Re: theory (was: Re: Greenberg's Word Order Universals)
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, September 16, 2000, 5:09 |
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Dirk wrote to Matt/Marcus:
I've never gotten that kind
>of cool reception when I've gone to theoretical conferences and told people
I do lots of
>fieldwork and aspire to write reference grammars...
>
>Anyway, that's my personal experience, and it's made me a little defensive
when it comes to
>theory-bashers.
In the early-mid 60s, in the first flush of fame, Chomskians were in the
habit of dismissing your 3 years of fieldwork in the Amazon with, "But
that's trivial. Now, in English...." (SIL folks, especially, got dumped
on.) Attitude like that produced hard feelings at Michigan, home of Kenneth
Pike......