[Lingtyp] Typology: another broken system

[Neil Myler]

Your article's been out for a month, mate, and (at least where I am) it's
the middle of the teaching term.  Cut us some slack.
It does look interesting, though.  I promise I'll take a look soon.
Neil

On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 9:27 AM Patrik Austin via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I hope you are doing well today. I recently published another article on
> syntactic universals, and as before, no reply. Let us look at the
> contents of this paper and the related issues.
>
> *1. Introduction* and *2. Universals, the data, and the problem*. This
> article is about dominance in the transitive clause relating to Greenberg’s
> universal #1, etc. When syntactic typologists write about it, it is
> possibly the most important unsolved issue in linguistics. However, when
> these scholars read my article, it suddenly becomes unclear whether it is
> an interesting topic in the first place. That being said, we tend to hear
> next that there is ”no such thing as syntactic typologists”, igniting the
> discussion of whether or not they exist. The conclusion might be that they
> do *not* exist in the sense suggested in this article (i.e., when
> criticized for failures). However, when funding is given, quite a few
> experts appear.
>
> *3. Previous research*. A summary shows that syntactic typology is BS, to
> put it politely. Quite common names here. This is precisely what social
> psychology predicts: academia is a status game, and here, syntactic
> typologists are shown to have the job of making unnecessary complications
> to a relatively simple issue. There has never been true progress and never
> will if it is up to the professional group because their collective task is
> to keep the game going as long as possible. When it is played out, they
> will focus on another similar game.
>
> Notice especially *Figure 3* (rotate view to right), which shows how not
> just syntactic typology but also Generative Grammar is BS, which everyone
> of course always knew. But the curious thing is that while these two groups
> have created a facade of antagonism, we see quite clearly that they are
> actually collaborating by jointly maintaining a false dichotomy
> (”functionalism vs formalism”). Here, we see clearly that both are the same
> BS with only a vague connection to the scientific study of language.
>
> *Table 1*: Dryer’s excuses. Since he does not reply, I think everyone is
> eligible. Please do.
>
> 4. *The solution of the transitive distribution*. *4.1 Highlighting: a
> new typological generalization*. Table 2: a scorecard that correctly
> predicts the transitive distribution. When discussing this table, the
> standard reaction is that there is nothing but a scorecard in the whole
> paper, taking less than half a page in a 30-page article, which seems
> impossible. To outsiders, though, the question is: is it true? Does this
> scorecard do what it promises, i.e., mathematically generates the correct
> pattern? Interestingly, linguists seem totally incapable of answering such
> a simple question and would rather answer any other question, which they
> are great experts in.
>
> *4.2 A theory for the generalization*, *4.3, 4.4.* The deeper-level
> explanation is what it says in this section. So, what does it say? I am
> told there is only a scorecard and no link to scientific theory and
> empirical research. Is that so?
>
> *5. Conclusion*. I suppose the conclusion is the prediction: linguistics
> is a farce, a status game, a broken system, and people doing it are
> hostages to the system with little will of their own. It is a sad, pathetic
> world, and no one can fix it because all participants are economically and
> emotionally tied to it. If this is not true, then, I will soon see many
> coherent replies to my article that explain which precise error has been
> made in the paper or else why it will not be cited even though it provides
> the seemingly long-awaited solution to this classic problem that so many
> professionals have very special knowledge of but cannot explain in a way
> comprehensible to the outside world.
>
> Thanks, and trust yourself – you can do it!
>
> Reply.
>
> Patrik
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