<div dir="ltr"><div>I do not see Peter's approach (or mine for 'family') as disjoint. Instead, I see it as abstract and variably interpreted in each language. Thus subjects, or words, or families, or whatever, must be understood like patterns or behaviors, rather than basic natural kinds.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I would think that, for example, those who like the approach to categorization of Cognitive Grammar would appreciate the idea that categories like "word" are emergent in particular grammars but broadly similar based on our human nature. The concept of "family" differs across cultures, but most or all humans have some interest in (their version of) that concept.</div><div><br></div><div>Similarly, many languages seem to organize their grammars with some level between morpheme and phrase. In fact, that does not seem unexpected to me at all: phrases are loosely connected, and morphemes are not divisible. Having an emergent level where there is a tight connection seems like a completely natural development to me for complex systems like languages. So most or all languages have something like words, but actually DEFINING what a "word" "is" does not come easily because the ways in which languages "DO words" is variable.</div><div><br></div><div>I'm beginning to wonder if typological categories are best thought of as actions that languages do, rather than structures or properties that languages "HAVE".</div><div><br></div><div>(I have some more thoughts expanding on that (thinking out loud) but I will attach those as a text document rather than making this email excessively long.)</div><div><br></div><div>And having said that, I will now go back to applying my comparative concepts to a language sample to see which ones have which features-- a good starting point at least.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Daniel<br></div><div><div><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Martin Haspelmath <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">haspelmath@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">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
I think we can distinguish two broad kinds of situations:<br>
<br>
(1) where a comparative concept is defined by a single criterion or
a set of simultaneouly necessary and sufficient criteria (e.g.
"dative", defined by the criterion of flagging the recipient)<br>
<br>
(2) where a comparative concept is defined by multiple disjunctive
criteria<br>
<br>
I have been arguing that we should adopt definitions of the former
type, but Peter Arkadiev is now arguing that the latter should also
be accepted. Well, maybe he is right, but I think that disjunctive
definitions are acceptable only if the criteria are independently
known to correlate tightly.<br>
<br>
For example, let's assume that we know that people with a high
income very often drive expensive cars and strongly tend to have
gardeners. Then we can define a sociological category "rich person"
disjunctively: Someone who either (i) has a high income, or (ii)
drives an expensive car, or (iii) has a gardener (or several of
these simultaneously). Intuitively, this sounds reasonable.<br>
<br>
But we could also create disjunctively defined concepts based on
criteria that don't correlate. For example, we could set up a
sociological category "meggle person" defined as someone who either
(i) owns a Huawei smartphone, or (ii) likes Mendelssohn music, or
(iii) works as a taxi-driver on weekends (or several of these
simultaneously). Intuitively, this sounds crazy – though the
impression that such features correlate might arise through some
accident (e.g. if there were a movie where two or three meggle
people play a role).<br>
<br>
So I would say that before we can accept a disjunctive definition of
a comparative concept, it must be shown that the different criteria
correlate very significantly. I don't think this has been shown for
stereotypical subject properties, or for stereotypical word
properties – though it may well be that it's true (I have no clear
intuitions).<br>
<br>
So basically what I'm arguing is that we shouldn't rely on
stereotypical property clusters, but we should investigate whether
the properties do indeed cluster. (Recall that typology originated
in German Romanticism, which was closely linked to nationalism, and
eventually to racism – and we all know that we should not trust
racial stereotypes, though some of the supposed correlations may
turn out to be correct after they are investigated.)<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-968152490260205689moz-cite-prefix">On 13.11.17 21:34, Peter Arkadiev
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Dear Daniel, dear all,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>that was an excellent point, and the analogy to 'family'
defined relative to particular culture is very lucid. This is
precisely how I believe many comparative linguistic notions can
(or should) be defined -- relative to language. Take the
notorious notion of subject, which is defined by some as "the
privileged syntactic argument (by whatever criteria there are in
particular languages that make one of their arguments
privileged)". I may be wrong, but this seems to be the
definition of subject in Role and Reference Grammar. Of course,
for those who believe that comparability requires
identification, this is a bad comparative concept, since in
principle it does not exclude the possibility that there are two
languages whose subjects have nothing in common. But still this
is a workable concept allowing typologists to ask reasonable
questions, e.g.:</div>
<div>1) Are there languages where subjects in this sense cannot be
single out, and if yes, for what reasons? As far as I know,
there are linguists who claim that the answer to this question
is "yes", therefore the concept is not vacuous.</div>
<div>2) What are the grammatical properties that languages with
subjects thus defined employ to render them privileged as
opposed to other arguments? Well, much of the grammatical
relations typology is just about this.</div>
<div>3) Do subjects thus defined cross-linguistically correlate
with certain admittedly universally applicable comparative
concepts such as "agent" or "topic" and is there a common "core"
to subjects in all languages? Note that under the definition
proposed, this becomes an empirical question with a potentially
negative answer, rather than is built into the definition a
priori.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I think it is possible to define words, affixes, clitics etc.
in such a way and get consistent and interesting results.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Peter</div>
<div> </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 119991 Moscow</div>
<div><a class="m_-968152490260205689moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru" target="_blank">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a></div>
<div><a class="m_-968152490260205689moz-txt-link-freetext" 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> </div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</span><span class=""><pre class="m_-968152490260205689moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="m_-968152490260205689moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
IPF 141199
Nikolaistrasse 6-10
D-04109 Leipzig
</pre>
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