[Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
Martin Haspelmath
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Fri Feb 5 17:23:52 UTC 2021
Thanks, Erich! Yes, it's true that comparative concepts "do not address
the issue of non-unique analysis", because they are not about analysis,
but about classification.
Linguists often conflate these two things – they say things like "I
/analyze/ phenomenon X as Y", where "Y" is a category known from some
other language. But this works only if Y is assumed to be an innate
building block.
So if one invokes phenomena that are also found in other languages, one
should say "I /classify/ X as Y". And I think that classification can
and should be unique (unlike analysis), because the classificatory
categories are defined in such a way that they apply equally everywhere.
(They are "cookie-cutters" whose shape and size is not dependent on the
dough, to use Erich's apt metaphor.)
What Round (2019) apparently attempts to do is to have it both ways:
"carve languages at their joints", but in a way that still allows
comparison, by "choosing judiciously" among different (equally possible)
analyses. I fear that such "judicious choices" may introduce too much
subjectiveness (criteria selection bias, as Tallman 2021 calls it:
https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005720).
Erich is absolutely right that by choosing "cookie-cutter"-type
comparative concepts (e.g. WALS-type category-like concepts, or parallel
text passages, or Nijmegen-style visual stimuli), one incurs "the cost
of losing sight of the systems being characterised" – except that
"losing sight" suggests that one could do both things simultaneously.
I'm not sure whether there is a "growing consensus", though. I replied
to Himmelmann's 2019 paper here: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2447, and I
will reply to the critical comments on my "General linguistics" paper
(mostly by generative linguists such as David Adger:
https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005691) next month. It still seems to me
that the main lack of consensus is between advocates of innate building
blocks and everyone else.
Martin
Am 05.02.21 um 08:37 schrieb Erich Round:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Martin Haspelmath writes,
>
> different issues here: … (iii) how one links language-particular
> phenomena to comparative concepts; Erich Round's paper on “Australian
> Phonemic Inventories Contributed to PHOIBLE 2.0”
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333
> <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333> is a clear example of this
> last type.
>
> This misconstrues what the study does altogether, but it also raises a
> point worth delving into, so thanks to Martin in the spirit of
> zigzagging towards the light:
>
> Round (2019) considers the language-internal analyses of a large
> sample of Australian languages. Relevant to Adam’s topic, phonemic
> analysis is famously non-unique, and a given language typically allows
> multiple possible analyses. To put it another way, there are multiple
> ways to carve a sound system at its joints. Round (2019) chooses among
> these multiple, possible, language-internal analyses, endeavouring to
> ensure that the principles of the analysis are comparable across
> languages. Thus, when languages in the dataset do differ, those
> differences are more likely to reflect empirical differences in the
> languages themselves, rather than artifactual differences due to
> linguists doing phonemicisation differently. As Larry Hyman (2017:144)
> puts it so well, “we aim to typologize the linguistic properties, not
> the linguists”. Discussion of this kind of typological data
> preparation is relatively prominent within phonology: see Hyman
> (2017), van der Hulst (2017), Kiparksy (2018), and of course Ian
> Maddieson’s (1984) classic study which treats the issue with great care.
>
> In contrast, Comparative Concepts (CC’s) do not seem to me to address
> the issue of non-unique analysis, because they don’t seek to
> characterise languages in their own terms. CC’s, in Haspelmath’s
> sense, are like cookie-cutters that slice through languages, picking
> out a predetermined shape chosen by the analyst (so that we can ask
> what we find within it); they deliberately don’t carve languages at
> their joints. Round (2019) does carve languages at their joints, only
> it admits that there are many ways to do so, and attempts to choose
> judiciously among them, given the aim of constructing a dataset that
> aids insightful comparison and typologising.
>
> Why is this important to many typologists? Because we regard languages
> as organised systems, and want to understand them as such. A
> challenge, though, is that complex systems admit of multiple different
> characterisations. Typological methods which attend to this challenge
> of multiple analysis / non-uniqueness seek to ameliorate the
> distractions and illusions that can be thrown up by different choices
> of analysis, while still remaining committed to studying the system.
> CC’s in Haspelmath’s sense offer the promise of reducing variation in
> analysis, but at the cost of losing sight of the systems being
> characterised. Whether that is a cost worth bearing is evidently
> still a matter of contention in current-day typology.*
>
> Best,
>
> Erich
>
> * Though the growing consensus is, it’s perfectly possible to do good
> typology without paying it. Bickel 2021, Round & Corbett 2020, Spike
> 2020 and Himmelmann 2019 all make this point from separate angles.
>
> New references (other references are in my earlier post, below):
>
> Bickel, Balthasar. 2021. “Beyond Universals and Particulars in
> Language: A Reply to Haspelmath (2021).”
> _https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005707
> <https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005707>_.
>
> Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2019. Against trivializing language
> description (and comparison). Under review.
> https://ifl.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/prof-himmelmann/publikationen
> <https://ifl.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/prof-himmelmann/publikationen>
>
> Maddieson, Ian. 1984. /Patterns of Sounds/. Cambridge: Cambridge
> University Press.
>
> Spike, Matthew. 2020. “Fifty Shades of Grue: Indeterminate Categories
> and Induction in and out of the Language Sciences.” /Linguistic
> Typology/ 24(3):465-488. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2061
> <https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2061>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf
> of Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>
> *Date: *Thursday, 4 February 2021 at 11:32 pm
> *To: *"lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
>
> It seems that there are at least three different issues here:
>
> (i) whether all speakers of a language have the same system even when
> their conventional behaviour is identical; there happens to be an
> example of indeterminacy in the latest issue of /Phonological Data and
> Analysis/ (see Matthew Gordon's earlier message):
>
> Bennett, W. G., & Braver, A. (2020). Different speakers, different
> grammars: Productivity and representation of Xhosa labial
> palatalization. /Phonological Data and Analysis/, /2/(6), 1–29.
> https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v2art6.9
> <https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v2art6.9>
>
>
> (ii) on what basis one decides between different analyses of a
> language-particular system; e.g. Schane's (1968) example of English
> [spin], which can be phonemicized as /sbin/ (with phonetic devoicing
> of /b/ after sibilant) or /spʰin/ (with phonetic deaspiration in the
> same environment).
>
> (iii) how one links language-particular phenomena to comparative
> concepts; Erich Round's paper on “Australian Phonemic Inventories
> Contributed to PHOIBLE 2.0” https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333
> <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333> is a clear example of this
> last type. It seems that the issue in Chácobo that Adam Tallman
> mentioned ("tone" vs. "stress") also falls in this category.
>
> Phonologists do not always distinguish between (ii) and (iii)
> (particular description vs. general comparison), as pointed out
> prominently by Lass (1984) and Simpson (1999) (cited by Erich). But
> Kiparsky (2018) (also cited by Erich) explicitly rejects the
> distinction – I have argued against Kiparsky here:
> https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1817 <https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1817>.
>
> Best,
> Martin
>
> Am 04.02.21 um 13:28 schrieb Erich Round:
>
> Hi Adam,
>
> I’ve enjoyed the conversations you’ve sparked here on the list
> recently, please keep them coming!
>
> Thanks for raising an important topic. I have some paper
> suggestions below. I’d start by saying, though, that you might be
> getting formal phonologists wrong. Generative theorists from the
> start were well aware of the non-uniqueness problem, and that’s
> one reason why they were so keen on metrics to evaluate multiple
> candidate grammars. Now, that’s not to say it proved to be plain
> sailing, but there’s a deep appreciation of the problem buried in
> the theory, even if for practical purposes much theoretical work
> (just like much typological work) assumes only one analysis in
> order to get some other task completed in a finite amount of
> time. In optimality theory, the notion of Richness of the base is
> one new-ish incarnation of attempts to deal with the matter.
>
> Canonical Typology (Corbett 2005, Round and Corbett 2020) provides
> the conceptual tools for asking not just whether ‘the best
> analysis’ is A, B or C, but to what extent, in multiple different
> regards, A, B and C differ and therefore can be considered
> (dis)advantageous in different ways. This helps us clarify why and
> how multiple analyses arise in the first place. My forthcoming
> chapter (2021) on phonotactics in Australian languages discusses
> this with respect to complex segments; Kwon & Round (2015) discuss
> it with respect to phonaesthemes; my review (2017) of Gordon’s
> Phonological Typology (2016) discusses the idea of doing typology
> over a distribution of possible analyses (which I term ‘factorial
> analysis’) and points out some places where Gordon’s own work
> covertly does this when confronted with non-uniqueness. Parncutt
> (2015) applies the idea to reduplication, and a current PhD
> student of mine, Ruihua Yin presented some of her fascinating
> results regarding sonority sequencing at the Australian
> Linguistics Society conference in December; her thesis should be
> finished early this year, and will be a major undertaking in this
> kind of typology. Round (2019) discusses how I addressed the issue
> of non-uniqueness when compiling a typologically nuanced set of
> 400 Australia phoneme inventories for Phoible. Natalia
> Kuznetsova’s work (2019) is relevant to prosody and responds to
> Hyman’s (2006) classic paper. Other serious discussions of the
> issue from various angles, typically very thoughtful and some
> quite in-depth are: Hockett 1963, Lass 1984, Simpson 1999, Hyman
> 2007, 2008, 2017, Dresher 2009, van der Hulst 2017, Kiparksy 2018.
>
> Best,
>
> Erich
>
> Corbett, Greville G. 2005. “The Canonical Approach in Typology.”
> In /Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories/, edited by Zygmunt
> Frajzyngier, Adam Hodges, and David S Rood, 25–49. Amsterdam: John
> Benjamins.
>
> Dresher, B. Elan. 2009. /The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology/.
> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>
> Gordon, Matthew K. 2016. /Phonological Typology/. Oxford
> University Press.
>
> Hockett, Charles F. 1963. “The Problem of Universals in Language.”
> In /Universals of Language/, edited by Joseph Greenberg, 1–29.
>
> Hyman, Larry. 2006. “Word-Prosodic Typology.” /Phonology/ 23: 225–57.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2007. “Where’s Phonology in Typology?” /Linguistic
> Typology/ 11: 265–71.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2008. “Universals in Phonology.” /The Linguistic
> Review/ 25: 83–137.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2017. “What (Else) Depends on Phonology?” In
> /Dependencies in Language/, edited by Nicholas Enfield, 141–58.
>
> Kiparsky, Paul. 2018. “Formal and Empirical Issues in Phonological
> Typology.” In /Phonological Typology/, edited by Larry M. Hyman
> and Frans Plank, 54–106. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
>
> Kuznetsova, Natalia. 2019. What Danish and Estonian can show to a
> modern word-prosodic typology. In Goedemans, R., Heinz, J., & van
> der Hulst, H. (Eds.). The study of word stress and accent:
> Theories, methods and data. CUP.
>
> Kwon, Nahyun, and Erich R. Round. 2015. “Phonaesthemes in
> Morphological Theory.” /Morphology/ 25 (1): 1–27.
>
> Lass, Roger. 1984. “Vowel System Universals and Typology: Prologue
> to Theory.” /Phonology Yearbook/ 1: 75–111.
>
> Parncutt, Amy. 2015. “Towards a Phonological Typology of
> Reduplication in Australian Languages.” Honours Thesis, University
> of Queensland.
>
> Round, Erich R. 2017. “Review of Gordon, Matthew K. Phonological
> Typology, OUP 2016.” /Folia Linguistica/ 51 (3): 745–55.
>
> Round, Erich R. 2019. “Australian Phonemic Inventories Contributed
> to PHOIBLE 2.0: Essential Explanatory Notes.”
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333
> <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333>.
>
> Round, Erich R. forthcoming 2021. “Phonotactics.” In /Oxford Guide
> to Australian Languages/, edited by Claire Bowern. Oxford: Oxford
> University Press. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23022.13120
>
> Round, Erich R., and Greville G. Corbett. 2020. “Comparability and
> Measurement in Typological Science: The Bright Future for
> Linguistics.” /Linguistic Typology/ 24 (3): 489–525.
>
> Simpson, Adrian P. 1999. “Fundamental Problems in Comparative
> Phonetics and Phonology: Does UPSID Help to Solve Them.” In
> /Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic
> Sciences/, 1:349–52. Berkeley: University of California.
>
> Van der Hulst, Harry. 2017. “Phonological Typology.” In /The
> Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology/, edited by Alexandra Y.
> Aikhenvald and Robert MW Dixon, 39–77. Cambridge: Cambridge
> University Press.
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> TALLMAN Adam <Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr> <mailto:Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr>
> *Date: *Thursday, 4 February 2021 at 9:20 pm
> *To: *VAN DE VELDE Mark <Mark.VANDEVELDE at cnrs.fr>
> <mailto:Mark.VANDEVELDE at cnrs.fr>,
> "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
>
> Thanks, yes, I've read this paper.
>
> Adam
>
> Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)
>
> ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant
> CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
> Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)
>
> Numero celular en bolivia: +59163116867
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *De :*Lingtyp [lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>] de la part de
> Mark Van de Velde [mark.vandevelde at cnrs.fr
> <mailto:mark.vandevelde at cnrs.fr>]
> *Envoyé :* jeudi 4 février 2021 11:57
> *À :* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Objet :* Re: [Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
>
> Dear Adam:
>
> I can recommend Hyman (2012).
>
> All the best,
>
> Mark
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2012. In defense of prosodic typology: A response
> to Beckman and Venditti. /Linguistic Typology/. De Gruyter Mouton
> 16(3). 341–385. https://doi.org/10.1515/lity-2012-0014
> <https://doi.org/10.1515/lity-2012-0014>.
>
> On 04/02/2021 11:12, TALLMAN Adam wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking for papers on the notion of non-uniqueness in
> phonology (or morphosyntax if applicable). I have three so far
> (Chao, Hockett, and Schane).
>
> I'm particularly interesting in non-uniqueness in the domain
> of the description of suprasegmentals - like when we have a
> system that seems to mix tone and (other types of) prominence
> whether the system should be described as tonal with a stress
> mapped to it or vice versa. Phonologists discuss the issue as
> if there is an obvious unique best way of describing such
> relations in all cases. But I think that's probably false and
> it choosing one over the other just amounts to an expositional
> decision - some of the discussion in Tallman and Elias-Ulloa
> (2020) point in this direction in Chácobo.
>
> There's also the related issue of */when/* the acoustic
> correlates of some phonological category are organized in such
> a way as to genuinely merit the designation "tone".
> Phonologists seem to assume that this issue is trivial or
> obvious - again, I think this is probably false (the notion is
> more open ended than is recognized) regardless of the
> phonological evidence that can be rallied in support of one
> position or another.
>
> @Article{chao:1934:phonemes,
> title = {The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of
> phonetic systems},
> author = {Yuen Ren Chao},
> journal = {Bulletin of the Institute of History and
> Philology, Academia Sinica},
> year = {1934},
> volume = {4},
> number = {},
> pages = {363-397},
> %doi = {},
> %urldate = {},
> }
>
> @incollection{hockett:1963:universals,
> Author = {Charles F. Hockett},
> Booktitle = {Universals of language (Volume 2)},
> Editor = {Joseph H. Greenberg},
> Pages = {1-29},
> Publisher = {MIT Press},
> Address = {Cambridge, MA},
> Title = {The problem of universals in language},
> Year = {1963},
> Edition = {}}
>
> @Article{schane:1968:nonuniqueness,
> title = {On the non-uniqueness of phonological
> representations},
> author = {Sanford A. Schane},
> journal = {Language},
> year = {1968},
> volume = {44},
> number = {4},
> pages = {363-397},
> %doi = {},
> %urldate = {},
> }
>
> @Article{tallman:eliasulloa:2020:acoustics,
> title = {The acoustic correlates of stress and tone in
> Chácobo (Pano)},
> author = {Adam J.R. Tallman},
> journal = {The acoustic correlates of stress and tone in
> Chácobo (Pano): A production study},
> editor = {Adam J.R. Tallman and José Élias-Ulloa},
> year = {2020},
> volume = {147},
> number = {4},
> pages = {3028},
> doi = {https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001014
> <https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001014>},
> %urldate = {2019-07-04},
> }
>
> Adam
>
> Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)
>
> ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant
> CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
> Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)
>
> Numero celular en bolivia: +59163116867
>
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>
> Image removed by sender. LLACAN
>
>
>
>
> Mark Van de Velde
> Directeur du LLACAN (CNRS-INaLCO)
> mark.vandevelde.cnrs.fr <https://mark.vandevelde.cnrs.fr>
> bantu.cnrs.fr <https://bantu.cnrs.fr>
>
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> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
> https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522 <https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522>
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Martin Haspelmath
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