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Dear all,<br>
<br>
Eitan is correct in pointing out that I didn't actually provide a
definition of a comparative concept "word" in my abstract. I was
planning to sit down and do precisely this in the coming days and
weeks, but let me take a quick stab at it now — referring to the
abstract attached to my earlier message, and using lower- and
upper-case letters for comparative concepts and language-specific
descriptive categories respectively.<br>
<br>
Preliminaries: Presumably all languages have a set of
(language-specific) phenomena that enable us to define a
(language-specific) scale of Bond-Strengths, as represented in the
horizontal axes of the graphs in (3) on the abstract. Now to the
extent that the resulting distribution is bimodal, as per (3a), we
can then distinguish between "Strong Bonds", those associated with
morphemes on the left-hand peak (which we'll end up calling "Bound
Morphemes"), and "Weak Bonds", those associated with morphemes on
the right-hand peak (which we'll call "Free Morphemes").<br>
<br>
Definition: A word is a set of morphemes forming a constituent (or
to use Daniel's house-moving metaphor earlier, "packed in a box"),
such that all of the contained morphemes are connected with Strong
Bonds.<br>
<br>
Discussion: Yes, as Eitan points out, the criteria for Bond
Strengths are language specific. But for each language, one can (in
principle) produce a graph, such as in (3a) or (3b) relating
Morpheme Inventory to Bond Strength. The graphs associated with
each language can then be objectively compared across languages,
distinguishing between bimodal and unimodal distributions. In turn,
for those languages with bimodal distributions (a comparative
concept), these distributions can be used in order to define a set
of Strong Bonds (a language-specific category), which in turn is
employed, as per the above definition, to define the comparative
category of word.<br>
<br>
Since not all languages have bi-modal distributions of Bond
Strengths, not all languages instantiate the comparative concept of
word. But this is fine, we don't expect comparative concepts to be
instantiated in all languages; we merely demand that their presence
or absence can be evaluated objectively. <br>
<br>
Of course, the definition provided above is fuzzy. And I know, from
several very helpful conversations with Martin, that this is his
main objection to the above proposal, namely that it does not
provide the comfort of a categorical black-and-white distinction.
But as several people have already pointed out in this discussion,
most of the comparative concepts we work with are fuzzy; this is
just a fact of life.<br>
<br>
I know all of this sounds messy, and I hope to produce a more
reader-friendly formulation of the definition in the paper I'm
working on. However, I believe that this definition captures the
kinds of intuitions that probably most of us share about wordhood,
but in a way that distinguishes rigorously between language-specific
categories and comparative concepts, showing how a solid comparative
concept can indeed be founded on the soft and treacherous sands of
language-specific categories.<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/11/2017 16:02, Eitan Grossman
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAA00bNktdLgE70048GfsM9vWBTbtrsO+9czSyYP2bdvgJmZ-TA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div>Hi all,<br>
<br>
</div>
First of all, thanks for the stimulating
discussion!<br>
<br>
</div>
It seems most of the discussion has focused on
finding <b>diagnostics </b>for (grammatical)
wordhood, but there hasn't been much discussion of
what the <b>definition </b>of 'word' is. Unlike
'accusative marker,' the definition of which many
typologists would agree on, or 'perfect,' which has
a few different definitions but it is not hard to
pick one for purposes of cross-linguistic
comparison, 'word' doesn't have a clear or
semi-consensual definition. Martin's paper shows how
untenable the notion of 'minimal free form' is as a
cross-linguistic notion.<br>
<br>
</div>
David's abstract seems like a step in a possible right
direction, but even he doesn't give a <b>definition </b>of
word as a comparative concept. Rather, he gives a
diagnostic that would allow linguists to identify
languages that can be said to have words vs those that
can't. Of course, it may be possible to define 'word'
in David's sense as a very particular range or cutoff
point within his bimodal distribution. But then two
questions arise:<br>
<br>
</div>
1. What is the 'right' range that should be called
'word', and why?<br>
</div>
2. The features of 'bond strength' are language-specific
(e.g., 'warasa ludling'), and it would require a lot of
work, to say the least, to operationalize them as criteria
for a cross-linguistic comparison.<br>
<br>
</div>
Having said that, I agree with David (if I understand him
correctly) that the crucial missing link is the
operationalization of the notion of 'bond strength' or
'boundness,' but as far as I know, this has yet to be
articulated for cross-linguistic purposes. Incidentally,
this might be a way out of the reliance of notions like
'affix' and 'clitic' on the notion 'word,' because the
former could be defined purely in terms of 'boundness'.<br>
<br>
</div>
Best,<br>
</div>
Eitan<br>
<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Eitan Grossman
<div>Lecturer, Department of
Linguistics/School of
Language Sciences<br>
</div>
<div>Hebrew University of
Jerusalem</div>
<div>Tel: +972 2 588 3809</div>
<div>Fax: +972 2 588 1224</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>Recent: <i>Greek
Influence on
Egyptian-Coptic:
Contact-Induced Change
in an Ancient African
Language </i>(Widmaier
Verlag <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://widmaier-verlag.de/index.php?content=issue&isbn=978-3-943955-17-0"
style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://widmaier-verlag.de/index.php?content=issue&isbn=978-3-943955-17-0">http://widmaier-verlag.de/index.php?content=issue&isbn=978-3-943955-17-0</a></a>)</div>
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<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 1:52 AM,
William Croft <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:wcroft@unm.edu" target="_blank">wcroft@unm.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;line-break:after-white-space">Matthew,
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I am having a hard time reconciling your statement</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">I am completely in agreement
with Martin about the problems with the notion
of morphosyntactic word - in fact I would go
even further than him</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>with your statement</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">Thus it is not clear that there
is any problem with a comparative concept of
word.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>unless you mean that a morphosyntactic definition
of a word is even more problematic than Martin made it
out to be, but that a phonological definition of a word
(whatever criteria those are based on) is unproblematic.
For the latter, these two papers based on studies of
phonological criteria in Tibeto-Burman languages
indicate that phonological criteria are also
problematic, that is, do not converge on the same
morpheme strings as words:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bickel, Balthasar, Kristine A. Hildebrandt and René
Schiering. 2009. The distribution of phonological word
domains: a
probabilistic typology. <i>Phonological
domains: universals and deviations</i>, ed. Bariş
Kabak and Janet Grijzenhout,
47-75. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.</div>
<p class="m_-3374980884344709705bibliography">Schiering,
René, Balthasar Bickel and Kristine A.
Hildebrandt. 2010. The prosodic word is not universal. <i>Journal
of Linguistics</i> 46.657-709.</p>
<div> Incidentally, your 2015 ALT talk is a
counterexample to my statement in an earlier email that
nobody has applied a consistent crosslinguistic
criterion to wordhood. You took a very strict but
clearly crosslinguistically applicable notion of
wordhood (or more precisely, affixhood) -- i.e. one that
everyone would agree with -- and demonstrated that the
suffixing preference applies to these affixes. I
apologize for the oversight.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bill
<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Nov 11, 2017, at 4:35 PM, Dryer, Matthew
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu"
target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<div
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">What is missing from this
discussion is that Martin’s paper
discusses problems with morphosyntactic
criteria for words as proposed in recent
literature in morphological theory, not
problems with phonological criteria. But
typologists base their claims on language
descriptions and language descriptions
primarily use phonological criteria in
deciding what to represent as a word,
supplemented some by morphosyntactic
criteria. I am completely in agreement
with Martin about the problems with the
notion of morphosyntactic word - in fact I
would go even further than him. But this
has little bearing on typological claims
that make reference to words.</div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman""> </div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">This is not to say that
there may not be problems with
phonological criteria. I would say that
for every language I have worked on, there
are morpheme boundaries were neither
phonological criteria nor morphosyntactic
criteria provide a basis for deciding
whether to treat something as a word. But
such morpheme boundaries represent a
relatively small percentages of morpheme
boundaries in the language. Thus it is not
clear that there is any problem with a
comparative concept of word.</div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman""> </div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">In the 2015 ALT talk of
mine that Martin referred to, I argued
that if one restricts attention to
grammatical morphemes that are nonsyllabic
or that exhibit morphophonemic
alternations, we find clear evidence of a
suffixing preference. This illustrates how
the problems that Martin discusses do not
present a problem for showing that there
is a preference for suffixes over
prefixes.</div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman""> </div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman"">Matthew</div>
</div>
<div
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><br>
</div>
<span
id="m_-3374980884344709705OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">
<div
style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:11pt;text-align:left;border-width:1pt
medium medium;border-style:solid none
none;padding:3pt 0in
0in;border-top-color:rgb(181,196,223)"><span
style="font-weight:bold">From:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Lingtyp
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>>
on behalf of "Anstey, Matthew" <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:MAnstey@csu.edu.au"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:MAnstey@csu.edu.au">MAnstey@csu.edu.au</a></a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Sunday,
November 12, 2017 at 9:06 AM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>"<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>"
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Re:
[Lingtyp] wordhood: responses to
Haspelmath<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>Have there been any studies into
the cognitive salience of the notion
'word', say, along the lines of
segmentivity?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Such that, that all people and
hence languages chunk and split
language symbols one way or another,
driven by a number of constraints (eg
limiting semantic complexity,
facilitating processing speed,
allowing combinatorial possibilities
like juncture/nexus joints, etc).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If then this a universal cognitive
requirement, could the
culture-language specific version of
the most 'privileged' chunk, no matter
much it differs around the world, be
what we identify as this elusive
'word'?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Not sure how cognitive typology
works though....</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>With regards</div>
<div>Matthew</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On 12 Nov 2017, 8:23 AM +1030,
Daniel Ross <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu">djross3@illinois.edu</a></a>>,
wrote:</div>
<div>Just a quick clarification: my
metaphor was just a comparison to
suggest there might be different
sizes/levels of words (depending on
what we mean by that), not a
theoretical point about how to analyze
words in particular or any claims
about morphology.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But your clarification is
appreciated!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Daniel</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 1:04 PM,
Peter Arkadiev <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a></a><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru%3E"
target="_blank">mailt<wbr><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:o:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru">o:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a>></a>>
wrote:</div>
<div>Dear all.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>just to add to the cunundrum, many
contemporary morphologists do not
believe that "words are boxes for
morphemes", as Danny put it, and do
not use the concept of "morpheme" at
all, operating with features and their
exponents and paradigmatic relations
between words instead (see work by
Stephen Anderson, Gregory Stump, Jim
Blevins and many, many others). For
me, as a morphologist, this makes much
sense, because I know that, first,
there are languages where much if not
most morphological information is
expressed by internal modification
rather than by affixes (cf. the
Western Nilotic language Dinka as
decsribed by Torben Andersen as a
possibly extreme case), and, second,
even in those cases where it is
arguably possible to segment words
into discrete formatives, the
relations between those and the
meanings expressed in the word are
notoriously complex (cf. Nen and its
relatives as described by Nick Evans
and his associates as a possibly
extreme case). Whether this bears on
the universal applicability of the
notion of "word" is unclear to me;
however, what is clear to me is that
if "word" is not well-defined, then
"morpheme" is still worse.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Peter</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--</div>
<div>Peter Arkadiev, PhD</div>
<div>Institute of Slavic Studies</div>
<div>Russian Academy of Sciences</div>
<div>Leninsky prospekt 32<<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://maps.google.com/?q=Leninsky+prospekt+32&entry=gmail&source=g%3E-A"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://maps.google.com/?q=">https://maps.google.com/?q=</a><wbr>Leninsky+prospekt+32&entry=<wbr>gmail&source=g>-A</a><span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span>119991
Moscow</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru"
target="_blank">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru"
target="_blank">mailto<wbr>:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a>></div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev"
target="_blank">http://inslav.ru/people/<wbr>arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-<wbr>peter-arkadiev</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>11.11.2017, 23:49, "Daniel Ross"
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu"
target="_blank">djross3@illinois.edu</a><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu%3E"
target="_blank">mailto:<wbr><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu">djross3@illinois.edu</a>></a>>:</div>
<div>I did not mean anyone in particular
was being too extreme, sorry if I gave
that impression. I just wanted to
point out that words can still exist
language-internally.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I agree with the last two replies
to he thread.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To me, the question is whether
words are the same across languages,
in the same way that nouns and verbs
may not be. But we still do talk about
nouns and verbs (and, yes, families,
however unclear the definition may
be).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One other question I realized I
wanted to add is that words are like
boxes for morphemes, packaging them in
groups of some kind. I wonder if the
idea of words therefore must be
unique, even within a language. Could
it be that words exist on a continuum,
just like larger and smaller boxes you
might use to pack up all of the items
in your house when moving? Of course
I'm not sure what if anything would be
left as the "essence" of words then.
If that is not the case I'd like to
know why. (Maybe just because it would
make typology more complex so we'd
rather avoid it?)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Daniel</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On Saturday, November 11, 2017,
William Croft <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:wcroft@unm.edu"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wcroft@unm.edu">wcroft@unm.edu</a></a><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:wcroft@unm.edu%3E"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:wcroft@">mailto:wcroft@</a><wbr>unm.edu></a>>
wrote:</div>
<div>I am not arguing for an extreme
position like writing grammars without
word boundaries either. I am just
trying to bring to people’s attention
that wordhood is problematic, and to
persuade someone to look at wordhood
without presupposing an essentialist
concept of ‘word’, that would get us
past appealing to intuitions which are
actually rather unclear on closer
inspection. There might be a common
core, i.e. a set of
crosslinguistically valid criteria
which form universal patterns like a
typological prototype (as the latter
is defined in my “Typology and
Universals” textbook). But I don’t
know what the criteria are or what
their typological relationships are. I
would really like to know.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Actually, I *don’t* know what a
family is, in a cross-cultural sense,
and even in my own culture, given the
notions of immediate, nuclear and
extended family, foster children,
adoption, divorce etc. I don’t even
know if ‘family’ makes sense
cross-culturally, given the variety of
kin systems and the organization of
society they reflect.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bill</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote
id="m_-3374980884344709705MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="padding:0px 0px 0px
5px;margin:0px 0px 0px 5px">
<div>On Nov 11, 2017, at 12:16 PM,
Östen Dahl <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:oesten@ling.su.se"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:oesten@ling.su.se">oesten@ling.su.se</a></a>>
wrote:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I am sorry if I gave the
impression that I'm arguing for an
extreme position (such as writing
grammars without word boundaries).
I'm rather trying to see what the
ultimate consequences are of
Martin's proposals. But what I am
wondering about is whether there
isn't a common core to the
language-specific concepts of
"word", although it need not involve
precise criteria. I think "word" may
be a concept rather much like
"family". Consider Wikipedia's
definition of "family", which hardly
provides any criteria that can be
used to identify families
cross-culturally:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"In the context of human society,
a family (from Latin: familia) is a
group of people affiliated either by
consanguinity (by recognized birth),
affinity (by marriage or other
relationship), or co-residence (as
implied by the etymology of the
English word "family"[1]) or some
combination of these. Members of the
immediate family may include
spouses, parents, brothers, sisters,
sons, and daughters. Members of the
extended family may include
grandparents, aunts, uncles,
cousins, nephews, nieces, and
siblings-in-law. Sometimes these are
also considered members of the
immediate family, depending on an
individual's specific relationship
with them."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Still, we think we know what a
family is.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Östen</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----</div>
<div>Från: Lingtyp [<a
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href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@">mailto:lingtyp-bounces@</a><wbr>listserv.linguistlist.org</a>]
För William Croft</div>
<div>Skickat: den 11 november 2017
20:06</div>
<div>Till:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a></div>
<div>Ämne: Re: [Lingtyp] wordhood:
responses to Haspelmath</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The problem that we need to guard
against is using language-specific
definitions for a supposedly
crosslinguistic (comparative)
concept of ‘word’. One has to use a
crosslinguistically valid criterion
for wordhood, and apply the same
criterion across languages. I have
yet to see anyone do this.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As usual, the problem is the
belief in which linguistic units
have essences like ’noun, ‘verb’,
‘word’ etc., and all we linguists
need to do is “discover” this
essence through some accidental
linguistic fact of a particular
language (using ‘essence’ and
‘accident’ in the philosophical
sense); and it doesn’t matter if the
facts are different from one
language to the next, or are defined
in a way that works only for that
language. Until, of course, someone
else comes along and decides that
the essence is different from what
the first person thought, even by
looking at the same accidental
facts; or maybe that they don’t even
believe in the essence.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The solution, in my opinion, is
to look at the “accidental" facts,
that is, the different criteria for
wordhood (defined in a
crosslinguistically valid fashion),
and find out what the typological
universals are that govern those
facts. I would expect that (a) the
criteria won’t match, within or
across languages, as with parts of
speech etc.; but (b) the criteria
would pattern typologically in such
a way that most of the morpheme
strings that we would intuitively
call “words” would have a fairly
high degree of syntagmatic unity
most of the time. (Yes, “morpheme”
raises some of the same issues --
but if we don’t address these
issues, we can’t really trust our
results.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bill</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote
id="m_-3374980884344709705MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="padding:0px 0px 0px
5px;margin:0px 0px 0px 5px">
<div>On Nov 11, 2017, at 11:47 AM,
Edith A Moravcsik <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:edith@uwm.edu"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:edith@uwm.edu">edith@uwm.edu</a></a>>
wrote:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I agree with Fritz (if I
interpret his message
correctly). As far as I can see,
we can work with any definition of
"word" in crosslinguistic research
and then see if that definition is
useful or not - i.e., whether it
does or does not yield typological
correlates. If we try this
approach, I cannot see that we
could go wrong; or is there any
possible problem that we need to
guard against?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Edith Moravcsik</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-----Original Message-----</div>
<div>From: Lingtyp [<a
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target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@">mailto:lingtyp-bounces@</a><wbr>listserv.linguistlist.org</a>]
On</div>
<div>Behalf Of Frederick J Newmeyer</div>
<div>Sent: Saturday, November 11,
2017 11:04 AM</div>
<div>To: Martin Haspelmath <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a></a>></div>
<div>Cc:<span
class="m_-3374980884344709705Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a></div>
<div>Subject: Re: [Lingtyp]
wordhood: responses to Haspelmath</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Let's say that there are no
rigid consistent criteria that
distinguish words, prefixes, and
suffixes. I don't see why that
would necessarily prevent us from
making valid generalizations about
prefixes and suffixes. Consider an
analogy. We can make valid
generalizations about men and
women (their preferences for
whatever, their likelihood to do
whatever, etc.) even though gender
is to a certain extent fluid.
There are adults who consider
themselves neither male or female
and others who consider themselves
both. Different criteria lead to
different assignments for being a
man or for being a woman. It seems
like an analogous issue would come
up for virtually any 'natural'
category. What is the essential
problem here?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--fritz</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Frederick J. Newmeyer</div>
<div>Professor Emeritus, University
of Washington Adjunct Professor, U
of</div>
<div>British Columbia and Simon
Fraser U</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On Sat, 11 Nov 2017, Martin
Haspelmath wrote:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote
id="m_-3374980884344709705MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="padding:0px 0px 0px
5px;margin:0px 0px 0px 5px">
<div>As far as I'm aware, only one
typologist has taken up the
challenge</div>
<div>of my 2011 paper: Matthew
Dryer in his 2015 ALT talk at
Albuquerque (I have copied his
abstract below, as it seems to
be no longer available from the
UNM website).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Otherwise, the reaction has
generally been that this is old
news (for</div>
<div>those with no stake in the
syntax-morphology distinction),
or that</div>
<div>the distinction is fuzzy,
like almost all distinctions in
language.</div>
<div>But the latter reaction
misses the point that it's not
clear whether</div>
<div>there are any
cross-linguistic regularities to
begin with (apart from</div>
<div>orthographic conventions)
that point to the
cross-linguistic</div>
<div>relevance of something like a
"word" notion. (The results of
the</div>
<div>recent work by Jim Blevins
and colleagues do seem to point
in this</div>
<div>direction, but it is only
based on four European
languages.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>An interesting case is OUP's
recent handbook on
polysynthesis: While</div>
<div>all definitions of
polysynthesis make reference to
the "word" notion, almost none
of the authors and editors try
to justify it, instead simply
presupposing that there is such
a thing as polysynthesis.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(The one paper that addresses
the issue, by Bickel &
Zúñiga, agrees</div>
<div>with my skepticism in that it
finds that "polysynthetic
"words" are often not unified
entities defined by a single
domain on which all criteria
would converge". OUP's handbook
is hard to access, but a
manuscript version of Bickel
& Zúñiga can be found here:</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en/bickel/publications/in-pr"
target="_blank">http://www.<wbr>comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/<wbr>en/bickel/publications/in-pr</a></div>
<div>e</div>
<div>ss.html)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Martin</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>******************************<wbr>*****</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Evidence for the suffixing
preference</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Matthew S. Dryer</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>University at Buffalo</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Haspelmath (2011) argues that
there are no good criteria for</div>
<div>distinguishing affixes from
separate words, so that claims
that make</div>
<div>reference to a distinction
between words and affixes are
suspect. He</div>
<div>claims that there is
therefore no good evidence for
the suffixing</div>
<div>preference (Greenberg 1957).
since that assumes that one can
distinguish affixes from
separate words. He implies that
decisions that linguists
describing languages make in
terms of what they represent as
words may at best be based on
inconsistent criteria and he has
suggested that we have no way of
knowing whether the apparent
suffixing preference reflects
anything more than the fact that
the orthography of European
languages far more often
represents grammatical morphemes
as suffixes than as prefixes.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In this paper, I provide
evidence that the suffixing
preference is unlikely to be an
artifact of orthographic
conventions, at least as it
applies to tense-aspect affixes.</div>
<div>I examined the phonological
properties of tense-aspect
affixes in a sample of over 500
languages, distinguishing two
types on the basis of their
phonological properties.</div>
<div>Type 1 affixes are either
ones that are nonsyllabic,
consisting only</div>
<div>of consonants, or ones that
exhibit allomorphy that is
conditioned</div>
<div>phonologically by verb stems.
Type</div>
<div>2 affixes are those that
exhibit neither of these two
properties. The</div>
<div>reason that this distinction
is relevant is that grammatical</div>
<div>morphemes of the first sort
are almost always represented as
affixes</div>
<div>rather than as separate words
in grammatical descriptions, so
that we</div>
<div>can safely assume that in the
vast majority of cases,
grammatical morphemes of this
sort that are represented as
affixes really are such.
Haspelmath’s suggestion that the
suffixing preference might be an
artifact of orthographic
conventions thus predicts that
we should not find a significant
difference in the relative
frequency of Type 1 prefixes and
suffixes, but only with Type 2
prefixes and suffixes.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The results of my study show
that this prediction is not
confirmed.</div>
<div>They show that for both types
of affixes, suffixes outnumber
prefixes</div>
<div>by a little over 2.5 to 1.
The number of languages in my
sample with</div>
<div>Type 1 suffixes outnumber the
number of languages with Type 1
prefixes by 181 to 67, or around
2.7 to 1, while the number of
languages with only Type 2
suffixes outnumber the number of
languages with only Type 2
prefixes by 223 to 85,
approximately 2.6 to 1. Thus the
prediction that the suffixing
preference should be found
primarily with Type 2 affixes,
is not borne out. To the
contrary, we find the same
suffixing preference among both
types of affixes.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This provides evidence that,
at least for tense-aspect
affixes, the suffixing
preference is real and not an
artifact of orthographic
conventions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>References</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. The
indeterminacy of word
segmentation and</div>
<div>the nature of morphology and
syntax. Folia Linguistica 45:
31-80.></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On 10.11.17 06:11, Adam J
Tallman wrote:</div>
<div> I am writing a paper
about wordhood - has anyone
responded to Haspelmath's 2011
Folia Linguistica paper on the
topic?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have only found two sources
that mention the paper and seem
to put forward an argument
against its conclusions, but its
mostly in en passant fashion.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On is Blevins (2016) Word and
Paradigm Morphology and another
is Geertzen, Jeroen, James P.
Blevins & Petar Milin.
‘Informativeness of unit
boundaries’</div>
<div>[pdf]. Italian Journal of
Linguistics 28(2), 1–24.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Any correspondence in this
regard would be greatly
appreciated,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Adam</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--</div>
<div>Adam J.R. Tallman
Investigador del Museo de
Etnografía y Folklore, la</div>
<div>Paz PhD candidate, University
of Texas at Austin</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--</div>
<div>Martin Haspelmath (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a></a>)
Max Planck Institute for</div>
<div>the Science of Human History</div>
<div>Kahlaische Strasse 10<<a
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<div>&</div>
<div>Leipzig University</div>
<div>IPF 141199</div>
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<pre class="moz-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="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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