Subject: re : 5 . 1433 comparative method

i re-read newmeyer 's original posting ( date 30 nov 94 ) and noticed that it has an implicit attack on the notion of " basic word order " for comparative purposes . this flows from his earlier question on how basic word order is variously defined by various analysts , implying that it lacks precision . to the extent that i have understood the responses so far , no one has responded to this particular point , so here goes - - basically in agreement with newmeyer , but with some criticism of the assumed larger implications for comparative reconstruction of syntax . i ' ll stick to what i know about linguistic events in europe since i expect the events to be more familiar to most readers than events in other language families , so that my examples may speak to readers ' previous ideas about particular linguistic events referred to below , and , under the best circumstances , provoke further discussion . to anticipate , the notion of basic word order is too simple-minded ( simplistic ? ) for diachronic purposes . fn : " could anything resembling latin syntax be reconstructed through comparison of the syntax of the modern romance languages ? " bw : should it ? the immediate ancestor of the romance languages is not latin but proto - romance . svo ? what about the exceptions , e . g . , french j ' ai rien fait etc . are n't they hints to certain historical complications . also aux inversion in standard french , e . g . , sont-ils venus ? standard french aux inversion is probably of germanic origin , not found elsewhere in romance . as for reconstruction of case ( cf . latin / english ) , with possible implications for earlier word order possibilities , case inflections remain on ( third person ) object clitics in all romance languages . when we consider deviations from svo word order in romance languages , we may suspect that the notion of " basic " word order is a villain to the extent that it invites the analyst to disregard less frequent or syntactically restricted word orders . this is not safe in internal reconstruction of syntax , while the most revealing procedure may be to do internal reconstruction of syntax within a language before using the comparative method to reconstruct within groups of languages genetically related by other criteria . in fact , the last point above is what is usually done , and is probably the only proper way to proceed , given the intent of the comparative method . always reconstruct a basic vocabulary first , on the basis of sound correspondences - - to justify genetic relationship among the languages . then consider syntactic comparison . problems with this necessary procedure will emerge in following discussion , but it remains necessary unless you want to reconstruct the syntactic evolution of a geographical area rather than of a genetic family . the latter may be a useful complement to assumed genetic reconstruction , but i think it is too digressive an idea for me to pursue below . now , what about preverbal object clitics in romance ? another hint of complications to the svo concept of romance . preverbal object clitic means ov - - but i suppose " basic " means when o has a noun not a pronoun as the head . and what aout the fixing of multiple object clitic order in romance ? e . g . , case order versus person ( inherent topicality ) order . that can't be reconstructed for latin because the clitics did not arise as distinct entities until proto - romance at the earliest . can a single or preferred clitic order be reconstructed for proto - romance , e . g . , dat-acc ( invariant in spanish and , i think , rumanian , but acc-dat seems to be older in french , now remaining only for third persons , i . e . , no inherent topicality difference therefore earlier case ordering remains - - french acc-dat may reflect germanic influence as well ? ) ? or did fixed clitic orders originally arise independently in various areas of romance ? in any case , how can we avoid the comparative method in addressing the problem of the origin of object clitic order in romance ? in sum , i think that the origin / s and evolution of fixed multiple object clitic orders in romance is a legitimate issue , and that it cannot be solved without recourse to the comparative method ( among others , of course ) . therefore , the comparative method cannot be dismissed in syntactic reconstruction . fn : " should we therefore reconstruct proto - germanic ( almost surely incorrectly ) as svo ? " bw : newmeyer 's reference to proto - germanic reveals even more than romance that " basic " word order is a villainous concept for reconstruction in this case , as if " basic " word orders can be compared across related languages to reconstruct " proto-basic " word orders , such that " minor " word orders can be ignored or reconstructed as " proto-minor " word orders . one principle which emerges from our knowledge of the historical record is that word order change does n't work that way , i . e . , word orders cannot be compartmentalized as " basic " and " minor " for diachronic purposes . principle : if we want to develop tools and principles for syntactic reconstruction , we will really have to consider the functions served by the various word orders at different times , and detect changes in their functions diachronically . in other words , word order change in a language must be studied in the context of the totality of functions of all its word orders at any given time . the difference between such a study and the study of change in " basic " word order , if the latter means anything at all , is analogous to the study of phonetic change and phonemic change . if analysts argue about the notion of " basic " word order , this is analogous to arguing about different concepts of the phoneme , and not about agreed upon linguistic facts . the fallacy of reconstructing " basic " word order for proto - germanic on the basis of the " basic " word order in current germanic becomes obvious according to the above principle because of the sov word order in subordinate clauses in continental germanic . and even this is not as invariant a property of the oldest texts as it is of the later standardised languages , e . g . , before middle german and dutch . english also clues us in to inversion by its many remnants , even without historical texts which reveal more similarities to continental germanic , e . g . , v - first following a subordinate clause or adverb , still common in the av bible . including english but excluding gothic which mirrors to the extent possible the new testament greek syntax from which it was translated , the earliest texts in germanic show , as far as i know , a tendency relatively favorable to verb-final in subordinate clauses , but much variation , later eliminated in the continental standards . this leads to arguments about whether or not the sov tendency was the break-up of an earlier more general indo - european sov tendency ( or earlier fixation ? ) which died in english and scandinavian ( including the still highly inflected icelandic - - creating problems even for simplistic functional arguments for the evolution of svo in germanic , so that the argument would have to be : it started as a reaction to the increasing unreliability of case distinction but spread for social reasons to languages that did n't need it . such an argument does not strike me as at all unreasonable ! ) . [ although i excluded gothic above , because of its malleable accommodation to greek syntax , its deviations from nt greek are quite revealing . most salient is the absence of a definite article , despite its occurrence in nt greek as well as in all other germanic languages . if gothic translation was totally serious about imitating nt greek syntax in all cases it could have adopted an unstressed demonstrative to imitate the greek article , as later germanic did ( in a sense ) . the most important question about gothic syntax is : is the malleability of its syntax innovative from proto - germanic ? - - if so , we will probably never know in what ways the gothic translations of nt greek stretched the limits of that malleability , and distorted the colloquial functions of word order in spoken gothic or more generally in the germanic of the third century . if sov was invariant in some ancestor , then why did it deteriorate in germanic ? at least as puzzling , how / why / when did germanic get aux inversion , even in yes / no questions . all indo - european languages show wh fronting for wh questions , so is there any reason to believe the proto - language did not . would i be buying what newmeyer is questioning with the preceding argument , cf . fn : " i have the impression that with increasing frequency , one comes across statements such as the following in the literature : " most of the attested languages in language family x have some syntactic property . therefore we can assume that proto - x had this property . " " bw : [ why with " increasing frequency " ? is the implication that copy-cat historical linguists are becoming less responsible than they used to be ( cf . the discussion of the spread of rumors about the number of eskimo words for snow ) , or that syntax is driving historical linguistics to pot ? ] to be safe , i guess ancillary arguments come in , like : considering how areally widespread the ie languages are , is it likely that the unanimity of wh first questions across ie is not reflective of the proto-language ? ok , so maybe wh fronting is proto - ie ( got a better explanation for the facts ? or reason to ignore them ? ) , but why aux inversion in germanic questions . and does the application of inversion to yes / no questions mean that there was a question marker in initial position ( wh question position ) with yes / no questions , as in " what / hullo , are you kidding me ? " ( such a marker " ibai " is found in gothic whenever the new testament greek original has " me : " ) . do n't get me wrong . i ' m not suggesting that an initial yes / no question-marker was a necessary condition for the inversion innovation in germanic . i ' m only observing that there was the option of such a marker , and anticipating ( if indeed it has not already been suggested ) that some analysts who are overly formal in their approaches to syntax might suppose the necessity of such a marker to motivate a mechanical generalisation of inversion from wh to yes / no questions . again , because such in - version occurs in all germanic should we not reconstruct it for proto - germanic . . qualification on all : it 's variable in gothic where it 's variable in nt greek : pronoun subjects usually do not invert with the verb , noun subjects usually do . ] a practical point is that , as far as i know , there is an issue about the differentiation of germanic into anything like the modern descendents before the 4 - 5th century . thus , if aux inversion goes back that far , does it matter if it spread from one germanic area to another or if it was part of proto - ( west ? ) germanic ? all innovations must spread before we recognise them as innovations in the language ( or dialect ) . historical linguistics does not study the evolution of the idiolect ( if such a concept as " evolution of the idiolect " is even coherent ) . finally , about typological arguments . when morphology-as - fossilized syntax and universal-typology of word order congealed in the early 1970s , some suggested that even before ie was sov it was vso . why ? because subject marking inflection follows the verb : v - s , get it ? inevitably , then , some suggested that celtic maintains the most archaic " basic " word order among the ie languages . this is another excess in diachronic application of ( whatever ) the notion of basic word order . the principal objection raised was that it is not obvious ( and even unlikely ) that only basic word orders morphologise . ( in fact , they may be least likely to morphologise . ) considering that s represents an unstressed anaphor in v - s , s might be in a minor word order position . [ and note that if basic word order means when the arguments are nominal , not pronominal , then discourse frequency is not criterial of basic , since at least most subject arguments are pronominal , if not merely inflectional . furthermore , if " basic " only counts the relative frequency of subject nominals , it is based on something which is quite rare in discourse : subject nominals ] . in any case , subject inflection following the verb stem is a widespread eurasian areal feature , extending into africa in semitic and various other branches of afro - asiatic . to some this might be taken as a clue to the correctness of nostratic and other super-family notions , to others an indication of an extremely old innovation having spread ( over millenia ? ) across families regardless of genetic relationship ( cf . the famous balkan area ) . still others might opt for coincidence . various other languages also have this feature , e . g . , kanuri in west africa and various new world languages . ( welcome to nostratic ? ) questions about the functions of position after the verb in so-called sov languages are raised by v - s inflectional order . the typological implications of this go beyond my current knowledge , although i dimly remember that various eurasian sov languages are different according to whether or what function post-verb - al position has in such languages . this is obvious , for example , in the contrast between eurasian sov languages ( with differences amongst themselves ) and the so-called sovx west african languages , where x is an adpositional phrase ( with complications about the origin of adpositional phrases in such languages which i will refrain from discussing here ) . since so many eurasian sov languages are also v - s inflectional languages , i do not know if there are sov languages which have a " minor " postverbal position for an anaphoric subject ( such that it turns up in other positions in certain constructions , so that we can demonstrate that it is not an inflection ) . maybe typology of relevant amerind languages will help solve this problem . but maybe we may also anticipate the reappearance of the party-spoiling question about the representativeness of curent language types to possible ( and former ) language types . no doubt an unwelcome ( and unhelpful ? ) thought to many . in this context it seems worth mentioning that mathematical probability arguments for various word orders , as i have seen them practiced , are not impressive , because of faults in their initial assumptions . for example , as far as i know , they invariably assume the validity of counting number of languages , regardless of the genetic relationship or areal contiguity of the languages counted . this seems unsound to me , particularly ignoring areal contiguity . for example , we find ( i think ) that the eurasian area , consisting of umpteen and umpred languages , has s . . . o word order ( ignoring the position of the verb as an independent variable ) . then in the new world we find large areas of contiguous s . . . o order , and separate areas of o . . . s order . maybe we should be calculating mathematical probability on the basis of contiguous area rather than number of languages . the surprising result might be that o . . . s is more probable than s . . . o ( where area is an independent variable , not individual language , of course . ) i ' m not sure what the implications of this might be , but one might be that o . . . s might have once been a more likely ordering strategy than it is now , and that the predominance of s . . . o across languages counted individually is largely the result of areal spread . [ if the spread of s . . . o is old enough , its predominance might even be the result of an absolute increase in the number of " languages " in the world all together . however , this is n't really relevant to my criticim of the way probability arguments have been applied to syntactic typology , only to the historical implications of adequate assumptions about language typology . in fact , i ' ll leave this discussion with the already widely accepted suggestion that strategies for information distribution in the clause , esp . in terms of old / new , are more relevant to typology than such problematic notions for cross-linguistic comparison as subject and object . similarly , for example , i think that in eurasia , agent . . . patient / theme order largely cuts across ergative and accusative languages , even though ergative languages would have patient / theme , or whatever term you want , as subject . to this extent , s . . . o cannot be universal even in eurasia , without confusing " accusative " definitions of subject and object , where subject status is consistent with case-marking , and " ergative " definitions , where case-marking is more closely tied to transitivity role than to the mushy cross-linguistic concept of subject . ] fn : " and furthermore , syntactic change can be fairly catyclysmic , restructuring grammars wholesale in one generation - - unlikely or impossible with phonological systems . " bw : i think the thrust of fn 's suggestion here is largely right , though probably vastly overstated ( on the basis of older ideas about creoles ? ) . however , questions remain in my mind about conditions under which these things happen . within monolingual areas ( or among closely related , mutually intelligible languages , ( certain types of ? ) syntactic strategies seem to have the potential to spead quite quickly , perhaps almost as quickly as new words and expressions , while comparable speed is not generally observed for phonological change ( and is probably " unlikely or impossible " , as newmeyer puts it , for both internal linguistic and social reasons - - in fact , i think " unlikely " is more accurate than " impossible " depending on the nature of the particular type of phonological change , and i have an example of possible single-generation phonological change in the current english of the african americans in new york city area , but i do not have sufficient data to make this possibility or its implications worth discussing here - - until i get to the section in labov 's new book where he discusses recent innovations in the chicago vowel system i will not be sure if he has other examples ) . however , to the extent that language-contact propels " cataclysmic " syntactic change ( in the historical record ) fn 's suggestion is not so clear . for example , english in east la ( a mexican american community ) is more immediately strikingingly different from adjacent english dialects on the phonological than on the syntactic level . and that applies to monolingual speakers of east la english as well as spanish - english bilinguals , and to various phonological segments as well as intonational contours ] . in understanding historical syntactic evolution , it is most often difficult to distinguish internal evolution from language contact ( hence the sour regard for substratal theories during the late 19th - to-mid 20th c celebration of neogrammarian achievements ) - - and then there is also jakobson 's caution that language contact might not permit evoluton that is not internally possible anyway , rather that it can only promote one possible direction of change as opposed to other possible directions which might flourish under other external circumstances . this too i consider problematic as a blanket statement , but a major consideration to keep in mind as a possible constraint on change in most reconstructive expeditions into the unknown past . enough . these are my thoughts about the problems of using the comparative method alone to reconstruct syntax . but nobody would suggest something so foolish as not enlisting all possible tools of reconstruction , including internal and typological in addition to comparative . conversely , it would be equally foolish to shun the comparative method as a reconstructive tool . in any case , the notion of basic word order is not helpful to syntactic reconstruction , if not of doubtful value as an autonomous observation about the synchronic state of any language as well . i mean it 's ok to observe that english and french are both synchronically svo ( spoken french even more than english - - not least because of the former 's preferred question formation strategies ) , but without further discussion that does not mean that their syntaxes are " basically " the same , in any insightful or interesting ( to coin an adjective ) sense . i would like readers to react to any of the points i have made above , not least of all the accuracy of the facts i have suggested for various languages , since i am not an expert in the areas of most of the facts i have presented , e . g . , current typological theory , indo - european linguistics , eurasian and new world areal syntactic characteristics . benji
