>>> What about:
>>> A: I gave all my money to Jack.
>>> B: You gave all your money to WHO(M?)?
>>> A: What did you give to Jack?
>>> B: What did I give to WHO(M?)?
[...]
>> Yes, I mentioned this type of sentence on a.u.e recently,
>> and suggested that it might be one of the few occasions
>> where "whom" was obligatory. I think I've heard "who"
>> in such constructions, but it doesn't sit easily.
> Interesting. Even in my elevated register, I can't get
> emphatic "whom". It sounds even more pretentious than
> normal when I add stress!
Fascinating. I can't imagine using WHO there.
>>> (31) Have you thought about who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
>>> (32) Have you thought about who(m?) it was easiest for Jack to fire?
>>> (33) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems Jack fired?
>>> (34) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?
>>> (35) Have you thought about who(m?) seems to have quit?
For me: who, whom, whom, who, who.
> [numbers added for clarity]
>> These are different since "who(m)" is not the object of "about",
> Well, that's what I was probing here. Why can't it be the object of > "about"?
> "Thought about" obligatorily takes an object:
> I thought about him.
> *I thought about.
> So (31)-(35) should have an overt object for "thought about" > somewhere. The two main options are (i) "who(m?)" is the actual > object, and the last part of the sentence is just a modifier to the > object, and (ii) the entire string of "who(m?)" together with the last > part of the sentence is the object, a question that is being thought > about:
> (i) ...thought about [ who(m) [was easiest for Jack to fire] ]
> (ii) ...thought about [ who(m) was easiest for Jack to fire ]
'Clearly' (ii)! <g>
> Here, it seems to be ambiguous, because you can think about people > ((i) ~= reminisce about) and you can think about a question ((ii) ~=
> wonder), so either structure works semantically. But if we plug in a > different verb, one that can't semantically take a question as an > object, it seems like structure (ii) should be blocked:
> (36) Have you talked to who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
For me it's ungrammatical either way, so it has no bearing
on the 'thought about' sentences.
> In article <Rxj_r.43056$xH3.30...@fx02.am4>,
> "Guy Barry" <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> > "Nathan Sanders" wrote in message
> > news:sanders-172A17.02131826082012@free.teranews.com...
> > > (31) Have you thought about who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
> > > (32) Have you thought about who(m?) it was easiest for Jack to > > > fire?
> > > (33) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems Jack fired?
> > > (34) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?
> > > (35) Have you thought about who(m?) seems to have quit?
> [numbers added for clarity]
> > These are different since "who(m)" is not the object of "about",
> Well, that's what I was probing here. Why can't it be the object of
> "about"?
Because the object of "about" is the entire subordinate clause.
> But if we plug in a
> different verb, one that can't semantically take a question as an
> object, it seems like structure (ii) should be blocked:
> (36) Have you talked to who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
Which it is, as far as I'm concerned.
> No, you were clear; it's my fault for not more clearly stating that my
> purpose was to see exactly what might be considered the object of the
> preposition (and for using ambiguous "thought about" instead of
> unambiguous "talked to").
I can only interpret (31-35) with the subordinate clause as the object of "about". They make no sense if I substitute
"talked to" for "thought about".
> > In all of them it takes its case from the subordinate clause
> > as normal, so I would say that "whom" is possible in the second and > > third,
> > but not the others. Personally I would use "who" in all.
> But not (31)? Why couldn't it get object case from being the object
> of "fire"?
Because it's not the grammatical object of "fire", only the semantic object.
> Note also that "fire" is obligatorily transitive, so its object must
> be overtly expressed somewhere:
> Jack fired him.
> *Jack fired.
> So where did that object go, if it isn't "who(m)"?
"Easy" is a raising predicate. The semantic object of "fire" becomes the grammatical subject of "was".
> But if it is, then why doesn't it have object case?
For the same reason that we say "he was easy for Jack to fire" and not "him was easy for Jack to fire".
> Compare it to (34), where the subject of "has quit" isn't in the
> position is should be. Presumably, the missing subject is "who(m)",
> and you assigned it subject case, even though it doesn't sit in a
> subject position on the surface.
> "Nathan Sanders" wrote:
>> "Guy Barry" wrote:
>>> It really doesn't sound right to me. "Who are you speaking about?"
>>> is the informal version as far as I'm concerned, and "about whom >>> are you speaking?" is the formal one. The two other possible
>>> versions don't seem to fit naturally into any register of speech;
>>> "whom are you speaking about?" and "about who are you speaking?"
>>> are both theoretically possible, but don't seem to get used much >>> in practice.
>> What about:
>> A: I gave all my money to Jack.
>> B: You gave all your money to WHO(M?)?
>> A: What did you give to Jack?
>> B: What did I give to WHO(M?)?
> [Note for a.u.e readers: there was a discussion a while ago about the
> use of "A" and "B" in linguistic examples to illustrate different
> speakers. Nathan appears to follow this convention.]
> Yes, I mentioned this type of sentence on a.u.e recently, and suggested
> that it might be one of the few occasions where "whom" was obligatory. > I think I've heard "who" in such constructions, but it doesn't sit easily.
>> Have you thought about who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
>> Have you thought about who(m?) it was easiest for Jack to fire?
>> Have you thought about who(m?) it seems Jack fired?
>> Have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?
>> Have you thought about who(m?) seems to have quit?
> These are different since "who(m)" is not the object of "about", but the
> fronted item in a subordinate interrogative clause. (I took the phrase
> "after a preposition" to mean "after a governing preposition"; sorry if
> that wasn't clear.) In all of them it takes its case from the
> subordinate clause as normal, so I would say that "whom" is possible in
> the second and third, but not the others.
I agree with all of Guy's above comments.
> Personally I would use "who" in all.
I might, unless I were writing a formal piece. For a formal piece, I
would use "whom" in the second and third examples of the second set of them.
-- Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt
> > On Aug 26, 1:14 am, Lewis <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> >> In message <cee7ee03-032f-4a6b-bb2c-82b4b4a2c...@k20g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>
> >> Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>> On Aug 24, 12:12 pm, Lewis <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> >>>> This specific example is a hard one for most people for two reasons. 1)
> >>>> No one learns subject/object very well in school anymore and 2) it fails
> >>>> the 'cheat' of answering the question and seeing if the answer is he or
> >>>> him.
> >>> (1) "What one learns in school" is entirely irrelevant to how one uses
> >>> one's language; one does not consciously attempt to analyze whether
> >>> something is a subject or an object. One simply says what one has to
> >>> say, however it comes out.
> >> If you are not taught who/whom and you do not understand subject/object
> >> then using whom properly is basically impossible.
> > Sorry, but that's not how language works.
> Yes - it's the reverse. People talk just fine. Later, other people
> classify their words.
> I was chatting once with an English couple who were teaching their small
> child French in preparation for a planned move to France. I suggested
> that French might be easier to learn than English, but they were adamant
> that it was far harder, as their child had great difficulty learning the
> complex grammar.
If it was a small child, why were they trying to "teach" it? As long
as it was playing with children all speaking another language, it
would very soon acquire their language perfectly.
> In article
> <74cb6fc1-dfa4-4c8b-8ed3-a18754fcb...@p12g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 4:48 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > [a very large amount of squink]
> Translation: "PTD can't respond to the actual content, so PTD will
> argue an irrelevant red herring instead and pretend no one notices."
> > It's actually quite disturbing that the vast majority of today's
> > linguists have no understanding of the development of the science of
> > linguistics,
> PTD should learn not to be disturbed by things that aren't real.
> > and the importance of certain key articles in the
> > formation of that science -- in this case, nearly 50 years ago.
> And here's the red herrring. Once again, scholars understanding some
> specific piece of work, or even considering it important, is not at
> all the same thing as research in the field being "fixated" on the
> contents of that work.
> The question at hand is whether mainstream phonology[1] is "fixated on
> reduction to pairs". PTD offered a single, barely-cited, 45-year-old
> paper by a single author as evidence, but this is not on its own an
> indication of any such fixation.
> What would be an indication of what the field is fixated on is what
> multiple current scholars are doing right now, and by that measure,
> there is clearly no fixation on "reduction to pairs", and in fact, a
> lot of work going in exactly the opposite direction from "reduction to
> pairs".
> Even just 11 years after Halle 1957, Halle along with Chomsky used a
> four-way stress feature in SPE, rather than trying to reduce stress
> two binary features. If they were "fixated on reduction to pairs",
> why pass up such an obvious opportunity to reduce to not just a pair,
> but a pair of pairs?
> And the field has continued to blatantly contradict this supposed
> fixation on "reduction to pairs", as I pointed out with a list of
> evidence that PTD completely ignored. Where is the "reduction to
> pairs" in autosegmental theory? In privative features? In features
> with 3+ values? In gradient constraint violation? In stratal OT? In
> stochastic OT?
> > There would be no "contemporary phonological theory" without Halle's
> > work of the 1950s.
> Which, of course, still says nothing at all about what mainstream
> phonology may or may not be "fixated" on.
> > To be sure, much of it is reaction about how much he got so wrong,
> > but it would not exist in its present form without him.
> But crucially, its present form is not "fixated" on Halle (or on
> "reduction to pairs") any more than modern physics is "fixated" on
> Galileo (or on his incorrect explanation for tides).
> Someday, maybe, PTD will finally comprehend that science, by its very
> nature, progresses beyond its foundation work, and that skipping out
> on the past few decades of research is not a good way to understand
> what the field is doing right now (and such understanding is
> recommended for those who desire to pontificate about it).
> [1] I'm ignoring the other question, whether phonology is part of
> linguistics, because that's obviously just absurd.
I respect PTD for insisting that linguistics has a history and it is
making a mistake to ignore that history.
Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
distinctive features. Almost every grammar in that time frame (1980
plus or minus ?) influenced by Chomsky does the same thing. This is
not a matter of one theoretical paper.
You imply that there is not, these days, one mainstream phonology - by
naming several. Am I misreading you? If there is one what is its
definitive presentation ?
If there are several perhaps you could list them for us.
DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 5:17 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <74cb6fc1-dfa4-4c8b-8ed3-a18754fcb...@p12g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Aug 25, 4:48 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > [a very large amount of squink]
> > Translation: "PTD can't respond to the actual content, so PTD will
> > argue an irrelevant red herring instead and pretend no one notices."
> > > It's actually quite disturbing that the vast majority of today's
> > > linguists have no understanding of the development of the science of
> > > linguistics,
> > PTD should learn not to be disturbed by things that aren't real.
> > > and the importance of certain key articles in the
> > > formation of that science -- in this case, nearly 50 years ago.
> > And here's the red herrring. Once again, scholars understanding some
> > specific piece of work, or even considering it important, is not at
> > all the same thing as research in the field being "fixated" on the
> > contents of that work.
> > The question at hand is whether mainstream phonology[1] is "fixated on
> > reduction to pairs". PTD offered a single, barely-cited, 45-year-old
> > paper by a single author as evidence, but this is not on its own an
> > indication of any such fixation.
> > What would be an indication of what the field is fixated on is what
> > multiple current scholars are doing right now, and by that measure,
> > there is clearly no fixation on "reduction to pairs", and in fact, a
> > lot of work going in exactly the opposite direction from "reduction to
> > pairs".
> > Even just 11 years after Halle 1957, Halle along with Chomsky used a
> > four-way stress feature in SPE, rather than trying to reduce stress
> > two binary features. If they were "fixated on reduction to pairs",
> > why pass up such an obvious opportunity to reduce to not just a pair,
> > but a pair of pairs?
> > And the field has continued to blatantly contradict this supposed
> > fixation on "reduction to pairs", as I pointed out with a list of
> > evidence that PTD completely ignored. Where is the "reduction to
> > pairs" in autosegmental theory? In privative features? In features
> > with 3+ values? In gradient constraint violation? In stratal OT? In
> > stochastic OT?
> > > There would be no "contemporary phonological theory" without Halle's
> > > work of the 1950s.
> > Which, of course, still says nothing at all about what mainstream
> > phonology may or may not be "fixated" on.
> > > To be sure, much of it is reaction about how much he got so wrong,
> > > but it would not exist in its present form without him.
> > But crucially, its present form is not "fixated" on Halle (or on
> > "reduction to pairs") any more than modern physics is "fixated" on
> > Galileo (or on his incorrect explanation for tides).
> > Someday, maybe, PTD will finally comprehend that science, by its very
> > nature, progresses beyond its foundation work, and that skipping out
> > on the past few decades of research is not a good way to understand
> > what the field is doing right now (and such understanding is
> > recommended for those who desire to pontificate about it).
> > [1] I'm ignoring the other question, whether phonology is part of
> > linguistics, because that's obviously just absurd.
> I respect PTD for insisting that linguistics has a history and
No one disputes that it does.
> it is making a mistake to ignore that history.
Just because the field is not stagnant doesn't mean that its history has been ignored.
> Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> distinctive features.
Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature at all.
Note that discussion of intonation on page 212 is done as a four-way contrast, not a pair of pairs.
Note that the discussion of prosodic structure makes no attempt to group syllables into pairs (binary feet), or group sub-syllabic structure (onset, nucleus, coda) into pairs.
So there is only one piece of the entire phonological description that has any notable binarity, despite other places where the non-binary stuff could be made binary. How does that constitute a fixation with reduction to pairs?
> Almost every grammar in that time frame (1980
> plus or minus ?) influenced by Chomsky does the same thing. This is
> not a matter of one theoretical paper.
Yes, there was a time when distinctive features were all treated as binary. That time has LONG past.
And even when it was still current, there were plenty of other aspects of phonology that *weren't* binary.
Again, I see no evidence of a fixation on reduction to pairs.
> You imply that there is not, these days, one mainstream phonology - by
There is not one single framework that all phonologists would agree is The One True Phonology, no.
But there are various frameworks that are all understood and accepted as reasonable.
> naming several. Am I misreading you?
Some of the things I named were frameworks (stratal OT); others were aspects of frameworks (gradient constraint violation is an aspect of OT), some of which are common to multiple frameworks (autosegmental structure).
Phonology is generally concerned with two primary aspects of sound patterns: representation and processes. The focus has shifted back and forth between the two, and since they can be independent, multiple people may share the same theory of representation, but use different theories of processes (or the reverse).
(For the past 20 years, the fixation in phonology has mostly been on processes, not representations.)
> If there is one what is its
> definitive presentation ?
> If there are several perhaps you could list them for us.
Autosegmental feature geometry is the basic current representational theory of features, but there are different flavors of it:
Optimality Theory is the basic current theory of processes, but there are many different flavors of it (and a large set of phonologists who don't use it at all):
> > > > (31) Have you thought about who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
> > > > (32) Have you thought about who(m?) it was easiest for Jack to > > > > fire?
> > > > (33) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems Jack fired?
> > > > (34) Have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?
> > > > (35) Have you thought about who(m?) seems to have quit?
> > [numbers added for clarity]
> > > These are different since "who(m)" is not the object of "about",
> > Well, that's what I was probing here. Why can't it be the object of
> > "about"?
> Because the object of "about" is the entire subordinate clause.
> > But if we plug in a
> > different verb, one that can't semantically take a question as an
> > object, it seems like structure (ii) should be blocked:
> > (36) Have you talked to who(m?) was easiest for Jack to fire?
> Which it is, as far as I'm concerned.
> > No, you were clear; it's my fault for not more clearly stating that my
> > purpose was to see exactly what might be considered the object of the
> > preposition (and for using ambiguous "thought about" instead of
> > unambiguous "talked to").
> I can only interpret (31-35) with the subordinate clause as the object of > "about". They make no sense if I substitute
> "talked to" for "thought about".
Ah, interesting. Can you have "who(m)ever" instead?
(31') Have you talked to who(m)ever was easiest for Jack to fire?
(32') ... talked to who(m)ever it was easiest for Jack to fire?
(33') ... talked to who(m)ever it seems Jack fired?
(34') ... talked to who(m)ever it seems has quit?
(35') ... talked to who(m)ever seems to have quit?
> > Note also that "fire" is obligatorily transitive, so its object must
> > be overtly expressed somewhere:
> > Jack fired him.
> > *Jack fired.
> > So where did that object go, if it isn't "who(m)"?
> "Easy" is a raising predicate. The semantic object of "fire" becomes the > grammatical subject of "was".
It's not just a semantic object; there is an equally valid version of the sentence with the object in situ:
(37) It was easy for Jack to fire him.
> > But if it is, then why doesn't it have object case?
> For the same reason that we say "he was easy for Jack to fire" and not "him > was easy for Jack to fire".
Yes, but why would you look at that sentence, rather than (37)? "He was easy for Jack to fire" is not the most basic form, since it has "he" raised out of object position (remember, "fire" is an obligatorily transitive verb).
Of course, (37) isn't really the most basic form either, since it has an extra "it" to fill the empty subject position. The truly most basic form would be something more abstract, like:
(37') _ was easy for Jack to fire him
For (31), there are multiple processes interacting: obj-to-subj-raising, wh-movement, it-insertion, and case assignment, and they can interact in many different ways, depending on their order. One possible order would be as follows (I use _ and _ to mark potential landing sites for raising and wh-movement, which must be two different positions given sentences like (32)-(34), and @ to mark a vacated position due to raising or wh-movement):
base: thought about _ _ was easy for Jack to fire who(m)
it-ins: thought about _ it was easy for Jack to fire who(m)
case: thought about _ it was easy for Jack to fire whom
OSR: (blocked)
wh-m: thought about whom it was easy for Jack to fire @
Another:
base: thought about _ _ was easy for Jack to fire who(m)
OSR: thought about _ who(m) was easy for Jack to fire @
it-ins: (blocked)
case: thought about _ who was easy for Jack to fire @
wh-m: thought about who @ was easy for Jack to fire @
And another:
base: thought about _ _ was easy for Jack to fire who(m)
OSR: thought about _ who(m) was easy for Jack to fire @
case: thought about _ who was easy for Jack to fire @
wh-m: thought about who @ was easy for Jack to fire @
it-ins: thought about who it was easy for Jack to fire @
And one more:
base: thought about _ _ was easy for Jack to fire who(m)
case: thought about _ _ was easy for Jack to fire whom
OSR: thought about _ whom was easy for Jack to fire @
it-ins: (blocked)
wh-m: thought about whom @ was easy for Jack to fire @
So four possible different outcomes, depending on the order the processes are applied!
> > Compare it to (34), where the subject of "has quit" isn't in the
> > position is should be. Presumably, the missing subject is "who(m)",
> > and you assigned it subject case, even though it doesn't sit in a
> > subject position on the surface.
> It does. "It seems he has quit."
But that's not the surface structure of the sentence under discussion, which is "have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?". Your sentence is an abstraction, a different sentence that you are pointing to (or in a derivational analysis, an intermediate stage of the derivation).
How do you know which abstractions to look at for case assignment, and which to ignore? How do you know to look at a partially-raised sentence to get case for (31), rather than a completely non-raised sentence?
> In article
> <be79702b-b3c7-427a-9ec4-12d69a594...@oz6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 4:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Aug 25, 1:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > Note that mainstream phonology looks nothing like Hallean phonology,
> > > > and hasn't for a couple of decades. When I took classes from him, he
> > > > was very vocal about his opposition to mainstream phonology, but
> > > > well-aware that he was in the vanishing minority.
> > > How romneyan of you.
> > Perhaps you could name one online resource we could look at to see
> > what you call "mainline" phonology looks like.
> I'm not sure if you're asking me or PTD, but here's one by Kiparsky,
> which is notable because it uses privative features (7), gradient
> constraint violations (10), and of course, stratal OT, which has
> multiple levels of representation, not just the usual two
> (underlying/phonemic and surface/phonetic) (1):
> I'm not really sure what you're asking for, though. I claim that
> mainstream phonology is not "fixated on reduction to pairs". How is
> citing one paper supposed to prove this kind of negative claim?
> Except in cases of mathematical truths (which this is not, of course),
> the burden of proof is usually on those claiming existence, not on
> those denying existence.
I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon and concerns
which variant of some common theory (implicit and never named) is
preferable.
Binary features are still assumed but have little to do with the
argument. It also assumes that morphology is always binary - each step
involves one more "transformation (?)" of an intermediate form by the
addition of or conditioning for an affix.
But some things are really binary and must not be taken as indicating
a fixation on binary distinctions. I agree that this article presents
no evidence of a binary fixation.
BUT - this cannot possibly be representative of modern phonology
unless modern
phonology has become scholastic (in the bad sense - angles on
pinheads) and involves nothing but arcane adjustments within it own
walled-off world. I think that world is called Optimality Theory.
Kiparsky always says OT without explanation although there is even
less optimality in his paper than binary fixation.
Incidentally - to an outsider - it is obvious from the first few
paragraphs that Stratal OT is better and the paper is, generally
speaking, a waste of time.
DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 6:33 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <be79702b-b3c7-427a-9ec4-12d69a594...@oz6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Aug 25, 4:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 25, 1:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > > Note that mainstream phonology looks nothing like Hallean phonology,
> > > > > and hasn't for a couple of decades. When I took classes from him, he
> > > > > was very vocal about his opposition to mainstream phonology, but
> > > > > well-aware that he was in the vanishing minority.
> > > > How romneyan of you.
> > > Perhaps you could name one online resource we could look at to see
> > > what you call "mainline" phonology looks like.
> > I'm not sure if you're asking me or PTD, but here's one by Kiparsky,
> > which is notable because it uses privative features (7), gradient
> > constraint violations (10), and of course, stratal OT, which has
> > multiple levels of representation, not just the usual two
> > (underlying/phonemic and surface/phonetic) (1):
> > I'm not really sure what you're asking for, though. I claim that
> > mainstream phonology is not "fixated on reduction to pairs". How is
> > citing one paper supposed to prove this kind of negative claim?
> > Except in cases of mathematical truths (which this is not, of course),
> > the burden of proof is usually on those claiming existence, not on
> > those denying existence.
> I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single paper he writes?
> and concerns
> which variant of some common theory (implicit and never named) is
> preferable.
Well, yeah, that's one of the common themes of work in theoretical phonology.
> Binary features are still assumed
Except for the features that *aren't* binary, as I pointed out.
> but have little to do with the
> argument.
True. This paper is concerned with process, not representation (one of the most fundamental divisions in all of phonology).
> It also assumes that morphology is always binary - each step
> involves one more "transformation (?)" of an intermediate form by the
> addition of or conditioning for an affix.
The simplified model he gives in (1) looks like that, yes, but there's actually nothing about stratal OT that requires each step to only add one morpheme at a time. (He just happens not to be looking at any data here that involving multiple morphemes added in the same stratum.)
> BUT - this cannot possibly be representative of modern phonology
It's representative of one aspect of modern phonology.
*Every* science has some work that is more theoretical than empirical (and vice versa). This just happens to be primarily a theory paper.
Apparently not your cuppa, but this paper isn't aimed at outsiders.
Why should it be?
> unless modern
> phonology has become scholastic (in the bad sense - angles on
> pinheads) and involves nothing but arcane adjustments within it own
> walled-off world.
> I think that world is called Optimality Theory.
> Kiparsky always says OT without explanation although there is even
> less optimality in his paper than binary fixation.
> Incidentally - to an outsider - it is obvious from the first few
> paragraphs that Stratal OT is better
Better than what at what?
> and the paper is, generally
> speaking, a waste of time.
On Aug 25, 8:17 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article
> And here's the red herrring. Once again, scholars understanding some
> specific piece of work, or even considering it important, is not at
> all the same thing as research in the field being "fixated" on the
> contents of that work.
> The question at hand is whether mainstream phonology[1] is "fixated on
> reduction to pairs". PTD offered a single, barely-cited, 45-year-old
> paper by a single author as evidence, but this is not on its own an
> indication of any such fixation.
BTW, why are you pestering _me_ for a defense of someone else's
assertion?
It's like interviewers asking romney to defend that Missouri cretin's
assertion about anti-rape hormones.
In article <884c8f1a-9451-44d5-8284-872e6849a...@e9g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 8:17 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > And here's the red herrring. Once again, scholars understanding some
> > specific piece of work, or even considering it important, is not at
> > all the same thing as research in the field being "fixated" on the
> > contents of that work.
> > The question at hand is whether mainstream phonology[1] is "fixated on
> > reduction to pairs". PTD offered a single, barely-cited, 45-year-old
> > paper by a single author as evidence, but this is not on its own an
> > indication of any such fixation.
> BTW, why are you pestering _me_ for a defense of someone else's
> assertion?
On Aug 26, 2:26 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article
> <8b8242f0-a35c-4424-9909-4b0bc6fbc...@q9g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,
> DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I respect PTD for insisting that linguistics has a history and
> No one disputes that it does.
> > it is making a mistake to ignore that history.
> Just because the field is not stagnant doesn't mean that its history
> has been ignored.
It is, however, clear that in many areas _you_ are ignorant of that
history.
> > Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> > example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> > the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> > distinctive features.
> Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered
> a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature
> at all.
Okay, show us a descriptive grammar of a previously undescribed
language that benefits from some sort of analysis that has transcended
binary feature analysis.
> Yes, there was a time when distinctive features were all treated as
> binary. That time has LONG past.
This is the Winston Smith approach to history. If it doesn't concern
ME, I'm not interested.
> In article > <d94d93a6-25f7-4233-ac33-eb11a89be...@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 6:33 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > In article
> > > <be79702b-b3c7-427a-9ec4-12d69a594...@oz6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 25, 4:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > On Aug 25, 1:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > > > Note that mainstream phonology looks nothing like Hallean > > > > > > phonology,
> > > > > > and hasn't for a couple of decades. When I took classes from him, > > > > > > he
> > > > > > was very vocal about his opposition to mainstream phonology, but
> > > > > > well-aware that he was in the vanishing minority.
> > > > > How romneyan of you.
> > > > Perhaps you could name one online resource we could look at to see
> > > > what you call "mainline" phonology looks like.
> > > I'm not sure if you're asking me or PTD, but here's one by Kiparsky,
> > > which is notable because it uses privative features (7), gradient
> > > constraint violations (10), and of course, stratal OT, which has
> > > multiple levels of representation, not just the usual two
> > > (underlying/phonemic and surface/phonetic) (1):
> > > I'm not really sure what you're asking for, though. I claim that
> > > mainstream phonology is not "fixated on reduction to pairs". How is
> > > citing one paper supposed to prove this kind of negative claim?
> > > Except in cases of mathematical truths (which this is not, of course),
> > > the burden of proof is usually on those claiming existence, not on
> > > those denying existence.
> > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single > paper he writes?
Here's an example of a similar kind of paper in physics:
I'd expect an outsider's eyes to glaze over, and crucially, the outsider would expect it, too.
But something about linguistics makes outsiders think they should understand any paper in the field, and when they don't, it's the author's fault for not explaining his jargon, or for being too focused on issues of theory.
On Aug 26, 3:37 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article
> <d94d93a6-25f7-4233-ac33-eb11a89be...@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
> paper he writes?
Try reading Kiparsky's encyclopedia article on Panini in the
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). An encyclopedia
article ought to be clear and comprehensible, no? Especially in an
enormous work intended for the widest possible audience? On a topic on
which the author has contributed many esoteric publications? But
Kiparsky has never written _anything_ that is clear and
comprehensible. It's as if he is speaking only to his own private
seminar in terms that are available only to the initiates.
> > > On Aug 25, 6:33 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > In article
> > > > <be79702b-b3c7-427a-9ec4-12d69a594...@oz6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > > > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Aug 25, 4:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > > On Aug 25, 1:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > > > > Note that mainstream phonology looks nothing like Hallean
> > > > > > > phonology,
> > > > > > > and hasn't for a couple of decades. When I took classes from him,
> > > > > > > he
> > > > > > > was very vocal about his opposition to mainstream phonology, but
> > > > > > > well-aware that he was in the vanishing minority.
> > > > > > How romneyan of you.
> > > > > Perhaps you could name one online resource we could look at to see
> > > > > what you call "mainline" phonology looks like.
> > > > I'm not sure if you're asking me or PTD, but here's one by Kiparsky,
> > > > which is notable because it uses privative features (7), gradient
> > > > constraint violations (10), and of course, stratal OT, which has
> > > > multiple levels of representation, not just the usual two
> > > > (underlying/phonemic and surface/phonetic) (1):
> > > > I'm not really sure what you're asking for, though. I claim that
> > > > mainstream phonology is not "fixated on reduction to pairs". How is
> > > > citing one paper supposed to prove this kind of negative claim?
> > > > Except in cases of mathematical truths (which this is not, of course),
> > > > the burden of proof is usually on those claiming existence, not on
> > > > those denying existence.
> > > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> > > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> > It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> > Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
> > paper he writes?
> Here's an example of a similar kind of paper in physics:
> I'd expect an outsider's eyes to glaze over, and crucially, the
> outsider would expect it, too.
> But something about linguistics makes outsiders think they should
> understand any paper in the field, and when they don't, it's the
> author's fault for not explaining his jargon, or for being too focused
> on issues of theory.
Why are you calling David an "outsider"?
Why are you not nagging _him_ to defend his "fixation" remark?
Why are you _still_ unable to carry on a conversation like a normal
conversationalist?
> On Aug 26, 2:26 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <8b8242f0-a35c-4424-9909-4b0bc6fbc...@q9g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,
> > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I respect PTD for insisting that linguistics has a history and
> > No one disputes that it does.
> > > it is making a mistake to ignore that history.
> > Just because the field is not stagnant doesn't mean that its history
> > has been ignored.
> It is, however, clear that in many areas _you_ are ignorant of that
> history.
I can't possibly have read every single paper ever published in linguistics, no.
> > > Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> > > example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> > > the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> > > distinctive features.
> > Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered
> > a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature
> > at all.
> Okay, show us a descriptive grammar of a previously undescribed
> language that benefits from some sort of analysis that has transcended
> binary feature analysis.
Why? Because you're all of a sudden genuinely interested in phonological theory, despite years of you claiming exactly the opposite?
If you honestly want to know why privative and ternary features have been proposed, or why some previously-binary features were converted to privative autosegmental nodes, read the relevant sources. Here are two:
> > > > On Aug 25, 6:33 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > > In article
> > > > > <be79702b-b3c7-427a-9ec4-12d69a594...@oz6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > > > > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > On Aug 25, 4:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > On Aug 25, 1:08 am, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > > > > > Note that mainstream phonology looks nothing like Hallean
> > > > > > > > phonology,
> > > > > > > > and hasn't for a couple of decades. When I took classes from > > > > > > > > him,
> > > > > > > > he
> > > > > > > > was very vocal about his opposition to mainstream phonology, > > > > > > > > but
> > > > > > > > well-aware that he was in the vanishing minority.
> > > > > > > How romneyan of you.
> > > > > > Perhaps you could name one online resource we could look at to see
> > > > > > what you call "mainline" phonology looks like.
> > > > > I'm not sure if you're asking me or PTD, but here's one by Kiparsky,
> > > > > which is notable because it uses privative features (7), gradient
> > > > > constraint violations (10), and of course, stratal OT, which has
> > > > > multiple levels of representation, not just the usual two
> > > > > (underlying/phonemic and surface/phonetic) (1):
> > > > > I'm not really sure what you're asking for, though. I claim that
> > > > > mainstream phonology is not "fixated on reduction to pairs". How is
> > > > > citing one paper supposed to prove this kind of negative claim?
> > > > > Except in cases of mathematical truths (which this is not, of > > > > > course),
> > > > > the burden of proof is usually on those claiming existence, not on
> > > > > those denying existence.
> > > > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> > > > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> > > It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> > > Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
> > > paper he writes?
> > Here's an example of a similar kind of paper in physics:
> > I'd expect an outsider's eyes to glaze over, and crucially, the
> > outsider would expect it, too.
> > But something about linguistics makes outsiders think they should
> > understand any paper in the field, and when they don't, it's the
> > author's fault for not explaining his jargon, or for being too focused
> > on issues of theory.
> Why are you calling David an "outsider"?
I'm referring to the same outsider he was when he said: "Incidentally - to an outsider - it is obvious from the first few paragraphs that Stratal OT is better and the paper is, generally speaking, a waste of time."
> Why are you not nagging _him_ to defend his "fixation" remark?
Because he doesn't think phonology is part of linguistics, and I agree with him that there is a fixation with binarity in mainstream syntax.
> On Aug 26, 3:37 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > In article
> > <d94d93a6-25f7-4233-ac33-eb11a89be...@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> > > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> > > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> > It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> > Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
> > paper he writes?
> Try reading Kiparsky's encyclopedia article on Panini in the
> Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). An encyclopedia
> article ought to be clear and comprehensible, no? Especially in an
> enormous work intended for the widest possible audience? On a topic on
> which the author has contributed many esoteric publications? But
> Kiparsky has never written _anything_ that is clear and
> comprehensible. It's as if he is speaking only to his own private
> seminar in terms that are available only to the initiates.
I never said Kiparsky was a good writer for outsiders.
> > > > Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> > > > example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> > > > the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> > > > distinctive features.
> > > Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered
> > > a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature
> > > at all.
> > Okay, show us a descriptive grammar of a previously undescribed
> > language that benefits from some sort of analysis that has transcended
> > binary feature analysis.
> Why? Because you're all of a sudden genuinely interested in
> phonological theory, despite years of you claiming exactly the
> opposite?
No, I am not interested in phonological theory or any other theory. I
am interested in useful descriptions of actual languages.
Show that any "phonological theory" that has emerged from the work of
Morris Halle since 1952 has made a contribution to the description of
actual languages.
(Since Halle roped in Chomsky early on, that includes everything that
came out of MIT in both the SPE framework -- where the phonological
descriptions were nothing but reworking of data that had long since
been analyzed by others [French, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Latin] --
and the tier boys (I refuse to use the idiotic term "autosegmental."
which has nothing to do with self-segmentation).)
> > > > > Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> > > > > example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> > > > > the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> > > > > distinctive features.
> > > > Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered
> > > > a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature
> > > > at all.
> > > Okay, show us a descriptive grammar of a previously undescribed
> > > language that benefits from some sort of analysis that has transcended
> > > binary feature analysis.
> > Why? Because you're all of a sudden genuinely interested in
> > phonological theory, despite years of you claiming exactly the
> > opposite?
> No, I am not interested in phonological theory
Then stop interjecting yourself into discussions about it.
>> On Aug 26, 3:37 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>> > In article
>> > <d94d93a6-25f7-4233-ac33-eb11a89be...@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
>> > > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
>> > > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
>> > It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
>> > Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
>> > paper he writes?
>> Try reading Kiparsky's encyclopedia article on Panini in the
>> Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). An encyclopedia
>> article ought to be clear and comprehensible, no? Especially in an
>> enormous work intended for the widest possible audience? On a topic on
>> which the author has contributed many esoteric publications? But
>> Kiparsky has never written _anything_ that is clear and
>> comprehensible. It's as if he is speaking only to his own private
>> seminar in terms that are available only to the initiates.
>I never said Kiparsky was a good writer for outsiders.
Also, (though from someone who doesn't belong in a linguistics
discussion), I would expect that an Enclcylpedia of Language and
Linguistics would have articles that wouldn't be clear to someone without
a grounding in the studies. An article on linguistics in a general
encyclopedia should be comprehensible to someone with no prior knowledge
of the field.
> In article <ses_r.96280$mc1.9...@fx12.am4>,
> "Guy Barry" <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> > I can only interpret (31-35) with the subordinate clause as the object > > of
> > "about". They make no sense if I substitute
> > "talked to" for "thought about".
> Ah, interesting. Can you have "who(m)ever" instead?
> (31') Have you talked to who(m)ever was easiest for Jack to fire?
> (32') ... talked to who(m)ever it was easiest for Jack to fire?
> (33') ... talked to who(m)ever it seems Jack fired?
> (34') ... talked to who(m)ever it seems has quit?
> (35') ... talked to who(m)ever seems to have quit?
Yes, I'm OK with all those. I'd personally use "whoever" in all, but "whomever" would be acceptable in (32') and (33').
> > "Easy" is a raising predicate. The semantic object of "fire" becomes > > the
> > grammatical subject of "was".
> It's not just a semantic object; there is an equally valid version of
> the sentence with the object in situ:
> (37) It was easy for Jack to fire him.
That's the difference between (31') and (32'). (31') involves raising and (32') doesn't, so you need a subject relative in (31'), but an object relative in (32').
> > For the same reason that we say "he was easy for Jack to fire" and not > > "him
> > was easy for Jack to fire".
> Yes, but why would you look at that sentence, rather than (37)? "He
> was easy for Jack to fire" is not the most basic form, since it has
> "he" raised out of object position (remember, "fire" is an
> obligatorily transitive verb).
No, but it's the version on which (31') is based. There's no "it" in (31'), so the subject of "was" must be "whoever".
> > > Compare it to (34), where the subject of "has quit" isn't in the
> > > position is should be. Presumably, the missing subject is "who(m)",
> > > and you assigned it subject case, even though it doesn't sit in a
> > > subject position on the surface.
> > It does. "It seems he has quit."
> But that's not the surface structure of the sentence under discussion,
> which is "have you thought about who(m?) it seems has quit?".
"Who" is extracted from a subject position. The corresponding direct question would be "who does it seem has quit?" I don't think it would be acceptable to use "whom" in that sentence (which would imply an underlying "it seems him has quit").
> How do you know which abstractions to look at for case assignment, and
> which to ignore? How do you know to look at a partially-raised
> sentence to get case for (31), rather than a completely non-raised
> sentence?
What would be the subject of "was" in (31) otherwise?
> > It's not just a semantic object; there is an equally valid version of
> > the sentence with the object in situ:
> > (37) It was easy for Jack to fire him.
> That's the difference between (31') and (32'). (31') involves raising and > (32') doesn't,
How do you know that there's no raising in (32')? Why can't raising precede wh-movement?
> > > For the same reason that we say "he was easy for Jack to fire" and not > > > "him
> > > was easy for Jack to fire".
> > Yes, but why would you look at that sentence, rather than (37)? "He
> > was easy for Jack to fire" is not the most basic form, since it has
> > "he" raised out of object position (remember, "fire" is an
> > obligatorily transitive verb).
> No, but it's the version on which (31') is based.
How do you know?
> There's no "it" in (31'),
And there's no object for "fire" in (31').
You seem to be assuming that the basic form to compare to can differ from the real sentence in movement, but not in expletive elements.
Why?
> so the subject of "was" must be "whoever".
And the object of "fire" must be "whomever".
I don't dispute that the relevant word is, on some abstract level, the subject of "was". But it is also on some abstract level the object of "fire".
The question is, why makes one of these abstract levels more valid than the other for determining case?
> > How do you know which abstractions to look at for case assignment, and
> > which to ignore? How do you know to look at a partially-raised
> > sentence to get case for (31), rather than a completely non-raised
> > sentence?
> What would be the subject of "was" in (31) otherwise?
Again, I don't deny that "who(m)(ever)" hits that subject position at some intermediate level of representation between the base structure and the surface structure. My question is, why do you consider that intermediate level, and only that intermediate level, to also happen to be the case assignment position?
By the way, throughout this post, I don't really mean "you", Guy Barry: I mean anyone who argues what the "proper" case is supposed to be.
Clearly, for a descriptive linguist, the relevant level at which case is assigned for any given native "whom" user would depend on how that native speaker actually uses "whom", not on any external prescriptive rules. I don't expect all native "whom" speakers to agree on these data, but presumably, prescriptivists would agree on what is the correct standard.
So, my real question is, how does a *prescriptivist* decide which abstract level to look at for assigning case? What makes a post-raising (but still non-surface) level more valid than a pre-raising level? Whose native speech, if any, are they using as a model?
> > > > > > Perhaps modern phonology has lost the fixation on binaries but in, for
> > > > > > example Loren Bliese's "A Generative Grammar of Afar" (published 1981)
> > > > > > the second page in the chapter on phonology is a table of binary
> > > > > > distinctive features.
> > > > > Yeah, that's very out of date. [coronal] isn't standardly considered
> > > > > a binary feature anymore, and [long] isn't even considered a feature
> > > > > at all.
> > > > Okay, show us a descriptive grammar of a previously undescribed
> > > > language that benefits from some sort of analysis that has transcended
> > > > binary feature analysis.
> > > Why? Because you're all of a sudden genuinely interested in
> > > phonological theory, despite years of you claiming exactly the
> > > opposite?
> > No, I am not interested in phonological theory
> Then stop interjecting yourself into discussions about it.
I notice you are unable to name a single work (let alone your
indiscriminate googling of 17) that is a description of a previously
undescribed language in which "phonological theory" made a valuable
contribution.
> In article <sanders-78878C.16200126082...@free.teranews.com>, Nathan
> Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >In article
> ><c8902f1b-d9b1-43a6-a4de-5c3378e2d...@s2g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> On Aug 26, 3:37 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >> > In article
> >> > <d94d93a6-25f7-4233-ac33-eb11a89be...@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> >> > > I downloaded the Kiparsky paper and read it. I would describe it as an
> >> > > artifact of theory. It is heavy in unexplained jargon
> >> > It's not an introductory textbook. Why should it explain the jargon?
> >> > Does a physicist need to explain "quark" and "quantum" in every single
> >> > paper he writes?
> >> Try reading Kiparsky's encyclopedia article on Panini in the
> >> Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). An encyclopedia
> >> article ought to be clear and comprehensible, no? Especially in an
> >> enormous work intended for the widest possible audience? On a topic on
> >> which the author has contributed many esoteric publications? But
> >> Kiparsky has never written _anything_ that is clear and
> >> comprehensible. It's as if he is speaking only to his own private
> >> seminar in terms that are available only to the initiates.
> >I never said Kiparsky was a good writer for outsiders.
> Also, (though from someone who doesn't belong in a linguistics
> discussion), I would expect that an Enclcylpedia of Language and
> Linguistics would have articles that wouldn't be clear to someone without
> a grounding in the studies. An article on linguistics in a general
> encyclopedia should be comprehensible to someone with no prior knowledge
> of the field.
The Britannica (R.I.P.) did somewhat better on linguistics, and much
better on languages, than any of its competition, but History of
Linguistics is not covered (even though, IIRC, R. H. Robins was in
charge of Linguistics, as E. P. Hamp was of languages. Robins wrote
the standard short history of linguistics that went through three
editions.)
The EEL is intended for as general a readership as any specialized
encyclopedia can aim for -- it occupies 14 massive volumes.
