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<p>I would like to endorse some of the more recent contributions to
this discussion, specifically:</p>
<p>* It seems to me that the term 'comparative concept' is often
used to legitimize cross-linguistic comparison, as a solution to
the problem of "comparison of incommensurable systems". It
describes common practice; but that doesn't mean, in my view, that
its application or use renders our research more valid. If
comparative concepts are subjective and arbitrary, their use
amounts to violating some of the most important quality criteria
of empirical research.</p>
<p>* As "we" (not sure who exactly that pronoun refers to, but it's
widely used on this list) do not believe in innate concepts, we do
not of course believe in "Platonic" words; but if we want to
assume that "word" is a unit of classification relevant to human
language, e.g. because there is some covariation between
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria, it
should be defined in functional terms (and do we really want to
abandon "word" order typology?). Proper names might provide a
suitable prototype, as they can straightforwardly be defined in
functional terms (e.g. in a pragmatic way à la Peirce). If I am
not mistaken, prominent theories of language acquisition rely on
the notion of "word". Perhaps there is a cognitive motivation
after all. <br>
</p>
<p>Volker<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 17.11.2017 um 13:22 schrieb Dryer,
Matthew:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I think that these five phenomena can be
considered a single comparative concept only if they are
exhaustive in the sense that there cannot be any other
phenomena that are arguably instances of the intended higher
order concept they are instances of. In other words, it is not
enough that the phenomena share something in common.
Otherwise, we really have a disjunctive definition in
disguise. After all, Martin’s meggle people all share the
property of being people. It is not immediately obvious,
however, that these five phenomena share some property to the
exclusion of all others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I am puzzled by Martin’s asking whether
there is evidence for such an abstract property. It’s not
clear what it would mean for there to be evidence for such a
property. One needs to give an argument, perhaps, but surely
not evidence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Matthew</span><!--EndFragment-->
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">
<div style="font-family:Calibri; font-size:11pt;
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Lingtyp <<a
href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>>
on behalf of Martin Haspelmath <<a
href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" moz-do-not-send="true">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Wednesday,
November 15, 2017 at 7:53 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>"
<<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>Re: [Lingtyp]
wordhood<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>Christian Lehmann's paper on concepts and categories
can be read as </div>
<div>supporting the idea that comparative concepts can also
be used for </div>
<div>describing languages, but in a recent extended exchange
with him, I </div>
<div>understood that he actually supports the idea that
structural </div>
<div>descriptions and tertia comparationis (= comparative
concepts) are on a </div>
<div>different level.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In any event, we seem to agree mostly that disjunctive
definitions are </div>
<div>"pointless" or even "incoherent" (as I have put it).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>David wants to argue that the diverse phenomena in
different languages </div>
<div>can be seen as reflecting some more abstract formal
property. So for </div>
<div>example, all of (1)-(5) could be seen to reflect
phonological </div>
<div>"bondedness" (or "same prosodic domain"):</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(1) vowel harmony</div>
<div>(2) tone sandhi</div>
<div>(3) progressive ATR assimilation</div>
<div>(4) vowel reduction</div>
<div>(5) preoralization of final nasals</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But my question is: Is there independent evidence for
the existence of </div>
<div>this abstract formal property?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To go back to my absurd example of "meggle people": I
could set up an </div>
<div>abstract feature [megglehood] and claim that the
various observable </div>
<div>properties (Huawei smartphone, Mendelssohn music,
taxi-driving) are just </div>
<div>manifestations of this abstract feature.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So is there reason to think that (1)-(5) are different?
Well, for </div>
<div>(1)-(3), one can give a substantive reason for their
coherence: They are </div>
<div>all assimilatory (though I'm not sure about tone
sandhi). Intuitively, </div>
<div>elements that are assimilated to each other have a
strong "bond", so I </div>
<div>would find it OK to regard them as manifestations of an
abstract feature </div>
<div>[bondedness].</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But (4)-(5) are not – they are merely restricted to
particular domains, </div>
<div>like all other grammatical rules. To the extent that
different </div>
<div>phonological rules appeal to the same domain, this
gives us reasons to </div>
<div>say that the domain has a privileged existence within
the language </div>
<div>(though even domains that are relevant only for one
rule must be part of </div>
<div>the grammar). But I don't see how such domains can
serve as comparative </div>
<div>concepts, if the reasons for setting them up are
different from language </div>
<div>to language.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(Again, as I said earlier: Comparative concepts must
eventually be based </div>
<div>on substance – phonetic substance or semantic
substance. </div>
<div>Language-particular abstract concepts such as domains
are not good for </div>
<div>comparison.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Martin</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On 15.11.17 10:25, Peter Arkadiev wrote:</div>
<blockquote id="MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="BORDER-LEFT: #b5c4df 5 solid; PADDING:0 0 0 5;
MARGIN:0 0 0 5;">
<div>Thank you, David, this methodological (and
theoretical) point of is utmost importance. I guess the
point Christian Lehmann makes in his recent paper
<a
href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu/publ/lehmann_ling_concepts_categories.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">
https://www.christianlehmann.eu/publ/lehmann_ling_concepts_categories.pdf</a>
is very similar in spirit.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Peter</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 119991 Moscow</div>
<div><a href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru"
moz-do-not-send="true">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a></div>
<div><a
href="http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>15.11.2017, 09:07, "David Gil" <<a
href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" moz-do-not-send="true">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>>:</div>
<blockquote id="MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="BORDER-LEFT: #b5c4df 5 solid; PADDING:0 0 0 5;
MARGIN:0 0 0 5;">
<div>In response to Bill's ...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On 14/11/2017 23:37, William Croft wrote:</div>
<blockquote id="MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE"
style="BORDER-LEFT: #b5c4df 5 solid; PADDING:0 0 0 5;
MARGIN:0 0 0 5;">
<div> A definition “variably interpreted in each
language” is a disjunctive</div>
<div> definition. If I use fact A to define ‘word’
in Language X, fact B to</div>
<div> define ‘word’ in Language Y, and fact C to
define ‘word’ in Language</div>
<div> Z, then ‘word’ is defined as “defined by
either A or B or C”. Or else</div>
<div> ‘word’ means something different in Languages
X, Y and Z, i.e. it is a</div>
<div> language-specific concept, and the fact that
it’s called ‘word’ in</div>
<div> each language is just a coincidence.</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Sorry, but I just don't get this. If language X has
a significant</div>
<div>pattern involving, say, vowel harmony and some
idiosyncratic rule</div>
<div>preoralizing final nasals, language Y has a
structurally somewhat</div>
<div>different pattern involving tone sandhi and
progressive ATR</div>
<div>assimilation, while language Z makes use of
patterns of stress and vowel</div>
<div>reduction to define particular phonological
domains, then they're</div>
<div>obviously as different from each other as we all
know languages to be.</div>
<div>So yes, if John describes X as having an X-Word,
Mary describes Y as</div>
<div>having a Y-Word, and Bill describes Z as having a
Z-Word, then these are</div>
<div>indeed three language-specific and (in one sense of
the word)</div>
<div>incommensurate notions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And sure, defining a would-be comparative concept
of word disjunctively,</div>
<div>as X-Word OR Y-Word OR Z-Word OR ... would be
unrevealing and rather</div>
<div>pointless. (I was going to say "uninteresting", but
that sounded too</div>
<div>Chomskyan.) However, and here's the rub, there is
no principled reason</div>
<div>why it should not be possible to take John, Mary
and Bill's descriptions</div>
<div>of X, Y and Z and abstract away from them a shared
formal property which</div>
<div>we then might choose to refer to as a comparative
concept of word. Yes,</div>
<div>the comparative concept of word would be "variably
interpreted in each</div>
<div>language", but no, the definition of the
comparative concept would not</div>
<div>involve disjunctions; it would simply obtain at a
higher level of</div>
<div>abstraction than the language-specific phenomena
that formed the basis</div>
<div>for the original three language-specific
descriptions. (Such</div>
<div>abstractions are the bread and butter of our work
as typologists, just</div>
<div>stop and think for a moment how many cycles of
abstraction are involved</div>
<div>in a comparative concept such as "passive".) And
crucially, it need not</div>
<div>necessarily involve the kind of "clustering" that
Martin was taking about.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This is what I am trying to do with my proposed
definition of</div>
<div>comparative-concept word. Granted, the proof of the
pudding is in the</div>
<div>eating ... and I'm still a bit of a way from
getting my definition to</div>
<div>work, by which I mean being both implementable and
interesting. But my</div>
<div>point here and now is not to defend my (or any
other) definition of</div>
<div>word, but merely to argue that there is nothing
incoherent in the</div>
<div>attempt to define a comparative concept of word —
even for those of us</div>
<div>(myself included) who share a radically relativist
view of linguistic</div>
<div>typology.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>David</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--</div>
<div>David Gil</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution</div>
<div>Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History</div>
<div>Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Email: <a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de"
moz-do-not-send="true">gil@shh.mpg.de</a></div>
<div>Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834</div>
<div>Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div>-- </div>
<div>Martin Haspelmath (<a
href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de"
moz-do-not-send="true">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)</div>
<div>Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History</div>
<div>Kahlaische Strasse 10<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>
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<div>D-07745 Jena</div>
<div>&</div>
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<div>Nikolaistrasse 6-10</div>
<div>D-04109 Leipzig</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Prof. Volker Gast
English and American Studies
Ernst-Abbe-PLatz 8
D-07743 Jena
Fon: ++49 3641 9-44546
Fax: ++49 3641 9-44542</pre>
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