<div dir="ltr">Most of us on this list server, if having some shared broad linguistic framework at all, probably practice some form of Basic Linguistic Theory, and many of us probably even view our work as theory-neutral. Also, even if we view any definition as necessarily bound by a theory, it does not change the fact that within our community per se it is still more desirable for at least most of us to have some consensus when we use some core terms, whether it is passive, relative clause, or personal pronoun. I believe this would be better for our linguistic research. How many times do we have to say that for the same linguistic term Researcher A's definition is X, Researcher B's definition is Y, Researcher C's definition is Z, and so on and so forth, and to avoid misunderstanding my own definition in this study is N? Then the next researcher of the next or the same generation has to examine these more definitions and might provide another new definition. Is this healthy for our research and for its continuity and development? A terminology committee would be very helpful to sort things out and to provide advisory definitions after discussions, debates, and careful deliberations. This work is not prescriptive and will actually surely recognize that the same notion might be used completely differently in another linguistic theory or framework. It only plays an advisory role, offers some guidance, and never forces any fellow linguist to accept their view. It fosters consistency and encourages (but never forces) researchers to come up with some new term to refer to something different than what is meant by an existing term defined by the committee. I personally believe that this is really something beneficial to this community of researchers who value crosslinguistic and typological studies and who devote themselves to such endeavors. <br><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>Chao</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 5:50 AM Christian Lehmann <<a href="mailto:christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de">christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%" lang="en-US"> I second Bill’s verdict that terms are not defined
in isolation; definitions have their place in a theory. The
concepts defined have their place in a taxonomy and/or meronomy.
And since our theories are empirical theories, if two objects <span lang="en-US">systematically share some ascertainable property,
then it is useful to subsume them under a suitable hyperonym.
For instance, if you have a language in which not only
interrogative pronouns, but also interrogative pro-adjectives
and even interrogative pro-adverbs share some formal properties
like starting with </span><span lang="en-US"><i>wh-</i></span><span lang="en-US"> and some behavioral properties like preferring the
initial focus position etc., then a hyperonym like
‘interrogative proform’ is useful. And once you have defined it
(in your theory of interrogation, grammaticalization (of
proforms) etc.), you can even use it in the description of a
language whose interrogative proforms do not seem to share
formal properties or which does not even seem to have such a
class, just in order to conveniently state this fact. Needless
to say, the same goes for personal pronouns, proforms in general
and just anything.</span></p>
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<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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