Re: Word Order in typology

Elliott Lash wrote at 2004-10-12 15:29:18 (-0700)
>  Basically, in these languages where you say the "subject" is not a
> meaningful category, Baker and other linguists who work within P&P
> would probably argue that there is a parameter which can be set to
> "on or off" (metaphorically) that determines whether a language has
> a "subject relation" or not.
Oh, I rather doubt that. Subjects and objects are not primitives in
most of the various rescensions of Chomskyan linguistics, but are
rather derived from asymmetries in syntactic trees. Baker and
other P&P grammarians are rather big on subject-object asymmetries,
it being rather crucial for all sorts of syntactic behavior in P&P.
This makes them wont to see asymmetries where there is no obvious
evidence for them, such as by calling nonconfigurational languages
like Warlpiri or Meskwaki (those with relatively flat tree-structure
and no VP) configurational languages (those with a VP).

But I should also say that Baker is rather like a grandmaster at
chess, since he can see things that less intelligent people can't.
His article "On some subject-object asymmetries in Mohawk", though
motivated largely by theory internal reasoning, is a beautiful and
elegant example of finding needles in a very, very deep haystack.

(Baker is also interesting in being the only linguist I know of who
dedicates all his technical books to Jesus Christ - to the extent
that he even has a section at the end of _The Polysynthesis
Parameter_ explaining how God invented polysynthesis, and quotes
chapter and verse to boot. Not that this is *wrong*, per se, but
it's not falsifiable, unscientific, and it can be a little
out-weirding...)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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