We know almost nothing about the earliest language(s) of humans, because humans had language(s) over 100,000 years ago, and there are no records or other good methods for learning about those languages. But there is a lot of interesting speculation, and some of this is potentially relevant to understanding similarities among present-day languages. In particular, one might ask whether some similarities or universals are due to inheritance from Proto-World (the language from which all modern languages descend). Continue reading
Category Archives: Articles
Some issues with the correlated-evolution method for testing causal hypotheses in comparative linguistics
While comparative grammar research in the 20th century based its universal claims on stratified sampling (e.g. Bell 1978, Bakker 2011), in the 21st century, some authors have emphasized that sampling does not solve the issue of non-independence because all languages probably derive from a common ancestor or ancestral bottleneck (e.g. Maslova 2000; Levinson et al. 2011: 512). They have therefore given preference to the correlated-evolution method (Felsenstein 1985; Mace & Pagel 1994) that is firmly established in biology. Some representatives of this trend are Dunn et al. (2011), Widmer et al. (2017), and Jäger (2019). Continue reading
We are all structuralists
Linguists who study the structures of languages in a systematic way are structuralists (or structural linguists) – so this label basically applies to all linguists who are interested in language structures (not necessarily to those who only study the social roles of languages, or who only study pychological correlates of a narrow range of phenomena, e.g. word meanings). Continue reading
Long live the morph, down with the morpheme!
If you ever wondered what’s the difference between a morph and a morpheme, this blogpost contains an easy answer: Your stereotypical “morpheme” is actually a morph! No need to worry about all the problems with morphemes anymore: We can simply say “morph”, and continue to live happily. A morph is a minimal form, and if anyone has further questions about this definition, I’ve answered them in a forthcoming paper (“The morph as a minimal linguistic form”) Continue reading
The peculiar flag-article suffixes in Circassian and general linguistics: Comments on Arkadiev & Testelets (2019)
How can our general understanding of Human Language contribute to making peculiar language-particular patterns more comprehensible? This is what I keep wondering about, and in the recent excellent paper by Peter Arkadiev and Yakov Testelets, we find a really interesting case for discussion: the flag-article suffixes in the Circassian languages (Kabardian and Adyghe, two very closely related languages of the northern Caucasus region). These suffixes (Absolutive suffix -r, Oblique suffix -m) occur only on a nominal only when it is specific, and may be omitted when it is nonspecific: Continue reading
Rigour is more important than depth: Why language universals should not be based on in-depth analysis
Many linguists think that broad cross-linguistic comparison is sometimes “too shallow”, and that instead, language universals can be detected only if they are based on “in-depth”, “abstract” and “detailed” analyses. Here I give reasons to think that this is the wrong approach. This discussion is not new (cf. Comrie 1981; Coopmans 1983), but it needs to be revisited, because this erroneous idea remains very strong in the discipline. Continue reading
A conversation between David Pesetsky and Martin Haspelmath about in-depth analysis
Martin Haspelmath: David, thanks for engaging in various discussions on Facebook over the years. Most recently, I had a conversation with Elena Anagnostopoulou about innate principles, and she mentioned parasitic gaps as a convincing example of something that is explained by innate principles. Then I was asked how I would deal with the universal properties of parasitic gaps, and I replied that I wasn’t sure what exactly a parasitic gap is. To test the universality of the phenomenon, I‘d need a definition that applies equally to all languages, using the same criteria. Continue reading
A conversation between Elena Anagnostopoulou and Martin Haspelmath about the Person Case Constraint
Martin Haspelmath: Elena, it was only last week that I became aware of your 2017 paper on the Person Case Constraint in the Companion to Syntax. (The “PCC” refers to the unacceptability of clitic combinations as in French *il me lui présente ‘he introduces me to her’.) I’d like to thank you for discussing my 2004 paper (“The Ditransitive Person Role Constraint”) in such great detail in that overview article – that’s really wonderful, and exceptional for a generative paper. Continue reading
What all linguists agree on: Human linguisticality (= the capacity for language) as an attribute of our species
Humans talk and chimpanzees don’t talk. Not even birds talk, even though many bird species can “sing” in some sense. No other species of animals has language in the sense of talking. Even in the absence of complex vocalization abilities, many other species would seem to have the possibility to use their extremities or faces for signing, in the manner of human sign languages. But here again, language is unique to the human species. There may not be much that linguists agree on (though see Hudson 1981 for some hopeful statements), but everyone agrees that language is an attribute of Homo sapiens (and perhaps other hominin species; see, e.g., Dediu & Levinson 2013 on Neanderthal language). Continue reading
An interview with Scott DeLancey about language description and cross-linguistic considerations
Martin Haspelmath: Scott, you have been spending a lot of time in Northeastern India over the last years, and you are currently working on a description of Bodo, a Trans-Himalayan language of Northeast India. In a few weeks’ time, you will attend the NEILS conference in Kokrajhar (Bodoland Territorial Region, Assam, India). As an experienced fieldworker, how do you see the relationship between language-particular description and typological comparison? Should each language be described in its own terms? Continue reading
Nick Evans on the uniqueness of each language and on language comparison
For good reasons, Nicholas (“Nick”) Evans is one of the world’s most prominent linguists. Among his numerous achievements, the best known among experts may be the outstanding grammatical descriptions of Kayardild (1995) and Bininj Kunwok (2003), as well as his work on insubordination (e.g. Evans & Watanabe 2016) and reciprocals (e.g. Evans et al. 2011). But to a wider group of readers, he is of course well-known through the overview paper Evans & Levinson (2009), and the 2009 book “Dying words”, which gives a beautiful nonspecialist overview of worldwide linguistic diversity, its documentation, and its comparison. Continue reading
Against “allomorphy“ (and what to replace it with: morph variants and suppletive morph sets)
Every linguist knows the term “allomorph”, but we cannot agree on what it means. I will argue here that this is a terminological issue, not a substantive issue. Of course, we disagree on many substantive issues (and in particular, on strategic issues), but there is no reason to “disagree” on terminological issues – this is merely a matter of convenience, and just as we agree on the IPA, we could easily agree on morphosyntactic notation/terminology if we wanted. Continue reading
Why flags are bound forms: A discussion with Bill Croft
A flag is a cover term for an adposition or a case-marker, as I explain in my recent 2019 paper on flagging and indexing (in the journal Te Reo, run by the Linguistic Society of New Zealand). All comparative linguists know that in many cases, it is not quite clear whether we should treat an element (such as the Japanese accusative marker o, or the Arabic dative marker li) as an affix and thus a case-marker, or as an adposition (i.e. a form that is not an affix). The term flag serves as a convenient cover term for comparative linguists in situations where it does not matter. Continue reading
The General Category Fallacy: Why grammatical category-assignment does not give us more insights
Describing a language means finding recurring elements in texts: not only recurring phonemes and words, but also recurring constructions – and to describe a construction, one needs to have classes (= categories) of forms that can go into a constructional slot. Everyone knows this, so where is the problem, and what is the General Category Fallacy (described in my 2018 paper, in §1 and §7)? Continue reading
The “typology vs. theory“ mistake: Why “comparative linguistics“ is the best label
There is a misleading but widespread stereotype in linguistics: that “language typology” is somehow opposed to “linguistic theory”. Dryer (2006) has explained why this is wrong, but the stereotype keeps being repeated, so I feel that I need to write again about it. And in the end, I think that the “typology” label has outlived its usefulness and should be replaced by “comparative linguistics” – also because in other disciplines, the label has completely different associations. Continue reading