Alexis on classification (again)

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Then just one last question, directed to anyone who cares to
respond, not necessarily Larry, although I would like to hear
from him of course:
 
Where then are the competent critics of controversial
classificatory proposals in linguistics?
 
Alexis MR
 
On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> Alexis writes:
>
> > But I am not trying to argue that Sapir for example should
> > get credit for recognizing Pakawan despite the lack of data
> > in his published work on this.  In fact, I never said anything
> > about credit.
>
> OK; my apologies, then, but you did give me the impression that you
> thought Sapir had done something interesting.
>
> > I am concerned about the fact that a lot of linguists, yourself
> > among them, have been publishing all kinds of statements about the
> > validity or otherwise of work in linguistic classification while
> > staunchly avoiding getting their hands dirty at all or only doing so
> > in cases where one is shooting ducks in a barrel.
>
> I have indeed blasted a few encupated anatids, but it's not my fault
> that my specialist language seems to attract nothing else.
>
> As for getting my hands dirty, I have already explained that I do not
> choose to undertake comparative work, because I believe I am better
> qualified to do other things.  We can't *all* be comparativists,
> Alexis -- somebody has to do the work ;-)
>
> [on the absence of informed evaluations of Nostratic and other
> proposals]
>
> It may just be that few of us feel competent to undertake a
> magisterial scrutiny of proposals embracing vast numbers of languages
> and families.
>
> > Of course, I find the uncritical acceptance of untested
> > or even provably wrong proposals on the other side (whether
> > in the case of Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Amerind, or
> > any other such proposal) equally distressing.
>
> Good.
>
> Larry Trask
> COGS
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
>
>
>
>
>