User:Quyphuong/sandbox

Wikipedia discussion assignment 2

Polysynthetic language

What is the level of importance assigned to the topic? What is the class-level of the article, and what reason(s) did you find for that "grade?"

This article is rated B-class, and its level of importance is low-importance within the Wikiproject Constructed Language. However, within the Wikiproject Linguistic, the article's level of importance is mid-importance. The article received this grade because even though it is reasonably well-written, it still needs a more thorough and clear explanation of what is a 'polysynthetic language.' This issue has been raised many times in the talk page, but it seems like they haven't really found a definite answer yet.

Is there a focus for the comments, or are there several? What are the issues that the comments address?

              There are several focus for the comment. The issues that are addressed in the comments are:

•  Boundary between words: since the boundary between words is not arbitrary, the editors have be on the same page on what they consider as a boundary of words first before discussing about the morphemes.   Definition for 'polysynthetic': this issue has been brought up many times by different editors. The definition for 'polysynthetic' was vague, therefore, they are not certain when and how to label a language 'polysynthetic.'

•  Another question raised by the editors was "how synthetic does a language have to be to qualify as polysynthetic?" Unfortunately, the problem is that there is no standard way of qualifying how (poly) synthetic a given language is.  

•  Using only one example as quote cannot serve to prove how polysynthetic a language is.

•  Cramming more morphemes into a word: In order to prove that a language is polysynthetic, some people try to cram more morphemes into a word to make it look 'polysynthetic'.

 

              Select two of the issues, and summarize the discussions. How does the discussion relate to what you have learned, or feel you know about the issue? Is there resolution? How does the language on the actual page elate to the talk about it.

• Boundary between words: this discussion talks about how to determine the boundaries of words. This issue is particularly important in this article because the editors have to separate words from morphemes, since one main way to measure the polysyntheticity of a language is to calculate the word:morpheme ratio. This issue reminds me of our very first discussion in class, which was also to define what is a ‘word.’ The concept of word boundary was within the scope of discussion. I feel that this issue remains an equivocal topic for me because, as stated by one of the editor, the boundary between words is not arbitrary. One editor proposes that “a word is classically defined as a minimal potentially-free linguistic unit.”  Some editors proposes a few tests to determine what the words are in a given sentence. These tests include: syntactic constituent test, WH-substitution test, and pseudo-cleft construction test.
• Cramming more morphemes into a word: this issue was brought up by an editor K. when s/he noticed that another editor—S. (who is a non-basque speaker) gave an example with the basque verb ‘balenekarzkidake’. Editor K., as a Basque speaker, claimed that this so-called basque verb was forced, ungrammatical and incorrect. It appeared that throughout the talk, S. made a few claims on some examples of Basque sentences (saying that these sentences do represent real Basque). However, his claimed were all rebutted by K. The editor S. was on a defensive side at first, trying to argue about the validity of his examples, but when a few more editors got involved and agreed that the examples in question were not natural Basque sounding that S. stepped down and gave room for the experts.

How does the article and discussion relate to our treatment of the topic--in our reading and in our discussion? Did we address it at all? If so, did we do so in ways consistent with the understanding in the article or the talk page? You may find agreement with some of the discussants and disagreement with others.

Our very first discussion was on word boundaries and the definition of what a word is. I thought that that discussion was just a generic topic as an introduction to the main course, but I didn’t realize the deeper connection between word boundaries and morphology until it was brought up again as one of the issue in the talk page. The discussion on word boundaries in the talk page opened my eyes to the importance of determining what the word is, because by knowing what the word is, we can determine what affixes are there

What is your sense of discussion? In other words, what do you conclude is most convincing or explanatory? Why? (i.e., what reasoning led you to draw the conclusion you have drawn?)

• One of the debates talks about which languages are considered as polysynthetic and can be cited as example, and which are not, since there isn’t a standard way to measure how polysyntheticity a language is. One method that the editors use is the morpheme-to-word ratio. They take a sentence from a book (most likely the Bible) and they compare the word:ratio in different language, English and Basque for example. So what they find is that Basque has a higher morpheme-to-word ratio, (2.11 vs 1.17 in English), however, it only shows that Basque is a more highly synthetic language than English, but it doesn’t mean Basque is a polysynthetic. Therefore, if they can’t agree on which language is deemed to be considered as polysynthetic, they cannot use that language as example. In response to this dilemma, an editor proposes a different way to structure the article: instead of saying “this is an example of a polysynthetic language,” it’s better to say “this language can be considered polysynthetic because of the following arguments…” I agree with this editor’s proposal and I think that it is an unbiased and scientific way to define/classify a language.  
• There is another debate about whether Basque and Finnish are polysynthetic languages. There are different opinions about the matter, but generally, I notice that the native speakers of the language are the one who say their language is not polysynthetic. In addition to whether Basque is polysynthetic or not, I see two different approaches. Some editors took the technical approach, which is to look for reliable sources that state that Basque is a polysynthetic language. This group claims that there isn’t a reliable source that says so, therefore they conclude that Basque is NOT polysynthetic. On the other approach, the editor examine the syntheticity of the Basque language (ability to join morphemes to make complex words, verb’s syntheticity, etc.)  and deduct that Basque is polysynthetic. I think that the first approach is too rigid because sometimes it may be hard to find any documentation on a language due to the fact that languages are always changing and evolving, so it may be possible for a language to become more or less synthetic. I would go for the second approach, but I think that more data is needed and there needs to be a more standardized measurement of a language’s polysyntheticity.