[Lingtyp] languages without feet?

Tue May 9 07:13:33 UTC 2023

Hi Mark,

There are actually philosophers who question Popper et al.’s view on
falsification as a criterion, so I was wondering whether this might be
underlying what you were saying. These issues were brought up in the
context of the “Linguistics Wars” (Harris *The Linguistics Wars *2021).
Here’s Lakoff, in an interview with Huck & Goldsmith (a passage that I
always floats through my mind in these discussions)

“There was another major difference. Chomsky held a view about the
philosophy of science that we did not hold - the Quine-Duhem thesis. Quine
assumed that a scientific theory was a finite list of axioms in first
order predicate calculus, and used the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem to argue
that no finite number of counterexamples could falsify any finite number of
axioms since a finite number of auxiliary hypotheses could always be added
to handle the counterexamples. As Chomsky has said, in the Quine-Duhem
spirit, only the theory as whole, once completed with no additional
auxiliary hypotheses, can be falsified.
We of course did not subscribe to the Quine-Duhem thesis, since the role of
generalization played no role in it. That is, no auxiliary hypotheses, from
our perspective, could be adequate if they failed to capture generalizations
about content. But, as Chomsky knew well, the theory of formal
systems could only state generalizations about form and not content. Since
we were concerned with generalizations about content, the Quine-Duhem
thesis made no sense to us. But for Chomsky, the Quine-Duhem thesis was
important, since it shielded his theories from possible counterexamples.”
(Huck & Goldsmith *Ideology and Linguistic Theory,* 115)

While I do not want to suggest that we should all become philosophers of
science, I think thinking about philosophical issues might help us be able
to articulate the differences underlying our views. It might actually help
us understand what we are talking about, whether we are talking past each
other, and what is actually at stake. Perhaps we just have 'cognitive'
commitments that make research programs incompatible ... but maybe despite
initial biases, we can still work together to test competing claims.

One could, I imagine, argue that while the notion of ‘foot’ is not directly
testable assuming a foot makes a number of other statements and perhaps
universals coherent: a sort of Lakatosian view that the foot forms part of
the core of a scientific paradigm not subject to direct empirical scrutiny.
Or perhaps it is a useful assumption for discovery – we learn so much by
assuming something like a foot is actually there.

Or perhaps the problem is not falsifiability itself, but the way we’re
putting it into practice: falsifiability need not refer to structural facts
from a single language – you need to have a broad sample of languages and
show that the ‘foot’ is *not *a regulative principle in language structure,
even if its evidence is weak or absent in some cases.

These arguments do not frustrate me. What frustrates me is the assertion on
the part of some lingusits that a concept is well empirically supported,
but then at the same time the same linguist can’t give me a single case
where the hypothesis was put under serious empirical scrutiny and not just
assumed.

I think though the criterion of “workability” (is the foot ever
unworkable), or the criterion of “bad idea” (is it ever a bad idea to adopt
the foot?) is hard for me to square with how I view science. All purposes
are ultimately “workable”. McCawley’s comments I think are pertinent here
(in his summary of his article ‘Language Universals in Linguistic
Argumentation’:

“It [the article] deals with the role that the notion ‘language universal’
has played in the argumentation of transformational grammarians, especially
with arguments in which conclusions are justified on the basis of the claim
that they allow one to maintain anguage universals that alternative
analyses would conflict with. I find the bulk of such arguments worthless,
since the putative universals generally are merely features accidentally
shared by analyses that the investigator or some reason happens to like. *The
investigator’s preferred type of analysis is always available at a price,
and in advancing the putative universal he* [sic] *is only expressing his
commitment to pay that price and to bully his fellow linguists into paying
it too*….” (McCawley *Thirty Million Theories of Grammar, *p.4).

I think similar issues arise with the “bad idea” argument… “bad” according
to what standards? If a linguist has staked their career on the assumption
that foot are universals, then the universal foot just becomes
self-justifying: the foot is never a bad idea, because its never a bad idea.

I understand there are some people that will never be convinced. But if we
can convince others in the field that they are in the same epistemic world
as defenders of flat earth theory (an obviously “good idea” which is always
“workable” for its practitioners), then insisting on testability has
merits.

But you did point out a potential falsifying instance:

“Perhaps the sort of counterevidence that I’m suggesting looking for might
be a language that showed evidence for multiple units between syl and
phrase, and in which segmental and prosodic phenomena referenced units both
above and below one another – though I’m not aware of such a language.“

I have to admit that I read this passage multiple times and just could not
make sense of it. So, you mean a process that happens at some *kappa *between
syllable and phrase, but that makes reference to syllables and phrases?
Isn’t this just how all “word” level stress assignment generally works? So
you mean a process that makes reference to syllables *and *phrase
boundaries? That just sounds like most phonological processes…

best,

Adam

On Tue, May 9, 2023 at 8:08 AM Mark Post <mark.post at sydney.edu.au> wrote:

> Hi Adam,
>
>
>
> That’s a lot of questions, but FWIW – and freely admitting that I’m no
> philosopher of science – to the extent that a given style of argument
> basically inoculates itself from falsification through lack of positive
> evidence (you haven’t shown that it’s not *not* there…), its proponents
> are probably not going to find such efforts convincing, regardless of
> whatever you or I might think. I’m not necessarily endorsing that way of
> thinking, but to the extent that it exists, I’m asking whether we can find
> positive evidence that assuming a “foot” for a particular language is
> actually a *bad idea*.
>
>
>
> I’m interested in this because, under the assumption that “foot” is the
> focus of prosodic phenomena exclusively (not, e.g., segmental phenomena
> that could not be attributed to syl or wd; if this is wrong I’d be happy to
> be corrected), it seems useful to assume this unit of analysis for
> cross-linguistic comparison even if, for a particular language, “foot”
> turned out to be isomorphic with, for example, “word” as defined through
> segmental criteria (and assuming that most analysts would not adopt the
> reverse approach – attributing segmental phenomena to the “foot”, and doing
> away with “word” – though in principle, I suppose one could). Perhaps the
> sort of counterevidence that I’m suggesting looking for might be a language
> that showed evidence for multiple units between syl and phrase, and in
> which segmental and prosodic phenomena referenced units both above and
> below one another – though I’m not aware of such a language.
>
>
>
> I think this is a little bit different from the other types of case you
> mentioned, as at least in principle, “foot” *could* have a universal
> functional motivation in prosodic organisation (e.g. rhythm), as opposed to
> being just a formal structure.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> *From: *Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> *Date: *Monday, 8 May 2023 at 3:17 pm
> *To: *Mark Post <mark.post at sydney.edu.au>,
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] languages without feet?
>
> Thanks everyone for the helpful comments
>
>
>
> Mark: this is an interesting comment, as it is typically used to argue in
> favor of the universality of structures cross-linguistically.
>
>
>
> " I’m not sure whether or not there are languages for which that would
> not be true – i.e. in which assuming a foot level not only adds nothing,
> but leads to a less insightful or unworkable analysis. To me, that’s a more
> interesting question than whether or not we *have* to identify a foot
> distinct from syllable and word for any given language to sustain a
> particular prosodic analysis (lack of positive evidence not generally being
> taken as negative evidence in theorizing about UG)."
>
>
>
> Perhaps I'm missing some crucial assumption, but I don't understand this
> formulation. Should it not be up to those *pushing *theoretical claims
> that the conditions for the falsifiability of their theories be clear? If
> someone is making a claim that some structure is universal, should it
> really be an *open question *how they could ever conceivably be wrong?
>
>
>
> Nespor & Vogel (2007:11) make a similar argument regarding layers of the
> prosodic hierarchy. They argue that if one does not find evidence for a
> given layer of the prosodic hierarchy one is not necessarily warranted in
> assuming that the layer is not present. So one of the reasons that the
> prosodic hierarchy hypothesis seems like it has wide empirical coverage is
> because it is basically let off the hook for accounting for cases where
> there seems to be no evidence for its domains. And the reverse is true as
> well it turns out (too many domains? just posit some are not related to the
> theory). I've heard the same argument used to justify the vP shell, the
> argument for binary branching in all languages, and, of course, for the
> universal foot as well. It's been insisted that if I don't want to adopt
> the foot I should provide evidence *against *its presence (... against
> the presence of something invisible).
>
>
>
> When are we justified in saying that positing a particular formal
> structure is "unworkable", especially when such structures are
> indeterminately abstract, especially if we are willing to admit that the
> structure need not have any empirical content? Are we not constructing a
> hypothesis that is fundamentally unfalsifiable? Or is the claim here that
> falsifiability is not a good criterion for scientific status?
>
>
>
> And in linguistic descriptions, in the long run, doesn't presuming
> evidence for a structure when none can be found present a misleading
> picture of typological variation?
>
>
>
> best,
>
>
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 8, 2023 at 6:39 AM Mark Post <mark.post at sydney.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
>
>
> Just briefly, I think Enfield’s recent analysis of prosodic structure in
> Lao
>
>
>
> https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198865681.003.0007
> <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/Ekg-CBNqjlCDR14oJfzjmDr?domain=doi.org>
>
>
>
> …which I think also holds for Thai, suggests that while it may be
> *possible* to handle prosodic phenomena at the word level – basically by
> proliferating word “types” – it’s more *desirable* to handle prosodic
> phenomena at the sub-word level – so it’s not really a case of shoehorning
> the data into a particular model for at least those lgs.
>
>
>
> I’m not sure whether or not there are languages for which that would not
> be true – i.e. in which assuming a foot level not only adds nothing, but
> leads to a less insightful or unworkable analysis. To me, that’s a more
> interesting question than whether or not we *have* to identify a foot
> distinct from syllable and word for any given language to sustain a
> particular prosodic analysis (lack of positive evidence not generally being
> taken as negative evidence in theorizing about UG).
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Kirsten <kirstenculhane at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Sunday, 7 May 2023 at 00:03
> *To: *Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> *Cc: *LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] languages without feet?
>
> Hi Adam and everyone else,
>
> The Strict Layer Hypothesis assumes that foot structure —as for other
> prosodic domains — is present in all languages. I get the impression,
> however, that the lack of evidence or foot structure in many languages
> hasn't been problematised in the same way as for the syllable and word -
> e.g. Hyman's analysis of Gokana, Sheiring et al's re: Vietnamese (one
> exception is Özçelik 2017's paper The Foot is not an obligatory constituent
> of the Prosodic Hierarchy: “stress” in Turkish, French and child English).
>
> Anyway, underlying much of the discussion here is ultimately the question
> of what constitutes evidence for foot structure, and what is the
> relationship between foot structure and stress. I think there's good
> reasons not to treat stress as evidence for foot structure (you can account
> for stress without foot structure, and empirical evidence for stress both
> complex and lacking for many languages). This issue is the focus of my
> current paper in Linguistic typology, and is discussed in more detail in my
> forthcoming PhD thesis.
>
> All the best,
> Kirsten
>
>
>
> On Sat, 6 May 2023 at 11:21, Adam James Ross Tallman <
> ajrtallman at utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> Thanks everyone for your responses (Ian and David + private responders),
>
>
>
> Great leads to look at!
>
>
>
> Here's another question ... have there been any phonologists who have
> proposed or assume that *all languages have feet*. I ask because I've had
> reviewer questions and conference questions that seem to presuppose this to
> be the case. I'd like to see the original arguments, if there are any.
>
>
>
> best,
>
>
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 7:20 AM Ian Maddieson <ianm at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> There must be many languages in which the concept of a foot is not found
> to be relevant
>
> (see Sun-Ah Jun’s chapter "Prosodic Typology: By Prominence Type, Word
> prosody, and Macro-rhythm" in
>
> *Prosodic Typology II* (edited by Sun-Ah) for some discussion. The notion
> of a foot does not seem to
>
> useful for (standard)  French, Korean, Yorùbá, among many others, though
> it can be pressed into service
>
> in languages such as Thai and Mandarin. Since it’s an abstract notion, I’m
> not sure what phonetic
>
> data would be capable of providing direct evidence either for or against
> the notion of a foot, though
>
> if for example, vowel length was considered important in foot
> construction, data could confirm the
>
> presence of greater length where it’s presence had been invoked to justify
> foot structure.
>
>
>
> Ian
>
>
>
> On May 5, 2023, at 09:16, Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hello all,
>
>
>
> In Caroline Féry's excellent *Prosodic Structure and Intonation*, she
> describes a class of "phrase languages", identified as languages whereby
> there isn't much going on at the level of the prosodic word.
>
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone had *described* explicitly a language where the
> same thing could be said of feet (neither iambic or trochaic)? Or perhaps
> even more radically, not just that the feet don't do much, but that they
> aren't there at all?
>
>
>
> Perhaps there's lots  of cases where feet haven't been proposed, are there
> any cases where they had been proposed, but then further research (perhaps
> some phonetic study) found that there was no evidence for them?
>
>
>
> best,
>
>
>
> Adam
>
>
> --
>
> Adam J.R. Tallman
>
> Post-doctoral Researcher
>
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
>
> Department of English Studies
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> Ian Maddieson
>
>
>
> Department of Linguistics
>
> University of New Mexico
>
> MSC03-2130
>
> Albuquerque NM 87131-0001
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Adam J.R. Tallman
>
> Post-doctoral Researcher
>
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
>
> Department of English Studies
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/0PFZCD1vlpToJ1VPrh5oaf2?domain=listserv.linguistlist.org>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Adam J.R. Tallman
>
> Post-doctoral Researcher
>
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
>
> Department of English Studies
>

-- 
Adam J.R. Tallman
Post-doctoral Researcher
Friedrich Schiller Universität
Department of English Studies
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