[Lingtyp] languages without feet?

Tue May 9 23:33:16 UTC 2023

Adam
This is getting a bit complex and away from your original query, so perhaps we should take this convo off-list to avoid overloading inboxes.
Mark

From: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 9 May 2023 at 17:14
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?
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<mailto: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<mailto:ajrtallman at utexas.edu>>
Date: Monday, 8 May 2023 at 3:17 pm
To: Mark Post <mark.post at sydney.edu.au<mailto:mark.post at sydney.edu.au>>, 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] 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<mailto: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/guwzCq71mwf1kKJlGiZlZRX?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<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Kirsten <kirstenculhane at gmail.com<mailto:kirstenculhane at gmail.com>>
Date: Sunday, 7 May 2023 at 00:03
To: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu<mailto:ajrtallman at utexas.edu>>
Cc: 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] 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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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
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Adam J.R. Tallman
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Friedrich Schiller Universität
Department of English Studies
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Department of English Studies

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