN-GB"><span
class="" style="">: </span>Rel<span
class="" style=""> </span>≥<sub
class="">R</sub><span class=""
style=""> </span>Gen<span
class="" style=""> </span>≥<sub
class="">R</sub><span class=""
style=""> </span>A<span class=""
style=""> </span>≥<sub class="">R
</sub><span class="" style=""> </span>Dem/Num</span>
</p>
<div class=""
style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-right:13.75pt;
text-autospace:none">Thus a member of
the (semantic? formal?) category
Relative Clause is ‘heavier’ than a
member of the (semantic? formal?)
category Adjective. But Hawkins’s
semantic category Adjective must also
have included members of the ‘heavy’
formal categories Genitive and
Relative Clause (see (1) and (2)
above). It is not clear whether the
original members of the single
semantic category Adjective were later
‘re-categorized’ and distributed over
the formal categories Adjective,
Genitive and Relative Clause in the <i
class="" style=""><span class=""
style="" lang="EN-GB">Heaviness
Serialization Principle</span></i>.</p>
<div class=""
style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Dryer’s
‘Branching Direction Theory’ refers to
a structural feature of the internal
syntactic organization of a
constituent. According to the
‘Branching Direction Theory’, relative
clauses and genitives are phrases,
i.e. members of a branching category,
whose position relative to the noun
correlates with the relative order of
Verb and Object, whereas adjectives
are non-branching elements, whose
position relative to the noun does not
correlate with OV or VO order (Dryer
1992: 107-8, 110-1). In this case,
too, one may assume that the semantic
category Adjective also included
members of the formal categories
Genitive and Relative Clause (see
examples above). Again we do not know
what happened to the branching/phrasal
members of the erstwhile(?) semantic
category Adjective (relative clauses,
genitives) when this category was
turned into the formal (non-branching)
category Adjective that is part of the
‘Branching Direction Theory’.</p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">So as to
avoid categorial confusion in
cross-linguistic research (and so as
to make it possible to produce more
reliable results), it is necessary to
keep formal and semantic categories
apart, as members of these two
categories have their own ordering
rules or preferences. I also think it
is an illusion to think we can give a
satisfactory account of the
grammatical behaviour of linguistic
units -including word order- without
taking into consideration functional
(interpersonal) categories or
‘discourse units’ (Rijkhoff 2009b,
2015). </p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">*
Greenberg (1963: 88) made it clear
that he sometimes used formal criteria
to remove certain members of a
semantic category before he formulated
a universal, as in the case of his
Universal 22.</p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font
class="" size="2"><b class=""
style="">References</b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font
class="" size="2">Devos, M. 2008. <i
class="" style=""> A Grammar of
Makwe</i>. München: Lincom Europa.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><font
class="" size="2">Dryer, M. S.,
1992. The Greenbergian word order
correlations. <i class="" style="">Language</i>
68-1, 81-138.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><font class=""
size="2">Greenberg, J. H. 1963. Some
universals of grammar with
particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements. In J. H.
Greenberg (ed.), <i class=""
style="">Universals of Language</i>,
73-113. Cambridge MA: MIT.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><font class=""
size="2">Hawkins, J. A., 1983. <i
class="" style="">Word Order
Universals: Quantitative analyses
of linguistic structure</i>. New
York: Academic Press.</font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><font class=""
size="2"><span class="" style="">Rijkhoff,
J. 2009a. </span><span class=""
style="">On the (un)suitability of
semantic categories. <i class=""
style=""> Linguistic Typology</i>
13-1, 95‑104.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt;
text-autospace:none"> <font class=""
size="2"><span class="" style="">Rijkhoff,
Jan. 2009b. </span>On the
co-variation between form and
function of adnominal possessive
modifiers in Dutch and English. <span
class="" style="">In William B.
McGregor (ed.), <i class=""
style="">The Expression of
Possession</i> (</span>The
Expression of Cognitive Categories
[ECC] 2),<span class="" style="">
51‑106. Berlin and New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt;
text-autospace:none"> <font class=""
size="2"><span class="" style="">Rijkhoff,
J. 2015. Word order. In James D.
Wright (editor-in-chief), <i
class="" style="">International
Encyclopedia of the Social &
Behavioral Sciences (Second
Edition)</i>, Vol. 25, 644–656.
Oxford: Elsevier.</span><span
class="" style=""></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><font class=""
size="2">Ross, M. 1998.
Proto-Oceanic adjectival categories
and their morphosyntax. <i class=""
style="">Oceanic Linguistics</i>
37-1, 85-119.</font></p>
<div class="" style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><span
class="p-match"> </span><br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:14.2pt;
text-indent:-14.2pt"><span
class="p-match">Jan Rijkhoff</span></p>
<div class="" style=""> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class=""
style="font-family:Tahoma;
font-size:13px"> </div>
</div>
<div class="" style="font-family:'Times
New Roman'; font-size:16px">
<hr tabindex="-1" class="">
<div id="divRpF867311" class=""
style="direction:ltr"><font class=""
face="Tahoma" size="2"><b class="">From:</b>
Lingtyp [<a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>]
on behalf of Alan Rumsey [<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Alan.Rumsey@anu.edu.au">Alan.Rumsey@anu.edu.au</a>]<br
class="">
<b class="">Sent:</b> Monday,
January 18, 2016 12:23 PM<br
class="">
<b class="">To:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"> </a><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br
class="">
<b class="">Subject:</b> Re:
[Lingtyp] Structural congruence as
a dimension of language
complexity/simplicity<br class="">
</font><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><span
id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" class=""
style="">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">Many
thanks to all of you who
responded to my posting on this
topic, both online and off. All
the readings you have pointed me
to have indeed been highly
relevant and very useful,
including an excellent recent
publication by Jennifer
Culbertson that she pointed me
to in her offline response, at <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01964/abstract">http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01964/abstract</a></div>
</span>
<div class="" style=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="" style="">Thanks
especially to Matthew Dryer for
pointing out that the Greenbergian
‘universal’ I had used as an
example – the putative association
between VSO and noun-adjective
order — had been falsified by his
much more thorough 1992 study <span
class=""
style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">“The
Greenbergian Word Order
Correlations”. My reading of
that article and further
correspondence with him has
confirmed that, by contrast,
Greenberg’s universals no 3 and
4 were solidly confirmed by his
study, namely that SOV </span>languages
are far more likely to have
postpositions than prepositions
and that the reverse is true for
VSO languages. </div>
<div class="" style=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Drawing on all your
suggestions, Francesca and I have
now finished a draft of the paper
referred to in my posting, called
'<span class=""
style="text-align:center"><span
class="" lang="EN-US">Structural
Congruence as a Dimension of
Language Complexity: </span></span><span
class="" lang="EN-US">An Example
from Ku Waru Child Language’.<b
class=""> </b></span>If any of
you would like to read it please
let me know and I’ll send it to
you.</div>
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<div class=""><br class="">
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<div class="">Alan</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
Beethovenstrasse 15
D-04107 Leipzig
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