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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 22.03.20 17:50, Larry M. HYMAN wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Adam - In my "catalogue" of 664 tone systems, I have 398 that have only two levels. Of these 85 have a LH tone. Of these 11 have been analyzed as having a contrast between LH and something else. A warning though: This is really an interpretation—for
example, Fasu has been analyzed as having a /H/ vs. /L/ on its stressed syllable, but it could have been set up as /HL/ vs. /LH/ (probably other possibilities). The fewer tonal contrasts, the more room for interpretation. I'm skeptical that you *have to* analyze
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I think that this case is really instructive, because this apparent difficulty arises all the time in comparative grammar research:<br>
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Different "interpretations" (or "descriptions", or "analyses") are possible, which makes comparisons questionable. My own expertise is in morphosyntax rather than phonology, but I see it all the time. Many people think that databases like WALS are not reliable,
because the "analyses" may not be the right ones. <br>
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Fortunately, there is a solution, I think:<br>
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The solution consists in distinguishing between (A) language-particular analyses/descriptions, and (B) uniform yardsticks for assessing ("measuring") similarities and differences between languages.<br>
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So what we'd need is a catalogue of tone systems that classifies tone languages not by "interpretations", but by uniform yardsticks. By "uniform", I mean "defined in the same way in all languages" – just like other measurement devices must be uniform across
measured instances (e.g. measurement of global inflation rates, which must be based on a uniform basket of goods and services that works for all countries).<br>
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(Alternatively, if one ants to distinguish the twoone might suggest that languages are different from other social systems and should be compared in the manner of chemical elements – by first finding the common building blocks of all languages (= the innate
features and architectures of UG), and then comparing languages on the basis of these building blocks. This has sometimes been attempted in generative grammar, but I have not seen any successes of this research programme.)<br>
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See this blogpost for more discussion of the two approaches: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2305">
https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2305</a><br>
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Best,<br>
Martin<br>
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<div>On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 9:15 AM Adam James Ross Tallman <<a href="mailto:ajrtallman@utexas.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">ajrtallman@utexas.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
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Hey all,</div>
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It's been suggested to me that the language I'm working on really makes a distinction between 0 vs. LH lexical marking, rather than 0 vs. H as I had previously thought. Looking at connected speech the evidence for this seems very strong and I'm starting to
overcome my initial resilience to the proposal.</div>
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Has this been proposed for any other language? (i.e. a language that just has 0, LH or 0, HL and no corresponding lexical Ls and Hs). I want to know what the evidence looks like for other language? In my case it's primarily phonetic and I'm not really sure
what strictly phonological evidence would look like.</div>
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Notice I'm not asking about pitch accents or intonational marking etc. But cases where it can be shown that the categories are really lexically specified.</div>
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Help would be appreciated, I hope everyone is well and healthy.</div>
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best,</div>
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Adam</div>
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-- <br>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman,
serif">Adam J.R. Tallman</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman,
serif">PhD, University of Texas at Austin<br>
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<div><font face="times new roman, serif">Investigador del Museo de Etnografía y Folklore, la Paz<br>
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<div><font face="times new roman, serif"><font style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font>ELDP -- </font>Postdoctorante<br>
</font><font style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font>CNRS -- </font>Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)</font></font><br>
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<div>Larry M. Hyman, Professor of Linguistics & Executive Director, France-Berkeley Fund</div>
<div>Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley</div>
<div><a href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=19" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=19</a></div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-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
Institut fuer Anglistik
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig </pre>
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