Diachronic vs. synchronic universals/tendencies

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
And here I thought that blessed are the peacemakers(:-).
Scott Delancey does not seem to like my point that
a theory of diachronic tendencies can (perhaps must)
be ulitmately reducible to a theory of a synchronic
nature because these tendencies are things that
speakers do and speakers are not usually historical
linguists.  Perhaps I was not clear.  All I am saying
that there are two levels.  At one level we can
argue as to whether the reason for the high correlation
between OV and postpositions is due (a) to the fact
postpositions tend to come from serial verbs or
(b) to the fact that speakers have a synchronic
bit of wiring which makes them arrange things like
this no matter what the history of their language
lands them with.  I have tentatively tried to argue
for (b), but I am quite sympathetic to (a) and
some of the published arguments for it.  I regard
this as an open and fruitful issue and one on
which we need lots more data and disucssion.
 
But there is a deeper level at which whether
(a) or (b) is true, they could and perhaps must
be reducible to
synchronic statements--much as Richard Janda
argued, although I take a much more moderate
line than he did.  Moreover, I think that
this is a very difcicult topic to say anything
substantive about because we are not allowed
to deafen babies like songbird researchers
deafen chicks and such other atrocities.
 
And so I dont see the reason for the disagreement.
I think we are talking about two different levels.
So I am quite open to (a) or (b) in any
given case or in general.   Actually,
I am absolutely sure of only two things. One
is that these two levels are distinct and the
questions involving them should be kept
distinct.  The other is that I dont deserve
the severe condemnation in Scott's rebuttal
of my Mandarin example, to wit:
 
"While this idea has been tossed around since the 70's,
it is IMO (and not mine alone) a serious distortion of
the facts.  The ba-construction is a marked construction,
it is not by any means the normal transitive pattern.
As far as I can see, there is not only no "clear trend"
toward SOV in Mandarin, there is no trend at all."
 
I never said that the ba-construction was not marked
or otherwise "distorted" the facts.  All I said
was that I see a trend towards Mandarin becoming
an OV language with prepositions.  We will not
know if this is right until Mandarin fully changes
to OV if it ever does.  It would be, I admit,
better to find an example further along, but
I do not have the resources at hand to undertake
this.  What I was trying to do is to point to
a KIND of example that might be relevant to
settling the question of (a) vs. (b).  And
I am hoping that someone will be moved to
find the right INSTANCES of the kind--if they
exist.  But in any case that will not tell
us anything about the deeper question on
which I tend to agree with Janda, namely, that
short of resurrecting some notion of language
as an organism, diachronic tendenceies would
seem to have to reflect synchronic mechanisms.
 
AMR