[Lingtyp] Greenbergian word order universals: confirmed after all

[Juergen Bohnemeyer]

Dear Matías – Thanks for the response! Just checking:

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Matías Guzmán Naranjo <mguzmann89 at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, November 6, 2023 at 10:15
To: Gerhard Jäger <gerhard.jaeger at uni-tuebingen.de>
Cc: LINGTYP <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Greenbergian word order universals: confirmed after all
Dear Jürgen,

I know I'm not impartial in this discussion, but:

So this would be my first question to the detractors of phylogenetic/dynamic (Maslova’s term)/co-evolutionary tests for typological generalizations: do you disagree that if we had that perfect knowledge, we would as a matter of course take into account the phylogenetic perspective?

I do, for several reasons, but mostly I think there are more interesting/useful methods that are neither phylogenetic inference or stratified sampling.

So you are saying that you disagree that we would use phylogenetic testing if we had complete and robust knowledge of the phylogenies of the world’s languages?

I knew I shouldn’t have used negation in that question 😉

Also, I didn’t mean to suggest that we use *exclusively* phylogenetic testing, just that it would be difficult to claim to have tested a generalization without having performed a phylogenetic test.

I mostly agree with Gerhard on one point he makes, though, which is that just one result is not enough.
We need to see similar results emerge from different methods.
Focusing on the results from one or two techniques seems a bit misguided to me.

I definitely agree here! – Best – Juergen
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