<div dir="ltr">Again, I fail to grasp why there needs to be an absolute rule of "enough" here. Surely enough depends on your research question?<div><br></div><div>/Hedvig</div></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 22 January 2016 at 20:25, 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:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt;FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri';COLOR:#000000">
<div>Good point ! Linguists’ categorizations are lumping together language
(apparently)-specific categories (or better: language-specific properties). But
what does it means “enough languages”? Are two languages capable to build a
cross-linguistically valid category? Or how many languages can constitute a
minimal ‘enough’ ?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Paolo</div>
<div> </div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt;FONT-FAMILY:'Calibri';COLOR:#000000"> </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><b>From:</b> <a title="hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com" href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com" target="_blank">Hedvig Skirgård</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Friday, January 22, 2016 12:49 AM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a title="edith@uwm.edu" href="mailto:edith@uwm.edu" target="_blank">Edith A
Moravcsik</a> </div>
<div><b>Cc:</b> <a title="lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
</div><div><div class="h5">
<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Structural congruence</div></div></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"><div><div class="h5">
<div dir="ltr">Forgive me for being naïve, but I had always thought that in theory
any comparative concepts or gram-types can be construed but it's only worthwhile
to investigate those that seem interesting and pragmatically possible to test
for in enough languages.
<div> </div>
<div>I.e. I can create the concept of "tennis balls + green apples" being
co-lexifed, but that's probably not going to get me any closer to understanding
language history or contact.<br>
<div> </div>
<div>I had understood the major point of comparative concepts and lg-spef
descriptive concepts and grams and gram types as drawing to attention the simple
fact that, as Dryer was writing earlier, lg-spec categories could be infinite
and typologist necessarily lump - and the characteristics of those lumps are
necessarily fewer than the lg-spec categories and they should not be directly
assumed to be the same as the lg-spec categories. I.e comparative categories are
necessarily a simple abstraction of more detailed lg-spec categories (perhaps
like phonemes are abstractions of lumps of phones). These comparative concepts
can be construed at different levels, for example "romance adjectives" or
"determiners globally". (We could also get into how this relates to idiolects
and dialects, but perhaps not now..)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>It would appear that I might have been reading "too little" into all of
this and misunderstood things, though. I just thought I'd say this as I suspect
it's what other junior diversity linguists also think.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>/Hedvig</div></div></div>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<p style="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><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="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE:9pt">ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of
Language</span></p>
<p style="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><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="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><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="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE:9pt">Acton ACT 2601<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE:9pt">Australia<br><br>Co-char of Public Relations</span></p>
<p style="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE:9pt">International Olympiad of Linguistics</span></p>
<p style="FONT-SIZE:11pt;FONT-FAMILY:calibri,sans-serif;MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt"><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>
<div> </div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 22 January 2016 at 05:18, Edith A Moravcsik <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:edith@uwm.edu" target="_blank">edith@uwm.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT:1ex;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt;FONT-FAMILY:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;COLOR:#000000;BACKGROUND-COLOR:#ffffff">
<p>Regarding the distinction between descriptive categories and comparative
concepts, there are three things that am unclear about.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1/ HOW MUCH SIMILARITY IS ASSUMED TO BE NEEDED FOR
CATEGORIZATION?<br> Given the proposal that descriptive
categories have no crosslinguistic validity, the question is how much
similarity</p>
<p> is required between similar constructions of two
languages before we can lumped them into a single category. Categorization, by
its</p>
<p> very concept, does not require that the two things that
are lumped together share all of their properties. We use categories</p>
<p> so that once one property is identified for something,
another one is predictable and thus its occurrence is in a sense</p>
<p> explained. Thus a mutual or unidirectional implicational
relation between two properties is sufficient to justify a<br></p>
<p> category and it does not matter if in many other ways,
token of the proposed category are different. Is it the case that even
by<br> this minimal criterion, all descriptive categories
are strictly language-specific?<br><br>2/ THE VALIDITY DOMAIN OF DESCRIPTIVE
CATEGORIES<br> As Martin Haspelmath has proposed,
descriptive categories differ across languages and as Bill Croft has proposed,
they are</p>
<p> different even across the constructions of a
single language. I think more discussion is needed on the domain
issue.<br> Are descriptive categories different across
two related languages - e.g. adjectives in French and Italian -</p>
<p> as well as across two subsequent historical stages
of a language (e.g. Middle English and Modern English) and two dialects
or<br> styles of a single language? What about two
sentences of a language? That there may be some differences is not relevant;
the question<br> for categorization is only whether
there are at least two properties that remain constant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>3/ IS THE ISSUE EMPIRICAL OR LOGICAL?</p>
<p> As Oesten Dahl has noted, it is important to
clarify whether some or all other scientific inquiries in various fields
also</p>
<p> distinguish between descriptive categories
and comparative concepts. How about cross-cultural studies, comparative</p>
<p> literature, comparative religion, and the
various fields of natural science? It seems implausible that the
distinction</p>
<p> would be linguistics-specific. If it is not,
how is the distinction defined and utilized in other fields?<br><br>Regarding
the issue of what categories EXIST and which are IMPOSED UPON THE DATA by the
analyst's specific purposes, I find</p>
<p>the survey of this issue in the natural sciences very eye-opening as given
by Stephen Goldman's DVD series "The science wars. What scientist <br>know and
how they know it" (available from the company "Great Courses", also known as
"The Teaching Company"). In it, Goldman <br>runs through much of the history
of physics and related fields and the accompanying philosophical discussions
to demonstrate how <br>different scientists and philosophers have assessed the
contributions of "the facts of reality" and of "the human mind" to scientific
proposals .<br>There is a clearly some contribution from both sides but a
definite delimitation of each is elusive - a moving target.<br></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p><br>Edith Moravcsik<br><br>.<br> <br></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> <br></p><br><br>
<div style="COLOR:rgb(0,0,0)">
<hr style="WIDTH:98%;DISPLAY:inline-block">
<div dir="ltr"><font style="FONT-SIZE:11pt" color="#000000" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of
Matthew Dryer <<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>><br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, January 20,
2016 7:54 PM<br><b>To:</b> Peter Arkadiev; <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><span><br><b>Subject:</b>
Re: [Lingtyp] Structural congruence</span></font>
<div> </div></div><span>
<div>
<div>On 1/20/16 6:59 PM, Peter Arkadiev wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite">Going back to word order, if we say that a language
has prepositions we already know something about this language's grammar,
moreover, we are able to make predictions about what else can be found in
this language and with what probability, aren't we?</blockquote>
<p style="FONT-SIZE:12pt;FONT-FAMILY:"Times New Roman";MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt">Actually,
if we know that a language has prepositions, we can only make limited
predictions about the grammar of the language. If we know that a language has
prepositions, we can predict that it is either a language whose grammar
specifies the word order as VO or a grammar that has no rule governing the
order of verb and object but where the factors conditioning the choice between
OV and VO word order result in more frequent. But since the latter is not a
fact about the grammar, you can make fewer predictions if you restrict
attention to
grammar.</p></div></span></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>
<div> </div></div>
</div></div><p>
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