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Dear all,<br>
I wonder how flattering that wing comparison actually is for our
discipline. I have no special knowledge of biology, but I'd be
surprised if the property of having a wing was (still) used as a
classifier of species in contemporary biology, in the same way as we
use 'VO' as a classifier of languages -- but please correct me if
I'm wrong.<br>
<br>
Note that, when I was pointing out that the use of comparative
concepts potentially compromises objectivity, I wasn't implying that
comparative concepts shouldn't be used at all. There is probably no
other way of doing language comparison, so the alternative would be
to abandon the program of linguistic typology. And I agree that if
we are careful, we can obtain valid results. Moreover, we're
certainly not the only discipline struggling with issues of
objectivity. After all, objectivity is one of the major problems of
epistemology in general.<br>
<br>
I would like to point out another problem, however: This discussion
seems to show a broad consensus that we do not actually generalize
over linguistic data, but over comparative concepts/linguists'
classifications. Non-linguists may not be aware of that fact, and
they might be tempted to treat comparative concepts/linguists'
classifications as linguistic data -- as we have seen in
publications such as Atkinson et al. on phonemic diversity.<br>
<br>
So I wonder if WALS should be renamed to the 'The World Atlas of
Comparative Concepts'? ;-)<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Volker<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 22.01.2016 18:55, Matthew Dryer
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Paolo’s comment here illustrates very well
how wings is a comparative concept.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The primary motivation for my arguing
against crosslinguistic categories in my 1997 paper was that
linguists would debate for marginal cases whether a category
in a particular language was an instance of the
crosslinguistic category, but I argued that such debates were
merely terminological, not substantive.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Claiming that bats don’t have wings is an
example of the same phenomenon: it all depends on how you
define wings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Paolo is
assuming one definition, but many people would assume a
different definition.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There
is no “right” definition.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman";mso-fareast-font-family: "ＭＳ
明朝";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-
bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Matthew</span>
<br>
<br>
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<![endif]--><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment-->On 1/22/16 10:28 AM,
Paolo Ramat wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div>Hi David,</div>
<div>your comparison of linguistic facts with bats helps me
to clarify (and this will be the end of my interventions!)
my point: actually, bats don’t have wings but a kind of
membrane that FUNCTIONS like wings which prototypically
are formed by an ordered collection of plumes. Similarly,
in the Lat. construct <em>me poenitet </em>the accus. <em>me
</em>has the same FUNCTION as Engl. <em>I </em>in <em>I‘m
sorry </em>or Germ.<em> mir </em>in <em>Es tut mir
leid </em>(call it Patient or Experiencer). Once we
have established what wings, PAT or EXP are, we can draw
more or less narrow comparisons between bats, bees, eagles
etc. and between the theta roles implemented by <em>me,
I, mir </em>etc. </div>
<div>Consequently, I agree with your conclusions thet
“comparative concepts [build on linguists’ analysis of
languages] have a place in the grammatical descriptions of
individual languages” and that “the ontological diversity
of language-specific categories and comparative concepts
should be present within the grammatical descriptions of
individual languages” .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
The process is twofold : from the empirical observation
of bats, bees, eagles etc. and Lat.,Engl.,Germ etc. to
the creation of comparative concepts (call them abstract
<em>tertia comparationis</em>) back to the analysis of
flying objects and of linguistic extant data.</span></div>
<div><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span> </div>
<div><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">Best,</span></div>
<div><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">Paolo</span></div>
<div><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span> </div>
<div>°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR:
#000000">Prof.Paolo Ramat</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR:
#000000">Academia Europaea<br>
Università di Pavia<br>
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia)<br>
</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none;
FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline">
<div style="FONT: 10pt tahoma">
<div> </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="gil@shh.mpg.de"
href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">David Gil</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Friday, January 22, 2016 3:14 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] comparative
concepts</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none;
FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I've greatly
enjoyed following this high-quality discussion: thank
you all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In particular, I
think the discussion has helped me to articulate an
unease that I've always felt about the distinction
between language-specific categories and what Martin
calls comparative concepts.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>I agree wholeheartedly that we need
to distinguish between, say, the Latin Dative, and a
typologically-informed concept of dative that the
Latin Dative may or may not instantiate to whatever
degree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(I
also agree that it's unfortunate that we don't have
enough distinct terms to assign to all of these
different things, and that we sometimes end up falling
prey to the resulting terminological confusion.)<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Where I think I
part ways with some of my colleagues is that I do not
accept that language-specific categories and
comparative concepts constitute two distinct and
well-defined ontological types.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Let's take the
wing analogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I
agree that a statement such as "bats have wings" may
be of more interest for somebody interested in
comparative evolution than for a specialist in bats —
in that sense it resembles a comparative concept in
linguistics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But
still, bats do have wings, even though they may differ
in many ways from those of birds or bees.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And yes,
ontologically bat wings are a very different type of
thing than, say, whatever feature of bat DNA it is
that "generates" those wings.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, these
different ontological types all have a place within a
description of bats, even though a bat specialist
might be more interested in the DNA while the
comparative evolutionist will be more interested in
the wings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Getting back to
languages, let's consider three hypothetical (and
somewhat simplistic cases of) languages that Matthew
would classify as having SVO basic word order:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language A:<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>has well-defined
Ss and Os, and specific linearization rules that put
the S before the V and the O after it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language B:<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>has well-defined
Ss and Os, but no linearization rules that refer to
them; instead it has specific linearization rules that
put the A before the V and the P after it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language C:<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>does not have
well-defined Ss and Os, but has specific linearization
rules that put the A before the V and the P after it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In Matthew's WALS
chapter, all three languages are characterized as SVO;
this is an example of what Martin and others call a
comparative concept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>And as we have found out over the last several
decades, basic word order is a very useful comparative
concept for us to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>However, our three hypothetical languages
arrive at their SVO order in very different ways,
giving rise to the impression that the respective
bottom-up language-specific descriptions of the three
languages will share no common statement to the effect
that they have SVO word order.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And indeed,
adequate bottom-up language-specific descriptions of
these three languages should look very different,
reflecting the very different provenances of their SVO
word orders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">However, I would
like to suggest that there is also a place within the
bottom-up language-specific description of each of the
three languages for some kind of statement to the
effect that the language has SVO word order (in the
sense of Matthew's WALS chapter).<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course this
is a different kind of statement to the ones
previously posited, making reference to different
levels of description.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>But we're already used to multiple levels of
description within language-specific descriptions, for
example when we talk about Ss and Os but also As and
Ps, topics and comments, and so forth.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So there is no
good reason not to allow for a WALS-style word-order
category such as SVO not to be written into the
grammatical descriptions of each of our hypothetical
three languages, even if in some cases it may be
"derivative" or "epiphenomenal", and even if in some
cases it is of relatively little interest to language
specialists. (Though as Matthew pointed out earlier on
in this thread, the basic word order facts of a
language have implications regarding other properties
of the language in question even in those cases where
the basic word order is "derivative" of other
factors.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">So what I'm
suggesting, then, is that so-called comparative
concepts have a place in the grammatical descriptions
of individual languages.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>This is not to deny that comparative
concepts are different kinds of creatures, which — by
definition — are of greater relevance to
cross-linguistic comparison than to the understanding
of individual languages.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>It follows that the ontological
diversity of language-specific categories and
comparative concepts should be present within the
grammatical descriptions of individual languages.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some will object
to this, but I have no problem with the proposition
that a good description of a language will be
ontologically heterogeneous, e.g. containing some
statements that are psychologically real and others
that are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(I
note here Eitan's suggestion earlier in this thread
that some comparative concepts may also be cognitively
real.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Finally, and
somewhat tangentially, a practical consideration:<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>a good reference
grammar, while describing a language on its own terms
without imposing categories from outside, should at
the same time maintain a parallel reader-friendly
typologically-informed narrative, one of whose major
tasks is to mention all of those cross-linguistically
familiar typological categories — e.g. case marking,
agreement, gender, and so forth — that are absent from
the language, if only to reassure the reader that the
author didn't just omit mention of them for reasons of
space, lack of interest, or whatnot.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-812-73567992
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