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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">OK, we should forget about word boundaries in typology, but should we also do so when writing grammars? Could you write a grammar of a stereotypical polysynthetic grammar and make it look like
an isolating one without using procrustean methods?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">(Didn’t </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">Skalička have a rather idiosyncratic definition of polysynthesis?)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">Östen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-language:SV">Från:</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-language:SV"> Martin Haspelmath [mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de]
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<b>Skickat:</b> den 11 november 2017 19:01<br>
<b>Till:</b> Östen Dahl <oesten@ling.su.se><br>
<b>Kopia:</b> lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>
<b>Ämne:</b> Re: SV: [Lingtyp] wordhood: responses to Haspelmath<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">It's not crazy at all to say that isolating languages could be described as polysynthetic, and vice versa. (In fact, Skalička described Modern Chinese as polysynthetic in 1946.)</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-language:SV"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The problem is that archetypes like isolating and polysynthetic are mostly stereotypes. They are not clearly defined, at least not without reference to a "word" concept (itself only based on intuition, i.e.
stereotypes). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Of course, morphosyntactic patterns are often more complex than simple strings of morphemes. But we don't really know in which ways these complexities cluster. Is it the case that languages with tense-person
cumulation (to give just one example of a complexity) also tend to show case-number cumulation? Is it the case that languages with special bare-object constructions ("incorporation") tend to show phonological interactions between object and verb? We don't
know yet, I think. By merely labeling languages according to a few archetypes, we won't find out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">So yes, let's forget about word boundaries in typology until we have a very good way to draw them consistently (using the same criteria in all languages).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Martin<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><br>
Am 11.11.2017 um 18:40 schrieb Östen Dahl <<a href="mailto:oesten@ling.su.se">oesten@ling.su.se</a>>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">Martin, I wonder if your views on these matters imply that a polysynthetic language could equally well be described as being an isolating one, and vice versa. That is, one should just forget
about word boundaries and describe utterances as consisting of strings of morphemes. If you think this is not feasible, why?</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">Best,</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt">Östen</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt"> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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