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    Thanks to Doris for bringing up the etic/emic contrast. Yes, there
    are important similarities, as I briefly note in my 2010 paper (§7,
    referring to Reesink's 2008 paper in Studies in Language: "
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    <span data-offset-key="e2d6m-0-0"><span data-text="true">Lexicon and
        syntax from an emic viewpoint").<br>
        <br>
        I agree with Bill and Matthew that not all comparative concepts
        are etic, but all etic concepts can probably be used for
        comparison. In general, I would use the term "comparative
        concept" very broadly. The nonverbal stimuli as used in
        comparative lexical research by fieldworkers (e.g. Meira,
        Levinson et al. 2003, and much related work) are kinds of
        comparative concepts (called "etic grids" by these authors), but
        so are more abstract concepts like "root" (e.g. as defined in my
        2012 paper on word-classes) or serial verb construction (as
        defined in my 2016 paper). The latter are of course not etic.<br>
        <br>
        Matthew's example of Ian Maddieson's WALS chapters on sound
        distinctions is interesting, because it's actually somewhat
        questionable to what extent phonemes can be compared across
        languages. In APiCS, we decided to compare segments at the level
        of "salient allophones", not phonemes (see
        <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://apics-online.info/parameters">http://apics-online.info/parameters</a>, select feature type:
        segment). These are closer to etic distinctions.<br>
        <br>
        Best,<br>
        Martin<br>
      </span></span><br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 27.01.16 21:35, William Croft wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote cite="mid:5C2F0F5E-83DC-4766-AA7D-7D1EA2377928@unm.edu"
      type="cite">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      There are definitely similarities between etic and emic on the one
      hand, and comparative concepts and language-specific categories on
      the other. I would say there are some differences as well.
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>Etic categories, in the morphosyntactic domain, are more like
        "purely semantic/functional" comparative concepts. For example,
        the property concept classes of dimension, value, age. But
        Martin argued for some comparative concepts that are hybrids,
        including (crosslinguistically valid) formal properties. So for
        instance for me, "adjective" is a hybrid comparative concept
        that is whatever construction expresses modification of a
        referent by a property concept such as one of those classes just
        named. (Or more accurately, the head of such a construction,
        with 'head' defined functionally as in Croft 2001, ch. 7.) And
        perhaps that construction instantiates a particular formal
        strategy, say the linker strategy, for adjectives. This is
        another hybrid comparative category. Neither adjective nor
        linker strategy are etic categories in the usual sense.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>Emic categories look a lot more like language-specific
        categories. But I would say that language-specific categories
        are construction-specific as well. So we might identify an
        adjective construction using a linking strategy in the language
        we're describing, based on modification by certain property
        concepts. Then we can ask, what other lexical concepts can be
        used in this construction for modification? We'll come up with a
        set of lexical concepts, possibly not all the property concepts,
        possibly including non-property concepts, that can be used in
        this construction for modification. Then we could use the
        capitalized term Adjective to describe this
        construction-specific word class, because we used the
        comparative concept adjective to single out this
        language-specific construction. This would make it easier for
        someone else reading our language description to find the
        adjective (lower-case, comparative concept) construction in that
        language, for comparative typological or other purposes. As
        Johanna said, this is what descriptive grammarians generally do,
        even if they aren't thinking about the issues in the way
        described here, and so typologists generally don't have a
        problem using descriptive grammars (and the prose description in
        the grammar can tell us if things are different). But Adjective
        is not adjective; we haven't "discovered" an adjective class in
        the language, because adjective (lower case) is not a
        language-specific word class; it is a type of comparative
        concept.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>Best wishes,</div>
      <div>Bill</div>
      <div>
        <div><br>
          <div>
            <div>On Jan 27, 2016, at 1:05 PM, Frank Seidel <<a
                moz-do-not-send="true"
                href="mailto:frank.zidle@gmail.com">frank.zidle@gmail.com</a>>
              wrote:</div>
            <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
            <blockquote type="cite">
              <div dir="ltr">
                <div>
                  <div>
                    <div>
                      <div>
                        <div>Dear all,<br>
                        </div>
                        Doris' point about etic and emic perspectives
                        clarified one more issue about comparative
                        concepts and language-particular categories for
                        me. Since two linguists working on a same
                        language might arrive at different analyses
                        about phenomena found, so-called language
                        particular categories are at the same time
                        analyst particular categories and I would thus
                        still consider them to be etic perspectives on a
                        language.
                        <br>
                        <br>
                      </div>
                      Furthermore, and I might understand Martin
                      Haspelmath's (2010) paper wrongly, but the way he
                      talked about grammatical concepts I understood
                      them to be more akin to 'ad hoc'
                      concepts/categories (e.g. things that you need to
                      build a house). You need them for a particular
                      purpose, but they are otherwise useless. In this
                      case they are concepts that are used to
                      meaningfully compare
                      structural-semantic/functional/communicative
                      aspects of languages.<br>
                      <br>
                    </div>
                    From a purely terminological standpoint I would
                    argue that the difference between a concept and a
                    category is that the concept helps you identify a
                    set of items and basically 'turns' into a category
                    once a set of items has been identified. So
                    comparative concepts 'turn' into categories once
                    items in different languages have been found. These
                    concepts are, however, somewhat useless to use as an
                    argument for a language particular analysis. Thus if
                    one finds a group of "lexemes that denote a
                    descriptive property and that can be used to narrow
                    the reference of a noun" in a particular language
                    the language cannot be argued to have a grammatical
                    category adjectives based on this. This is despite
                    the fact that once I identify such a group of
                    lexemes in a particular language, I still have a
                    category. This category is just useless for language
                    particular analysis. They can only be viewed as
                    adjectives for a comparative purposes. The question
                    here would be, if this definition of a comparative
                    concept adjective should be used for all comparative
                    purposes involving the idea of adjective?<br>
                    <br>
                  </div>
                  <div>From a methodological standpoint, then, if I look
                    for a set of 'adjectives' as comparatively defined
                    in a language and then try to find language internal
                    evidence that this group of items (or at least a
                    part of this group) can be argued for as being its
                    own language specific category adjective, can I say
                    that I have let the language show itself to me?<br>
                    <br>
                    Thanks all for reading.<br>
                  </div>
                  <br>
                </div>
                Frank <br>
              </div>
              <div class="gmail_extra"><br>
                <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:54
                  AM, Everett, Daniel <span dir="ltr">
                    <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
                      href="mailto:DEVERETT@bentley.edu" target="_blank">DEVERETT@bentley.edu</a>></span>
                  wrote:<br>
                  <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
                    .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
                    <div style="word-wrap:break-word">Good point, Doris.
                      At the risk of harping on a single subject, in my
                      forthcoming Chicago press book the etic/emic
                      distinction plays a major role in the empiricist
                      theories of language and culture that I try to
                      develop. These are very important ideas that have
                      been misunderstood and under-estimated for decades
                      outside of some circles.
                      <div><br>
                      </div>
                      <div>Dan</div>
                      <div>
                        <div class="h5">
                          <div>  <br>
                            <div>
                              <blockquote type="cite">
                                <div>On Jan 22, 2016, at 1:13 PM, <a
                                    moz-do-not-send="true"
                                    href="mailto:Dlpayne@uoregon.edu"
                                    target="_blank">
                                    Dlpayne@uoregon.edu</a> <<a
                                    moz-do-not-send="true"
                                    href="mailto:dlpayne@uoregon.edu"
                                    target="_blank">dlpayne@uoregon.edu</a>>
                                  wrote:</div>
                                <br>
                                <div><span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">It

                                    seems to me that "comparative
                                    concept" in Martin's usage is close
                                    (if not identical) to what is called
                                    "etic " while language specific
                                    "descriptve categories" are "emic
                                    cagegories" as discussed by Keneth
                                    Pike abd used in anthropology long
                                    ago, with the additional
                                    understanding that we are talking
                                    about conceptual notions of
                                    potential relevance to morohosyntax
                                    / discourse (not just to sound or
                                    eg. "marriage" in anthropology,
                                    etc.) </span>
                                  <div
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                                  </div>
                                  <div
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">Aren't
                                    these the same kind of distinctions
                                    just under new names by a (somewhat)
                                    new generation?</div>
                                  <div
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><br>
                                  </div>
                                  <div
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                                    Payne</div>
                                  <br
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                                  <br
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                                  <br
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                                  <span
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                                    Original message --------</span><br
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                                  <span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">Subject:

                                    Re: [Lingtyp] comparative concepts</span><br
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">
                                  <span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">From:

                                    Matthew Dryer <</span><a
                                    moz-do-not-send="true"
                                    href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu"
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"
                                    target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a><span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">></span><br
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                                  <span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">To:<span> </span></span><a
                                    moz-do-not-send="true"
                                    href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"
                                    target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br
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                                  <span
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline!important">CC:

                                    Re: [Lingtyp] comparative concepts</span><br
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                                  <br
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                                  <br
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                                  <div
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                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria">Paolo’s
                                      comment here illustrates very well
                                      how wings is a comparative
                                      concept.</div>
                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"> </div>
                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria">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.</div>
                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"> </div>
                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria">Claiming
                                      that bats don’t have wings is an
                                      example of the same phenomenon: it
                                      all depends on how you define
                                      wings.<span> <span> </span></span>Paolo
                                      is assuming one definition, but
                                      many people would assume a
                                      different definition.<span> <span> </span></span>There
                                      is no “right” definition.</div>
                                    <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                      0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"> </div>
                                    <span style="font-size:12pt">Matthew</span><span> </span><br>
                                    <br>
                                    On 1/22/16 10:28 AM, Paolo Ramat
                                    wrote:<br>
                                  </div>
                                  <blockquote type="cite"
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                                    <div dir="ltr">
                                      <div
                                        style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri">
                                        <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<span> </span><em>me
                                            poenitet<span> </span></em>the
                                          accus.<span> </span><em>me<span> </span></em>has
                                          the same FUNCTION as Engl.<span> </span><em>I<span> </span></em>in<span> </span><em>I‘m
                                            sorry<span> </span></em>or
                                          Germ.<em><span> </span>mir<span> </span></em>in <span> </span><em>Es
                                            tut mir leid<span> </span></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<span> </span><em>me,
                                            I, mir<span> </span></em>etc. <span> </span></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<span> </span><em>tertia
                                              comparationis</em>) 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">Prof.Paolo
                                          Ramat</div>
                                        <div
                                          style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri">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;font-style:normal;display:inline">
                                          <div
style="font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;line-height:normal;font-family:tahoma">
                                            <div> </div>
                                            <div
                                              style="background-color:rgb(245,245,245);background-position:initial
                                              initial;background-repeat:initial
                                              initial">
                                              <div><b>From:</b><span> </span><a
                                                  moz-do-not-send="true"
                                                  title="gil@shh.mpg.de"
href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">David Gil</a></div>
                                              <div><b>Sent:</b><span> </span>Friday,
                                                January 22, 2016 3:14 PM</div>
                                              <div><b>To:</b><span> </span><a
                                                  moz-do-not-send="true"
title="lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
                                                  href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
                                                  target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a></div>
                                              <div><b>Subject:</b><span> </span>Re:
                                                [Lingtyp] comparative
                                                concepts</div>
                                            </div>
                                          </div>
                                          <div> </div>
                                        </div>
                                        <div
style="font-size:small;text-decoration:none;font-family:Calibri;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;display:inline">
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">I've greatly
                                              enjoyed following this
                                              high-quality discussion:
                                              thank you all.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><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> </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> </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> </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.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">Let's take
                                              the wing analogy.<span> <span> </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> </span></span>But
                                              still, bats do have wings,
                                              even though they may
                                              differ in many ways from
                                              those of birds or bees.<span> <span> </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> </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.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><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:</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">Language A:<span> <span> </span></span>has
                                              well-defined Ss and Os,
                                              and specific linearization
                                              rules that put the S
                                              before the V and the O
                                              after it.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">Language B:<span> <span> </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.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">Language C:<span> <span> </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.</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><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> </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> </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> </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></span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><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> </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> </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> </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.)</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><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> </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> </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> </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> </span></span>(I
                                              note here Eitan's
                                              suggestion earlier in this
                                              thread that some
                                              comparative concepts may
                                              also be cognitively real.)</span></div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
                                          <div style="margin:0in 0in
                                            0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:cambria"><span
                                              lang="EN-US">Finally, and
                                              somewhat tangentially, a
                                              practical consideration:<span> <span> </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.</span></div>
                                          <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 moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%2B62-812-73567992" value="+6281273567992" target="_blank">+62-812-73567992</a>

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                <br>
                -- <br>
                <div class="gmail_signature">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: 352.392.2183<br>
                  Fax: 352.392.2435<br>
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    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10   
D-07745 Jena  
&
Leipzig University
Beethovenstrasse 15
D-04107 Leipzig    





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