<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Dear all,<br><br></div>I have always wondered why linguists tend to predominately look for comparable approaches in the natural sciences rather than in the humanities and social sciences. I say this because "Ethnology" in cultural anthropology is a sub-field that is similar to linguistic typology trying to arrive at universal claims about human behavior. Many of the problems and discussion points touched upon here have been discussed in the field of cultural anthropology for a long time. If you read German, a useful introduction to this is Thomas Schweizer's chapter in Fischer 1998. One will find many similarities between typology and the intercultural comparative methodologies. One methodological consensus in ethnology is that it is useful to distinguish between a theoretical construct and observable behaviors in individual cultures. Congruence of concepts between culture is only necessary for theoretical constructs not for individual indicators in different cultures. [I think this here is relevant to Matthew Dryer's and Randy La Polla's discussion in a previous instantiation of this email exchange]. And most importantly individual indicators in different cultures need not be theoretically equally relevant (Schweizer 1998). There has also been a longstanding discussion in terms of the development of an appropriate pattern of concepts for individual intercultural comparisons.<br><br></div><div>One classic example of a comparative ethnological study is Beatrice Whiting's (1950) study of the relationship between the importance of sorcery in a society and the presence of a specialized legal apparatus in a society. She used 50 ethongraphic descriptions for her study of this phenomenon. The outcome looked somewhat like the following:<br><br></div><div>Sorcery is not important in 3 societies where a specialized legal system is absent.<br></div><div>Sorcery is important in 30 societies where a specialized legal system is absent<br></div><div>Sorcery is important in 5 societies where a specialized legal system is present.<br></div><div>Sorcery is not important in 12 societies where a specialized legal system is present.<br><br></div><div>The study supported the claim that one important function of sorcery is social control.<br></div><div>[This in response to Edith A. Moravcsik query. I hope this helps a little bit.]<br><br></div><div></div><div>Furthermore, in cultural anthropology there has been a longstanding debate and discussion on the quality of sources and how to deal with poor sources. This has repercussions to cross-cultural comparison in terms of what sources to allow in such studies. The question for typology then is, is it methodologically appropriate to use a grammar written by someone that only worked with one single consultant who in turn has lived outside of his own linguistic community for the past 30 years for typologcial comparison? Or should such a grammar be disallowed (or at least in need of a thorough critical discussion when used)? And if such grammars are disallowed, what would constitute a good documentary study of a language in order to be included in typological comparison.The linguistic data problem is a subject that in Linguistics (and Typology) has given newfound and important attention in the wake of Himmelmann's 1998 or Woodbury's 2003 critique of linguistic data collection practices and the rightful claim that higher order linguistic analysis (to which typology belongs) needs a properly collected and theorized data basis. A treatise also worthwhile reading (if you read Italian) in this regard is Simone Raffaele (2001): Is Linguistics not rather a pseudo-science where proper argumentation and not empiricism (in the narrow sense, of designing repeatable experiments) are the vehicles of knowledge. The answer (Yes, it is a pseudo-science like philosopy) makes queries in terms of Popper's understanding of science and scientific progress through falsifiability (see Martin Haspelmath in this discussion) somewhat futile. <br><br></div><div>In this regard I would like to highlight Volker Gast's contribution to this study who pointed to epistemology where many of the problems that have in some way or other been discussed here, have been discussed for a long time. I think it is important to be much more thorough in elaborating on the relation between language data, ontological status of concepts, proper ways of data collection, analysis and description and the various more general epistemological and philosophical discussions. To give you an illustration in regards to language data: Without claiming that I have interpreted the following author's correctly, what Himmelmann (2012) calls 'raw' language data comes across as being based in nearly positivistic understanding of data. In contrast, Christian Lehmann's (2004) discussion of language data highlights the interdependent relationship between data and theory and seems to have as a backdrop a realist understanding of the world. Finally, some of Haspelmath's (2009) wording made me think that he is actually promoting a soft-theoretical position originating in Heidegger's ontological hermeneutics with a pretheoretical stance towards the object of our understanding. ("What we need instead is the researcher's ability to discover completely new, unexpected phenomena, to detect previously unsuspected connections between phenomena, and to be guided solely by the data and one's own thinking") I am not claiming that I am representing what the author's meant to say correctly, but the fact that we are somewhat sloppy in tying our work to different epistemological backgrounds and understandings makes it somewhat difficult to, on the one hand, properly compare individual language descriptions, and on the other hand it makes the methodological principle to understand languages on their own terms (see for example Randy La Polla's comment in a previous instantiation of this discussion) somewhat wishy-washy. And typologists might very well come at this from different epistemological angles, and for each understanding a language on it's own terms has a different quality.<br><br></div><div></div><div>Thank you all for reading.<br><br></div><div>Frank<br><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Lehmann,
Christian. 2004. Data in Linguistics. <i>The Linguistic Review</i> 21, 175-210.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><br>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Haspelmath,
Martin. 2009. Framework-free grammatical theory. In Bernd Heine & Heiko
Narrog (eds.) <i>The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis</i>, 341-365.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.</span></p>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Himmelmann,
Nikolaus P. 1998. Documentary and descriptive linguistics. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Linguistics</i> 36(1), 161-195.</span></p>
<br></div><div><div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Lehmann,
Christian. 2004. Data in Linguistics. <i>The Linguistic Review</i> 21, 175-210.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Schweizer, Thomas. 1998 (1983). Interkulturelle Vergleichsverfahren. In Hans Fisher (ed.) <i>Ethnologie. Einfuehrung und Ueberblick, <b>4th edition. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 379-397. <br></b></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><i><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"" lang="IT"><br></span></b></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"" lang="IT">Simone,
Raffaele. 2001. Sull’ utilita e il danno della storia della linguistica. In:
Storia del pensiero linguistico: linearità, fratture e circolarità. Atti del
Convegno della Società Italiana di Glottologia, Verona, 11–13 novembre 1999,
Giovanna Massariello Merzagora (ed.), 45</span><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">–<span lang="IT">67. </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Roma:
il Calamo.</span></p><div style="font-family:serif"><font size="2"><br>Whiting, Beatrice. B. (1950). Paiute Sorcery. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 15. </font></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><font size="2"><br></font>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Woodbury,
Anthony C. 2003. Defining Documentary Linguistics. <i>Language Documentation
and Description</i> 1, 35-51.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:15pt"><br>
</p><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""></span><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 1:46 PM, Paolo Ramat <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:paoram@unipv.it" target="_blank">paoram@unipv.it</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri";color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<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>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri";color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </div>
<div style="font-size:small;text-decoration:none;font-family:"Calibri";font-weight:normal;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;display:inline">
<div style="font:10pt tahoma">
<div> </div>
<div style="background:rgb(245,245,245) none repeat scroll 0% 0%">
<div><b>From:</b> <a title="dryer@buffalo.edu" href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">Matthew Dryer</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Friday, January 22, 2016 6:55 PM</div><div><div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a title="lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] comparative concepts</div></div></div></div></div>
<div> </div></div><div><div>
<div style="font-size:small;text-decoration:none;font-family:"Calibri";font-weight:normal;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;display:inline">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Paolo’s comment here illustrates very well how wings is a
comparative concept.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u><u></u> </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.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u><u></u> </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> </span>Paolo is assuming one definition, but
many people would assume a different definition.<span> </span>There is no “right”
definition.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u><u></u> </p><span>Matthew</span>
<br><br>
On 1/22/16 10:28 AM, Paolo Ramat
wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri";color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<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 <i>me poenitet </i>the accus. <i>me </i>has the same FUNCTION as
Engl. <i>I </i>in <i>I‘m sorry </i>or Germ.<i> mir </i>in <i>Es
tut mir leid </i>(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 <i>me, I, mir </i>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> 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 <i>tertia
comparationis</i>) back to the analysis of flying objects and of linguistic
extant data.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>Best,</span></div>
<div><span>Paolo</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div>°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°</div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri";color:rgb(0,0,0)">Prof.Paolo
Ramat</div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Calibri";color:rgb(0,0,0)">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:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;display:inline">
<div style="font:10pt tahoma">
<div> </div>
<div style="background:rgb(245,245,245) none repeat scroll 0% 0%">
<div><b>From:</b> <a title="gil@shh.mpg.de" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">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" target="_blank">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:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;display:inline">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I've greatly enjoyed following this
high-quality discussion: thank you all.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></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> </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>
</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> </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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Let's take the wing analogy.<span> </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>
</span>But still, bats do have wings, even though they may differ in many ways
from those of birds or bees.<span> </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> </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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></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:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language A:<span> </span>has well-defined Ss and Os, and
specific linearization rules that put the S before the V and the O after
it.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language B:<span> </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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Language C:<span> </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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></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>
</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> </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> </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>
</span><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></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> </span>Of course this is a different kind of
statement to the ones previously posited, making reference to different levels
of description.<span> </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> </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.)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></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> </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> </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> </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> </span>(I note here Eitan's suggestion
earlier in this thread that some comparative concepts may also be cognitively
real.)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Finally, and somewhat tangentially, a
practical consideration:<span> </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.<u></u><u></u></span></p><pre cols="72">--
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 href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): <a href="tel:%2B62-812-73567992" value="+6281273567992" target="_blank">+62-812-73567992</a>
</pre>
<hr>
_______________________________________________ Lingtyp mailing list <a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a>
</div></div></div>
<fieldset></fieldset> <pre>_______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
<a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a>
</pre></blockquote>
<p>
</p><hr>
_______________________________________________<br>Lingtyp mailing
list<br><a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br><a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><br><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
Lingtyp mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div>Frank Seidel, Ph.D.<br>University of Florida<br>Center for African Studies at the University of Florida<br>427 Grinter Hall - PO Box 115560<br>Gainesville, FL 32611-5560<br>Tel: <a href="tel:352.392.2183" value="+13523922183" target="_blank">352.392.2183</a><br>Fax: <a href="tel:352.392.2435" value="+13523922435" target="_blank">352.392.2435</a><br></div>
</div></div>