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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=FR link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Dear all</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt'>,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> As far as the epistemological, and more largely philosophical, underpinnings of our typological research is concerned, I’d like to recall, as a contribution to this interesting online discussion, that, as pointed out by Dan, Locke’s observation cited by Jan does not deny the phenomenal reality of things; it only questions the categories that scientific research uses to refer to them. If applied to linguistic typology , this means that (keeping in mind that, as stressed by Matthew, analyzing a particular language is a different enterprise from classifying it typologically, but also that the former is a prerequisite for the latter) our terminology when describing languages and organizing them into types is the way we humans try to describe nature, i.e., in our case, natural languages, as an object of knowledge. In this respect, and always remembering the essential distinction that must be maintained between form and meaning, often implicitly confused by linguists, the terms we use are nothing else than labels. I think “labels” is both more adequate and less liable to metaphysical commitments than “concepts” (Martin’s “comparative concepts” or Gilbert’s “intuitive conceptual framework”). Of course, when we do linguistic typology, we compare, but what we compare is the way two or more languages or two or more language groups behave with respect to one of the labels we use as a descriptive grid. If we require a term less neutral than “labels”, I would suggest, using a Greek terminology, “paralect”, where “para-“ means “compare” .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> It seems to me that a useful framework for typological research is what has been called “The Three Viewpoints Theory”, which I introduced in chapter 9 of C. Hagège, <i>The Dialogic Species</i> (New York, Oxford, Columbia University Press, 1990) and in chapter 2 of the 7<sup>th</sup> edition of <i>La structure des langues</i> (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2013). It is also to be found in the Introduction and chapter 4 C. Hagège, <i>Adpositions</i>, Oxford University Press, 2010. In its simplest form, the Three Viewpoints Theory, when applied to the study of the shortest utterance, appears as:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>1: Morphosyntctic Viewpoint 2: Semantico-referential Viewpoint 3: Information-hierarchic Viewpoint<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> Subject of </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Wingdings'>ó</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Predicate of Participant of </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Wingdings'>ó</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> Process of Theme of </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Wingdings'>ó</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> Rheme of<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> It appears immediately that the labels used here are fundamentally relational. It doesn’t seem to be stressed, in the online discussion here, that everything is of a relational, not intrinsic, nature in human languages. “Subject of” and “predicate of” are syntactic functions (these terms are syntactic paralects); “participant of” and “process of” are semantic roles(these terms are semantic paralects); “theme of” and “rheme of” are pragmatic features (these terms are pragmatic paralects). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> As far as word-classes such as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, adposition, conjunction, etc. are concerned, I would suggest that the typologist’s work, when, for example, s/he compares two languages or group of languages, is 1) to redefine critically the properties of each member of these word-classes, taking as merely experimental (not numenal or essent-ial) tools the illustrations of these word-classes in the descriptions of many languages, long available as a result of grammarians’ and linguists’ works of all times and all places; and 2) to examine to what extent data observed in two language or two groups of languages illustrate in the same way or in a different way the word-classes (morphological paralects) that s/he uses to descibe these data. Thus, the labels used in typological work have no other justification than their efficiency, or the extent to which they make it possible for linguists to describe as faithfully a possible the languages studied. Let me add that typologists will often have to pay attention to a pervasive phenomenon, namely double duty, i.e., for a given unit, membership of one word-class along with membership of another word-class , for example, English <i>stone</i>, either a verb or a noun. Double duty is observed in so many languages, that it is one of the important facts which illustrate the relative, rather that absolute, character of word-classes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Claude<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:16.0pt'> </span><span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>