[Lingtyp] New name for "Mainland Northeast Asia"
JOO, Ian [Student]
ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk
Mon Jan 4 19:22:05 UTC 2021
Dear all,
motivated Martin’s comment regarding how many people were misled by randomly distributed features, I designed an R script that randomly assigns (binary) values of 50 features to 34 sample languages.
For details, please have a look at the attached R script. Here I’ll just show you one result of running the script. The “Center” column refers to a language that would be the center of a (hypothetical) area. And the “Similarity” column shows you the average number of features shared between the center language and the languages in the vicinity of the center language.
[cid:BE8059B17B6749EFA6507A889DAFD791]
For example here, it shows that the languages that are close to Korean, on average, share about 30 out of 50 features with Korean, which is the highest degree of similarity within the sample. Of course, this is when the chance of having any feature is 50%.
So, when you randomly assign 50 features (each of them having 50% probability) to 34 languages, a few languages will have around 60% similarity with neighboring languages. One could think that such clusters are valid areas, when in fact they are just random results.
I guess the take-home message is: with some adequate visualization exposed to the naked eye, one could easily believe that a random cluster is a valid area. So some kind of “objective” threshold is needed to argue for the existence of an area. I guess I could do that by setting the threshold above the statistically significant level.
Regards.
Ian
On 4 Jan 2021, 11:45 PM +0800, Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>, wrote:
It seems that the problem of identifying areal phenomena in an objective way is a really hard one. It is indeed very easy to be misled by appearances.
I remember a talk by Östen Dahl around 2003 when he presented a WALS-like map with two feature values and asked the audience to look for areal patterns – of which there was no shortage (low-level ones). Then came the surprise: The map that he presented was generated by a random process.
Back in 1998/2001, I identified a number of "Standard Average European<https://zenodo.org/record/1236769>" areal features, but I didn't try to make sure that these were not random coincidences. Out of thousands of possible areal features, 12-15 that cluster in Europe is perhaps not all that much. It seems that we would need to start in a radically bottom-up manner, using a representative set of features, and examine them all for a large number of languages. (Ian Joo seems to be planning something of this sort.)
But what is a "representative set of grammatical features"? Nobody seems to have an idea of how to achieve objective representativeness.
The only quantitative approach to the problem that I have come across is this paper:
Daumé III, Hal. 2009. Non-Parametric Bayesian Areal Linguistics. arXiv:0906.5114 [cs]. (http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.5114)
Best wishes, and Happy New Year,
Martin
Am 04.01.21 um 16:07 schrieb JOO, Ian [Student]:
Dear all,
first, I apologize if I’m spamming everyone with my personal research. But this is just a response to some of those who have provided me helpful feedback.
As some have rightfully pointed out the problems of my top-down approach, I decided to take their advice and radically change the direction of my research into a bottom-up approach. In other words, other than hypothesizing that there is a linguistic area called Mainland/Inner/Central/whatever Northeast Asia and then looking for features that would justify that area, I decided to agnostically collect linguistic features from the sample languages of a macroarea and then use that data to see if there are any subareas within that macroarea. And that macroarea will be East Asia (not including North Asia or Southeast Aisa). I have selected 34 convenience sample languages spoken in East Asia (see below). (Note that some language names are simplified for visual convenience, for example just “Hmong” for Dananshan Hmong.)
<>
So the idea is to first gather, say, 50-100 linguistic features, test whether each language has that feature, and then use that data to see if certain feature is dominant in certain geographical zones within East Asia (for example Northwest China). Only after that would it be safe to claim a linguistic area.
I would like to express my gratitude to all the helpful feedback that drastically changed the direction of my future research. Also I would appreciate it if you could have a look at the sample languages above to see if I should add any sample languages to balance the geography or geneology of the sample.
Regards,
Ian
On 4 Jan 2021, 7:47 PM +0800, JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk><mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>, wrote:
Dear Andi,
Vladimir Panov in his recent paper "Final particles in Asia: Establishing an areal feature<https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2019-2032>” discusses the definition of an areal feature.
His idea is that even if a given feature found not only in a given area but in other parts of the world as well, that doesn’t necessarily rule out that that feature is not areal. If that feature is not found in areas surrounding that area, then that qualifies as an areal feature too.
I would like to take an example from Mainland Southeast Asia: Tones. Of course, tones are not unique to Mainland Southeast Asia. It’s even prevalent in its neighboring regions like Northeast Asia. But no one would deny that tones are a linguistic feature of MSEA precisely because it’s uncommon in areas surrounding it (insular Southeast Asia and South Asia). Thus we cannot say that “because tones are common in other parts of the world, it can’t be an areal feature of MSEA.” Sure, it can’t be a unique feature of MSEA, but it’s its areal feature nevertheless. This is how I view areality.
You’re right about the methodological issue that the bottom-up approach would be good as well. But for the moment I would like to try a top-down methodology. And thanks for the reading suggestions!
Regards,
Ian
On 4 Jan 2021, 7:33 PM +0800, hoelzlandreas at web.de<mailto:hoelzlandreas at web.de> <hoelzlandreas at web.de><mailto:hoelzlandreas at web.de>, wrote:
Dear Ian,
A more salient feature of the area, such as a geographical name, would perhaps be more convincing than the name of a plant.
Concerning the features you listed:
> The colexification between NORTH and REAR (as previously discussed);
This is indeed interesting. The same can be found in Oroqen (Tungusic), etc. I am not sure how old this feature is, but it cannot be found in varieties of Jurchen, the predecessor or close relative of Manchu which you had on your map.
The other features you listed do not seem to define any area in Northeast Asia but can be found throughout Eurasia or the world. I would advice having another look at the typological literature (e.g., on differential object marking), literature on "Altaic/Transeurasian" (Martine Robbeets has a paper on passive/causative isomorphism), and the features in WALS (e.g., Holger Diessel's map on demonstratives: https://wals.info/feature/42A#2/23.2/152.6).
Methodologically, it might be a good idea to find a set of features first and then think about a name of the "linguistic area" you may have found.
Best,
Andi
Gesendet: Montag, 04. Januar 2021 um 11:10 Uhr
Von: "JOO, Ian [Student]" <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk><mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>
An: "LINGTYP" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Betreff: Re: [Lingtyp] New name for "Mainland Northeast Asia"
Dear Andi, dear all,
thank you Andi, for pointing that out.
It seems that some are concerned with the terms “inner” and “outer” because it may have some connotation as a value judgement (more important v. less important). So this needs to be fixed.
I appreciate your suggestion of the terms “central” and “peripheral” but to me, the word “peripheral” seems equally risky in terms of value judgement connotation: The Cambridge dictionary defines “peripheral” as "Something that is peripheral is not as important as something else”.
I will think of several other options such as “Micro/Macro”, “Narrow/Wide”, “Small/Big”, etc. All other suggestions are welcome.
(Or perhaps I will have to go with my previously suggested name “Astragalia”, if necessary.)
As for Andi’s comment why we need this areal classification in the first place, well that’s what my doctoral research is trying to justify, and I already have several linguistic features that are found in this area but generally not in the surrounding areas, such as:
1. The colexification between NORTH and REAR (as previously discussed);
2. Isomorphic pronoun/determiner alternation of demonstratives (such as English “This is a book”/“This book”);
3. The presence of velar nasal only at the coda position;
4. Monomorphemic 1PL pronouns;
5. Isomorphimic passive/causative alternation (e. g. Mandarin ràng);
6. Differential Object Marking by marked v. unmarked accusatives;
7. The presence of falling diphthongs.
Hopefully I will continue to find out more during my doctoral years. I hope this helps and any comments are of course welcome.
Regards,
Ian
On 4 Jan 2021, 5:40 PM +0800, hoelzlandreas at web.de<mailto:hoelzlandreas at web.de> <hoelzlandreas at web.de><mailto:hoelzlandreas at web.de>, wrote:
Dear all,
Johanna is correct in pointing out Janhunen's book. Manchuria is certainly a problematic term due to its association with Manchukuo, but it is still employed in academic literature outside of China where the term dōngběi 东北 'Northeast' is used instead. But it seems to me that the area under investigation here is slightly different from what is usually referred to as Manchuria. The blue area excludes those parts of Manchuria that since 1858/60 became part of Russia (Primorye region, Sakhalin, etc.) but includes large parts of Northern China and Mongolia. As for Northeast Asia, there is also a very different definition by Chard, Janhunen, myself, and ohters that is much broader and also includes Northern Asia. Janhunen refers to this as "wider" Northeast Asia:
"In the widest sense, Northeast Asia as a geographical and ethnohistorical region can be defined as the entire northeastern part of the Eurasian continent, delimited by the Yenisei in the west and the Yellow River in the south. In the northeast, the region extends, in principle, to the Bering Strait. In a somewhat narrower framework, Northeast Asia may be defined as comprising the territory between the Amur and Yellow River basins, including the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands in the Pacific coastal zone, but excluding the northeasternmost limits of what is today the Russian Far East." (Janhunen 2010)
What Janhunen calls "narrow" Northeast Asia is close to the area you are interested in but includes Japan and other parts of "Pacific Northeast Asia" as Zgusta calls it.
I would also avoid using "inner" and "outer", which might have unwanted connotations of being included and excluded, etc. Concerning "boreal" and "austral" proposed by Dan Slobin, I agree that the terms would be more neutral. But if I understood you correctly, "Outer Northeast Asia" would be the surrounding area on all sides and not only to the South. In this case, "central" and "peripheral" might be more adequate. But some parts on your map are also part of peripheral Mainland Southeast Asia as was pointed out by Hilário de Sousa.
The main question would be, of course, why you need a term for this area in the first place.
Best,
Andi
Gesendet: Sonntag, 03. Januar 2021 um 23:44 Uhr
Von: "Bohnemeyer, Juergen" <jb77 at buffalo.edu><mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
An: "Johanna Nichols" <johanna at berkeley.edu><mailto:johanna at berkeley.edu>
Cc: "LINGTYP" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Betreff: Re: [Lingtyp] New name for "Mainland Northeast Asia"
“Manchuria” strikes me politically/historically fraught due to its association with Manchukuo. But, I’m about as far from being an expert on this region as a typologist can be, so what do I know! — Best — Juergen
> On Jan 3, 2021, at 4:10 PM, Johanna Nichols <johanna at berkeley.edu><mailto:johanna at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> Janhunen 1996 uses the term Manchuria for this area and covers its ethnohistory and linguistic history so comprehensively that I consider it a precedent for using that term.
>
> Janhunen, Juha. Manchuria: An ethnic history. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, 1996.
>
> Johanna
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 12:11 PM Dan I. SLOBIN <slobin at berkeley.edu><mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> "Inner" and "outer" convey an implicit hierarchy: some are in and some are out; some are central and some are peripheral.
> I suggest a simple, objective solution, avoiding the repetition of names of compass directions, and avoiding what may
> be seen as value judgments: Boreal Northeast Asia and Austral Southeast Asia -- i.e., North and South, using Latin terms.
> I don't think these terms are opaque: "Boreal" will, for some people, evoke "Aurora Borealis," the Northern Lights;
> "Austral" will evoke southerly geography, as in Austronesia and Australia.
>
> Dan Slobin
>
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 3:28 AM JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk><mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> (I’m sorry if no one cares, but just for the update)
> Although no one suggested any alternatives, I gave it a thought and changed the terms “Mainland Northeast Asia” to “Inner Northeast Asia” (as opposed to “Outer Northeast Asia”, i. e. the rest of Northeast Asia).
> Below is a visualized map of Inner and Outher Northeast Asia.
>
> <Attachment.tiff>
>
> From Hong Kong,
> Ian
> On 31 Dec 2020, 6:13 PM +0800, JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk><mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>, wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> In my doctoral research, I refer to the lingistic area consisting of Korea, Mongolia, and Northeast China (but not Japan or Russian Far East) as "Mainland Northeast Asia."
>> But this name is problematic, since Siberia is just as continental (part of "mainland") as well, and I don't intend to include Siberia.
>> Because of this, I have been thinking of a better name for this area.
>> The best one I can think of is Astragalia, from the name of the herb astragalus, which is native to Korea, Northeast China, Mongolia, and Southern Siberia.
>> The downside of this fancy name is that, upon hearing it, whoever not familiar with herbalism will have no idea where it points to, without further explanation.
>> Are there any other name candidates you can think of? If so, I would welcome all suggestions.
>>
>> From Hong Kong,
>> Ian
>>
>>
>>
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