[Lingtyp] query: "animal"
MM Jocelyne Fernandez
mmjocelynefern at gmail.com
Tue Oct 16 02:57:19 UTC 2018
No method alone is sufficient for cross-linguistic research. 40 years
ago questionnaires were unavoidable in field linguistics, but the
conception of language has evolved. One could believe that a simple
lexeme like "animal" corresponds in each language a more objective and
fixed usage than for instance discourse particles, but modern discourse
analyses have shown that the lexicon is also dependent upon its context
and co-text. Co-lexification studies that would nowadays disregard for
"animal" essential defining criteria like connotation and textual genre
would paint a somewhat fusty picture of the typological field.
M.M.Jocelyne FERNANDEZ-VEST
CNRS & Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Le 15/10/2018 à 22:21, Östen Dahl a écrit :
>
> 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
> <mailto: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
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
> <mailto: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
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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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