[Lingtyp] Temporal features?

Mon Oct 1 01:41:45 UTC 2018

Hi Jeffrey

On the issue of egocentric spatial strategies and urban environments, I agree with Juergen's suspicion that habituation to urban route-finding prompts an increased use of egocentric strategies, and the picture regarding this is quite complicated. Some studies have found a preference for egocentric strategies in urban communities vs absolute or geocentric strategies in rural communities in the same language group (such as Pederson's work on Tamil, e.g. 2006, and Mishra et al's work on Hindi, 2003). In my Atoll Space Group (e.g. Palmer et al 2017), we found a direct correlation with urban density and egocentric preference. However, speakers in all environments used both egocentric and geocentric strategies. The variation lay in proportion of various strategies employed in different environment. In Dhivehi (Maldives) in densely populated Male egocentric strategies were overwhelmingly preferred. In somewhat less urban Addu the preference was not as strong. In low density Laamu (across several locations) the average was about equal preference for egocentric and geocentric strategies. But density alone is not the only factor. In our Marshallese study, the Marshallese community in Springdale Arkansas shows an overwhelming preference for egocentric strategies, the opposite of what we found in the Marshall Islands itself. However Springdale is not particularly high density - more suburban than high density urban, and not much more high density than some of the Marshall Island locations. The urbanness factor there seems to be compounded by the unavailability of anchoring features for the usually high frequency Marshallese references to topographic features of the atolls, such as the lagoon.

Urban configuration on a regular grid, as you suggest, is a factor, but actually a regular grid seems to have a somewhat lesser effect in promoting egocentric strategies than more irregular (and traditional) urban configurations. So, in cities with a very regular grid pattern, absolute strategies are more available. E.g. in New York terms such as uptown and downtown operate in absolute Frame of Reference (e.g. "go over to 7th then head uptown" rather than "go over to 7th and turn left"). In my view it's the irregularity of urban environments as well as reduced access to orienting factors in the environment that prompts increased use of egocentric spatial strategies. The difficulty in maintaining orientation in that kind of  environment seems to override what increasingly seems to be a cognitively more basic spatial anchoring in the physical environment, in line with Juergen's work on a pan-simian bias for absolute strategies and other work showing absolute cognitive strategies in great apes, and Juergen's work on mismatches between absolute and relative strategies in linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour, which always seem to be in the direction of relative in language and absolute in non-linguistic behaviour, and not the other way around.

Cheers
Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of Bohnemeyer, Juergen
Sent: Monday, 1 October 2018 9:45 AM
To: Heath Jeffrey <schweinehaxen at hotmail.com>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Temporal features?

Jeffrey — The primary domain of egocentric frames are front/back/left/right terms. Such terms can be used both egocentrically and allocentrically (intrinsically). However, when it comes to ‘left’ and ‘right’ in particular, we’ve generally found that if a language bothers to extend them beyond the human body at all, they tend to be more frequently used egocentrically (and specifically relatively, i.e., transposing them from the body of an observer onto some reference entity) than intrinsically. 

There are probably a number of factors that make urbanization an egocentrism booster. I’ve been suspecting for a while that habituation to navigating urban roadways is one such factor, as you suggest. However, not everybody shares my intuition. Another is probably reduced accessibility of environmental cues in large urban settlements. 

As to your second point, we tried to compare these lexicalization strategies more systematically in the old Cut&Break project at MPI Nijmegen. See the special issue with case studies that came out in Cognitive Linguistics in 2007. One very interesting paper in the bunch that I think speaks to your point is Steve Levinson’s. He argued that Yélî Dnye, the language of Rossel Island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of PNG, lacks European-style cutting verbs. Instead of by instrument, the respective actions are lexicalized by physical properties of the object being acted on. He suggested that this might be explained with reference to the absence of metal tools in Rossel culture prior to European contact.

Best — Juergen

> On Sep 30, 2018, at 6:22 PM, Heath Jeffrey <schweinehaxen at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Juergen, if by egocentric you refer mainly to left/right as directions (turn left at the third set of lights), the question I have is to what extent it correlates with large-scale urban configurations based on rectangular grids (cf. your "population density"). 
> 
> Another cultural-linguistic distinction worthy of consideration is the extent to which unmarked, basic action verbs (in domains like 'eat/drink', 'cut/break', 'transport/carry', 'hold', 'harvest') are lexicalized on the basis of function/result as in SAE or on the basis of manner/process, as systematically in Dogon languages. It is difficult to study this typologically since dictionaries don't contain the relevant information. I cannot even determine it from my own older dictionaries of non-Dogon languages. There are a number of cross-linguistic surveys of verbs in specific domains ('cut/break', 'give', 'eat/drink'), mostly limited to a few case studies, but none to my knowledge covers ALL action verbs in the languages compared.
> 
> For example, if a specific event of 'carry' has been witnessed and is being reported, is it obligatory to specify the manner (e.g. with lexial verbs meaning 'carry on head' vs. 'carry on back') or can one use a general term 'carry' that doesn't specify manner? Likewise for the other action-verb domains.
> 
> It is also difficult to interpret crosslinguistic differences on this point even when one has determined the facts. Are these differences in culturally favored epistemic stance? One can directly observe and report the manner, but specifying the purpose requires interpretation, intruding into others' minds, and the result may not be observable, as with 'eat'. Or do they reflect tighter real-world correlations between manner/process and function/result in small-scale societies as opposed to others (with more specialized and opaque occupations)?
> 
> We did a paper on this (Dogon vs. English representing SAE) but it hasn't resonated. Heath & McPherson, Cognitive set and lexicalization strategy in Dogon action verbs, Anthropological Linguistics 51(1): 38-63 (2009). 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of 
> Bohnemeyer, Juergen <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2018 2:39 PM
> To: Joo Ian; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Temporal features?
>  
> Dear Ian — Thanks for a great question! Are certain properties of individual languages typologically more prevalent at certain time periods than others? As far as I’m aware, all empirical research, and even “theorizing” (hypothesizing, really), that has intersected with this question has done so solely with a simpler version of it: Are certain properties of individual languages typologically more or less prevalent now than they were at earlier stages of the cultural evolution of human language? 
> 
> In this version, what is being compared is the distribution of the property in question as we can observe it now against the (hypothesized or reconstructed) distribution at some point in time that is substantially closer to the temporal origin point(s) of the currently extant languages (and I consider neither the question whether there is one single such origin point nor the one as to what members of the hominid lineage can rightfully be considered speakers of the earliest languages in the sense of language as we know it settled). I suspect we lack sufficient data to address the broader question you raised beyond this narrower version, comparing arbitrary points in time.
> 
> Now, the narrower question has drawn particularly intense attention in phonology over the past 20 or so years. In addition to the literature Eitan Grossman mentioned, let me point to at least three strands of research:
> 
> * Dediu & Ladd’s (2007) work on a possible genetic marker 
> codistributed with tone languages and the follow up studies it 
> generated;
> 
> * The debate over the prehistory of clicks (Tishkoff et al 2007; Sands 
> & Güldermann 2009, Dimmendaal 2011; inter alia);
> 
> * Various attempts at temporally projecting the evolution of phoneme inventories/diversity, including Atkinson 2011 and Perreault & Matthews 2012.
> 
> Now, outside phonology, I wanted to mention an area of study that some consider part of the lexicon, others part of the grammar, and that in my view belongs to neither (it doesn’t form part of the grammar in the narrow sense of a combinatorial system), but rather to practices of language use: spatial referencing systems. Largely still unpublished work by my collaborators and myself in the second MesoSpace project (NSF BCS-1053123) suggests that the preference for egocentric reference frames in small-scale space is restricted to European languages and a few other languages spoken in globalized post-industrial societies, including Japanese and Mandarin. 
> 
> At the same time, our own work and a number of earlier small-scale studies have uncovered a number of populations that exhibit apparent mismatches between their behavior in verbal and in nonverbal tasks, with the former suggesting either unrestricted use of frame types or a preference for intrinsic frames, while the latter point in most cases toward a geocentrism bias. We think that this is line with the hypothesis of an innate geocentrism bias that in some populations gets overridden by a culturally (including notably linguistically) transmitted preference for egocentric frames. The hypothesis of the innate geocentrism bias and the cultural override was first proposed by Haun et al (2006) on the basis of research with non-human primates and human infants. Our typological evidence seems to support this idea. 
> 
> In addition, our regression models show that egocentrism is boosted independently by literacy and population density, whereas geocentrism is boosted by the availability of salient typological landmarks, the latter in line with Palmer et al (2017). All this evidence is consistent with an evolutionary scenario under which human populations would have until perhaps just a few millennia ago made no more than marginal use of egocentric frames (especially the subtype of egocentric frames Levinson calls ‘relative’) in both discourse and nonverbal cognition. Egocentrism would have developed and spread as a cultural adaptation once small-scale space became more clearly separated from geographic space as a domain, with speech, gesture, and other observable behaviors acting as transmission systems. At the same time, established practices of geocentrism within a community would counteract the spread of egocentrism (so it would be quite misleading to think of geocentric populations as less advanced compared to egocentric ones; especially as egocentric and geocentric strategies each have their strengths and weaknesses).
> 
> Best — Juergen (apologies for the long response!)
> 
> Atkinson, Q. D. (2011). Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science 332: 346–349.
> 
> Dediu, D., & Ladd, D. R. (2007). Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and Microcephalin. PNAS, 104, 10944-10949.
> 
> Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2011. Historical linguistics and the comparative study of African languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
> 
> Haun, D. B. M., C. Rapold, J. Call, G. Janzen, & S. C. Levinson. (2006). Cognitive cladistics and cultural override in hominid spatial cognition. PNAS 103: 17568–17573.  
> 
> Palmer, B., Lum, J., Schlossberg, J., et al. (2017). How does the environment shape spatial language? Evidence for sociotopography . Linguistic Typology, 21(3), pp. 457-491. 
> 
> Perreault, C., & Mathew, S. (2012). Dating the Origin of Language 
> Using Phonemic Diversity. PLoS ONE, 7(4), 
> e35289.https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%
> 2Fdoi.org%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035289&data=02%7C01%7C%7C2a9b0
> fccebf84f286ac808d627043bac%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0
> %7C636739296461014684&sdata=M0Gp15OddozVtDfW7q8folu0jis9ZbFGsU40EP
> CdQKQ%3D&reserved=0
> 
> Sands, Bonny & Tom Güldermann. 2009. What click languages can and can’t tell about language origins. In The cradle of language, ed. by Rudolf Botha & Chris Knight, 204-218. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
> 
> Tishkoff, Sarah A., Mary Katherine Gonder, Brenna M. Henn, Holly 
> Mortensen, Alec Knight, Christopher Gignoux, Neil Fernandopulle, 
> Godfrey Lema, Thomas B. Nyambo, Uma Ramakrishnan, Floyd A. Reed, 
> Joanna L. Mountain; History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa 
> Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation, Molecular 
> Biology and Evolution, Volume 24, Issue 10, 1 October 2007, Pages 
> 2180–2195, 
> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.
> org%2F10.1093%2Fmolbev%2Fmsm155&data=02%7C01%7C%7C2a9b0fccebf84f28
> 6ac808d627043bac%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C63673929
> 6461014684&sdata=Kfss2lUYCQLV74WSt13y02OQI9hBLCZxL178DXG1w8w%3D&am
> p;reserved=0
> 
> 
> > On Sep 30, 2018, at 12:04 AM, Joo Ian <ian.joo at outlook.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Dear all,
> >  
> > We all know that languages spoken in a certain area (for example, Mainland Southeast Asia) tend to share areal features. But what about time? Do languages spoken at a certain time period, such as say, Bronze Age, share a certain feature distinct from the features of languages spoken during, say, Iron Age?
> > If so, then would a sample of languages spoken only at a certain time period (such as the 21st century) also be a temporally biased sample, similar to how a sample of languages spoken only in Europe would be an areally biased sample?
> > In order to create a trully non-biased sample of languages, is it also necessary to avoid temporal bias?
> >  
> > I can think of several “temporal features”:
> >  
> >        • Vocabulary. Languages spoken before the 20th century would not have any words referring to “computer.” Bronze Age languages would have no words related to iron.
> >        • Metaphors. Some have argued that some metaphors, such as TIME IS MONEY, arose only via industrialization (although I have argued against this, claiming that it has also existed in Classical Chinese)
> >        • Gender-bias. Most languages we speak today are biased towards male, for example the generic pronoun being the masculine singular pronoun. But in the 21st century, where we strive for gender equality, we see that there are conscious changes being made to fix this gender-bias.
> >  
> > But in terms of syntax, morphology, phonology, etc. are there specific temporal features?
> > I would appreciate any insights on this issue.
> >  
> > From Hong Kong,
> > Ian Joo
> > https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fian
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> 
> --
> Juergen Bohnemeyer, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies 
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--
Juergen Bohnemeyer, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science University at Buffalo 

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus * Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
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