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<p class="MsoNormal">As the authors of this project apparently want
to generate discussion
as they insisted on spreading their news on Ura-List, I take the
opportunity to
comment shortly on the Diachronica paper. Let me say in advance,
that historical-comparative
linguistics is not my main field of interest and this apparently
won’t change in
the future. However, as I have undergone the typical
historical-comparative training
of the discipline and spent a decade in a department infamously
known for “revolutionary
and post-revolutionary approaches to Uralic linguistics” until the
retirement
of its propagator, I have a hard time understanding the
implications…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My first open question is concerned with the
nature of “phylogeny”
propagated by these papers. Since when is language classification
based exclusively
on vocabulary and sound changes? Historically and theoretically,
we are back in
the 18th century again, perhaps with insights in sound changes
deriving from
the 20th century now reproduced by statistical and biological
software… And then, why Swadesh?<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Second, it is quite hilarious to read the
following introductory
statement: „Most Uralic research remains non-quantitative…
(Diachronica p. 335).
Some pages later however one reads that their data set contains a
100-item data
set, a 200-item data set and a 500-word data set. Given that data
for
historical-comparative work is restricted, why is this new
approach with 500 items
any better and less „non-quantitative“? From the perspective of
lexicography or
corpus linguistics, 500 tokens is indeed “non-quantitative”.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Third, it is quite astonishing to see that
output of researchers
with a clear “revolutionary connotation” (Künnap & Taagepera
2004;
Tambovtsev 2004) are even considered in such a paper. Apparently,
the international
reviewers have been unaware what happened in the discipline in the
late 1990s
and the first years of the new millennium and can’t tell solid
scholarship from
less solid. And by the way, so did the authors of this joint paper
and their “linguistic” advisers for whom quite some space is
reserved…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Summing up the Diachronica paper, one sees a
“scientific” reproduction
of a number of “scholarly assembled facts” equaling earlier
scholarship which
was accused of having been based on a “non-quantitative sample”.
After all, it
is nice to see that “scholarly work” can indeed compete with a
biological
software data set analysis and one may be tempted to say that
“scholarly work
is indeed rather scientific”. Of course, the Diachronica paper is
an instance
of that kind of „science“ generally appreciated as “hard science”
as the paper
tests predictions based on a sampled data set and shows different
models based
on different analysis. But clearly, this paper does not show
anything amazingly
new; it “scientifically” reproduces data which has been assembled
scholarly and
comes to solutions which are not too diverging. So, all we got is
„quod erum
demonstrandum” now supported by software desgined by humans?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, let me come back to my opening
statement – in order
to make such research interesting for a community of “scholars”
(that’s how we
are called by “scientists”), another central component of
historical-comparative
linguistics needs to be integrated – historical grammar. After
all, genetic
classification needs both lexicon and grammar. But then,
historical grammar is
messy, there is more analogy, leveling etc which blurs the nice
and clear cut lexicon
and sound change picture. I wonder if this can be modeled and
combined with the
study one eagerly wanted to share with the community. Such a paper
might indeed
hold some surprises and would produce something new for the 21<sup>st</sup>
century. As long as “phylogeny” is limited to vocabulary and sound
change, the
picture is incomplete and partial, even if it can be tested
“scientifically”. After
all, the genetic unity of Uralic (and any other language family)
is indeed more
than vocabulary and sound change…<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
Florian Siegl<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4.11.2013 18:13, Johanna Laakso
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BF0B22B3-44F1-4A0D-A315-57D91372F7DF@univie.ac.at"
type="cite"><base href="x-msg://166/">Dear All,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Outi Vesakoski of the BEDLAN project (<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://kielievoluutio.uta.fi/">http://kielievoluutio.uta.fi/</a>
) wanted to share these papers of their project with the
URA-LIST community!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best</div>
<div>JL<br>
<div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:
separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;
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0px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal;
line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;
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0px; font-size: medium; ">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode:
space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">
<div>--</div>
<div>Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso</div>
<div>Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und
Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)</div>
<div>Abteilung Finno-Ugristik</div>
<div>Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7</div>
<div>A-1090 Wien</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at">johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at</a>
• <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/">http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/</a></div>
<div>Project ELDIA: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.eldia-project.org/">http://www.eldia-project.org/</a> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<div><br>
<div>Välitetty viesti alkaa:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;
color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Lähettäjä: </b></span><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Outi
Vesakoski <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:outves@utu.fi">outves@utu.fi</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;
color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Aihe: </b></span><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>uralilaista
fylogenetiikkaa</b><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;
color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Päivämäärä: </b></span><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">4.
marraskuuta 2013 15.56.30 UTC+1.00<br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;
color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Vastaanottaja: </b></span><span
style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Johanna
Laakso <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at">johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at</a>><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:
separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing:
normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align:
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0px; font-size: medium; ">
<div ocsi="0" fpstyle="1" style="word-wrap: break-word; ">
<div style="direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; color:
rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10pt; ">Hei.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
<br>
Olisiko mielestäsi mahdollista ja asiallista laittaa
oheiset artikkelit ura-listalle jakoon? Se voisi olla
hyvä tapa saada kiinni varsin tärkeä osa juttujen
lukijakuntaa! Kaikki eivät välttämättä pääse ainakaan
Journal of Evolutionary Biologyyn, jos vaikka
Diachronica olisikin kaikkien saatavilla.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
<br>
En muista, että saanko itse kirjoittaa listalle ja
laittaa liitteitä, mutta joka tapauksessa haluan
ekaksi kysyä sinulta. Samalla tulen lähettäneeksi
molemmat artikkelit suoraan sinullekin (tosin voi
olla, että lähetin Terhin työn jo aikaisemminkin.)<br>
<br>
T. Outi Vesakoski<br>
</div>
</div>
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