Maju: &quot;The tone of your posts (and comments) ...

Maju: "The tone of your posts (and comments) don't make some things look as a mere exploratory possibility but as some sort of discovery you have suddenly become fond of (without sufficient research)."

I don't consider myself an academic and have little use for the overly careful and cautious academic tone, so at times, when I am expressing myself informally, and expressing enthusiasm, I admit that I might give the wrong impression.

For example, when I write "it [the gap] is most certainly present in the distribution of tone languages" I now realize that this might sound as though I am already convinced that tone languages can be explained by the same gap I've found in the musical evidence. That is NOT how I feel, I am NOT yet convinced and if you read carefully you'll see that all I'm saying is that there is a gap on the WALS map for tone languages, which is certainly the case. It is A gap, but perhaps not THE gap, and I should have made this clear.

But there are many other places where I go out of my way to explain that I am simply speculating. As when I write, in the same post: "I want to consider all possibilities and to make clear that I'm not in love with the interpretation I've been presenting."

You are right, however, to challenge me when I seem to be going overboard on such correspondances and I hope you'll continue to do so. But you too have a problem with your tone, which often comes across as dismissive and arrogant.