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<p>Thanks, Mark, for bringing up this concrete example! Indeed, such
questions often arise in comparative work, both in phonology and
morphosyntax. But I think the answer is always the same:
Comparison cannot be in terms of structural CONTRASTS, but must
ultimately be in terms of (phonetic and conceptual-functional)
SUBSTANCE.</p>
<p>I can recommend the following two articles. The first deals with
meanings and diachrony, though Bybee has also argued for phonetic
substance as key to understanding phonology. The second is more
general.<br>
</p>
<div class="csl-bib-body"
style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Bybee, Joan L. 1988. Semantic substance vs.
contrast in the development of grammatical meaning. <i>Berkeley
Linguistics Society</i> 14. 247–264.</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%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Semantic%20substance%20vs.%20contrast%20in%20the%20development%20of%20grammatical%20meaning&rft.jtitle=Berkeley%20Linguistics%20Society&rft.volume=14&rft.aufirst=Joan%20L.&rft.aulast=Bybee&rft.au=Joan%20L.%20Bybee&rft.date=1988&rft.pages=247%E2%80%93264&rft.spage=247&rft.epage=264"></span>
</div>
<p></p>
<div class="csl-bib-body"
style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Boye, Kasper & Engberg-Pedersen,
Elisabeth. 2016. Substance and structure in linguistics. <i>Acta
Linguistica Hafniensia</i> 48(1). 5–6. (doi:<a
href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2016.1202014">10.1080/03740463.2016.1202014</a>)</div>
<span class="Z3988"
title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1080%2F03740463.2016.1202014&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Substance%20and%20structure%20in%20linguistics&rft.jtitle=Acta%20Linguistica%20Hafniensia&rft.volume=48&rft.issue=1&rft.aufirst=Kasper&rft.aulast=Boye&rft.au=Kasper%20Boye&rft.au=Elisabeth%20Engberg-Pedersen&rft.date=2016-01-02&rft.pages=5-6&rft.spage=5&rft.epage=6&rft.issn=0374-0463"></span>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>Specifically for phonology, there is a 2018 book on typology
edited by Larry Hyman and Frans Plank
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110451931/html">https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110451931/html</a>),
which includes papers by Kiparsky and Maddieson that discuss the
conceptual foundations of phonological comparison.</p>
<p>Kiparsky says that "there are no non-analytic universals of
language. All universals are analytic, and their validity often
turns on a set of critical cases where different solutions can be
and have been entertained", though confusingly, he says
"descriptive" instead of "non-analytic". The issues are discussed
further in my 2019 blogpost: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1817">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1817</a></p>
<p>(I admit, however, that I'm not sure what exactly this means for
the typology of "tone" and "obstruent (breathy) voicing". It may
ultimately mean that traditional typologies in terms of these
notions need to be revised quite thoroughly.)<br>
</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Martin (Haspelmath)<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 30.09.24 23:04, Mark Donohue wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAKyRuzRCUx1JB7PcP+UFgTNG0dMtX9jmUPcYN5WsJ5yARYAB9A@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">I have to disagree about the point that "the
*classifications* should not be different if the different
linguists have access to the same information".
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In many Himalayan languages low tone is associated with
breathy voice, and voicing is (stochastically) predictable
from tone.</div>
<div>The one language can then be analysed (has been analysed)
by linguists from different descriptive backgrounds as having</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>a. ph vs. p consonant manners, with contrastive tone, </div>
<div>or</div>
<div>b. ph vs. p vs. b vs. bh consonant manners, with no
contrastive tone.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Under a., the language is classified as having tone.</div>
<div>Under b., the language is not classified as having tone.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm thinking of Tamang.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin:0cm 0cm 7.2pt 17pt;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:15pt"><span
lang="FR"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Mazaudon,
Martine. 1973. Phonologie Tamang: Etude phonologique du
dialecte tamang de Risiangky (langue tibéto-birmane du
Népal). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Société d‘Études Linguistiques et
Anthropologiques de France.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin:0cm 0cm 7.2pt 17pt;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:15pt"><span
lang="FR"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Michaud, Alexis,
and Martine Mazaudon. 2006. Pitch and voice quality
characteristics of the lexical word-tones of Tamang, as
compared with level tones (Naxi data) and
pitch-plus-voice-quality tones (Vietnamese data).<span
class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Proceedings
of Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden</i>, 823-826.
Available online at: <a
href="https://sprosig.org/sp2006/contents/papers/PS7-18_0137.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://sprosig.org/sp2006/contents/papers/PS7-18_0137.pdf</a>.</font></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin:0cm 0cm 7.2pt 17pt;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:15pt"><font
face="arial, sans-serif">Poudel, Kedar Prasad. 2006.<span
class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Dhankute
Tamang Grammar</i>. Munich: Lincom Europa.</font></p>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>- Mark (Donohue)<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 30 Sept 2024 at 23:12,
Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp <<a
href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Of course, <span
style="font-family:"CMU Serif"">"areal/phylogenetic
researcher bias (APRB)" exists, and during the Grambank
coding, I often heard Hedvig Skirgård talk about it as a
potential issue. (I don't remember if it was addressed
in a specific way, though.)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif"">I don't
know if it can be measured somehow (given the enormous
diversity of researcher traditions, I'm a bit
skeptical), but I think it can be mitigated if we are
aware that the purpose of comparative concepts in
typology is NOT to provide *analyses* – rather, it is to
enable us to *classify* languages.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif"">Volker
Gast rightly says: "</span>Two linguists working on the
same language will often provide very different analyses,
and both may be right in their own ways."</p>
<p>But while the *analyses* may well be different (because
of the well-known non-uniqueness problem first highlighted
by Yuen-Ren Chao in 1934: <a
href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/3381" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/3381</a>),
the *classifications* should not be different if the
different linguists have access to the same information.</p>
<p>I wrote about this in the following blogpost, where I
note that the "difficulties of classification" that
typologists talk about are typically due to the unclarity
of the comparative concepts, not necessarily to lack of
data: <a href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2528"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2528</a>.</p>
<p>In practice, of course, different linguists do not have
access to the same kinds of data, and subjectiveness
cannot be excluded entirely. However, if we are careful to
distinguish between analyses/descriptions (at the p-level)
and classifications and cross-linguistic generalizations
(at the g-level), some problems will go away.</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Martin<br>
</p>
<div>On 29.09.24 12:41, Volker Gast via Lingtyp wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>Dear Jürgen and others,<br>
</p>
<p>I think this is one of the major methodological
problems of linguistic typology (which, if I remember
correctly, has been discussed on this list before).
There's no single 'correct' way of analysing a language.
Two linguists working on the same language will often
provide very different analyses, and both may be right
in their own ways. It starts with phonology, where you
have a lot of degrees of freedom in, for instance,
minimizing or maximizing phoneme inventories (e.g. by
[not] introducing phonological domains and features
operating on these domains), and it gets worse in
morphology, specifically if there is distributed
exponence and other complexities of this type. At the
level of syntax the impact of the specific theoretical
background can be seen, for instance, in publications
using the UD corpora. These corpora were annotated with
a specific version of dependency grammar, I think
essentially for pragmatic reasons (dependency grammar
was very popular among computational linguists for a
while). The theorerical assumptions of the annotation
model obviously have an impact on the results (just
think of the very old discussion of what a 'subject' is,
represented as the 'nsubj' relation in the UD
annotations).<br>
</p>
<p>For many languages we only have one description, and
the linguist describing it comes from a specific
background or 'school' (and these schools are often
associated with particular areas and particular
phylogenetic groupings, introducing further biases of
the type you mention). Again, the effects are visible at
the level of phonology already. For example, the Papuan
language Idi could be described as having just three
vowels, or as having nine vowels (perhaps even more),
depending on your assumptions about phonotactics etc.
(There's a published analysis of that language, by D.
Schokkin, N. Evans, C. Döhler and me, but the analysis
really reflects some kind of compromise between the
authors, and it leaves a few non-trivial questions
open.)<br>
</p>
<p>The specific linguist and their school or background is
a source of statistical non-independence. Even relying
on exactly one description per language, and having the
data coded by several researchers, often leads to low
inter-annotator agreement in my experience.</p>
<p>I think we need to be aware that typological data is
behavioural data at three layers: (i) language is a
behavioural activity, (ii) describing a language is a
behavioural activity, and (iii) extracting information
from descriptions is another behavioural activity.
Variance occurs at all levels and is multiplied in the
process from (i) to (iii).</p>
<p>Approximately determining the amount of variance of
that type would be a major project. For instance, we
could have five undocumented (unstandardized) languages
described by five linguists each, using data from five
different speakers per language. Many will think that
this would be a waste of resources, given the number of
(varieties) of languages that still await description.</p>
<p>What follows from all this, in my view, is that we need
to be careful in applying statistical analyses
"blindly". Linguistics is not a natural science. Given
the large amount of inherent variance in typological
data we linguists should remain in the driver's seat and
use quantitative typological evidence as an assistance
system, being aware of its limits and possibilities,
rather than take a back seat and let the autopilot
drive.</p>
<p>Best,<br>
Volker (Gast)<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div>Am 28.09.2024 um 20:17 schrieb Juergen Bohnemeyer via
Lingtyp:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Dear all – I’m
wondering whether anybody has attempted to
estimate the size of the following putative effect
on descriptive and typological research:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Suppose there
is a particular phenomenon in Language L, the
known properties of which are equally compatible
with an analysis in terms of construction types
(comparative concepts) A and B.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Suppose
furthermore that L belongs to a language family
and/or linguistic area such that A has much more
commonly been invoked in descriptions of languages
of that family/area than B.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Then to the
extent that a researcher attempting to adjudicate
between A and B wrt. L (whether in a description
of L, in a typological study, or in coding for an
evolving typological database) is aware of the
prevalence of A-coding/analyses for languages of
the family/area in question, that might make them
more likely to code/analyze L as exhibiting A as
well. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">So for example,
a researcher who assumes languages of the
family/area of L to be typically tenseless may be
influenced by this assumption and as a result
become (however slightly) more likely to treat L
as tenseless as well. In contrast, if she assumes
languages of the family/area of L to be typically
tensed, that might make her ever so slightly more
likely to analyze L also as tensed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">It seems to me
that this is a cognitive bias related to, and
possibly a case of, essentialism. (And just as in
the case of (other forms of) essentialism, the
actual cognitive causes/mechanisms of the bias may
vary.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">But regardless,
my question is, again, has anybody tried to
guestimate to what extent the results of current
typological studies may be warped by this kind of
researcher bias? (Note that the bias may be
affecting both authors of descriptive work and
typologists using descriptive work as data, so
there is a possible double-whammy effect.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Thanks! –
Juergen</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""> </span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black">Juergen
Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo </span><span
style="white-space:pre-wrap">
</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<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" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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</blockquote>
<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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