The Nature of Language universals Joseph Greenberg n

The Nature of Language universals

Joseph Greenberg n Founding father of the modern typology including language universals n Also macro-comparative studies of Africa and, less mentioned, Papua New Guinea

Dobbs Ferry Conference n n Dobbs Ferry Conference on Language Universals Greenberg’s seminal talk on word order n n Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements Also Jakobson, Osgood. Hockett, Ferguson and others

Universals n statements that are true of all or most known human languages n n all languages have vowels differing in the height distributional patterns and tendencies n most languages belong either to SOV, SVO or VSO type

Types of… n Implicational (vs. unconditioned) n n If a language has adjectives for shape, it also has adjectives for colour and size --absolute, (Dixon 1977) Statistical (vs. absolute) n n consistent VO tend to be inflectional consistent OV tend to be agglutinative --- implicational, (Lehman 1973) typo. uni-konstanz. de/archive/

Types of… n Bidirectional n n in a language with more than one lateral, if they contrast in manner, then they do not contrast in voice; and if they contrast in voice, then they do not contrast in manner (Maddieson 1980) (Strictly) unidirectional if a language has a dedicated elative, it also has a dedicated (al)lative, but not vice versa (Moravcsik 1984, appears to be false) n typo. uni-konstanz. de/archive/

Three types of universals. . . … according to Cristofaro: n Universals of language proper n n see above on types of universals Functional principles Universal(s of the) of conceptual space Discourse needs / motivations

Three types of universals. . . … according to Cristofaro: n n Universals of language proper Functional principles Universal space of conceptual situations Discourse motivations / inventory

Functional principles Iconicity: a semiotic principle n correspondance between the structure of linguistic expressions and the conceptual situations they encode

Functional principles n n Principles pertaining to language use/acquisition/processing, as Markedness: if conceptual situations that are less frequent are associated with zero marking, then the more frequent situations will also be (type of economy) Processing ease: accessibility hierarchy in relativization

Functional principles diachronic or synchronic? n “Functional principles motivate the creation of novel constructions but play no role in the propagation of these constructions, nor in a speaker's acquisition and use of existing constructions. Speakers produce existing constructions because they hear them from other speakers, not because of the functional principles underlying those constructions. As a result, particular constructions may be maintained in a language because they are conventionalized, even when the functional motivation underlying them has ceased to hold for the language. ” «not all the constructions of a language may be functionally motivated at the synchronic level. »

Three types of universals. . . … according to Cristofaro: n n Universals of language proper Functional principles Universal space of conceptual situations Discourse inventory / motivations

Universal conceptual space basic meanings each lg has to express (? ): n motion, space, time semantic maps: n universal relations of similarity of meanings in speaker’s mind manifested in / extracted from: n patterns of combining different meanings (functions)

Semantic map: classic style Haspelmath’s dative map

Semantic map: classic style Narrog 2010: comitative

Semantic map: classic style Quoted from Haspelmath, 2012

Probability semantic mapping Cysouw, Hartmann and Haspelmath 2015: Val. Pal outcomes

Three types of universals. . . … according to Cristofaro: n n Universals of language proper Functional principles Universal space of conceptual situations Discourse inventory / motivations

Universal parameters of discourse organization tools each language has to apply: n n reference identity tracking, topic, focus. cf. the idea of grammaticalization of discourse strategies

Three types of universals. . . n Universals of language proper n Functional principles n Universal space of conceptual situations

UG and typology vs. three types of universals Universals Functional proper principles Conceptual space UG Interested Not interested LT Interested

On the nature of universals BIS: diachronic or synchronic? n “Functional principles motivate the creation of novel constructions but play no role in the propagation of these constructions, nor in a speaker's acquisition and use of existing constructions. Speakers produce existing constructions because they hear them from other speakers, not because of the functional principles underlying those constructions. As a result, particular constructions may be maintained in a language because they are conventionalized, even when the functional motivation underlying them has ceased to hold for the language. ” «not all the constructions of a language may be functionally motivated at the synchronic level. »

On the nature of universals n Cristofaro 2010: are the universals (proper) part of the speaker’s linguistic knowledge? traditional linguistic typology until some point, indifferent to the issue n generative grammar n absolutely !!! why? universals of grammar must be part of the speaker’s innate linguistic knowledge to make up for the poverty of (external) stimulus

Universals in GG Various types of universals are treated differently: n Unconditioned universals n Implicational universals as parameter setting in Principle and parameters theory, including: n two way implications n n n determining parameter clustering by a common parameter --- N ~ Gen & Prep ~ N and one-way implications: n hierarchy of parameter settings, as by Baker

Universals in GG n n how is this issue related to the founding principle of the universal grammar? “the implicational relations between the settings of the various parameters limit the number of decisions a language learner has to make, and Baker's prediction is that the fewer such decisions, the more frequent the language type will be”

Universals in UG n n The major problem that the UG approach to universals faces is that. . . … there are no, or very few exceptionless universals n cf. Levinson and Evans 2009 – The Myth of Language Universals

Nature of language universals The language universals seem to be statistical by their nature n No obvious way to solve this within Principle and Parameters approach to language universals n It is not an acute problem for typology, because it can live with statistical tendencies instead of expcetionless generalizations n … but it is a challenge, all the same! why statistical? ? ?

Nature of language universals The linguistic typology’s answer: n Removing language universals outside speaker’s individual grammar n Placing them in diachrony instead of synchrony (dynamicization of typology) n Model of competing motivations n Universals results from more or less strong tendencies in language change, not from ‘headinternal’ constraints on linguistic parameters