<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Sorry, Martin for duplicating.<div><br></div><div>
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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Dear Martin,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:
35.4pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">I
am now rereading your proposal (made in december 2016) of a workshop on
comparative notions at the next ALT meeting in Zurich. I think it is a good
idea. However I am a little sorry that in your bibliography you did not mention
my own contribution to the question.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify;text-indent:35.4pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">May I remind you that you discovered the idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">intuitive</i> comparative notions in my 2006
book (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">La quête des invariants
interlangues</i>…)? In a review of that book, in 2008, speaking of what I said
of the crosslanguage investigation of transitivity, you wrote :
“Ultimately all these generalizations about transitivity are based on the
concept of prototypical action, and this concept has no other foundation than
the linguist’s intuitive feeling that it might be useful for comparison (as it
turns out to be). When I first heard this idea, it struck me as rather strange,
especially in the context of an approach that tries to make linguistics more
rigorous (or “scientific”, Lazard 1999a). However, once one recognizes
that comparison cannot be based on categories, Lazard’s view of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">tertia comparationis</i> becomes cogent“ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">LT</i> 12 : 307). That was the very
beginning of your own reflections and of all subsequent<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and current discussions on the
necessity of “intuitive conceptual frameworks“ (ICFs), as I call them, for
language comparison. Was it not worthy of being recalled ?</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify;text-indent:35.4pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">As for your questions, here are my positions :</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">a)
All linguists know that all languages are different from one another. All
linguists also feel that all languages in a sense resemble one another. But
feeling is not knowledge. This is why languages must be compared in order to
perceive more precisely what is common to different languages. If the
investigation is successful, then it may result in the discovery of a common
category, or, more probably, a “quasi-category“ approximately to be found in
each of the languages compared. In such a case, it may be considered that there
is a (possibly approximate) taxinomic relation between the common category and
language-specific categories. — Anyway, each language must be described in its
own terms. However, coding may be practically be based upon felt likeness,
e.g., adjective in English and in Portuguese. It is only necessary to
distinguish names designating language-specific categories (for instance, by
writing it with an initial capital letter) and those only motivated by
likeness.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">b)
As you know, I think that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">any notion</i>
may be used as an “</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">intuitive
conceptual framework“ (ICF), provided it is given a clear unambiguous definition.
It is also necessary that the (parts of) languages to be compared have been
described as systems, so that they can be checked against the ICF.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">c) The notion chosen
as ICF may be part of any region of the representation of the world, e.g.,
“prototypical action“. There is no reason for limiting it to the domain of
grammar. But, of course, grammatical notions may also be used, if clearly defined,
for our representation of languages is also part of our representation of the
world. They may receive any kind of definition: there are no
“hybrid categories“.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">d) Generalities such
as SOV, VOS, etc. belong to the domain of likeness. Such traditional notions as
“subject” or “S”, etc., are fuzzy. I believe they are neither fully adequate
nor entirely inadequate. They both reflect and hide deeper and more abstract
realities that it is our task, for us typologists, to discover. For example, it
is highly likely that the traditional notion of Subject include two different
functions, which I have called “predication subject and “reference subject”:
they appear separated both in ergative languages and in affective constructions
(Lazard, Two possible universals…, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">LT</i>
19, 2015).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">e) Language
description and typology are obviously different tasks. The descriptive
linguist proceeds from form to meaning, along the semasiological path. The
typologist, on the contrary, in language comparison cannot but proceed from
concept (the ICF) to language facts, i.e. follow the onomasiologic path.
However, comparison requires languages to be described as systems (cf. above
b), which is a link between description and typology.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:
justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Best wishes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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Gilbert Lazard,<br>49, av. de l'Observatoire,<br>F-75014 Paris<br><br><a href="mailto:gilzard@orange.fr">gilzard@orange.fr</a><br><br><br>
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