Re: The things one finds

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

> > FWIW, *every* professional linguist of whatever stripe seems to get
> > into this state from time to time on Conlang, with veiled or
> > open threats of resignation.  "Shane!  Don't go!  Shane...."
> > In plain fact, the rest of us need you professionals to keep us
> > honest, not to say informed.
>
> And it should be clearly stated that while I call 'em like I see 'em,
> I am *NOT* a professional, and if I were I would probably know enough
> to speak in more measured tones, and that therefore my own rants
> should probably be taken with a truckload of salt.
>
Well, I'm not a real linguist either - since I've never done fieldwork
myself - but I'm trained as one, and I've seen all sorts of work, and
I tend to agree with your rants. But to give a few concrete examples:

James Matisoff's Grammar of Lahu is great, informative and voluminous -
and it is based on a 'generative theory' of language. Later on he has
retracted most of his generative 'beliefs', since they didn't appear to
fit, and even in this grammar he acknowledges Berkeley, Sapir, Chao,
Whorf, Diver, de Saussure and Bolinger (Matisoff 1982: xlix). _The
Grammar of Lahu_ takes quite a bit of studying to profit from it,
though. No texts, either.

Professor Dik, from Amsterdam, who has invented 'functional grammar',
appears to have never done any fieldwork, and his work has little
to do with human languages. The basic idea behind functional grammar
seems to be that human language really is prolog, deep down. Luckily,
it turns out that Li and Thompson's _Mandarin Chinese, A Functional
Reference Grammar_ has little to do with this particular theory, and
it is good and clear. But when professor van den Berg tried to write a
grammar of Mandarin Chinese according to the theory of Functional Grammar,
the result was not very good.

Arthur Holmer's Grammar of Seediq is completely useless. He follows the
'parametric theory', and that appears to force him to neglect giving
even the simplest list of words or the tiniest text. A pity, since the
language seems to have died out since now.

David Watter's description of Takale Kham is based on the 'tagmemics
theory', and it's a great good fortune that he provides so many examples,
meaning that I could distill enough linguistic data out of his grammar
to be able to come up with a decent analysis of the verb, because work
done in that tradition is sufficiently 'different' to be completely
incomprehensible.

Jadranka Gvozdanovic went to Nepal to do fieldwork on Nepal especially to
prove her vague theory about semantic roles and verbs and came back with
a lot of data, which she was able to mangle enough to make using her data
impossible. Needless to say, when I was able to compare her conclusions
to a good description prepared by Julianna Foltann, Jadranka's analysis
turned out to be quite invalid. (Her theory was so vague I am unable
to recall the exact name, but she did fieldwork, at least. I don't have
the book at home to check.)

A good grammar doesn't need any fancy theory, but keeps to what
Dixon calls 'basic theory' or George van Driem calls 'structuralist
descriptivism'. It is worth noting that van Driem has at least five
grammars of previously undescribed languages to his name, having done the
fieldwork himself. When the author hasn't any theoretical axe to grind,
his description will be better, as is also evident from Michaelovsky's
_La langue Hayu_, Solnit's _Eastern Kayah Li_ or Rutger's _Yamphu_.
It's a pity when all the money spent on fieldwork is wasted on something
like Holmer's grammar of Seediq.

(Of course, theory is needed, but I like it bases on a lot of languages,
like professor Palmer's _Grammatical Roles and Relations_, which is a
great book, or Nichols' _Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time_.)

To come back on topic: What I like especially about conlangs is that
conlangers are mostly concerned with describing the language, without
other agendas. In fact, the general athmosphere quite reminds me of my
days at the Institute for Comparative Linguistics in Leyden.

---

Dik, Simon C. 1989. _The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The
Structure of the Clause_, Dordrecht: foris.

Dixon, R.M.W. 1997. _The rise and fall of languages_. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Gvozdanovic, Jadranka. 1985 _Language System and Its Change: on Theory
and Testability_. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter

Holmer, Arthur J. 1996. _A parametric grammar of Seediq_, Travaux de
l'institut de linguistique de Lund 30. Lund: Lund University Press.

Li, Charles. N. and Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. _Mandarin Chinese. A
Functional Reference Grammar_, Berkeley: University of California Press

Matisoff, James. 1982 (1973). A Grammar of Lahu. Berkeley: University
of California Press.

Michailovsky, Boyd. 1988. _La langue Hayu_. Collection Sciences du
Langage, Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Nichols, Johanna. 1999 (1992). _Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time_.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Palmer, F.R. 1994. _Grammatical roles and relations_. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Rempt, Boudewijn. 1994. 'The Verbal Agreement System of four Kham
Languages', _Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area_ 17.1: 1-60

Rutgers, Roland. 1998. _Yamphu. Grammar, texts and Lexicon_. Leiden:
Research School CNWS.

Siewerska, Anna. 1991. _Functional Grammar_. Linguistic Theory Guides.
London: Routledge.

Solnit, David. 1997. _Eastern Kayah Li. Grammar, Texts,
Glossary_. University of Hawai'i Press

Watters, David E. 1973. 'Clause Patterns in Kham'. In Austin Hale (ed.)
_Clause, Sentence and Discourse Patterns in Selected Languages of Nepal
(Part I: General Approach)_, pp 39-202. Normal, Oklahoma: Summer Institute
of Linguistics.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt