[Lingtyp] wordhood

Tue Nov 14 15:37:04 UTC 2017

A definition “variably interpreted in each language” is a disjunctive definition. If I use fact A to define ‘word’ in Language X, fact B to define ‘word’ in Language Y, and fact C to define ‘word’ in Language Z, then ‘word’ is defined as “defined by either A or B or C”. Or else ‘word’ means something different in Languages X, Y and Z, i.e. it is a language-specific concept, and the fact that it’s called ‘word’ in each language is just a coincidence.

In the disjunctive/variable approach, one is basically free to choose a fact that fits one’s intuition about what is or isn’t a word in each language (i.e., one’s “abstract” or essentialist definition). This is what I described as “methodological opportunism” in Radical Construction Grammar. The problem arises when people’s intuitions differ -- see Matthew’s comments on Martin’s 2013 proposed comparative concept definition of affix. Then different people appeal to different facts in the same language (or across languages), and we’re in a situation where people are not looking at the same facts.

The crucial point about Martin’s remarks about disjunctive definitions of comparative concepts is his comment about whether or not the disjunctive properties empirically cluster together or not. The crucial goal is to find the empirical generalizations. Methodological opportunism and the essentialist approach it is used to support are unempirical in that grammatical facts are inconsistently appealed to across languages (and other facts that don’t support the essentialist definition are ignored).

If one doesn’t avoid the variation that makes it hard or impossible to posit an essentialist definition of a grammatical concept, then not only does one accept crosslinguistic diversity for what it is, but one can also find genuine crosslinguistic universals that cannot be found if one assumes an essentialist definition. Examples include the Subject Construction Hierarchy described in chapter 4 of Radical Construction Grammar (based on Kazenin 1994 plus some observations in Croft 1991); the typological markedness patterns for parts of speech in Croft 1991 and elsewhere; similar patterns for case marking and indexation (agreement) of core participants described in chapter 4 of Typology and Universals (based in turn on observations by a number of typologists); the deranking hierarchies of subordination described by Givón (1980) and Cristofaro (2003), and last and finest, the universals of predication of various concept types described by Stassen (1997), to name the ones that come most quickly to mind. And, perhaps not surprisingly, these crosslinguistic universals of variation support fairly traditional notions of ‘subject’, ‘noun’, ‘verb’, ‘adjective’, and ‘subordinate clause’, but in a nonessentialist fashion. One does not have to be an essentialist to construct a theory of language universals (or a universal theory of language, if you prefer that way of describing it). 

    I suspect that the same is true of ‘word’, and I am hoping someone will do it. It will be a major challenge, because it has to go from segmental and prosodic phonology to syntax, semantics and discourse. But I believe that a nonessentialist theory of wordhood that supports most of our intuitions can come out of it.

Bill

> On Nov 13, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Daniel Ross <djross3 at illinois.edu> wrote:
> 
> I do not see Peter's approach (or mine for 'family') as disjoint. Instead, I see it as abstract and variably interpreted in each language. Thus subjects, or words, or families, or whatever, must be understood like patterns or behaviors, rather than basic natural kinds.
> 
> I would think that, for example, those who like the approach to categorization of Cognitive Grammar would appreciate the idea that categories like "word" are emergent in particular grammars but broadly similar based on our human nature. The concept of "family" differs across cultures, but most or all humans have some interest in (their version of) that concept.
> 
> Similarly, many languages seem to organize their grammars with some level between morpheme and phrase. In fact, that does not seem unexpected to me at all: phrases are loosely connected, and morphemes are not divisible. Having an emergent level where there is a tight connection seems like a completely natural development to me for complex systems like languages. So most or all languages have something like words, but actually DEFINING what a "word" "is" does not come easily because the ways in which languages "DO words" is variable.
> 
> I'm beginning to wonder if typological categories are best thought of as actions that languages do, rather than structures or properties that languages "HAVE".
> 
> (I have some more thoughts expanding on that (thinking out loud) but I will attach those as a text document rather than making this email excessively long.)
> 
> And having said that, I will now go back to applying my comparative concepts to a language sample to see which ones have which features-- a good starting point at least.
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de <mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
> I think we can distinguish two broad kinds of situations:
> 
> (1) where a comparative concept is defined by a single criterion or a set of simultaneouly necessary and sufficient criteria (e.g. "dative", defined by the criterion of flagging the recipient)
> 
> (2) where a comparative concept is defined by multiple disjunctive criteria
> 
> I have been arguing that we should adopt definitions of the former type, but Peter Arkadiev is now arguing that the latter should also be accepted. Well, maybe he is right, but I think that disjunctive definitions are acceptable only if the criteria are independently known to correlate tightly.
> 
> For example, let's assume that we know that people with a high income very often drive expensive cars and strongly tend to have gardeners. Then we can define a sociological category "rich person" disjunctively: Someone who either (i) has a high income, or (ii) drives an expensive car, or (iii) has a gardener (or several of these simultaneously). Intuitively, this sounds reasonable.
> 
> But we could also create disjunctively defined concepts based on criteria that don't correlate. For example, we could set up a sociological category "meggle person" defined as someone who either (i) owns a Huawei smartphone, or (ii) likes Mendelssohn music, or (iii) works as a taxi-driver on weekends (or several of these simultaneously). Intuitively, this sounds crazy – though the impression that such features correlate might arise through some accident (e.g. if there were a movie where two or three meggle people play a role).
> 
> So I would say that before we can accept a disjunctive definition of a comparative concept, it must be shown that the different criteria correlate very significantly. I don't think this has been shown for stereotypical subject properties, or for stereotypical word properties – though it may well be that it's true (I have no clear intuitions).
> 
> So basically what I'm arguing is that we shouldn't rely on stereotypical property clusters, but we should investigate whether the properties do indeed cluster. (Recall that typology originated in German Romanticism, which was closely linked to nationalism, and eventually to racism – and we all know that we should not trust racial stereotypes, though some of the supposed correlations may turn out to be correct after they are investigated.)
> 
> Best,
> Martin
> 
> 
> On 13.11.17 21:34, Peter Arkadiev wrote:
>> Dear Daniel, dear all,
>>  
>> that was an excellent point, and the analogy to 'family' defined relative to particular culture is very lucid. This is precisely how I believe many comparative linguistic notions can (or should) be defined -- relative to language. Take the notorious notion of subject, which is defined by some as "the privileged syntactic argument (by whatever criteria there are in particular languages that make one of their arguments privileged)". I may be wrong, but this seems to be the definition of subject in Role and Reference Grammar. Of course, for those who believe that comparability requires identification, this is a bad comparative concept, since in principle it does not exclude the possibility that there are two languages whose subjects have nothing in common. But still this is a workable concept allowing typologists to ask reasonable questions, e.g.:
>> 1) Are there languages where subjects in this sense cannot be single out, and if yes, for what reasons? As far as I know, there are linguists who claim that the answer to this question is "yes", therefore the concept is not vacuous.
>> 2) What are the grammatical properties that languages with subjects thus defined employ to render them privileged as opposed to other arguments? Well, much of the grammatical relations typology is just about this.
>> 3) Do subjects thus defined cross-linguistically correlate with certain admittedly universally applicable comparative concepts such as "agent" or "topic" and is there a common "core" to subjects in all languages? Note that under the definition proposed, this becomes an empirical question with a potentially negative answer, rather than is built into the definition a priori.
>>  
>> I think it is possible to define words, affixes, clitics etc. in such a way and get consistent and interesting results.
>>  
>> Best regards,
>>  
>> Peter
>>  
>> -- 
>> Peter Arkadiev, PhD
>> Institute of Slavic Studies
>> Russian Academy of Sciences
>> Leninsky prospekt 32-A 119991 Moscow
>> peterarkadiev at yandex.ru <mailto:peterarkadiev at yandex.ru>
>> http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev <http://inslav.ru/people/arkadev-petr-mihaylovich-peter-arkadiev>
>>  
>>  
> 
> -- 
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de <mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>)
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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> &
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