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<p><font size="+1">Thanks Bill</font></p>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/6/2021 8:38 PM, William Croft
wrote:<br>
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<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I agree with that
critique (see Croft 2001). But if we take a functionalist,
usage-based, constructional approach to language description,
then I think that "descriptive categories" will be rather
different from what Martin refers to, and will turn out to have
more in common with comparative concepts. After all, meanings
and discourse functions are part of language-specific
description; a usage-based view of constructions and the roles
they define would not posit abstract language-specific
categories but a conceptual space of uses that are comparable
across languages; and the universals found in typological
research both define and constrain relations between
language-specific constructions, including their variation and
evolution (see Croft 2001, 2013). And I think that a lot of
language description does much of this in practice, even if the
authors aren't particularly concerned about these theoretical
issues.
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<div> (I think I am here largely agreeing with Nikolaus
Himmelmann's paper in review that was cited by Erich.)</div>
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<p><font size="+1">Yes, that is exactly my point in <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005705">Against
trivializing language description (and comparison)</a>. <br>
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<p><font size="+1">The more general point is that I do not believe
that <b>simplistic binarisms </b>(e.g. description vs
comparison, analysis vs classification (how is one possible
without the other?), innate building-blockers vs the rest of the
world) is a productive way of approaching methodological issues
in language description and comparison. To be sure, there are
times and issues where it is helpful to get rid of traditional
baggage and accumulated metaphysics obscuring the core of an
essentially simple issue. Reductionism is a necessary and
productive ingredient of scientific enquiry. But there are
limits to pushing hard for the simple solution and reducing
overwhelming complexity as a methodological step as these may
easily lead to trivial or dangerously misleading results. <br>
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<p><font size="+1">All best</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">Nikolaus<br>
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