<div dir="ltr"><div>(Might I just add as a sidenote that this discussion is very interesting, and that what Dryer puts forward here is very much what I was taught in my typological undergrad program in Stockholm and practice. </div><div><br></div><div>All emails on this mailing list are stored in a public archive that anyone can access, and I'd like to recommend fellow junior diversity linguists/typologists to read this thread. </div><div><br></div><div>For other fellow junior researchers I wrote up some advice on where to turn when terminologically confused that deals with some of the issues raised here. Perhaps your students would also find it useful: <a href="http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.com.au/p/help-linguistics-is-hard.html">http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.com.au/p/help-linguistics-is-hard.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Also, I once made up a word that might fit in here, "typologese" - it's when you get language specific descriptions very influenced by certain typological works and categories so that you start to doubt their bottom-upness and worry that just like translation grammars from french they are translation grammars from "typologese". )<br></div><div><br></div>/Hedvig</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt"><b>Hedvig Skirgård</b><br>PhD Candidate<br><span style="color:rgb(196,89,17)">The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity</span><u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language</span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">School of Culture, History and Language<br>College of Asia and the Pacific<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)<br>The Australian National University<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Acton ACT 2601<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Australia<br><br>Co-char of Public Relations</span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">International Olympiad of Linguistics</span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt"><a href="http://www.ioling.org" target="_blank">www.ioling.org</a></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On 20 January 2016 at 14:35, Matthew Dryer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Randy,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">I
am more than willing to adopt the rhetorical stance that if I
think I disagree
with you, the default is that it is that I am misunderstanding
what you are
saying. As a rhetorical move, I will argue why I think you are
mistaken when
you say something, not to prove you are wrong, but to provide
you with the
opportunity to clarify what you mean.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">However,
I suspect that we are in broad agreement about what is the
right thing to do at
the level of describing individual languages. To me,
describing or analysing a
particular language is a completely different enterprise from
classifying the
language typologically, except that the former is a necessary
prerequisite for
the latter. The former should be describing the language
entirely in its own
terms, rather than trying to fit it into some typology. I am
also strongly
opposed to questionnaire-based typology, since if one is
classifying phenomenon
X in a set of languages, one needs to see how phenomenon X in
a given language
fits into the overall grammatical system of the language. I
suspect we are
broad agreement on those issues.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Second,
since the number of possible types is presumably infinite,
typology necessarily
lumps together languages which are some level are clearly
different. Even if I
lump together types of languages which differ in some crucial
way in their
grammatical system, I feel obligated to justify grouping them
together. That is
the basis for my grouping together languages in which there is
a grammatical
rule that defines the language as what I would call SVO and
languages where
there are no syntactic rules governing clause word order, but
where the
pragmatic factors governing word order and the frequency in
discourse in which
those different pragmatic factors arise result in more
frequent SVO order at
the level of frequency in usage.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">Third,
it is important to distinguish terminological “disagreements”
(which are not
really disagreements) from substantive disagreements. Part of
the difference in
our discussion is based on our using the terms “subject” and
“object”
differently. I use it these terms as they are used in the vast
majority of
grammatical descriptions produced in the past 100 years, one
which is roughly equivalent
to the A and P in “basic” constructions (like active as
opposed to passive). I recognize, however, that there are many
linguists who use these terms differently.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt">When
you say “</span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Simply lumping them
together under a single rubric does nothing but categorise
them, and doesn’t
explain anything”, the first part is not really true, on my
view, if the basis
for lumping them together is that they behave the same with
respect to some
explanatory enterprise. I.e. lumping them together is a
necessary step towards
explanation. You are right<span> </span>that
lumping
them together explains nothing. But NOT lumping together in
the case we are
discussing only leads, in my view, to mistaken explanations,
since if we
restricted our attention to languages in which the VO order
reflected a
syntactic rule in the language, we might be lead to
explanations in terms of
grammatical rules of the sort that are popular in some
versions of generative
grammar. The fact that languages which are VO in my terms only
due to frequency
in usage tend to exhibit the word order characteristics
associated with VO word
order means that we can rule out those lines of explanation
that depend
crucially on syntactic rules. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="UZ-CYR"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<span lang="UZ-CYR">Matthew</span>
<br>
<br>
On 1/19/16 9:44 AM,
Randy John LaPolla (Prof) wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
Sorry, Matthew, no. I am arguing it is an empirical question, and
am against the a priori assumption and imposition of categories on
languages without any basis. This is what I have been fighting
against for almost 30 years.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We seem to be talking past each other, as we each
have our own way of understanding things, and assume the others
are saying something they aren’t. <span style="font-size:10pt"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt">It
seems impossible to post to this list without being
misunderstood. </span><span style="font-size:10pt">This
is nice evidence for the theory of communication I’ve been
flogging for 20 years, but it is very frustrating.</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I was talking about the inductive analysis of
individual languages. You are talking about cross-linguistic
characterisations. I also argue there are no universal
categories, and I think we need to understand each language on
its own terms, and in a description of an individual language,
which is what I am talking about, you need to give the facts of
that language, not a cross-linguistic category that also happens
to have the same name as a category that many people ascribe to
individual languages, such that people reading that description
will assume the language has that category.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, what does the category “subject” mean to you
such that it would be cross-linguistically useful, to the point
of even saying languages that don’t have such a category are
subject-verb-object languages? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In terms of the correlations you talk about among
languages that manifest what is (from my view problematically)
subsumed under the VO or SVO rubric, my view is that we should
look for the reasons why, in terms of information structure,
structural pivots, historical development, or whatever, the
languages manifest the particular patterns they do. Simply
lumping them together under a single rubric does nothing but
categorise them, and doesn’t explain anything. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Randy</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On 19 Jan 2016, at 9:01 pm, Matthew Dryer
<<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">My point is actually
independent of the question of whether there are
crosslinguistic categories.<span>
</span>Even if there are/were crosslinguistic
categories, it doesn’t follow that typological
classification is based on those categories. My
statement that “<span>classifying languages
typologically does not entail that the terms
employed in the typological classification
correspond to categories in the language</span>”
is consistent with a position that classifying
languages typologically sometimes classifies them
on the basis of crosslinguistic categories and
sometimes on the basis of semantically-defined
notions or other notions independent of
crosslinguistic categories. Randy’s statement that
classifying a language as SVO implies that the
language has categories of subject and object
seems to imply that typological classification
MUST be based on categories that exist within the
individual languages.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But there is a good argument
that in the case in question, any typological
classification that was based on categories that
exist in individual languages and on languages in
which word order codes subject and object would be
inadequate. As I argued in Dryer (1989), languages
in which word order does not code grammatical
relations and in which the word order is not based
on grammatical relations but in which VO word
order is more common tend to have word order
properties associated with VO word order, like
prepositions, while analogous languages in which
OV word order is more common tend to have word
order properties associated with OV word order,
like postpositions. What this means is that the
GRAMMARS of what I classify as VO languages have
nothing in common. It is only the languages that
have something in common at the level of usage.
Hence any notion of SVO language restricted to
languages in which there are subject and object
categories and in which word order is determined
by grammatical relations will necessarily fail as
the basis of word order correlations.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem with Randy’s
position (and perhaps Jan’s) is that he is making
an a priori assumption on what is actually an
empirical question.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<span>Matthew
</span><br>
<br>
On 1/18/16 11:12 PM,
Martin Haspelmath wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">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>On 19.01.16 07:52,
Matthew Dryer wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>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 type="cite">
<font 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><font face="Verdana" size="4"><br>
</font></div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:3pt;margin-left:18pt;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt">
<span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU">LaPolla, Randy J. & Dory
Poa. 2006. On describing word order.
<i>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;line-height:15pt">
<span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU"></span></a><a href="http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf" target="_blank">http://randylapolla.net/papers/LaPolla_and_Poa_2006_On_Describing_Word_Order.pdf</a></span><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-AU"></span></p>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="4">Randy</font></div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div style="letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;word-wrap:break-word">
<div><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:15px"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white">-----</span></span>
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<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:0px"><span style="border-collapse:separate;border-spacing:0px">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white"><b>Prof. Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA</b> （羅</span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white;font-size:13px"><font face="Song">仁 地</font></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white">）| Division of Linguistics and Multilingual
Studies | Nanyang
Technological
University</span><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:15px"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
<span style="background-color:white">HSS-03-45,
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Drive, Singapore
637332</span></span></span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="background-color:white"> | </span></span><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:15px"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span style="background-color:white">Tel:
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<a href="http://randylapolla.net/" target="_blank">
</a><a href="http://randylapolla.net/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://randylapolla.net/" target="_blank">http://randylapolla.net/</a></span></span></span></div>
</span></span></div>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On 19 Jan 2016, at
10:21 am, Everett, Daniel <<a href="mailto:DEVERETT@bentley.edu" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:DEVERETT@bentley.edu" target="_blank">DEVERETT@bentley.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div dir="auto">
<div>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><br>
</div>
<div>Dan<br>
<br>
Sent from my iPhone</div>
<div><br>
On Jan 18, 2016, at 21:11,
Matthew Dryer <<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div>
<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>
<div> <br>
</div>
<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>
</span>He says “<span 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>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>
<div> <br>
</div>
<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>
<div> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">There
is, I admit, a <i>potential</i>
problem.<span>
</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>
<div> <br>
</div>
<span>Matthew</span>
<br>
<br>
On 1/18/16 4:41 AM, Jan Rijkhoff wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="direction:ltr;font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt">
<p class="MsoNormal">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> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">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> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><u><span>Kiribati
</span></u><span>(Ross
1998: 90)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span>(1)<i>
</i><i>te<span> </span>uee<span>
</span>ae<span> </span>e<span>
</span>
tikiraoi</i><span>
</span>(relative
clause)</span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span><span>
</span>art<span>
</span></span><span>flower
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">rel
</span>3<span style="font-variant:small-caps">sg.s
<span></span></span>be.pretty<span>
</span>
</span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span><span>
</span>‘a pretty
flower’ (lit. ‘a
flower that
pretties’)<span>
</span></span></p>
<div><span> </span><br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span>Makwe</span></u><span>
(Devos 2008: 136)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>(2)<span></span><i>
muú-nu<span>
</span>w-á=ki-búúli</i><span>
</span>(genitive)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>
</span><span style="font-variant:small-caps">nc1</span>-person
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">
pp1-gen=nc7</span>-silence</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>
‘a silent person’
(lit. ‘person of
silence’)</span></p>
<div> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Relative
Clause and Genitive
are, however, also
semantic categories in
their own right in
word order studies by
Dryer and Hawkins.</p>
<div> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">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>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> <br>
</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 style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph;text-autospace:none">
<span lang="EN-GB">(3)<span><i> </i>
</span><i>Heaviness
Serialization
Principle</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span>:
</span>Rel<span>
</span>≥<sub>R</sub><span>
</span>Gen<span>
</span>≥<sub>R</sub><span>
</span>A<span>
</span>≥<sub>R </sub><span> </span>Dem/Num</span>
</p>
<div style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br>
</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><span lang="EN-GB">Heaviness
Serialization
Principle</span></i>.</p>
<div style="margin-right:13.75pt"> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">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> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">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> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">* 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> <br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><b>References</b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2">Devos,
M. 2008. <i>
A Grammar of Makwe</i>.
München: Lincom
Europa.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2">Dryer,
M. S., 1992. The
Greenbergian word
order correlations.
<i>Language</i>
68-1, 81-138.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<font 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>Universals
of Language</i>,
73-113. Cambridge
MA: MIT.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<font size="2">Hawkins, J.
A., 1983. <i>Word
Order Universals:
Quantitative
analyses of
linguistic
structure</i>. New
York: Academic
Press.</font></p>
<p style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<font size="2"><span>Rijkhoff,
J. 2009a. </span><span>On
the
(un)suitability of
semantic
categories.
<i>Linguistic
Typology</i>
13-1, 95‑104.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;text-autospace:none">
<font size="2"><span>Rijkhoff,
Jan. 2009b. </span>On
the co-variation
between form and
function of
adnominal possessive
modifiers in Dutch
and English.
<span>In
William B.
McGregor (ed.), <i>The
Expression of
Possession</i> (</span>The
Expression of
Cognitive Categories
[ECC] 2),<span>
51‑106. Berlin and
New York: Mouton
de Gruyter.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;text-autospace:none">
<font size="2"><span>Rijkhoff,
J. 2015. Word
order. In James D.
Wright
(editor-in-chief),
<i>International
Encyclopedia of
the Social &
Behavioral
Sciences (Second
Edition)</i>,
Vol. 25, 644–656.
Oxford: Elsevier.</span><span></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<font size="2">Ross, M.
1998. Proto-Oceanic
adjectival
categories and their
morphosyntax.
<i>Oceanic
Linguistics</i>
37-1, 85-119.</font></p>
<div style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<span> </span><br>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt">
<span>Jan
Rijkhoff</span></p>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
</div>
</div>
<div>
<hr>
<div style="direction:ltr"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b>
Lingtyp [<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>]
on behalf of Alan
Rumsey [<a href="mailto:Alan.Rumsey@anu.edu.au" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:Alan.Rumsey@anu.edu.au" target="_blank">Alan.Rumsey@anu.edu.au</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b>
Monday, January
18, 2016 12:23 PM<br>
<b>To:</b>
<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">
</a><a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b>
Re: [Lingtyp]
Structural
congruence as a
dimension of
language
complexity/simplicity<br>
</font><br>
</div>
<div><span>
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">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 href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01964/abstract" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01964/abstract" target="_blank">http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01964/abstract</a></div>
</span>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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 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><br>
</div>
<div>Drawing
on all your
suggestions, Francesca
and I have now
finished a draft
of the paper
referred to in my
posting, called '<span style="text-align:center"><span lang="EN-US">Structural
Congruence as
a Dimension of
Language
Complexity: </span></span><span lang="EN-US">An
Example from Ku
Waru Child
Language’.<b> </b></span>If
any of you would
like to read it
please let me know
and I’ll send it
to you.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Alan</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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Martin Haspelmath (<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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