Evans & Levinson (E&L)advocate taking linguistic diversity at "face value". Their argument consists of a list
of diverse phenomena, and the assertion that no non-vacuous theory could possibly uncover a
meaningful unity underlying them. I argue, with evidence from Tlingit and Warlpiri, that E&L's list
itself should not be taken at face value — and that the actual research record already demonstrates
unity amidst diversity

Cable

Coon

David Pesetsky

England

Laughren

Legate

Mithun

Osada

Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Pesetsky, David

DSpace@MIT

 Commentary on Evans and LevinsonWord Counts:Abstract: 60 wordsMain Text: 1389 words (1283 words excluding data)References: 274 wordsTotal Text: 1723 wordsAgainst Taking Linguistic Diversity at "FaceValue"David PesetskyDepartment of Linguistics and PhilosophyMassachusetts Institute of Technology32D-862, 77 Massachusetts Ave.Cambridge, MA 02139USA617-253-0957pesetsk@mit.eduhttp://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/pesetsky/index.htmlAbstract: E&L advocate taking linguistic diversity at "face value". Their argument consists of a listof diverse phenomena, and the assertion that no non-vacuous theory could possibly uncover ameaningful unity underlying them. I argue, with evidence from Tlingit and Warlpiri, that E&L's listitself should not be taken at face value — and that the actual research record already demonstratesunity amidst diversity.From a distance, the structures of the world's languages do look gloriously diverse and endlessly varied.  But since when is it sound strategy to take diversity at "face value"?  All other sciences have progressedprecisely by taking nothing at face value — diversity included. E&L claim, in effect, that linguistics isfundamentally different from all other fields.  If they are right, the search for deeper laws behind linguisticstructure is a fool's errand, and languages are just as inexplicably diverse as they seem at first glance.Given their sweeping objections to an entire field of inquiry, it is particularly surprising that E&L's papercontains no discussion of the actual research to which they supposedly object.  Instead, the paper offers only(1) a parade of capsule descriptions of phenomena from the world's languages, coupled with (2) repeatedassertions that each phenomenon falls outside the scope of all (non-vacuous) general theories of linguisticstructure.   The argument must therefore rest on two premises: (1) that the capsule descriptions ofphenomena are correct; and (2) that these phenomena fall so obviously beyond the pale of research onuniversal grammar that no further argument is necessary.   I believe that there are reasons for caution aboutthe first supposition and that the second is simply wrong.  I limit myself to a few examples.Confidence in the accuracy of the data itself is undermined at the outset by comparison of E&L's claimswith their sources. For example, as a demonstration that "semantic systems may carve the world at quitedifferent joints",  E&L cite Mithun's (1999, 81) discussion of an "unexpected number" marker in Jemez(misidentified by E&L as Kiowa).  It is supposedly because legs come in pairs and stones do not that thenumber marker, when added to "leg", means "any number but two", but when added to "stone" means"exactly two". Mithun actually notes, however, that the number marker's meaning does not directly correlatewith the semantics of the noun to which it attaches, but rather with the noun's membership in a particularNoun Class — a phenomenon only partially correlated with the noun's semantics (cf. Indo-Europeangender).  In Jemez, "nose" belongs to the same class as "leg", and "arm" belongs to the same class as"stone." Thus if the number marker truly indicates how Jemez speakers "carve the world", "one" must be anunexpected number of noses, but an expected number of arms (cf. Harbour 2006).  Similarly, though E&Llist Mundari ideophones as an exemplar of a "major word class" whose very existence "dilutes theplausibility of the innatist UG position", their source for Mundari, Osada (1992, 140-144) actually does notdiscuss ideophone syntax or morphology at all.  Mayan positionals are presented as making the same point.But though they do constitute a distinct category of root (from which speakers derive words belonging tothe standard word classes), they do not appear to constitute a syntactically distinguishable word classthemselves, at least not in Mam (England 1983, 78), Tzotzil (Haviland 1994, 700), Chol (Coon andPreminger 2009), or Tzeltal (Brown 1994, 754; cited by E&L) . Even if E&L's data sources had been cited with perfect care, however, there is a more significant danger inarguments founded on capsule descriptions. Because a daunting array of puzzles faces any researcher whoinvestigates any language, even the best descriptions are always incomplete and provisional.  Fundamentalgeneralizations often remain undiscovered for years, until a creative (and lucky) researcher suddenly asksthe key question whose answer unlocks one of the language's secrets. And how does one find such keyquestions?  As it happens, among the most productive question-generating devices is the very idea that E&Lderide: that languages share a significant array of structural properties, often masked by undeniabledifferences.  Again and again, investigations guided by this possibility have radically enhanced our basicpicture of the world's languages.Consider, for example, E&L's assertion that "syntactic constituency...is not a universal feature oflanguages", advanced because of the existence of languages with "free word order".   As E&L note, it iscommon to posit for such languages a constituent structure like that of English — but with greaterpossibilities for displacement of constituents.  Although E&L attribute the appeal of such analyses to mereanglophone prejudice, their appeal actually rests on a large and growing body of hard-won results, achievedby researchers pursuing lines of inquiry that no one had previously thought to pursue.One recent example is Cable's (2007; 2008) investigation of wh-questions in Tlingit (Na Dene, Alaska), alanguage with considerable freedom of word order.  In languages with fairly rigid word order, there is awell-known split in how they form wh-questions.  In languages like English and Italian, interrogative wh-phrases move to a dedicated position near the left periphery of the clause, possibly preceded only bydiscourse topics (cf. This book, who would read it?; Rizzi (1997).   In languages like Chinese and Korean,by contrast, there is no dedicated position for wh-phrases. Instead, they appear wherever their non-interrogative counterparts would:(1) a. English  Who did John see?    b. Chinese (Huang 1982)  Zhangsan kajian-le shei  Zhangsan see-asp whoAt first glance, Tlingit appears to pattern with Chinese rather than English in lacking a dedicated wh-position, as one might expect if free word order entails absence of constituent structure:  The word orders in(2) are also all available in non-questions:(2)  Tlingit  (Cable 2007; 2008) a. Yá x’úx’ aadóoch sá kgwatóow?  this book who-erg  Q he.will.read.it  'Who will read this book?'       b. Aadóoch yá x’úx’ sá kgwatóow?  who-erg  this book Q he.will.read.it  (= a)           c. Kéet daa sá axá?  killer.whale what Q he.eats.it  'What do killer whales eat?'On the basis of his fieldwork and analysis of Tlingit texts, Cable showed that, contrary to appearances,Tlingit wh-phrases actually do occupy a dedicated wh-position — in fact, a position syntactically andsemantically identical to its counterpart in languages like English.  Specifically, Cable discovered that phrases to the left of the wh-phrase (e.g. 'this book' in (2a) and 'killer whale' in (2c)) are always interpretedas discourse topics.  A non-topical phrase in the same position blocks the interpretation of the sentence as awh-question.  (Tlingit wh-phrases also function as indefinite nominals.) Furthermore, if a wh-phrase appearsto the right of the verb (not shown in (2)), the result also cannot be interpreted as a wh-question.  All thesefindings can be explained quite simply if the interrogative phrase in both Tlingit and English moves to thesame position at the left periphery, where only a discourse topic can precede it.  Thus, at least some of thestructure of Tlingit is English-like, despite first impressions. Crucially, these findings constitute a discovery,not anglophone prejudice. Earlier excellent work on Tlingit had failed to note the evidence for a wh-position.  Cable's discoveries were made precisely because he chose a path of investigation informed bywhat linguists already knew about wh-questions in other languages.In contrast to Tlingit, which might be classified as a "free phrase order" language in E&L's typology, theAustralian language Warlpiri is the "free word order" language par excellence — allowing even morespectacular freedom.  It is thus especially instructive that discoveries like Cable's have also been made forWarlpiri by Legate (2001; 2002), building on research by Laughren (2002) and the late Ken Hale.  Legateargues that the left periphery of the Warlpiri clause contains a dedicated wh-position preceded by a topicposition, just like Tlingit and English.  More generally, she shows that key tests that have diagnosed othertypes of constituent structure in languages like English yield the same results in Warlpiri — a remarkablediscovery, directly attributable to the very research program that E&L call bankrupt.Questions like those addressed by Legate and Cable must be asked for every item in E&L's linguisticWunderkammer. Are they truly as "different" as they seem?  Sometimes, of course, the answer might be"yes".  But how will we ever distinguish real differences from those that merely reflect our ignorance if wegrant — even for an instant — E&L's dictum that apparent structural differences must just "be accepted forwhat they are"?ReferencesBrown, P. (1994). The INs and ONs of Tzeltal locative expressions: the semantics of static descriptions oflocation. Linguistics, 32, 743-790.Cable, S. (2007). The grammar of Q : Q-particles and the nature of Wh-fronting, as revealed by the Wh-questions of Tlingit. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,MA. URL http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000553Cable, S. (2008). Q-particles and the nature of wh-fronting. In L. Matthewson (Ed.), Quantification: ACross-Linguistic Perspective (pp. 105-178). Amsterdam: Elsevier.  URLhttp://people.umass.edu/scable/papers/Q-Particles-and-Wh-Fronting.pdfCoon, J., & Preminger, O. (2009). Positional Roots and Case Absorption. In H. Avelino, J. Coon, & E.Norcliffe (Eds.), New Perspectives in Mayan Linguistics (pp. 35-58).  URLhttp://web.mit.edu/jcoon/www/Jessica_Coon/Publications_files/coonpremingerssila.pdfEngland, N. C. (1983). A Grammar of Mam, a Mayan Language. Austin: University of Texas Press.Harbour, D. (2006) . Harbour. 2006. Valence and atomic number. Unpublished manuscript, Queen Mary,London. UR http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/dharbour/Harbour%20Valence%20Revised.pdfHaviland, J. B. (1994). "Te xa setel xulem" [The buzzards were circling]: categories of verbal roots in(Zinacantec) Tzotzil. Linguistics, 32, 691-741.Huang, C.-T. J. (1982). Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Unpublished doctoraldissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.  URLhttp://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/15215Laughren, M. (2002). Syntactic constraints in a "free word order language". In M. Amberber (Ed.),Language Universals and Variation (pp. 83-130). Ablex.Legate, J. A. (2001). The configurational structure of a nonconfigurational language. Linguistic VariationYearbook, 63-99.Legate, J. A. (2002). Warlpiri: theoretical implications. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. URL http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~jlegate/main.pdfMithun, M. (1999). The languages of native North America (Cambridge language surveys). Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.Osada, T. (1992). A reference grammar of Mundari. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages andCultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.Rizzi, L. (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (Ed.), Elements of grammar (pp.281-337). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 

Against Taking Linguistic Diversity at "Face Value"

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Against taking linguistic diversity at “face value”

Abstract: E&amp;L advocate taking linguistic diversity at &quot;face value&quot;. Their argument consists of a list of diverse phenomena, and the assertion that no non-vacuous theory could possibly uncover a meaningful unity underlying them. I argue, with evidence from Tlingit and Warlpiri, that E&amp;L&apos;s list itself should not be taken at face value — and that the actual research record already demonstrates unity amidst diversity. From a distance, the structures of the world&apos;s languages do look gloriously diverse and endlessly varied. But since when is it sound strategy to take diversity at &quot;face value&quot;?  All other sciences have progressed precisely by taking nothing at face value — diversity included. E&amp;L claim, in effect, that linguistics is fundamentally different from all other fields. If they are right, the search for deeper laws behind linguistic structure is a fool&apos;s errand, and languages are just as inexplicably diverse as they seem at first glance. Given their sweeping objections to an entire field of inquiry, it is particularly surprising that E&amp;L&apos;s paper contains no discussion of the actual research to which they supposedly object. Instead, the paper offers only (1) a parade of capsule descriptions of phenomena from the world&apos;s languages, coupled with (2) repeated assertions that each phenomenon falls outside the scope of all (non-vacuous) general theories of linguistic structure. The argument must therefore rest on two premises: (1) that the capsule descriptions o

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