greenberg - review of nichols, linguistic diversity in space and time

8/13/2019 Greenberg - Review of Nichols, Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time

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JOSEPH H GREEN ERGDepartment o f Anthropology, Stanford Unives i tyStanford Cal i fo rn ia 94305

Lingu is t i c Divers i ty in Space and Time.by Johanna Nichols . Chicago: Univers i ty o f ChicagoPress 1989. 358 pp. 39.95 c lo th .

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This i s a book with a high ly complex s e t o f arguments and,to t h i s reade r a t l ea s t a f requent ly obscure s t y l e which hinderscomprehension. Moreover, t i s provided with no l e s s than 96t a b l e s most ly e i t h e r with numerical e n t r i e s regard ing t h eabso lu te o r r e l a t i v e f requency o f c e r t a i n typo log ica l proper t i e sas d i s t r i bu t e d over var ious areas of t he globe o r o f t h es t a t i s t i c a l s ig n i f i c an ce of d i f fe rences among such d i s t r i b u t i o n s .In add i t ion the re a re twelve maps con ta in ing world-wide p lo t s ofthe occurrence of the sp e c i f i c t ypo log ica l f ea tu res on whichNichols has based her arguments. She deserves c red i t fo r beingwi l l ing to a t t a c k such l a rge sca le h i s t o r i ca l problems in


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l inguis t ics a t a time when both his tor ica l and broad scaleat tempts are not the prevai l ing fashion.

Obviously, in a br ie f review t will not be possible toconsider a l l her arguments in deta i l . However the hear t of theargument i s t ha t the comparative method on which hi s to r i ca linferences have been centra l ly based can by i t s nature only giveresul t s for re la t ive ly recent time depths. She wishes to useinstead populat ion typology which gives us the heur is t ic methodt ha t standard comparative-historical method lacks for grea t t imedepths . [p .J] Another lei tmotiv alongside of populat ion typologyi s tha t divers i ty as such is a worthy subject of study. Regardingth i s she notes tha t l inguis t ics needs a theory of divers i ty . I fwe are to have a theory of divers i ty , we must have ways ofdescribing divers i ty , information on i t s dis t r ibu t ion throughoutthe world, and ways of explaining var ia t ions in degree and typesof divers i ty . We then apply the comparative method to sheerdivers i ty and draw inferences about the re la t ive chronology andthe mechanism of the spread of human languages over the earth .[pg. 231] Her th i rd major emphasis is on geography. For example,there are cer ta in zones which might be called spread zones andothers which have certa in character is t ics regarding thedis t r ibut ion of l inguis t ic divers i ty . They are polar in manyrespects . n example of a spread zone is the western Eurasiansteppe, of a residual zone the Caucasus. Rather mores ign i f ican t ly , she divides the language of the world in to tenprincipal areas e.g . Africa (but omitting North Africa among


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o ther s fo r reasons to be noted) , Northern Euras ia , New Guinea,Mesoamerica. For her major conc lus ions however she groups theset en areas i n to j u s t th ree macroareas: the Old World, the Pac i f i cand t he New World. She be l i eves t ha t t i s impor tant to keep herareas d i s c r e t e , hence the omission of North Africa (between subSaharan Africa and the Near East) and of Eskimo-Aleut to keepNorth America and Northern Eurasia separa te . Her two o therins tances of d isc re teness a re descr ibed here in her own words,

Northern Euras ia i s kept disc re te from South and Southeas t Asiaby not t ak ing any languages fo r the North Eurasian a rea from i t sSouthern per iphery . [p .26) This I f ind vague and hard toi n t e rp re t . Fina l ly , Mesoamerica i s kept d i s c r e t e from North andsouth America by a rb i t r a ry use of p o l i t i c a l boundar ies .Elsewhere , she mentions the omission of Indonesia no doubt tosepara te South and Southeas t Asia from Oceania (Melanesia,Micronesia , Polynes ia ) . Thus languages from the Phi l ipp ines ,Java ,e tc . do not f igure in her sample.

Eviden t ly d ive r s i t y , l i ngu i s t i c popula t ion typology andgeography are connected in the fo l lowing way. In each of he rareas o r macroareas , the populat ion which cons i s t s of languagesc l a s s i f i e d by c e r t a in t ypo log ica l c r i t e r i a , are measured fo rd ive r s i t y wi th in a rea s and between areas in regard to ther e l a t i v e f requenc ies of the typologica l proper t i e s which havebeen se lec ted . From t h i s we w i l l deduce the ways in whichlanguages have spread over the world a t t imes too remote to beamenable to the compara t ive method.


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Clear ly , we cannot look a t a l l the languages of the world,even with the exc lus ion of the a reas mentioned e a r l i e r , so wemust sample. Her t o t a l sample i s 176 languages . She t r i e s to ge tone language from each l ineage , by which i s meant e i t h e r agene t ic i so l a t e or a family , i dea l ly a subdivis ion of a s tock .For example, Indo-European i s a s tock, but Germanic i s a family.She i s aiming here a t a t ime depth of 2500-4000 years [p .24] .

Her views here about the chronologie depths a t which v a l i dl i n g u i s t i c s tocks can be de tec ted , namely very sha l low, i sessen t i a l . Without t ha t , the re i s no need fo r her a t tempt . Ther e su l t an t extreme s p l i t t i n g in c l a s s i f i ca t i on has a profounde f f e c t on her sampling, the r e su l t s of which we sha l l see l a t e r .

Let us cons ider a few examples. She evident ly cons idersNorthwest and Nakh-Dagestan in the Caucasus as no t r e l a t e d . Theird i s t i nc t i on from Khartvel ian in the Southern Caucasus i s not a ti s sue . However, the re l a t ionsh ip of Northwest and Nakh-Dagestanseems ev iden t and Catford [1977:254], probably the wor ld ' sl eading exper t on Caucasian, simply s t a t e s t ha t t he re are twomajor groups o f Caucasian languages, Northern and Southern. Hereas elsewhere , whatever view gives the l a rge r number of s tocks i saccep ted without re fe r r ing to d is sen t ing opinions . Anotherexample i s Al ta ic which we l ea rn i s now abandoned. Ther e fe rence here i s to the summary r epor t of the Al ta ic panel byUnger (1990). This i s a mere four page e f f o r t which does not c i t eany l i n g u i s t i c fac t s . There i s a l so a s ign i f i c a n t note appendedto t h i s r e p o r t t h a t shows t i s not fu l l y rep resen ta t ive .


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Changes in the makeup of the committee which were necessi ta tedby defect ion of the original members made the f ina l groupsomewhat le ss sympathetic to Altaic than the or ig ina l .

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I t i s to her cred i t tha t she is t roubled by what i s nodoubt, the s t rongest evidence for Altaic namely, tha t . thedis turbing fac t remains tha t the pronominal roots are jus t toos imilar , in both basic consonantism and pat terns of supplet ion tobe the product of chance. [p.6] She believes however t ha t thelex ica l resemblances are too few and tha t they (al l?) proved notto be val id , an evident exaggeration.

We are faced then with a paradox. Either the Altaiclanguages are re la ted, but i f so, very closely , since thepronominal resemblences are comparable according to her to thosewithin a s ingle branch of Indo-European such as Germanic, or theyare not, because of the absence of lexical evidence. Actual ly,resemblances of the kind found in Altaic pronouns occur betweendif fe ren t branches of Indo-European e.g . ' I , ''m e , ' 't ho u ' =Russian jg , menja, tu = I ta l ian io, mi, tu e tc .

However according to her the population-typological offe rsother explanat ions for the s tr ik ing s imi lar i t ies in genet ical lyunrelated languages. These resemblances are most obvious inpersonal pronouns but are found elsewhere. Her solut ion i s t ha tpronouns are sound symbolic. ow th i s derives from thepopulation-typological approach i s hard to see. In regard to m' f i r s t p e r s o n , ~ ' second person' which she acknowledges occursin a dozen or so Eurasian stocks (to which one should add Eskimo-


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Aleut) [p.313, f n 3]. Wundt already offered a sound symbolicexplanation according to which stands for the nearer and ~ forthe fa r ther

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To her the sound symbolic propert ies of personal pronounsare comparable to those of mama and papa words but evens t ronger . She s ta tes t as follows (p.261-262). Specif ica l ly ,personal pronoun systems the world over are symbolicallyiden t i f ied by a high frequency of nasals in the i r roots , a strongtendency for nasal i ty and l abia l i ty to co-occur in the sameperson form, and a tendency to counterpoise th i s form to onecontaining a dental . In the Old World, the l abia l and nasal favorthe f i r s t person; in the ew World, they favor the second person.The Pacif ic i s intermediate, with a dis tr ibut ion of dentals l iketha t of the Old World and nasals l ike tha t of the ew World.

What we have here is an involved way of saying tha t the OldWorld has m in the f i r s t person and ~ in the second person and inthe ew World n in the f i r s t person and m in the second person.The Pacif ic I cannot in te rpre t But the m ~ pat tern only occursin Europe and Northern Asia in the Old World, a l l in members ofwhat I ca l l the Eurasiat ic family. Elsewhere, the pat te rns arequi te di f ferent e g g i in Nilo-Saharan. In the ew World Nadeneagain i s qui te dif fe ren t and Eskimo-Aleut actual ly goes with theOld World.But why should there be th is sh i f t ing between lab ia l /den ta l inthe Old World and denta l / labia l in the ew World (subject to thestrong genet ic and areal l imi ta t ions I have already noted)? The


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answer i s tha t because the i r meanings are sh i f t e r s (Jacobson sterm) or de ic t ics now the more usual term) and in t h i s way areunlike the mama-papa terms. But th i s is a t best a bad metaphor.To equate Eurasiat ic I f i r s t person with Amerind I secondperson requires tha t f i r s t to second person or vice versa be awell at tes ted meaning change. I do not know of any examples.

e are to ld tha t pronouns are subject to phonetic wear,e tc . , but the important process of repl icat ion i s omitted. Thati s an independent pronoun can be affixed to verbs to indica tesubject or object and to nouns to indicate possession andcontinue in i t s original form thus multiplying the chances forsurvival . The rea l proof tha t th i s is a l l special pleading to getr id of inconvenient evidence is the coherent dis t r ibu t ion ofthese forms along with other resemblances defining deepergroupings than Nichols wil l allow.

But what does t matter , one may ask, i f she i s sampling a tdepths of 2500-3000 years consistently? The problem i s tha t she,for a l l of her evident s ta t i s t i ca l sophist icat ion, seems unawareof Galton s problem, tha t of the independence of cases, becauseshe proceeds purely typologically. For example, she calculatesthe percentage of languages in her sample with the dist inct ionbetween inclusive and exclusive f i r s t person plura l pronouns ineach of the three macroareas but never asks whether the phoneticforms are similar and explainable by genetic inheri tance so tha tthey are in effec t a single case. This is a matter to which Iwil l re turn l a te r af ter considering the overal l conclusions which

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8she develops.

These depend mainly on a global cl ine among the macroareaswhich she finds for a number of typological character i s t ics . Tos tay with the inclusivejexclusive dis t inct ion 22 of her samplein the Old World, 48 in the New World and 57 of the languagesin the Pacif ic have th i s dis t inct ion. From th i s and a few others imilar dis t r ibu t ions she draws the conclusion t ha t an ear lytypological bifurcat ion took place in Southeast Asia or theWestern Pacif ic and the New World underwent multiple colonizat ionby a circum-Pacif ic population with an Old World admixture t ha tincreased over t ime. [p.207] This is about the closes t we cometo any actual his tor ica l hypothesis, one without geographicalde ta i l or chronology.

But l e t us look more closely a t jus t one of her typologicalfeatures, the inclusive/exclusive dis t inct ion mentioned ea r l i e r .In the Paci f ic as we have seen, the percentage of systems withth i s feature i s 57 of the languages, actual ly 28 out of 49languages. When we look a t them however in terms of genet ica f f i l i a t ions we see tha t 5 of these are Austronesian, and tha tthere i s an addi t ional Austronesian language Acehnese inSoutheast Asia in the Old World macroarea, i . e . not in thePacif ic . All of these have the inclusivejexclusive dis t inc t ionand a l l go back to the same proto-Austronesian forms. AnotherPacif ic group, the Australian languages, have 6 out of 8 withthe dis t inc t ion and these can a t least for the non-Pama-Nyunganlanguages be reconstructed for the proto-language. I t i s


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par t i cu l a r l y s t r i k i n g t ha t hypotheses regard ing g loba l c l ine s andt empora l ly remote c i rcum-Pac i f ic movements should be drawn fromAustronesian forms recons t ruc t ib l e for probably l e s s t h a t 2,000years ago a l l counted as independent cases and even occurr ing intwo d i f f e r e n t macroareas .

Other problems abound. One i s t ha t using ano ther of her keyconcep t s , gene t ic dens i ty i . e . number of gene t i ca l ly d i s t i n c ts tocks per u n i t area she notes : the Old World shows low gene t icdens i ty even under circumstances which should favor high gene t icdens i ty . t i s a long es tab l i shed pr inc ip le t h a t e a r l i e r se t t l edareas show g re a t e r dive rs i ty . Suppose, however, t ha t we don ' thave 150 odd s tocks in the Americas but only th ree? Thed i f f i c u l t y disappears . Again she f inds problems r econc i l ingBeringia as t he entry poin t for the s e t t l i n g of t he New World, anot ion she accepts alongside her theory of c i rcum-Pac i f i cco lon iza t ion . [p. 228] Related to t h i s i s her problem with thephys ical evidence as when she notes [pp .224-225]: thetypo log ica l a f f i n i t i e s of the l i ngu i s t i c popula t ion of the NewWorld are with Melanesia al though the phys io log ica l a f f i n i t i e sof its human popula t ion a re c lea r ly with Sibe r i a ) .

The bas ic fa l l acy of the book i s the not ion t h a t we can uses t a t i s t i c s concerning the r e l a t i ve f requenc ies of typo log ica lfea tu res in d i f f e r e n t areas to r econs t ruc t remote preh i s to ry . ti s r a the r the d i s t r i bu t ion of such typological fea tu res whichthemselves normal ly a l low very l imi ted poss i b i l i t e s , e .g . t hepresence versus absence of the i nc lus ive jexcus ive d i s t i nc t ion )


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10which i t s e l f requi res his tor ica l explanation. I t can be inher i tedwithin small or large families , be the resul t of areal contact orbe a qui te recent independent innovation. Thus, from thehi s to r i ca l point of view, typological dis tr ibut ions areexplananda,not explanatory principles.

Although as should be evident , I consider th i s book to befundamentally flawed, one cannot but admire the author swill ingness to work on a vast scale . She clearly has an extensiveknowledge of the world 's languages and she has noted someimportant typological implicational universals in the course ofthe work.

References Cited

CATFORD J .C. 1977 Mountains of Tongues: The languages of theCaucasus. Annual Review of Anthropology 6:283-314.

UNGER J . MARSHALL 1990 Summary Report of the Altaic Panel , inLinguis t ic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Edited byPhil ip Baldi, pp. 479-82. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

greenberg - review of nichols, linguistic diversity in space and time

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