<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Dear all,<br><br></div>I think some of the comments here are taking too extreme a position (for argument's sake?). Martin did not in his paper reject the idea that some (or all) languages have their own sense of "words", even though in different languages the criteria may be different. One of the clearest examples (in my opinion at least) is vowel harmony in Turkish. But unfortunately the rarity of vowel harmony makes that impractical for most broad typological work.<br><br></div>So I think there are three possible positions:<br></div>1. Words can be defined consistently and effectively for all languages.<br></div>2. Words can be defined differently for different languages but can still be considered valid at least for those individual languages, and potentially in a comparative sense if we take into account how the criteria for each language differ. (I guess that could potentially lead back to position 1, although with an indirect definition.)<br></div>3. There are really no words at all, and that's just our perspective bias (from writing spaces, from traditional grammar, whatever).<br><br></div>Some of the comments have argued for position 3, such as writing grammatical descriptions without referencing words at all. But I don't see why that needs to be the case. Why not consider position 2? Just like parts of speech vary in different languages and it may not be possible to consistently define "noun" or "verb" for all languages (of course that's up for debate), individual grammars can still make reference to them in language-internal terms (along with potentially unique word classes as well).<br><br></div>A question then is whether "word" is a basic notion (say, part of UG), or whether it is something emergent in some (or all) grammars, based on varying criteria. Or whether it just isn't a valid concept at all in any language.</div><div><br></div><div>Questions:</div><div>1) Can all grammars be written without referencing a concept like "word" at all?</div><div>2) If we do reference "words", are we really talking about the same concept in each language?<br></div><div>3) What criteria are used, and if they differ, is that because "words" are the "same" across languages but manifested differently, or because "words" are actually different (because of the different criteria), and then can we still compare them in a relevant way?<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>I don't have an answer for those questions yet, though. But I'm enjoying the discussion.<br><br></div>Daniel Ross<br></div>Ph.D. Candidate<br></div>University of Illinois<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 10:38 AM, David Gil <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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Contrary to Östen (below), I am not quite ready to concede to Martin
the impossibility of defining a comparative concept of "word" that
will enable typologists to distinguish between isolating and
polysynthetic languages (as well as various intermediate types). I
am currently working on a paper that will provide such a
definition. An extended abstract of the paper is attached here. <br>
<br>
David<div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-cite-prefix">On 12/11/2017 02:23, Östen Dahl wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">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?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">(Didn’t
</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">Skalička
have a rather idiosyncratic definition of polysynthesis?)</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">Östen<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #e1e1e1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Från:</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> Martin
Haspelmath [<a class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>]
<br>
<b>Skickat:</b> den 11 november 2017 19:01<br>
<b>Till:</b> Östen Dahl <a class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:oesten@ling.su.se" target="_blank"><oesten@ling.su.se></a><br>
<b>Kopia:</b> <a class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.<wbr>org</a><br>
<b>Ämne:</b> Re: SV: [Lingtyp] wordhood: responses to
Haspelmath<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<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"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<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). <u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<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. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<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).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<div id="m_-8472249372775845708AppleMailSignature">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Best,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Martin<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<div>
<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" target="_blank"></a><a class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:oesten@ling.su.se" target="_blank">oesten@ling.su.se</a>>:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="m_-8472249372775845708MsoPlainText"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">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"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-8472249372775845708MsoPlainText"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">Best,</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-8472249372775845708MsoPlainText"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US">Östen</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="m_-8472249372775845708MsoPlainText"><span style="font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-US"> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<pre class="m_-8472249372775845708moz-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="m_-8472249372775845708moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
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