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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This is an interesting discussion and I was particularly pleased to see Mark Post mention ‘function’ (“…,
<em>it</em> [wordhood] <em>must be functionally motivated</em>, …”) and briefly addressing the fuzzy nature of a ‘comparative concept’. It seems one of the main obstacles to make progress in this area, and in cross-linguistic research generally, is the term
‘comparative concept’. This post goes a bit beyond definitional problems concerning wordhood, of course, but to go back into the stratosphere again (to quote Bill Croft), I think using the term ‘comparative concept’ ultimately won't help us to come up with
reliable cross-linguistic categories, because (i) no one seems to know what a concept is (Machery 2009, Malt 2010), and (ii) ‘comparative concepts’ seem/appear to allow for categories that may contain a rather wide variety of (incomparable) forms and constructions.</span>
<p><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> In morphosyntactic typology, for example, the almost exclusive focus on ‘meaning’ that comes (came initially? - cf. Haspelmath 2007*) with the conceptual approach has resulted in
categories that contain rather different morphosyntactic forms and constructions. But how can a collection of different morphosyntactic forms and constructions constitute a single (valid) morphosyntactic category<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> (Rijkhoff
2009, 2016</span>)? The fuzzy nature of (mostly) meaning-based definitions has been a problem since Greenberg’s groundbreaking work on universals and continues to be a problem with ‘conceptual concepts’, which are essentially more explicit versions of Greenbergian
categories<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> (1966: 74)</span>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> Furthermore, as long as ‘(communicative or discourse) function’ is not recognized as a relevant parameter in cross-linguistic research (apparently these days ‘comparative concepts’
are ultimately supposed to be exclusively based on “phonetic substance or semantic substance”), any attempt to arrive at a valid cross-linguistic category is bound to fail. For example, many words (however defined) can be used in various functions (e.g. as
different kinds of modifiers, or as a modifier and a predicate; Rijkhoff 2014).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> It may also be good to remember that we cannot compare everything in all languages. If we always want to include all languages in a typological investigation, we will often end
up with a mixed bag, a category whose members have (too) little in common with each other. One way to avoid this is to employ distinct functional, semantic and formal criteria (not simultaneously, but sequentially) to arrive at a cross-linguistic category
whose members are truly comparable (Rijkhoff 2016).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> In sum, in order to get ahead, it seems we need (i) to replace ‘concept’ with a less abstract term like ‘category’ (as some of the contributors to this discussion already did),
and (ii) to establish cross-linguistic categories in a systematic, transparent way, for example by using a procedure in which the various kinds of criteria are clearly distinguished and applied in a certain order. Only then others can assess the validity of
a proposed cross-linguistic category and decide to follow the same procedure (or not, of course). This would also make it possible to compare the outcome of typological investigations, which is currently usually not possible. Not to mention the fact that one
needs a theory to make sense of data (eloquently stated by Charles Darwin in a letter to Henry Fawcett in 1861), and many typologists seem to be working outside comprehensive theoretical frameworks.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">* Haspelmath (2007: 119, 126-127): “meaning”: “substance (unlike categories) is universal”, “comparison must be semantically based”, “we must hold the meaning constant – at least this
must be universal”. On problems with such a meaning-based approach to cross-linguistic research, see also Willems (2016a, 2016b).</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Best, Jan</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong style="font-size: 11pt;">References</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.),
<em style="">Universals of language</em> (2<sup style="">nd</sup> edition), 73-113. Cambridge: MIT.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Pre-established categories don’t exist: Consequences for language description and typology.
<em style="">Linguistic Typology</em> 11-1, 119-132.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Machery, Edouard. 2009.<em style=""> Doing without concepts</em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Malt, Barbara C. 2010. Why we should do without concepts.
<em style="">Mind and Language</em> 25(2). 622-633.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Rijkhoff, Jan. 2009. On the (un)suitability of semantic categories.
<em style="">Linguistic Typology</em> 13-1, 95‑104.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Rijkhoff, Jan. 2014. Modification as a propositional act. In M. de los Ángeles Gómez González, F. José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & F. Gonzálvez-García (eds.),
<em style="">Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space</em>, 129-150. Amsterdam: Benjamins.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Rijkhoff, Jan. 2016. Crosslinguistic categories in morphosyntactic typology: Problems and prospects.
<em style="">Linguistic Typology</em> 20-2, 333-363.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Willems, Klaas. 2016a. Empirische, essentiële en mogelijke universalia:
<em style="">Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen </em>bij het ‘categoriale particularisme’ in de moderne taaltypologie.
<em style="">Leuvense Bijdragen</em> 99-100, 170-187.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Willems, Klaas. 2016b. The universality of categories and meaning: a Coserian perspective.
<em style="">Acta Lingusitica Hafniensia</em>, DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2016.1141565.</span></p>
<p> </p>
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<div class="PlainText">J. Rijkhoff - Associate Professor, Linguistics<br>
School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University<br>
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1485-621<br>
DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK<br>
Phone: (+45) 87162143<br>
E-mail: linjr@cc.au.dk<br>
URL: <a rel="nofollow" id="NoLP" tabindex="0" href="https://www.researchgate.net/deref/http%3A%2F%2Fperson.au.dk%2Fen%2Flinjr%40hum" target="_blank">
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Mark Post <markwpost@gmail.com><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 17, 2017 2:10 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] wordhood: bonded vs. bound</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<div>Having been away for some time, I've had some difficulty reconstructing the chronology of this discussion and some posts containing HTML have not been fully replicated in the LINGTYP archives, so I sincerely apologize in advance if I have missed or misconstrued
anything that has been said. That said, it seems to me that an essential problem underlying the exchange in these threads that may not have been fully articulated yet is that the concept "word" has multiple personalities. It is both two things, and one thing:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That is, we know that "word" requires independent grammatical and phonological definitions, leading to the notions "grammatical (or morphosyntactic) word" and "phonological (or prosodic) word". And we know that these two independently-defined units very
frequently fail to coincide: certain forms may be good grammatical words but bad phonological words (clitics), while other forms may be good phonological words but bad grammatical words (oddly, I don't think that there is an accepted term for this perhaps
less commonly-identified phenomenon - please correct me if I'm wrong). And as Hyman, Bickel and
<a href="https://www.academia.edu/197257/The_phonology_and_grammar_of_Galo_words_A_case_study_in_benign_disunity">
others </a>have pointed out, the concepts "grammatical word" and "phonological word" themselves might be easier or more difficult (or perhaps impossible?) to define in terms of unified sets of criteria in particular languages. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But at the same time, we can see that these two independently-defined types of unit very often<i> do</i> align, in many languages, much of the time. That is to say, we very often get cases in which there is a type of unit in a particular language between
"morpheme" (i.e., whose constituents are morphemes) and "syntactic phrase" (i.e., which is a constituent of a syntactic phrase), and a type of unit between "foot" and "phonological phrase" (although for my own part, I'm less confident about the latter), and
we very often find correspondence between these units. This fact also seems to merit recognition, and some sort of explanation (and no, I don't believe that orthography has very much to do with it in an overall sense - Sinitic and Thai grammarians have the
more or less the same sorts of problems in terms of defining wordhood, despite that the traditional orthographies for these language groups are in a sense on opposite ends of the segmentation spectrum).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The clear implication is that wordhood is an emergent phenomenon, as Ross <a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/2017-November/005829.html">
suggested</a> early in the first thread. That being the case, it must be functionally motivated, although I confess I have a hard time trying to characterize what that motivation would be - perhaps it's as simple as the (eminently violable) isomorphism principle?
All things being equal, a language should want one phonological gesture to correspond to one semantic unit, expressed as a grammatical form, and vice versa? Whatever the case might be, I feel that unless typologists are prepared to accept fuzzy "comparative
concepts" along the above lines ("words" <i>tend to</i> exhibit the sets of grammatical and phonological characteristics
<i>a, b, c... </i>and<i> p, q, r...</i>), as opposed to those based on all-or-nothing criteria (an extension of Dryer's definition of affixes <a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/2017-November/005867.html">here</a>, for example, wouldn't
seem to account for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/endoclitics-and-the-origins-of-udi-morphosyntax-9780199246335?cc=au&lang=en&">
endoclitics</a>, although to some extent that might depend on analyses), we'll continue to go around in circles. To take Bickel's
<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/2017-November/005843.html">
statement </a>one step further, the problem is not just that there are no Platonic "words" out there, although that's no doubt true, but also that the use of would-be-watertight definitions for comparative concepts is incommensurate with the nature of the object
under definition.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers</div>
<div>Mark</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>PS - can I also point out that there is a <a href="https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/index.php/s/l8zu11lidrfJgc1#pdfviewer">
session </a>in the coming ALT conference on "wordhood"? It would be nice to be able to continue some of this discussion there! </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>------ Original Message ------</div>
<div>From: "Larry M. HYMAN" <<a href="mailto:hyman@berkeley.edu">hyman@berkeley.edu</a>></div>
<div>To: "Plank" <<a href="mailto:frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de">frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de</a>></div>
<div>Cc: "lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>></div>
<div>Sent: 17/11/2017 5:06:33 AM</div>
<div>Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] wordhood: bonded vs. bound</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div id="x27a34de6baae4ed">
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite2">
<div dir="ltr">I of course agree with Frans (as I usually do), and not only because we are both great fans of phonology!
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I do have to add a couple of things:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>1. It is well-known to phonologists that the "(phonological) word" can not only differ from what is needed for grammatical purposes, but in fact can be inconsistent, requiring one parsing for vowel harmony, another for stress etc. In fact, I distinguish
8 different logical "phonological words" on pp.335-6 of this paper:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Hyman, Larry M. 2008. <span style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify">“Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu.”
</span><i style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify">Linguistics</i><span style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify"> 46(2), 309-349.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify">2. The article that Frans cites by Joan Bybee in that great journal (what is it called again? oh!
<i>LT</i>!) is a very stimulating and provocative paper, as I can attest (I guess no harm in revealing that I was the associate editor that recommended publication). In it Joan looks at a small set of languages (ca. 20) in her GramCats database and doesn't
find the expected degree of skewing of phonological properties according to root vs. affix. However, I believe that a wider search would show this is much more widespread than her survey revealed. Granted that Africa has relatively few genetic stocks, and
that root-affix (or rather stem-initial vs. non-stem-initial) asymmetries are in many cases an areal phenomenon, but it is typical of African languages that (1) affixes do not have as many contrasts in vowels, consonants or (sometimes) tones as roots; (2)
the realization of the consonants, vowels and tones can be different on affixes vs. root. This is also documented in the above article.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:Palatino; font-size:10pt; text-align:justify"><b><br>
</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Palatino"><span style="font-size:13.3333px"><b>I would be very interested in whether non-phonology-oriented typologists find this interesting, uninteresting, or irrelevant to their/your work.</b></span></font></div>
<div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Palatino"><span style="font-size:13.3333px"><br>
Thanks, Larry</span></font></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.75in"><span style="font-size:10pt; font-family:Palatino"></span></p>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 1:41 AM, Plank <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de">frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de</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">Doesn’t PHONOLOGY give you away when you’re an affix?
<div><br>
</div>
<div>See, among many others, Roman Jakobson:</div>
<div>
<div style="font-size:16.6043px; font-family:sans-serif">“Affixes, particularly inflectional suffixes, in the languages where they exist, habitually differ from the other morphemes by a restricted and selected use of phonemes and their combinations” (Jakobson
1966 [1990: 414])</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Translated into OT: </div>
<div><span style="font-family:sans-serif; font-size:16.6043px">There is a universal ordering priority of faith</span><span style="font-family:sans-serif; font-size:16.6043px">fulness in roots over faithfulness in affixes (McCarthy & Prince 1995: 116–117, </span><span style="font-family:sans-serif; font-size:16.6043px">Alderete
1999, Ussishkin 2000)</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And the reason, as always, is grammaticalization:</div>
<div>
<div style="font-size:16.6043px; font-family:sans-serif">The phonological segments in affixes “are drawn from a progressively shrinking set” (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 154), whose members are the universally unmarked segments</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Alas, here is Joan Bybee, debunking this wonderful idea in that spoilsport of a journal:</div>
<div>Restrictions on phonemes in affixes: A crosslinguistic test of a popular hypothesis.</div>
<div>Linguistic Typology 9. 165-222, 2005.</div>
<div><br>
Isn’t phonology useless …</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Frans</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="cite">
<div>On 16. Nov 2017, at 10:14, Martin Haspelmath <<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:</div>
<br class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-interchange-newline">
<div><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Matthew
Dryer thinks that wordhood is generally understood by grammar authors in terms of<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><b style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">bondedness</b><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span>(=
phonological weakness, as shown by nonsyllabicity and phono-conditioned allomorphy), not in terms of<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><b style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">boundness</b><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span>(=
inability to occur in isolation).<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">I
don’t know if this is true, but Matthew actually recognizes that grammars often describe grammatical markers as “affixes” even when they do not show the two “phonological weakness” (or bondedness) features.</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">For
example, Tauya (a language of New Guinea) is said to have (syllabic) case suffixes, but these never show any allomorphy, e.g.</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">fena’a-ni
[woman-ERG]</span><u></u><u></u><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">na-pe
[you-BEN]</span><u></u><u></u><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">wate-’usa
[house-INESS]</span><u></u><u></u><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Aresa-nani
[Aresa-ALL]</span><u></u><u></u><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Tauya-sami
[Tauya-ABL] (MacDonald 1990: 119-126)</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">It
is my impression that such ortho-affixes (= forms written as affixes) are perhaps even more common than “phonologically weak” ortho-affixes, but this is an empirical question (in his 2015 ALT abstract, Matthew mentions 248 languages with weak affixes, but
308 languages with only affixes of the Tauya type, apparently confirming my impression).</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">For
this reason, I have suggested that the stereotypical “affix” notion should perhaps be captured in terms of boundness together with single-root-class adjacency. Since the Tauya case-markers attach only to nouns, they count as affixes; by contrast, if a bound
role marker attaches to both nouns (English “for children”) and adjectives (“for older children”) as well as to other elements (“for many children”), we do not regard it as an affix (but as a preposition), even if it is bound (= does not occur in isolation;
English "for" does not).</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Matthew
quite rightly points out that this notion of boundness (which goes back at least to Bloomfield 1933: §10.1) implies that most function words in English are bound, and in fact most function words in most languages are bound – but this is exactly what we want,
I feel, because the best way to define a “function word” is as a bound element that is not an affix. Linguists often think of function words (or “functional categories”) as defined semantically, but it is actually very hard to say what is the semantic(-pragmatic)
difference between a plural marker and a word like “several”, between a dual marker and the word “two”, between a past-tense marker and the expression “in the past”, or between a comitative marker and the word “accompany”. It seems to me that these distinctions
are best characterized in terms of boundness, i.e. inability to occur in isolation.</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">It
may be true that occurrence in isolation is a feature of an element that is not easy to elicit from speakers, but in actual language use, there are a very large number of very short utterances, so at least positive evidence for free status (=non-bound status)
is not difficult to obtain.</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">In
any event, it seems clear to me that some key concepts of grammatical typology such as “flag” (= bound role marker on a nominal) and “person index” (= bound person marker, generally on a verb) require the Bloomfieldian boundness notion, and that these concepts
are much easier to work with in typology than the traditional stereotypical notions of “case”, “adposition”, “agreement marker”, and “pronominal clitic”. (For bound person forms, this was a major lesson of Anna Siewierska’s 2004 book “Person”.)</span><u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u> <u></u></div>
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Best,</span><u></u><u></u><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Martin</span><br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<br style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<u></u><u></u><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; float:none; display:inline!important; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"></span>
<div class="m_-1522193483059890635moz-cite-prefix" style="font-family:LucidaGrande; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
On 14.11.17 07:02, Dryer, Matthew wrote:<br>
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">I have a number of problems with Martin’s proposal:<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-size:14pt">"<b>Here’s a proposal for defining a notion of “affix”, in such a way that the results do not go too much against our intuitions or stereotypes:</b><u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-size:14pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><b><span style="font-size:14pt">An affix is a bound form that always occurs together with a root of the same root-class and is never separated from the root by a free form or a non-affixal
bound form."</span></b><span style="font-size:14pt"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">If one examines the notion of “bound” from his 2013 paper, I believe it implies a comparative concept of affix that differs greatly from what most linguists (at last most non-generative
linguists) understand by the term. That’s not a problem for it as a comparative concept, but it is a comparative concept that differs considerably from the stereotype.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">Martin’s definition of “free and “bound” from his 2013 paper is as follows:<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><b><span style="font-family:Times; font-size:18px">"But distinguishing in a general way between bound elements and free elements is quite straightforward, because there is a single criterion:
Free forms are forms that can occur on their own, i.e. in a complete (possibly elliptical) utterance (Bloomfield 1933: 160). This criterion correlates very highly with the criterion of contrastive use: Only free forms can be used contrastively."<u></u><u></u></span></b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">
<span style="font-size:13pt; font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:Times">First, I find the notion of complete utterance ambiguous. Does it mean utterances in normal speech or does it include metalinguistic uses (like “What is
the last word in the sentence “Who are you going with”? Answer “with”). I would assume that it does not include such metalinguistic uses. But then many if not most so-called function words in English would count as bound since they cannot be used as complete
utterances. Perhaps other speakers of English would have different intuitions, but if so that only indicates the lack of clarity in the notion. Furthermore, for many function words in English, I am not sure how to judge whether they can occur alone as utterances.
Many such so-called function words would appear to count as bound by Martin’s definition, though they would not count as affixes since they lack other properties in his definition of “affix”.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">
<span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:Times">Second, many languages have grammatical morphemes that must occur adjacent to an open class word but which behave as separate words phonologically. These
would all apparently count as affixes by Martin’s definition. Again, I have no problem with this as a comparative concept, only that it means his notion of affix deviates considerably from the stereotype.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">
<span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:Times">Third, Martin says that his criterion “</span><span style="font-family:Times">correlates very highly with the criterion of contrastive use</span><span style="font-family:Times">”.
But by my intuitions, the ability to occur as complete utterances does not correlate closely with the criterion of contrastive use, since most so-called function words CAN occur with contrastive use (such as can in this sentence!), as can some morphemes that
are conventionally treated as affixes, like<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>un-</i><span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span>in “I’m not happy, I’m UNhappy”. Of course, Martin might argue that<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>un-</i><span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span>is
more like so-called function words and less like morphemes conventionally treated as affixes. But the fact remains that<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>un-</i><span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span>is
easily the locus of contrast but cannot be used as a complete utterance. I thus see no evidence of a close correlation between the ability to occur as a complete utterance and the ability to be the locus of contrast.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">
<span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:Times">Finally, it is my experience that languages differ in their conventions regarding what can be a complete utterance. Imagine two closely related languages
that differ in their grammatical rules governing what is a complete utterance. By Martin’s definition, there might be a large number of morphemes that count as separate words in one language but as affixes in the other language. This strikes me as odd. It
seems odd to have a criterion for what is a word and what is an affix so dependent on the grammatical rules in the language for what constitutes a complete utterance.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria">
<span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:14px; font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:Times">Matthew<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From:<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Martin Haspelmath
<<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date:<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 10:47 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To:<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>"<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.<wbr>linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:<span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Re: [Lingtyp] wordhood<br>
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<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Mattis List and Balthasar Bickel rightly emphasize that “word” is not a Platonic entity (a natural kind) that exists in advance of language learning or linguistic analysis – few linguists
would disagree here, not even generativists (who otherwise liberally assume natural-kind catgeories).<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">But I think many linguists still ACT AS IF there were such a natural kind, because the “word” notion is a crucial ingredient to a number of other notions that linguists use routinely
– e.g. “gender”, which is typically defined in terms of “agreement” (which is defined in terms of inflectional marking on targets; and inflection is defined in terms of “word”).<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">So is it possible to define a comparative concept ‘word’ that applies to all languages equally, and that accords reasonably with our stereotypes? Note that I didn’t deny this in my 2011
paper, I just said that nobody had come up with a satisfactory definition (that could be used, for instance, in defining “gender” or “polysynthesis”). So I’ll be happy to contribute to a discussion on how to make progress on defining “word”.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Larry Hyman notes that other notions like “syllable” and “sentence” are also problematic in that they also “leak”. However, I think it is important to distinguish two situations of “slipperiness”:<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">(1) “Leakage” of definitions due to vague defining notions<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">(2) Incoherence of definitions due to the use of different criteria in different languages<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">The first can be addressed by tightening the defining notions, but the second is fatal.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">To take up Östen Dahl’s example of the “family” notion: In one culture, a family might be said to be a set of minimally three living people consisting of two adults (regardless of gender)
living in a romantic relationship plus all their descendants. In another culture, a family might be defined as a married couple consisting of a man and a woman plus all their living direct ancestors, all their (great) uncles and (great) aunts, and all the
descendants of all of these.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">With two family concepts as different as these, it is obviously not very interesting to ask general cross-cultural questions about “families” (e.g. “How often do all family members have
meals together?”). So the use of different criteria for different cultures is fatal here.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">What I find worrying is that linguists often seem to accept incoherent definitions of comparative concepts (this was emphasized especially in my 2015 paper on defining vs. diagnosing
categories). Different diagnostics in different languages would not be fatal if “word” were a Platonic (natural-kind) concept, but if we are not born with a “word” category, typologists need to use the SAME criteria for all languages.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">So here’s a proposal for defining a notion of “simple morphosyntactic word”:<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><b>A simple morphosyntactic word is a form that consists of (minimally) a root, plus any affixes.<u></u><u></u></b></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Here’s a proposal for defining a notion of “affix”, in such a way that the results do not go too much against our intuitions or stereotypes:<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><b>An affix is a bound form that always occurs together with a root of the same root-class and is never separated from the root by a free form or a non-affixal bound form.<u></u><u></u></b></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">These definitions make use of the notions of “root” and “root-class” (defined in Haspelmath 2012) and<span> <span class="m_-1522193483059890635Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>“bound
(form)” vs. “free (form)” (defined in Haspelmath 2013). All these show leakage as in (1) above, but they are equally applicable to all languages, so they are not incoherent. (I thank Harald Hammarström for a helpful discussion that helped me to come up with
the above definitions, which I had not envisaged in 2011.)<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">(What I don’t know at the moment is how to relate “simple morphosyntactic word” to “morphosyntactic word” in general, because I cannot distinguish compounds from phrases comparatively;
and I don’t know what to do with “phonological word”.)<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Crucially, the definitions above make use of a number of basic concepts that apply to ALL languages in the SAME way. David Gil’s proposal, to measure “bond strength” by means of a range
of language-particular phenomena, falls short of this requirement (as already hinted by Eitan Grossman). Note that the problem I have with David’s proposal is not that it provides no categorical contrasts (recall my acceptance of vagueness in (1) above), but
that there is no way of telling which phenomena should count as measuring bond strength.<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">David’s approach resembles Keenan’s (1976) attempt at defining “subject” (perhaps not by accident, because Ed Keenan was David’s PhD supervisor), but I have a similar objection to Keenan:
If different criteria are used for different languages, how do we know that we are measuring the same phenomenon across languages? Measuring X by means of Y makes sense only if we know independently that X and Y are very highly correlated. But do we know this,
for subjects, or for bond strength?<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Best,<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria">Martin<u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size:12pt; font-family:Cambria"><u></u> <u></u></div>
<br>
<pre class="m_-1522193483059890635moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="m_-1522193483059890635moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">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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<pre class="m_-1522193483059890635moz-signature" cols="72" style="font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-align:start; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; word-spacing:0px; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="m_-1522193483059890635moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">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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