[Lingtyp] Semitic numeral agreement

Wed Feb 3 16:59:11 UTC 2016

See Hetzron 1967 for the (not completely congruent but resemblance)
parallel in Central Cushitic :
Hetzron, Robert. (1967) Agaw Numerals and Incongruence in Semitic.  Journal
of Semitic Studies 12(2). 169-197.

all the best,
H

2016-02-03 17:47 GMT+01:00 Les Bruce <les_bruce at sil.org>:

> Semitic cardinal numerals 1 and 2 agree in gender with the nouns they
> count. Numerals 3-10 (Hebrew) or 3-19 (Akkadian) use the opposite gender
> from the noun they count. Huehnergard and Woods (2008) do not offer an
> explanation for this pattern and Kelley (1992:97) says there is no
> satisfactory explanation for it in ancient Hebrew.
>
>
>
> Can anyone tell me if this phenomenon is unique to Semitic, or are there
> languages in other families that exhibit a similar switch in pattern for
> numerals 3 and higher?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Les Bruce
>
>
>
> *From:* Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Martin Haspelmath
> *Sent:* Monday, February 01, 2016 3:31 AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] comparative concepts
>
>
>
> I think we really agree in all major respects here:
>
> – yes, descriptive work has gotten better by integrating typological
> perspectives (so description and typology should continue to exist in
> symbiosis)
>
> – no, one shouldn't use ("structuralist") language-specific categories for
> typological comparison (as the generativists often try to do)
>
> – yes, every typological variable "captures" something of interest in a
> language, even if it is only a tiny bit of some category
>
> We probably also agree that language description *needs* to make use of
> language-specific categories, because without them, the description would
> be very unparsimonious in many places and thus impractical (for example, to
> describe German, we need categories such as "Neuter gender" and "Weak
> verb"; otherwise, the description would get hopelessly convoluted).
>
> (It seems that this is was at the heart of Randy LaPolla's objection to
> using "subject" or "A" in classifying Chinese word order; he seemed to
> think that word order statements need to be based on the descriptively
> indispensable language-specific categories, even when they are meant only
> for typological purposes.)
>
> But note that I use "comparative concept" in a broader sense than
> "typological variable". Every typological variable is a comparative concept
> (by definition), but some comparative concepts (e.g. "ergative case", or
> "clause", or "high vowel") are not variables by themselves – they are
> crucial ingredients of variables.
>
> Best,
> Martin
>
> On 01.02.16 08:59, Balthasar Bickel wrote:
>
>
>
> I have just now had a chance to read up on this very interesting
> discussion and noticed a certain trend towards keeping comparative work
> outside the description of individual languages. I find this problematic.
> Modern descriptive work has become better precisely by integrating
> typological perspectives, and I have always found that I have started to
> understand a phenomenon in a language only once I could tell with some
> precision how it compares to similar phenomena in other languages.
>
>
>
> It might help to realize that “comparative concepts” --- or typological
> variables, as I prefer to call them --- contrast with language-specific
> categories in two very different ways. Only one of these contrasts is a
> contrast between research enterprises.
>
>
>
> (i) By definition, the categories of a typological variable can recur
> across languages, language-specific categories can’t. For example,
> ‘argument with most agent properties in Dowty’s definition’, ‘linearly
> ordered before’, a Nijmegen-style exlicitation simulus, a Dahl TAM
> questionnaire context, a translation context etc. can all by definition
> recur across languages, the Saussurian sign -ed ‘PST’ can’t.
>
>
>
> (ii) Language-specific categories serve a purpose in a Pāṇini-inspired,
> structuralist analysis where the goal is to re-use categories in a
> maximally parsimonous way (so you can say, e.g., there is a category of
> ‘subordinate clauses’ in language X, defined by a set of properties in X,
> and then find that the same category *also* captures --- or even ‘causes’
> --- the constraints on WH questions in X). By contrast, typological
> variables don’t serve such a purpose. If you want to explore patterns
> across variables or even capture the system as a whole, you use stats (and
> so you might discover for example that certain values on a variable that
> captures WH possibilities correlate to some extent with certain values on a
> variable that captures the scope behavior of illocutionary force markers, a
> correlation caused by information structure principles; Bickel 2010).
>
>
>
> The contrast in (i) merely limits the range of things you can compare
> typologically (as opposed to reconstruct proto-individuals), but it doesn’t
> imply anything about the usefulness of typological variables for describing
> languages, let alone call for a terminological distinction between
> ‘matching’ vs ‘instantiating’ a category or for different research
> enterprises. Every well-defined typological variable captures or measures
> something of interest in a language --- but obviously it is only
> ‘something’, a very tiny aspect of a very complex phenomenon: “is used for
> past time event” clearly only captures a tiny bit of, say, the English PST
> marker, but it does capture something real.  In fact,  a typologial
> variable might pick up something that is indeed very real because it
> directly corresponds to electrophysiologically detectable patterns (see
> e.g. Bickel et al. 2015 in PloS ONE
> <http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132819>
> on the S=A vs S≠A variable).  (And, yes, saying that Chinese is SVO
> captures something real in Chinese, but I agree with others that the
> traditional terms and abbreviations here are misleading.)
>
>
>
> The contrast in (ii) is where we get a real opposition between different
> approaches for analyzing languages, perhaps even sub-disciplines. Given the
> complexity of language, though, it won’t harm to use both approaches
> simultaneously. Where things get tricky and confusing is if you want to
> design typological variables not in the sense of (i) but for comparing the
> language-specific categories in the sense of (ii). I wouldn’t.
>
>
>
> Balthasar Bickel.
>
>
>
> More on this:
>
> Bickel, B 2007. Typology in the 21st century: major current developments. *Ling.
> Typol.* 11. 239–251.
>
> Bickel, B 2010. Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: a
> multivariate analysis. In I Bril (ed.), *Clause-hierarchy and
> clause-linking*, 51–101. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
>
> Bickel, B 2011. Multivariate typology and field linguistics: a case study
> on detransitivization in Kiranti (Sino-Tibetan). *Proc. Conf. Language
> Documentation and Linguistic Theory* 3, 3–13.(
> http://www.hrelp.org/publications/ldlt3/papers/ldlt3_02.pdf)
>
> Bickel, B 2015. Distributional typology: statistical inquiries into the
> dynamics of linguistic diversity. In B. Heine & H. Narrog (eds.), *The
> Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, 2nd edition,* 901 – 923. Oxford:
> Oxford University Press.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
>
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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