[Lingtyp] query: "animal"
Volker Gast
volker.gast at uni-jena.de
Tue Oct 16 12:32:53 UTC 2018
I would like to endorse the point made by Östen below (questionnaires
often elicit answers reflecting perceived norms). There is an important
book by Greenbaum and Quirk (1970) on "Elicitation experiments in
English linguistic studies in use and attitude". As the title suggests,
the authors make a distinction between "use" and "attitude", and (naive)
questionnaires often elicit attitude, not use. Use and attitude may of
course coincide; but frankly, I'm not sure how I use the word "animal"
in everyday language and what exactly it covers. In a questionnaire I
would probably provide a normative answer. A corpus study might lead to
more valid results concerning use, as Ian pointed out.
As far as comparability more generally is concerned, it is clear that it
correlates with two dimensions: (i) concrete concepts are more
comparable than abstract concepts, and (ii) specific concepts are more
comparable than general concepts. 'Animal' is a highly general concept,
and I would not be surprised to learn that there are languages that have
no word for it, as it is not necessarily a very useful generalization.
Volker
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
> --
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Lingtyp mailing list
>
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
> --
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Lingtyp mailing list
>
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20181016/3bdc01df/attachment.htm>
More information about the Lingtyp
mailing list