Lars Finsen, On 29/01/2011 10:06:
> Den 28. jan. 2011 kl. 11.33 skreiv And Rosta:
>
>> In phonology, M, N, L are classed as *noncontinuants*, because they involve complete occlusion in the midsagittal section of the oral tract. (Anybody feel free to correct me if my tired brain errs here.) I don't know any term that means "is (or isn't) prolongable" (but it wouldn't surprise me if the genius of the likes of J.C.Catford had proposed one somewhere).
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> I think this also is a freaked out terminology. Someone ought to do some thinking here. "Stop" should clearly be limited to sounds that stop the airflow, while "continuant" should be the opposite, sounds that can be pronounced continuously.
>
> I guess linguists are doing these things on purpose, more or less consciously, in order to limit access to their field. It's common enough among experts in any field. Make your terminology as nontransparent as possible, then you can sit on your pinnacle talking your Greek with your clique of co-experts while dilettants in your surroundings don't get a thing and think you must be very wise.
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> In principle, linguists would be expected to be more conscious about such effects than others, but the opposite seems to be the case. Many other sciences care more about their relations to the public than linguistics.

This seems unduly paranoiacal. Academic intercourse tends to be closed to the amateur and the audididact, but this is hardly motivated by fear of having the cloisters of academe infiltrated by interlopers. And what sort of a deterrent is mildly counterintuitive terminology? Anybody unduly fazed by slightly counterintintuitive terminology is hardly likely to be a successful autodidact anyway. Counterintuitive terminology is more of a nuisance to deliberate attempts to teach the discipline, e.g. to undergraduates. But anyway, terminology is not the product of a carefully deliberative terminology committee (whether intent on creating terminological transparency or opacity). Rather it is the product of haste and accident. Consider the notoriously difficult terms 'unaccusative' and 'unergative', when Perlmutter invented the terms for a conference paper, how was he to know that beyond simply serving the needs of his paper adequately, these terms were going to be inflicted in perpe
tuity on the entire discipline? Terminology is created in haste, for the immediate need, and then drifts into general currency; and there is a cultural disapprobation for creation of new terms, and it is considered more acceptable to use an existing term, whatever its faults, and to alter its sense if need be.

--And.