Mark Hubey's comments on lg classification

[H. Mark Hubey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexis Manaster-Ramer wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I don't have much to say (for once), except re Mark's
> comment on lgs with no (historically significant) morphology.
> Mark appears to be saying that the mere existence of such
> lgs suffices to refute the claim that it is only by comparing
> morphologies that we can establish lg families. But this

No. That is not what I wrote.

1. Some languages were classified on the basis of morphology and
        that can't be done if they have no morphology.

2. Some languages were classified on the basis of words/lexemes.

Now, both of the above cases fall under the category of "morphemes"
(because some are bound morphemes and some are free morphemes).
On the basis of this we can conclude;

0) Language family classifications are based on morphemes.

i) Statements to the effect that typology has no bearing whatsoever
on language family classification are false since in order to use
bound morphemes it is required that both languages have morphology
and that requires that they have similar typology.

ii) Statements that words (free morphemes or concatenations of free and
bound morphemes) have nothing to do with language family classification
are false.


We can add more to this;

iii) Statements to the effect that phonetic resemblance has nothing
to do with language family classification are false. Statements of
this type only reveal incapacity for comprehension.

iv) Statements to the effect that some match-ups are merely "phonetic
resemblance" and others are "cognates" are based on nothing more than
confusion as to the meaning of "phonetic" and "resemblance" and
confusion as to the relationship of "cognatehood" to "phonetic
resemblance". Furthermore most statements referring to "phonetic",
"phone", "phoneme", "acoustic" are totally vague, confused, or
at worst, ignorant.

> is not so: the alternative would be to say that for such
> languages we cannot ever determine what families they
> belong to.  Some linguists at the turn of the century
> and later held precisely this view--or something very close
> to it.

I don't recall saying anything similar to this.

--
Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=