[Lingtyp] How do typologists use examples in grammars?

Wed Jun 16 22:05:01 UTC 2021

This has been a useful discussion and I generally agree with the points
made by others already.

But one thought I'd like to add to this discussion is the importance of the
third line, the English translation itself (or whatever the language of
description is). Whenever any not-at-issue feature is included in an
example, we may rely on that third-line translation for an intuitive
understanding of the function of the morphemes in an example beyond what
the gloss indicates, especially when it is a relationship between
morphemes. A basic illustration of this problem would be the choice to
render a verb unmarked for tense as past tense in an example (probably
corresponding to the context of the original elicitation, even though that
may not be indicated when it is used as an isolated example out of
context), or similarly the choice of "he" or "she" for a general 3SG
pronoun unmarked for gender.

This is a bigger problem, though, when we consider combinations of
morphemes. The glosses can tell us something about the individual
morphemes, but they don't indicate how to interpret their combination. For
example, could there be some interaction between a tense marker and mood?
The gloss doesn't indicate that, only the translation (and possibly some
other section in the grammar that addresses it directly, if included).

The only solution I can suggest for this would be to include two
translations, expanding the traditional three-line model to four lines:
first a literal translation, and second a more idiomatic English version.
For some examples that might seem excessive, but I think often it would be
incredibly helpful. English simply doesn't function like many languages it
is used to describe, and having an awkward-in-English but more literal
translation would help me as a typologist to understand how the language
works internally rather than through the lens of English. To some degree
the morpheme-by-morpheme gloss is supposed to be used for that purpose, but
again it doesn't indicate anything about the semantics of those morphemes
when combined. And quite rarely we do have exceptional examples with a
literal translation indicated, but almost exclusively when that particular
phenomenon is at-issue in that particular section of a grammar, not
elsewhere, and often only when there is an obvious lexical mismatch (e.g.
in a collocation), not so much for grammatical functions. Personally I
would also be comfortable with a less idiomatic English translation,
because I think it would be helpful to have the reader pause a moment to
try to understand the example in the sense of its usage in the language
being described, rather than assuming functional equivalence to an English
rendering. Of course that shouldn't go too far as to leave the meaning
unintelligible in English.

To illustrate this, here is an excerpt from a recent publication where I
mentioned this issue (page 53 of: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110692099-002).
I point out that more familiar purposive forms are often used to translate
Prior Associated Motion, because that category is not so familiar for the
typical European languages used to write grammars. And even when the
language does have a corresponding form like English "go and get" (or "go
get"), authors may not be so comfortable using it, despite it actually
being a better translation.

*"Glosses in English can sometimes be misleading: 'go (in order) to [verb]'
should be expected for purposives, whereas 'go and [verb]'[34] should be
expected for Prior [Associated Motion],[35] and rarely do grammars
specifically describe the semantics of such constructions beyond the
glosses.*

*[34] That is, pseudocoordination..., which problematically is not itself
widely recognized for its Prior AM semantics, resulting in potential
confusion for both authors and readers of descriptive materials.*
*[35] Glosses in languages other than English are often similarly
unhelpful, especially when these meanings are not typically distinguished
(e.g. Spanish ir 'go' + INF, used to gloss either purposive 'go (in order)
to' or Prior AM)."*

This meant that in the survey I was not able to confidently distinguish
between Purposive and Prior motion in all of my sample languages, so I had
to report them together as a single type.

Daniel

On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 10:30 AM Peter Austin <pa2 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Tamsin Donaldson's grammar of Ngiyampaa (CUP, 1980) is exemplary in
> providing this kind of sociocultural and utterance context. An oldie but a
> goodie.
>
> Best
> Peter
>
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2021, 17:17 Marianne Mithun, <mithun at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Francoise and Lena! I heartily agree!
>>
>> (And now that we're not buying so much paper and ink, this really doesn't
>> increase the cost so much.)
>>
>> Marianne
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:15 AM Françoise Rose <
>> francoise.rose at univ-lyon2.fr> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I will send my answers to Eline in a private message, but I would like
>>> to share a recent experience regarding examples in grammars.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I am presently reviewing Lena Terhart’s grammar of Paunaka (a PhD
>>> thesis). The author gives this notice regarding how examples are introduced
>>> in the grammar:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “One peculiarity of this work is that most examples are introduced by
>>> briefly providing
>>>
>>> the extralinguistic context. This is usually not done in grammatical
>>> descriptions. I
>>>
>>> started with this at some point, when I felt that context was necessary
>>> for understanding
>>>
>>> and then extended it further and further. Thus, the reader will not only
>>> learn about
>>>
>>> Paunaka, but also gain knowledge about the narratives and personal life
>>> stories of the
>>>
>>> speakers throughout this work. Whoever is irritated by this is kindly
>>> asked to simply
>>>
>>> overlook it. »
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I generally appreciate a lot when authors add important information on
>>> the context of the extract (usually in brackets before the free
>>> translation). I was yet planning to be one of the readers who would just
>>> overlook these example introductions because my sense was that these
>>> introductions would be useful sometimes only (in my view, mainly in
>>> sections concerning discourse issues). Actually, it turned out that I
>>> appreciate this practice very much: knowing the context very often gives a
>>> very clear interpretation to the sentence and strong indications on how the
>>> linguistic features under scrutiny works. Also, this is a very strong
>>> indication that the linguist perfectly understands what the sentence is
>>> about. I can attest that, as a fieldworker on culturally very distinct
>>> cultures from mine, I do not always understand the contribution of every
>>> sentence to the conversation/narration. Finally, this gives also a sense of
>>> familiarity with the culture involved in the grammar, which is extremely
>>> pleasant.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Here are two randomly-picked examples from the grammar:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Consider (516), which is about making something fall, just like (510)
>>> above. It also comes from a description of the frog story,
>>>
>>> but this sentence was produced by Miguel and referred to another
>>> picture, the one on which the dog has made the beehive (or: wasp nest) fall.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> A similar example comes from María S. who had just stated that smoking
>>> is bad
>>>
>>> and now provides the reason:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Best to you all,
>>>
>>> Françoise
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *De :* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *De la part
>>> de* Eline Visser
>>> *Envoyé :* lundi 31 mai 2021 15:15
>>> *À :* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> *Objet :* [Lingtyp] How do typologists use examples in grammars?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear typologists,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I’d like to learn more about how you use the examples given in grammars.
>>> I have just finished a grammar myself, and will continue to do descriptive
>>> work in the future, and this is a topic that fascinates me. I'm especially
>>> interested in knowing if one can discern the traits of a good example (for
>>> typological use). I’d be glad if some of you could take the time to answer
>>> the questions below, either briefly or elaborately. You can email me the
>>> answers. Also, if there’s is anything published on this topic please do let
>>> me know.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 1. In general, do you prefer short (let’s say <1 line) or longer (> 1
>>> line) examples? Elaborate if you wish.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2. In general, do you have a preference for examples from a certain
>>> genre? Which? You can interpret genre broadly or narrowly, in which ever
>>> way you like: monologue, dialogue, anecdotes, recipes, hymns,
>>> picture-matching tasks…
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 3. In general, do you have a dispreference for examples of a certain
>>> genre?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 4. Say you have two examples that illustrate your point equally well.
>>> What could be a deciding factor for choosing one over another?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 5. Say you can’t find an example that illustrates your point well. On a
>>> scale from 1-5, how likely is it that you will go to the language’s corpus
>>> or the attached texts in the grammar to find one yourself? (1= very
>>> unlikely, 5 = very likely)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 6. Anything else you’d like to share about examples in grammars? Feel
>>> free to rant.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Eline
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> P.s. For those who ordered a Kalamang grammar hard copy - they’re in
>>> Sweden, I’m in Norway, traveling isn’t as easy as I thought yet, so this
>>> takes a bit longer than I thought, sorry!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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