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<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>The discussion of mood in "non-finite" environments quickly
arrived at a point where we seem to be ending up repeatedly, as
shown by the following exchange between Adam and Christian:<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 15.07.23 06:45, Christian Lehmann
wrote [emphasis added]:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:e2bbb6e1-4fb7-014c-17e6-60642a672ea6@Uni-Erfurt.De">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Adam [Tallman] and everybody,
just a brief reply to this:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK0T6OhcDeRDPWKGuNPtxUSEc_J1VvCa05-Xd6E71s-SCJ-0Zg@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr"><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>
</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><b> grammatical concept whatsoever can be
used in the description of more than one language</b>. It seems
more realistic, and even methodologically more fruitful, to live
by concepts whose cross-linguistic application is "tricky".<br>
</blockquote>
<p>But there is not necessarily a misunderstanding – some people are
fully aware, when proposing discrete (non-fuzzy,
non-prototype-based) definitions of traditional terms (such as
"inflection" in my forthcoming paper, or "clitic" in another
paper: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007071">https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007071</a>), that <b>these
comparative-concept definitions cannot be used for description</b>.</p>
<p>Different languages have different systems, and their categories
are defined within these systems. The comparative concepts are
defined outside of such systems, in substantive terms. One could
see them as fuzzy or as prototypes, but since comparative concepts
are not scientific claims anyway (but merely instruments for
formulating such claims), it seems better to me to formulate them
in discrete terms.</p>
<p>Thus, I'd like to have discrete definitions of "mood" and of
"finite", as comparative concepts. Of course, these will very
rarely map 100% onto language-particular categories.</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Martin</p>
<p>P.S. I don't know what "particularist persuasion" means. I don't
think it's controversial that particular languages have particular
constructions with particular form-classes defined by these
constructions.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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