[Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation

Sat Feb 1 16:43:23 UTC 2025

Dear all,

Concerning the universal on kinship terms that Masha was mentioning, the
claim is not that no language can colexify Father (F) and Mother's Brother
(MB), but rather that *if* F=MB *then* F=MB=FB (Father's Brother), in other
words you don't have a language colexifying F and MB and dislexifying FB
from them (F=MB≠FB). I think that this is a very robust universal, which
brings important evidence for the general principles of the evolution of
kinship systems.

Best wishes,

Guillaume

Le sam. 1 févr. 2025 à 17:19, Östen Dahl via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> With regard to the claim that 'father' and 'mother's brother' cannot be
> colexified, consider the following quotation from the Wikipedia article on
> "Matrilineality":
>
>
>
> "While a mother normally takes care of her own children in all cultures,
> in some matrilineal cultures an "uncle-father" will take care of his nieces
> and nephews instead: in other words *social fathers* here are uncles."
>
>
>
> That is, fathers and maternal uncles are similar in that they can both
> play the role of "social fathers"; it is not unthinkable that a language
> spoken in a society on the borderline between patrilineality and
> matrilineality will lexify the concept "social father". What this shows is
> that the criterion of cognitive complexity can lead you in the wrong
> direction. In fact, kinship terms sometimes unite relationships which are
> tricky to give a common definition, such as "brother-in-law" in English.
>
>
>
>    - Östen
>
>
>
>
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp
> *Skickat:* den 1 februari 2025 16:40
> *Till:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
>
>
> Dear Masha and others,
>
> In addition to "cognitive complexity", one may also consider frequency of
> use as constraining lexification.
>
> For example, 'female wolf' is not more cognitively complex than 'female
> horse' (English *mare*, contrasting with *stallion*), but gender/sex is
> less commonly mentioned in connection with wild animals than with domestic
> animals, so English does not dislexify 'male wolf' and 'female wolf'.
>
> In my 2023 *Frontiers* paper, I suggested that some important
> lexification tendencies can be explained with reference to root length
> possibilities: Roots are typically 1-2 syllables long, so when a meaning is
> not frequent enough, it needs more syllables and hence multiple morphs:
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2023. Coexpression and synexpression patterns across
> languages: Comparative concepts and possible explanations. *Frontiers in
> Psychology* 14. (doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1236853)
>
> (The paper also cites David Gil's 1992 paper.)
>
> Incidentally, it seems that "lexification" is clearer than
> "lexicalization", because the latter is used in multiple meanings (see my
> 2024 paper, §7: https://www.peren-revues.fr/lexique/1737).
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On 01.02.25 12:40, David Gil via Lingtyp wrote:
>
> Hi Masha,
>
>
>
> Some examples from the semantic domain of quantification can be found here:
>
>
>
> Gil, David (1992) "Scopal Quantifiers: Some Universals of Lexical
> Effability", in M. Kefer and J. van der Auwera eds., *Meaning and
> Grammar, Cross-Linguistic Perspectives*, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin,
> 303-345.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 1, 2025 at 5:29 PM Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I am involved in a handbook chapter in which I would like to give a few
> examples of suggested universal constraints on lexicalisation, e.g., those
> primarily concerning meanings that should not be expressible in a word (a
> stem, root or whatever), preferably not from the domain of colour terms. To
> give an example, Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) argue that no verb
> encodes both manner and result simultaneously, which has been contested by
> Beavers and Koontz-Garbodens.
>
>
>
> Or,  a definition of a term covering both ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’
> would be cognitively very complex since it will require disjunction
> (‘father’ or ‘mother’s brother’, cf. ‘male relative of one’s patriline’ for
> ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’) (Evans 2001) – I don’t know if this
> constraint still holds.
>
>
>
> Many thanks and all the best,
>
> Masha
>
>
>
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
> Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
>
> President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
> www.ling.su.se/tamm
> tamm at ling.su.se
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
> --
>
> David Gil
>
>
>
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>
>
>
> Email: dapiiiiit at gmail.com
>
> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Lingtyp mailing list
>
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>

-- 
Guillaume Jacques

Directeur de recherches
CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
<http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250201/36388d08/attachment.htm>