<div dir="ltr">One sees something kindred(?) in genomics. Organisms have mechanisms to control the fidelity of transcription as well as copying of genetic material. But the mechanisms themselves are subject to evolutionary forces- they can be pushed to even higher levels of fidelity (copying or translation accuracy), or lower ones (allowing more mutation or more variants of translation products). Just thought I'd throw this out there.<div><br></div><div>Jess Tauber</div></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br>
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</table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 12:10 PM Jess Tauber <<a href="mailto:tetrahedralpt@gmail.com">tetrahedralpt@gmail.com</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"><div dir="ltr">Perhaps the degree (and direction) of slop or play (what a mechanical engineer might call tolerances) is a variable that itself may change in human languages, either synchronically (different discourse genres and so forth), or diachronically. Note that although not directly related to this thread, in Japanese bisyllabic mimetic words the height of the vowel of the second syllable very often encodes the relative degree of control (again, tolerances, prototypically seen as spatiotemporal) over some action by the agent (perhaps even the patient?). The higher the vowel, the more control. Might something like this be found with clitics in some way, not necessarily phonologically?<div><br></div><div>Jess Tauber</div></div><div id="gmail-m_-2078313058837569783DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br>
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</tbody></table><a href="#m_-2078313058837569783_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 11:14 AM Martin Haspelmath <<a href="mailto:martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank">martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.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">
<div>
Many thanks, Peter, for continuing the vigorous discussion! Maybe
this time we do indeed disagree.<br>
<br>
I think that textbooks should present a set of coherent concepts
that do not confuse students. So when Booij's (2005: 28) morphology
textbook defines a "stem" as "the word form minus its inflectional
affixes", readers would expect that there is also a definition of
"inflectional affix", but he doesn't give one – it seems that an
inflectional affix is whatever is added to a stem. So this is
circular and confusing.<br>
<br>
Since most established terms are used in a wide variety of ways,
textbook authors must make a choice anyway, and making a choice that
is coherent and avoids confusion seems the right approach to me. The
same problems arise in generative syntax, and one of the virtues of
Koeneman & Zeijlstra's (2017) "Introducing syntax" is that it is
internally coherent (even if that means that it sometimes deviates
substantially from what is commonly said; but the actual research
practice is not coherent). We probably don't want to give students
the impression that the field is working with incoherent or vague
concepts – instead, we want to introduce them to a set of mutually
coherent concepts (with definitions that are close to the actual
practice), and they will discover sooner or later that things are
not that simple.<br>
<br>
The reason I mentioned textbooks is that these are almost the only
type of work that can be expected to build a coherent sent of
concepts in linguistics. In other fields, there are nomenclature
committees, or truly authoritative works such as the <i>Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>. Textbooks is all we have in
linguistics. (The question how "standard" meanings arise is an
interesting one; but in any event, Bloomfield's (1933) textbook and
Lyons's (1968) textbook seem to have been highly influential in
determining what usages we agree on.)<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div>Am 07.12.21 um 16:06 schrieb Peter
Arkadiev:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Dear Martin, dear colleagues,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>just a brief note on the following point:</div>
<div>"<span>So
I think it's better to try to provide simple and clear
definitions that can be used in textbooks."</span></div>
<div><span>I
utterly disagree. Good textbooks must provide students (and
other readers) with explanations of how established terms are
used in linguistics, even if this usage is vague, sloppy,
inconsistent etc. Otherwise students won't be able to read
original research written before the "textbook definition" has
been coined. So Martin or anybody else including your humble
servant is certainly free to (re)define any technical term for
one's own purposes, but let's not assume that our usage
(independently of how much it is supported by the personal
authority of its author) should become "the standard" before
it has passed the test of practice and approval by the
community. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span>Best
regards,</span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span>Peter</span></div>
<div> </div>
<div>06.12.2021, 23:06, "Martin Haspelmath"
<a href="mailto:martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank"><martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de></a>:</div>
<blockquote>Thanks, Arnold and Peter, for the interesting critical
comments!<br>
<br>
I completely agree with Peter Arkadiev that "if linguistics is
to deal with complexity and diversity of linguistic structures,
its terminological apparatus cannot be simplistic" – yes, we
need a lot of terms for all this complexity, in fact far more
than most people make use of (which is why I keep proposing new
terms).<br>
<br>
But I do not fully agree with Arnold Zwicky that "Our job is to
discover what the relevant concepts are in the domain in
question and then to provide names for them" – we have tried
this, but it turns out that it doesn't work well for general
linguistics. Different languages have fairly different "relevant
concepts" (= language-particular categories), so the comparison
of languages requires a distinct set of comparative concepts.
For example, we cannot readily describe Arabic or Chinese with
concepts derived from Ancient Greek (such as "(en)clitic").<br>
<br>
De facto, however, linguists do use quite a few Latin-derived
(and Greek-derived) terms for (comparison of) languages from
around the world, i.e. as comparative concepts. What should we
take these terms (e.g. <em>accusative, plural, preterite,
imperative, affix, passive</em>) to mean? They have a fairly
clear meaning in Latin, but what do they mean *in general*?<br>
<br>
It does not seem to make sense to pose this as a research
question – we cannot study languages in order to find out what
"accusative" or "passive" means. We attach these labels to
languages around the world because we think that they are
generally understood, but often we are not particularly clear
about what that meaning is. We know what a stereotypical
"accusative" or a stereotypical "passive" (or a stereotypical
"clitic") is, but if there are no boundaries, we cannot decide
what to do in non-stereotypical cases (e.g. in the case of "odd
clitic behaviours" in Quechua, as studied by Alexander Rice).<br>
<br>
Though Peter Arkadiev says that "we do not need apparently
"precise" definitions which end up delimiting arbitrary classes
of things having nothing in common apart from the randomly
chosen property "defining" them", I do not see what the
alternative is – simply *avoiding* the use of tradional terms?
In practice, this will not happen, as people will continue to
talk about <em>accusative, plural, preterite, imperative,
affix, passive</em>, etc. So I think it's better to try to
provide simple and clear definitions that can be used in
textbooks. (Often, of course, language-particular classes will
not map perfectly onto these definitions, as is illustrated by
Riccardo Giomi's example of the Italian promiscuous diminutive <em>-icchi-</em>.)<br>
<br>
Arnold Zwicky says "What I'd like to avoid is disputes over
whether some element E in some language variety L is *really,
truly" a clitic", and indeed, we have too many such fruitless
disputes – I have a long list in my 2007 paper on
pre-established categories (<a href="https://zenodo.org/record/1133882" rel="noopener
noreferrer" target="_blank">https://zenodo.org/record/1133882</a>,
§3.3). But why are such disputes about "clitics" fruitless? I'd
say it's because there is no clear definition of "clitic", while
at the same time, many people *think* that there is some general
concept (a building block of UG?) behind this term. But this
need not be the case: "Clitic" may not be more than a term that
has been handed down to us by tradition (Ancient Greek grammar,
and then Nida 1946, which shortened "enclitic" to "clitic").
Since this term is an accident of the history of linguistics,
giving it an arbitrary definition seems just the right step to
me – in this way, its arbitrariness becomes apparent to
everyone. (If "clitic" is used as an "umbrella term", by
contrast, there is no way in which it can be used for precise
communication, and we might as well not use it at all.)<br>
<br>
It would be great if it turned out that "properties not listed
in the definition are predictable from the ones that are" (as
Arnold notes), and in my 2015 paper on clitics (which was
greatly inspired by Arnold's work), I do discuss this issue (§7,
see <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/4550427" rel="noopener
noreferrer" target="_blank">https://zenodo.org/record/4550427</a>).
But this is not necessary – "clitic" is a commonly used
technical term, and as such, it should have a clear definition
(or should not be used). Quite generally, I do not think that
vague and stereotype-based "umbrella terms" are needed in
science, though they are of course ubiquitous in everyday
language.<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
P.S. I have more discussion of the general issues of
terminological precision in my 2021 paper: <a href="https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005489" rel="noopener
noreferrer" target="_blank">https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005489</a><br>
<br>
<div>Am 06.12.21 um 20:13 schrieb Arnold M. Zwicky:</div>
<blockquote>
<pre> </pre>
<blockquote>
<pre>On 06/12/2021 16:25, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote>
<pre>Yes, Zwicky's 1994 idea that "clitic" is an "umbrella term" was adopted by Spencer & Luís (2012) – but this is not a CLAIM.
If the question is how to use a term, we make *terminological choices* – and my proposal was to make the choice that a clitic is defined as "a non-affix non-root bound form". This would give the term "clitic" a precise meaning (as a general-typological concept).
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre>This seems incomprehensively bizarre to me. Our job is to discover what the relevant concepts are in the domain in question and then to provide names for them (which could be more or less arbitrary, taken from familiar terms, created via metaphor, or whatever). But I'm baffled by your apparent position that history provides us with a term that has been more or less useful in the past, so our job is to arbitrarily assign it to one of the relevant concepts, with the consequence that this term is then *inapplicable* to -- inappropriately used for -- every one of the other relevant concepts.
If this is an (arbitrary) prescription about how the term should be used within the community of linguists (the relevant set of language users in ths case), it's just terrible -- guaranteed to sow confusion and misunderstanding. It's Humpty-Dumpty's "[a word] means justi what I choose [that is, what *I* choose] it to mean -- more more and no less". I, Arnold Zwicky, am free to declare that what "clitic" means is ''hoofed mammal', so that if you want to talk to me you have to use it that way too. (Actually, I use "ungulate" for that purpose, and some people use "hoofed mammal" and even more people, faced with the task of explaining the concept they're talking about, give an ostentive definition ending with the ominous "etc.". But nobody's going to buy my insistence that these creatures taken together are called, technically, "clitics" and that the Tagalog second-position elements are *not* clitics.)
I coined the technical term "umbrella term" to provide some sort of continuity with the history of our field for terms like "clitic", covering an assortment of loosely similar concepts -- each of which deserves its own label.
Perhaps you mean to claim that all the things under the "clitic" umbrella are in a family-resemblance relationship with one another (like things under the "game" umbrella) and that there are central members of the family -- clitics *par excellence*, as iit were. But that's an analysis designed for ordinary language, not technical language, so I'm not sure how the *cognitive* significance of centrality would carry over.
What I'd like to avoid is disputes over whether some element E in some language variety L is *really, truly" a clitic -- with reference to the Martin Haspelmath definition of what a clitic really, truly is.
Perhaps you want to claim that your choice of a definition is not arbitrary, not "merely terminological", but signals that the particular definition you have chosen is one for a concept that is empirically rich, in the sense that ("interesting") properties not listed in the definition are predictable from the ones that are. But you haven't actually claimed that.
I'm afraid that I'm going to have to stop here, with the comments above. At this point in my life I don't have the time for extended dialogue on *anything*, even if it might be fruitful.
Arnold
******</pre>
<div>No, Martin, we do not need apparently "precise"
definitions which end up delimiting arbitrary classes of
things having nothing in common apart from the randomly
chosen property "defining" them. I find this approach
neither productive nor scientific. If linguistics is to deal
with complexity and diversity of linguistic structures, its
terminological apparatus cannot be as simplistic as that. I
apologise for putting it so bluntly.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best wishes,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Peter</div>
<pre> </pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
,
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</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>-- </div>
<div>Peter Arkadiev, PhD Habil.</div>
<div>Institute of Slavic Studies</div>
<div>Russian Academy of Sciences</div>
<div>Leninsky prospekt 32-A 119334 Moscow</div>
<div><a href="mailto:peterarkadiev@yandex.ru" target="_blank">peterarkadiev@yandex.ru</a></div>
<div><a href="http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev" target="_blank">http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev</a></div>
<div> </div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/" target="_blank">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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