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Three unrelated comments on three reactions to my earlier posting:<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 23/01/2016 00:09, Martin Haspelmath
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:56A2460E.5000205@shh.mpg.de" type="cite"> P.S.
Re David's posting: I agree that describing languages from a
cross-linguistic perspective (using comparative concepts) is often
useful, but before engaging in this kind of two-tiered
description, one should have understood the essential differences.<br>
</blockquote>
I agree wholeheartedy. It's only because I assumed that most people
engaged in this discussion are fully aware of the importance of
describing each language on its own terms that I felt free to take
this point for granted and address the role of universally-motivated
comparative concepts in the description of individual languages.<br>
<br>
On 23/01/2016 00:28, Paolo Ramat wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:177E350859AE4F83965EBAA9A6C38CBE@PaoloPC"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR:
#000000">actually, bats don’t have wings but a kind of
membrane that FUNCTIONS like wings</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
As has already been pointed out, whether bats have wings or not is a
matter of definition. I would just add that from at least one
ethnoculinary perspective that I am familiar with, bats are
considered to have wings; this is the case here in Manokwari, in
Tanah Papua, where speakers of the local Malay refer to those black
rubbery weblike bits in their bat stew using the same word that they
use for the corresponding appendages of birds and bees.<br>
<br>
On 23/01/2016 11:27, William Croft wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:C0268C08-62BF-4E69-9050-25639AD9FCBE@unm.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Languages A and B are described as having "well-defined Ss and Os". But if the languages have these categories, they are language-specific, and hence not S and O in the comparative sense that the languages are SVO. And so Language A's "well-defined Ss and Os" are not the same as Language B's "well-defined Ss and Os". That is, in this description S and O are being used to describe both language-specific categories of languages A and B (and hence should not even be compared to each other), and to describe comparative concepts, presumably something like A and P respectively.</pre>
</blockquote>
Of course Bill is completely right, and I plead guilty accordingly.
Like most of us do most of the time, I loosely used the same term to
denote language-specific categories and their "corresponding"
(whatever that means) comparative categories. I should have used
terms such as "Language-A-Subject" etc., but even then my
terminology would have presupposed that Language-A-Subject is an
instantiation (or whatever, I defer to the Martin/Östen debate here)
of the comparative concept of "subject", a presupposition which some
might still find objectionable, so actually I should have used
completely arbitrary terms like "banana" — which would have made the
discussion virtually unreadable. So what to do? I agree with
Martin that the field of linguistics suffers from too few technical
terms (as opposed to too many, as is often assumed). But until our
inventory of technical terms is suitably enlarged, we have to plod
on with what we have, use our terms in ways that are clear, and plea
for understanding. In the case at hand, I think that, in spite of
Bill's well-taken comments, the intention of my example is clear,
and the point that it makes remains valid.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" 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 class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-812-73567992
</pre>
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