[Lingtyp] typologists' epistemological, philosophical and ...linguistic concerns

[Claude Hagège]

Dear all,

     As far as the epistemological, and more largely philosophical,
underpinnings of our typological research is concerned, I’d like to recall,
as a contribution to this interesting online discussion,  that, as pointed
out by Dan, Locke’s observation cited by Jan does not deny the phenomenal
reality of things; it only questions the categories that scientific research
uses to refer to them. If applied to linguistic typology , this means that
(keeping in mind that, as stressed by Matthew, analyzing a particular
language is a different enterprise from classifying  it typologically, but
also that the former is a prerequisite for the latter) our terminology when
describing languages and organizing them into types is the way we humans try
to describe nature, i.e., in our case, natural languages, as an object of
knowledge. In this respect,  and always remembering the essential
distinction that must be maintained between form and meaning, often
implicitly confused by linguists, the terms we use are nothing else than
labels. I think “labels” is both more adequate and less liable to
metaphysical commitments than “concepts” (Martin’s “comparative concepts” or
Gilbert’s “intuitive conceptual framework”). Of course, when we do
linguistic typology, we compare, but what we compare is the way two or more
languages or two or more language groups behave with respect to one of the
labels we use as a descriptive grid. If we require a term less neutral than
“labels”, I would suggest, using a Greek terminology, “paralect”, where
“para-“ means “compare” .

     It seems to me that a useful framework for  typological research is
what has been called “The Three Viewpoints Theory”, which I introduced in
chapter 9 of C. Hagège, The Dialogic Species (New York, Oxford, Columbia
University Press, 1990) and in chapter 2 of the 7th edition of La structure
des langues  (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2013). It is also to
be found in the Introduction and chapter 4 C. Hagège, Adpositions, Oxford
University Press, 2010. In its simplest form, the Three Viewpoints Theory,
when applied to the study of the shortest utterance, appears as:

1: Morphosyntctic Viewpoint      2: Semantico-referential  Viewpoint      3:
Information-hierarchic Viewpoint

  Subject of   óPredicate of           Participant of    ó   Process of
Theme of    ó  Rheme of

    It appears immediately that the labels used here are fundamentally
relational. It doesn’t seem to be stressed, in the online discussion here,
that  everything is of a relational, not intrinsic, nature in human
languages. “Subject of” and “predicate of” are syntactic functions (these
terms are syntactic paralects); “participant of” and “process of” are
semantic roles(these terms are semantic paralects); “theme of” and “rheme
of” are pragmatic features (these terms are pragmatic paralects). 

     As far as word-classes such as verb, noun, adjective, adverb,
adposition, conjunction, etc. are concerned, I would suggest that the
typologist’s work,  when, for example, s/he compares two languages or group
of languages, is 1) to redefine critically the properties of each member of
these word-classes, taking as  merely experimental (not numenal or
essent-ial)  tools  the illustrations of these word-classes in the
descriptions of many languages, long available as a result of grammarians’
and linguists’ works  of all times and all places; and  2) to examine to
what extent data observed in two  language or two groups of languages
illustrate in the same way or in a different way the word-classes
(morphological paralects) that s/he uses to descibe these data. Thus, the
labels used in typological work have no other justification than their
efficiency, or the extent to which they make it possible for linguists to
describe as faithfully a possible the languages studied. Let me add that
typologists will often have to pay attention to a pervasive phenomenon,
namely double duty, i.e., for a given unit,  membership of one word-class
along with membership of another word-class , for example, English stone,
either a verb or a noun. Double duty is observed in so many languages, that
it is one of the important facts which  illustrate the relative, rather that
absolute, character of word-classes.

 

Best,

 

Claude

 

 

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