In Defense of the Comparative Method, Or the End of the Vovin Controversy in Memory of Sergei S

In Defense of the Comparative Method, or The End of the Vovin Controversy In memory of Sergei S A. V. aóÄç, G. S. pí~êçëíáå Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities Пiскен асқа жеушi кѳп, Бiткен iске сыншы кѳп. When the meal is ready, there’ll be plenty of eaters. When the work is finished, there’ll be plenty of critics. An old Kazakh proverb It would not be an exaggeration to say that long-range comparison today does not enjoy a good deal of support from historical linguists all over the world. The reasons for this all too well known scepticism are numerous, with both the «long-rangers» and the «scepticists» to be blamed depending on the situation; yet the main reason could probably be defined as a fatal lack of understanding between the two sides, so that «long-rangers» are frequently accused of sins they never committed in the first place, whereas «scepticists» are often treated by «long rangers» as little more than annoying impedimenta for their work despite the fact that their scientific work, more often than not, is important for the purposes of long-range comparison. Perhaps one of the factors explaining this unpleasant situation has been the relative reluctance of the Moscow school of comparative linguistics — ar- guably the world’s most active proponent of long-range comparison — to engage in detailed theoretical and methodological discussions, preferring instead to concentrate on mostly practical work in such fields as Altaic, Nos- tratic, Sino-Caucasian, Austric, and others. While such discussions are not generally known to have much practical use, they at least help to lay down one’s scientific principles in clear, accessible ways, reducing the degree of misunderstanding and allowing «outside» readers to feel more filled in on the current state of the art. Thus it is only natural that, from time to time, the basic guidelines for the work of the Moscow school be laid out in print, if only to remind the readers of why this work can — and should — be considered scientific, and its results (some of them, at least) valid. A recent review by Alexander sçîáå [VOVIN 2005] of the newly issued «Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages» [EDAL] by three mem- bers of the Moscow school (one of them among the authors of this article), in our view, presents a good opportunity for such a theoretical excursion. First, the review, written in a starkly negative tone (and somewhat boldly subtitled «The End Of The Altaic Controversy»), is not so much a criticism of concrete 20 A. DóÄçI=G. Sí~êçëíáå. In Defense..., or The End of the Vovin Controversy Altaic etymologies (although there is plenty of concrete criticisms) as it is a general condemnation of the «methodology», presumably employed by the authors in order to arrive at their corpus of comparative data: «...the EDAL authors’ methodology is often at odds with what is considered standard methodology in mainstream historical linguistics» [VOVIN 2005: 3]. Further- more, all of the problems with this «non-standard» methodology are care- fully spelt out and enumerated, making the review a perfect encapsulation of all the numerous cases of criticism on the part of other opponents of long- range comparison — as well as adding new lines of discussion on its own. Second, Alexander sçîáå (from now on — AV for short) is by no means a stranger to macro-comparative linguistics. Until recently, he himself has been one of the strongest advocates of the Altaic theory, producing a string of works that occasionally offered valuable insights into specific issues in the field of comparative Altaic phonology, morphology, and lexics (e. g. [VOVIN 99], [VOVIN 99a], [VOVIN 999], [VOVIN 200a] and others). His general knowledge of the methodology and achievements of the Moscow school certainly surpasses that of many of its ardent Western critics. Thus, his former willingness to work within that particular paradigm of thought makes the reasons for his subsequent radical rejection of that paradigm particularly in- teresting, and his arguments well worth replying to in detail. It is also worth noting that [VOVIN 2005] is not AV’s first venture into sharp polemics with macro-comparative efforts on the part of Russian scient- ists. A very similar line of arguing had already been undertaken by him in [VOVIN 2002] against the Sino-Caucasian hypothesis (genetic relationship between North Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan languages; below — SCH for short), scientifically formulated and advanced by the late S. A. pí~êçëíáå, not coincidentally, also one of the authors of [EDAL]1. And since that particular article has, for various reasons, until now also remained unanswered, we have deemed it useful to address both at the same time — because, as has already been indicated, AV’s criticism goes deeper than simply pecking away at particular Altaic or Sino-Caucasian etymologies; he asks whether, in fact, Altaic or Sino-Caucasian can ever be proven to exist, let alone reconstructed, by means of procedures employed by the main proponents of their existence. For AV the answer — in both cases — today lies starkly in the negative. The reasons are many and diverse, but most of them could easily be generalized into the following nine points: 1 [VOVIN 2002] is, in fact, just one part of a lengthier discussion, which began with [VOVIN 99 b], a critical evaluation of several theories on the origins of the Chinese language, and was later continued by S. A. pí~êçëíáå’s response [STAROSTIN 2002]. However, since most of the critical arguments against Sino-Caucasian, raised in [VO- VIN 99 b], were already answered in [STAROSTIN 2002], as of now we will concentrate our primary attention on [VOVIN 2002], centered — by the author’s own admission — around methodological issues more than particular etymologies and correspondences. А. Ды , Г. Сттин. В защиту сравнительно-исторического метода 2 . AV disagrees with the selection of the lexical criterion as the major means of establishing genetic relationship, claiming that the best proof of such a relationship should be presented as a series of (preferably paradig- matic) correspondences within the morphological systems of the compared language branches. Without such correspondences, lexical evidence can- not serve as definitive proof. 2. Within the frames of lexical comparison, etymologies, in order to be convincing, have to be based on rigorous phonetic correspondences. AV claims that, while the authors of EDAL and SCH do admit this necessity, the correspondences proposed by them are, in fact, anything but rigorous, easily sacrificed every time they stand in the way of the authors’ desper- ate need of yet one more «Altaic» or «Sino-Caucasian» etymology. 3. A further requirement is that the discrepancy in semantics between compared items should lie within reasonably tolerable borders. According to AV, many of the comparisons offered by EDAL/SCH authors are based on extremely unusual or downright impossible shifts of meaning, which suggests coincidental resemblance rather than genetic relationship. Building up on the last two points, in order to be fully convincing, genetic relationship has first to be demonstrated on a small, compact group of lexical/morphological items that completely adhere to the formulated set of phonetic correspondences, before proceeding to more «shaky» territory. AV insists that the Moscow school variants of Altaic or Sino-Caucasian al- low no such thing, piling up lots of irregular and questionable etymologies instead of setting up a small, «untouchable» core group. 5. AV states that before proceeding to any kind of external comparison for a language or language group, one is first required to perform a me- ticulous internal reconstruction. In the work of EDAL/SCH authors, external evidence always rules supreme, even if it completely goes against historical evidence implied from within the language itself. In addition, the authors overlook the importance of recognizing borrowings, frequently inventing etymologies for items that clearly have an outside provenance. 6. A further accusation is that the authors of EDAL/SCH display a peculiar contempt for all sorts of philological evidence, procuring their material from dic- tionaries rather than texts and frequently ignoring the historical, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds of the languages and language groups they are working with. For Altaic at least, its Moscow version, in AV’s opinion, reveals that its authors are mostly ignorant about all kinds of valuable research on its branches that have taken place in the last half century. This arrogant atti- tude towards important literature on the subject inevitably leads to an even larger number of factual errors. 8. Also in the case of Altaic (although occasional accusations of the sort are flung at Sino-Caucasian as well), the authors of EDAL are often irreverent to the 22 A. DóÄçI=G. Sí~êçëíáå. In Defense..., or The End of the Vovin Controversy analyzed material, misquoting the forms and twisting the meanings to fit their subjective vision, occasionally bordering on elementary scientific dishonesty. 9. To conclude, most, if not all of these problems, should be attributed to a certain religious zeal on the part of the authors, whose irrational «faith» in macro-families urges them to a speedy «reconstruction» of «Altaic» and «Sino-Caucasian» at any possible cost. This, of course, has nothing to do with true scientific method in historical linguistics. It goes without saying that all of these accusations have to be taken seri- ously; being backed up with multiple examples — and AV almost always ac- companies them with what looks like supportive evidence — even several of them could be enough to discredit the Altaic and Sino-Caucasian theories in their current incarnation. In fact, AV is fairly confident that this, indeed, is the obvious result of his analysis for both cases.

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