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<p>Hi<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 26/11/2021 10:17, JOO, Ian [Student]
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="auto"><br>
The question would be, when one asks a speaker of a given
language to divide a sentence into words, would the number of
words be consistent throughout different speakers?<br>
It would be an interesting experiment. I’d be happy to be
informed of any previous study who conducted such an
experiment.</div>
</div>
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<p>Yes, indeed. And it is an experiment, though largely
uncontrolled, that is carried out whenever someone carries out
fieldwork on an undocumented lect. In this context, speakers
provide evidence for word units in two ways: a) in elicitation
when prompted by pointing or with a word from a contact language;
b) when chunking a recording into chunks that can be written down
by the researcher.</p>
<p>In my experience, speakers across a given community are pretty
consistent in both activities though one may distinguish two basic
types speakers. One group provides word-like units, so when you
ask for "stone" you get a minimal form for stone. The other
primarily provides utterance-like units. So you do not get "stone"
but rather "look at this stone", "how big the stone is", "stones
for building ovens" or the like.</p>
<p>Depending on the language, there is some variation in the units
provided in both activities but this is typically restricted to
the kind of phenomena that later on cause the main problems in the
analytical reconstruction of a word unit, i.e. mostly phenomena
that come under the broad term of "clitics". In my view, one
should clearly distinguish between these analytical
reconstructions, which are basic building blocks of grammatial
descriptions, and the "natural" units provided by speakers, which
are primary data providing the basis for the description.<br>
</p>
<p>Best</p>
<p>Nikolaus<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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cite="mid:f3bf0245-64cd-43f5-a5a5-0af9222c73ba@Spark">
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Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
</div>
<div name="messageReplySection">On 26 Nov 2021, 2:56 PM +0800,
Martin Haspelmath <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de"><martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de></a>, wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-color: grey;
border-left-width: thin; border-left-style: solid; margin: 5px
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I felt that Dixon & Aikhenvald's (2002) introductory
chapter was very interesting:<br>
<br>
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35;
margin-left: 2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Dixon, R. M. W & Aikhenvald,
Alexandra Y. 2002. Word: A typological framework. In
Dixon, R. M.W & Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (eds.),
<i>Word: A cross-linguistic typology</i>, 1–41. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.</div>
<span class="Z3988"
title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Word%3A%20A%20typological%20framework&rft.place=Cambridge&rft.publisher=Cambridge%20University%20Press&rft.aufirst=R.%20M.%20W&rft.aulast=Dixon&rft.au=R.%20M.%20W%20Dixon&rft.au=Alexandra%20Y%20Aikhenvald&rft.au=R.%20M.W%20Dixon&rft.au=Alexandra%20Y%20Aikhenvald&rft.date=2002&rft.pages=1%20%E2%80%93%2041&rft.spage=1%20&rft.epage=%2041"></span></div>
<br>
Thy say (p. 2-3) that "it appears that only some languages
actually have a lexeme with the meaning ‘word’... The vast
majority of languages spoken by small tribal groups (with from
a few hundred to a few thousand speakers) have a lexeme
meaning ‘(proper) name’ but none have the meaning ‘word’."<br>
<br>
Even Latin does not have a single word for 'word' (there is <i>verbum</i>,
<i>vox</i>,
<i>sermo</i>, and <i>dictio</i>, the latter a technical
calque from Greek <i>léxis</i>).<br>
<br>
(Dixon & Aikhenvald's 2002 paper was a major inspiration
for my 2011 paper on the indeterminacy of word segmentation.)<br>
<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 26.11.21 um 07:16 schrieb JOO,
Ian [Student]:<br>
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cite="mid:27795b84-8c76-49e6-b41c-ed4b87fc3b7e@Spark">
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<div dir="auto">Dear typologists,<br>
<br>
As you may know already, the concept of “word” is
notoriously hard to define.<br>
Without getting into that, is the concept of wordhood
attested cross-linguistically?<br>
In other words, do people with different language
backgrounds believe that there is such a thing as a
“word”, and do what people perceive as a “word” tend to
be roughly the same concept?<br>
Which boils down to two questions:</div>
<ol type="1">
<li>Do many languages have a native, monomorphemic word
for “word”?</li>
<li>If so, do these words for “word” refer to roughly
the same (or, at least, similar) concept?</li>
</ol>
<div dir="auto">I would like to examine whether wordhood
is a psychological reality shared by speakers of
different languages.</div>
</div>
<div name="messageSignatureSection"><br>
Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
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