Re: Rotokas (was: California Cheeseburger)

On Monday, June 21, 2004, at 10:33 , Thomas R. Wier wrote:
From:    "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>
[snip]
>> It's one thing to be disbelieved when there's no source in play. What
>> astounds me is that I am so often disbelieved (usually by the same
>> handful
>> of people) even when there *is* a source and all I'm doing is repeating
>> what it says. Something of a gunslinger mentality, I reckon: youngsters
>> trying to see who's quicker at the draw than the aging, retired
>> gunslinger
>> who's really just in town to visit the saloon. You could say that the
>> aging gunslinger brought this upon himself by the choices he's made, and
>> you'd be right. New choices are in order, then.
>
> This isn't about young v. old or any such thing, though.  It's about
> the generalizations that people bring up in their descriptions of the
> language.
But the point, surely, is that Mark's has _not_ been making
generalizations. Unless I've very much misunderstood, he was reporting
what the Firchows (who seem to be the people who made more study of the
language than anyone else and have done more fieldwork) have established
and said that he would try to find out more on one or two other points. I
quote:
" I'll ask about that, too. (I don't know if Skip is still around, but
somebody at the Ukarumpa installation will be able to help.)"

What are the generalizations that the Firchows made in their descriptions?

It seems to be others who assumed that these were generalizations or
assumptions being made by Mark and/or the Firchows - I don't know why -
and before Mark got a chance to ask, the gunslinging started.

> Anyone who's worked on a language documentation first hand
> knows that the number of people working on (or who have worked on) most
> languages is quite, quite small, and in many cases are done not by
> professional linguists but by individuals with quite different motives
> (e.g., missionaries or anthropologists).
Eh? I had understood that Skip Firchow was a professional linguist.

> This is not to say that these
> people are ignorant or stupid, only that primary descriptions of a great
> many languages are inadequate because their work was directed elsewhere.
Maybe - but we were talking about a particular language, namely Rotokas. I'
m not in a position to say whether the Firchows' descriptions are
inadequate or not because I haven't read their work. But the field work
seems to have been done over several years. Nor was I aware that their
work was directed elsewhere. But, of course, I may  be wrong about that.

[snip]
> precisely like those we are discussing.  These are commonplaces of
> linguistic
> description which occur especially frequently in older works from the
> late 19th and early 20th centuries when the level of linguistic
> instruction
Sigh - I think most of us are aware of this. Some of us, indeed, have even
seen one or two such descriptions. But what the heck have 19th & early
20th century descriptions got to do with Rotokas? I understood the
Firchows were working in the 1970s & 1980s - not what I'd call early 20th
century.

> Asking questions about such authorities is how all knowledge advances,
> by putting earlier propositions to the test, and proving or discarding
> them.
Yes - the slight problem is that the authorities in this case are not
members of the list. Also Mark was going to ask 'the authorities' some
follow up points but never got the chance. Quite how can most of us on
this list, living miles & miles away from Bouganville and with little or
no knowledge of Rotokas, really prove or disprove their findings?

For my part I would wish to know their findings first.

> Otherwise, we as a civilization are no better (or worse) than
> the medieval scholastics who faithfully handed down the traditions of
> the ancients, whatever the validity thereof, because they didn't trust
> their own doubts.
That's why there were the great scholastic debates between the Scotists &
Thomists, I guess - neither Duns Scotus nor Thomas Aquinas could trust
their own doubts. Nor, I guess could William of Occam, Augustine or any
other of the medievals. And all that stuff history books tell us about the
Renaissance re-discovering the works of the ancients must an urban myth
because those dumb old schoolmen had been handing the stuff down all the
time without question! Gosh.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

Reply