[Lingtyp] language typology, linguistic typology, comparative linguistics
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Wed Feb 28 06:38:35 UTC 2018
Martin mentions "evolutionary linguistics", and indeed, from a
descriptive point of view he is correct: people associated with the
MPI-SHH in Jena do use "evolutionary linguistics" to refer to just about
everything from whether Homo Erectus could speak to the nitty-gritty of
the Northern Cities Vowel Shift in American English. But this usage
seems to me to be problematical. Although there may indeed be common
"evolutionary" principles applicable to both phylogeny and diachrony,
there are also crucial differences, not just in the sociology of the
respective subdisciplines but also with respect to their underlying
principles. In particular, whereas work in diachronic linguistics is
typically guided by the uniformitarianist principle, stating, roughly,
that reconstructed proto-languages should fall more or less within the
range of observable contemporary languages, work in phylogeny by its
very nature abandons uniformitarianism in order to ask how this range of
variation emerged out of earlier systems that were qualitatively
different and probably simpler than those of contemporary languages.
For this reason, we need distinct terms for these two very different
concerns, and since for most of us "evolution" is indelibly associated
with the former, phylogenetic enterprise, "evolutionary linguistics" is
not an appropriate term to replace what has traditionally been referred
to as "historical-comparative linguistics".
An independent reason why calling everything "evolutionary linguistics"
is problematical is that it leaves us without a term for the type of
linguistics that is represented in Evolang conferences (i.e. Homo
Erectus stuff but not Northern Cities Vowel Shift), which, as suggested
by the name of the conferences, is traditionally referred to as the
"evolution of language".
On 28/02/2018 14:59, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
> Yes, in the past (before Greenberg), "comparative linguistics" was
> primarily used for historical-genealogical linguistics, but this use
> seems to be long obsolete (as I note in my blogpost:
> https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1022).
>
> At MPI-SHH in Jena where I work now (perhaps currently the best-funded
> place where people are engaged in historical-genealogical studies),
> people use terms like "evolutionary linguistics" or "phylogenetic
> linguistics".
>
> Incidentally, there is no difference between "comparative linguistics"
> and "vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft" – the latter was used for
> historical-genealogical linguistics, but is now obsolete in this
> sense. Balthasar Bickel uses it in the broader sense that I have
> suggested.
>
> But there is an English-German contrast in that nobody uses
> "linguistische Typologie" – this sounds like a different meaning is
> intended, namely "typology of linguistics"; and who knows, maybe this
> is intended by the shift from "language typology" (= typology of
> languages?) to "linguistic typology" (= typology in linguistics?).
>
> Martin
>
> On 28.02.18 03:51, Dan I. SLOBIN wrote:
>> And I've lectured to confused non-linguists who wonder what all of
>> these strange phenomena have to do with "topology." All of this back
>> and forth shows that there's no rubric that a complex set of
>> questions can fit under. I share Martin's misgivings--but do
>> remember that we have a journal and an association dedicated to
>> "linguistic typology" --as much as I wish there was an English
>> equivalent of /vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft./
>>
>> Indeed, in the historical framework, typological and taxonomic
>> studies are precursors to more systematic science. That was, for
>> example, the contribution of Linnaeus. We're still at the stage when
>> we need good descriptive work, and we don't have to be apologetic
>> about that. Sometimes I see us as a collection of Linnaeus's waiting
>> for Darwin, not knowing what Darwin will need.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 4:49 PM, Hedvig Skirgård
>> <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Just as an illustration of non-linguists (or even
>> non-typologists) not understanding the short term "typology".
>> Recently at an event for our research centre I did a short
>> presentation of the field and there were non-linguists in the
>> audience who found it very enlightening, because they had thought
>> that "typology" was the study of how people type language.
>>
>> /Hedvig
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
>> *Med vänliga hälsningar**,*
>>
>> *Hedvig Skirgård*
>>
>>
>> PhD Candidate
>>
>> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>>
>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>>
>> School of Culture, History and Language
>> College of Asia and the Pacific
>>
>> The Australian National University
>>
>> Website <https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2018-02-28 9:18 GMT+11:00 Siva Kalyan
>> <sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com
>> <mailto:sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com>>:
>>
>> I would point out that in English, the term “comparative
>> linguistics” is typically used as a shorthand for
>> “historical-comparative linguistics”, i.e. that part of
>> historical linguistics that concerns itself with genealogical
>> relatedness between languages, reconstruction etc., as
>> opposed to diachronic change within a single language. (See
>> e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_linguistics
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_linguistics>.)
>>
>> I see that in German (according to the corresponding
>> Wikipedia entry), the term /vergleichende
>> Sprachwissenschaft/ has a broader meaning which encompasses
>> both historical linguistics (/historisch-vergleichende S—/)
>> and typology (/allgemein-vergleichende S—/); this makes sense
>> of the name of the department in Zurich (otherwise a bit
>> puzzling for an English-speaker).
>>
>> Thus the use of “comparative linguistics” to refer to (only)
>> linguistic typology would seem to be in competition with
>> existing usage in both English and German. That said, I can
>> see the utility of having a cover term that encompasses both
>> historical linguistics and typology, and would support using
>> “comparative linguistics” in the German sense. I’m not sure
>> if this is within the scope of the current discussion, though.
>>
>> Siva
>>
>>> On 28 Feb 2018, at 8:10 am, Martin Haspelmath
>>> <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de <mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> What is the name of our subfield (or subcommunity):
>>>
>>> “language typology”?
>>> “linguistic typology”?
>>> or maybe simply “comparative linguistics”?
>>>
>>> Linguists know that there is no difference between the first
>>> two, and they also understand the shorter "typology", but
>>> this term is opaque for nonlinguists, and the duality
>>> of“language typology” and “linguistic typology” is
>>> inconvenient, because there is incomplete aggregation on
>>> sites like Google Scholar andAcademia.edu
>>> <http://academia.edu/>.
>>>
>>> (It seems that onAcademia.edu <http://academia.edu/>, 6354
>>> people are followers of “language typology”, 8732 follow
>>> “linguistic typology”, and 7090 follow “typology”, though
>>> perhaps not all of the latter mean typology in the
>>> linguistics sense.)
>>>
>>> Historically, it seems clear that “language typology” is the
>>> older term, and has become current in the 1970s.Since the
>>> 1990s, it got a competitor ("linguistic typology"), for
>>> unclear reasons.
>>>
>>> (More on the history of these two terms can be found in the
>>> following blogpost:https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1022
>>> <https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1022>)
>>>
>>> So I'm wondering: Maybe we should consider switching to an
>>> entirely different, fully transparent term, namely
>>> "comparative linguistics"?
>>>
>>> It seems that there are quite a few well-established fields
>>> with “comparative” in their names: comparative economics,
>>> comparative education, comparative law, comparative
>>> literature, comparative mythology, comparative psychology,
>>> and “comparative zoology” even has a famous museum on the
>>> Harvard campus.
>>>
>>> (So far, at least one department of comparative linguistics
>>> in the relevant sense exists: at the University of
>>> Zurich,http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en.html
>>> <http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en.html>).
>>>
>>> I feel that the term “comparative linguistics” for what used
>>> to be called “language/linguistic typology” has another big
>>> advantage: The term fails to signal association with a
>>> particular subcommunity – and this is good. After all, many
>>> comparative linguists work in a generative framework, and
>>> these do not usually associate with the term “typology”.
>>> However, much of what they do is clearly “typological” in
>>> the usually understood sense, so it is really odd to exclude
>>> this community terminologically.
>>>
>>> In any event, the question of the name of our subfield of
>>> linguistics seems not gto have been discussed explicitly.
>>> Maybe it would not be a complete waste of time to engage in
>>> some discussion.
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> --
>>> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de <mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>)
>>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>>> Kahlaische Strasse 10
>>> D-07745 Jena
>>> &
>>> Leipzig University
>>> IPF 141199
>>> Nikolaistrasse 6-10
>>> D-04109 Leipzig
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>> --
>>
>> /<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> /
>>
>> /Dan I. Slobin /
>>
>> /Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics/
>>
>> /University of California, Berkeley/
>>
>> /email: slobin at berkeley.edu <mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu>/
>>
>> /address: 2323 Rose St., Berkeley, CA 94708/
>>
>> /http://ihd.berkeley.edu/members.htm#slobin/
>>
>> /<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> /
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10
> D-07745 Jena
> &
> Leipzig University
> IPF 141199
> Nikolaistrasse 6-10
> D-04109 Leipzig
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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