Another take on Funknet Principles

[Dan Everett]

I applaud Spike's posting on these issues - at the same time that I
sympathize with John Myhill.

With regard to suggestions on how to do better empirical work, Paul
Newman and Martha Ratliff have edited a new volume on _Linguistic
Fieldwork_, to appear, I believe, from Cambridge University Press. I
have a chapter in there on "monolingual field research" in which I argue
that one should always learn to speak the language one is working on.
But the other chapters look even better. Chapters by Larry Hyman, Ian
Maddieson, Keren Rice, Marianne Mithun, and others of my heroes all look
interesting and useful. This book (and it isn't the only one) targets
the entire field. It is vital that all of us pay careful attention to
data and, yes, methodology.

Having said that, let me say that besides being one of the smartest
people I have ever met, David Pesetsky is an incredibly careful
researcher. If he cites a published source which has errors, well, then,
as Spike points out, let's offer him a better source. Don't assume that
anyone is irresponsible. Trust and respect should be the defaults.

Anyway, glad to see Spike's statement.

At the same time, I read FUNKNET for about the same reason as John
Myhill does - to learn about and discuss good functional analyses of
careful empirical research data. If we argue about these occasionally,
that is not to 'convert' anyone, but simply to try to get the best
analysis to come out, whether formal or functional. Although I believe
that formal analyses have a much harder time coming up with an
intensionally definable subject matter, I still think that occasionally
at least, formal analyses are more insightful. Debating and discussing
on this list have helped me tremendously.

Dan Everett