"is the same as"

[ECOLING at aol.com]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Larry Trask writes:

>But how does this constitute an argument for treating "is the same as" as a
>non-transitive relation?  Better, I suggest, to forget about this last
>relation altogether, and to speak instead of some more appropriate relation,
>such as "is readily mutually comprehensible with" -- which again I agree is
>not going to be transitive.

Why?  Because that is what most of us do in ordinary life,
and as was established long ago in these discussions,
it is what Trask himself does (or did).  Direct quotations of his
writings demonstrated that.

Because people do, perfectly normally,
and readily understood by each other,
apply the "same" language name to varieties
which of necessity do differ.

But past a certain degree of difference,
OR
when certain cultural-political factors intervene,
they usually insist that two varieties are not the same language.

It is simply what people in fact do.
Therefore what they mean by "is the same language"
is in fact not a transitive relation.
As linguists, we normally are not supposed to be prescriptive.
We cannot change the fact that people use this as a
non-transitive relation.

It *might* be "better" not to (in Trask's view,
explicitly), but we might give up much of the flexibility
and usefulness of language if we tried to insist on
definitions made by logicians, instead of definitions
made in practice in the real world.

Just as with the biological circles (ring species)
mentioned by Stanley Friesen,
where neighbors interbreed but the ends of the circle,
though in contact, do not, which seems a paradox,
so there are paradoxes in using the terms "is the same language as".
That is no argument against the usefulness of either
"is the same species as" or "is the same language as",
as these are *actually* used.  The paradoxes are rare,
and we deal with them as special cases, sometimes we
learn from them that they are more normal and less special
than we had thought...

What one person thinks is "better" is also not necessarily
what one's interlocutors may be saying, nor can they
be refuted by attacking something which they did not say,
as was attempted to exceeding lengths on this list earlier.

We should really stop discussing this, and accept that
Trask does not want others to use the term "is the same language"
in a gradient-edge and non-transitive sense, and that others
do use the term that way and will most likely continue
to do so (they may find it useful to do so, without thereby
committing any fallacies whatsoever).
Discussions tend to be fruitless if one tries to reply
to someone while using the *same* term they used
in a different sense than they used it, because then the
propositions being analyzed by the conversation partners
are not even the same propositions, and pretending that
they are the same propositions can only misrepresent
the conversation partner.

Lloyd Anderson

[ Moderator's note:
  I think this topic is thoroughly argued out now.  I will accept no further
  postings on it.
  --rma ]