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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Adam and everybody,<br>
<br>
just a brief reply to this:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK0T6OhcDeRDPWKGuNPtxUSEc_J1VvCa05-Xd6E71s-SCJ-0Zg@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><span
style="font-size:10pt;line-height:115%;font-family:monospace"
lang="FI">For a functional-typological audience, I'm sort of
surprised the distinction is still brought up as if it was
discrete (or not just a matter of definition as Martin
points out), since Bybee discussed the issue of inflectional
status as a continuum with lexical/derivational in her
Morphology book some 30+ years ago. It's also well-known
that these notions of inflection/finiteness are tricky or
nonapplicable in many so-called polysynthetic languages
(e.g. de Reuse 2009).</span><span
style="font-size:10pt;line-height:115%;font-family:monospace"
lang="FI"><br>
</span></div>
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</blockquote>
It is a recurrent misunderstanding among typologists, chiefly of
particularist persuasion, that a grammatical concept should be
dispensed with because it is not discrete, covers a continuum, is
not applicable to all languages or what not. If one takes this
position, then <b>no</b> grammatical concept whatsoever can be used
in the description of more than one language. It seems more
realistic, and even methodologically more fruitful, to live by
concepts whose cross-linguistic application is "tricky".<br>
-- <br>
<div class="moz-signature">
<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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<td>Tel.:</td>
<td>+49/361/2113417</td>
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<td>E-Post:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christianw_lehmann@arcor.de">christianw_lehmann@arcor.de</a></td>
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<td>Web:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu">https://www.christianlehmann.eu</a></td>
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