<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
Dear all,</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
many thanks for your helpful comments and examples. What has
accumulated so far may be summarized thus:</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
The round trip is one of those concepts which appear as a
grammatical
category – here: the retrolative – in some languages, but are
processed at other levels in other languages. Considering that
contributors to the discussion command data of languages of the
five
continents, one may preliminarily conclude that the concept is
primarily coded in verbal grammar. No example has yet appeared of
the
retrolative as a case relator (specifically, an adposition). Also,
there are more data of transitive than of intransitive verbs in
round-trip constructions. Which may have a plausible
extralinguistic
explanation.</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
As long as research using such a comparative concept produces
useful
results, there is no reason to discard it on the basis that
comparative concepts lack a sufficient methodological foundation.
A
constructive reaction to the situation would rather be to sharpen
this foundation so that it becomes both theoretically sound and
empirically applicable.</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
As for terminology, concepts like ‘ablative’, ‘perlative’
etc. and their respective terms have been well-established in
linguistics for many centuries (some of them for more than two
millennia) and across several descriptive branches like Romance or
Finno-Ugric linguistics. Whenever one is dealing with a concept
coupled with such a term, one uses this term instead of inventing
a
new one. This avoids terminological proliferation and confusion.
Likewise, if one is dealing with a concept which as yet lacks an
established term but fits into an established paradigm, one forms
a
term which fits this paradigm instead of coining a term unrelated
to
the pattern. While this is good practice in all disciplines, it is
especially important in linguistics as we have to distinguish
conceptually and terminologically between notions available in
human
cognition and communication (like round trip) and grammatical
categories (like retrolative).</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
Unless this is too optimistic, we are moving into an age of more
cooperation in scientific research. Sometimes a discussion on the
LingTyp list is so fruitful that someone might integrate its
results
into a paper on the respective topic. Provenience of every piece
might be indicated like this: ‘N.N., lingtyp list, 07/08/2024’.
In my understanding, this would both suffice as an acknowledgement
of
original authorship and satisfy standards for an academic
reference.
(Incidentally, this does not relate to any current plans of mine.)</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
Best to everybody,</p>
<p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm"
lang="en-US">
Christian</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<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>
<table style="font-size:80%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Tel.:</td>
<td>+49/361/2113417</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>E-Post:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christianw_lehmann@arcor.de">christianw_lehmann@arcor.de</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Web:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu">https://www.christianlehmann.eu</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>