<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Thank you for the comments. I agree with many aspects of what you said.<br></div></div><div><br></div><div>If the <i>possibility</i> of describing something with a disjunctive definition should disqualify it as a coherent category, then I think I can offer a short proof that there cannot be any cross-linguistic categories of any kind:</div><div>1. There might be some cross-linguistic categories.</div><div>2. One of the objective properties of a category is which words (=lexical items) are associated with it.</div><div>3. Words are arbitrary, and are not the same in different languages.</div><div>4. The words associated with any category in two languages cannot ever be exactly the same.</div><div>5. Therefore, no categories can ever be shared in two languages.</div><div><br></div><div>From that perspective, if German or Swahili had <i>exactly </i>the SAME category "word" (or "verb" or "double object construction", etc.) as English, then German and Swahili would actually BE English.</div><div><br></div><div>But that seems too strong a position to me, and therefore I am hesitant to agree that we should not consider some properties as more important in definitions than others.<br></div><div><br></div><div><div>You are absolutely correct, though, on at least two points:</div><div>1. We should not neglect aspects of the data in favor of an ideal.</div><div>2. All of this is very, very difficult. (Such as dealing with differing intuitions.)</div><div><br></div>When I see a list of disjoint descriptors as heuristic, diagnostic
criteria, I am hesitant to consider them to be a definition. One problem as implied by your arguments against essentialism is that you cannot possibly list all properties, so any definition of that disjoint sort is also necessarily incomplete. The only practical approach for typologists is to select core properties (one way or another), and to allow for others to vary (effectively 'disjoint' but not core properties or necessarily specified). That isn't so far from my definition of "family".</div><div><br></div><div>The concept of food is not culture-specific, but its manifestation does vary culturally. It is true that ingredients vary, but can we agree that everyone eats food? I don't see why we can't (at least try to) understand aspects of language like that.<br></div><br><div><div>Daniel<br></div></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 7:37 AM, William Croft <span dir="ltr"><<a 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">A definition “variably interpreted in each language” is a disjunctive definition. If I use fact A to define ‘word’ in Language X, fact B to define ‘word’ in Language Y, and fact C to define ‘word’ in Language Z, then ‘word’ is defined as “defined by either A or B or C”. Or else ‘word’ means something different in Languages X, Y and Z, i.e. it is a language-specific concept, and the fact that it’s called ‘word’ in each language is just a coincidence.<div><br></div><div>In the disjunctive/variable approach, one is basically free to choose a fact that fits one’s intuition about what is or isn’t a word in each language (i.e., one’s “abstract” or essentialist definition). This is what I described as “methodological opportunism” in <i>Radical Construction Grammar</i>. The problem arises when people’s intuitions differ -- see Matthew’s comments on Martin’s 2013 proposed comparative concept definition of affix. Then different people appeal to different facts in the same language (or across languages), and we’re in a situation where people are not looking at the same facts.</div><div><br></div><div>The crucial point about Martin’s remarks about disjunctive definitions of comparative concepts is his comment about whether or not the disjunctive properties empirically cluster together or not. The crucial goal is to find the empirical generalizations. Methodological opportunism and the essentialist approach it is used to support are unempirical in that grammatical facts are inconsistently appealed to across languages (and other facts that don’t support the essentialist definition are ignored).</div><div><br></div><div>If one doesn’t avoid the variation that makes it hard or impossible to posit an essentialist definition of a grammatical concept, then not only does one accept crosslinguistic diversity for what it is, but one can also find genuine crosslinguistic universals that cannot be found if one assumes an essentialist definition. Examples include the Subject Construction Hierarchy described in chapter 4 of <i>Radical Construction Grammar</i> (based on Kazenin 1994 plus some observations in Croft 1991); the typological markedness patterns for parts of speech in Croft 1991 and elsewhere; similar patterns for case marking and indexation (agreement) of core participants described in chapter 4 of <i>Typology and Universals</i> (based in turn on observations by a number of typologists); the deranking hierarchies of subordination described by Givón (1980) and Cristofaro (2003), and last and finest, the universals of predication of various concept types described by Stassen (1997), to name the ones that come most quickly to mind. And, perhaps not surprisingly, these crosslinguistic universals of variation support fairly traditional notions of ‘subject’, ‘noun’, ‘verb’, ‘adjective’, and ‘subordinate clause’, but in a nonessentialist fashion. One does not have to be an essentialist to construct a theory of language universals (or a universal theory of language, if you prefer that way of describing it). </div><div><br></div><div> I suspect that the same is true of ‘word’, and I am hoping someone will do it. It will be a major challenge, because it has to go from segmental and prosodic phonology to syntax, semantics and discourse. But I believe that a nonessentialist theory of wordhood that supports most of our intuitions can come out of it.</div><div><br></div><div>Bill<br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5"><div>On Nov 13, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Daniel Ross <<a href="mailto:djross3@illinois.edu" target="_blank">djross3@illinois.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="m_-3388851243329154561Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div><div><div><div class="h5"><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><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-3388851243329154561m_-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><a href="https://maps.google.com/?q=Leninsky+prospekt+32&entry=gmail&source=g">Leninsky prospekt 32</a>-A 119991 Moscow</div>
<div><a class="m_-3388851243329154561m_-968152490260205689moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru" target="_blank">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a></div>
<div><a class="m_-3388851243329154561m_-968152490260205689moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev" target="_blank">http://inslav.ru/people/arkade<wbr>v-petr-mihaylovich-peter-<wbr>arkadiev</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div> <br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</span><span><pre class="m_-3388851243329154561m_-968152490260205689moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="m_-3388851243329154561m_-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
<a href="https://maps.google.com/?q=Kahlaische+Strasse+10&entry=gmail&source=g">Kahlaische Strasse 10</a>
D-07745 Jena
&
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