[Lingtyp] query: "animal"

Tue Oct 16 01:56:41 UTC 2018

I think that Ian and Martin may be talking past each other somewhat here. I
think that they have different meanings of "questionnaire" (reading
grammars or searching through corpora and systematically cataloguing the
information into a sheet could be seen as filling out a questionnaire), but
I'll leave that to Ian and Martin to work out. I also appreciate Östen's
attention to the impact of the phrasing of questions to informants, I think
that's a very good point.

Another resource that David could make use of is the recently released
Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications (CLICS) from the CLLD-project
and CALC/DLCE group at MPI-SHH. It contains info on co-lexification, and
can display information in network graphs. Here are some relevant graphs:

Animal
https://clics.clld.org/graphs/subgraph_619

Insect
https://clics.clld.org/graphs/subgraph_620

Bird
https://clics.clld.org/graphs/subgraph_937

*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/>

P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use one
with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing
otherwise. I will only email you from my gmail, even if other email
addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).

Den tis 16 okt. 2018 kl 08:46 skrev Ian Maddieson <ianm at berkeley.edu>:

> Hi Martin,
>
> I find it a very bizarre claim to say that questionnaires are the ONLY way
> that cross-linguistic research can be carried out.
> Sure, using a questionnaire can be a useful tool for certain purposes, but
> consulting dictionaries, articles and grammars,
> analyzing texts, analyzing recordings, conducting experiments and so on
> are all possible ways of doing cross-linguistic
> research.
>
> In the context of the present discussion, the referential scope of
> "animal”-words might emerge more reliably from looking
> at large bodies of text to infer actual usage than from even a very
> well-designed questionnaire. Of course, large bodies of
> text are only available from a small sample of languages, and processing
> the data is non-trivial!
>
> Ian
>
> On Oct 15, 2018, at 2:21 PM, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se> wrote:
>
> Dear Martin,
> Since Hedvig did not really specify what the questionnaires should look
> like, could you make more precise what you mean by “questionnaires of the
> sort proposed by Hedvig”? Also, are you saying that one cannot carry out
> cross-linguistic research by corpus work or psycholinguistic experiments or
> by reading grammars?
> I think that some caution is necessary when constructing a questionnaire
> to compare how words like “animal” are used. There may well be a conflict
> between perceived norms and actual usage. Direct questions such as “What
> does X mean?” or “Is X a Y?” may yield answers which are biased towards the
> former.
> Östen
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Martin
> Haspelmath
> *Skickat:* den 15 oktober 2018 15:40
> *Till:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] query: "animal"
>
>
> In fact, questionnaires of the sort proposed by Hedvig and endorsed by
> David are the ONLY way in which cross-linguistic research can be carried
> out.
>
> There is no contradiction at all between lists of comparison meanings
> (like David's original list of 8 organism types) and the recognition that
> languages "function" differently.
>
> In order to express how a language "functions" (= in order to describe a
> language), one needs descriptive categories, and these may well involve
> prototypes.
>
> In order to find out what languages have in common, one needs comparative
> concepts (for lexical concepts: comparison meanings, e.g. the concept-sets
> in the Concepticon https://concepticon.clld.org/parameters).
>
> One should avoid the mistake of thinking that a mapping from language
> facts to comparative concepts is a description, or the opposite mistake of
> thinking that descriptive categories would necessarily be useful for
> comparison.
>
> (Sorry for belabouring this methodological point, but it seems to come up
> again and again...)
>
> Best,
> Martin
> On 15.10.18 15:03, David Gil wrote:
>
> In response to the latest posting by Johanna, I think there is widespread
> agreement that the meanings of words exhibit the kind of internal
> structuring that is usefully represented in terms of prototypes.  But this
> does not preclude the need for adequate descriptions of what is included —
> protypically, less prototypically, marginally, or not at all — in the
> extension of words such as "animal" and its putative counterparts across
> languages.  And questionnaires have proven to be a useful tool for
> gathering this kind of data — it's quite easy to formulate a questionnaire
> in such a way that it will elicit judgements of prototypicality (as opposed
> to categorical "black-and-white" judgements).
>
> On 15/10/2018 14:49, Johanna Laakso wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> to be honest, I don't believe that languages function with clear
> categories for concepts like "animal". More probably, there is something
> like a prototypical "core" for "animalness" (or many of them, if there are
> many categories corresponding to "animal"), surrounded by grey zones and
> depending on contexts, styles, subcultures, etc.
>
> My own anecdotal experience (which first caught my attention years ago,
> when working on a translation job): in Estonian, "loomad ja linnud"
> (‘animals and birds’, implying that ‘birds’ are a category distinct from
> ‘animals’) seems to be a pretty frequent expression (more than 60,000
> Google hits). As a native speaker of Finnish, I find the Finnish equivalent
> expression, "eläimet ja linnut", less natural or not as idiomatic and
> acceptable as the Estonian one; it does occur but clearly less frequently
> than in Estonian (13,700 Google hits), and according to my intuition, the
> Finnish ‘bird’ is a borderline case – birds might be "animals" or
> "not-animals", depending on context and use. I'm also pretty sure that many
> other Finnish speakers might see this differently.
>
> Therefore, I have great doubts concerning the use of questionnaires for
> gathering data. Or, at least, the questionnaire should be very carefully
> planned, to accommodate vagueness and fuzzy or overlapping categories.
>
> Best
> Johanna
>
> PS. Note also that terms for animals in many languages are greatly
> affected by taboos. And that the term ‘animal’ in itself is often a
> derivative (Finnish eläin = "living thing", Estonian loom = "creature",
> Hungarian állat = "standing thing") or a result of semantic extension or
> specification (cf. German "Tier" and its Scandinavian cognates with English
> "deer", or the fact that Hungarian "állat" a few centuries ago had a more
> general meaning, something like "entity" or "being") and that these
> developments might be connected to cultural changes.
> --
> Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso
> Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und
> Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)
> Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
> Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7
> A-1090 Wien
> johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at • http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/
> Project ELDIA: http://www.eldia-project.org/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> kirjoitti 15.10.2018 kello
> 13.55:
>
> Dear everyone,
>
> Queries like one David posed are often improved via more systematic data
> collection using a form. I suggested Google Forms because it's one of the
> most user friendly and familiar interfaces out there where David could set
> up a questionnaire and collect data on people's usage of words in their
> respective language, and also get systematic data on exactly what language
> they speaks.
>
> I'm not going to set this up for anyone else or compile the information in
> this thread, I'm merely suggesting that it a Google Form may be a
> productive way of going about this.
>
> *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/>
>
> P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use
> one with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing
> otherwise. I will only email you from my gmail, even if other email
> addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).
>
>
>
> Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 22:50 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <
> assibi.amidu at ntnu.no>:
>
> Dear Hedvig,
>
> I am not myself into google, twitter, facebook, etc. beyond pressing
> 'like' buttons. If you wish to put the information on these platforms, too,
> please, do so, as long it does not distract from David's exploration.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Assibi
>
> On 15. okt. 2018, at 13:21, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>
>  wrote:
>
>
> May I suggest a google form to be spread around facebook and twitter etc?
>
> *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/>
>
> P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use
> one with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing
> otherwise. I will only email you from my gmail, even if other email
> addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).
>
>
>
> Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 21:31 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <
> assibi.amidu at ntnu.no>:
>
> Dear David and all,
>
> Your exploration is very educative. I cannot claim to be able to answer
> your questions, but here is a take from Kiswahili. In Kiswahili, the
> categorization is as follows:
>
> 1. *Mtu/Watu* 'being/s' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) includes human and other
> animates. They are superordniate terms which subsume (2-3).
> 2. *Mnyama/Wanyama* 'animal/s, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) , (historically
> undifferentiated as* nyama/nyama* of classes 9/10, N/N up to ends of the
> 19th century) which subsume (3), hence hypernym to (3).
> 3. *Mdudu/Wadudu* 'insect/s, crawler/s, parasite/s, and others,
> ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA).
>
> This gives us three generic terms for referring to humans, animal, insects
> and other species all the way to microbes. (2-3) are co-hyponyms of (1).
> These are not sharp mutually exclusive categories. Thus, centipede,
> scorpion, etc. are also types of  (3), and human, and other animals, e.g.
> hippo, can be described as *wadudu*, or better still with the augmentative
>  *dudu/madudu*, depending on the communication intention of the speaker,
> e,g, how monstrous they perceive the entity. Returning to your list of
> words, they would fall under (1-2), but specifically under (2) in everyday
> usage. For a quick, not too detailed, discussion, kindly look at chapter 2
> of
>
> Amidu, A. A. (2007). *Semantic Assignement Rules in Kiswahili Bantu
> Classes*. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Assibi
>
> On 14. okt. 2018, at 08:11, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
>  wrote:
>
>
> Randy,
> So which of the items in (1-8) are covered by Chinese *dòngwù* (動物),
> ‘moving thing’?
> David
>
>
> On 14/10/2018 03:59, Randy LaPolla wrote:
>
> Hi David,
> The categories as you have them (1-8) reflect certain cultural
> conceptions, and so won’t be the same for other cultures. For example, in
> Chinese bats were traditionally seen as flying mice, and lizards were seen
> as four-legged snakes.
> The word in Chinese that we translate as ‘animal’ is *dòngwù* (動物),
> ‘moving thing’.
>
> Randy
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> On 14 Oct 2018, at 12:33 AM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> I am interested in exploring, cross-linguistically, the semantic range of
> words that correspond more or less to the English word "animal".
>
> Here are examples of the things that English "animal" refers to:
>
> 1. dog, kangaroo, lizard, frog ...
> 2. eagle, sparrow, chicken, bat ...
> 3. bee, scorpion, spider, centipede ...
> 4. crab, shrimp ...
> 5. worm, leech ...
> 6. starfish, jellyfish, squid, octopus ...
> 7. oyster, clam ...
> 8. sponge (?) ...
>
> I am looking for examples of languages in which the basic word closest to
> English "animal" is nevertheless different in its coverage.  In particular,
> I would like to find instances — if such exist — of languages in which
> there is a basic word that covers the examples in 1-4 (or maybe 1-5) to the
> exclusion of those in 5-8 (or maybe 6-8).   (Note that the question
> concerns every-day words that reflect our naive folk biological knowledge,
> not with scientific terms in those few languages that have such
> terminology.)
>
> Some words of background:  A colleague and I working in experimental
> cognitive science have found (non-linguistic) empirical evidence for the
> psychological reality of an ontological category that consists roughly of
> animals of the kind exemplified in 1-4 (and possibly also 5).  We are
> calling this category "higher animals".  The characteristic prototypical
> features of higher animals include a single axis of symmetry, the existence
> of head, torso and limbs, a face in the front of the head that includes
> sensory organs such as eyes, and a mouth for eating, and the ability to
> move forward in the direction that the head is facing.  A challenge that we
> face is that, in the (few) languages that we are familiar with, there is no
> simple word for higher animals.  But we are hoping that other languages
> might have such a word.  in addition, we would also welcome grammatical
> evidence for the category of higher animals, for example in the form of
> grammatical rules that are sensitive to the animacy hierarchy by making
> reference to a cut-off point between higher and other animals.
>
> I look forward to your responses.  Thanks,
>
> David
>
> --
>
> 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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>
>
> --
>
> 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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>
> --
>
> 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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>
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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
>
> Institut fuer Anglistik
>
> IPF 141199
>
> D-04081 Leipzig
>
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>
> Ian Maddieson
>
> Department of Linguistics
> University of New Mexico
> MSC03-2130
> Albuquerque NM 87131-0001
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