Excluding Basque data

[ECOLING at aol.com]

My point in this discussion has been that
with the convenience of modern computers,
WE DO NOT HAVE TO DECIDE EARLY
in any sense that constrains us from changing our
decision later in a "what if" exploration!

In other words, by TAGGING our data with
its various attestations and properties, we can
encode everything that Larry Trask wants,
and still be able to consider a wider range of
data if we want to do so, not merely what Jon Patrick
wants to include, but any other set of choices as well.

We can tabulate statistics from the same database,
now using one set of criteria, now another,
to see what the effect is on the patterns we observe.
We actually have a chance to analyze whether we
think some set of criteria such as Larry Trask's
have some definitial or implicational relation with
particular canonical forms, and indeed even with the
degree of uniformity of canonical forms within
the set of data included in any one use of the database.

Because of this flexibility provided by databases with
tagged data, we can avoid any need to debate methodology
as some PRIOR step, because we can explore different
methodologies on the fly, whenever we feel like it.

Then more efforts will go into actual discoveries,
and less into the kinds of meta-discussions we have had here.

Best wishes,
Lloyd Anderson