Abstract
This paper argues that in doing both description and comparison we should work inductively, staying true to the facts of the languages as manifested in natural data, and not resort to abstractions that lead to classifying languages or constructions in a way that ignores the actual facts of the languages. A non-Structuralist alternative view of communication and typological description is also presented.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Rik De Busser and Alec Coupe for very helpful comments on a draft of this paper.
References
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1934. On the non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of phonetic systems. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 4. 363–397.Search in Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299554.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.). 2000. Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511627750Search in Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1997. Are grammatical relations universal? In Joan L. Bybee, John Haiman & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Essays on language function and language type, 115–143. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/z.82.09drySearch in Google Scholar
Dryer Matthew S. 2013. Order of subject, object and verb. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie. http://wals.info/chapter/81 (accessed on 13 March 2016)Search in Google Scholar
Harris, Roy. 1981. The language myth. London: Duckworth.Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Pre-established categories don’t exist: Consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology 11. 119–132.10.1515/LINGTY.2007.011Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010a. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86. 663–687.10.1353/lan.2010.0021Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010b. Framework-free grammatical theory. In Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammatical analysis, 341–365. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199544004.013.0014Search in Google Scholar
Hopper Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 60. 703–783.10.1353/lan.1984.0020Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 1997. Grammaticalization as the fossilization of constraints on interpretation: Towards a single theory of cognition, communication, and the development of language. City University of Hong Kong Seminar in Linguistics, November 6, 1997.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2002. Problems of methodology and explanation in word order universals research. In Pan Wuyun (ed.), Dōngfāng yǔyán yu wénhuà, 204–237. Shanghai: Dōngfāng Chūbǎn Zhōngxīn.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2003. Why languages differ: Variation in the conventionalisation of constraints on inference. In David Bradley, Randy J. LaPolla, Boyd Michailovsky & Graham Thurgood (eds.), Language variation: Papers on variation and change in the Sinosphere and in the Indosphere in honour of James A. Matisoff (Pacific Linguistics 555), 113–144. Canberra: Australian National University.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2008. Relative clause structures in the Rawang language. Language & Linguistics 9. 797–812.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2013. Arguments for a construction-based approach to the analysis of Chinese. In Tseng Chiu-yu (ed.), Human language resources and linguistic typology: Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Sinology, 33–57. Taiwan: Academia Sinica.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2014. Constituent structure in a Tagalog text. Language & Linguistics 15. 761–774.10.1177/1606822X14544619Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2015. On the logical necessity of a cultural connection for all aspects of linguistic structure. In Rik De Busser & Randy J. LaPolla (eds.), Language structure and environment: Social, cultural, and natural factors, 33‒44. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/clscc.6Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. 2016. Review of The language myth: Why language is not an instinct, by Vyvyan Evans (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Studies in Language 40. 235–252.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. (to appear). Clausal noun-modifying constructions in Sino-Tibetan languages. In Yoshiko Matsumoto, Bernard Comrie & Peter Sells (eds.), Noun-modifying clause constructions in languages of Eurasia: Reshaping theoretical and geographical boundaries. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Search in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J., František Kratochvíl & Alexander R. Coupe. 2011. On transitivity. Studies in Language 35. 469–491.10.1075/sl.35.3.00intSearch in Google Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J. & Dory Poa. 2006. On describing word order. In Felix Ameka, Alan Dench & Nicholas Evans (eds.), Catching language: The standing challenge of grammar writing, 269–295. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Fredrick J. 2010. On comparative concepts and descriptive categories: A reply to Haspelmath. Language 86. 688–695.10.1353/lan.2010.0000Search in Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1973. Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 4. 328–350.10.1016/0010-0285(73)90017-0Search in Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1977a. Classification of real-world objects: Origins and representation in cognition. In Philip N. Johnson-Laird & Peter C. Wason (eds.), Thinking: Readings in cognitive science, 212–222. Cambridge: University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1977b. Human categorization. In Neil Warren (ed.), Studies in cross-cultural psychology, Vol. 1, 1–49. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1978. Principles of categorization. In Eleanor Rosch & Barbara Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and categorization, 27–48. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Search in Google Scholar
Woodbury, Anthony C. 1985. Noun phrase, nominal sentence, and clause in Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo. In Johanna Nichols & Anthony C. Woodbury (eds.), Grammar inside and outside the clause, 61–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages
- Sampling for variety
- Discussion
- Of categories: Language-particular – comparative – universal
- The challenge of making language description and comparison mutually beneficial
- Crosslinguistic categories, comparative concepts, and the Walman diminutive
- Crosslinguistic categories in morphosyntactic typology: Problems and prospects
- On categorization: Stick to the facts of the languages
- Comparative concepts and language-specific categories: Theory and practice
- Some language-particular terms are comparative concepts
- On the right of being a comparative concept
- On linguistic categories
- Thoughts on language-specific and crosslinguistic entities
- Describing languoids: When incommensurability meets the language-dialect continuum
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages
- Sampling for variety
- Discussion
- Of categories: Language-particular – comparative – universal
- The challenge of making language description and comparison mutually beneficial
- Crosslinguistic categories, comparative concepts, and the Walman diminutive
- Crosslinguistic categories in morphosyntactic typology: Problems and prospects
- On categorization: Stick to the facts of the languages
- Comparative concepts and language-specific categories: Theory and practice
- Some language-particular terms are comparative concepts
- On the right of being a comparative concept
- On linguistic categories
- Thoughts on language-specific and crosslinguistic entities
- Describing languoids: When incommensurability meets the language-dialect continuum