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<DIV>Right! There is no right definition –at least in humanities: what is
‘democracy’? what is ‘joy’ ? Still we badly need definitions. I wrote
somewhere (I don’t remember exactly when and where) that definitions are neither
false nor true, but useful or useless. And to define a plane as a vehicle with
wheeles does not get the point; it is a useless definition (though
true). You can say that planes have wings from the functional point of
view, but not from the morphology viewpoint. Saussure said “C’est le point
de vue qui crée l’objet”...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But I have really to stop!</DIV>
<DIV>Many thanks for this discussion!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Paolo</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=dryer@buffalo.edu
href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu">Matthew Dryer</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 22, 2016 6:55 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A 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>
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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
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<!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment-->On 1/22/16 10:28 AM, Paolo Ramat
wrote:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:177E350859AE4F83965EBAA9A6C38CBE@PaoloPC type="cite">
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000">
<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>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=gil@shh.mpg.de
href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" moz-do-not-send="true">David Gil</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 22, 2016 3:14 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Lingtyp] comparative concepts</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
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<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><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72"><META name=Keywords content=""><META name=ProgId content=Word.Document><META name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14"><META name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 14"><LINK rel=File-List href="file://localhost/Users/gil/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml"><LINK rel=themeData href="file://localhost/Users/gil/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_themedata.xml"><STYLE>
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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 class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" moz-do-not-send="true">gil@shh.mpg.de</A>
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-812-73567992
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