Between Grammar and Lexicon (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Volume 183)

BETWEEN GRAMMAR AND LEXICON

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E. F. KONRAD KOERNER (University of Ottawa) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

Advisory Editorial Board Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles); Lyle Campbell (Christchurch, N.Z.) John E. Joseph (Edinburgh); Manfred Krifka (Austin, Tex.) Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)

Volume 183

Ellen Contini-Morava and Yishai Tobin (eds.) Between Grammar and Lexicon

BETWEEN GRAMMAR AND LEXICON

Edited by

ELLEN CONTINI-MORAVA University of Virginia

YISHAI TOBIN Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Between grammar and lexicon / edited by Ellen Contini-Morava, Yishai Tobin. p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 183) Papers from a session held within the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference on July 18th, 1997 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Grammatical categories Congresses. 2. Lexicology Congresses. I. Contini-Morava, Ellen, 1948- II. Tobin, Y. III. International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (5th : 1997 : Amsterdam, Netherlands) IV. Series. P240.5.B48 1999 415--dc21 99-43482 ISBN 90 272 3689 5 (Eur.) / 1 55619 960 0 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) CIP © 2000 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

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Introduction

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P I Number and Gender Systems Across Languages 1. Noun Classification Systems Noun Class as Number in Swahili Ellen Contini-Morava Deixis and Noun-Classification in Pilagá and Beyond Pablo Isaac Kirtchuk

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2. Number Systems Number in the English Substantive Walter Hirtle From Number to Gender, from Dual to Virile: Bridging Cognitive Categories Laura A. Janda The Dual Number in Hebrew: Grammar or Lexicon, or Both? Yishai Tobin

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3. Gender Systems The Acategorial Lexicon and the Pairing Strategies: A Critical Account of Inherent Gender in Spanish Ricardo Otheguy and Nancy Stern

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Grammatical and Lexical Behavior in the Development of the Spanish Third-Person Clitics Flora Klein-Andreu The Grammar of English Gender Lori Morris Recasting Animacy: The Codification of Perceptual Distinctions in Language Edna Andrews

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P II Verb Systems and Parts of Speech Across Languages 1. Tense and Aspect Eventuality Classification: Meaning and Use of Spanish Simple Past Tenses Bob de Jonge Resultativeness: Constructions with Phrasal Verbs in Focus Marina Gorlach

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2. Parts of Speech Complex -er Nominals: Where Grammaticalization and Lexicalization Meet? Mary Ellen Ryder

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Modern Hebrew Adverbials: Between Syntactic Class and Lexical Category Dorit Ravid and Yitzhak Shlesinger

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Name Index

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Subject Index

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List of Contributors

Edna Andrews Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Duke University Durham, NC 27706 U.S.A.

Laura A. Janda Department of Slavic Languages University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599–3165 U.S.A.

[email protected]

Ellen Contini-Morava Department of Anthropology University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22906 U.S.A.

Bob de Jonge Department of Romance Languages and Cultures Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 9700 AS Groningen The Netherlands

[email protected]

[email protected]

Marina Gorlach Department of Behavioral Sciences Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 84 105 Be’er Sheva Israel

Pablo Isaac Kirtchuk Department of Hebrew Language Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 84 105 Be’er Sheva Israel

[email protected]

[email protected]

Walter Hirtle Département de langues et linguistique Université de Laval Cité Universitaire Québec, G1K 7P4 Canada

Flora Klein-Andreu Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures State University of New York Stony Brook, NY 11794–3371 U.S.A.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Lori Morris TESL Centre Concordia University 1455, de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Canada

Yitzhak Shlesinger The Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages Bar-Ilan University 52 900 Ramat-Gan Israel

[email protected]

[email protected]

Ricardo Otheguy Program in Linguistics Graduate Center City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016–4039 U.S.A.

Nancy Stern Program in Linguistics Graduate Center City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016–4039 U.S.A.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Dorit Ravid School of Education Tel-Aviv Univerity 69 978 Ramat Aviv Israel

Yishai Tobin Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics and Department of Behavioral Sciences Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 84 105 Beãer Sheva Israel

[email protected]

Mary Ellen Ryder Department of English Boise State University Boise, Idaho 83275 U.S.A.

[email protected]

Introduction

This volume has its origins in a theme session entitled: “Lexical and Grammatical Classification: Same or Different?” organized by the editors at the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference held at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam on July 18th, 1997. We have included almost all of the theme session presentations as well as additional papers from that conference and some invited contributions. All the analyses in this volume explore the relationship between lexical and grammatical categories. Some illustrate the close interaction between lexical and grammatical categories in interpreting linguistic expressions; some provide data that call into question the strict dichotomy between lexicon and grammar that is sometimes assumed, which in turn suggests the need to question the value of the dichotomy itself. In one form or another, virtually every linguistic theory makes a distinction between lexicon and grammar, though the basis for the distinction varies from one theoretical approach to another. The seeds of the modern distinction may already be seen in Aristotle, whose influence on theorizing language can hardly be overstated. Aristotle distinguished between substance (phýsis) and accidents (pto¯seis) in the parts of speech now known as ‘noun’ and ‘verb’: the substance being the notion, or lexical content, expressed by the word, and the accidents being modifications of the word that according to Aristotle have no independent meaning (i.e. the cases of nouns or the tenses of verbs). He also distinguished between the individual word which signifies a concept or thought, but which by itself cannot be true or false, and the composition of words into a logos, or proposition, which has the property of truth or falsity (see e.g. Arens 1984, chs. 2 and 3). Later Alexandrians such as Dionysius Thrax included the discovery of “analogies” (what we might now call rules) in the scope of grammatike¯ (cf. Dinneen 1967, ch. 4). Although Aristotelian terminology does not coincide with that of modern linguistics, it is not difficult to see conceptual parallels with classical thinking in 20th century descriptions of the lexicon/grammar distinction. In general, modern approaches base the distinction on three broad themes: a

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division between different types of notional content, a division between optional and obligatory elements or between ‘open class’ and ‘closed class’ elements, and/ or a division between content and form. As an example of the type-of-content distinction, Boas (1966 [1911]: 29–30) states: In the discussion of a language, the parts expressing the material contents of sentences appear to us as the subject-matter of lexicography; parts expressing the modifying relations, as the subject-matter of grammar.

Sapir’s treatment of this topic is reminiscent of his teacher, but he also explicitly includes the proposition-building function in grammar. Sapir distinguishes between “radical concepts” that name “objects, actions, qualities to talk about”, and “relational concepts” that “moor the concrete concepts to each other and construct a definite, fundamental form of proposition” (1921: 93). Both Boas and Sapir acknowledge that the distinction between lexicon and grammar may be difficult to draw in particular cases, but both clearly regard the distinction as fundamental. An additional point in common is that both Boas and Sapir emphasize the centrality of “obligatory categories” in grammar — that is, categories that must be expressed in order to produce a correct sentence in a given language, though they vary from language to language (Boas 1966 [1911]: 31–39; Sapir and Swadesh 1964 [1946]). By contrast, lexical elements are optional: speakers are not forced to choose one rather than another. It should be noted that Sapir’s notion of “grammatical element” subsumes both individual morphemes with relational meaning, such as the English present tense suffix -s, and more abstract processes such as word order (see, for example, his famous analysis of “The farmer kills the duckling” in Chapter 5 of Language). Other linguists, such as Bloomfield, draw the distinction somewhat differently. Bloomfield (1984 [1933]: 162) states that “the total stock of morphemes in a language is its lexicon.” For Bloomfield grammar is not the morphemes themselves but the principles of their arrangement, such as order and phonetic modification (1984 [1933]: 163–4), i.e. his distinction is based on content vs. form. He also notes that no actual utterance is devoid of grammatical form, since all utterances minimally involve selection of (a member of) a lexical class and modulation such as a pitch-contour, both of which carry grammatical meaning (1984 [1933]: 168–169). Bloomfield also noted a further characteristic of the lexicon, in a view which remained influential in linguistic thinking for generations: its status as repository of what is unpredictable or unproductive. “The lexicon is really an appendix of the grammar, a list of basic irregularities” (1984 [1933]: 274). Aronoff (1994: 18) sees Bloomfield as the originator of this understanding of the lexicon, which he calls “idiosyncratic-lexical”.

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Post-Bloomfieldian and generative theorists have generally echoed Bloomfield’s content vs. form approach in separating lexicon from grammar, though they have not necessarily agreed with him in regarding principles of grammatical arrangement as meaning-bearing units. Furthermore, in theories that have focussed on discovering universal properties of formal syntax, the “idiosyncractic-lexical” perspective has often been emphasized. Just as Dionysius Thrax saw grammar as a search for “analogies”, so have generative grammarians defined grammar as the locus of productivity/predictability. By contrast, the lexicon is seen as an inventory of unpredictable features, including phonetic forms and their associated notional content, that must be memorized individually (see for example Chomsky 1965: 87, cited in Aronoff 1994: 18). The metaphors of “computation” (grammar) vs. “storage” (lexicon) have been widely used to describe this distinction (e.g. Pinker 1991). There is variation among generative theories in the properties and scope of the lexicon, as compared with syntax, but most theories agree on the premise that irregularity/regularity is central to the lexicon/grammar distinction. Over the past decade or so, proponents of Cognitive Grammar have often challenged traditional dichotomies, including the distinction between grammar and lexicon. For example, Langacker (1988: 19) states: Grammar (both morphology and syntax) is describable using only symbolic elements, each of which has both a semantic and a phonological pole. The symbolic units characterizing grammatical structure form a continuum with lexicon: while they differ from typical lexical items with respect to such features as complexity and abstractness, the differences are only a matter of degree, and lexical items themselves range widely along these parameters.

Similarly, those working under the rubric of grammaticalization theory typically recognize lexicon and grammar as poles separated by a continuum rather than a sharp boundary (e.g. Lehmann 1986; Heine et al. 1991, ch. 1; Hopper and Traugott 1993: 6–7). Nevertheless, some cognitive linguists find the distinction useful. For example, Talmy (1988: 165) asserts that “a fundamental design feature of language is that it has two subsystems which can be designated as the grammatical and the lexical”. In a conception strongly reminiscent of Sapir, he states (ibid.) that “the grammatical elements of a sentence determine the majority of the structure of the C[ognitive] R[epresentation], while the lexical elements together contribute the majority of its content [emphasis in original]”. Psycholinguistic findings both support and undermine the grammar/lexicon dichotomy. In support of it, some neurolinguistic studies have suggested that there are differences in the way ‘closed class’ vs. ‘open class’ items are stored in the brain. According to Pulvermüller et al. (1995), for example, “content

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words” in German correspond to neuronal assemblies equally distributed over both brain hemispheres, whereas “function words” are strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere. Research on lexical decision tasks in French by Cole and Segui (1994) found differences in response time between closed class and open class words. On the other hand, Bates and Goodman (1997) strongly advocate the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon, based on evidence culled from a plethora of experimental studies in first language acquisition, aphasia and realtime processing: We conclude that the case for a modular distinction between grammar and the lexicon has been overstated, and that the evidence to date is compatible with a unified lexicalist account. Studies of normal children show that the emergence of grammar is highly dependent upon vocabulary size, a finding confirmed and extended in atypical populations. Studies of language breakdown in older children and adults provide no evidence for a modular dissociation between grammar and the lexicon; some structures are especially vulnerable to brain damage (e.g. function words, non-canonical word orders), but this vulnerability is also observed in neurologically intact individuals under perceptual degradation or cognitive overload. Finally, on-line studies provide evidence for early and intricate interactions between lexical and grammatical information in normal adults.

Bates and Goodman do not claim that grammatical structures do not exist, nor that their underlying representations are identical with those of individual content words, but rather argue that heterogeneous linguistic phenomena are acquired and processed by a single, unified processing system motivated by a common set of activation and learning principles. They claim that there is no need for discontinuous boundaries separating the grammar and the lexicon and advocate a unified lexical approach to grammar which is compatible with various current, functional (Fillmore et al 1988; Goldberg 1995), cognitive (Langacker 1987), and formal (Pollard and Sag 1994) linguistic approaches. Like Bates and Goodman, the papers in the present volume support a more holistic approach to the traditional grammar/lexicon dichotomy, but most of them consider this question from a sign-oriented perspective. Contemporary sign-oriented theories of language share with Cognitive Grammar the view that all linguistic units, whether lexical or grammatical, are semiotic in nature. However most of these theories establish a theoretical distinction between lexical and grammatical signs, primarily on the basis of type of content as well as type of paradigmatic opposition (closed class vs. open class). Although sign-oriented theories are deeply indebted to the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, in fact a lexicon/grammar dichotomy may have been only

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implicit in the Cours. Saussure cites both lexical signs (e.g., arbre “tree” in his famous diagram exemplifying the linguistic sign, 1986 [1916]: 67) and grammatical signs (e.g., the plural in de Saussure 1986 [1916]: 119–120) without officially distinguishing between them, despite the fact that he discusses both the meanings of signs and syntagmatic versus paradigmatic oppositions. Guillaumean sign theory, The Psychomechanics of Language, distinguishes between the ‘word base’, which expresses a particular idea or lexical content and is the product of a mental operation of “discrimination” or “particularizing”, i.e., the abstraction from the general to the particular, and grammatical forms expressing concepts such as gender, number, and case, which reflect the mental operation of “generalizing”, i.e., are “mediating, vector forms which provide a support for thought as it advances toward the final form [i.e., the part of speech]” (Guillaume 1984: 117). In short, the mental operations associated with lexical signs “particularize” meanings while the mental operations associated with grammatical signs “generalize” (Guillaume 1984: 113–114, 116, 117; Hirtle 1975: 5–6). The Guillaumeans do not provide an explicit argument as to why these two converse mental operations should exist or why these (or other possible mental operations) should create two different categories of grammatical versus lexical signs other than the fact that particularizing and generalizing are well-accepted thought processes which logically imply each other. Diver (1995: 95–98) of the Columbia School distinguishes between tight-knit systems of oppositions which exhaustively subcategorize a shared semantic substance (grammar) versus more loosely organized systems with a decreased importance of mutual opposition (lexicon). He further distinguishes the kind of relationships these different classes of signs may have. Grammatical signs stand in a ‘satellite’ relationship, i.e., they provide information about lexical items, while lexical signs do not stand in such a relationship. Of the two criteria defining grammatical signs — exhaustive classification of a semantic substance versus standing in a satellite relationship — the former is the more important of the two because it is always present while the latter may not necessarily be present (e.g., in pronouns and deictics). Diver (1995: 98–99) further attributes meaning differences between grammatical and lexical signs to the differences in the nature of the oppositions and how they are learned: The success of the speaker in working out appropriate uses for the grammatical meanings… suggests that the grammatical system, with its semantic substance and its relations of value, has in some sense been “learned” as an entirety. The appropriate use depends crucially on this overall awareness. Recall the instance of the Sanskrit and Latin systems of number, in which the dropout of one member brings with it a reshuffling of the value relations of the remainder

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INTRODUCTION [viz. Tobin this volume]. But successful use of any one link in a lexical chain does not seem to depend on a comprehensive grasp of the chain as a whole. If you learn just one link you can use that link “correctly”. A later encounter with another link seems to have no effect on the use of the first one; compare the various senses of galvanize [first used to describe production of an electric shock, then a process of electroplating iron with zinc, and later for a process of coating iron with zinc that does not involve electricity]. And we can hardly expect that the dropout of one link in the chain would have any particular effect on the use of the others.

One consequence of establishing this distinction between grammatical versus lexical meanings is that Diver himself attributes invariant meanings to grammatical signs but remains agnostic on the question whether lexical items have invariant meanings or not, whereas other sign-oriented linguists of his own school assign invariant meanings to lexical signs as well (e.g., Reid 1991; Tobin 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995). However, Diver does not provide an explanation as to why linguistic signs should “sort themselves” (1995: 96) into separate lexical and grammatical classes. In Jakobsonian sign theory, grammatical meanings or categories differ from lexical in a way similar to the Columbia School: grammatical elements are considered to occur in closed sets (similar to Diver’s exhaustive categorization) which are “obligatory categories” in the Boasian sense (cf. Jakobson 1959), whereas lexical elements constitute an open set (Sangster 1982: 105). A rationale for this distinction is suggested by van Schooneveld, who has consistently explored the connection between language and perception (van Schooneveld 1983, 1987, 1991, 1994). According to van Schooneveld, all linguistic acts are acts of perception: the meanings of linguistic signs act as “identification cues needed to identify objects in extralinguistic reality” (1994: 68). However, the use of grammatical and lexical signs involves different kinds of perception. Lexical signs help identify referents in the narrated situation by providing cues for perception that remain relatively stable from one communicative act to another, and from one “observer” to another, i.e., they need not be tied to participants/ properties of a particular utterance. On the other hand, grammatical signs “are operations on lexical meaning and involve therefore necessarily [emphasis in original] speaker and addressee. They are marked with respect to lexical meaning since they involve the spoken chain.” (ibid., 67). That is, grammatical signs give instructions (similar to Diver’s satellite relationship) about how to integrate a given lexical sign into the ongoing communication: “lexical meaning sets up a narrated situation; grammatical meaning identifies that narrated situation and

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poses the question as to what that narrated situation has to do with the speaker and addressee” (van Schooneveld 1983: 159; see also Tobin 1990: 74–77). This account is reminiscent of Sapir’s distinction between ‘radical concepts’ that name “objects, actions, qualities to talk about”, and ‘relational concepts’ that “moor the concrete concepts to each other and construct a definite, fundamental form of proposition” (1921: 93). The important point here is that there is a communicative motivation for the lexicon/grammar distinction, which is connected to the ‘satellite relationship’: the lexicon designates what is being talked about, and the grammar tells the receiver how to interpret the lexical signs in a given utterance (referred to as “the synergetic relationship between lexicon and grammar” in Tobin 1990: 62–64). The semiotic or sign-oriented definition of language underlying these theories revolves around the linguistic sign as its unit of analysis. The sign itself is represented as a dyad: a Janus-like duality inseparably composed of a signal and an invariant meaning. This relationship between signal and invariant meaning and the role each plays in the communicative act may also be viewed synergetically, i.e., there may be a cooperative interrelationship between both parts of the linguistic sign as they function together in the communicative act of creating messages. Furthermore, the relationship is often iconic: the smaller and less salient the signal is in a sign, the more vague its invariant meaning, and, therefore, the greater its ‘polysemic potential’. That is, the vaguer the invariant meaning, the more potential discourse messages and possible syntactic and pragmatic functions the sign may have. “Small words” (such as the preposition in) may often begin as “locatives” (in the room), are then extended metaphorically from concrete spatial messages to the more abstract realm of “temporal” messages (in the morning), to the even more abstract realm of “existential” messages (in trouble/in pieces), to the point at which they may even change their categorial status (to be “in”; the “in”-group; to be an “inny” or an “outy”). This point resembles an observation made by Bybee and Pagliuca (1985: 76): that there is a relationship between generalization of meaning/widening of range of use and phonological reduction as part of the process of grammaticalization. However, they see the phonological reduction as a result of increased frequency of use as opposed to an iconic relationship between signal and meaning. Cognitive grammarians (e.g., Herskovits 1986) and grammaticalization theorists (e.g., Heine et al. 1991) analyze such extensions as a form of polysemy. Yet it is possible to account for all the various spatial-temporal-existential messages, both literal and metaphoric, and the various syntactic and pragmatic functions such a word may obtain by positing an invariant meaning (e.g., in = LIMITED BY BOUNDARIES) as it is exploited in different linguistic and

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situational contexts along a universal cognitive spatio-temporal-existential cline developing from more concrete to more abstract messages (Tobin 1990: 61, 1994: 23–25, this volume). Conversely, the larger and more salient the signal of a sign, the more specific its invariant meaning may be. Therefore, its ‘polysemic potential’ may be correspondingly lower: it has fewer potential discourse messages and syntactic and pragmatic functions. This synergetic principle may be related to other lexical and grammatical phenomena as well. In many words containing stems and additional bound and/or inflectional suffixes, the larger the words, i.e., the more linguistic signs a word may be composed of, the more specific its meaning, and, therefore, the more limited its “polysemic potential” and the number of its potential syntactic and pragmatic functions (nation–national–nationalize–nationalization) (see also Jakobson 1971). Invariant meanings are systematically and synergetically opposed to each other in two fundamental ways: paradigmatically, based on their value relationships within lexical and grammatical systems and syntagmatically, in discourse, to produce coherent messages. As we have seen, grammatical signs are usually considered to be in exhaustive, mutually exclusive relationships within tightly organized paradigmatic systems based on their semantic value (e.g., singular versus plural within a grammatical system of Number, or past versus non-past in a grammatical system of Tense, etc.). Lexical signs, on the other hand, are generally considered to be less systematically ordered and much less tightly organized within larger semantic fields; they exhibit relationships such as antonymy, polarity, ambiguity, synonymy, homonymy, etc. There may very well be, however, a synergetic relationship between these two fundamental categories of linguistic signs. Communication is based on these different kinds of sign systems, the lexical and the grammatical. Speakers of languages exploit each kind of sign for different communicative purposes. In general, the brunt of communication is on the lexicon. Lexical signs usually provide us with the most basic information, i.e., what we are talking about. The grammar, on the other hand, provides us with additional information or further refines the relational aspects of what is being talked about (the lexicon). Indeed, both in first and second language acquisition, lexical signs usually play a greater communicative role than grammatical signs. There is abundant anecdotal evidence of people claiming “to understand” or “speak” a language without “knowing its grammar”. In short, it may safely be assumed that the grammar is imposed on the lexicon. Iconically speaking, lexical signs are usually independent morphemes or words composed of relatively independent and autonomous roots and stems to which bound morphemes, often in the form of affixes, are attached. The grammatical

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signs of the language, on the other hand, are oftentimes those very same bound morphemes or affixes which are added to the more relatively independent roots and stems (see also Haiman 1980). The relationship between lexical and grammatical signs and their different roles in communication has been outlined above. The fact that linguistic signs can and do span the opposition between the lexicon and the grammar — as this volume claims — contributes even further to the synergetic cooperation between encoders and decoders in establishing more efficient and successful communication. The more that signs can align and realign themselves along a holistic and dynamic continuum combining lexical and grammatical properties, the better chances both encoders and decoders have in working together to communicate more effectively. The contributors to this volume explore a range of linguistic phenomena that span the grammar/lexicon continuum and move beyond the traditional dichotomy in a number of different ways. Taken together, they promote a more holistic view of classification based on theoretical and methodological criteria reflecting cognitive aspects of human language, which can be applied to both the realms of the grammar and the lexicon. A further connection uniting the chapters in this volume is that they all share a functional, cognitive, communication-oriented approach to linguistics despite their theoretical diversity: the papers by ContiniMorava, Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu and de Jonge follow the sign-oriented tenets of the Columbia School; Andrews promotes the semiotic-oriented precepts of Charles Sanders Peirce and belongs to the Jakobsonian-van Schooneveldian School of linguistics; Hirtle and Morris represent the Guillaumean School of the Psychomechanics of Language; Tobin and Gorlach present an eclectic view of linguistic sign systems combining theoretical aspects of the three abovementioned schools; Kirtchuk adheres to the structuralist view of the Jerusalem School in general and the morphogenesis of language in particular; while Janda, Ryder, and Ravid and Shlesinger define themselves as Cognitive Linguists. Therefore this volume may be compared to other anthologies which combine various signoriented linguistic theories with other cognitive and functionalist-oriented approaches (e.g., Andrews and Tobin 1996; Contini-Morava and Goldberg 1995; Klein-Andreu 1983; Reid and Otheguy (forthcoming), and Tobin 1988, 1989). The volume itself is divided into two parts. Part I, Number and Gender Systems Across Languages, is further subdivided into three sections dealing with (1) Noun Classification; (2) Number Systems; and (3) Gender Systems. Part II, Verb Systems and Parts of Speech Across Languages, is divided into two sections: (1) Tense and Aspect and (2) Parts of Speech. Various theoretical and methodological approaches illuminating the holistic and cognitive perception of

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language are exemplified in a diverse range of languages and language families: Bantu (Swahili); Guaykuruan (Ge-Pano-Caraib: Pilagá); Indo-European (English, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Spanish); and Semitic (Hebrew). Each of the thirteen papers in this volume, regardless of its specific theme, theoretical approach, or language(s) analyzed, possesses a very basic expositional line. It first presents a sign, or a set, or a system of signs and then examines their uses and functions, pointing out how they span the opposition of the traditional dichotomy of lexicon and grammar. We, the editors, were struck by the close interrelationships among the papers. This is not surprising if we consider the synergetic, holistic, and cognitive principles outlined above as fundamental leitmotifs underlying all of the papers in this volume. Contini-Morava presents a new perspective on noun class in Swahili as number. Oftentimes the same morphological forms simultaneously signal information about noun class or grammatical gender and number (cf. Kirtchuk). Traditionally the various aspects of these morphemes are analyzed separately and independently: noun class or gender is usually treated as a lexical feature assigned to nominal roots whereas number is a viewed as a grammatical or inflectional feature. From the point of view of semantics, noun classes and number have been treated differently as well. It is commonly believed that noun classes have lost their original semantic coherence and have become more “grammatical” in nature. Number, on the other hand, has traditionally been viewed as a purely grammatical category with semantically unproblematic forms indicating familiar concepts such as “singular” and “plural” (cf. Hirtle), or less commonly “dual” or “paucal” (cf. Janda and Tobin). Contini-Morava argues against both these assumptions. She shows that the noun classes in Swahili may be less semantically arbitrary than previously assumed and specifically challenges the assumption that number is unproblematic semantically. In fact, her challenge undermines the widely held assumption that noun class and number are disparate phenomena and shows that the problem of number is intrinsically connected to the meanings of the noun classes themselves. She first outlines the asymmetry of the singular–plural morphology of the noun class system in Swahili: some classes show reciprocal singular–plural pairing whereas others do not. She then provides an innovative reanalysis of number in Swahili as a system of degree of individuation rather than a binary opposition between “singular” and “plural”. For Contini-Morava, individuation indicates a scale of relative discreteness, homogeneity, and boundedness in space. She thus proposes an alternative classification system combining noun class and number which consistently accounts for the allocation of nominal stems in Swahili as a reflection of a scale of individuation of the entities named by the nouns that comprise the various noun classes. In so

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doing, she shows how a new cognitive-semantic perspective combining both lexical and grammatical phenomena can yield a more comprehensive and coherent explanation of the complex noun classification system in Swahili, and perhaps other Bantu languages as well. The analysis is supported by statistical data. Contini-Morava’s concept of individuation can be compared and contrasted with the notions of the continuate versus the discontinuate classification of space found in Hirtle’s and Morris’s papers on number and gender in English based on Guillaumean theory; the cognitive concept of individuation presented by Janda for the dual number in Polish, Bulgarian, and Macedonian in its extension from meaning “dual” to meaning “virile”; Tobin’s view of continuous versus discontinuous perceptions of space, time and existence related to the marked distinctive feature of ‘Semantic Integrality’ underlying the number system of Hebrew in general and the dual number in particular; and the concepts of discreteness and individuation found in Otheguy and Stern’s and Klein-Andreu’s analyses of gender in the Spanish lexicon and in third person clitic pronouns in Spanish according to the Columbia School framework. Her use of quantitative validation methods is also shared by the other Columbia School papers found in this volume (de Jonge, Klein-Andreu, Otheguy and Stern). Kirtchuk explores the connection between deixis and noun classification in Pilagá, a language from the Guaykuruan (or Ge-Pano-Caraib) family spoken by approximately two thousand people in Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. He combines the traditionally disparate lexical and grammatical categories of noun class and deixis in his innovative analysis of noun classification in Pilagá. Kirtchuk goes beyond Pilagá per se and explores the role of deixis in the development of noun class or gender systems, pronouns, demonstratives, and articles, etc. across languages, and investigates the evolutionary relationships among them. In his analysis of Pilagá, Kirtchuk brings in various lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, and cognitive criteria to describe and explain morphology which classifies nouns in the following ways: human, animate, and inanimate entities appoaching a speaker; entering his/her field of vision either as a result of the speaker’s movement in space, or on the time axis; when the noun’s referent is a natural phenomenon affecting the speaker on the time axis; when the noun’s referent is a standing person; or a plant or a tree in a vertical position; or an inanimate in a vertical position; or a person lying; or an animal lying; or a reptile; or a dead person or animal; or a course of water; or an inanimate in a horizontal position; or a piece of land; or a person sitting or squatting, or a bird or quadruped on their feet; or when a referent is in a “completed” state; or in a “heap”; or is a celestial body; or is a container; or a person moving away from the speaker; or an animate or inanimate entity doing the same; or an inanimate

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present in the speaker’s mind but moving away on the time axis; or a process or event moving away from the speaker’s field of vision on the time axis; or when the noun’s referent is non-existent, or missing; or of uncertain existence; etc. Kirtchuk discusses sets of grammatical and lexical features from the pragmatically-oriented parameter of perceiving and structuring space and time from the speaker’s point of view: i.e., as a fundamentally deictic function. He then elaborates on the theoretical and methodological consequences of the grammaticalization and lexicalization of deictic elements in Pilagá and across languages. Kirtchuk thus rejects the traditional dichotomized analyses of noun classification, on the one hand, and separate and independent analyses of various other deictic morphological classes, on the other. In the spirit of this volume, he presents a new, unitary, pragmatic explanation of these seemingly disparate phenomena inspired by the work of Karl Bühler, Joseph Greenberg, and others, where he focuses on the dynamic and evolutive essence of language in the form of the diachronic and phylogenetic order of appearance of deictic elements and nominal classification across languages. Kirtchuk’s holistic, cognitive, and pragmatic approach links his paper to all the chapters in this volume, to which he adds his own particular structuralist and morphogenetic point of view. Hirtle’s paper deals with number in the English substantive from the point of view of the Guillaumean School of the Psychomechanics of Language. It is based on the idea that the very notion of number in the substantive involves a representation of space. The traditional concepts of ‘singular’ and ‘plural’ (“one”, “more than one”, “all”) involve the mental representation of entities occupying locations in space distinct from one another. In particular, he discusses the -s morpheme as representing the impression of ‘discontinuity in space’. Hirtle’s chapter (like Morris’s, Otheguy and Stern’s, and Tobin’s contributions) includes and even concentrates on examples which are rather infrequent, idiomatic, or unusual: i.e., might be considered as “exceptions” to the rule. For example, zero degrees; plus/minus one degrees; heads or tails; every means; to be friends/pals with; to take sides; to make amends; to give thanks; to earn wages; to get one’s just deserts; to sue for damages, etc. In all of the above, as well as in other examples, Hirtle claims “that the -s morpheme is a means for focusing on what the speaker has in mind, a sort of viewing template ready to represent as ‘discontinuate’ the space involved in the concept representing what the speaker wants to talk about.” Alternatively, the singular zero morpheme (Ø) represents space as ‘continuate’. Thus, the Guillaumeans represent grammatical number from a pragmatic and cognitive point of view (like the noun classification systems presented by Contini-Morava and Kirtchuk) as a way of discerning or “monitoring the ever changing panorama of each speaker’s experience to make sayable the particular

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spatial distribution of anything we want to talk about.” For the Guillaumeans, the substantive is essentially that part of speech which gives a formal configuration of space to anything we want to talk about. Thus, we will see that the Guillamean view of gender in English in Morris’s chapter in this volume links gender to spatial representation as well. Hirtle’s view of ‘continuate’/’discontinuate’ space can also be compared with Contini-Morava’s and Janda’s concepts of individuation, Tobin’s distinctive feature ‘Semantic Integrality’ marking the Hebrew dual, and the concepts of discreteness and individuation in Spanish found in the contributions of Otheguy and Stern and Klein-Andreu. Janda’s chapter links number and gender as well, but from a diachronic and cognitive perspective (cf. Kirtchuk, Klein-Andreu, Ryder, Ravid and Shlesinger). Like the other contributions in this volume dealing with noun classification, number, and gender, Janda links number and gender morphology to extralinguistic experience in general and the perception of entities in space in particular: “Number and gender potentially serve at both ends of this cognitive spectrum, relating both to perceptual experience (for number as discrete as opposed to nondiscrete, and if discrete as one or many or a collective unit; for gender this involves primarily the sex of animate beings), and to linguistic conventions (mass/count, singular/plural, collective, singularia & pluralia tantum and the like).” In other words, for Janda as well, number and gender “both address the individuation of entities and the noun phrases that represent them.” Janda shows that dual morphology in the Slavic languages was both peripheral and defective, which may have contributed to its reconception in Polish, Bulgarian, and Macedonian as a “virile: a subordinate category for the differential marking of male humans as opposed to all other referents”, available in the plural only as a special FIGURE-GROUND distinction. Janda then traces the historical loss of dual morphology in Slavic languages and its contribution to the creation of genitive-accusative plural and/or virile numeral constructions. Thus Janda’s diachronic study illustrates the “recycling of defunct dual morphology” into the creation of virile numeral expressions. She further discusses the role played in language change by the Cognitive Grammar concepts of central and peripheral morphology and categories, category structure, prototype schema, and blending. In this respect her paper is linked to that of Ryder, who presents a diachronic cognitive account of the development of the English lexical suffix -er and its possible development into a grammatical anaphoric and clitic function, as well as to the contribution of Ravid and Shlesinger, who present a cognitive linguistic account of the peripheral category of manner adverb in Hebrew. Tobin presents an eclectic sign-oriented account of the dual number in Hebrew which includes the concept of invariant meaning and system similar to

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the Columbia School, embellished by the Jakobsonian School notion of a marked distinctive semantic feature, related to the Guillaumean concept of continuate versus discontinuate space. Tobin claims that the dual number in Hebrew provides a primary example of a morphological form that productively spans the opposition between lexicon and grammar. He first questions the grammatical status of the dual as a deficient and peripheral category in the number system compared to the richer morphology and more frequent exploitation found for the singular and plural members of the system. He then argues against the traditional notion that the dual means “two” by providing counter-examples where dual morphology is used to express any potential plural number, or to merely indicate plurality, intensification, or a process. He also shows that the dual appears to be used erratically, inconsistently, and even sporadically, as the marker of paired body parts, time expressions, dualia tantum, etc. Furthermore, the dual is in opposition to the compound form of the number two to indicate two entities, and the dual morpheme is also attested in collocation with the plural morphemes in the same lexical item. Rather than entertain the well-accepted notion that the dual is “on the way out” in Modern Hebrew, Tobin also provides many examples attesting to the productivity of the dual morpheme in spoken and written Israeli Hebrew of all styles and registers, with examples of the unusual, idiomatic, and exceptional uses of this form (cf. Hirtle, Morris, Otheguy and Stern). His analysis attributes to the dual the marked distinctive feature of ‘Semantic Integrality’ based on an extension of the Guillaumean opposition of discontinuate/continuate space to a cognitive conceptual cline of discontinuous versus continuous perceptions of entities on a spatio-temporal-existential cline. He then presents a microlevel analysis of sentences containing minimal pairs opposing the dual versus the compound forms of the numeral two and the plural, and a macrolevel textual analysis of a children’s story replete with a productive use of the dual. This is followed by an attempt to explain the seemingly erratic, inconsistent, sporadic, and arbitrary distribution of the dual in the lexicon previously alluded to by appealing to cognitive, perceptual and pragmatic criteria. Tobin’s paper can be linked to all the other papers dealing with the categorization of space involving discreteness and individuation and boundedness (ContiniMorava, Janda, Hirtle, Morris, Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu) and to the eclectic sign-oriented approach of Gorlach. Otheguy and Stern’s contribution deals with the Spanish so-called definite articles (el/la,los/las), ostensibly marked for gender (masc./fem.) and number (sg./pl.) and their relationship to “word classes” or “parts of speech” (nouns and adjectives). The traditonally accepted — and almost unquestioned — analysis of articles and noun classes in Spanish rests on the following assumptions: (1) the

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lexicon in Spanish is divided into the two classes of nouns and adjectives which relates differently to the articles, and (2) the nouns only are further subdivided into the gender classes of masculine and feminine. Therefore the gender of the nouns and the choice of definite articles to modify them in a relationship of agreement may be see to “feed into” each other. Otheguy and Stern question this familiar analysis because not all words bear the unique categorization of either noun or adjective. There are many words (e.g., pirata “pirate”) which are categorized as both. It is also not the case that all nouns are classified as either masculine or feminine: i.e. common gender or epicene nouns (e.g., el profeta/la profeta “the prophet”). Otheguy and Stern choose these “exceptional” cases (like Hirtle, Morris, Tobin) not as instances which “prove the rule”, a statement reflecting the position upon which the traditional consensus is based, but rather show that the analysis based on the rule is incorrect and inadequate. Indeed, they claim that the standard assumptions represent a missed opportunity to obtain revealing insights into the actual workings of the Spanish lexicon with the articles. Otheguy and Stern’s analysis relies on speaker’s choice which is guided by culturally dictated conceptions and needs that impact on local communicative intents as they interact with the lexical meanings encoded in the lexicon and the grammatical meanings encoded in the articles and in the syntactic order of modifiers and modifieds. An essential part of the grammatical meanings for the articles is related to the concepts of discrete versus non-discrete space (ContiniMorava, Hirtle, Janda, Morris, Tobin). Otheguy and Stern’s chapter can be compared theoretically and methodologically with the other Columbia School papers (Contini-Morava, Klein-Andreu, de Jonge) as well as the other signoriented chapters inspired by Columbia School and other sign-oriented tenets (Gorlach, Tobin). Klein-Andreu analyzes the grammatical and lexical behavior of Spanish third person clitic pronouns in a way similar to Otheguy and Stern’s analysis of the Spanish lexicon and Morris’s analysis of pronominal usage in English. She further adds an additional criterion of “degree of text dependence” — grammatical signs are more text dependent than lexical signs — to show how pronouns in their anaphoric (grammatical) and deictic (lexical) uses leads us to question the utility of the lexicon/grammar dichotomy. Klein-Andreu further points out the ‘portmanteau’ aspect of pronouns indicating case which she defines as a more utterance dependent grammatical category as well as “real-world characteristics of the referent”: i.e., the lexical characteristics of person, number, and gender (cf. Contini-Morava, Kirtchuk, Hirtle, Janda, Tobin, Otheguy and Stern, Morris). She further focuses on the historical development of these complex pronominal forms and their reanalysis in different Northern Spanish dialects (cf. Kirtchuk, Janda,

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Ryder, Ravid and Shlesinger). Her analysis centers around the reanalysis of these signs based on their interlocked invariant meanings as defined by the Columbia School (Contini-Morava, Otheguy and Stern, de Jonge). Her data indicate that the traditional treatments of case and gender are inadequate and do not account for the current behavior of the dialects studied. Klein-Andreu then redefines some of the traditional categories in order to explain the distributional behavior of the third person clitic pronouns in these dialects. The traditional case distinctions of dative and accusative are replaced by invariant meanings categorizing the relative ‘degree of activeness’ assigned to the referent “object”. This analysis is also related to the concepts of animacy, gender, and number as cognitive and perceptual criteria to be used by speakers to categorize the potential degree of activeness of the referents involved. Klein-Andreu then reanalyzes number in terms of the degree of individuation or discreteness (Contini-Morava, Hirtle, Janda, Tobin, Morris, Otheguy and Stern). It appears that the speakers of these various Spanish dialects assign different degrees of saliency to either relative degree of activeness and/or individuation in number and gender in their choice of third person clitic pronouns. This notion of saliency plays a key role in Morris’s analysis of English gender as well, particularly in regard to assigning animate gender to inanimate referents. Klein-Andreu further connects the concept of saliency to the notions of discreteness and well-defined boundaries (Otheguy and Stern) and degree of individuation (Contini-Morava, Hirtle, Morris, Janda, Tobin). Her paper is unique in this volume in that it not only deals with diachronic issues (Kirtchuk, Janda, Ryder, Ravid and Shlesinger) but with regional variation as well. Like the other Columbia School analyses in this volume, this paper uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies of validation (cf. Contini-Morava, Otheguy and Stern, de Jonge). Morris presents a Guillaumean view of gender in English. She begins by criticizing the widely accepted hypothesis of “natural gender” based on biological criteria such as ‘animate’, ‘inanimate’, ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’, etc., which is fraught with exceptions and problems: i.e., what she refers to as the “unnaturalness” of “natural” gender. Her arguments against natural gender are supported by counter-examples culled from both spoken and written texts where: (a) biologically inanimate referents (usually referred to by it) are marked with animate linguistic representations (she/he); (b) biological animates — including human beings — are referrred to by inanimate neuter pronouns (it), even when their biological sex is known; and (c) the gender varies in the pronominal references to the same referent in the very same passage (he/she/it). Morris then begins to redefine the traditional features associated with natural gender. She first rejects the traditonal features of ‘animate/inanimate’ and replaces them with the concept

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of ‘individualization’ (cf. Contini-Morava, Hirtle, Janda, Tobin, Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu). This entails a perception of sexual oppositions as “an otherness within a sameness” — a type of perception which is also found in other areas of grammar such as the category of person. Morris finds that inanimate pronouns tend to be used when a referent is not well known or of particular interest to the speaker — for example, in reference to animals behaving in a species-typical fashion. With increasing attention paid to the referent, the likelihood of animate reference rises. This concept of “an otherness within a sameness” can also be used to explain the use of animate pronominal reference with highly individuated or salient inanimate referents with which the speaker is familiar, and/or are “behaving” in a manner worthy of the speaker’s individual attention. Morris further observes that when biologically inanimate entities are referred to with a gendered pronoun, it is almost exclusively the feminine (she). She argues that the use of he for biological inanimates is reserved for referents that are behaving in an unpredictable or unexpected manner over which the speaker has no control. From the Guillamean perspective that the substantive gives a formal configuration of space to anything being talked about in its related systems of number and gender, gender can now be redefined in the following way: “the feminine gender is perceived to occupy a space whose limits can be clearly defined. The masculine, on the other hand, occupies a space whose limits cannot be clearly defined… Gender indicates how a speaker has structured or given mental representation to a particular lexical content”, and as such represents a step in the process of organizing content into a formal grammatical structure. Morris then relates gender to number and person, showing how this view of spatial configuration can be extended further and be used to explain the grammatical “exceptions” which have amassed in a language (Hirtle, Otheguy and Stern, Tobin). Andrews focuses on the property, or category of animacy and its connection to gender (Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu, Morris) in Contemporary Standard Russian. Her focus on a specific, possibly universal, category and its realization in a particular language (Russian augmentative and diminutive suffixes), as well as its relationship to both lexical and grammatical meaning, are similar to Gorlach’s analysis of the category of ‘resultativeness’ as it is realized in English simple and phrasal verb constructions. With respect to Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR), Andrews argues that the category of animacy overlaps to some extent with declensional or agreement gender and is signalled at the level of both grammatical and lexical meaning. Grammatically, animacy is expressed in certain desinences and agreement forms; lexically, it is expressed either in the root morpheme or in a combination of root and word-formative suffix. However, the

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CSR augmentative (išcˇ-e/a) and diminutive (-(cˇ)ik) suffixes differ in the extent to which they contribute animacy in lexical word-formation. What they share is that each constitutes a strategy for achieving “an enduring identifiability of the referent” — whether this is done at the grammatical or lexical level. Ultimately, this identifiability may have little to do with extra-linguistic (so-called “natural”) animacy. In addition to her analysis of Russian word-formative suffixes and their grammatical and lexical functioning, Andrews considers evidence from cognitive science that supports the following points: (1) normal humans and primates have greater difficulty identifying pictures of animate objects versus inanimate ones; (2) brain damaged patients may be deficient in naming animate objects while they perform normally in naming inanimate ones; (3) human knowledge about “external reality” is only achieved indirectly via representations of stimuli, and there is a high degree of consistency among humans in their construction of reality. By comparing and contrasting the linguistic and experimental data, Andrews emphasizes the importance of perception in defining the fundamental principles and categories which make up human language. This link between the perception of extralinguistic reality and the cognitive essence of language and linguistic categories is directly related to each and every contribution to this volume. De Jonge presents a Columbia School inspired analysis of the opposition between the simple past tenses in Spanish: the imperfecto and indefinido. His analysis challenges the traditional notion that tense is determined by means of temporality. De Jonge uses empirical data from Spanish texts to show that his analysis based on ‘eventuality’ can account for those uses of these tenses where temporality fails to provide an explanation. The analysis is based on the idea that the very existence of these tenses presupposes two types of past events or eventualities that are categorized by individual functional meanings which can be used to organize discourse optimally from a communicative point of view. According to de Jonge, the indefinido indicates EVENTUALITIES IN FOCUS and the imperfecto indicates SUPPORTIVE EVENTUALITIES. De Jonge’s corpus is comprised of two short stories by García Márquez. These particular stories were chosen because of the frequent use of these tenses and their comparable structure: each contains a main story within which a shorter, secondary story is embedded. He tests his hypothesis based on specific linguistic variables that are expected to reflect and predict the relative focus or supportiveness of the eventualities: e.g., the presence or absence of time indicators, actions that imply an observed movement in the narrated scene versus other actions, verbs that indicate an event versus other verbs, verbs in simple and complex main versus subordinate clauses, verbs with human versus inanimate subjects, verbs appearing in the argumentation line of the main story versus the backgrounded embedded story.

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The independent empirical data support the functional hypothesis postulated by de Jonge as opposed to the traditional temporal based analyses of Spanish tense. De Jonge’s paper not only questions the efficacy of maintaining the traditional lexicon/grammar dichotomy, but also the concept of temporality as the sole or major motivator of tense. His sign-oriented contribution follows the theoretical and methodological tenets of the Columbia School and is validated statistically (cf. Contini-Morava, Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu) and through the use of a textual analysis (Tobin). His reliance on cognitive categorizations of real world “eventualities” and their incorporation into invariant meanings links his paper both to the other cognitive based and sign-oriented contributions to this volume. Gorlach’s contribution deals with the common but poorly defined concept of resultativeness. Traditionally, the category of resultativeness has been attributed to the grammatical topics of verb aspect, aspectuality, perfectiveness, and the passive voice as well as being postulated as a lexical feature to define certain word classes. Gorlach aspires to define its status as a linguistic category in English in general and as a marked distinctive semantic feature in the Jakobsonian sense (Tobin, Andrews) which will be used to explain the semantic opposition postulated for the following three constructions: (a) simple verb phrases versus (b) continuous verb-particle versus (c) discontinuous verb-particle (phrasal verb) constructions: e.g., (1) to eat the apple (process); (2) to eat up the apple (process or result); (3) to eat the apple up (result). Gorlach suggests that (1)–(3) establish oppositions based on different degrees of resultativeness in their invariant meanings, the intensity of the resultativeness increasing from (1) to (3). The members of this system stand in a relationship of “non-resultative versus resultative” which exemplifies a concrete realization of this category in English. Gorlach follows an eclectic sign-oriented approach (Tobin) combining theoretical and methodological aspects of the Columbia School (Contini-Morava, Otheguy and Stern, Klein-Andreu, de Jonge), the Jakobsonian School (Andrews), and the Guillaumean School (Hirtle, Morris). She summarizes the problematic history of the category of resultativeness as it has been used by English language grammarians who borrowed it, or translated it rather mechanically, from analyses of aspect in the Slavic languages. Gorlach views resultativeness as a semantic or lexico-grammatical category which reflects a fundamental way of perceiving actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result, characterized by a specific word order (cf. Tobin 1993; this volume). She provides examples which show that the resultative reading of these verb phrases is independent of tense and aspect and cuts across these traditional grammatical categories associated with the verb in English. For Gorlach, the place of the distinctive semantic feature ‘Resultativeness’ in English lies at the junction of syntax and semantics

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— the grammar and the lexicon — not as a part of the perfective or passive as traditionally believed, but rather as an independent category in its own right. Ryder’s contribution deals with complex -er nominals, a point at which the processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization merge. Ryder focuses on the gradualness of linguistic change in general, and the particular problem that, in the earliest stage of change, the new linguistic situation may appear to be only minimally different from the old. As a consequence of this new situation, it may not be clear whether a sweeping change is in progress, or will eventually take place. This situation further indicates how hard it may be to uncover the initial stages of a linguistic change, and, in fact, very little may be known about how linguistic changes actually begin. Ryder believes that the extension of the -er suffix in English to complex nominals may exemplify such an early stage of language change because they differ the most from the original form and may represent the most recent development in the use of this suffix. She defines a ‘complex -er nominal’ as: a noun with the nominalizing -er suffix whose base consists of more than one free morpheme: e.g., in-the-parker, up-and-comer, blue-chipper. In the spirit of this volume, Ryder further suggests that the -er suffix is developing an anaphorical grammatical function — where it can be substituted directly for a noun phrase headed by the word one–in addition to its derivational lexical word-formation properties: Many people like rehearsed jokes, but I think off-the-cuff jokes are much funnier. …but I think off-the-cuff ones are much funnier. …but I think off-the-cuffers are much funnier.

Ryder also claims that the -er suffix is showing possible early signs of becoming a clitic due to the extension of its possible bases to include phrases and clauses that have become lexicalized to varying degrees. Ryder is not only providing additional evidence to the well-known hypothesis that language changes like grammaticalization, lexicalization, and cliticization are gradual and gradient, but she is suggesting that there may not be clear-cut boundaries separating the grammar and the lexicon. Furthermore, it is this lack of firm and fixed lexical and grammatical boundaries that allows for the gradual movement of forms such as -er from one category to the other. Ravid and Shlesinger discuss the diverse lexical and grammatical means with which the class of manner adverbials is realized in Modern Hebrew. Modern Hebrew, a highly synthetic Semitic language containing complex morphological systems for indicating nominal and verbal forms, has no single productive morphological class of adverbs. The authors attempt to account for this inherently secondary and heterogeneous nature of Hebrew adverbs in the

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framework of Cognitive Linguistics construal of categorization. Their study takes both a synchronic and diachronic perspective (Kirtchuk, Janda, Klein-Andreu, Ryder) and is corpus-based employing mostly journalistic prose as well as spoken and written expository texts produced by children, adolescents and adults (Tobin). The peripheral nature of Hebrew adverbs is reflected by the fact that, unlike other content word categories in Hebrew, they do not make extensive productive use of morphological structure in their formation, and they do not inflect for number and gender (cf. the Hebrew dual in Tobin). Hebrew adverbs are realized in three fundamental ways which span the opposition of the lexicon and the grammar: (1) lexical forms: maher ‘fast’, le’at ‘slowly’; (2) morphological structure: aviv-i ‘spring-like’, ne’emana ‘loyally’ (‘loyal’ + fem./sg. suffix), ne’emanot ‘loyally’ (‘loyal’ + fem./pl. suffix), simultanit ‘simultaneously’ (‘simultaneous’ + fem./sg. suffix); (3) syntactic constructions: e.g., prepositional phrases: be-kitsur ‘in-short’, ‘shortly’, be-diyuk ‘with-precision’, ‘precisely’, which can then be lexicalized: bidyuk ‘exactly’. Thus, Ravid and Shlesinger present a peripheral category in language and show how by virtue of its heterogeneous realization in Hebrew — from a syntactic class to a lexical category — their analysis provides further support for viewing the lexicon and grammar as a continuum. It is our hope that the contents of this volume will convincingly demonstrate that the traditional dichotomy between the lexicon and the grammar should be seriously questioned and that the cognitive- and sign-oriented linguistic approaches presented herein provide both the theoretical and methodological justification as well as the means to do so.

Ellen Contini-Morava and Yishai Tobin Charlottesville and Be’er Sheva

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Bates, Elizabeth and Judith C. Goodman. 1997. “On the Inseparability of Grammar and the Lexicon: Evidence from Acquisition, Aphasia and Real-time Processing”. Language and Cognitive Processes 12 (516). 507–584. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (Repr., University of Chicago Press, 1984.) Boas, Franz. 1911. “Introduction”. Handbook of American Indian Languages. Bulletin 40, Part I. Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. (Repr. in American Indian Languages ed. by Preston Holder, 1–79. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1966.) Bybee, Joan and William Pagliuca. 1985. “Cross Linguistic Comparison and the Development of Grammatical Meaning”. Historical Semantics, Historical Word-formation ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 59–83. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 29. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Cole, Pascale and Juan Segui. 1994. “Grammatical Incongruency and Vocabulary Types”. Memory and Cognition 22:4.387–394. Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1995. “Introduction: On Linguistic Sign Theory”. Contini-Morava and Sussman Goldberg 1995. 1–39. ——— and Barbara Sussman Goldberg. 1995. Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Dinneen, Francis P. 1967. An Introduction to General Linguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Diver, William. 1995. “Theory”. Contini-Morava and Sussman Goldberg 1995. 43–114. Fillmore, C. J., P. Kay, and C. O’Connor. 1988. “Regularity and Idiomaticity in Grammatical Constructions: The Case of Let Alone.” Language 64.501–538. Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guillaume, Gustave. 1984. Foundations for a Science of Language. (English translation by Walter Hirtle and John Hewson). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haiman, John. 1980. “The Iconicity of Grammar”. Language 56:3.515–540. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: a Conceptual Framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Herskovits, Annette. 1986. Language and Spatial Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hirtle, Walter. 1975. Time, Aspect and the Verb. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Hopper, Paul, and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jakobson, Roman. 1959. “Boas’s View of Grammatical Meaning”. The Anthropology of Franz Boas: Essays on the Centennial of his Birth ed. by Walter R. Goldschmidt. Menasha, Wis.: American Anthropological Association Memoir LXXX. (Repr. in Jakobson 1971a, 489–496.)

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———. 1971a. Selected Writings, vol. II. The Hague: Mouton. ———. 1971b. “Quest for the Essence of Language”. Jakobson 1971a. 345–60. Klein-Andreu, Flora, ed.. 1983. Discourse Perspectives on Syntax. New York: Academic. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ———. 1988. “An Overview of Cognitive Grammar”. Rudzka-Ostyn 1988. 3–47. Lehmann, Christian. 1986. “Grammaticalization and Linguistic Typology”. General Linguistics 26:1.3–23. Pinker, Steven. 1991. “Rules of Language”. Science 253.530–535. Pollard, Carl and Ivan Sag. 1994. Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Pulvermüller, Friedemann, Werner Lutzenberger, and Niels Birbaumer. 1995. “Electrocortical Distinction of Vocabulary Types”. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 94:5.357–370. Reid, Wallis. 1991. Verb and Noun Number in English: A Functional Explanation. London: Longman. ——— and Ricardo Otheguy. Forthcoming. Issues in Neo-Saussurean Linguistics: Advances in Sign-based Approaches to the Study of Language. Under Review. Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida, ed. 1988. Topics in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Sangster, Rodney. 1982. Roman Jakobson and Beyond: Language as a System of Signs. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. ——— and Morris Swadesh. 1946. “American Indian Grammatical Categories”. Word 2.103–112. (Repr. in Language in Culture and Society ed. by Dell Hymes, 100–111. NY: Harper and Row 1964.) Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Editions Payot. (English translation by Roy Harris. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1986.) Talmy, Leonard. 1988. “The Relation of Grammar to Cognition”. Rudzka-Ostyn 1988. 165–205. Tobin, Yishai, ed. 1988. The Prague School and its Legacy. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———, ed. 1989. From Sign to Text: A Semiotic View of Communication. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1990. Semiotics and Linguistics. London: Longman. ———. 1993. Aspect in the English Verb: Process and Result in Language. London: Longman. ———. 1994. Invariance, Markedness and Distinctive Feature Analysis: A Contrastive Study of Sign Systems in English and Hebrew. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1995. “Only vs. Just: Semantic Integrality Revisited”. Contini-Morava and Goldberg 1995. 323–359.

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———. 1997. Phonology as Human Behavior: Theoretical Implications and Clinical Applications. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine, eds. 1991. Approaches to Grammaticalization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. van Schooneveld, Cornelis H. 1983. “Programmatic Sketch of a Theory of Lexical Meaning”. Quaderni di Semantica 4:1.158–170. ———. 1987. “Linguistic Structure and Autopoiesis”. Language, Poetry and Poetics: The Generation of the 1890s: Jakobson, Trubetzkoy, Majakovski ed. by Krystyna Pomorska et al., 123–142. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ———. 1991. “Praguean Structure and Autopoiesis: Deixis as Individuation”. New Vistas in Grammar: Invariance and Variation ed. by L. Waugh and S. Rudy, 341–362. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1994. “Praguean-Jakobsonian Structural Semantic Analysis as an Approach to Linguistic Cognition”. Intercultural Communication. Proceedings of the 17th International L.A.U.D. Symposium, Duisberg, 23–27 March 1992, ed. by Heiner Pürschel, 67–95. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

P I Number and Gender Systems Across Languages 1. Noun Classification Systems

Noun Class as Number in Swahili Ellen Contini-Morava University of Virginia

1.

Introduction

It is common cross-linguistically for the same morphological forms to signal information about noun class or grammatical gender and number at the same time (cf. Corbett 1991: 132). However, these kinds of information are usually treated in different ways. Noun class, or gender, is thought of as a feature assigned to nominal roots in the lexicon, whereas number is a grammatical or inflectional feature. For example Corbett (1991: 154) states that As far as controller genders are concerned, gender and number are typically independent; a noun has a particular gender irrespective of the number it stands in. Gender is inherent to the noun and is in a sense prior to the number in which it occurs in a given sentence. (see also p. 147)1

Furthermore, noun class and number are usually treated differently from a semantic point of view. Noun classes are said to be semantic in origin but to have lost much of their semantic coherence over time, now having “purely grammatical” function. Number on the other hand is treated as semantically unproblematic, consisting of oppositions between grammatical forms that signal ‘singular’ or ‘plural’ (and sometimes a few other distinctions such as ‘dual’ or ‘paucal’).2 In this chapter I will argue against both these assumptions, focusing on Swahili, whose noun class system is typical of Bantu languages. In earlier work (Contini-Morava 1994, 1997) I have shown that the noun classes are less semantically arbitrary than is usually assumed. In what follows I will challenge the assumption that number is unproblematic. In fact, I will argue that the problem of number is closely tied to the problem of the meanings of the noun classes themselves. The structure of the chapter is as follows. In Section 2, I outline the problem of singular–plural morphological asymmetry. In the next

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section I describe the semantic structure of the noun classes that have predictable singular–plural pairing. Following that is a proposed reanalysis of ‘number’ in Swahili as a system of degree of individuation. I conclude with a brief discussion of the relationship of the Bantu noun class prefixes to the traditional dichotomy between lexical and grammatical meaning.

2.

Asymmetries in noun-class/number pairings in Swahili

In Swahili, and in Bantu more generally, noun class and number information are jointly conveyed by a prefix on the noun. The prefixes are traditionally identified by separate numbers so that odd-numbered prefixes are “singular” and adjacent even-numbered prefixes are the “corresponding plurals”, e.g. Noun Class Prefix (=NCP) 2 is corresponding plural of NCP 1, 4 is plural of 3, etc. In (1) below, the singular prefixes of Swahili are on the left, and the “corresponding plurals” are on the right. (This type of table typically appears in reference grammars of Swahili such as Polomé 1967: 96.) (1)

Table 1. Singular–plural noun class relationships in Swahili.3

Bantu #

Prefix

Bantu #

Prefix

1 Example:

m1mtoto “child”

2

wawatoto “children”

3 Example:

m2mti “tree”

4

mimiti “trees”

7 Example:

kikikapu “basket”

8

vivikapu “baskets”

5 Example:

ji- (or zero) jiwe “stone”

6

mamawe “stones”

11/14 uExamples: utiko “roof ridge” ukuta “wall” 9

n- ~ zero

matiko “roof ridges” kuta “walls” [takes class 10 agreement pattern] 10

n- ~ zero

Example: ndizi “banana/bananas”

As may be seen from this table, classes 1, 3, and 7 are each associated with a unique plural prefix (numbered 2, 4, and 8 respectively). However, the “plural”

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

5

class 6 can serve as plural for Class 5 as well as for some (but not all) nouns of Class 11.4 Other nouns of Class 11 have plural counterparts in Class 10. However, the prefix of Class 10 is homonymous with that of Class 9: that is, Class 9/10 nouns are invariable and do not change their prefix in the plural. So some nouns in Cl. 9/10 are neutral to the number distinction, whereas others are interpreted as ‘plural’ (those that have a singular counterpart in Cl. 11–the example in Table 1 is ukuta/kuta “wall/walls”, under “class 11”.) For nouns in Cl. 9/10, which do not vary in singular–plural form, number is distinguished only by grammatical agreement pattern (e.g. ndizi ile “that banana”, ndizi zile “those bananas”). Before looking more closely at the singular–plural patterns illustrated in Table 1, it is worth raising the issue of the morphological analysis of Cl. 9/10. Table 1 represents the traditional analysis of Classes 9 and 10 as bearing homonymous n ~Ø prefixes. Homonymous prefixes are reconstructed for these classes at least as far as Proto Bantu (Guthrie 1967; Meeussen 1967, cited in Williamson 1989). In Swahili, the reflex of a nasal prefix reconstructed as *N(Nurse & Hinnebusch 1993: 199–200) appears, in assimilated form, only before voiced obstruents, vowel-initial, or monosyllabic noun stems, and only with stems of Bantu origin; elsewhere no overt prefix appears. Since Cl. 9/10 nouns are invariable, the case for separating a prefix from the stem synchronically is not compelling (see Herbert 1978 for more detailed discussion of this issue in Bantu). Further support for this argument is the fact that loanwords, which constitute a large proportion of Cl. 9/10 nouns, do not acquire a nasal prefix even if they begin with a voiced obstruent or vowel. By contrast, loanwords assigned to other noun classes do acquire the NCP of their class. This suggests that Cl. 9/10 is best analyzed as having no prefix; membership in this class is signalled at most by a set of restrictions on the canonical shape of nouns, applying only to nouns of Bantu origin, and by grammatical agreement pattern.5 I will adopt this analysis in what follows. As will be seen below, the lack of overt class marking is matched by the semantic heterogeneity of Cl 9/10 within the Swahili noun class system. To return to singular–plural patterns, then. Just looking at the relationships represented in Table 1 reveals a formal asymmetry between singular and plural that is not explained by the traditional binary treatment.6 Note that the complexity of singular–plural class pairings in Swahili is typical of Bantu languages (see Kadima 1969; Toporova 1987): in fact it was the great variation in singular– plural class pairings across languages that led early Bantu scholars to assign separate numbers to the singular and plural classes (Bleek 1862). There are further asymmetries in Swahili, however, that cannot be read off the table. For one thing, only three of the singular–plural pairings can be called ‘reciprocal’,

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meaning that stems that co-occur with the singular prefix also co-occur with the plural prefix, and vice versa. These are Classes 1–2 (m-, wa-), 3–4 (m-, mi-), and 7–8 (ki-, vi-). However, while it is true that most noun stems with a Class 5 prefix (that is, ji- ~ Ø) have “corresponding plurals” with ma-, the reverse is not the case. That is, not all ma- marked nouns have singular counterparts in class 5. Furthermore, a significant number of noun stems that co-occur with ma- have no “corresponding singular” at all. In my database of over 4000 Swahili nouns, of which 142 are listed in the dictionary as belonging to the ma- class, 109 nouns with the prefix ma- designate liquids, masses, or collectivities that cannot easily be fit into the singular/plural dichotomy.7 Some examples: (2)

Examples of Class 6 nouns with no corresponding singular: maji “water” makomba “millet flour gruel” masakasaka “fallen debris from trees” mazungumzo “conversation” (derived from -zungumza “to converse” — a productive derivational process) [compare with mawe “stones”, plural of jiwe “stone”8]

A second asymmetry relates to Class 11 (with prefix u-). Like Class 6, just mentioned, the Class 11 prefix also co-occurs with a significant number of noun stems that do not vary between singular and plural. For example: (3)

Examples of Class 11 nouns with no corresponding plural [note: the prefix is w- before vowels]: wima “uprightness, state of being perpendicular” ugege “dry feeling on teeth caused by eating acid fruit” usingizi “sleep, sleepiness” ute “saliva or other viscid fluid” wali “cooked rice” uki “honey” ulimbo “birdlime, gum, glue” ugaga “tartar on teeth”

Many of these denote abstractions or other intangibles, such as the first three examples under (3). These are usually described in the grammars as “singularia tantum”, even though the kinds of entities designated by noun stems that are found in Class 11 overlap to a certain extent with those found in class 6 and described as “pluralia tantum” when they have the prefix ma-.9 For example, we find nouns denoting liquids and masses in both of these classes, but liquids and masses in Class 11 (i.e. with prefix u-) tend to be more solid or congealed than

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

7

those in Class 6 (with prefix ma-), which tend to be more dispersed, as may be seen by comparing the examples under (2) with the last four examples under (3) above. Leaving aside abstract nouns that result from productive derivations, a total of 143 out of 278 Class 11 nouns in my database, or 51%, are invariable in form.10 To summarize so far: three pairs of classes are reciprocally paired, i.e. noun stems that co-occur with the singular prefix also co-occur with the plural prefix, and vice versa. These are classes 1–2, 3–4, and 7–8. One class (5) is nonreciprocally paired: noun stems occurring with the singular prefix also occur with a plural prefix, but that “plural” prefix can also pluralize nouns of other classes or fail to correspond to a singular form. Three classes are not paired: Class 6, usually treated as a “plural”, can pluralize nouns of more than one class and contains a significant number of nouns that have no corresponding singular; Class 11, usually treated as a “singular”, has nouns with plural counterparts in more than one class and contains a significant number of nouns without a corresponding plural. Nouns assigned to Class 9/10 are sometimes interpreted as plural, and sometimes are neutral to the singular–plural distinction. Yet another complication in the singular–plural pairings represented by Table 1 is the fact that the prefix ma- (Class 6) is not only limited in its distribution to noun stems of Classes 5 and 11. It can also be used productively as a pluralizer for noun stems of Class 9/10. Recall that Class 9/10 is the one that does not distinguish singular from plural on the noun itself. For Class 9/10 nouns, number information is carried only by grammatical agreement. But in discourse nouns do not always co-occur with modifiers that can indicate number unambiguously. Use of the ma- prefix makes it possible to indicate plurality overtly on the noun itself.11 Some examples from Swahili texts: (4)

Examples of ma- (6) as pluralizer for nouns of Class 9: a. Alistaajabu kwa nini lazima watu wabebe vitu: mikoba ya ngozi, imenona makaratasi; vikapu vitupu, vikipepea kama bendera… [Yahya 1973: 912] He wondered why people had to carry so much stuff: leather bags, full of papers (karatasi is usually invariable in form for singular and plural); empty baskets, flapping like flags… b. Leo nitazame nilivyo Zaina, kidagaa kwenye bahari ya mapapa na masansuri–topasi, topasi hapa nilipo, si wa ndoa tena wala wa wapita-njia. [Mohamed 1990: 67] Look how I am today, Zaina, a tiny fish in a sea of sharks and barracudas (papa “shark” and sansuri ”barracuda” are usually

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invariable in form) — I’m just a street-sweeper, not for marriage or even for passers-by. In (4a), the word karatasi ”paper”, usually invariable in form, appears with the ma- prefix; the same is true of papa “shark” and sansuri “barracuda” in (4b). The effect in both examples is to emphasize plurality by overtly marking it where it might not have been overtly marked. A final complication in the singular–plural pairings of Swahili: nouns that have alternative singular–plural forms. One group of such nouns has the prefix u- (Class 11) in the singular. Recall that Swahili reference grammars divide Class 11 nouns into three groups: nouns that have no corresponding plural (illustrated by examples in 3), nouns that correspond to plurals in Class 9/10, and ones that correspond to plurals in Class 6 (see examples in Table 1 under (1) above). But there is also a set of u- prefixed nouns that can have plural counterparts in either Class 9/10 or Class 6, with a difference in semantic interpretation. These are illustrated in (5) below: (5)

Class 11 nouns that have plurals in Classes 9/10 and 6, with difference in message: nyoya (9/10) “feathers/hairs” (a plurality) unyoya “feather, hair” manyoya (6) “feathers/hair” (a collectivity) nyuta13 (9/10) “bows” uta “bow” mata (6) “bow and arrows” (a set) shanga (9/10) “beads” ushanga “bead” mashanga (6) “string of beads” nyasi (9/10) “blades of grass” unyasi “blade of grass” manyasi (6) “grass” (collective)

As shown by these examples, ma- plurals convey a collective message whereas Cl. 9/10 plurals simply indicate replication.14 Other noun stems have an even more complex relationship with “singular” and “plural” classes. For example, in the Standard Swahili-English Dictionary (Johnson 1939: 531) we find the following entry for the Class 11 noun uwingu:

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

9

uwingu, n. ([pl.]mbingu) (1) the sky, cloud region, upper air, heaven; (2) cloudiness, darkness, gloom. Plur. mbingu [Cl. 9/10], the skies, heaven is the most used form, and is sometimes used as sing. [emphasis mine, ECM].

In this case we seem to have two singulars (one Cl. 9/10, one Cl. 11) “corresponding” to one plural (Cl. 9/10, differentiated from singular by agreement pattern). A search through Swahili texts reveals that all of these options are exploited, as shown by the following examples: (6)

a.

b.

c.

Shairi la “Maomboloezo ya Mtu Masikini” limejazana tamathali zenye kuonyesha undani wa dhiki za mtu masikini kama vile “panya wa uhitaji”, “simba wa ubeberu”, “matiti ya uwingu wenye ubahili”. [Senkoro 1988: 41] The poem “Prayer of the Poor Man” is full of metaphors showing the distressed inner state of a poor man such as “rat of need”, “lion of oppression”, “breasts of a miserly cloud” [uwingu, Cl. 11]. [Misahafu yasema] kwamba ziko mbingu sabaa humu ulimwenguni ambazo zimepangwa kwa safu kufuata utaratibu wa huyo aliyeziumba. [Lemki 1976: 8] [The Korans say] that there are seven heavens [mbingu, Cl. 9/ 10 with plural agreement] in this world which are set in rows according to the plan of the One who created them. Lakini uwaulizapo kama mbingu hiyo ni ya tatu toka hapa kwetu ama ni ya tatu toka juu, wao hubana midomo na kukunja nyuso zao. [Lemki 1976: 8] But if you ask them whether this third heaven [mbingu, Cl. 9/10 with singular agreement] is the third from here where we are or the third from the top, they bite their lips and furrow their brows.

In these examples the message of differentiation between singular and plural is most evident in examples (b) and (c), where number is signalled not by the (invariable) Cl. 9/10 noun, but by the grammatical agreement. In example (a) “cloud” appears to be treated as a countable entity. Uwingu/mbingu is not an isolated case. We can also find stems with two “plural” and two “singular” forms. For example, the stem kelele “a shout, uproar, noise” may occur in Classes 11, 9/10, and 6, as shown by the following examples: (7)

a.

Kinjeketile: Wamenidanganya. (Anapiga ukelele unafika mbinguni na kuanguka chini. Giza.) [Hussein 1969: 20]

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b.

c.

d.

Kinjeketile: They have cheated me. (He emits a cry [ukelele, Cl. 11] [that] rises to the sky and falls [back] down. Darkness.) Alipofika karibu na mlango wa mji aliuliza kwa kelele, “Huu ni mji wa nani?” Wanawake wawili waliokuwa nje walinyamaza. “Ninauliza, huu ni mji wa nani?” aliuliza tena kama kwamba alikuwa hakufahamu. Baba alisikia kelele hii. Alitoka nje. [Kezilahabi 1974: 104] When he got near the door of the city he asked loudly [lit., “with noise”, kelele without agreement], “Whose city is this?” Two women who were outside fell silent. “I am asking, whose city is this?” he asked again as if he had not understood. Father heard this noise [kelele, Cl. 9/10 with singular agreement]. He went outside. Nilisikia mlio wa ngoma na kelele za watu. [Kezilahabi 1974: 57] I heard the sound of drums and the noise [kelele, Cl. 9/10 with plural agreement] of people. Mbwa hana manufaa. Humbwekea mwiwi na mwaminifu. Hana akili ya kupambanua. Hivyo basi kwa kubweka kwake, huwezi kuiua [sic] kama mwivi yuko nje au amekuingilia nyumbani usiku. Hubweka kwa mfululizo kwa sababu ya minong’ono ya karibu na makelele ya mbali. Matokeo yake ni kuwa huwezi hata kulala vema. [Robert 1971: 24–5] A dog is useless. It barks at the thief and the trustworthy. It does not have the sense to tell them apart. So by its barking, you cannot know whether a thief is outside or has entered your house at night. It barks on and on because of whisperings from nearby and noises [makelele, Cl. 6] from far away. The result is that you cannot even sleep properly.

In examples (a) and (b) “noise” is relatively individuated: in (a) ukelele refers to a single cry made by a single person and in (b) kelele (with singular agreement) refers to a disturbance made by one person who repeats the same utterance twice. In example (c) kelele (with plural agreement) refers to a noise that is more diffuse and generated by a multitude of people. In (d) we are talking about iterated noises of unspecified origins that might arise on different occasions. Thus the contrasts among the different classes can suggest various degrees of ‘singularity’ and ‘plurality’.

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

11

The examples in (5)–(7) show how unilluminating it is to analyze the Swahili data in terms of a binary singular–plural distinction or in terms of class “pairing”. It should be noted that the asymmetries I have been pointing out have not escaped the attention of Bantu scholars; in fact they are regularly mentioned in both descriptions of individual languages (e.g. Mufwene 1980a) and in general works on the language family (e.g. Meinhof 1967 [1948]: 47; Doke 1967: 51). But this has not led to a re-evaluation of the relationship between number and noun class as grammatical categories in Bantu.15 I will suggest such a restatement below, but before doing that, it may be helpful to give the reader a general idea of the semantic structure of the noun class system as a whole.

3.

Semantic structure of the Swahili noun classes

The Swahili noun class system is complex, and space does not allow a full treatment (see Contini-Morava 1994, 1997 for detailed discussion), but here is a basic outline. First, a caveat. If by ‘noun class’ is meant “the set of nominal stems that co-occur with a given nominal prefix”, one must begin by pointing out that no such set can be exactly specified for any prefix, nor are the sets mutually exclusive. For one thing, all the Swahili noun class prefixes can be used productively to derive nouns from nominal, verbal and adjectival stems; therefore the membership of each noun class is open ended. Secondly, not all nominal stems are uniquely associated with a single noun class prefix: some stems may be used with more than one prefix, i.e. occur in more than one class, usually with a change of meaning. Some examples were illustrated in the last section; others are more productive. For example, there is a productive relationship between Class 3 (with prefix m2-) and Class 5 (with prefix ji/Ø) whereby a stem with the Class 3 prefix designates a plant and the same stem with the Class 5 prefix designates the associated fruit (e.g. m-papai “papaya tree” [Cl. 3], Ø-papai “papaya fruit” [Cl. 5]). These two classes thus overlap partially in content. Despite the caveat, however, the majority of Swahili nominal stems do occur mainly in just one class (or pair of singular–plural classes), and the stems grouped together by virtue of their shared prefix (or in the case of prefixless Cl. 9/10, by virtue of their shared agreement pattern) form sets with varying degrees of internal semantic coherence. The most coherent set are the noun stems associated with Classes 1–2 (with prefixes m1- and wa- respectively), consisting entirely of nouns denoting animate beings, virtually all human. At the other extreme is Class 9/10 (undifferentiated for singular/plural). Class 9/10 is the

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‘residual’ class, which is semantically heterogeneous and houses the majority of foreign loanwords. It lacks a distinctive prefix and is alone among the Swahili noun classes in not being associated with any productive derivations. The remaining classes fall between these two extremes: although one would look in vain for a single semantic common denominator shared by all noun stems belonging to a given class, nevertheless each class shows a great deal of internal coherence, with nouns or groups of nouns related to one another either by shared semantic properties or by familiar principles of metaphoric or metonymic extension. In this section I will discuss only the singular classes whose markers have predictable plural counterparts, i.e. 3 (m2-, with plural mi- [Cl. 4]), 5 (ji-/Ø, with plural ma- [Cl. 6]), and 7 (ki-, with plural vi- [Cl. 8]).16 Classes 11 (u-) and 6 (ma-), which have a more complex relationship to number, will be discussed in the next section. Class 3 (m2-, with plural mi- [Cl. 4]) contains nouns designating what I have called elsewhere “entities with vitality” (Contini-Morava 1994, 1997): living beings that are neither human nor animal (names of plants, trees, various spirits); inanimate entities that are animate-like in that they can move independently (active body parts such as m-kono “hand”, m-domo “mouth”, m-oyo “heart”, m-kia “tail”); natural phenomena that exist independently of human agency yet may affect the environment ( e.g. m-oto “fire”, m-to “river”, mw-ezi “moon”, m-lima “mountain”); and inanimate objects related to the above by shape (long thin things, which resemble plants/trees, such as m-piko “carrying pole”, m-sumari “nail”, m-tenge “canoe outrigger”), material (things made of plants such as m-fure “wooden platter”, m-keka “straw mat”, m-pira “rubber ball or tire”), or activeness (m-shale “arrow”, m-shipi “fishing line”, m-tepe “sailboat”). Class 5 (ji-/Ø, with plural ma- [Cl. 6]) seems to have two major semantic centers, both of which have to do with plant offspring: names of fruits and things that resemble fruits in shape (3-dimensionality, curvedness), and names of leaves and things that resemble leaves in shape (broad, flat, curved). In conformity with the ‘plant offspring’ motif, Class 5 is also used to designate an individual member of a pair or collective (e.g. Ø-koshi “slipper”, hindi “single grain of maize”). Possibly by extension from the motifs of 3-dimensionality and increase/growth (characteristic of fruits), the Class 5 prefix is also used productively to form augmentatives from noun stems of any class (e.g. m1-tu “person” [Cl. 1]/ji-tu “giant” [Cl. 5], ki-tabu “book” [Cl. 7]/Ø-tabu “large book, tome” [Cl. 5]). The main operative dimension of Class 7 (ki-, with plural vi- [Cl. 8]) is smallness of size: it contains names of utilitarian artifacts small enough to be held and manipulated by a human agent (e.g. ki-kapu “basket”, ki-ko “pipe”, kikombe “cup”); small animals (e.g. ch-ura “frog”, ki-duku “duiker” [a dog-size

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gazelle], ki-diri “squirrel”); small body parts (ki-dole “finger/toe”, ki-tovu “navel”, ki-wele “nipple, udder”). By association of smallness with immaturity: ki-daka “coconut in first stage of growth”, ki-jana “a youth”, ki-gole “girl of almost marriageable age”. By association of smallness with part of a whole: kipande “piece”, ki-banzi “splinter, chip”, ki-nofu “scrap of meat”. By association of not-wholeness with defect or lack: ki-pofu “blind person”, ki-lema “cripple”, ki-bahaluli “foolish person”, names of various ailments. Partitiveness may be metaphorically extended to resemblance, viewed as partial overlap in nature: kisukari “very sweet banana” (cf. sukari “sugar”, Cl. 9), ki-mulimuli “firefly” (cf. -mulika “shine” [verb]). The Class 7 prefix is productively used to derive diminutives from noun stems of any class (e.g. m1-toto “child” [Cl. 1]/ki-toto “small child” [Cl. 7]).17 For readers interested in a bit more detail than was given above, here is a diagram of the semantic structure of Class 5 (ji-/Ø), from Contini-Morava (1994), showing relationships among the various subcategories in the class and example nouns for each. The diagram borrows some conventions from Langacker (1988) for representating semantic relationships: solid lines represent relationships of ‘schematicity’, in which one element is an ‘elaboration’ or ‘instantiation’ of another; dotted lines represent relationships of metaphoric or metonymic extension. Double lines represent productive formations (this last convention is borrowed from Zubin 1995). (8)

a.

A semantic network for Class 5 (ji ~ Ø), from Contini-Morava 1994: Individual from pair/bunch/collective

Lumps/lumpy substances Plant offspring Protrusions

Fruits

Leaves

Curved 3-dimensional objects

Curved flat objects

Swellings

Curved outlines

3-dimensional containers Things with broad parts

Large things Hollow spaces Revered/feared things

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b.

Examples of nouns in Class 5 subcategories [Note: Words preceded by asterisks are loanwords.]

lumps/lumpy substances kumbwe vumbu *shata poroja jivu povu tumbawe

food mouthful lump in flour lees of coconut oil porridge or similar ash bubble froth unconsolidated coral

Protrusions tako shavu taya shungi tango tawi kole shina tengo *jabali *jukwaa

buttock cheek biceps, calf jaw plait of hair eaves of house bough, branch coconut palm branch root/stem of tree canoe outrigger cliff, jutting rock stage, scaffold

korongo kuo

water-channel furrow, trench

Fruits tunda fruit most specific fruit names Curved 3-dimensional objects jiwe kaa yai ini kende tumbo konde ziwa jicho sikio ua wingu

stone lump of charcoal egg liver testicle belly, womb closed fist breast eye ear flower cloud

3-dimensional containers Swellings jipu kaka kororo lengelenge tezi

boil, abscess whitlow swelling in throat blister, pustule tumor, goiter

Hollow spaces pengo shimo koongo kwapa

gap, notch, hole pit, hole, cavity hole for seeds armpit

koo rumbi kopo pakacha *jamanda *sanduku toza kaka kununu kumbi

throat large jar metal can fish/fruit basket round covered basket box, chest, trunk pipe bowl empty shell empty grain husk fibrous plant sheath

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

Leaves jani kaa kuti tapa

Curved outlines leaf, grass blade tree frond coconut leaf palm leaf

Curved flat objects ziwa kaa panja para kope tanga *jasi

lake, pond, marsh the palate temples (of head) bald patch on head eyelid/eyelashes sail of vessel round ear ornament

Large things A stem from any class can be placed in Cl. 5, with resulting meaning ‘augmentative’, e.g. m-tu “person” (1) → ji-tu “giant” (5) Fully productive. Individual from pair/bunch/ collective *koshi slipper *hindi grain of maize kombamoyo roof rafter pole kara splinter, spark, piece pacha twin

4.

15

tao kota pambizo timbi *pochi tinda

arc, bend in river crook, bend margin, outskirts bracelet bangle string of beads worn around neck

Things with broad parts jembe kafi kasia kolego panga paranga shoka tezo

hoe paddle, small oar oar spade, shovel machete broad-blade knife axe adze

Revered/feared things koikoi zimwi *shetani *jini *juju *kaburi *ziara

kind of evil spirit goblin, obre demon, devil djinn (Muslim spirit) Gog (comes on Judgment Day) grave, tomb tomb, pilgrimage

Reanalysis of the number system

In the last section we looked at the principles of semantic classification underlying the various noun classes. However, the noun class prefixes are usually

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described as conveying information about number in addition to classifying nouns. I now (re)turn to the question of number. Based on the data outlined in Section 2, we could divide the Swahili noun class prefixes into two groups as follows: (9)

Relationships among the noun class prefixes: a. paired prefixes, i.e. ones regularly associated with a set of noun stems such that the alternation between prefixes conveys the messages ONE and MORE THAN ONE respectively, in relation to the associated noun stem. These are 1/2 (m1-/wa-), 3/4 (m2-/mi-), 7/8 (ki-/vi-), and 5 (ji- ~ Ø). Examples: m1-toto/watoto “child/ren”, m2-ti/mi-ti ”tree/s”, ki-kapu/vi-kapu “basket/s”, ji-we/ma-we “stone/s”. The first three sets of prefixes may be called “reciprocally paired” in that for any noun stem in the singular class there exists a corresponding stem in the plural class and vice versa. On the other hand, Class 5 (ji- ~ Ø) is non-reciprocally paired: for any Cl. 5 singular there exists a plural form in Class 6, but the reverse does not hold. Another way of putting this would be to say that m1-, m2-, ki-, and ji- always convey the idea of “one”, wa-, mi- and vialways convey the idea of “more than one”. b. non-paired prefixes, i.e. ones that may interpreted as conveying number information when they alternate with a different prefix, but which are also associated with a significant number of noun stems for which no alternation is possible. These are the prefixes ma- (Class 6) and u- (Class 11).18

Ma- (Class 6) is interpreted as “plural” when it alternates with ji- (Class 5) and sometimes when it alternates with u- (Class 11), e.g. ji-we/ma-we “stone/s”, u-tiko/ma-tiko “roof ridge/s”; as “collective” when it alternates with absence of a prefix (Cl. 9/10), e.g. karatasi/ma-karatasi “paper/papers (collective)” and sometimes when it alternates with u- (as in the examples listed under 5). When there is no alternation, ma- indicates a liquid, mass, collectivity or other nonenumerable entity (as illustrated in 2). That is, the scope of ‘number’ meaning of ma- ranges from simple plurality (replicated individuals, e.g. ma-we “stones”), through collectivity (a set of individuals forming a greater whole, like Hirtle’s (1982) ‘internal plural’ or the ‘semantic integrality’ of the Hebrew dual (Tobin, this volume), e.g. ma-sakasaka “tree debris”), to liquid or mass not composed of separate individuals (e.g. ma-futa “oil”, ma-komba “millet flour gruel”). U(Class 11) is interpreted as “singular” when it alternates with either absence of a prefix (Class 9/10) or ma- (Class 6) (examples in 1 and 5); when no alternation

17

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

exists, u- indicates a liquid or mass, especially viscous or congealed substances, or an abstraction (illustrated in 3). That is, the scope of ‘number’ meaning of uranges from singularity (single individuated entity, e.g. u-nywele “strand of hair”), through abstract entity (u-ima “uprightness”) to liquid or mass, especially congealed (e.g. u-ki “honey”). Finally, noun stems that lack a prefix (those belonging to Cl. 9/10) are usually interpreted as “plural” when a contrasting form exists with u- (Class 11) — but there are exceptions, as shown in (6) and (7) above. Otherwise Cl. 9/10 nouns can be interpreted as either “singular” or “plural” depending on the context, including accompanying grammatical agreement pattern. Taking into consideration the data summarized above, one could revise the rendition of Swahili singular–plural pairings as follows: (10)

11

Table 2. Swahili singular–plural patterns (revised)

1

m1-

2

wa-

3

m2-

4

mi-

7

ki-

8

vi-

5

ji- ~ Ø

6 ma(and pl. tantum)

u(and sing.. tantum)

9/10

no prefix

In this table, the double-sided arrows indicate ‘reciprocal’ classes, i.e. classes for which the same stems that co-occur with the singular prefix may also be found with the plural prefix, and vice versa. One-sided arrows indicate lack of reciprocity: not all noun stems co-occurring with a given singular prefix also co-occur with a plural prefix, or vice versa. Based on the relationships of pairing summarized in (9) and (10), and on the

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interpretations of the non-paired prefixes both when they may alternate with other prefixes and when they do not, it looks as if a simple division between prefixes meaning “one” and those meaning “more than one” works consistently only for the classes listed under (9a), the ones I have called ‘paired’. The prefixes listed under (9b) on the other hand do not seem to categorize entities in the same way. The prefix u- (class 11) shows a “weighting” in favor of a relatively homogeneous entity that may or may not be a delimited thing. The prefix ma- (class 6) shows a “weighting” in favor of relatively dispersed entities that range from replicated individuals, collectivities, and particulate masses to non-delimitable masses or liquids. Thus u- and ma- overlap in part, in that each may be used with noun stems denoting liquids or masses that do not show singular–plural alternation. However, they differ in that u- never designates a set of replicated individuals, and ma- never designates a delimited, singular entity. This is what I mean by “weighting”. Finally, absence of a prefix (membership in Cl. 9/10) does not convey explicit number information. A noun in Cl. 9/10 may be interpreted as “singular” or “plural” depending on context, or depending on whether the same noun stem may co-occur with a different noun class prefix that suggests a specific number classification. If the contrasting prefix is u- (Cl. 11), then the prefixless form is likely to be interpreted as “plural”; if the contrasting prefix is ma- (Cl. 6), the prefixless form is likely to be interpreted as “singular”. In order to account for the difference in distribution between the prefixes listed under (9a) and those listed under (9b), I propose the following analysis: (11)

System of DEGREE OF INDIVIDUATION

ONE m1- (1), m2- (3), ji- ~ Ø (5), ki- (7) MOST INDIVIDUATED MORE THAN ONE wa- (2), mi- (4), vi- (8) LESS INDIVIDUATED u- (11) LEAST INDIVIDUATED ma- (6) According to this analysis, number as expressed by the Swahili noun class prefixes is a scale of individuation rather than a binary opposition between “singular” and “plural”.19 What I mean by ‘individuation’ is relative discreteness, homogeneity, boundedness in space. The term ‘individuation’ intentionally lumps together conceptual areas that have sometimes been distinguished. For example, Talmy (1988) makes a distinction between ‘plexity’, (“a quantity’s state of

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

19

articulation into equivalent elements”), typically associated with the grammatical category of number; ‘boundedness’ (demarcation as an individuated unit entity vs. indefinite continuation), typically associated with the ‘mass/count’ distinction; and ‘state of dividedness’ (“a quantity’s internal segmentation”), a conceptual area seen mainly in interaction with others. However, he also points out that these categories often intersect, and in fact he cites some of the same examples in illustration of more than one of them (e.g. the English lexical item water is both unbounded and continuous; furniture is both multiplex and divided). In Swahili, lexical items with all of these properties may be found in a single noun class. For example, the ma- prefix (Class 6), illustrated in (2) above: ma-we “stones” (multiplex, divided), ma-ji “water” (unbounded, continuous), ma-sizi “soot” (unbounded, divided) and so on.20 The concept of ‘individuation’ has been used by others in reference to number as a grammatical category, sometimes in ways that look very similar to the above analysis. For example, Mufwene (1980a) suggests an analysis of Lingala, a Bantu language, in which he argues in favor of replacing the singular– plural opposition by an opposition between individuated vs. non-individuated. However, his main concern in this paper is with relations of relative markedness in connection to language universals: he argues that in Lingala ‘individuated’ is the marked category, contrary to Greenberg’s (1966) universal about markedness of plural in relation to singular. In a later paper, Mufwene (1981) proposes a scale of individuation to replace the traditional binary singular–plural opposition, using data from several languages including Lingala. But his scale, unlike the one proposed above, is not an analysis of either lexical or morphological units of any particular language, but rather of noun phrases in general. The semantic interpretation of a noun phrase in discourse context is a matter of parole, not langue: it derives from a combination of lexical, morphological, syntactic and pragmatic information. By contrast, the analysis in (11) focuses on the information signalled specifically by the noun class prefixes of Swahili (langue, in the sense of information associated with particular linguistic signals that remains constant across speakers and discourse contexts). To return to the present analysis then: the most individuated entities are concrete objects, people, plants, animals and the like. The least individuated entities are particulate masses such as ashes, gravel, debris, and collectives such as utensils (makolokolo). Collectives are both non-homogeneous and spatially unbounded. Somewhere in the middle are liquids like milk, water, and oil, and masses of fine particles like flour, which do not have fixed outlines and so are relatively non-discrete, but which are also relatively homogeneous internally. Pluralities, or groups of replicated individuals like “trees” or “baskets”, could fit

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ELLEN CONTINI-MORAVA

at either end of the scale. From the point of view of replication they fit in with highly individuated entities: each member of a plurality conserves its own discreteness. From the point of view of homogeneity and boundedness in space however, the plurality itself is non-homogeneous and relatively unbounded: it consists of a set that is in principle open-ended. A plurality could therefore be regarded as relatively non-individuated, in comparison to a single individual.21 It may be helpful to represent the relationships of the various noun classes to the individuation continuum by means of a diagram: (12) concrete individual

Continuum of individuation, showing range of Swahili noun classes: abstraction

liquid or continuous mass

mass of collectivity homogeneous particles

m1- (1), m2- (3), ji~0/ (5), ki- (7)

replicated individuals

wa- (2), mi- (4), vi- (8)

u- (11) unywele wima uki “hair strand” “uprightness” “honey”

unga “flour”

ma- (6) maisha “life”

mafuta “oil”

masizi “soot”

masakasaka mawe “tree debris” “stones”

[Cl. 9/10 nouns, outside the system of individuation, can fall anywhere on this scale depending on discourse context or existence of contrasting forms in other classes.]

As shown by the diagram, the noun class prefixes described earlier as ‘paired’ indicate the highest level of individuation, and the vast majority of noun stems in these classes designate concrete objects, people, etc., as summarized in Section 3 above. These kinds of entities, being highly individuated, can also be counted, so the distinction between ONE and MORE THAN ONE is located at these two ends of the diagram, associated with the singular and plural noun class prefixes respectively. The other noun class prefixes, on the other hand, do not indicate number information explicitly. U-, the prefix of Class 11, signals a middle level of individuation. Noun stems associated with this prefix may designate entities that are relatively individuated, such as u-nywele “strand of hair”, as well as ones that are relatively non-individuated, such as abstractions, masses, or viscous substances. These latter are not easily countable and so do not alternate with any prefix that would indicate ‘singularity’ or ‘plurality’. Since u- can never refer to a set of replicated

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

21

individuals, it is interpreted as relatively individuated, i.e. as singular, when it alternates with a different prefix (ma-) or with absence of a prefix (Cl. 9/10). Ma- (Cl. 6), at the bottom of the scale of individuation, is associated with particulate masses and collectivities, as well as with pluralities which, as mentioned earlier, can be regarded as relatively non-individuated in that they are externally unbounded. Since ma- can never be interpreted as referring to a single, bounded individual, it is available as a pluralizer, often with connotations of collectivity, for noun stems in classes that are not associated with a specific “corresponding plural” class. This includes those of class 5, whose prefix ji- ~ Ø indicates a high level of individuation and singular number, yet has no unique “corresponding plural”. It also includes some countable nouns of class 11, discussed earlier. And it includes the prefixless nouns of class 9/10, which otherwise cannot distinguish number at all, as illustrated in (4).22 Class 9/10, which has no distinctive prefix of its own, is neutral to the scale of individuation. This neutrality in relation to number reflects the status of Class 9/10 as ‘residual’ category for the noun class system as a whole (mentioned in Section 3). And because of its neutrality, a noun stem in Cl. 9/10 can be used to suggest a message that contrasts with that implied by the prefixes u- (Cl. 11) and ma- (Cl. 6) respectively. Thus as illustrated in (5) in Section 2, for some sets of noun stems showing this three-way contrast the stem carrying u-–which suggests some degree of individuation — conveys the message “one” (e.g. ushanga “bead”); the stem carrying ma-–which suggests a low degree of individuation — conveys the message “plural as collectivity” (e.g. mashanga “string of beads”); and the prefixless stem conveys the message “plural as replicated individuals” (e.g. shanga “beads”). The specific number messages associated with these different class affiliations depend in part on the lexical meaning of the stem, however. As shown by the examples in (6) and (7) in Section 2, some lexical meanings lend themselves to a finer-grained set of distinctions along the singular–plural continuum. The two alternatives chosen to express plurality for countable nouns in Class 11 are both consistent with the analysis under (11): ma- (Cl. 6), the prefix at the lowest end of the scale of individuation, is appropriate because a plurality is less individuated than a single entity, and lack of prefix (i.e. membership in Cl. 9/10), is appropriate because a Cl. 9/10 noun can be interpreted as relatively unindividuated, i.e. as MORE THAN ONE, when it is opposed to the more explicitly individuated u-. The fact that some u- (Cl. 11) nouns have plural counterparts in Cl. 9/10 and some in Cl. 6, whereas other u- nouns have no plural at all, may be seen as historically motivated. As mentioned in Note 4, the Swahili u- class is a merger of two classes that were historically distinct, *lu-

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ELLEN CONTINI-MORAVA

(Class 11) and *bu- (Class 14). In general, noun stems originally affiliated with *lu- have plural counterparts in Cl. 9/10; stems originally affiliated with *bueither have no plural or have a plural in ma- (Cl. 6). In view of this, one might be tempted to set up two homonymous singular u- classes, each with its “corresponding plural” class. However, such a move would not explain the noun stems that can have both types of plural with different interpretations (as illustrated in (5), Section 2), or the unusually large number of uncountable nouns in this class — whose class affiliation would become ambiguous since they have no plural forms. (Of course, it would also not explain the fact that neither Cl. 9/10 nor Cl. 6 is uniquely paired with u-.) The class merger itself, though usually explained in phonological terms (e.g. Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993: 349–50), may well have had semantic motivations (Contini-Morava 1997: 614).23 The allocation of nominal stems to classes in Swahili reflects the scale of individuation just proposed. The table under (13) below shows the distribution of nouns denoting collectives, liquids, and masses, among the various Swahili noun classes, in my noun database. (13)

Class Class Class Class Class Class Class

Table 3. Percentage of nouns in each class denoting entities that are not easily countable (collectives, liquids, masses).

1 (m1-) 3 (m2-) 7 (ki-) 5 (ji-/Ø) 9/10 (no pfx.) 11 (u-) 6 (ma-)24

Countable

Not countable

Total

100% .00(335) 097% .00(829) 096.5% 0(633) 096.2% 0(686) 089.4% (1261) 037% .000(97) 023.2% 00(33)

00 03% 000(26) 03.5% 0(23) 03.8% 0(27) 10.6% (149) 63% 00(165) 76.8% (109)

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

0(335) 0(855) 0(656) 0(713) (1410) 0(262) 0(142)

As may be seen from this table, the four classes at the top of the scale of individuation show the smallest number of non-countables, whereas the two classes at the lower end of the scale show the highest number. Somewhere in the middle is Class 9/10, which is neutral to the distinction of individuation. If the only organizing principle within the Bantu noun class system were a principle of binary pairing between singular and plural, we would expect non-countable nouns to be distributed randomly among the various classes. But Table 3 shows that this is not the case.

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

5.

23

Conclusion

It was pointed out in the Introduction that number is usually regarded as an inflectional category whereas gender is treated as a lexical category. The present discussion suggests that number in Swahili (and in Bantu more generally) does not fit neatly into the traditional distinction between ‘derivation’ and ‘inflection’. If an inflectional category must be fully productive, predictable, and constant in its semantic effects (see e.g. Bauer 1988: 13; Bybee 1985: 84; Matthews 1991: 52–3), then only the noun classes I have called ‘reciprocally paired’ could be regarded as inflectional. Noun stems with singular or plural counterparts in non-paired classes would have to be treated as lexically, not inflectionally related. That is, instances of apparent singular/plural pairing among such classes are just lexical stems that co-occur with different noun class prefixes. Thus number and gender are not so distinct as traditional accounts would make it appear, and perhaps it is no accident that they are signalled by the same morphology.25 The interpenetration between number and gender is not so surprising, given the cognitive and functional motivations for gender as a grammatical category. Gender itself fits somewhere between lexicon and grammar. Markers of noun class or gender share many properties of grammatical signs: they are obligatory, form a closed class, and give information about the lexical item to which they are attached. But they differ from typical grammatical signs like markers of case or tense in that they do not have the freedom to co-occur with any lexical item, but instead co-occur consistently with a particular set of lexical items. The reason for this is that markers of gender or noun class serve the discourse function of indexing nouns so as to facilitate co-reference with modifiers such as adjectives, demonstratives, and so on, by means of grammatical agreement.26 The indexing/ co-reference function of noun classification has semantic consequences as well as distributional ones: strictly from the point of view of indexing and coreference, a semantically arbitrary allocation of nouns to classes would do just as well as a transparent one. But for the language learner, the task of memorizing the class affiliation of thousands of nouns is made easier if there is at least some semantic coherence within each class. And in fact all such systems show considerable semantic motivation, especially if analyzed from a cognitivesemantic perspective that takes into account relations of metaphor and metonymy as well as strict taxonomic inclusion. As a mnemonic device for subdividing nouns into sets, noun class markers form a kind of super-lexicon, mediating between the lexicon proper (that is, noun stems) and grammar (the co-referencing function). Semantically, they group together nouns that share cognitively salient properties of entities such as human/

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plant/inanimate and so on, and related to this, physical properties like shape and size — whether long and thin, round, large or small etc. What I have suggested in this chapter is that number, or more properly, existence as a relatively individuated entity, is treated as a property by which entities can be classified for the purposes of reference in Bantu languages, and so is inseparable from the semantic content of noun class as a grammatical category for these languages.27

Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Erica García for her penetrating comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, which led me to rethink the whole analysis that is presented here. I have also benefitted greatly from the comments of my co-editor, Yishai Tobin. If the chapter has not become more coherent despite their best efforts, the fault is entirely mine.

Notes 1. The same point is made in more detail by Adouani (1993: 104), who argues that gender is “arbitrarily determined in langue” whereas number is contingent and provisional, hence a feature assigned to lexical units in discourse. 2. For discussion of some of the complexities involved in the analysis of the dual in Hebrew and in Slavic, see Tobin and Janda (this volume). 3. The definition of ‘noun class’ in Swahili depends on a combination of the prefix on the noun and a particular pattern of “grammatical agreement” on elements like demonstratives, possessives, etc. Prefixes that are homonymous, like those of Classes 1 and 3 (m-) and 9 and 10 (n~ Ø in the traditional analysis) differ in agreement pattern, hence are treated as different classes. 4. Class “11/14” in Swahili is a merger of the historically distinct *lu (=11) and *bu (=14) classes. For simplicity, this class will be referred to as “11”. Swahili has lost Classes 12 and 13, which exist in other Bantu languages. 5. I thank Erica García for stimulating this line of thinking about Cl. 9/10. 6. Carstens (1983: 154–5) formalizes binary pairing relationships by assigning each nominal stem to a gender, treating the prefixes as markers of number, and associating each gender with two prefixes, one for singular and one for plural. To account for the fact that Cl. 11 does not have its own plural prefix, she sets up a separate gender whose plural prefix is homymous with that of Class 10. She does not discuss any of the other asymmetries pointed out here, but presumably they would also have to be dealt with by setting up additional genders with partly homonymous number markers. Such a treatment does not lead to an explanation for the number asymmetries, but instead camouflages them under the guise of a binary number system. 7. The database consists of nouns listed in the Standard Swahili-English Dictionary (Johnson 1939), subcategorized according to a wide variety of semantic and morphological criteria. Though data entry is not yet completed, the coverage of all the classes is quite comprehensive. For details on the database project, including related theoretical issues, see Contini-Morava (1994, 1997).

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

25

8. The use of Class 6 as simultaneously the plural of Class 5 and as ‘pluralia tantum’ for liquids and masses is reconstructed at least to Proto Bantu (Meussen 1967, cited in Williamson 1989), and possibly even predates Bantu (Miehe 1991). 9. In this respect Mufwene’s (1981: 223) statement that mass nouns are “usually assigned the same class prefixes as the plural count nouns” in Bantu is not entirely accurate. 10. Ohly (1977: 28), using data from a different dictionary, reports that 68.7 % of nouns in the u-class are abstract. He does not distinguish between productively derived and “inherent” nouns in this class, however. 11. The use of ma- as pluralizer for noun stems in Classes 9, 11, and 14 in addition to 5 is a common phenomenon in Bantu, cf. Toporova (1987). 12. The examples in this chapter come from the electronic corpus of Swahili texts housed at the University of Helsinki. I thank the Department of African Studies for giving me access to this corpus, and Arvi Hurskainen in particular, for his help in using the corpus. 13. nyuta is an irregular form. If one assumes that the stem is -ta (based on comparison with uta and mata), then according to the canonical shape of Cl. 9/10 nouns with monosyllabic stems the Cl. 9/10 form should be *nta. However, a lexical item nta already exists in Cl. 9/10, with the meaning “wax”. This perhaps explains the apparent reanalysis of the present Cl. 9/10 stem as vowel-initial -uta, which according to the Cl. 9/10 pattern would be preceded by ny-. 14. These data suggest that rather than treating the Class 9/10 and 6 forms as “plurals” of nouns in Class 11, one could just as easily think of the Class 11 forms as “singularizations” of entities more commonly encountered as a plurality or collectivity. This point is made with reference to the Mbochi language as early as 1917 by Prat, cited in Grégoire (1994: 31); it is made more generally for Bantu by Meinhof (1948 [1967]: 47), and by Kadima (1969: 163). 15. An exception is Mufwene (1980a; 1981), but his goal is different from the present analysis. See further below. 16. Class 5 differs from the others to be discussed here in that it does not have a unique “corresponding plural”: as pointed out in the previous section, although noun stems in Class 5 form their plurals in Class 6, Class 6 is also used to pluralize nouns from some other classes as well as containing nouns that do not have singular forms. 17. Class 7 shows many characteristics that have been associated with diminutives cross-linguistically; see Jurafsky (1996). 18. Note that the distinction made here between ‘paired’ and ‘non-paired’ prefixes is not the same as the distinction, found in the scholarly literature on Bantu languages, between ‘two-class genders’ and ‘one-class genders’ (see e.g. Guthrie 1970 [1948]: 49–52). Such analyses treat all nouns that have separate singular and plural forms as instances of a ‘two-class gender’, and the ‘one-class genders’ consist only of nouns that do not show singular–plural alternation. The fact that some nouns assigned to a one-class gender are formally identical with nouns that are either “singulars” or “plurals” of two-class genders is treated as a matter of homonymy. Thus the a priori categories ‘singular’ and ‘plural’ take priority over the formal distinctions actually made in the languages at hand, and number as a category is not problematized. 19. Prefixless nouns, i.e. those in Cl. 9/10, do not participate directly in this system. Inferences of number for such nouns depend on context, as pointed out earlier. Thus Cl. 9/10 is ‘residual’ both in relation to the noun class system (see Section 3 above) and in relation to the number system. 20. The present analysis represents a kind of ‘plurality split’, a term coined by Smith-Stark (1974) to refer to a situation in which only some of the nouns in a language distinguish plural from

26

ELLEN CONTINI-MORAVA singular, whereas for other nouns the distinction is irrelevant. However the scale of individuation proposed in (11) does not fall neatly along the feature hierarchy suggested by Smith-Stark, which is similar to the familiar Animacy Hierarchy (Smith-Stark 1974: 665):

nouns +speaker

-speaker

+addressee

-addressee +kin

-kin +rational

-rational +human

-human +animate

-animate

According to Smith-Stark, the farther up the hierarchy a noun is located, the more likely it is that plurality will be marked. In Bantu however, human nouns may be found in almost all the classes, and only Classes 1/2 contain no inanimate nouns. Furthermore, Smith-Stark’s feature hierarchy does not distinguish between relatively individuated and unindividuated inanimates. The lack of fit with his hierarchy is presumably due to the close semantic interconnection between noun class and number in Bantu, a point I will return to below. 21. The semantic relationship between mass nouns and count-and-plural nouns has often been pointed out, see e.g. McCawley (1968); Mufwene (1980a; 1981); Talmy (1988); Langacker (1991). Selvik (1996) gives a cogent account of the ‘non-count’ semantics of Class 6 in Setswana, a Southern Bantu language. Talmy (1988: 203fn) offers the following description of the relationship between ‘plexity’ and ‘boundedness’: There seems to be a sequence of cognitive operations here in getting from a bounded to an unbounded quantity. Speculatively, the bounded quantity is first treated as a uniplex entity, it is then multiplexed, the resultant entities are conceived as spatially juxtaposed, and their boundaries are lastly effaced, thereby creating an unbounded continuum. Although it is not clear that one needs to view the conceptual relationship as involving a series of successive stages, Talmy’s observation is clearly relevant to the present point. 22. Given what has been said here about the semantics of ma-, it is not surprising that in pidgin varieties of Swahili, such as Kenya Pidgin Swahili, where there is extreme simplification of the noun-class/agreement system, ma- has become the only means of signalling plurality overtly for inanimate nouns (Heine 1973: 83). 23. Zawawi (1979: 53; 80) denies the existence of singular–plural class pairings 11–10 and 11–6 in Swahili. She states that apparent plurals of Cl. 11 nouns are actually plurals of nouns in Classes 9/10 and 5 respectively, and that Cl. 11 has no “corresponding plural”. Although not all pluralizeable Cl. 11 words actually do have singular counterparts in Cl. 9/10 or 5, I agree with Zawawi’s general point. 24. Only nouns listed in the dictionary as belonging to Class 6 are included in this count, not e.g.

NOUN CLASS AS NUMBER IN SWAHILI

27

nouns which form their plural with ma- (i.e. those whose singular forms are in Classes 5 or 11). The 23.2% of Class 6 nouns categorized as ‘countable’ are ones that indicate abstractions such as maisha “life”, madhumuni “intention”. Many of these are loanwords from Arabic. 25. For arguments in favor of number as a lexical category in Indo-European languages, see Beard (1982). 26. This function has been pointed out by several scholars, including Fodor (1959), Greenberg (1978), Zubin & Köpcke (1986), Contini-Morava (1996), Otheguy and Stern (this volume). Other functions proposed in the literature include serving as a basis for nominal derivation (Mufwene 1980b), and serving to indicate that a noun is referential by emphasizing its membership in a more inclusive, basic-level category (Claudi 1997). 27. The semantic relationship between number and gender is also pointed out by Danon-Boileau (1993), though not in reference to Bantu: …on peut aussi penser le nombre comme une catégorie permettant d’opposer d’emblée les notions qui relèvent du dénombrable à celles qui relèvant de l’indénombrable. Ainsi consideré, le nombre devient préalable à la construction de la référence. Une sorte de genre, pour tout dire… Envisagé comme un genre, le nombre devient alors l’indice du “grain” de la notion à laquelle il s’applique: un notion indénombrable comme courage est de grain uniforme, une notion dénombrable comme homme d’un grain variable, qui peut être accidenté et pluriel (Tous les hommes sont mortels) ou uniforme et singulier (L’homme est un loup pour l’homme).” (1993: 123) […one could also think of number as a category that makes it possible to directly contrast notions pertaining to the denumerable to those pertaining to the indenumerable. Thus considered, number becomes a prerequisite for the construction of reference. A kind of gender, so to speak… Regarded as a gender, number then becomes an index of the “grain” of the notion to which it applies: an indenumerable notion such as courage has a uniform grain; a denumerable notion such as man has a variable grain, which can be non-homogeneous and plural (All men are mortal) or uniform and singular (Man is a wolf for man). Translation mine, ECM.]

References Adouani, Abdellatif. 1993. “Fonctionnement Linguistique du Genre et du Nombre en Français”. Travaux de Linguistique 26.103–108. Bauer, Laurie. 1988. Introducing Lingustic Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Beard, Robert. 1982. “The Plural as Lexical Derivation”. Glossa 16:2.133–148. Bleek, W.H.I. 1862–69. Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. London: Trübner. Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology: a Study of the Relation Between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Carstens, Vicki. 1983. “On Nominal Morphology and DP Structure”. Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar ed. by Sam A. Mchombo, 151–180. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications. Claudi, Ulrike. 1997. “Some Thoughts on the Origin of Gender Marking, or Wings Were not Developed for Flying”. African Linguistics at the Crossroads: Papers from Kwaluseni ed. by R.K. Herbert, 63–74. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1994. “Noun Classification in Swahili”. Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, Research Reports, 2nd Series. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia. On World Wide Web at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/ swahili/swahili.html ———. 1996. “‘Things’ in a Noun-class Language: Semantic Functions of Agreement in Swahili”. Toward a Calculus of Meaning, ed. by Edna Andrews and Yishai Tobin, 251–290. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1997. “Noun Classification in Swahili: A Cognitive-Semantic Analysis Using a Computer Database”. African Linguistics at the Crossroads: Papers from Kwaluseni ed. by Robert K. Herbert, 599–628. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. Corbett, Greville. 1991. Gender. Cambridge University Press. Corbett, Greville, and Marianne Mithun. 1996. “Associative Form in a Typology of Number Systems: Evidence from Yup’ik”. Journal of Linguistics 32.1–17. Danon-Boileau, Laurent. 1993. “Le Pluriel dans l’Ensemble des Opérations Constitutives de l’Énoncé: Dénombrement, Pluriel, Singulier”. Faits de Langues 2.117–130. Evry: presses universitaires de France. Doke, C.M. 1967. The Southern Bantu Languages. London: Dawsons of Pall Mall. Fodor, Istvan. 1959. “The Origin of Grammatical Gender”. Lingua 8:1.1–41; 186–214. Greenberg, Joseph. 1966. Language Universals with Special Reference to Feature Hierarchies. The Hague: Mouton. ———. 1978. “How does a Language Acquire Gender Markers?” Universals of Human Language ed. by Joseph Greenberg, vol. III, 4–81. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Grégoire, Claire. 1994. “A Diachronic Approach to Classes 10 and 11 in Bantu with Special Reference to North-Western Languages”. Papers of the Berkeley Linguistic Society 20.21–34. Guthrie, Malcolm. 1948. “Gender, Number and Person in Bantu Languages”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies XII:3–4.847–856. (Reprinted in Collected Papers on Bantu Linguistics, 47–56. Farnborough: Gregg, 1970.) ———. 1967–71. Comparative Bantu. Farnborough: Gregg. Heine, Bernd. 1973. Pidgin-Sprachen im Bantu-Bereich. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Herbert, Robert. 1978. “Morphological Re-analysis in the Bantu Nasal Class”. African Studies 37:1.125–137. Hirtle, Walter. 1982. Number and Inner Space. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Hussein, Ebrahim N. 1969. Kinjeketile. Dar es Salaam & Nairobi: Oxford University Press.

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Johnson, Frederick. 1939. A Standard Swahili-English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Jurafsky, Dan. 1996. “Universal Tendencies in the Semantics of the Diminutive”. Language 72:3.533–578. Kadima, Marcel. 1969. Le Systeme des Classes en Bantou. Leuven: Vander. Kezilahabi, E. 1974. Kichwamaji. Nairobi: Typography Ltd. Langacker, Ronald. 1988. “An Overview of Cognitive Grammar”. Topics in Cognitive Linguistics ed. by B. Rudzka-Ostyn, 3–48. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar vol. II. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Lemki, Mark. 1976. Maskini Yarabi. Dar es Salaam: East African Literature Bureau. Matthews, P. H. 1991. Morphology. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press. McCawley, James. 1968. Review of “Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 3: Theoretical Foundations”, ed. by Thomas Sebeok. The Hague: Mouton, 1966. Language 44.556–93. Meeussen, A.E. 1967. “Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions”. Africana Linguistica 3 (=Annalen van het Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika 61.79–121). Tervuren. Meinhof, Carl. 1948. Grundzüge einer Vergleichenden Grammatik der Bantusprachen. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin. (Repr., Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1967.) Miehe, Gudrun. 1991. Die Präfixnasale im Benue-Congo und im Kwa. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Mohamed, Said A. 1990. Tata za Asumini. Nairobi: Longman Kenya. Mufwene, Salikoko. 1980a. “Number, Countability and Markedness in Lingala LI-/MANoun Class”. Linguistics 18.1019–1052. ———. 1980b. “Bantu Noun Class Prefixes: Inflectional or Derivational?” Papers from the 16th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 246–258. ———. 1981. “Non-individuation and the Count-mass Distinction”. Papers from the 17th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 221–238. Nurse, Derek and Thomas Hinnebusch. 1993. Swahili and Sabaki: a Linguistic History. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ohly, Rajmund. 1977. “Abstract Nouns within the System of Noun Class 14 in Swahili: Structural and Semantic Pattern of the u- Class (14)”. Kiswahili 47.15–35. Polomé, Edgar. 1967. Swahili Language Handbook. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Prat, J. 1917. Grammaire Mbochie et Dictionnaire. Rivière Alima, Congo français. Brazzaville: Mission Catholique. Robert, Shabaan. 1959. Insha na Mashairi. Dar es Salaam: Thomas Nelson & Sons. (Repr., 1971.) Selvik, Kari-Anne. 1996. Setswana Noun Classes: Conceptual Categories Marked by Grammar? Cand. Philol. thesis, University of Oslo. Senkoro, F.E.M.K. 1988. Ushairi. Dar es Salaam University Press.

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Smith-Stark, Cedric. 1974. “The Plurality Split”. Papers from the 10th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 657–671. Talmy, Leonard. 1988. “The Relation of Grammar to Cognition”. Topics in Cognitive Linguistics, ed. by B. Rudzka-Ostyn, 165–205. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Toporova, I.N. 1987. “Korrelaciya Klassov v Yazykax Bantu [Correlations among Classes in Bantu Languages]”. Imennyye Klassy v Yazykax Afriki ed. by N.V. Oxotina, 5–82. Moscow: Nauka. Williamson, Kay. 1989. “Niger-Congo Overview”. The Niger-Congo Languages ed. by J. Bendor-Samuel, 3–45. New York: Lanham. Yahya, Saad S. 1973. Pepeta. Nairobi: Kenya Litho Ltd. Zawawi, Sharifa. 1979. Loan Words and their Effects on the Classification of Swahili Nominals. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Zubin, David. 1995. “The Cognitive Typology of Nominal Classification Systems”. Handout of talk given at the Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado. Zubin, David and Klaus-Michael Köpcke. 1986. Natural Classification in Language: a Study of the German Gender System. Buffalo Cognitive Science Report No. 2, State University of New York at Buffalo.

Deixis and Noun-Classification in Pilagá and Beyond Pablo Isaac Kirtchuk Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

1.

Introduction

Pilagá is a language from the Guaykuruan family (Ge-Pano-Caraib according to Greenberg 1987) spoken by some two thousand people in the Argentinian part of the Gran Chaco, the great plain extending from NE Argentina through W Paraguay to SE Bolivia. This arid and hot alluvial lowland is regularly flooded by summer rainfall, vast parcels of savannah often becoming swampy from December to April. Its forests of Quebracho colorado (Schinopsis balansae and Schinopsis Lorentzii) constitute the world’s largest reservoir of tannin, indispensable for dyeing leather. The low density of the Gran Chaco human population is inversely proportionate both to its bio-diversity and to what we shall call its glotto-diversity: the variety and quantity of this region’s flora and fauna are quite comparable to the amazing variety of languages spoken there, each of them by a very reduced number of people. A field study carried out in several periods in the late eighties and early nineties1 led us to an interest in a particular realm of Pilagá structure closely related to pragmatics and lexicon, which involves both deixis and noun-classification. In this language, those functions seem to share the same set of morphemes, raising the question of the relationship between them both. Therefore, this paper will not be limited to a discussion of data and their internal configuration in Pilagá, but take them as a point of departure to a crossand a general linguistic research of the narrow connection between these two linguistic functions which has been generally neglected,2 save in the work of Joseph Greenberg. Yet even he limits discussion to manifestations of what he symptomatically calls ‘gender’ (more often than ‘noun-classification’) and

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‘pronouns’ or ‘demonstratives’ (and not ‘deictics’), without exploring enough the cognitive aspect of these issues. It is our intention here to amplify the scope of discussion by deepening the investigation of those notions and the relationship between them. Before continuing, let us observe that Pilagá distinguishes the categories of verb and noun, on both morphological and syntactic criteria. Morphologically, nouns can be accompanied by gender, number and possessive affixes, whilst verbs can be affected by affixes of aspect and spatial direction. The noun is always preceded by a  — a nominal prefix which prima facie fulfils two functions, (eixis) and (ass-marking) — whereas the verbal root is preceded, always, by personal prefixes. Both verb and noun appear as an obligatory coupling of two elements, but there is a major syntactic difference between the resulting syntagms: since the verb is composed of a root and an obligatory first or unique actant3 mark, it is a nexus (Jespersen 1924), hence a sentence. That is not the case of the noun, no matter what affixes it bears. The unmarked order of elements is Subject-Predicate,4 whether the latter be verbal or nominal; if the sentence is verbal and the verb’s valency is higher than 1, the additional actants follow the verb.

2.

The morphemes

The morphemes are: /ða-/, /ðo-/, /ði-/, /\6-/, /so-/, /ga-/,5 functioning as nominal prefixes. They are proclitic except when in predicative structures, in which case they bear a main stress. A close study shows that they fall into two groups of equal number; the appropriate model as it emerges from the analysis will be presented in fine. For the time being, let us observe that, while both groups describe the spatial situation of the noun from the point of view of the speaker in a given context, the first one deals with dimensionality and statics, so to say, whereas the second deals with dynamics regardless of dimensionality. The number assigned to each morpheme from now on (1–6) obeys the proposed model. The abbreviation chosen for them () reflects their twofold character. We shall now proceed to present some formal aspects of the s’ behaviour, and then each of the six morphemes in their real linguistic environment, with examples tending to show their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic use.6 A short typological discussion will follow, and finally some tentative conclusions will be drawn.

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2.1 Syntax The  precedes the noun as in the following example:7 (1)

/ða-ep’jagajk ja-Rat ha-so-’bjagase/ 1-hunter 3-kill -5-wild goat “The (approaching) hunter killed the wild-goat”

Some elements, including possessive prefixes and quantifiers, may separate the noun from its . The order of elements is determined-determiner if the latter is predicative, but if it is attributive it may precede the noun and its . The  itself may be preceded by /ha-/, the mark of the (nominal) feminine gender, and very seldom by /he-/, an explicit and emphatic mark of the male sex of an animate (including plants), used mainly to insist and oppose it to a female one, in case they are both mentioned or to prevent ambiguity in that respect. Probably, /henho/ ‘here’ also includes /he-/, + /-n/ and /-ho/. The current way to mark the masculine, both when it refers to the grammatical gender of a noun and to the male sex of an animate is by a zero morpheme. Indeed, ‘gender’ is to be understood as a grammatical notion which may include reference to the sex of animates but is not restricted to it. Thus, what is commonly called ‘natural gender’ is a particular case of gender which is the grammatical reflex of the sexual distinction, and therefore does not apply to inanimates.8 What we have in Pilagá is gender (= grammatical), inasmuch as it is not limited to linguistic entities (nouns) whose referents are animate beings classed as either male or female but applies also to those whose referents are inanimates classed as being either masculine or feminine. Neutralisation of the  opposition obtains only when the noun is preceded by /ha-/ or /he-/ followed not by an explicit  but by /-n/ (henceforth N). This morpheme is not to be taken for anything like a mark of neuter gender: unlike Indo-European, for example, in which a noun like castellum entails a specific scheme of agreement which is neither (cf. etym. ne-uter) masculine nor feminine, but a “gender of the third kind” which cannot affect a noun like vicus () or terra (), Pilagá /-n/ can apply to any noun, provided its gender is mentioned, rendering classification and/or deixis distinctions inoperant. Yet as it only appears in the presence of either /he-/ or /ha-/, a constraint that does not affect other s, it does not seem to be entirely part of their paradigm. The  may be followed not by a noun but by one of two morphemes whose status is close to that of a copula:9 /-‘me/ (for animates) or /-ho/ (for inanimates), acquiring then a predicative status as in the following examples:

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(2)

(3)

/ði-ho emek/ 3-2 house “This is a house” /ha-ðo-‘me epaq/ -2-1 tree “This is a tree”

The canonic structure of the -Noun group and its complements may be presented as follows: [/]  [] + [ (Attr.)] + [] N [] 2.2 Semantics and Pragmatics 2.2.1 /ða-/ (1). Applies when the noun’s referent is a person approaching the speaker: (4)

/ha-ða-‘me ’tagae ni-’jomje \6-map R-i‘/ -1-1 drunk 3-drink 4-carob-sheath 3-must “This (approaching) woman is drunk because she drank carob-must”

when the noun’s referent is considered as a part of an approaching person: (5)

/ha-ða-’na‘t‘o nona‘t/ -1-hat round “The hat (of the approaching man) is round”

when the noun’s referent is an animal approaching the speaker: (6)

/ða-woj6m sa qa’jaga/ 1-ape not far “The (approaching) ape is not far”

when the noun’s referent is an inanimate beginning to appear in the speaker’s field of vision as a result of the speaker’s movement in space (an inversion of perspective which explains that ‘dynamic’ s may be assigned to intrinsically static realia): (7)

/wo ha-ða-epaq Rat’‘eðae wa‘a ði-’\atwe/ exist -1-tree big behind 3-river “There is a big tree (beginning to show) behind the river”

when the noun’s referent begins to approach the speaker’s field of vision on the time axis:

DEIXIS AND NOUN-CLASSIFICATION IN PILAGÁ AND BEYOND

(8)

35

/’‘on‘aj ha-ða-’waqtwi\i-pi/ beautiful -1-star- “The stars (about or just beginning to shine) are beautiful”

when the noun’s referent is a natural phenomenon affecting the speaker on the time axis: (9)

/wo ha-ða-’twogongajk/ exist -1-sleepiness “I’m getting sleepy”

2.2.2 /ðo-/ (DCL2). Applies when the noun’s referent is a standing person: (10)

/ðo-woðaja’jaten ja-’Rot-tak ha-ðo-epaq/ 2-woodcutter 3-fell- -2-tree “The woodcutter is felling a tree”

when the noun’s referent is a plant or a tree in a vertical position: (11)

/ha-ðo-napik haRkotte ha-ðo-haRa/ -2-carob tree many -2-fruit “The carob tree has plenty of fruit”

and when the noun’s referent is an inanimate in a vertical position: (12)

/ðo-qatwipe Raekawa/ 2-axe iron-made “The axe (leaning against the wall) is iron-made”

2.2.3 /ði-/ (DCL3). Applies when the noun’s referent is a person lying: (13)

/ði-’jakogojk ð-o’twe-tak/ 3-fisherman 3-sleep- “The fisherman is asleep”

when the noun’s referent is an animal lying: (14)

/ðo-nogotoR6k ja-nem so-haRoq ði-pjoq/ 2-child 3-give 5-food 3-dog “The child (standing) feeds the dog (lying down)”

when the noun’s referent is a reptile: (15)

/ði-nanajk twa’qajta/ 3-snake dangerous “The snake is dangerous”

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when the noun’s referent is a dead person or animal: (16)

/ði-’woRe ’so‘ote ja-Rew/ -eagle already 3-dead “The eagle is already dead”

when the noun’s referent is a water course: (17)

/ði-’\atwe haRkotte he-n ’\i‘jaq/ 3-river many -N fish “In the river there is plenty of fish”

when the noun’s referent is an inanimate in a horizontal position: (18)

/ha-ði-R-awa so-’majo Rat’‘eðae/ -3–3-feather 5-bird big “This feather (on the ground) is a large bird’s (moving away)”

(19)

/ði-pegaq R-’ke‘e weta’Rege ði-na’pjaqa/ 3-horse 3-simile upon -floor “The bicycle is lying on the floor”

when the noun’s referent is a piece of land, with or without constructions on it: (20)

/ði-’twako sa haRkotte ði-nojk/ 3-Chaco not many 3-village “In the Chaco there aren’t many villages”

(21)

/hajjem sa-ðaga ha-\6-’ketaq ði-’menagajk-pi/ I 1-bring -4-goat 3-trader- “I bring the goat to the marketplace”

(22)

/ði-’nonga ’Rt‘aðajk sa ‘e’nagam ði-nanaganqa/ 3-field large not like 3-garden “The field is larger than the garden”

2.2.4 /\6-/ (DCL4). Applies when the noun’s referent is a person seated, squatted or the like: (23)

/\6-sijagawa ja-’Rik-tak ha-n-haRa/ 4-man 3-eat- -N-fruit “The (seated) man is eating fruit”

(24)

/\6-’jakogojk n-’taRe ði-nogop/ 4-fisherman 3-wait 3-water “The fisherman (squatting) is waiting in the water”

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37

when the noun’s referent is a bird or a quadruped on their feet: (25)

(26)

/ha-\6-’ketaq ja-Rik he-n-awaqa-pi/ -4-goat 3-eat -N-grass- “The goat eats grass” /\6-‘me pjoq/ 4-1 dog “This is a dog (on its feet)”

when the noun’s referent is a completed construction: (27)

/j6m \6-emek/ finished 4-house “It’s finished, the house”

when the noun’s referent is a ‘heap’ of something: (28)

/\6-ho ‘a’Rewa/ 4-2 earth “This is a heap of earth”

when the noun’s referent is a celestial body: (29)

/’ðaRagajk \6-‘a’wogojk/ new 4-moon “It’s new, the moon”

(30)

/ha-\6-katena joqobi/ -4-sun yellow “The sun is yellow”

when the noun’s referent is a container: (31)

/sa ga’qatwijji ha-\6-tagaki/ not empty -4-bowl “The bowl is full”

2.2.5 /so-/ (DCL5). Applies when the noun’s referent is a person or part thereof moving away or having just left the speaker’s field of vision: (32)

/ha-so-jawo ja-’twe-tak so-no/ki weta’Rege -5-woman 3-carry- 5-parcel on so-R-qajk/ 5–3-head “That woman (moving away ) is carrying a parcel on her head”

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when the noun’s referent is an animal or a part thereof moving away or having just left the speaker’s field of vision: (33)

(34)

/ha-so-sa’wagajk ‘6k/ -5-lion gone “The lioness has gone” /ha-ði-R-awa so-majo Rat’‘eðae/ -3–3-feather 5-bird large “This feather (on the ground) is a large bird’s (already gone)”

when the noun’s referent is an inanimate moving away from the speaker’s field of vision as a result from one or the other’s movement in space: (35)

/so-pegaq R-’ke‘e ja-’kat-wo ði-nojk/ 5-horse 3-image 3-move- 3-village “The bicycle (litt. ‘horse-simile’) rides towards the village”

when the noun’s referent is an inanimate present in the speaker’s mind but moving away from it on the time axis: (36)

/’qantw‘e so-ta‘nki hoka‘Ri ja-‘wo ha-so-R-aqtaki/ then 5-Tanki yesteryear 3-make 5–3-drum “Then Tanki, yesteryear, made his drum”

when the noun’s referent is a process or event moving away from the speaker’s field of vision on the time axis: (37)

/so-ep’jagajk ja-Rat so-’sawagajk ha-so-mijogo/ 5-hunter 3-kill 5 puma -5-spear “The hunter killed the puma with his spear”

2.2.6 /ga-/ (DCL6). Applies when the noun’s referent is non-existent: (38)

/he-n-ho qa’ja‘te ga-paqaR/ -N-2 never 6-shadow “Here, there is never any shadow”

when the noun’s referent is missing: (39)

/he-n-ho ’o˜noR6k ’maRjega ga-sijagawa/ -N-2 one missing 6-man “Here, one man is missing”

or when it is of uncertain existence:

DEIXIS AND NOUN-CLASSIFICATION IN PILAGÁ AND BEYOND

(40)

2.3

DCLs’

39

/sa-’seRganik ha-ga tagaki/ 1-look for -6 bowl “I’m looking for a bowl” permutations

In order to show the total dependance of  assignment on the pragmatic context, let us look at some possible (and concretely tested) permutations: (41)

/ða-woj6m sa qa’jaga/ 1-ape not far “The (approaching) ape is not far”

(42)

/ðo-woj6m sa qa’jaga/ 2-ape not far “That ape (standing on its feet) is not far”

(43)

/ði-woj6m sa qa’jaga/ 3-ape not far “That ape (lying) is not far”

(44)

/\6-woj6m sa qa’jaga/ 4-ape not far “That ape (seated) is not far”

(45)

/so-woj6m qa’jaga/ 5-ape far “That ape (moving away) is far”

(46)

/he-n-ho qa’ja‘te ga-woj6m/ -N-2 inexist 6-ape “Here there are no apes” /\6-ho emek/ 4-2 house “This is a house (finished up)” /ðo-ho emek/ 2-2 house “This is a building” /ði-ho emek/ 3-2 house “This is a (half-built or half-demolished) house”

(47)

(48)

(49)

40

PABLO ISAAC KIRTCHUK

(50)

(51)

(52)

3.

/ha-ðo-‘me epaq/ -2-1 tree “This is a tree” /ha-\6-‘me epaq/ -4-1 tree “This is a tree (chopped and heaped)” /ha-ði-‘me epaq/ -3-1 tree “This is a (fallen) tree”

Discussion

Linguistic literature on nominal classification has made great progress in the last three decades. Among the most important collective works we may mention the Proceedings of the Symposium on the issue held in Paris in the late sixties (CNRS, 1967) and the one that took place almost twenty years later in Oregon (Craig, 1986). Two of the contributors dealing with fundamental issues are Allan (1977) and Dixon (1968, 1986). These works agree on defining noun-classification into ‘noun classes’ (as opposed to the one obtained by ‘classifiers’) as a grammatical mechanism consisting of several features: (a) it is a formal device applying to all of a language’s nouns without exception, which means that no noun, including loan-words, is free of it; (b) the class-markers are relatively few and in most languages do not exceed a score; (c) the list of markers is relatively closed, (d) they have, either synchronically or diachronically, a semantic basis; (e) they are obligatory under all circumstances, in other words the noun is always accompanied by a class-marker, and it is always the same; (f) very often, the class-markers are of deictic origin, and (g) they imply agreement, that is, the noun complements or at least some of them are affected by a matching classmarker (not necessarily identical formally; what is important is that there be an agreement scheme, be its formal marks what they may). As for nominal ‘classifiers’, they are grammaticalized lexemes that may apply but to a part of the language nouns (Allan 1977; Dixon 1986). As a matter of fact, classifiers are a completely different device and need not occupy us here. Thus far we have dealt with the formal aspect of the marking of nounclasses. Now this device also has a cognitive rationale — bearing in mind the work dealing with categorisation from Rosch (1978) onwards — since noun-class marking divides all the nouns of language into categories according to cognitive

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41

parameters which vary from one language to another. It combines nouns which speakers consider to share a (set of) feature(s) salient enough to define the group as a class. Therefore noun class marking first unifies all members of a group, and then differentiates that group from other groups of nouns in the language. This process is an example of linguistic economy: assigning a noun to a specific class via a formal mark also simultaneously conveys information concerning the salient feature(s) of the noun perceived by speakers as a function of the relevant parameters of the language to which that noun belongs. It is important to emphasize that both aspects, formal and cognitive, partake equally of the linguistic device called noun-classification. If we were to ignore either of these aspects of noun classification, we would no longer be doing linguistics but rather cognitive psychology, if we neglected the formal aspect, or a sort of generative speculation, if we were to focus on that aspect alone. Therefore treating as nounclass markers such things as derivational affixes, as some authors do, results from misunderstanding and provokes confusion: in that sense, all languages are classifying devices, since one of language’s main raisons d’être is that of classifying realia. Thus one could say, for example, following Pottier (1975) that the Spanish nominal derivative suffixes -az- and -ad- are classifying morphemes, for they differentiate nouns meaning “a blowing hit”, cf. cabezazo, martillazo “a hit with the head/a hammer” (< cabeza “head”, and martillo “hammer”) and nouns meaning “a cutting hit”, cf. cuchillada, puñalada “a hit with a knife/a dagger” (< cuchillo, knife, and puñal “dagger”). To take another example, one could say that some prefixes and even roots in Slavonic are classifying morphemes, since they differentiate verbs and verbal nouns into perfective and imperfective aspects.10 Now although in both cases there is indeed some kind of classification, it is still inadequate to use the linguistic technical term ‘(noun-) classification’ in those contexts. This remark is necessary since an analogous one made by Keith Allan as early as 1977 does not seem to be getting all the attention it deserves, including in most recent works, even today. As for deixis, this domain also has made great progress in the past three decades. Among the most important collective works one could mention Weissenborn & Klein’s (1978), Jarvella & Klein’s (1982) and Danon-Boileau & Morel’s (1992), and among the individual ones KuryRowicz’s (1972). Yet in our opinion, as far as deixis is concerned, no theoretical work reveals deeper insight than Karl Bühler’s Sprachtheorie (1934). It appears from this powerful work, cognitive avant la lettre, that deixis is the first and primordial linguistic function, inasmuch as it is a condition both necessary and sufficient for communication. This can be carried out with nothing but deictic elements, in which case it is completely context-dependent, since it will take place and refer only to Bühler’s

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Zeigfeld, viz. the ‘monstrating field’ common to both hearer and speaker. On the other hand, communication entirely deprived of deixis and therefore taking place only in the Symbolfeld is impossible (van Schooneveld, inspired by Jakobson, shares this view) since the speaker lives as a particular individual, at a particular point in a three-dimensional space, at a particular point in time, and in a real world defined by those four dimensions, which also define each and every single communication act.11 Nevertheless, a linguist as illustrious as Martinet (1985: 127) holds possible this theoretically impossible and cross-linguistically non-exsistent situation since according to him “l’on peut imaginer une langue sans pronoms”. Sheer imagination is what it takes all right, inasmuch as in his terminology, as in that of all linguists from Dionysius Thrax and Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd century B.C.)12 to this day, the term ‘pronoun’ explicitly includes, among others, demonstrative and personal deictics. Reality, however — linguistic, cognitive, psychological — induces the consideration of the zero-point of speech as the meeting point of three groups of co-ordinates: personal (ego/tu, namely the reciprocal positions of speaker and hearer); spatial (hic, namely the speaker’s location in space) and temporal (nunc, namely the speaker’s position in time). This is not tantamount to imposing deixis as a definitional property on language; what we have been doing (1987, 1993, 1995) is corroborating Bühler’s psychologically rather than linguistically oriented theoretical work with factual evidence from various languages in a wide typological scope and according to several criteria including synchrony, diachrony, ontogenesis, phylogenesis and diaglottics (borrowings and loan-words), taking into account several levels of analysis: phonetic and phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. It emerges from this study that, at the pure linguistic level, the oldest and most central elements in any human language are deictics through which the speaker communicates in context, and indeed they are present in all languages. Among those deictic elements are some of the morphemes commonly called ‘pronouns’, including demonstrative and personal; it follows that they are not ‘pro-nouns’ at all, inasmuch as they are not substitutes for nouns, but the other way round, they precede nouns in virtually every respect. It is nouns that are ‘pro-pronouns’. Only when used as intra-discursive deictics — which traditional grammar and even modern linguistics to this day call anaphorics — are they ‘pro-nouns’ and ‘pro-nominal’, but that use is synchronically and ontogenetically secondary; diachronically and phylogenetically it emerges after their primordial function — deixis.13 It is also worth observing that those elements constitute a category of their own in all languages, not only syntactically but also morphologically and phonologically.14 The reason for those particularities is, probably, their place in the core of language’s structure. It would be interesting to see how

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43

linguistic schools that focus on anaphora deal with this phenomenon. In the light of these clarifications, we may now proceed to examine s in Pilagá with an increased terminological and conceptual awareness, which, as in other scientific debates, is of the utmost importance. s in Pilagá behave as class-markers as far as the first four features of the seven aforementioned are concerned (class markers constitute a formal device applying to all of a language’s nouns without exception; they are relatively few; their list is relatively closed, and they have, either synchronically or diachronically, a semantic basis). However, the fifth one is already problematic (the noun is always accompanied by a class-marker and it is always the same), since if it is true that in Pilagá every noun is always affected by a , it is not necessarily the same one in all circumstances. That is an essential feature which refutes their apparently classificatory nature, for each noun can be marked by any of the six morphemes, the decision being up to the speaker. Hence, classification of any given noun in this language is not fixed once and for all, but may change (as it does indeed) on grounds that are not grammatical and only secondarily are they lexical (in this sense, it appears that s in Pilagá are quite different from class-markers in Bantu, for instance, or, for that matter, from gender markers in Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic which are also class-markers, ultimately). Nevertheless, for a great many nouns one or another morpheme of the six may be considered as unmarked, as it affects the noun when it is out of context15; it is in this sense that they do play a classificatory rôle. As for the sixth feature (deictic origin), they seem to display it above and beyond its original intention: they are not only of deictic origin in diachrony, but behave as deictics in synchrony. Now as for the seventh and last feature (agreement), it is totally absent from these morphemes, since they entail absolutely no grammatical agreement whatsoever. They are grammatical morphemes all right, but have no grammatical influence on the complements of the noun they mark. In other words, those grammemes in Pilagá are not noun class-markers, since class-markers are grammemes applying to all of the language’s nouns, that also entail a system of agreement, which is by no means the case in this language. Yet, inasmuch as they apply to absolutely all the nouns in the language, including loan-words, they are clearly not nominal classifiers either. It is now clear that these morphemes are not class-markers, at least not originally in diachrony nor prototypically in synchrony. This should be enough evidence if not to prove, then at least to suggest that at the bottom of the matter there might be something else, not semantically or grammatically oriented. Some questions arise: if the classificatory rôle is secondary, what is the primary one? And if the decisive criterion for assigning a mark to a noun is not grammatical

44

PABLO ISAAC KIRTCHUK

and only secondarily is it lexical, what is the parameter according to which the speaker decides which morpheme to apply? The answer to the second question may elucidate the first one. From the evidence given above it appears that the decisive criterion for assigning a mark to a noun is pragmatic, and that the pragmatically oriented parameter is the perception and structuring of space from the speaker’s point of view. It is this function that the six morphemes fulfil in the first place, namely, in linguistic terms, a deictic function. Yet as it often happens, pragmatics may acquire more stable grammatical or lexical forms, yielding sometimes even frozen or obligatory elements: morphemes, co-occurrence rules, etc. (cf. also Heath 1991). It is this stabilisation that ultimately ends up as a grammatical obligation of assigning a deictic mark to each and every noun in the language even in non-deictic situations, viz. out of any concrete context: hence their mistaken interpretation as class-markers. Indeed, these morphemes are deictic, since they include “pointing at” as well as information about the noun’s situation in space relative to the speaker. In this sense they do not basically differ from demonstratives in other languages, which often point at the noun and at the same time provide information about its distance (spatial or otherwise) from the speaker and may also provide information about its sex (for animates) or gender: Spanish este, ese, aquel are fairly good examples. Yet such systems, topologically speaking, assign to the noun a static position, many languages displaying either a threefold system like Spanish, Quechua, Classical Arabic or Middle English, or a twofold one, like French, Hebrew or Modern English, positions being either proximal or distal (or inbetween), or close-to-speaker, close-to-hearer and close-to-none. However, in a system like Pilagá’s the topologically moving noun (viz., without taking into account whether it is the noun’s referent or the speaker that actually shifts) is assigned not a static but a dynamic position: moving towards the speaker, moving away from the speaker or absent from the speaker’s sight altogether. As for a static noun, the relevant parameters are dimensional: nouns are distinctively marked as saliently uni-dimensional vertical, saliently uni-dimensional horizontal or saliently three-dimensional. One could say also that static nouns are marked as being either parallel to earth or perpendicular to it, or as having an unmarked position in this regard (as for the sex/gender distinction, Pilagá also associates it to the s, but by way of what we could call — as a homage to Bantu linguistics — a pre-prefix). And that explains the use of the three ‘static’ or ‘dimensional’ s in Pilagá as class-markers even when the noun referent is out of deictic context: as a matter of fact, a class-marker represents an intermediate situation between, on

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45

one hand, the pure demonstrative, whose referent is unrestricted and depends only and totally on context, and on the other hand the noun, which has a meaning of its own, with no possible true synonymy and which is largely independent of context. Inasmuch as they represent an intermediate stage between wholly-context-dependent or unrestricted meaning and largely contextindependent or restricted meaning, class-markers illustrate the relevance of considering linguistic oppositions as being scalar rather than binary. The above explains Greenberg’s Universal n° 43, according to which “If a language marks the category of gender in the noun, it always marks it also in the pronoun”. First, in the light of all that has been said above, we shall reformulate it: “If a language grammatically marks the category of class in the noun, it always marks it also in the demonstrative deictic”. In other words, it is empirically shown that there are languages which mark class in the deictic system but not in the nominal one, whilst no language marks gender in the noun but not in the deictic system. This empiric statement may also be considered as a theoretical corollary of our previous discussion: if grammatical and pragmatic classmarking is a sub-product of deixis, so to say, it is consubstantial with deictics and not with nouns in the first place. Therefore, it is only logical that it be amalgamated with or affixed to deictics rather than to nouns. Grammatical class(Greenberg’s ‘gender’) marking in the noun is probably the result of the freezing of deictic demonstratives (Greenberg’s ‘pronouns’) in their intra-discursive (‘anaphoric’) use alongside those nouns. Greenberg (1977 and 1978a), although following a different path, proposes a similar scenario of which Pilagá seems to provide a good illustration. In some languages, demonstrative deictics may develop specific forms when applied to human beings or to animates in general, i.e. what is currently called ‘third-person pronouns’. The model proposed here for describing s in Pilagá differs both from Manelis-Klein’s (1979)16 and from Vidal’s (1997) account of the facts by the topological, typological and theoretical considerations underlying it. Neither is preoccupied with the meaning of the data they describe in Pilagá to general linguistics nor do they try to interweave them into a general linguistics plot, whilst the present study shows that those data are highly significant to general linguistics and allow both to confirm previous insights (like Greenberg 1977’s) and to develop new ones. But above all, both authors give a privileged status to the classificatory function of the morphemes discussed over the deictic one, whilst it is clear from the debate we have been holding so far that one should invert that relationship altogether. The phonetic and phonological approximation of Pilagá transcriptions previous to the present study does not deserve attention, though all sorts of reasons lead one to make as narrow a phonetic transcription

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PABLO ISAAC KIRTCHUK

and as exact a phonological analysis as one can. This model accounts for the fact that three static/dimensional s apply to spatial entities while the other three can apply also to temporal or notional realities. It does not deal with abstract concepts and their linguistic treatment in Pilagá. This would deserve further study indeed, but one should recall that the importance assigned in such a language to parameters such as spatial position, dimensionality, movement and direction (reflected also in the rich paradigm of verbal prefixes which remind the one found in Indo-European, cf. ex-, in-, trans-, etc.) is counter-balanced by the relatively little room it makes for concepts as such, which by definition have no positional or dimensional values. Mass-nouns seem to be classed according to their configuration in space in a particular place and time (water in a bottle is uni-dimensional vertical, while as a lake it is bidimensional horizontal if one refers to its surface and tri-dimensional if one refers to its depth, e. g. as a habitat; the same goes for a parcel of land or a heap of earth, etc.).17 PRESENCE ±spatial + spatial /ða-/ Uni-/Bi- Dimensional Tri-Dim. Vertical Horizontal /ðo-/ /ði-/ /\6-/

ABSENCE ± spatial + spatial /so-/ /ga-/

/-n/: element allowing neutralisation of these oppositions in the presence or /he-/ or /ha-/.

We have already mentioned other languages displaying similar devices. Indeed, it is not without interest to have a glance at classification-languages par excellence. Marconnes (1931, in Gregersen 1967) regards class-markers in Karanga as independent words which he calls articles, and which according to him stand in apposition with the noun. Guthrie (1948) follows the same path in saying that syntactically, there is no reason to consider one item in the chain ‘ + noun’ as being more important than another. In other words, in the Swahili sequence ki-su ki-refu (“-knife -long”) ki is not less “important” than su, and kirefu is not less “important” than ki-su. Thus, /ki-refu/ “[the countable, inanimate noun] long” can play the rôle of an actant, only in that case, ki functions as a deictic representing that actant. Yet that prefix, which plays the main rôle syntactically speaking, carries also a semantic burden, as proven by the gloss and as it follows from the fact that it is precisely ki, and no other mark, that “goes along” with su “knife” (in the singular). If Guthrie’s interpretation is right, then, in that sense, s in Pilagá behave somewhat as class-markers in Bantu, with

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47

the important difference that in Pilagá the semantic information they carry about the noun out of context is overridden by pragmatic information from the moment the noun enters a particular context. In other words, the deictic function takes precedence over the classificatory one. Thus, the unmarked  for /’mitwa/ “cat” is /\6-/, except if in a particular context the cat is lying, in which case its  will be /ði-/; if it is moving towards the speaker, its  will be /ða-/, and so forth. As far as any deictic element conveys determination, those morphemes act as pragmatic and syntactic definite articles as well. According to Guthrie, in Bantu there is no clear-cut distinction between demonstratives and class-markers: they are on the same continuum, both diachronically and synchronically. This may be the conclusion for Pilagá too. The function of the definite article is omitted not because it does not belong, quite the contrary: in all languages that possess a definite article, this article is the result of the specialisation of a deictic morpheme. To add this function as such in the present context would be pleonastic. A cross-linguistic, typological and theoretical study allowed us (1993) to generalize Marconnes’s and Guthrie’s views beyond the scope of Bantu.

4.

Conclusions

It appears now that the claim according to which the relevant morphemes in Pilagá mark nominal-class is inconsistent with the facts. They are deictics that may act also, under certain circumstances, as class-markers (let alone as definite articles). Deictic they are, since they mark the noun’s referent situation (dynamic or static) in regard to the speaker in a given pragmatic context. For this matter, they entirely fit into Bühler’s Zeigfeld. Three of them may also, secondarily, act as class-markers in the sense that they may function out of context, prefixed to the noun when it is in a state which the speaker considers unmarked, including ‘generic contexts’ (Greenberg 1977), e.g. as direct objects of negative statements, adverbial expressions, nominal predicates, generic verb objects or generic dependent genitives. Those s are the ones referring to salient dimension with no indication of movement. This suggests interesting inferences which are, of course, to be verified, but at least in Pilagá, dimension and position are primary to movement: a river is perceived as being a long horizontal surface, rather than a mass of water in perpetual flow. Does it mean that cognition grasps in the first place, or more easily, spatial static rather than dynamic configuration, i.e. position rather than movement? This would make sense since dimensionality is a property any concrete noun displays, be it static or dynamic, whereas entering or leaving the speaker’s field of vision requires an additional perception of

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movement.18 In this sense, movement is marked as compared with dimensionality, which leads to the following (relatively easy to check) hypothesis for a universal: If a language has deictics which indicate movement, it also has deictics which indicate position Anyway, communicative contexts display a whole range of contextual dependence, from entirely deictic to quasi-entirely non-deictic (it is impossible to have a communication act entirely deprived of deixis since all communication involves a “Je énonceur”, to say it with Bernard Pottier (1992), as well as a hearer, be it identical to speaker, inanimate, etc. Even God, when speaking to men, uses human language and is therefore bound to use deictic categories including person, time and place). Since they are human realities in their very essence, language is evolutive and languages are dynamic. Now the diachronic and phylogenetic order of appearance of deixis and nominal-classification across languages is known, and it is precisely that one. Pilagá confirms in its own way that this order also reflects in the morphemes which carry these functions synchronically.

Notes 1. Partially financed by the CELIA (Centre d’Etude des Langues Indigènes d’Amérique) of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Paris, and carried out with the logistic help of the CHACO (Centro del Hombre Antiguo Chaqueño), Las Lomitas, Argentina. Our gratitude also goes to the editors for their useful comments on a previous draft of the present paper, including both content and style. However, we alone are responsible for the final result. 2. As some of the conclusions drawn here are rather uncommon — e.g. the fact that pronous are not pro-nouns; the primacy of deixis over any other linguistic function, including nounclassification; the need to reformulate one of Greenberg’s universals; the pleonastic character of the concept ‘natural language’, etc. — we chose to include in the Bibliography some items which are not necessarily mentioned in the paper itself, but that contributed in nourishing the cross- and general-linguistic analysis leading to those insights. The present framework is not large enough, nor is it meant to treat those questions in detail; nonetheless, in order to follow the author, the reader should be able to consult the bulk of literature on the subject. This is why, preferring to take liberties with well-established traditions, we chose to establish this indicative Bibliography and not just an exhaustive list of References. 3. Tesnière’s terminology; the equivalent term in logic-inspired approaches is ‘argument’. 4. Current terminology in this respect from Greenberg (1963) onwards is confusing and we won’t use it. Subject and Object are parts of the sentence, whereas Verb is a part of speech. Therefore, stating that a language is SVO, SOV, etc. lacks coherence. It also fails to account for languages in which noun-sentences (= having a noun as the Predicate) are common, or in which the nounverb opposition is hard to find; the appropriate description is, ultimately, SP or PS (P = VN or NV). Besides, in a language like Latin, in an unmarked sentence like veni, vidi, vici, the verbal

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roots are ven-, vid- and vic-, while the grammatical subject is -i, yielding a “VS” order; if the sentence, equally unmarked, is mulier-e-m am-as, the order is “OVS”. True, the subject of both sentences is a dialogic person, viz. the first or the second one, but isn’t it the case of a large proportion of sentences in real communication? Moreover, even if the subject is a third person, it is part and parcel of the verbal nexus. And since the presence of the actant in the verbal complex is obligatory, whereas an external indication of it is, from a strictly grammatical point of view, merely facultative, the adjunction of such an element to the sentence does not render the subject explicit but emphatic. It follows that Latin is, by and large, a PS (“(O)VS”) language, which contrasts with most descriptions of it. This is not limited to Latin but concerns Neo-Latin as well, since only such an analysis allows to account for an important diachronic and synchronic difference between, say, French and Spanish. The latter remained faithful to Latin and is to this day a PS language: its unmarked sentence is of the type “am-o (a) N”, while the former inverted the Latin order and became an SP language, since its unmarked sentence is of the type “j’aime N” [Š-7m N] (the erstwhile free personal deictics became clitic and bound to the verb, their previous rôle being fulfilled by the oblique ones). The same kind of analysis applies, mutatis mutandis, to virtually every language which morphologically indicates subject in the verbal complex, let alone those that indicate in it other actants as well, e.g. incorporating languages like Nahuatl, Eskimo, Basque, etc. Incidentally, that is why, in a cross-linguistic perspective, the term “word-order” itself is inadequate. One could argue that Greenberg’s terminology applies only to the order of separate words in sentences with “unmarked” wordorder rather than to the order of word-internal morphological elements, but then what is the point of such an analysis if it only applies, in a small set of languages, to a small set of sentences, which, for that matter, are far from being unmarked? People do not speak morphology or syntax, they speak language, and if most communication even in non-incorporating languages dispenses with syntactically separate elements such as personal marks (thus conferring on them a pragmatic function when they do appear), then linguistic analysis should account for it and describe element-order as it really is. Diachronically, morphology is, by and large, a “frozen” version of syntax (in Givón’s well-known words Today’s morphology is yesterday’s syntax); synchronically, in our view, they constitute the two directions of one and the same continuum which goes from completely free to completely bound links between elements. Thus, the opposition between syntax and morphology is not binary but scalar. 5. The transcription given here is phonological. Phonetically, /R/ is de-velarized and palatalized when followed by /i/; /g/ is articulated as a voiced pharyngeal fricative in the intervocalic position; the dentals are prenasalized in word-initial position and only then is the voiced dental fricative articulated as a prenasalized voiced dental stop. The main stress is not marked when it falls upon the last syllable; in other cases, it is marked by preceding the syllable it falls upon. 6. The examples below were translated from and into Spanish with the entire assistance, verification and approval of my informants, native speakers of both sexes aged 27 to 75 living in the villages of Campo del Cielo and Pozo del Tigre, Department of Patiño, Province of Formosa, Argentina. We give here their English version. Both the Spanish and the English versions are meant to render the pragmatic-cum-semantic meaning of the Pilagá original. Therefore it makes no sense to ask why in some cases the s are translated here by “the”, and in other cases by “this” or “that” (the number distinction is inoperant in this respect), because sometimes the accurate rendering obtains by a demonstrative deictic and others by a definite article. Moreover, those variations put in clear relief the link between both functions, the latter resulting from a specification of the first. Accordingly, the definite article, in the languages which possess it as a distinct morpheme, is descended from a deictic demonstrative (cf. among others Wright 1890 for Semitic, Sauvageot 1929 for Gothic and other Germanic

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PABLO ISAAC KIRTCHUK languages, Kirtchuk 1987 for Quechua, etc.; for a more general study, cf. Greenberg 1977). We shall not dwell on this important point for the time being, but shall return to it later.

7. Abbreviations run as follows:  — adjective,  — attribute,  — allative,  — feminine,  — deictic/class-mark, (in)exist — (in)existence,  — masculine,  — plural,  — possessive,  — predicative,  — progressive aspect. 8. That in certain cultures ‘sex’ (both the signifiant and its polysemic signifié) is so taboo as to constitute a threat to the supreme authorities if they dare transgress it does not change reality and must not lead science to modify its analysis of it. Indeed, linguistic entities may belong to different genders, whatever the semantic rationale behind them; however most beings including people belong to either of two sexes, not two ‘[natural] genders’ as one could erroneously infer from current sociolinguistic and sociological terminology. Should someone choose to ignore that sex is what it’s all about (for example, by translating Simone de Beauvoir’s “Le deuxième sexe” as “The second natural gender”), the reaction might be hilarious. The fact that in English we get inanimates referred to with (s)he pleads for this position (but see Morris, this volume): the data supplied by several authors — Jespersen ([1949] 1969), Huddleston (1984), Quirk & al. (1985), etc. — tend to show that these are entities towards which speakers feel emotionally related, such as ships or other vehicles as well as institutions or towns, often referred to as she. Among natural phenomena, moon, star, spring, love are referred to as she, whilst sea, ocean, mountain, storm, winter are referred to as he. Most birds are referred to as she (in our opinion, because they are construed as being light or gracious) and most mammals as he (probably because they are construed as being heavy or clumsy). This does not mean that sex is overridden, but that the symbolic attributes of it can override the physical ones. Men often refer to their pipes as he. Would somebody seriously deny that in English many of the entities referred to as she are comparable to the woman(‘s womb) and/or that speakers confer on them symbolic feminine functions or properties (note that Hemingway’s Old Man is the only fisherman to call the sea in Spanish la mar, since he is the only one to relate to her as a woman), whereas many of the ones referred to as he constitute a symbolic extension of the male self, attributes or associates (which is probably why in Biblical Hebrew, of all the duals referring to body parts, /waddajim/ “breasts” is the only masculine)? By and large, in English it is the symbolic aspect of sexual attributes and affinities and not the irrelevance of them that accounts for “natural gender” assignment to inanimates. Moreover, this kind of “gender” assignment seems to be much more frequent among men than among women: this means that sex is doubly involved, since it determines both natural gender assignment and its frequency in the speaker’s idiolect, which becomes ipso facto what we shall call a sexolect. This is why data from colloquial and dialectal English are of the utmost importance in this respect. Last but not least: even if in English inanimates can be referred to as (s)he, as we have just seen, the corresponding relative morpheme would hardly be who and quite rarely if ever whom. Which means that if “gender” has little manifestation in the structure of the English lexicon, it is even more so as far as grammar is concerned. It is all the more interesting that a language which makes such little room for gender should relate it to sex. These issues also are part and parcel of cognitive linguistics inasmuch as they concern metaphorisation as well as linguistic reflections of psycho-physiological factors and we do not intend to be “politically” but scientifically correct (for such reflections in other domains, see Kimura 1992). 9. The notion of “copula”, first used by Abélard (XIIth century) for the description of noun sentences in Latin and Greek, then by others, abusively, to account for similar sentences in Semitic (in which a copula as such is by no means obligatory), and eventually in other languages, does not completely apply to Pilagá either. 10. Here, we must acknowledge a profound insight of our colleague and friend Leah Savitzky from

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the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. According to her, the deictic-classificatory device found in Pilagá, which forces the speaker to assign to each and every noun such a morpheme but leaves the choice of it to the speaker is the analogue, in the nominal-system, to the aspectual device displayed by other languages in their verbal systems. Indeed, what one calls dimensionality or spatial position as the salient feature of nouns may be analogous to the temporal way of evolving as the salient feature of verbs. This deserves to be investigated in a separate paper. 11. This notion seems more appropriate than speech act, speaker-oriented since it explicitly mentions only a speaker but not a hearer and is therefore contradictory with the very essence of language. As specified in Bühler and Jakobson’s model, one of language’s functions is communication and not merely ‘speech’, i. e. language is there in order to allow for dialogue and not for monologue in the first place. In that sense, we have already proposed (1993) to improve that model by establishing a hierarchy of the functions and by adding to them the socializing and the ludic ones. 12. The former coins the term aÎntwnumiÈa — translated into Latin as pronomen — to name a leÈxiV aÎntiÌ oÎnoÈmatoV paraÌlambanomeÈnh proswÈpwn wÏrismeÈnwn dhlotikhÈ “a word which stands for the noun and refers to defined persons”; the latter adds kaiÌ thÌn deiÍxin “and [assumed] a deictic value”. 13. Philosophy and mathematics, neither of which is a science, are bound to speculate on the nature of objects they may have previously imagined and whose existence is barely mental; quite the contrary, it is not the matter of linguistics, nor of any other natural or human science as such, be it theoretically or empirically oriented, to speculate on imaginary or possible systems: science ends where science-fiction starts, and we would not like to transgress that thin yet clearcut border-line. We showed elsewhere (1993) the inadequacy of the very concept of ‘language’ when applied in a non-metaphoric sense to so-called invented languages, either pseudo-natural or utterly artificial. Both types correspond to Saussure’s and Chomsky’s dogma according to which langue precedes, controls and prevails over parole and competence over performance. Esperanto is a good example of the first type, and indeed it lacks several of any language’s properties, including among others iconicity, multiple encoding, phono- and morpho-symbolism and taboo (ibid.). Had it become a real language, viz. a system of communication that is, has been or is bound to be also a mother tongue, it would have evolved; moreover, it would have evolved differently in different places, realities, populations, environments, cultures and so on, merging with various substrates, yielding pidgins and creoles and ceasing ipso facto to be one and the same imaginary and imagined ‘language’ fixed once and for all to yield several distinct real dynamic languages with diachronic as well as synchronic existence: if Esperanto were to become a language, it would cease being Esperanto. Now as for the second type, a good example is any of the so-called computer ‘languages’, which lack about each and every feature and function of language. It follows that the very concept of ‘natural language’ is pleonastic and that the dogma aforementioned is false. 14. In Semitic, demonstratives are the only category as such not to be constituted of the combination of root and scheme; in English, they are the only category as such to bear an initial /#ð-/, etc.; for more details on the different aspects of deixis and deictics, cf. Kirtchuk op. cit. 15. When you ask an informant to give you the equivalent of, say, “pumpkin”, “tree” or “river” without any linguistic or extra-linguistic explicit context (and specifying that the list of those words does not establish a context either), the answers you get are “out of context”. If the information is approved by other informants, the  they agree upon to precede the noun is the unmarked  for that noun. 16. Manelis-Klein’s pioneering work has the great merit of having drawn attention towards this

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PABLO ISAAC KIRTCHUK domain, in which Guaykuruan languages are quite original and rich. Her work does not deal with Pilagá as such but with a cognate language, Toba; still, mutatis mutandis, her analysis applies to Pilagá as well. That peculiar way of relating deixis and noun-class marking is common to all of the Gran Chaco Amerind languages and not only those of Guaykuruan stock; this is, undoubtedly, a phenomenon of areal linguistics.

17. Contini-Morava (this volume) shows that in Swahili the number opposition and probably the count/mass one are intimately linked with noun class distinctions. That is not the case in Pilagá. 18. Brain research has found that a visual sequence takes 80 milliseconds in which colour is perceived first, then shape, then perspective and only at last movement (Semir Zeki, British College in Le Monde, February 4th 1998). This would be the physiological confirmation of our linguistic hypothesis, since shape and perspective are basically static and dimensional, while movement, necessarily dynamic, is a function of spatial distance and time: it is space plus something. Thus, it is marked as compared with space only. Now in linguistic oppositions concerning space and time, the latter is the marked member: prepositions, adverbs, relative pronouns, etc. applying to space can also apply to time, and time expressions are often metaphors of spatial ones, but not the other way round. Movement being a function of time, it is only logical that the linguistic devices that bear it also be marked, as compared with the ones expressing dimensionality and position. On an established universal about a spatial-temporalexistential cline, see also Tobin (this volume).

Bibliography Adams, Karen and Nancy Conklin. 1973. “Towards a Theory of Natural Classification”. Chicago Linguistic Society 9.1–10. Allan, Keith. 1977. “Classifiers”. Language 53:2.285–311 Arnott, David. 1967. “Some Reflections on the Content of Individual Classes in Fula and Tiv”. CNRS.45–74. Austin, Peter. 1982. “The Deictic System of Diyari”. Weissenborn and Klein 1982. 273–284. Bouquiaux, Luc and Jacqueline Thomas. 1967. “Détermination des Catégories Grammaticales dans une Langue à Classes”. CNRS.27–44. Bruno, Lidia and Elena Najlis. 1965. Estudio Comparativo de Vocabularios Tobas y Pilagás. Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos. Bühler, Karl. 1934. Sprachtheorie. Iena: Fisher. Burton, Michael and Lorraine Kirk. 1976. “Semantic Reality of Bantu Noun-classes: the Kikuyu Case”. Studies in African Linguistics 7:2.157–174. CNRS. 1967. La Classification Nominale dans les Langues Négro-africaines. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1998. “Noun Class as Number in Swahili”. This volume. Craig, Colette, ed. 1986. Noun Classes and Categorization. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1986. “Jacaltec Noun Classifiers: A Study in Language and Culture”. Craig 1986. 263–294.

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Denny, J. Peter. 1976. “What are Noun Classifiers Good For?” Chicago Linguistic Society 12.122–132. ———. 1978. “Locating the Universals in Lexical Systems for Spatial Deixis”. Chicago Linguistic Society Papers from the Parasession on the Lexicon.71–84. Denny, J. Peter and Chet Creider. 1986. “The Semantics of Noun Classes in ProtoBantu”. Craig 1986. 217–240. Dixon, Robert M. W. 1968. “Noun Classes”. Lingua 21.104–125. ———. 1986. “Noun Classes and Noun-classification in a Typological Perspective”. Craig 1986. 105–112. Fillmore, Charles. 1982. “Towards a Descriptive Framework for Spatial Deixis”. Jarvella and Klein 1982. 31–59. Frei, Henri. 1944. “Systèmes de Déictiques”. Acta Linguistica 4.111–129. Friedrich, Paul. 1970. “Shape in Grammar”. Language 46:2.379–407. ———. 1971. The Tarascan Suffixes of Locative Space. The Hague: Mouton. Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. “Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements”. Greenberg 1963b.73–114. ———. ed. 1963b. Universals of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT press. ———. 1963c. Language Universals, with Special Reference to Feature Hierarchies. (Janua Linguarum series minor.) The Hague: Mouton. ———. 1977. “Niger-Congo Noun Class Markers: Prefixes, Suffixes, Both or Neither”. Studies in African Linguistics Supplement 7.97–106. ———. 1978a. “”How does a Language Acquire Gender Markers?”. Greenberg 1978b.47–81. ———. ed. 1978b. Universals of Human Language, vol. 3. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. ———. 1987. Language in the Americas. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Gregersen, Edgar A. 1967. Prefix and Pronoun in Bantu. Memoir 21 of the International Journal of American Linguistics. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America. Guthrie, Malcolm. 1948. “Gender, Number and Person in Bantu Languages”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 12.847–856. Haas, Mary. 1967. “Language and Taxonomy in North-Western California”. American Anthropologist 69.358–362. Heath, Jeffrey. 1980. “Nunggbuyu Deixis, Anaphora and Culture”. Chicago Linguistic Society Papers from the Para-session on Pronouns and Anaphora.151–165. ———. 1991. “Pragmatic Disguise in Pronominal Affix Paradigms”. Plank 1991. 75–90. Heeschen, Volker. 1982. “Some Systems of Spatial Deixis in Papuan Languages”. Weissenborn and Klein 1982. 81–109. Hemingway, Ernest. 1952. The Old Man and the Sea. New York. Charles Scribner’s sons. Hopper, Paul J. 1986. “Some Discourse Functions of Classifiers in Malay”. Craig 1986. 309–326. Hopper, Paul J. and Sandra Thompson. 1984. “The Discourse Basis for Lexical Categories in Universal Grammar”. Language 60:4.703–752.

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Hottenroth, Priska-Monika. 1982. “The System of Local Deixis in Spanish”. Weissenborn and Klein 1982. 133–153. Huddleston, Rodney D. 1984. Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press. Iturrioz-Leza José and al. 1985. “Aspectos Morfológicos y Semánticos de las Clases Nominales en Huichol”. Función I and 2. México: UNAM. Jacquot, André. 1967. “La Classification Nominale comme Système de Dérivation en Laadi”. CNRS.117–132. Jarvella, Robert I. and Wolfgang Klein, eds. 1982. Speech, Place and Action. Studies in Deixis and Related Topics. Chichester, New York: John Wiley and Sons. Jespersen, Otto. 1968 [1924]. The Philosophy of Grammar. London. Allen & Unwin. ———. 1969 [1949]. Modern English Grammar. Allen & Unwin. Key, Mary Ritchie and Harry Hoenigswald, eds. 1989. General and Amerindian Ethnolinguistics. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Kimura, Doreen. 1992. “Sex Differences in the Brain”. Scientific American 267.3. Kirtchuk, Pablo. 1987. “Le Parler Quechua de Santiago del Estero: Quelques Particularités”. Amerindia 12.95–110. Paris: Association d’Ethnolinguistique Amérindienne — CNRS. ———. 1993. Deixis, Anaphore, Accords, Classification: Morphogenèse et Fonctionnement. Lille: Atelier National de Reproduction de Thèses. ———. 1995. “Deixis, Anaphore, “Pronoms”: Morphogenèse et Fonctionnement”. Les Classes de Mots, Traditions et Perspectives ed. by Louis Basset and Marcel Pérennec, 169–205. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Krauss, Michael E. 1982. “Noun-classification Systems in Athapaskan, Eyak, Tlingit and Haida Verbs”. International Journal of American Linguistics 34.194–204. KuryRowicz, Jerzy. 1972. “The Rôle of Deictic Elements in Linguistic Evolution”. Semiotica 5–2.174–183. Lacroix, Pierre-Francis. 1967. “Quelques Aspects de la Désintégration d’un Système Classificatoire”. CNRS.291–312. Lakoff, George 1985. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Landar, Herbert. 1964. “Class Co-occurrence in Navajo Gender”. International Journal of American Linguistics 31.326–331. Levelt, Willem J. M. 1982. “Cognitive Styles in the Use of Spatial Direction Terms”. Jarvella and Klein 1982. 251–268. Lyons, John. 1982. “Deixis and Subjectivity: Loquor, ergo sum?” Jarvella and Klein 1982. 101–124. Malotki, Eckehart. 1982. “Hopi Person Deixis”. Weissenborn and Klein 1982. 223–252. Manelis-Klein, Harriet. 1979. “Noun Classifiers in Toba”. Mathiot 1979. 87–95. Martinet, André. 1985. Syntaxe Générale. Paris: Armand Colin. Mathiot, Madeleine, ed. 1979. Ethnolinguistics: Boas, Sapir and Whorf Revisited. The Hague: Mouton.

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Morel, Mary-Annick and Laurent Danon-Boileau (dirs.). 1992. La Deixis. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Morris, Lori. 1998. “The Grammar of English Gender”. This volume. Opalka, Hubertus. 1982. “Representations of Local Ni-deixis in Swahili in Relation to Bühler’s Origo des Zeigfelds”. Weissenborn and Klein 1982 65–79. Parret, Herman. 1983. “La Mise en Discours en Tant que Déictisation et Modalisation”. Langages.85–97. Payne, Doris L. 1986. “Noun-classification in Yagua”. Craig 1986. 113–132. Plank, Franz. 1991. Paradigms. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Pottier, Bernard. 1975. “Classificateurs en Espagnol”. Mélanges linguistiques offerts à Emile Benveniste 2.378–381. Paris: Payot. ———. 1992. Sémantique Générale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Quirk, Randolph & al. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Rosch, Eleanor and al. 1978. Cognition and Categorisation. New Jersey: Erlbaum. Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1929. L’Emploi de l’Article en Gotique. Paris: Société de Linguistique de Paris, Klincksieck. Tesnière, Lucien. 1959. Eléments de Syntaxe Structurale. Paris: Klincksieck. Tobin, Yishai. 1998. “The Dual Number in Hebrew: Grammar or Lexicon, or Both?” This volume. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1975. “Spatial Expressions of Tense and Temporal Sequencing. Contribution to the Study of Semantic Fields”. Semiotica 15:3.207–230. ———. 1978, “On the Expression of Spatio-temporal Relations in Language”. Greenberg 1978: 369–400. Vidal, Alejandra. 1997. “Noun-classification in Pilagá”. The Journal of Amazonian Languages 1. Weissenborn, Jürgen and Wolfgang Klein, eds. 1982. Here and There. Cross-linguistic Studies on Deixis and Demonstration. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wright, William. 1890. Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages. Cambridge University Press.

2. Number Systems

Number in the English Substantive Walter Hirtle Université Laval, Québec

(1)

“This is the first officer speaking. We are beginning our descent into Calgary…. The weather is quite pleasant — plus one degrees on the ground.”

This routine announcement would not catch anyone’s ear except perhaps a grammarian’s, whose first reaction might well be to defend the well known rule by dismissing the use of -s here as an error.1 After all, we simply do not say *one degrees above zero. On the other hand, the fact that the first officer’s use of -s to express a singular normally goes unnoticed, whereas an -s on any of the other substantives would certainly have been remarked, suggests that this use may not be a slip. This impression is strengthened by another curious fact: we would say zero degrees, but not *zero degree. Furthermore, a moment’s reflection suggests that we could say either plus one degree or plus one degrees, but never *one degrees, so the presence of plus appears to be important here. The same seems to hold for minus: minus one degree or minus one degrees, but only one degree below zero. These considerations are of little concern for the teacher of English language because, except with zero, students would not make an error in omitting the -s, and in any case this use is too infrequent to be of practical importance. However for linguists, or anyone else who wants to understand how the English language works, such facts provide an invaluable insight into the system of number underlying and permitting the diverse observable uses of the substantive. Like anyone else attempting to approach reality from a scientific point of view, linguists start with the assumption that there really is something orderly, coherent, systematic lying behind the observed facts because otherwise they would be content merely to catalogue them but would not make any attempt to explain them. Thus our task is to get a view of this system in order to understand the

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observed facts and to describe it in order to explain the data. A system is not, in itself, directly observable in discourse, so we can only infer it by abduction, that is, by working out the relationships between observed uses and reconstructing it in imagination.2 Grammatical rules, often used in teaching, afford an adequate description of the most frequent uses, those most easily observed, but cannot provide a view of all the manifestations of the system in discourse. Nor can they provide a description of the underlying system. This is why it is important to seek out less frequent uses, like the one above, which are often more revealing when it comes to imagining the shape of the system lying behind all uses. In the case of grammatical number, this involves comparing and contrasting all uses of both Ø and -s morphemes. Here we can deal only with a few uses of -s, and will start by comparing plus one degrees with an ordinary ‘plural’ use such as ten apples in order to discern what they have in common and what distinguishes them from the point of view of meaning expressed. There is, quite obviously, a distinction of sense because if we accept, with all grammars, to characterize the latter, prototypical use of -s as expressing a ‘plural’, ‘more than one’ sense, the former use can only be seen as expressing the sense of ‘singular’, ‘one’. On the other hand, the two uses must have some element of meaning in common if the initial assumption of an underlying system is valid because otherwise we would have to postulate two -s morphemes for number, and this would be anything but coherent or systematic, especially in a language like English, where the number of grammatical suffixes is reduced to a minimum. The next task then is to discern what the above uses of -s, expressing ‘singular’ and ‘plural’ respectively, have in common meaning-wise. The fact that, in the above uses where -s expresses ‘singular’, plus or minus is required as a qualifier provides a clue. Qualifying the quantifier one in this way results in expressing a particular position on a scale, that is, a position distinct from the one before and the one after. The effect of using plus or minus is therefore to introduce a limit or discontinuity telling us that the quantity represented by the substantive is separate from other, adjacent quantities. What is of interest here is that the ordinary ‘plural’ sense has long been characterized as ‘discontinuate’3 because it depicts more than one entity, each represented as occupying its own place in space. This then may well provide the element of meaning common to both the ordinary ‘plural’ use and the curious ‘singular’ use. This would suggest that in plus/minus one degrees the dominating impression in the speaker’s mind is that of ‘position on a scale between zero and two’, and this involves bringing to the fore the impression of ‘discontinuate’, which calls for the morpheme -s in actualizing the substantive. To make explicit this notion of a quantity occupying a position distinct from the adjacent positions on the scale,

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the quantifier (one) and its qualifier (plus) are called for. Where, on the other hand, the dominant impression in the mind of the speaker is one of quantity (of heat) rather than position on a scale, the substantive will surface with Ø morpheme minus/plus one degree, the role of the quantifier and its qualifier being then to situate this quantity on the scale. In this way we can understand the Ø/-s alternance here as a reflection of how the speaker experiences the referent of degree(s) in the situation: as a quantity of heat (Ø) or as a position distinct from other positions (-s). Thus the common element of meaning we are looking for in the two uses of -s appears to be an impression of ‘discontinuity in space’, regardless of the particular quantity, ‘one’ or ‘more than one’, expressed in different uses. If so, this would also help us to understand zero degrees. Zero does not represent a quantity, a space or spaces occupied by some entity, but it does express a distinct position cut off from adjacent positions on a scale. Consequently there is no need of a qualifier to bring out focus on the notion of a scale and the substantive would not be used with Ø morpheme, no quantity being involved. These considerations thus provide us with a hypothesis to explain the first officer’s curious use in (1), but in order to provide some plausibility for it we must examine other such uses to see if it can provide an explanation for them as well. A good place to start is the following remarkable sentence about flipping a coin cited from a book on chance in Wickens (1992: 189):4 (2)

Henry is certain to toss two heads or one heads or no heads….

What is different here is that one requires no qualifier in its use with heads. It could hardly be maintained that one here evokes a position on a scale, any more than it does in ordinary numeration like one apple, two apples. The motive for the use of -s must, therefore, lie in the substantive itself, in its lexical meaning. Heads here denotes one side of a coin; the other side would be denoted by an -s substantive as well: tails. What appears to be involved here is a sort of either-or situation where one possibility is necessarily opposed to and excludes the other. Involved in notions of ‘either-or’, ‘opposition’, ‘exclusion’ there is certainly an impression of ‘discontinuity’ and this again would explain why the ‘singular’ substantive is actualized with the -s morpheme. What gives this explanation some weight is the fact that with the Ø morpheme here head would express a quite different sense. The following example with every, which, like each, has the remarkable capacity to evoke a number of entities but always with a ‘singular’ substantive, provides a more familiar use:

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(3)

… used every means to get to the top. (Wickens 1992: 188)

The same problem then arises here: why does the substantive means require the -s morpheme if it is grammatically ‘singular’? Again the sense expressed here — ‘something to attain an end’ — would appear to provide the solution because it implies an opposition: a distinction in time between the measures taken and the end pursued, the former expiring when the latter is attained. Thus for this sense of mean, which the substantive cannot express with Ø morpheme, the implied opposition with the end appears to involve an impression of ‘discontinuity’ calling for the -s morpheme. A similar impression would appear to underlie the -s in the following examples (Jespersen 1954: 167; see Wickens 1992: 160 for other examples): (4) (5)

I am friends with him. I was great pals with a man called Hicksey.

Although there is no quantifier here, the substantive does designate a single entity in the speaker’s intended message and so it can hardly be considered a plural, as Jespersen contends. Rather, the notion expressed by friends or pals refers to one person in relation to another. That is to say, evoking the relationship by means of the substantive denoting one friend or pal necessarily implies another friend or pal as the second term of the relationship. Representing one as linked to another brings in an impression of ‘discontinuity’ when evoking the singular entity and so calls for the -s morpheme. Similarly in: (6)

You have to take sides. (Conversation)

it would not make sense to interpret the substantive as expressing ‘plural’ since the situation manifestly involved choosing either one side or the other. More plausibly, it can be understood to express a ‘singular discontinuate’, impressions arising from representing one entity by sides in clear opposition with another, necessarily implied entity, the other side. A similar explanation can be put forward for the following examples (Wickens 1992: 162–163): (7) (8)

Australia is the antipodes… of England. Master Godfrey, what do you want with me? You’re my elders and betters, you know.

Wickens (1992: 149–158) provides a convincing argument concerning compensation terms, as in: (9) (10)

Meetings like these would make a fair amends. What a thanks I owe.

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He points out that there is “a logically inescapable relationship” involved here whereby the second of the two entities implied in a compensation situation “necessarily presupposes the existence of the first”. In these two examples, expressing the need for amendment and gratitude respectively implies an existing lack or deficit and moral debt. Again it appears to be the impression of ‘discontinuity’ arising from representing one entity as a distinct member of a pair that calls for the -s morpheme. It is not always this easy to discern whether or not compensation terms are used to designate a single entity. Thus in uses like: (11) (12) (13)

… for the wages of sin is death … to get one’s just deserts … to sue for damages

a speaker might have in mind one or more compensations. Whether used to express ‘singular’ or ‘plural’, however, these expressions bring out an impression of ‘discontinuity’. So far, then, the hypothesis that -s can express ‘singular discontinuate’ has proved valid to explain its use with substantives denoting a single entity. This use could be illustrated more fully but it will be more useful to examine another, more frequent type of ‘singular’ usage, one which does not involve an opposition with some implied entity or position. The following is a typical example of this: (14)

… the most [records] ever set at any one Games, including Olympics…. (Wickens 1992: 192)

What distinguishes this example from those just discussed is that the substantive designates a single composite entity, one made up of a series of elements. Thus the notion of a Games involves games or events occurring at a given place in space and moment in time. Granted the composite nature of such an entity, one might expect it to be represented as an ordinary ‘plural’, and indeed we often find these Games to denote the same reality. How then can one explain the representation of the substantive as a ‘singular’ with a or one as determiners? Again there appear to be different impressions involved: these Games brings out the different sporting events constituting the series, whereas a Games brings out more the series as a whole, the institution, the framework, the organization that makes all of the events a single manifestation. Where the latter impression, that of a whole series or manifestation, is dominant in the mind of the speaker, the ‘singular’ representation is called on to situate all the events in one mental space. Where the former impression of a number of diverse events dominates, the ‘plural’ representation is called on to situate them as distinct entities more or less grouped by the determiner or other elements in the context. The contrast between

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these two ways of representing linguistically what is the same entity in extramental reality is clearly brought out by the following live TV commentary: (15)

We are only 24 hours from the end of these games, and what a games they have been!

The commentator seems to have had in mind first the events yet to be held (these games), and then a sort of survey of the whole manifestation (a games). Whether games is represented as ‘plural’ or ‘singular’, however, it is the impression of ‘discontinuate’ which calls for the -s morpheme. Another example of the same sort of use brings out even more clearly the effect of representing a composite entity: (16)

… an incredible little crossroads of six hardtop routes to nowhere in particular. (Wickens 1992: 195)

Had the sentence read six little crossroads there would have been no suggestion of a single entity, but rather of six separate roads crossing a main highway at separate points. The ‘singular’ representation of a crossroads, however, depicts a number of roads meeting at a single point to form an intersection. Again one gets the suggestion of what are in effect distinct entities consolidated into one, thanks to the ‘singular’ form imposed on them. In the following remarkable example about a tennis tournament, the two uses of -s are contrasted: (17)

… will span three days — two singles on Saturday, a singles and a doubles on Sunday, and two singles and one doubles on Monday. (Wickens 1992: 185)

In three days and two singles the -s morpheme expresses ‘plural’, ‘more than one’ with its normal ‘discontinuate’ element so we understand ‘three consecutive days’ and ‘two separate matches’. In a singles and a doubles or one doubles, however, we understand ‘a single match between two individuals’ and ‘a single match between two couples’ respectively. Again, representing a composite entity calls for the -s to express the impression of ‘discontinuity’, but the morpheme is restricted to its ‘singular’ sense to bring out the fact that the speaker has only one such entity in view. The use of these words without the -s (a single, a double) expresses a very different sense in a very different sport. Wickens (1992: 180–185, 279–285) provides a wealth of examples illustrating this use of -s to represent entities composed of two elements. The following, mostly drawn from catalogues, are typical: (18)

A very stylish summer pants in the latest peg top effect.

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(19) (20) (21)

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A 7 × 42 binoculars with an angle of field equal to 10 degrees…. A general utility combination pliers. Has two jaw positions and shear-type wire cutter. A new scissors has been designed for the enlargement of cataract sections.

There are conflicting impressions involved here: each of these substantives designates a single entity made up of two functionally opposed elements. As a consequence, depending on whether the impression of an instrument or that of two cutting edges is dominant one could say a scissors or a pair of scissors, and where one impression arises to the exclusion of the other we find these scissors and even a scissor. A certain familiarity with the variety of usage found with such terms is sufficient to convince one that the -s morpheme is not a simple reflex of ‘plural’ as rule-based grammars usually suggest. Rather, the uses we have discussed so far show it to be an instrument for scanning certain impressions arising in the speaker’s experience and representing them grammatically either as ‘singular discontinuate’ or as ‘plural discontinuate’. There are, of course, other uses of -s expressing these two senses, but rather than dwell on them, it will contribute more to situating number in the substantive if we examine a use expressing a third sense: (22) (23)

Dogs are mammals. Cars contribute to pollution.

Here the substantive denotes neither a single entity nor a certain number of entities but rather all entities that can be denoted by dogs or cars. That is to say, the -s here expresses a sense that goes far beyond the ‘plural’, ‘more than one’, sense usually attributed to it since it takes in the whole range of the substantive: it expresses a ‘generic’, or even ‘all’ sense, the extreme opposite of ‘singular’. Furthermore there is an impression of ‘discontinuate’ here, as though the ‘generic’ sense were obtained by an accumulation of all possible individuals.5 This rapid survey of usage will have to suffice to give the essential data concerning -s. When we compare its three different senses — ‘one’, ‘more than one’ and ‘all’ — the morpheme can be seen to vary in expressing anything from the smallest number possible to the greatest possible. That is to say, it can express all possible quantities of the entities represented by the substantive’s concept provided they are seen as somehow ‘discontinuate’, numerable. It seems, then, that the meaning common to all uses of -s, part of its systemic meaning, is what we can call ‘discontinuate quantity’. On the other hand, the particular

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quantity actually represented and expressed has to be observed in any given use because it varies between the minimum and the maximum for the concept. This result is confirmed by other uses such as the hiccups, the munchies, spirits, drippings, trousers, dibs, starters, and nearly 500 other examples discussed in Wickens (1992). In the light of this evidence, it can be affirmed that -s always offers the same underlying or potential meaning range, whereas the actual sense expressed can be anywhere within this range depending on what the speaker has in mind to talk about. The result of our analysis of the many uses of -s is that its meaning in the underlying system is neither one or other of the quantities expressed, nor a collection of all these quantities, but rather the possibility of moving through the whole range of quantity seen as discontinuate, combined with the possibility of holding up this movement at the point providing a representation of the particular quantity required for the substantive. It is something like the range of possibilities provided by a given computer program: by moving the mouse and clicking at a particular point, the particular possibility required is brought into view. This meaning potential of -s can thus be depicted schematically as a movement from ‘singular’ or minimum quantity (as in most of the examples discussed above), through ‘plural’ or intermediate quantities (as in the most common use of -s), to ‘generic’ or maximum quantity (as in examples 22 and 23). The mental process involved in this expanding movement is depicted in Figure 1, where (m) symbolizes minimum, (I) intermediate, and (M) maximum.

-s m

I

M

Figure 1

The oblique line in the figure depicts the gradually increasing scope made available as the movement signified by -s proceeds. Conceiving the potential meaning of -s in this way, as the m → M movement through the field of discontinuate quantity interceptible at any point, we can understand how a single morpheme can express different senses, and so explain its polysemy.

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The counterpart of -s, Ø morpheme, makes up the rest of the system of number in the substantive. A typical use is: (24)

They need a new car.

Here too it is important not to limit observation to prototypical examples like this expressing ‘singular’, ‘one’, but to observe Ø substantives expressing other senses. One such use is illustrated by the following example: (25)

They need water.

This common use of what is often called the ‘mass’ or ‘noncount’ sense of a substantive also expresses quantity — a vague, undetermined amount — but what is most striking is the ‘continuate’ view of this quantity. This ‘continuate’ view is observable with the same substantive in the next example, though the quantity expressed is by no means the same: (26)

Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen.

The ‘generic’ sense here indicates that the quantity expressed is maximum, that is, great enough to include everything that can be designated by the substantive. Thus it can be seen that Ø, like -s, is polysemous since it can express different quantities, and this observed polysemy leads to the idea that, in the system of number, Ø also signifies the possibility of a movement. However, it differs from -s in signifying movement through the opposite field, that of continuate quantity, so that regardless of its quantitative sense — ‘generic’, ‘undetermined’, or ‘singular’ — the substantive represents its referent as a continuum. Furthermore, the movement signified by Ø morpheme is the contrary of the -s movement: it is a movement of contraction starting with the total field of the substantive’s notion and ending with its minimal extent, M → m, as in Figure 2.

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ø M

I

m

Figure 2

It will not be possible here to discuss the various uses of Ø morpheme on which this analytical view of its meaning potential is based and compare them with corresponding uses of -s morpheme.6 Suffice it to say that it is the combination of these two movements which constitutes the system of number in the substantive. Figure 3 depicts this system which makes possible the representation of any quantity, whether continuate or discontinuate, for any concept expressed by a substantive.

ø M

I

-s m

I

M

Figure 3

The point of introducing this summary description of the system of number is to bring out that the systemic meaning of Ø or of -s is not simply the notion of a field of quantity, continuate or discontinuate, but also includes the possibility of a movement through that field. It is the combination of these two movements, one contracting the other expanding, into one operation that provides the basis of the system as a representational potential for quantity in the substantive. However, rather than describe further the workings of the system itself, we shall explore briefly some implications this view of the -s morpheme has for us as speakers

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using a substantive as a means of talking about something in the momentary experience we want to represent and express. The discussion so far has taken for granted that the very notion of number involves a representation of space. To express something by means of -s as ‘one’, ‘more than one’ or ‘all’ involves mentally depicting what one is talking about as an entity or entities occupying one or more places in space distinct from one another. That is, for speakers to be able to quantify in this fashion presupposes they possess a mental instrument, a morpheme, capable of representing the word’s concept as occupying one or more stretches of space in accordance with what they have in mind to talk about. This means that the -s has the capacity of representing the concept as occupying one, several or all of the places available to it within its extension, so that the resulting meaning correlates as closely as possible with the speaker’s experience, with the intended message. We have seen how, in uses like plus one degrees as opposed to, say, one degree above, the difference in nuance expressed is minimal, depending on whether the impression of position on a scale is dominant or not. The finesse of expressive effect permitted in such examples — and this is by no means rare — shows that usage is not conditioned by some predetermined rule but rather by the adjusting of the morpheme’s potential for representing to the particular experience to be represented and expressed in a given act of speech. That is to say, the -s provides the means of focusing on the intended message, what the speaker wants to talk about, to represent the distinct place or places the entity represented by the concept is seen to occupy. We are here at that crucial point of transition between what is outside language and so unsayable as such, the particular experience constituting the speaker’s intended message, and what is inside language and so sayable, the meaning signified by the word, or more specifically by the morpheme -s. Transiting from extra-linguistic experience to intra-linguistic meaning calls for the mental operation of representation, the process of representing experience by means of the representational potential of the morpheme.7 Representing what one has in mind is a mental operation we cannot be conscious of so that the only way we can get to know something about it is by working back from its observed results in the various uses of some lexeme or morpheme, as we have been trying to do here. It is time to conclude and this can best be done by evoking some of the more general questions our analysis leads to. We have seen that the -s morpheme is a means for focusing on what the speaker has in mind, a sort of viewing template ready to represent as ‘discontinuate’ the space involved in the concept representing what the speaker wants to talk about. The same can be said of the Ø morpheme with its way of representing space as ‘continuate’. The system of

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number, made up of these two morphemes, is thus one for monitoring the ever changing panorama of each speaker’s experience to make sayable the unsayable, that is, to represent the particular spatial distribution of anything we want to talk about. This system is central to the system of the substantive and so no substantive can appear in discourse without one of its morphemes indicating the spatial configuration of the concept expressed. Work done so far on gender (see the contribution of Lori Morris to the present volume) suggests that it too is linked to a spatial representation. In this perspective, it can be seen that the system of number in English is to be analyzed as one of the subsystems of the substantive. As a result of reflecting on the different subsystems of the substantive, especially on that of number, Guillaume was led to propose that, as a part of speech, the substantive is essentially a formal, grammatical configuring of space for anything we want to talk about. Since antiquity, the verb has been viewed as a part of speech providing a grammatical representation of time for any happening. To my knowledge, Guillaume was the first to propose the counterpart of this traditional view. In his lecture of November 18, 1938, at the very beginning of his teaching at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris, he describes the operation of ideogenesis whereby a notion like ‘man’ is “distinguished from others as a singular notion, identical to no other notion”, and goes on to describe the subsequent operation of morphogenesis: this singular notion ‘man’ is universalized, through the categorizing process, in the part of speech called noun. When the categorizing finishes in space, the word is a noun. When the categorizing finishes in time, the word is a verb. (Guillaume 1992: 3; my translation)

Throughout his twenty-two years of teaching, Guillaume developed this space/ time opposition as the basis of his theory of the parts of speech (cf. Guillaume 1984: 113–114). Granted, then, that the noun, and more particularly the substantive, situates its notion in the universe of space, it can be seen that number, which provides spatial parameters of the notion, plays an essential role. This explains why no substantive can appear without being categorized for number. Such considerations confirm our initial assumption that there is a system underlying discourse and the more we examine the details of usage, especially less frequent uses, the more elegant and rigorous the system appears. This brings out the importance of observing usage as widely and as carefully as possible because a better view of the subsystem of number will provide insight into the nature of the system of the substantive, itself only one part of the general system of the English tongue.

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Notes 1. Cf. a similar announcement heard on approaching the Lester Pearson International Airport in Toronto: “… still overcast, ground temperature plus one degrees.” 2. The word is from Peirce (1934: 106): “Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis…. Deduction proves that something must be; Induction shows that something acutally is operative; Abduction merely suggests that something may be….[E]very single item of scientific theory which stands established today has been due to Abduction.” 3. See for example: “the affinity of the continuate with the singular and of the discontinuate with the plural are facts of prime importance which a linguist must always keep in mind.” (Guillaume 1991: 206; my translation from the lesson of June 7, 1945) 4. Many examples will be drawn from Wickens (1992), the most complete study on number in English to date. Without an appreciation of the extraordinary variety of usage of -s, illustrated by Wickens’ mine of examples, one can hardly hope to reach an adequate view of the underlying system of number. 5. This use contrasts with examples like A dog is a mammal; A car contributes to pollution, where the whole range of the substantive is evoked as well, thanks to the use of the article. 6. See Hirtle (1982) for a discussion of uses like two aspirin, three bear, many cattle, and a comparison of the two morphemes constituting the system. 7. See Hirtle (1994) for a discussion of the crucial role of representation.

References Guillaume, Gustave. 1984. Foundations for a Science of Language. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Guillaume, Gustave. 1991. Leçons de Linguistique de Gustave Guillaume 1944–1945. Vol. 11, Esquisse d’une Grammaire Descriptive de la Langue Française (III) and Sémantèmes, Morphèmes et Systèmes. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval and Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille. Guillaume, Gustave. 1992. Leçons de Linguistique de Gustave Guillaume 1938–1939. Vol. 13. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval and Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille. Hirtle, Walter. 1982. Number and Inner Space. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Hirtle, Walter. 1994. “Meaning and Referent: for a Linguistic Approach”. Word 45:2. 103–117. Jespersen, Otto. 1954. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part II. London: George Allen & Unwin and Copenhagen, Ejnar Munksgaard. Peirce, C. S. 1934. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. V Pragmatism and Pragmaticism ed. by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Wickens, Mark A. 1992. Grammatical Number in English Nouns. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

From Number to Gender, from Dual to Virile Bridging Cognitive Categories Laura A. Janda University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1.

Introduction

This contribution discusses the relations between cognitive change and historical linguistic change based on a case study drawn from Janda 1996. The three case studies presented in that volume demonstrate how analogical extension can occur even under the most extreme conditions, when morphemes that have been pushed to the brink of extinction stage a comeback, becoming productive resources for analogical extension. The three episodes are based on the three ways in which morphemes can be reduced to the state of marginalized relics: a) a morpheme can be limited to an irregular paradigm relegated to a handful of lexical items, b) a morpheme can be stranded after the collapse of a paradigm, and c) a morpheme can be left behind after the collapse of the linguistic category it expressed. The first two types of endangerment involve stress on or loss of the integrity of the paradigm; the third, which is the one we will examine here, involves a semantic loss. Without the freight of a linguistic category to express, a morpheme would have no significational purpose and we would expect it to cease to exist; in order to remain viable it must carry some sort of cargo. The present story is of dual morphology which appears to have jettisoned the category of number (presumably its most important original freight), to make way for a new distinction in the category of gender. As we shall see, this conceptual change was brought about by a blend (Fauconnier & Turner 1996) which capitalized on existing relations between number and gender. This tale weaves together threads from several questions about the nature of language and language change, among them: –

What is the mechanism of language change?

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What happens to morphology left behind by category loss? How do categories interact?

The answers to these questions will of course be suggestive rather than definitive, since they will draw only on the case study at hand.

2.

A hypothesis concerning historical change

The concept of categorization contained in the framework of cognitive linguistics has significant implications for a theory of language change, since the nature of linguistic change must comport with the nature of linguistic phenomena. If we presume that linguistic categories are cognitive categories, and that they are structured by relation to a prototype and reference to an overarching schema, then linguistic change necessarily involves change in this prototype-based structure. Furthermore, although change can affect the prototype, it is expected to take place primarily at the periphery of the structure. As we know, cognitive categories emerge from perception, not from an unmediated experience of reality. Likewise linguistic categories, as a special case of cognitive categories, are built from percepts, both linguistic and extra-linguistic. This act of construction, which takes place in the life of every speaker, proceeds via an abductive process, that most fallible path of logic, to paraphrase Peirce, which is also the source point of human creativity. Abduction is the guess at coherence of structure from the variety of evidence, the translation of manifold into unity (cf. Innis 1994: 11–23). Because there is no single “right answer” to abduction — a given array of percepts can be organized into different coherent structures — abduction is also the window of opportunity for change in the architecture of language. The changes that can pass through this window, however, are far from random, for the abductive process is constrained by the patterns perceivable in the language. Like the category structure itself, change is not expected to be strictly predictable, but this does not mean that it is arbitrary. The outcome and direction of change are motivated by and coherent with the category structures available in the language. Via abduction the identity of prototypes and variations thereupon are renegotiated by every generation of language users. For the most part the patterns seized upon in this process are changed very little and change is gradual, but on occasion a significant shift can occur. This article will compare changes that took place across various subsets of the Slavic language family well after Slavic disintegrated into separate subfamilies, a process generally agreed to be complete at about 1000 AD. Despite

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growing regional variations, common heritage has for centuries (and in some cases to the present time) continued to motivate parallel, though not identical, changes even in non-contiguous languages and according to disparate schedules. These similar stories of change, composed independently and in various times and places, are testimony to the non-arbitrary nature of language change, while also demonstrating that change is clearly not a matter of predictable movement from a previous to a later state. The case study presented below illustrates another important generalization about language change, namely that the history of any language is an on-going experiment in which there are no controls and all the data are contaminated. In terms of category structure and the changes it experiences, this means that no category stands alone. All categories are sewn up in a multi-textured fabric of relations to other categories and other levels of categorization. A change in a given category necessarily is influenced by and impacts upon the structure of many others.

3.

A hypothesis concerning number and gender

Number and gender cooperate in identifying both a noun phrase (a linguistic reality) and our extra-linguistic experience of the entity it refers to. Before launching into a discussion of the nature of number-gender cooperation, the parameters of reference, ranging from linguistic to extra-linguistic reality, need to be made explicit. As stated above, linguistic categories are cognitive categories, grounded in human experience, which is in turn entirely mediated by perception. The role of perception is crucial, since it not only connects us to reality (by giving us an experience of it), but also separates us from it, since we have no unmediated access to reality (cf. Lakoff 1987: 260–268). We know reality through percepts, which are themselves by necessity conceptually organized as they are received. Indeed, the profound interdependence of perception and conception has motivated Talmy (1996) to coin the word ception as a cover term for this spectrum of activities, which includes linguistic categorization such as that associated with a noun phrase. The filtering of external reality through per/conception means that the division between extra-linguistic and linguistic realities is not actually as sharp as it may seem. External reality always comes to us in a package of percepts and concepts; it is already cognitively processed to some extent, and may therefore motivate and share other cognitive structures, including linguistic ones. What makes cognitive structures or categories differ from those delivered

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by experience is the relative degree to which they are conventionalized. Linguistic categories can be highly conventionalized and cognitively entrenched, whereas perceptual experience is less constrained. This difference between linguistic categories and human experience also accounts for differences among languages. Although categorization builds on experience, it does so selectively. Only a portion of experience is utilized in the cognitive structure of any language; different languages have selected and combined experiential knowledge in building up different repertoires of conventionalized cognitive structure. Number and gender potentially serve at both ends of this cognitive spectrum, relating both to perceptual experience (for number as discrete as opposed to non-discrete, and if discrete as one or many or a collective unit; for gender this involves primarily the sex of animate beings), and to linguistic conventions (mass/count, singular/plural, collective, singularia & pluralia tantum and the like). In this dual role, number and gender both address the individuation or specific identification of entities and the noun phrases that represent them. Gender’s identification of an entity and its noun phrase can be based on both experiential and grammatical classification. Gender thus indicates something specific to and characteristic of the given entity/noun phrase; it is an identification predicated upon the individual. For inanimate entities in Slavic (and many other) languages, gender is a weak classifier of the noun phrase — a highly conventional categorization, but one that selects the entity/noun phrase as inherently a member of one of three groups. While respecting conventional constraints, number makes greater use of perceptual input; whereas a feminine noun is always such by definition, number can always be evaluated and updated. Number is therefore an overlaid concept, in its canonical use distinguishing singular from plural for countable entities. At one end of the scale is a prototypical singular , discrete and highly individuated; at the other end lies a plural , something approaching a mass which no longer presents us with individuated entities. Of course singular entities can be  and can also be non-discrete substances (mass nouns) or collections of otherwise discrete entities (collectives, singularia tantum), and plural entities can also be , and can even be highly individuated (especially in the case of pluralia tantum), but this range of options does not obscure the generalization that singular picks out an individual with its characteristics whereas plural tends to suppress perception of individuation. We can use the proverbial inability to see the forest for the trees, substituting genus for gender, to illustrate the perceptual interaction of number with gender. Encountering a single tree, we see an individual which we can identify as a pine, beech, or oak. This experience can be replicated with other individual trees, but when we view them as a totality, as the trees of a forest, we

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no longer differentiate all the characteristics of each individual. As the proverb suggests, the summative process of the plural is at its extreme a generalization, and like all generalizations it ignores a certain amount of lower-level noise. The fact that gender and number are both significant parameters in the identification of entities motivates their shared and often conflated role in formal synthetic agreement patterns. The suppression of individuation in the plural motivates the reduction of gender distinctions often observed in plural vis-à-vis singular morphology of inflected languages. Both phenomena, number-gender agreement and reduction of gender distinctions in the plural, are widespread in the world’s languages, suggesting that the above-described number-gender interaction is grounded in universal human perceptual experience.

4.

Dual as a number and virile as a gender

Even given the connection between number and gender based on individuation, the reinterpretation of a number as a gender appears to be a radical move, but there is evidence of special affinities between the two particular concepts involved. Within their superordinate categories of number and gender, both dual and virile are marked as highly peripheral. Unlike the dual in some other languages (cf. Tobin 1990), the Slavic dual has never enjoyed the status of a full-fledged number on an equal footing with the singular and the plural. As Dostál (1954) has exhaustively demonstrated, the dual never signaled merely ‘two’; its meaning was closer to ‘pairedness’, the condition of two equal objects functioning together as a unit. Rukeyser (1997), in a survey of duals, distinguishes them as either arbitrary (e.g., two stones) or paral (pair of boots). She points out that whereas this distinction is intuitively obvious, it is not generally conventionalized in Indo-European languages, which make no morphological distinction between arbitrary and paral duals. Dostál’s message, however, is that the Common Slavic dual was primarily paral; arbitrary uses were a relatively rare epiphenomenon of hypercorrect literary usage. Thus conceptually the Common Slavic number category did not present a three-way distinction of singular vs. dual vs. plural, but rather a distinction of singular vs. non-singular, where the prototypical expression of non-singular was plural, and the dual presented the option of expressing pairedness, the condition of two entities functioning together as a unit. The dual was effectively a specialized plural. As a number, the dual was not only conceptually peripheral, but morphologically defective as well; its paradigms displayed more syncretism than either singular or plural, often failing to distinguish gender, case, and person.

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As we shall see, the dual has been reconceived in some Slavic languages as a virile, a subordinate category for the differential marking of male humans as opposed to all other referents. The virile thus created is a specialized member of the masculine gender category available only in the plural, and this fact bears elaboration since it points us toward the source of the change. As demonstrated in considerable detail in Janda 1996, over the past millennium much of the morphological change in masculine nominal paradigms has been invested in the articulation of the - scale, producing distinctions of virile vs. nonvirile, animate vs. inanimate, concrete/discrete vs. abstract/continuous, etc. As suggested above, if we juxtapose plurality with any scale of percepts, we obtain a reduction in individuation, limiting the distinctions available. In this instance the suppression of individuation has resulted in the differential marking only of those s at the most extreme end of the scale, specifically human males (note that this corresponds well to the number/animacy correlations noted by Rukeyser 1997 in Australian languages). The proposed juxtaposition is not an artificial construct, but rather parallels the synthetic nature of Slavic inflectional morphology, which commingles the grammatical categories of number and gender. The argument I will present here is that it was precisely this conflation of categories that facilitated the recasting of dual morphology as virile when the dual number was lost. Here is the plot line of the story: first the dual starts out as a specialized plural marking pairedness; then the pairedness meaning is attenuated, but the dual morphology continues to exist, now merely as unusual/special plural forms; finally the special plural forms are used to mark a special - distinction in the plural, and thus the virile is born. In other words, when the dual collapsed the morphology left behind shifted from one specialized plural use to another.

5.

The data of the case study in language change

The Common Slavic paradigm of the numeral “two” (root du˘v-) illustrates the morphology of the dual relevant to this discussion (cf. Townsend & Janda 1996: 192–194): Nominative/Accusative/Vocative

masc: du˘va; fem & neut: du˘veˇ

Genitive/Locative

du˘voju (sometimes contracted to du˘vu)

Dative/Instrumental

du˘veˇ ma

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The boldfaced segments are the dual endings, which (with some variations according to paradigm) were applied to nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. Note that gender distinctions are not made for the genitive/locative and dative/instrumental, and that while paradigms for the other numbers (singular and plural) might collapse genitive and locative, dative and instrumental are always distinct. This reduction in distinctions is characteristic of the Slavic dual. In a noun phrase consisting of the numeral “2” + (adjective) + noun/pronoun, all items are marked with matching morphology for number (here dual), gender, and case. Attestations of waning usage suggest that the Slavic languages that lost the dual (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, SerboCroatian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) did so between the 13th and 16th centuries. In most of these languages dual morphology has contributed to the creation of genitiveaccusative plural and/or virile numeral constructions. Due to phonological erosion of final segments, the nominative and accusative singular had become syncretic for most masculine nouns at the beginning of the Common Slavic period. For a variety of reasons (outlined in Klenin 1983), this syncretism was “solved” by substituting the genitive for the accusative singular ending for masculine animates, thus creating the so-called animate genitive-accusative that is the common legacy of all modern Slavic languages that preserve case. It is traditionally assumed that this genitive-accusative simply spilled over into the plural in many Slavic languages, but there are compelling reasons not to accept this simple argument. The distribution of the genitiveaccusative plural is not uniform, restricted only to Polish, Slovak, and East Slavic (Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian), and marks virility in some languages, but animacy in others. And furthermore the genitive-accusative plural developed at a time when there was no syncretism between the nominative and accusative plural to motivate such spillage. Evidence indicates instead that the plural genitive-accusative has historically developed from a dual genitive-accusative that came to be used exclusively with viriles (Grappin 1950: 94–101; Šaxmatov 1957: 51 & 224; Janda 1996: 185–189, and especially Janda 1998). This construction originally arose to disambiguate the accusative from the syncretic nominative in collocation with the numerals du˘va/du˘veˇ ”two” and oba/obeˇ ”both”. Whereas this construction and its novel use with viriles developed in the 12th-14th centuries in East Slavic, the Polish construction, in a remarkably parallel development, began its course two centuries later. The later development in Polish provides us with the richest historical record of attestations, and will be used as the basis for this discussion. Because Czech was the literary language of the Slovaks for the period in question, adequate attestation is lacking for that language; modern Slovak usage of the genitive-accusative plural is similar to that in

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contiguous Polish and Ukrainian, and we can only speculate a similar development. The table below summarizes the historical development of the genitiveaccusative plural, followed by a prose description. At the outset (Late Common Slavic), Slavic numerals were used in the following syntactic constructions: “1” behaved much as an adjective, matching number, case, and gender to the noun phrase it modified (which was usually singular, but could be plural in the case of pluralia tantum); “2” was likewise adjectival and distinguished masculine from neuter and feminine, and the number of the entire construction was dual; “3” and “4” were also adjectival (though they did not distinguish gender) and the number of the noun phrase was plural; “5” and higher and indefinite numerals headed a noun phrase which was plural and either followed the case of the numeral (if it was dative, genitive, instrumental, or locative) or appeared in the genitive plural (if the numeral was nominative or accusative). When the numeral construction was in subject position, verbal forms matched the number and gender of the noun phrase for numbers under “5”, but were otherwise neuter singular. Although remnants of this system survive in all Slavic languages, it has undergone considerable evolution, and some of the changes result from the development outlined in Table 1. Table 1: Outline of development of genitive-accusative plural in Old Polish Old Polish: miał (dwa) (młoda) syny/a 14th century miał (dwu) (młodu) synu

[Adu replaced by Gdu for viriles and some animates]

15th century miał (dwu) (młodych) synu

[Gdu replaced by Gpl for adjective]

16th century miał (dwu/dwóch/trzech/ czterech/ higher and indefinite numerals in -u) (młodych) synów

[spread to other numerals; Gdu replaced by Gpl for noun]

Also in 16th century: (1) Npl -i (with II velar palatalization and sharping) for viriles is opposed to Apl -y (2) GAsg is restricted to viriles (until 17th century) (3) the dual is eliminated Later: The numeral construction dwu/dwóch/trzech/czterech/ higher & indefinite numerals in -u (młodych) synów spreads to subject position, replacing nominative.

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We know that by the 14th century in Old Polish the morphology of the numeral and noun phrase in an expression such as “[he] had two young sons/ brothers” had shifted from accusative dual miał dwa młoda syny/brata to genitive dual miał dwu młodu synu/bratu. Over the course of the 14th-17th centuries the noun phrase morphology witnessed a gradual replacement of dual forms (which were being lost in the language as a whole) with plural forms (producing miał dwu młodych synów/braci, with genitive plural marking on the adjective and noun), along with the spread of this genitive-accusative to constructions with other numerals (initially to “three” and “four” which are adjectival like “two”, later to numerals “five” and higher, subsequently to indefinite numerals), and eventually to plural constructions with no numeral at all. After this point the parallels among the languages break down; the plural genitive-accusative remains restricted to viriles in Polish, Slovak, and to a lesser extent Ukrainian (where the use of the genitive-accusative is a possible option for non-human masculine animates), but is further extended to all animates in Belarusian and Russian. In Polish the virile genitive construction with the numeral is further extended to the subject position, and the -u ending of the genitive dual is also extended to all numerals “5” and higher, as well as all indefinite numerals, creating a series of specialized virile numerals (with numerals “5” and over the numeral is the head and the default verbal agreement is neuter singular): przyszło pie˛ciu/dziesie˛ciu/wielu panów [came-neuter-sg five-virile/ten-virile/many-virile men-Gpl] “five/ten/many men came”. The feminine noun kobieta “woman” shows the use of non-virile numerals for comparison: przyszło pie˛c´/dziesie˛c´/wiele kobiet [came-neuter-sg five/ten/many women-Gpl] “five/ten/many women came”. At about the same time in its historical development Polish innovated another series of virile numerals that are constructed with the nominative case in subject position, but do not stem from the extension of dual morphology: przyszli dwaj/ obaj/trej/czterej panowie [came-virile-pl two-virile/both-virile/three-virile/fourvirile men-Npl] “two/both/three/four men came”. Compare the non-virile (feminine in this example): przyszły dwie/obie/trzy/cztery kobiety [came-nonvirile-pl two-fem/both-fem/three/four women-Npl] “two/both/three/four women came”. A parallel set of virile numerals exists in Slovak dvaja, obaja, traja, štyria and the final -a might be a remnant of the dual, but the historical record is too incomplete to be certain (Pauliny 1990: 198 and Stanislav 1967: 378–391). In a somewhat different fashion, Bulgarian, and to a lesser extent Macedonian, have also incorporated dual morphology in the creation of numerals specialized to the task of counting human males. By the 13th century, the old dative-instrumental dual form du˘vama (later dvama; cf. the Common Slavic antecedent du˘veˇma) “two” was generalized in Old Bulgarian as an indeclinable

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numeral, and in the 14th century its use was restricted to virile referents (Mircˇ ev 1978: 193–194). The historical record does not provide much more information, except to tell us that later on forms with a similar function were created, yielding an array of modern numerals, a representative sampling of which appears in Table 2: Table 2: Bulgarian virile numerals

“two” “three” “four” “five” “six” “seven” “eight” “nine” “ten” “hundred” “how many” “several” “few”

-ma

(-m) + ina

-m + ka

-m + ca

-ica

dvama trima cˇetirima petima šestima

dvamina

dvamka trimka cˇetirimka

dvamca trimca

dvoica troica cˇetvorica

desetima

sedmina osmina devetmina desetmina stotina kolcina nekolcina malcina

The only virile numerals widely used in the standard language, however, are the forms for “two” through “six” in -ma in the first column, clearly derived from the old dual form dvama; most of the forms in the remaining columns contain an m that may be partly motivated by the same form. The virile numerals act as modifiers, combining with the normal plural rather than the counted plural form (ending in -a for masculines) used for numeral constructions with non-virile referents. The use of these virile numerals is preferred but not obligatory; virile referents may alternatively be counted by using the ordinary cardinal numerals, with which they tend to implement counted plural forms. For example the virile sin “son” can be counted as either dvama sinove [two-virile son-plural] “two sons” or as dva sina [two son-counted plural] “two sons”, but the non-virile grad “city” can only be counted as dva grada [two city-counted plural] “two cities”. Virile numerals in Macedonian are all built from the suffixes -ca and -mina, but the role of the dual in their development is uncertain, and their use is less consistent than in Bulgarian (cf. Friedman 1993: 267–268, 294). SerboCroatian likewise has developed optional virile numerals whose origin, however, is not identifiable with formerly dual morphology.

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6.

83

Conclusions

At a variety of times and locations, various Slavs have created virile numeral expressions, often by recycling defunct dual morphology. What makes this story particularly compelling is the fact that the creation of virile forms has been repeated spontaneously and independently in the histories of non-contiguous languages. Between the territories of Bulgarian and Polish, four languages (Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Ukrainian) and a considerable geographic expanse intervene, and there are no indications of sustained direct contact between the two for the historical period in question. Both Bulgarian and Polish have created virile numerals from dual morphology, but Bulgarian has appropriated the dative-instrumental -ma morpheme in collocation with plural noun phrase morphology, whereas Polish has utilized the genitive-locative -u in collocation with genitive plural morphology. Thus although the result was in some respects “the same” for both languages — in both instances dual morphology was reworked to produce virile numerals, these were separate events following different paths. With this case study in mind, we can revisit the questions posed at the outset. What is the mechanism of language change? Language change is a matter of diachronic adjustment of category structure. In one sense, the type of change presented here was of the most expected gardenvariety type, involving pruning and growth at the periphery. The category of plural experienced the pruning of a peripheral specialized plural designating pairedness, whereas the category of masculine gender experienced growth, producing a new specialized member at its extremity, virility. Although the more interior portions of a category structure and even the prototype and schema are not impregnable to change, the exterior periphery is certainly the most vulnerable to this sort of alteration, and we would expect most language change to take place at category peripheries. Indeed, the most common historical changes are analogical leveling, with its parallel phonological merger, which involve the pruning of peripheral items in favor of a prototype, and phonological split (paralleled by semantic specialization of allomorphs) which is the growth of variation based on a prototype. What is unusual about the present case study is that both processes have occurred simultaneously while involving the same linguistic material; what was pruned from the plural has been grafted to the growth zone of masculine. It appears that a special type of blending has occurred, in which input from the plural and input from the masculine have merged to create a special plural masculine. In the process, both the formal marking (the

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morphology) and the resultant concept have been linked to the masculine gender, grammaticalized as virility. The blend integrates the roles of both number and gender in individuating entities, creating a new construct to designate entities that are highly individuated even under the reduced salience of individuation in the plural. A specialized distinction under the conditions of plural has thus been recruited for the purposes of gender, and the blend has become conventional. What happens to morphology left behind by category loss? Morphology left behind by category loss is available for semantic recategorization via blending, but is not simply a “wild card” loose in the language. After all, even when the category of number was lost from the dual, it still retained some gender and case distinctions, and was therefore not entirely at sea. Mutatis mutandis, what Fauconnier and Turner (1996: 127) have said about syntactic blends is applicable also to morphological ones: “It is important to see that the Blends are motivated by the existing Basic Constructions.” Even when morphology is subject to a fairly radical semantic shift, that shift is embedded in and draws on existing structures. The blend that created the virile was constrained by the categories of number and gender, and was well motivated against the backdrop of an environment in which all kinds of - distinctions were being cultivated for grammaticalization and the soil was particularly fertile for the development of virility distinctions by a variety of morphological and syntactic means (cf. Janda forthcoming). Although the occurrence of such a blend is perhaps surprising and certainly not predictable, it is far from arbitrary. As we see in the history of Slavic, the force of attraction of this blend was such that it was performed independently at different times and locations. The consistency of this trend highlights the fact that blending is a well-constrained and fairly regular process. How do categories interact? In a word, complexly. This case study has illustrated that linguistic phenomena are influenced by the following types of intra-, inter- and extra-categorical relations: (a) interactions among category levels: for example, the way in which a subordinate category such as pairedness functions in relation to the basiclevel category of plural, and further how this basic-level category interacts with the superordinate category of number; (b) interactions among linguistic categories: for example, the function of number in relation to gender, or morphology (in the form of new virile

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numerals) in relation to syntax (in the form of new virile numeral constructions); and (c) interactions with other patterns of distinction available in the language: for example, the motivation of virility as implementing the highest end of the - scale. Overall, this case study demonstrates that a given language is a tightly woven fabric of cognitive relations, and that any change pulls on many threads at once. Furthermore, both the mechanisms and the outcome of change are highly constrained if not entirely predictable.

References Dostál, Antonín. 1954. Vývoj Duálu v Slovanských Jazycích, zvlášteˇ v Polštineˇ. Prague: Cˇ eskoslovenská akademie veˇ d. Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner. 1996. “Blending as a Central Process of Grammar”. Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language ed. by Adele E. Goldberg, 113–130. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Friedman, Victor. 1993. “Macedonian”. The Slavonic Languages ed. by Bernard Comrie & Greville Corbett, 249–305. London & New York: Routledge. Grappin, Henri. 1950. Les Noms de Nombre en Polonais. Cracow: Polska akademia umieje˛ tnos´ci. Innis, Robert E. 1994. Consciousness and the Play of Signs. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana U Press. Janda, Laura A. 1999. “Whence Virility? The Rise of a New Gender Distinction in the History of Slavic”. Slavic Gender Linguistics ed. by Margaret H. Mills, 201–228. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins. Janda, Laura A. 1996. Back from the Brink: a Study of how Relic Forms in Languages Serve as Source Material for Analogical Extension. Munich: LINCOM EUROPA. Janda, Laura A. 1998. “Linguistic Innovation from Defunct Morphology: Old Dual Endings in Polish and Russian”. American Contributions to the Twelfth International Congress of Slavists ed. by Robert A. Maguire & Alan Timberlake, 431–443. Columbus, Oh: Slavica. Klenin, Emily. 1983. Animacy in Russian. Columbus, Oh: Slavica. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Mircˇ ev, Kiril. 1978. Istoricˇeska Gramatika na Bâlgarskija Ezik. Sofija: Nauka i izkustvo. Pauliny, Eugen. 1990. Vývin Slovenskej Deklinácie. Bratislava: Veda. Rukeyser, Alison. 1997. “A Typology of the Nominal Dual: Evidence from Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Semitic and Australian languages”. Davis Working Papers in Linguistics 6. http://philo.ucdavis.edu/LINGUISTICS/Ruk00.html

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Šaxmatov, A. A. 1957. Istoricˇeskaja Morfologija Russkogo Jazyka. Moscow: Ucˇ ebnoPedagogicˇ eskoe izdatel’stvo. Stanislav, Ján. 1967. Dejiny Slovenského Jazyka, II, Tvaroslovie. Bratislava: Slovenská Akadémia Vied. Talmy, Leonard. 1996. “Fictive Motion in Language and ‘Ception’”. Language and Space ed. by Paul Bloom et al. Cambridge & London: MIT Press. Tobin, Yishai. 1990. Semiotics and Linguistics. London & New York: Longman. Townsend, Charles E. & Laura A. Janda. 1996. Common and Comparative Slavic: Phonology and Inflection. Columbus, Oh: Slavica.

The Dual Number in Hebrew Grammar or Lexicon, or Both? Yishai Tobin Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone. “When I make a word do a lot of work like that, said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay extra.” (Carroll 1871/1981: 169)

1.

Introduction

Despite the fact that the dual number is a well-known and recognized grammatical category in Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Semitic, Australian, North American Indian, and Eskimo-Aleut languages (Rukeyser 1997), from the point of view of “survival of the fittest,” dual morphology is not necessarily the “best of survivors” (e.g., Baugh 1957: 67–69; 193 and Jespersen 1964: 198 for the loss of the dual in English, and Janda, this volume) for the loss and/or realignment of dual morphology in the Slavic languages). Therefore the dual in most Indo-European languages, like English and the Slavic languages, is no longer part and parcel of a synchronic grammatical system but merely a historical remnant which may be relegated to a closed set of fixed lexical items (e.g., both in English). Even in languages that historically had a dual, as well as languages where the dual has survived as part of the grammatical system of number, the recognition of its status as a full-fledged and equal member of that grammatical system often has been questioned both diachronically (Janda, this volume; Levin 1971) and synchronically: Hebrew, for example, has a tripartite system of number indicating singular, dual, and plural but many still view this system as being basically binary: singular versus plural (e.g. Avisar 1965; Rosén 1977: 165 and Glinert 1989: 450; 456 who establishes a “real” versus a “pseudo-dual” as a particular

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subtype of plural). In this paper I will argue that the Hebrew dual morpheme (the suffix -ayim) is a productive member of the language system which functions as part of both the grammar and the lexicon simultaneously. According to Contini-Morava and Tobin (the Introduction of this volume), linguists traditionally have made a distinction between “grammar” and “lexicon” in their classification of linguistic forms such as Talmy (1988: 165–166) in Cognitive Grammar. Forms called “grammatical” fall into closed class, paradigmatic systems that are obligatorily expressed (e.g., number, gender, case) and usually involve a forced choice (e.g., the same lexical item is either masculine or feminine and singular or plural and not both masculine and feminine and singular and plural at the same time). Forms called “lexical” are usually found in open classes with a looser organization in terms of broad semantic fields (e.g., “synonyms”), representing specific semantic/lexical features, or “parts of speech”, and lexical productivity may be expressed in the idiosyncratic creation of new lexical items (e.g., “neologisms”). Like many other traditional dichotomies, however, in actual practice, the distinction between grammar and lexicon is both harder to maintain and less useful than might appear at first. This is particularly evident when dealing with the dual number in Hebrew which appears to possess characteristics traditionally associated with both the grammar and the lexicon. The question to be asked then is: Can linguistic forms function as part of both the grammar and the lexicon simultaneously? The fact that lexical items can become “grammaticalized”: i.e., move from the lexicon to the grammar (e.g., the diachronic development of so-called auxiliary verbs in English and other languages) is a well-known fact supported by a plethora of studies on “grammaticalization” (e.g., Heine and Hünnemeyer 1991; Traugott and Heine 1991). The fact that grammatical forms can become “lexicalized”: i.e., move from the grammar to the lexicon (e.g., “irregular” verb forms, affixes becoming lexical items) and the concept of “lexicalization” to indicate the parallel and opposite process to grammaticalization, has also been established, but has been studied less (e.g., Beedham 1989, 1995: 103–104, 114; Tobin 1990: ch. 5; 1993:ch. 12). The dual number morphology in Hebrew provides a primary example of a form that productively spans the opposition of what is traditionally perceived as the grammar and the lexicon simultaneously.

2.

The dual number in Hebrew

The “grammatical” status of the dual morpheme -ayim in contrast to singular and plural morphology in Hebrew has been questioned, or at least considered to be

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problematic, for the following reasons: (i) Unlike the singular and plural which collocate almost across the board with most major parts of speech, (e.g., nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), the distribution of the dual is limited almost exclusively to nominal forms save for a few historical adjectival/adverbial forms, marked by a feminine adverbial marker -(a)t and the dual morpheme -ayim (the specific problems of adverbs in Hebrew is discussed in Ravid and Shlesinger, this volume). These modifiers often give an emphatic, augmentative, or iterative message, or indicate a perception of a high degree of a specific quality. Some examples of these historical (mostly biblical) forms which are still heard today include: (1)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

(tseva) rikmatayim (color) texture, embroided + . +  “a very rich, variegated (color)” (embroidery, dyed garments) (Judges 5:30) atsaltayim slow, lazy + . +  “slowness, laziness, very slow, very slowly, very lazy, very lazily” (Ecclesiastes 10:18) arbaãatayim four + . +  “fourfold”, “manifold” (many times) shivatayim seven + . +  “sevenfold”, “manifold” (many times) (Genesis 4:15, 4:24) xamor-xamoratayim donkey-donkey + . +  “a double donkey”, “very stupid” (Judges 15:16) kushan rishãatayim Cushan wicked + . +  “Cushan of the double wickedness” (Judges 3:8) (Fontinoy 1969: 17)

(ii) Unlike the singular and plural, therefore, there is no special dual morphology for adjectival or verbal forms which take plural morphology (e.g., -im/-ot) (masc./fem.) when collocating with dual nouns: (2)

a.

mixnasayim xadashim pants () new (.) “new pants”

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b.

(3)

a.

b.

ha-xodshayim ha-arukim ovrim the months () the-long are passing (.) li maher to-me quickly “The two long months are passing quickly for me.” naãalayim xadashot shoes () new (.) “new shoes” ha-shinayin ha-totavot koavot li The-teeth () the-false are hurting (.) to-me “My false teeth are hurting me”

(iii) Unlike the singular and plural which are marked for gender (masculine/ feminine), the dual is neutral to gender: there is only one non-gender specific dual morpheme (cf. examples in (2)–(3) in (ii) above). (iv) Unlike the singular and plural, the dual has no special compound form and dual compounds take plural compound morphology (-ei/-ot) (masc,/fem.): (4)

a. b.

(5)

a. b.

garbayim “socks” (), but: garbei zemer socks of (..) wool “socks of wool”, “woolen socks” sfatayim lips, folds (), but: siftot ha-kol lips, folds of (..) the-voice “vocal folds”

(v) All nouns are listed in the dictionary in the singular with their appropriate gender, (plural forms are usually added only for irregular plurals), but the number of dictionary entries of nouns which appear in the dual (i.e., for which the dual is their only or their accepted “plural”) is severely limited (ca. 140) (cf. Tobin 1990: 101–104 for an annotated list). This paucity of lexical items for which the dual is their only obligatory or their usual non-singular form has been used as an argument questioning the full-fledged grammatical status of the dual (Rosén 1977: 165) (cf. examples (36)(a-d) for the use of “the dual as a plural”). Arguments for the “lexical” status of the dual morpheme in Hebrew are supported by the following reasons:

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(i) Unlike tight paradigmatic grammatical systems where the choice of one member of the system precludes the choice of another for the same lexical item (e.g., in English a verb is either conjugated for ‘past’ (walked) or non-past (walks) but not for both (*walkeds/*walksed)): both singular and plural forms can occur with the dual in the same lexical item in all styles and registers including: informal spoken Hebrew, literary and journalistic prose, poetry, (especially the poetry of Chaim Nahman Bialik, the Israel national poet), as well as in the media: (6)

a.

b.

c.

(7)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

shnayimim two ( + ) “twos” (playing cards) mixnasayimim pants + ( + ) “pairs of pants” naãalayimim shoes ( + ) “pairs of shoes” (Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda 1972) mekomotayim place ( + ) “two places together” (informal conversation, Tobin 1990: 118) bubotayim doll ( + ) “two dolls” prutotayim cent ( + ) “two cents” litrotayim pound ( + ) “two pounds” yadotayim cup handle ( + ) “two cup handles” ((b)–(e) poetry: C. N. Bialik) dorotayim generation ( + ) “two generations” (newspapers/radio).

(ii) The distribution of the dual for periods of time, paired body parts, paired articles of clothing, paired objects (dualia tantum) or entities which appear in paired sets (right/left, upper/lower, front/back) appears to be arbitrary. Some appear in the dual while others appear in the singular or plural (with a marked

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preference for the plural): (8) (9)

(10)

(11)

(12) (13)

(14) (15)

(16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21)

a. b. a. b.

a. b. c. a. b. c. a. b. a. b. c. a. b. a. b. c. a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b. c.

tsohorayim “noon” (), but: xatsot “midnight” () maxaratayim “the day after tomorrow” (2X the-morrow), but: shilshom “the day before yesterday” (singular) (from the root SH-L-SH — “three” meaning: 3 days including today) yomayim “two days” () shvuayim “two weeks/a fortnight” () xodshayim “two months”, but: asorim “decades” () yovlot “jubilees” (), meãot “centuries” () einayim “eyes” () afapayim “eyelids” (), but: gabot/gvinim “eyebrows” () risim “eyelashes” () ishonim/buvot “pupils” (of the eye) () oznayim “ears” (), but: tnuxim “ear lobes” () shadayim “breasts” (), but: ptamot “nipples” () dadim “breasts/nipples” () yadayim “hands” (), but: zroãot “arms” tsipornayim “nails” (fingers/toes) (), but: etsbaãot “fingers/toes” () birkayim “knees” (), but: marpekim “elbows” () karsolayim “ankles” (), but: prakim “wrists” (“joints”) () kapayim “palms of the hand” (), but: kapot (raglayim) “soles” (feet) () meayim “intestines” () xalatsayim “loins” () kravayim “entrails”, “viscera” (), but:

THE DUAL NUMBER IN HEBREW

(22) (23) (24)

(25) (26) (27) (28)

a. b. a. b. a. b. c. a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b.

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klayot “kidneys” () reãot “lungs” () naãalayim “shoes” (), magafayim “boots” (), but: sroxim “shoelaces” () suliyot “soles of shoes” () akevim “heels of shoes” () garbayim “socks”, “stockings” (), but: garbiyonim “pantyhose” () mixnasayim “pants” (), but: taxtonim “underpants” () mishkafayim “eyeglasses” (), but: mishkefet “binoculars” (singular) ofanayim “bicycles/bicycles” (), but: ofnoa/ofnoim “motorcycle/motorcycles” (singular/plural)

The claim that the dual functions productively as a morpheme that spans the opposition between the grammar and the lexicon is supported by the following descriptive facts: (i) The dual is not the exclusive way of designating two referents: either the dual or the numeral two (shnayim/shtayim) (masc./fem.) in its compound form (shnei-/shtei-) (masc./fem.) + a plural noun can be used to designate two entities. The choice between these alternatives might be viewed as more of a lexical rather than a purely grammatical choice in a way similar to choosing between two synonyms. The following examples present familiar time expressions but this phenomenon is found throughout the lexicon for all styles and registers of spoken and written Hebrew: (29) (30) (31) (32)

a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b.

shnatayim “two years” (), versus: shtei shanim “two years” () xodshayim “two months” (), versus: shnei xodashim “two months” (). shvuayim “two weeks” (), versus: shnei shavuot “two weeks” () yomayim ”two days” (), versus: shnei yamim “two days” ()

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(33) (34) (35)

a. b. a. b. a. b.

shaãatayim “two hours” (), versus: shtei shaãot “two hours” () dakatayim/dakotayim “two minutes” (), versus: shtei dakot “two minutes” () paãamayim “twice” (), versus: shtei peãamim “two times” ()

(ii) The dual also functions as a plural to designate more than two referents which clearly contradicts the traditional hypothesis that the dual number means “two” or, alternatively, indicates “pairedness” (Janda, this volume), at least for Hebrew (cf. (v) above regarding the paucity of lexical items with dual morphology in the dictionary): (36)

a. b. c. d.

arba einayim “four eyes” () eser shinayim “ten teeth” (). xamesh raglayim “five legs” () eser tsipornayim “ten nails” ()

(iii) Speakers can idiosyncratically attach the dual to almost any noun for a comic, facetious, pejorative, metaphorical or rhetorical effect in a way similar to creating neologisms in both written and spoken Hebrew of all styles and registers: (37)

(38) (39)

(40)

(41)

a. b.

axorayim/yarketayim–“two backs/rears” (slang for ass/buttocks) akuz “buttock(s)” (singular) akuzim “buttocks(es)” (plural) (standard), but: c. akuzayim “twin asses” (two sets of buttocks) (conversation) d. givatayim “two hills” = “breasts” (Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda 1972, 1982) bokrayim/botsorayim “brunch” (blends of: boker “morning” + tsohorayim “noon” (advertisement) a. allelayim “two wails” b. slixayim “two pardons” c. znavayim “two tails” (Hillel 1977) (children’s story in rhyme) a. mishvarayim “stirrups” b. rixsayim “cuff links” c. endifayim “whiskers” (human) (poetry: C. N. Bialik) deraxayim “two paths” (Proverbs 28:6) (Fontinoy 1969: 17)

This paper presents a sign-oriented analysis that will explain all of the uses of the dual number in Hebrew (those meaning “two” and those meaning “more than

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two”), as well as the other anomalies and irregularities of the distribution of the dual number in the grammar and the lexicon cited above. I will further illustrate that when both the dual and the numeral two (in its compound form) + a plural noun designate two entities, they are not synonymous, and there is a subtle semantic distinction between them. This semantic analysis will be based on the following sign-oriented hypotheses: a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

the singular, plural and dual morphology in Hebrew differ in their monosemic, invariant meanings, or signifiés (e.g., Bolinger 1977; Saussure 1913/ 1959; Tobin 1990; and Waugh and Rudy (1991); this difference in meaning is expressed by a marked distinctive semantic feature in the sense originally postulated by the Prague School: e.g., Andrews and Tobin (1996); Jakobson (1975); and Tobin (1988); this marked distinctive feature (Semantic Integrality) (e.g., Tobin 1990, 1994) is based on the perception of entities in continuous versus discontinuous space, time, or existence in the sense originally associated with the school of the Psychomechanics of Language (Guillaume 1945, 1971; Hirtle 1982, 1995; Morris 1991; Wickens 1991); according to this analysis: the singular and plural morphemes are unmarked in Hebrew and indicate an entity or entities viewed either in continuous or discontinuous space, time, or existence, while the dual morpheme is marked for Semantic Integrality and therefore indicates entities which can be potentially perceived individually in discontinuous space but must now be viewed collectively: i.e., as part of a set viewed in continuous space, time or existence; these forms are part of a semantic system in the sense of the Columbia School (e.g., Contini-Morava 1989; García 1975; Gorup 1987; Huffman 1996; Kirsner 1979; Reid 1991).

The data will be analyzed on the microlevel: i.e., sentences in context as well as on the macrolevel: i.e., in the form of semiotic-oriented discourse analyses originally inspired by Diver (1969) and further refined in the concepts of word systems and communicative strategies (Aphek and Tobin 1988, 1989), and in the ‘from sign to text’ and ‘from text to sign’ approaches developed in Tobin (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994).

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Alternative analyses of grammatical number

It is not surprising that “number” has been viewed as one of the most basic and possibly universal grammatical systems of human language: hence, the familiar term Grammatical Number, a grammatical system par excellence. Traditionally speaking, the semantic substance of grammatical systems of number is COUNTABILITY: “the number of entities designated by the attached lexical stem” (Reid 1991: 46). Alternatively, Talmy (1988: 176) refers to this traditional concept in a manner “intended to capture the generalization from matter over to action” as ‘plexity’: a quantity’s state of articulation into equivalent elements. When the quantity consists of only one such element, it is ‘uniplex’, and where it consists of more than one, it is ‘multiplex’. The typical examples of the grammatical system of number for languages containing singular and plural morphology are Latin and English (Diver 1984, 1986). In these languages the singular morphology means ONE and the plural morphology means MORE THAN ONE. The two meanings in this system exhaustively classify the semantic domain of Countability because any conceivable number associated with a referent will fall into either of the two categories. Furthermore, the value of the meanings of the system are in a grammatical relationship of EXCLUSION: i.e., the choice of either sign precludes the choice of the other sign for the same lexical item. The traditional example of the grammatical system of number for languages containing singular, plural and dual morphology is Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, (according to Diver 1984 based on Whitney 1967): the singular morphology means ONE, the dual morphology means TWO, and the plural morphology means MORE THAN TWO. Once again, the value of the meanings in the system are in a relationship of EXCLUSION, the prototypical paradigmatic grammatical system. Thus, the singular, the dual, and the plural in Sanskrit do not overlap in the same way that the singular and the plural do not overlap in English and Latin. According to Whitney (1967: 88–89): As to the use of the numbers, it needs only to be remarked that the dual is (with only very rare and sporadic exceptions) used strictly in all cases where two objects are logically indicated, whether directly or by combination of two individuals … The dual is used alone (without dva two) properly when the duality of the objects indicated is well understood …

Examples (29)–(35) containing both the dual and the compound form of the number two and a lexical item in the plural (e.g., yomayim vs. shnei yamim “two days”) clearly show that the system of number in Hebrew differs from that of

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Sanskrit. In Hebrew and in Greek (according to Diver 1984, 1987): the singular morphology means ONE, the dual morphology means TWO, but the plural morphology means MORE THAN ONE (including two). Only the sign for singular is in an opposition of exclusion with the meanings of the signs for the dual and plural. The meanings of the signs for the dual and plural are in an opposition of INCLUSION: i.e., the value relation of the meaning of the dual TWO is included in or overlaps with the meaning of the plural MORE THAN ONE resulting in a less-than-exclusive paradigmatical grammatical system which spans the opposition between the grammar and the lexicon of a language in the sense that these two alternative forms may be viewed as being similar to lexical synonyms: i.e., the speaker may choose one grammatical sign over the other as one does with the choice of similar lexical items to create a specific message. The part of the semantic domain of COUNTABILITY signalled by the meaning of plural morphology (MORE THAN ONE) in Greek and Hebrew is the same as that of Latin and English and includes that part of the semantic domain of COUNTABILITY signalled by the dual (TWO). Thus, in Greek and Hebrew — unlike Sanskrit — the signals for either the plural or the dual may be used to indicate two referents. That part of the semantic domain COUNTABILITY explicitly signalled by the plural morphology of Sanskrit MORE THAN TWO is not categorized in the Greek or Hebrew system of number because there is no signal that explicitly specifies it. It is merely that part of the semantic domain of COUNTABILITY that does not overlap with the dual. Therefore the dual number in Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit are not identical and represent two different ways of internally dividing the same semantic domain. The choice of either dual and/or plural morphology will not be a simple grammatical one as in Sanskrit, but closer to a lexical one for Hebrew and Greek. In other words, one should not automatically assume that the meanings of language specific signs, even those representing well-established traditional categories, are always equivalent before postulating language universals, or for the purpose of contrastive analyses and typological studies across languages. Or, as we have stated elsewhere: In short: there is no doubt that comparing languages is the only way of getting at the deeper, general principles that underlie the functioning of all languages. But we can hope to make serious progress in the search of language relevant universals only if our feet rest on the solid ground of an adequate understanding of how particular languages work. (García, Van Putte and Tobin 1987: 402)

Moreover, the well-established semantic domain of COUNTABILITY often assumed to underlie the systems of grammatical number may also be open to question. We are all familiar with the well-known “exceptions” in the English

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number system such as non-count or mass nouns: i.e. “plural” entities taking “singular” morphology, (e.g., deer, money, fish, sand, sheep), and “singular” entities taking the “plural” -s suffix: (e.g., phonetics, mathematics, physics, crossroads, picnic-grounds, offices, measles, mumps, dibs, jeans, shorts) (Hirtle 1982, 1995, this volume; Wickens 1991), as well as alternative plurals for the same lexical item (-s and synchretic forms containing zero-singular morphology): (e.g., person (sg.) persons/people (pl.) (Tobin 1994: 76–78). There are also many clear-cut counter examples for the meaning TWO postulated for the Hebrew dual: the dual used as a plural (ex. (36)): arba einayim “four eyes”, eser shinayim “ten teeth”, xamesh raglayim “five legs”, eser tsipornayim “ten nails”, as well as the adjectival or adverbial use of the dual often accompanied by emphatic or iterative messages (ex. (1)): (tseva) rikmatayim ”a very rich, variegated (color)”, atsaltayim “very slow(ly), very lazy, very lazily”, arbaãatayim “fourfold”, “manifold”, shivatayim “sevenfold”, “manifold”, xamor-xamoratayim “double donkey”, “very stupid”, kushan rishãatayim “Cushan of the double wickedness”. The seemingly arbitrary distribution of the dual versus the singular and plural, for periods of time, paired body parts, paired articles of clothing, paired objects (dualia tantum), or entities which appear in paired sets (right/left, upper/lower, front/back) found in examples (8)–(28) also make one question the adequacy of the semantic domain of COUNTABILITY and the meanings that have been postulated to exhaustively categorize it. The sign-oriented analysis being presented here has been influenced by the notions of unity (singularity) versus discreteness (plurality), i.e. the perception of entities in continuate versus discontinuate space as presented in Hirtle (1982, 1995) and Wickens (1991) for English based on the work of Gustave Guillaume. For Guillaume (1971: 211–212), the system of number basically contrasts the perception of entities in the field of the continuate–perceived as occupying a single stretch of space — versus the discontinuate–perceived as occupying discrete places in space. Hirtle does not view the singular zero morpheme as statically meaning ONE, but rather as a dynamic movement going from the notion of ‘plurality’ (discontinuate inner space) to ‘singularity’ (continuate inner space) (see below). Conversely and symmetrically, Hirtle also views the meaning of the plural -s suffix not merely as statically meaning MORE THAN ONE, but rather as a dynamic movement going from the notion of ‘singularity’ (continuate inner space) to ‘plurality’ (discontinuate inner space) (see below). Hirtle’s proposal involves a single abstract mental operation of going from ‘singularity’ to ‘plurality’ as part of two converse and symmetrical movements. This process of a single abstract mental operation taking place within two converse symmetrical movements — called the binary tensor device — was originally proposed by

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Guillaume (1945: 118–119) for grammatical number in languages like Classical Greek with an internal plural. The notion of internal plural is significant for Hirtle’s analysis of English as well as the analysis to be presented here for the dual number in Hebrew. Hirtle (1982: 76) establishes a distinction between the internal versus the external plural. The internal plural presents a number of individuals as basically one — a unity–to explain the non-count or mass nouns in English. The external plural presents a number of individuals as being separate or discrete, with only a lexical link between them — the regular plural of count nouns. The internal plural evokes a plurality within unity, i.e., within some wider continuate, because it results from the interception of a movement towards the singular. The external plural, on the other hand, evokes plurality per se, i.e., separate, discrete, discontinuate entities in space, which arises as part of a movement away from the singular. Guillaume considered the dual number (or at least its traces in the IndoEuropean languages) to be the result of intercepting a movement of thought from plural to singular at its penultimate position. In other words, it marks a near final point in the movement through the field of the continuate, tending to define the minimal member of this field, i.e., the singular. Due to the fact that this movement is in the field of the continuate, any plural obtained here is the result of division — dividing whatever quality into parts — hence this is called the internal plural. The dual is the smallest version of the internal plural, obtained by dividing a continuate into two. Any further quantitative reduction would result in a singular, which being a minimum, cannot be divided. Thus, for Guillaume, in the abstract mental movement from plurality to singularity of continuate space, the dual is the meaning obtained immediately preceding the singular — a minimal internal plurality meaning two. The reader should note that Guillaume and Hirtle are postulating an alternative hypothesis for the semantic domain of COUNTABILITY underlying the system of number: i.e., the perception of entities in continuate (unity, singular) versus discontinuate (discrete, plurality) space. However, the reader should also note that they postulate the meaning TWO for the dual for the Indo-European languages (which might include both Greek and Sanskrit despite their different value relationships of inclusion and exclusion with the plural) as the minimal internal plural of their system. Concerning the dual in general as a larger grammatical-semantic category, Rukeyser (1997) creates a typology of eight different nominal dual meanings (not necessarily meaning TWO) in Indo-European, FinnoUgric, Semitic and Australian languages and describes them via formal compositional semantic features based on Ojeda (1993). Talmy (1988: 180–191) discusses similar cognitive and gestalt states of dividedness, the categorization of

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quantity into discrete and continuous and unbounded and bounded plexities in various patterns and levels of synthesis as well without a specific discussion of the dual number. In the next section I will expand the Guillaumean semantic domain of perceiving entities in continuate versus discontinuate space; adapt it to the Jakobsonian view of markedness and distinctive feature theory; postulate a marked distinctive feature (Semantic Integrality) which will be incorporated into an invariant meaning; and then propose an alternative analysis of the Hebrew number system which will account for all the uses of the dual. Cognitive concepts similar to these (discreteness and individuation) have been postulated for gender as well as a common base for both number and gender for a variety of languages (Contini-Morava, Janda, Klein-Andreu, and Otheguy, this volume).

4.

Semantic Integrality

One of the most fundamental problems in linguistics in general and in the study of language universals in particular is the distinction between what is extralinguistic versus what is linguistic, or, in other words: which universals are part of language per se and which are reflections of universal principles of cognition, perception, or communication reflected in diverse ways in different languages (García, van Putte and Tobin 1987). Indeed, this question of language universals is one of the key issues dividing traditional and neotraditional sentence-oriented as well as Saussurian, semiotic, or sign-oriented approaches to language (ContiniMorava and Sussman Goldberg 1995; Klein-Andreu 1983; Tobin 1989, 1990). The semantic feature relevant to the present analysis, Semantic Integrality, has been previously postulated as a semiotic feature of human cognition and perception (Tobin 1990). The marked feature Semantic Integrality is based on the assumption that there are two alternative ways of perceiving a plurality of entities in space, time, or existence either as discrete entities (a + b = a + b) or as potentially discrete entities perceived as part of a continuous set (a + b = [ab]) as illustrated in Figure 1 below. Semantic Integrality may be viewed as a marked distinctive feature that can be used to explain linguistic concepts both in the grammar and the lexicon in a unified and systematic way that reflects the human perception of entities in space, time, and existence. Indeed, there may very well be a universal semantic development of linguistic forms on a spatio-temporal-existential cline going from the most concrete spatial messages to the more abstract temporal, to the most abstract existential kinds of messages: (a) existence in space or in a place (e.g., in the room), (b) existence in time (e.g., in the morning), (c) abstract existence

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Alternative Ways of Perceiving Entities in a Spatio-Temporal-Existential Cline a + b = a + b (discontinuous space, time, or existence] or a + b = [ab] (continuous space, time, or existence]  :            Figure 1. Semantic Integrality

(e.g., to be in trouble, to be in the in-group) (Tobin 1990: Ch. 3). This spatio-temporal-existential cline has been considered a cognitive universal (e.g., Givón 1979; Traugott 1978; Wierzbicka 1972, 1980). It has been applied to the historical development of language in general and in the development of pidgins and creoles in particular (e.g., Traugott 1975); various word classes such as copulas, prepositions, and particles (Aphek and Tobin 1988; García, van Putte and Tobin 1987; Traugott 1975, 1978); first language acquisition (Traugott 1974; Clark 1973); the origin and development of idioms in general (Pike 1976) and the development of phrasal verb idioms in particular (Makkai 1972). These studies provide additional evidence for Kronasser’s Law (Kronasser 1952; Kovac´ s 1961) which claims that semantic change tends overwhelmingly to move from the concrete to the abstract. The distinctive feature of Semantic Integrality may provide a means to better understand the connection between human cognition and perception and language and how this connection may be realized differently in various language systems. Semantic Integrality has served as the basis for analyzing the following linguistic phenomena: systems of grammatical number in general and so-called “irregular” plurals, mass/count nouns, agreement in English; the quantifiers many vs. much; each vs. every; and some vs. any in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents rav/merube/harbe/mirba; kol; and exad, axadim/eize; the adverbs of comparison like vs. as in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents kemo/ke-; the connectives also vs. too in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents gam,/gam-ken/af; the restrictives only vs. just in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents aval/ax/ela, rak/levad, ax-ve-rak; the deletives without vs. -less in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents beli/le-lo; the synthetic vs. analytic systems of comparatives and superlatives (the) more/most X/ -er/-est X in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents yoter X/X yoter/ha-X be-yoter, ha-xi X, od X; the diminishers few vs. less in English and their so-called Hebrew equivalents meãat/ketsat; the conditionals if vs. whether in English and

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their so-called Hebrew equivalents im/lu/ilu/lulu/ilule; possessive constructions in English and Hebrew; and contracted vs. non-contracted forms in English and Hebrew in Tobin (1990, 1994). All of the abovementioned analyses were based on the Jakobsonian notion of markedness as it is used to distinguish between opposed members of a lexical or grammatical system (Andrews 1990; Battistella 1990, 1996). The asymmetric value relationship of the concept of binary markedness developed by the Jakobsonian-van Schooneveldian School of linguistics may be summarized as follows for the distinctive feature of Semantic Integrality: (a) The unmarked (U) member of an opposition is neutral. It makes no claim with regard to Semantic Integrality and is less complex cognitively. It means: PERCEIVE ENTITIES IN CONTINUOUS OR DISCONTINUOUS SPACE, TIME, OR EXISTENCE. In the system of number for Hebrew the singular morphology is unmarked: the singular form yom “day” can be perceived discretely as an individuated entity with clear-cut individuated boundaries, e.g., a specific day, or, alternatively, as a unity in continuous space with less clear-cut and individuated boundaries in the sense of yom “daytime” versus layla “night” or “night time”. Both readings are possible and are determined by the linguistic and situational context of the speech or narrative event with the discrete reading generally being favored, thus the idea of the singular generally indicating ONE individuated entity. The plural morphology is also unmarked and favors the discontinuous or discrete reading although a continuous reading is also possible. Example (32)b. shnei yamin “two days” (plural) can either be interpreted discretely (a + b = a + b): i.e., two separate days with individuated boundaries, or in continuous space (a + b = [ab]): i.e., two consecutive or successive days perceived as a set without individuated boundaries separating each day (cf. ex. (48)). The preferred discrete reading (“more than one day” rather than “a collective of days or daytimes”) is the more familiar and frequent one, thus the idea of plural generally indicating MORE THAN ONE individuated entity. (b) The marked (M) member of the opposition makes a specific claim regarding Semantic Integrality. It is more complex cognitively. It means: PERCEIVE POTENTIALLY DISCONTINUOUS ENTITIES IN CONTINUOUS SPACE, TIME, OR EXISTENCE. In the system of number for Hebrew the dual morphology is marked: the only reading possible is the continuous reading: (a + b = [ab]). Example (32)a. yomayim “two days” (dual) can only mean two consecutive days or two days

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viewed together as a set without individuated boundaries separating them (cf. ex. (48)). Therefore the marked dual is the most efficient choice for indicating a continuous collective perception of any number of entities viewed within a cognitive set. The unmarked member of an opposition which makes no specific claim concerning the absence or the presence of a distinctive semantic feature is usually more flexible and open-ended than the marked member of an opposition. The unmarked member of an opposition allows for any and all possibilities and is very often the first to be acquired and the one more frequently used although this does not have to be an absolute rule. The marked member of an opposition which does make a specific claim for the presence of a distinctive semantic feature is less flexible and usually more limited in its distribution because of its greater precision in meaning. It is often acquired later and generally may be used less frequently than the unmarked member of an opposition although this is not necessarily an absolute rule. Therefore it should always be remembered that neither order of acquisition nor the rate of frequency is the sole criterion for choosing the markedness value. However the asymmetric markedness relationship implies that the marked members usually may be replaced by the unmarked members while the opposite is not necessarily true. The feature of Semantic Integrality which makes a claim for the perception of potentially discrete entities as a single continuous set has been chosen as the marked feature for the following reasons: (i) The process of first perceiving concrete or abstract entities as they appear discretely in discontinuous space, time, or existence is the fundamental perception of identification. The later perception of these potentially discrete entities as forming part of an integral set occupying continuous space, time, or existence is a more complex cognitive task. This greater cognitive complexity underlies and justifies the choice of Semantic Integrality as being the marked feature synergetically. (ii) If the notion of isomorphism is taken seriously, it becomes evident that the notion of integrality or fusion functions on all the levels of language as well. (iii) In phonology there is an opposition between vowels and diphthongs, nongeminated and geminated consonant phonemes, and stops/fricatives and affricates forming an obstruent consonant class. In all of these cases the second or marked member of the opposition represents a more complex unit or sound nucleus composed of the merger, fusion, or integration of two vowels or consonants and may be marked for Integrality (Tobin 1997).

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(iv) In morphology or syntax there are also simple, analytic, independent units versus more synthetic, agglutinative, or compound units composed of the fusion, merger, or integration of different bound or unbound morphemes or clause types, etc., both in word formation and in clause and sentence formation. In all of these cases, the fused, merged, or integrated units are perceived as being more complex or marked as opposed to the simple or more neutral counterparts. (v) There is usually some sort of iconic connection between the signals themselves and their markedness values (Tobin 1990, 1994). The signs marked for the more complex or specific meanings are usually larger or more complex in their signal or form while the signs which are unmarked and are simpler and less complex in their meanings are usually simpler in their signals and forms as well. In the Hebrew system of number there is an iconic connection between the forms and the meanings of the members of the system and their markedness values. The dual morpheme -ayim, the marked member of the system, is the largest form with the most complex and specific meaning. The other members of the system are also iconic: the plural morphology is larger than the singular morphology which reflects physical reality: plural entities generally occupy more space than their respective singular counterparts. This iconic connection is presented schematically for the masculine forms accompanied by the various meanings postulated for each number category: Signal Ø (zero) -im -ayim

5.

Proposed Meaning Unmarked for SI Unmarked for SI Marked for SI

Prior Analyses one/singular/unity more than one/plural/external plural two/dual/plural/internal plural/plurality viewed as a unity

The data: Micro-level analysis

One of the arguments for the claim that the dual morphology spans the opposition between the grammar and the lexicon is the fact that the dual is not the exclusive way of designating two referents: either the dual or the numeral two (shnayim/shtayim) (masc./fem.) in its compound form (shnei-/shtei-) (masc./fem.) + a plural noun can be used to designate two entities throughout the lexicon for all styles and registers of spoken and written Hebrew (exs. (29)–(35)) as if they were synonyms. This allows speakers to make lexico-grammatical choices in their description of two spatio-temporal-existential entities motivated by the semantic distinction of the members of the number system. The marked dual

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form -ayim only allows for an integral interpretation (a + b = [ab]) while the unmarked form includes this meaning but also allows for a discrete, non-integral interpretation (a + b = a + b). Cognitively and perceptually speaking, the continuous interpretation [ab] is more compact, smaller, and shorter than the discrete, discontinuous interpretation (a + b). A number of communicative strategies has developed from this subtle semantic distinction. The first strategy is that the marked dual form -ayim ([ab] only) is preferred to convey the message of a brief or shorter view of time in opposition to the unmarked plural form ([ab] or (a + b)) which conveys a longer view of the same time period as may be seen in the following examples taken from a variety of styles and registers in spoken and written Hebrew: Examples (41)–(42) describe a professor describing a “short” final examination with the dual ([ab]) and a disgruntled student’s reaction to the same exam with the plural ([ab] or a + b): (41)

(42)

ze mivxan katsar, rak shaããatayim. () this test short, only two-hours () “This is a short exam, only two hours.” () eize katsar! ze lakax li shtei shaããot laãanot al sheãela which short it took to-me two + hours to-answer on question axat! () one () “What short! It took me two hours to answer only one question!” ()

Examples (43)–(44) describe a tardy wife claiming it will only take her two minutes to get dressed for an appointment using the dual ([ab]) and her husband’s angry response using the plural ([ab] or a + b): (43)

(44)

al titragez! ze yikax li rak dakatayim lehitlabesh. no be-angry it will-take to-me only two-minutes to-dress “Don’t be angry! It will only take me two minutes to get dressed.” () ze lo yikax shtei dakot! ze yikax lax it no will-take two + minutes it will-take to-you xatsi-shaãah () half-hour () “It won’t take you two minutes! It will take you half an hour!”

Example (45) from the Hebrew daily yediot axaronot uses the dual ([ab]) to describe the brief period of time it took for a celebrity to appear at the doorway

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of an airplane after it opened. The reporter was giving the inside story of how the man had to change his trousers before facing the media. (45)

axarei dakatayim hu nira be-kevesh ha-matos… () after two-minutes he was-seen in-doorway the-airplane “After two minutes he was seen at the doorway of the plane.”

Examples (46)–(47) taken from the Hebrew translation of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist and a conversation, illustrate the use of the plural form ([ab] or (a+b) to emphasize the encoders’ idiosyncratic subjective perceptions of a long period of time. In both cases the plural forms are chosen in opposition to the more familiar and commonly used lexicalized dual forms (xodshayim/shaãatayim “two months”, “two hours”): Example (46) describes the severe humiliation suffered by Mr. Bumble during the two months that he was married. After a particularly humiliating scene with his wife of two months, Bumble mumbles to himself: (46)

ve-kol ze rak be-meshex shnei xodashim () and-all this only in-period two + months () “All in two months” ()

Example (47) is taken from a conversation between a student suffering from insomnia to her mother describing the two long hours it took her to fall asleep using the plural rather than the more common dual form: (47)

lo hitslaxti le-hiradem shtei shaot! () no succeeded-I to-fall asleep two + hours () “It took me two hours to fall asleep!” ()

The second strategy motivated by the meanings of these signs is that the marked dual form -ayim ([ab] only) is used to convey the message of a set of consecutive, continuous, or successive events in opposition to the unmarked plural form ([ab] or (a + b)) which conveys events which may or may not be be viewed consecutively, continuously, or successively. Example (48) is taken from a conversation between two students trying to arrange a time to see a movie during exam week. The movie was showing for two + days (plural) which turned out to be Monday and Thursday (non-consecutive days) which allowed them two whole, consecutive, continuous and successive days: two-days (dual) to study for their exams:

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(48)

ha-seret metsig shnei yamim, sheni ve-xamishi ze the-movie plays two + days () Monday and-Thursday it noten lanu yomayim () tmimim lilmod gives to-us two-days () whole to-study “The movie’s playing two days (), Monday and Thursday, that gives us two whole days () to study.” Example (49) is taken from the Passover Haggadah. It describes the ritual of dipping food two + times during the holiday meal. It emphasizes the fact that although food is not dipped at all during normal meals, at the Seder, food is steeped not only once, but on two separate occasions (a + b) hence the use of the plural rather than the more commonly used dual form found in example (50): (49) she-be-xol ha-laylot ein anu matbilim afilu paãam axat, that-on-all the-nights no we dip even time one ha-layla ha-ze shtei peããamim () The night the-this two + times () “On all other nights we do not dip our food even once, on this night two + times.” () Example (50) is taken from the autobiography of Israel’s former Foreign Minister Yigal Allon (1975: 44). It describes the author’s two unsuccessful attempts to be accepted to a prestigious school. Despite the fact that he applied twice (two-times) (dual); and was invited twice (two-times) (dual) to sit for the entrance exam; twice (two-times) (dual) successfully passed the exam and was duly notified of the fact; his acceptance was vetoed each time (two + times) (plural) by the scholarship committee: (50)

paããamayim nirshamti ke-muamad, () two-times applied-I as-candidate paããamayim huzmanti le-bxiniot ha-knisa… () two-times was-invited-I to-exams the-entrance paããamayim le-marbe ha-pele amadeti bahen ba-hatslaxa two-times to-great the-wonder stood-I in-them with success aval be-shtei ha-peããamim hifuli pkidei ha-PIKA et but in-two the-times exercised officials the-PIKA OM zxut ha-veto shelahem () right the-veto their () “Twice () I enrolled as a candidate, twice (), I was invited to the entrance examinations… Twice, to my great surprise, I managed to pass them … and both times (each time) () the PIKA officials took advantage of their veto.” (Allon 1976: 141)

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Another argument for the claim that the dual spans the opposition between the grammar and the lexicon is the fact that speakers can idiosyncratically attach the dual to almost any noun for a comic, facetious, metaphorical or rhetorical effect in both written and spoken Hebrew of all styles and registers (exs. (37)–(40)) in a way similar to creating neologisms. Examples (37)b-c show the unusual dual akuzayim ”twin asses” (double buttocks) for the singular akuz “buttock(s)” or plural akuzim “buttocks(es)”. This creative use of the dual appeared in a conversation in the context of a friend inviting a couple to accompany him on a walking tour of Jerusalem. He was addressing the couple in tandem, as if they were a single unit: (51)

kvar mi-zman lo hezaztem et ha-akuzayim shelaxem! already from-time no made-move OM the-arses yours () “It’s already been a long time since you’ve moved your twin arses! ()

It has been established that in closed grammatical systems the choice of one member of the paradigmatic system precludes the simultaneous choice of another member of that system for the same lexical item in the same utterance: e.g., walks/ walked but not *walksed/*walkeds. One of the arguments for the lexical status of the dual morpheme in Hebrew is the fact that both the plural and dual morphology can co-occur on the same form: ex. (7)a. mekomotayim ”place” (plural + dual) “two places together” (informal conversation). The context of this utterance was a friend requesting the author to save him two-seats-together for himself and another party. In fact, this unusual use of the dual + plural was the speaker’s subtle way of announcing that he would be arriving with a new girlfriend. (52)

shmor li mekomotayim la-seret! (-) save for-me place-  - to-the-movie (-) “Save me two places together for the movie! (-)

This unusual form is also iconic: ‘place + plural (either ([ab]) or (a + b)) + dual ([ab] only)’ as a way to emphasize the continuous set of successive chairs to be placed right next to each other.

6.

The data: Macro-level analysis

An entire discourse or text may be viewed as a unified whole composed of a signal and a meaning: i.e., as a sign in its own right where the message of the

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text represents its meaning or signifié, and the nonrandom distribution of the language in the text represents its form, signal, or signifiant. When a text is perceived as a sign in its own right, it then becomes possible to analyze that text and the nonrandom distribution of the signs within that text in a method called the “from text to sign” approach. This approach attempts to show that the consistent choice of a marked or an unmarked form may be directly determined and motivated by the message of the text itself as it functions as the meaning half of the text as a sign: i.e., the larger textual message will motivate the choice of the marked or the unmarked form throughout the text. The message of the text, functioning as the meaning of the “text as sign” involves a conflation of elements including the characters, the plot, the themes and leitmotifs that all function together within the larger system of the text. This approach involves the hierarchical descending order from text and context to system and sign. The “from text to sign” approach has explained the use of unusual marked forms in classic and contemporary texts (e.g., curiouser and curiouser in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, darlingest in Social Disease (Rudnick 1986) and worse/ worser/worst in the Jerusalem Post) and in other texts of literary and journalistic prose as well as poetry in English and Hebrew (Tobin 1990, 1993, 1994). A good example of the creative, productive and subjective use of the dual to emphasize the concept of unity in plurality and diversity is found in the text: maãaseh ba-xatulayim (“A Tale of Two Kitties”) [translation mine with apologies to Charles Dickens) [Y.T.], a popular children’s story in rhyme. This text, (Hillel 1977), can be viewed as a sign in its own right with the language of the text serving as the signal half of the sign and the message and the message “unity in plurality and diversity” serving as the concept, or meaning half of the sign. The author first introduces two cats in the conventional plural (shnei + xatulim) (“two + cats”), one black as tar, one white as whitewash. Each cat (xatul) (in the singular) arrogantly claims to the other that he is more handsome than his rival. A heated argument ensues which emphasizes their individual differences and the advantages of being either black or white respectively. Two days later (in the dual), they are both still angry and unsure of themselves. Each one, individually and independently, decides to change his color. The white cat jumps into a barrel of tar to make himself all black. The black cat jumps into a barrel of whitewash to make himself all white. After originally being introduced in the plural, each cat consistently struggled with himself and with the other in the singular as a unique and individual character. After the two cats (shnei + xatulim) change their colors and identities, forget who is who, and change places, the author begins to refer to them exclusively with the dual (xatulayim) (“two-cats”), a highly unusual marked form. When the

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xatulayim see each other after the change, they become even more confused and upset. They can no longer distinguish which one is which. They begin to lament and “wail two wails together” (with the highly unusual and marked dual form allelayim), further emphasizing the fact that they are now brothers united in their shared misery. They run off together to wash off the painful tar and whitewash in the sea. After returning to their original colors and identities, they become the best of friends. It is here where one finds the most creative use of the dual. The xatulayim seal their friendship by: “begging each other’s (dual) pardon” (slixayim); “shaking their (dual) tails on it” (znavayim); happily announcing that “the way we are, and each one and both of us together is double (kiflayim) million nice”; and, in the end, they happily go off together to Jerusalem (yerushalayim). It should be clear that, rhyming aside, the author has most cleverly, productively, subjectively, and appropriately exploited the dual number, marked for the feature Semantic Integrality to convey his message. If the dual number spans the opposition between the grammar and the lexicon, one can explain the nonrandom distribution of the dual in this text (as well as in examples (41)–(52) illustrating the choice of the dual in opposition to the plural) as instances of the use of signs for subjective comment: speakers may use one sign rather than another in order to tell us something about their own attitude about the scene — as opposed to merely giving an objective description (García 1975: 52; Kirsner 1979: 43; Tobin 1990: 81). Furthermore, in this particular text, it is the message of the text: “unity in plurality and diversity” that motivates the choice of the singular–dual–plural morphology throughout the text: (i)

The two cats are first introduced in the plural (shnei xatulim) emphasizing their discreteness: i.e., two individual, independent, and separate entities. (ii) An argument ensues in which each cat emphasizes his individuality, uniqueness, and superiority using singular morphology (xatul) exclusively. (iii) After the cats change colors — each one being transformed into the other — a new unity is born out of a formerly discrete plurality — and the highly marked and exceptional use of the dual (xatulayim) becomes the exclusive form used to refer to these two-cats. (iv) The xatulayim then perform all sorts of acts and rituals to define and strengthen their friendship consistently employing unusual (allelayim/ slixayim/znavayim) and traditional (kiflayim/yerushalayim) dual forms. Throughout this text, the system of number is being exploited in a way which strongly supports our sign-oriented analysis. In those sections of the text where

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the individuality of the cats is being emphasized we have an instance of the plural introducing the cats and an exclusive use of the singular. There are no creative uses of the dual in these sections of the text. In those sections emphasizing the unity of the cats, they are referred to exclusively by a highly marked and unusual dual form. As their friendship grows, the use of the dual — both in its conventionalized, lexicalized, historical and productive, creative ways — steadily increases. In short, the more united the cats, the more examples we find of the dual. In other words, the message of the text as a sign — “unity in plurality and diversity” — motivated the author’s choice of the marked and unmarked oppositions of the members of this system which reflect alternative ways of perceiving entities in continuous or discontinuous space.

7.

The principles of classification

The majority of the dictionary entries for the dual (ca. 140) (cf. Tobin 1990: 101–104 for an annotated list) can be directly and transparently related to the literal concepts of “two”, “paired”, or “doubled” entities and therefore conform to the meaning TWO (Diver 1987) or PAIREDNESS (Janda, this volume) which might be viewed as prototypical meanings to which further polysemic meanings may be added. The monosemic, invariant meaning postulated here, — PERCEIVE POTENTIALLY DISCONTINUOUS ENTITIES IN CONTINUOUS SPACE, TIME, OR EXISTENCE (a + b = [ab]) — can account for these prototypical meanings TWO/PAIREDNESS as well as the other polysemic meanings which might be postulated, including the counter examples already discussed. The counter examples for the meanings TWO/PAIREDNESS, example (36), the dual as a plural, are: arba einayim “four eyes”, eser shinayim “ten teeth”, xamesh raglayim “five legs”, and eser tsipornayim “ten nails”. In each of these instances the “eyes, teeth, legs, and finger/toe nails” are viewed as occupying continuous space, as a set, regardless of the actual number of entities comprising that set which, in these cases, are more than two or a pair. This principle of viewing body parts from the point of view of how they are perceived in continuous or discontinuous space may be extended to other parts of the body as well which take the dual: e.g., gums/lips (upper/lower), finger/toe nails (right/left/upper/lower); intestines, loins (upper/lower/large/small); cheeks/ buttocks (right/left) may be perceived as occupying continuous space and receive the dual regardless of their actual number of parts. This leads to the question as to why some paired body parts are in the dual and others not.

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One of the arguments for the lexical status of the dual morpheme in Hebrew is that the distribution of the dual for periods of time, paired body parts, paired articles of clothing, paired objects (dualia tantum) or paired sets of entities (left/ right, upper/lower, front/back) appears to be arbitrary. Some appear in the dual while others appear in the singular or plural (with a marked preference for the plural) as was shown in examples (8)–(28). I will apply the meaning postulated here for the dual to show a possible semantic and cognitive motivation underlying much of this superficial arbitrariness. First of all it must be mentioned that the vast majority of the dictionary entries for the dual as well as the creative or productive duals found in our spoken and written corpora can be directly related to human beings. It makes communicative and cognitive sense that the marked form of the system which draws more attention than the unmarked forms would be related to lexical items which are particularly salient for human beings: (i)

parts of the body, clothes, tools and measures related to agriculture, trade, and work; (ii) the human perception of space, time, and existence in the immediate environment: place names and time periods and expressions; (iii) the majority of the remaining duals are related to animals, particularly those animals which are used and exploited for labor and food. Among the duals in these semantic fields or lexical categories, there is a preference for the dual to be used to designate and draw attention to those parts of the body which are larger, external, or more obvious, and perceived as wholes: i.e., an umbrella term for the whole organ in the dual while the plural is used to designate the smaller individual parts comprising the dual whole: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

(v)

dual eyes (einayim) but plural eyelashes (risim), pupils (ishonim), eyebrows (gabot); dual ears (oznayim) but plural earlobes (tnuxim); dual breasts (shadayim), but plural nipples (ptamot); dual hands-arms (the same lexical item yadayim is usually used for both) but plural fingers (estbaãot), wrists, joints (prakim), elbows marpekim), arms (zroãot), arm pits batei-shexi); dual viscera-guts-insides-entrails (meãayim/xalatsayim/kravayim) (possibly related historically to ritual animal sacrifices, the first organs to appear bearing omens for which there are many idioms and expressions representing human emotions and qualities like courage and hatred), but plural lungs (reãot), kidneys (klayot) (for which there are very few or no idioms or expressions);

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(vi) historically dual (external) testicles (eshkayim)(pluralized today (ashaxim) as opposed to only plural (internal) ovaries (shaxlot). It is also interesting to note that the dual legs and most of their component parts appear with the dual: e.g., birkayim “the knees” (also used for ritual bowing, blessing, and genuflecting (libarek)), thighs (yeraxayim), calves (shokayim), and ankles (karsolayim) all of which are larger than their parallel and smaller plural counterparts of the upper limbs: forearms (amot), elbows (marpekim), wrists (prakim). The same principle of wholes (dual) versus parts (plural) is found in other semantic fields as well: (i)

dual shoes (naãalayim) and boots (magafayim), but plural shoelaces (sroxim), soles (suliyot), and heels (akevim); (ii) dual (external) pants (mixnasayim) and “breeches/trousers” (avrakaim/ brakayim) but plural (internal or unseen) underpants (taxtonim); (iii) dual hooves (tlafayim) but plural horseshoes (parsot). The highly marked dual is also reserved for specific parts of wholes which are particularly useful, flexible, mobile, are used frequently, and over which we have greater control: i.e., are worthy of greater attention: (i) The same lexical item kaf is used as the singular form for both the palm of the hands and the sole of the foot: the dual kapayim designates the more useful and obvious palms of the hand for which there are many idioms and expressions like: limxo kapayim “clap hands”, avodat kapayim “manual labor” while the plural form is used to designate kapot raglayim “the soles of the feet” for which there are no idioms or expressions. (ii) The eyelids, that part of the eye that we move when we blink, wink and “make eyes at someone”, also takes the dual (afapayim) while the other parts of the eye are in the plural: eyebrows (gabot/gvinim), eye lashes (risim), pupils (ishonim/bavot). It is also not by chance that the relatively few paired or sets of paired organs of animals that have become lexicalized duals are those which are of particular importance to their owners: (i) tlafayim “hooves” which require constant observation, care and treatment; (ii) karnayim “horns” which are considered sacred and used in rituals and in religious holidays, and are metaphorically symbols of wealth, finance, abundance and being cuckolded (“horn of plenty”/“cornucopia”, “capital”/

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“funds”, “cuckolds” (baãal karnayim) and are metaphorically and folketymologically related to fertility; (iii) knafayim “wings” is the the object of many idioms reflecting winged creatures (baãal knafayim) “wing span” (mutat knafayim), “wing flapping” (nifnuf knafayim), “lend wings to” (hitsmiax knafayim le-), “to lend itself wings, to spread” (asah lo knafayim) reflecting man’s jealousy and awe of winged creatures (angels, Gods, Pegasus, etc.). This same principle of human efficiency and salience also extends to other semantic fields as well: (i)

the most frequently used “double” periods of time which are the most relevant to everyday life: two minutes, hours, days, years, and months are lexicalized duals (dakatayim/shaãatayim/yomayim/shvuayim/xodshayim) while less frequently used time periods which are less relevant to everyday life such as decades, jubilees, centuries (asorim/yovlot/meãot) appear with the plural. (ii) the concept of “noon” separating morning from afternoon (tsohorayim) relevant to our daily lives where we divide the day into ante/post meridian AM or PM versus the plural midnight (xatsot) which is generally less relevant to our daily lives; (iii) the “day-after-tomorrow” appears in the dual (maxaratayim) while the perhaps less relevant day-before-yesterday appears in the singular (shilshom) “three-days-ago”.

This same principle of efficiency may also be extended to the various historical weights, measures, coins and tools used for trade and barter which were collocated with the duals over the centuries: e.g., xofnayim “two handfuls”, apayim “lit. “two noses/faces”, fig. “a double portion”, etsbaãayim “two-fingers” (an ancient measure), rivatayim “two quarters”, “half a dinar”, amatayim “two cubits”/ “forearms”, tfaxayim “two hands-breadths”, satayim “two seahs” (ancient measure). The more important these concepts were to the sustenance of communities and individuals, the more likely they were to become lexicalized duals. Therefore it is also not surprising that lexicalized duals appear so frequently in idioms and expressions. Conversely, the less important, less frequently needed and used lexical items in the dual and the plural appear in fewer idioms and expressions, and the dual may even be replaced by a plural for less salient and frequently used items by a process of attrition in a way similar to the leveling of so-called irregular plurals and past tense forms in English (e.g., sharvulayim → sharvulim “sleeves”, eshkayim → ashaxim “testicles”). The other counter examples for the meanings TWO/PAIREDNESS, the

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adjectival or adverbial use of the dual often accompanied by emphatic, augmentative, or iterative messages (ex. (1)): (tseva) rikmatayim ”a very rich, variegated (color)”, atsaltayim “very slow(ly), very lazy, very lazily”, arbaãatayim “fourfold”, “manifold”, shivatayim “sevenfold”, xamor-xamoratayim “double donkey”, “very stupid”, kushan rishãatayim “Cushan of double wickedness”, all involve mental or cognitive processes which require multiple perceptions of qualities and events which are then fused together to form an observational set viewed as a general, collective, or generic whole. It is also interesting to note that the numerals sheva “seven” and arba ”four” have a special place in Jewish traditions and have sacred significance making them appropriate candidates to become lexicalized as duals to designate special processes (Tobin 1990: 122–123). There are even minimal pairs (historical and otherwise) which distinguish between the dual and plural: (i) (ii)

(iii) (iv) (v)

(vi)

ayin “eye” only takes dual einayim ”eyes”, but ayin “spring, fountain”, i.e., the “eye of the desert” takes the plural ayanot. regel “leg/foot” only takes dual raglayim “feet/legs” (human, animate, inanimate, the measurement), but regalim “festivals”, “holidays”, involving “pilgrimages” to Jerusalem (on foot); etsba “finger” only takes the plural etsbaãot because the dual etsbaãayim was used for a measurement “two fingers”; ama “forearm” only takes the plural amot because the dual amatayim was used for a measurement “two cubits”/“forearms”; tsiporen “nail/claw” only takes the dual tsipornayim because the plural tsipornim was and is used for a spice (cloves) used in religious ceremonies and a flower (today a carnation). knafayim “wings” only takes the dual but the plural knafot is used to designate the “four corners” of the earth and a “four-fringed garment worn by observant Jews” (arba knafot) ;

The semantic distinction between the dual and the plural is being exploited for different communicative purposes and for a basis of classification. In both these functions the monosemic meaning postulated for these signs based on specific cognitive and perceptual criteria provide a principled motivation for the nonrandom distribution and classification of these forms. This is true both in the realms of the grammar and the lexicon where the system remains intact and potential breakdowns in communication are prevented.

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Summary and conclusions

This paper presented a sign-oriented, semantic analysis of the system of number in Hebrew in general and of the dual number in particular based on the theoretical tenets of invariance, markedness and distinctive feature theory. The methodology employed includes both micro-sentence and macro-discourse level analyses following semiotic approaches to text analysis. In every case it was shown that the choice of one linguistic sign over another was not arbitrary but motivated by a subtle semantic distinction. Despite the fact that this semantic distinction is, indeed, a subtle one, in the words of Dwight Bolinger (1977: 17): “True, these are subtle differences, but who says semantic distinctions have to be gross?” This analysis and subtle semantic distinction was based on cognitive aspects of the human perception of entities in continuous vs. discontinuous space, time and existence, the perceptions of wholes versus parts, and the salience of dynamic versus static entities. This paper also showed that the theoretical tenets underlying the analysis and the cognitive and perceptual principles upon which it is based can be used to explain phenomena in the realms of both the lexicon and the grammar. Therefore these same principles can be applied and reapplied within and across lexical and grammatical categories as a means of classification in an isomorphic, iconic, and holistic way linking the two together.

References Allon, Yigal. 1975. Beit Avi. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. ———. 1976. My Father’s House. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Andrews, Edna. 1990. Markedness Theory: The Union of Asymmetry and Semiosis in Language. Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press. ——— and Yishai Tobin. 1996. Towards a Calculus of Meaning: Studies in Markedness, Distinctive Features and Deixis. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Aphek, Edna and Yishai Tobin. 1988. Word Systems in Modern Hebrew: Implications and Applications. Leiden & New York: E. J. Brill. ———. 1989. The Semiotics of Fortune-telling. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Avisar, S. 1965. “Hébreu”. Le problème de Nombre, Bulletin de la Faculté des Lettres de Strassbourg ed. By Martin Ball, 43:4, 549–585. Battistella, Edwin. 1990. Markedness: The Evaluative Superstructure of Language. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Battistella, Edwin. 1996. The Logic of Markedness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Baugh, Albert C. 1957. A History of the English Language (2nd ed.). New York: Appleton-Century Crofts. Beedham, Christopher. 1989. “Investigating Grammar through Lexical Exceptions: Tense and Irregular Verbs in English, German and Russian”. Journal of Literary Semantics XV/1. 3–11. ———. 1995. German Linguistics: An Introduction. Munich: Iudicium. Ben-Amotz, Dan and Netiva Ben-Yehuda. 1972. The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang. Jerusalem: R. Lewin-Epstein. ———. 1982. The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang, Part 2. Tel-Aviv: Zmora Bitan. Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. Meaning and Form. London & New York: Longman. Carroll, Lewis. 1865/1970. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Penguin. ———. 1871/1981. Through the Looking Glass. New York: Bantam. Clark, Herbert. 1973. “Space, Time, Semantics and the Child”. Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language ed. by T. F. Moore, 18–33. New York: Academic Press. Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1989. Discourse Pragmatics and Semantic Organization: The Case of Negation and Tense-aspect with Special Reference to Swahili. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ——— and Barbara Sussman Goldberg. 1995. Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Diver, William. 1969. “The System of ‘Relevance’ in the Homeric Verb”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 12.45–68. ———. 1984. “The Grammars of Homeric Greek and Classical Latin”. Ms., Columbia University. ———. 1986. “The Grammar of Modern English”. Ms., Columbia University. ———. 1887. “The Dual”. Columbia University Working Papers in Linguistics (CUWPL) 8.100–114. Fontinoy, Charles. 1969. Le Duel dans les Langues Sémitiques, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de L’Université de Liège, Fasc. 179, Paris: Société d’Éditions “les Belles Lettres”. García, Erica. 1975. The Role of Theory in Linguistic Analysis: The Spanish Pronoun System. Amsterdam: North Holland. ———, Florimon van Putte, and Yishai Tobin. 1987. “Cross Linguistic Equivalence, Translatability, and Contrastive Analysis”. Folia Linguistica 21.373–405. Givón, Talmy. 1979. On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press. Glinert, Lewis. 1989. The Grammar of Modern Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gorup, Radmila. 1987. Semantic Organization of the Serbo-Croatian Verb: The System of Concentration of Attention. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner. Guillaume, Gustave. 1945. L’Architectonique du Temps dans les Langues Classiques. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

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———. 1971. Léçons de Linguistique, 1948–1949, Série B: psycho-systématique du langage: principes, méthodes et applications I. Québec/Paris: Presses de l’Université Laval/Klinsieck. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hillel, A. 1972. Maãaseh ba-xatulayim (A Tale of Two Kitties) (trans. mine, Y.T.). Jerusalem: Keter Hirtle, Walter. 1982. Number and Inner Space: A study of Grammatical Number in English. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. ———. 1995. “Meaning, Data, and Testing Hypotheses”. Contini-Morava and Sussman Goldberg 1995. 153–168. Huffman, Alan. 1996. The Categories of Grammar: French lui and le. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Jakobson, Roman. 1957. Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jespersen, Otto. 1964. Essentials of English Grammar. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. Kirsner, Robert. 1979. The Problem of Presentative Sentences in Modern Dutch. Amsterdam: North Holland. Klein-Andreu, Flora (ed.). 1983. Discourse Perspectives in Syntax. New York: Academic Press. Kovacs, Ferenc. 1961. “A Propos d’une Loi Sémantique”. Acta Linguistica Hungarica II(3–4).405–411. Kronasser, Heinz. 1952. Handbuch der Semasiologie. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Levin, Saul. 1971. The Indo-European and Semitic Languages. Albany: SUNY Press. Makkai. Adam. 1972. Idiom Structure in English. The Hague: Mouton. Morris, Lori. 1991. “Grammatical Gender in English”. Ph.D. dissertation, Université Laval. Ojeda, Almerindo E. 1993. Linguistic Individuals. Palo Alto: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University Pike, Kenneth. 1967. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. The Hague: Mouton. Reid, Wallis. 1991. Verb Number in English: A Functional Explanation. London & New York: Longman. Rosén, Haiim. 1977. Contemporary Hebrew. The Hague: Mouton. Rudnick, Paul. 1986. Social Disease. New York: Ballantine. Rukeyser, Alison. 1997. “A Typology of the Nominal Dual: Evidence from Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Semitic and Australian Languages”. Davis Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 6. Available only online at the website of the UC Davis Linguistics Program: http://philo.ucdavis.edu/LINGUISTICS/.

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Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1913. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payots. (English translation by Wade Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.) Talmy, Leonard. 1988. “The Relation of Grammar to Cognition”. Topics in Cognitive Linguistics ed. by Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn, 165–205. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tobin, Yishai (ed.). 1988. The Prague School and its Legacy. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———, ed. 1989. From Sign to Text: A Semiotic View of Communication. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1990. Semiotics and Linguistics. London & New York: Longman. ———. 1993. Aspect in the English Verb: Process and Result in Language. London & New York: Longman. ———. 1994. Invariance, Markedness and Distinctive Feature Analysis: A Contrastive Study of Sign Systems in English and Hebrew. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1997. Phonology as Human Behavior: Theoretical Implications and Clinical Applications. Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1974. “Explorations in Linguistic Elaboration: Language Change, Language Acquisition, and the Genesis of Spatio-temporal Terms”. Historical Linguistics I ed. by J. Andersen and C. Jones, 263–314. Amsterdam: North Holland. ———. 1975. “Spatial Expressions of Tense and Temporal Sequencing: A Contribution to the Study of Semantic Fields”. Semiotica 15(3).205–230. ———. 1978. “On the Expression of Spatio-Temporal Relations in Language”. Universals of Human Language, Volume 3, Word Structure ed. by Joseph Greenberg, 369–400. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ——— and Bernd Heine. 1991. Approaches to Grammaticalization. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Waugh, Linda and Stephen Rudy. 1991. New Vistas in Grammar: Invariance vs. Variation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wickens, Mark. 1991. Grammatical Number in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1972. Semantic Primitives. Frankfurt: Athenaum. ———. 1980. Lingua Mentalis. New York: Academic Press. Whitney, W. D. 1967. Sanskrit Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

3. Gender Systems

The Acategorial Lexicon and the Pairing Strategies A Critical Account of Inherent Gender in Spanish Ricardo Otheguy Nancy Stern Graduate Center, City University of New York

1.

Introduction

The explanation for the distribution of lexical items and the articles el and la (plurals los and las) in Spanish noun phrases is commonly built around the notions of part-of-speech, gender class, and agreement.1 As in languages with similar distributions, the co-occurrence of some Spanish words with only el, of others with only la, and of yet others with both is explained on the basis of three simple principles: (a) the arbitrary partition of the lexicon into words belonging to two categories, the adjectives and the nouns, each of which relates differently to the articles; (b) the arbitrary subdivision of the nouns, but not the adjectives, into two classes, the masculine and feminine genders; and (c) the notion of gender agreement.2 This paper will argue for a different understanding of the structure of Spanish noun phrases, one where the terms noun and adjective do not refer to fixed lexical categories, and where the traditional division of the nouns into arbitrary masculine and feminine genders is also set aside. The traditional account is replaced by an analysis where the status of a word as noun or adjective, and as masculine or feminine, is variable and contingent, prompted by local cultural and communicative needs rather than determined by rule. 1.1 Parts of speech and inherent gender In the standard analysis, the different behavior of el and la with different types of words provides critical support for the postulation of the distinction between nouns and adjectives, a distinction that, in turn, helps to account for the distribution of

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el and la. It is the occurrence of words such as violín, hombre, espada, and mujer with only either el or la that defines these words as nouns, distinguishing them from adjectives such as valiente or mejor, which occur with both. In the terms that have become familiar, an article appears with a noun because of the noun’s “inherent gender”, whereas it appears with an adjective because of “gender agreement” (el violín and la espada owe their article to inherent gender; el mejor or la mejor to gender agreement).3 1.2 Double category and common gender The description just given is only applicable to words that bear a unique classification as nouns or adjectives. Many other words are classified as both noun and adjective, or are said to belong to one category but to be “also used” as the other. The terms ‘unicategorial’ and ‘bicategorial’ are used here to distinguish between these two types of words.4 Second, just as it is not the case that all words are either noun or adjective, it is also not the case that all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Many nouns are said to be of “common gender” or “epicene”, or are said to be both masculine and feminine, and are predicted by the analysis to co-occur with both el and la.5 1.3 Problems with the standard account The foregoing analysis of articles, nouns, adjectives, gender classification, and gender agreement has long commanded an impressively large consensus. With small individual variations, it is the standard analysis of traditionalists and generativists of various schools as well as that of contemporary morphological theorists.6 And it is the analysis that was offered by the Spanish Royal Academy when its widely used grammars were produced by committees of well-respected scholars, as well as the analysis that appears in its most recent edition by the eminent functionalist Emilio Alarcos Llorach (1994). Still, it is somewhat misleading to refer to this rich account of articles, word categories, and gender as an analysis. The account is usually offered more in the way of a set of obvious assumptions, a description of self-evident facts that perhaps need to be formalized and made explicit, but that hardly need to be put to the rigors of verification. In contrast, in this paper the statements of the standard account will be treated as testable hypotheses, looking first at the claim regarding the distinction between nouns and adjectives, and secondly at the subdivision of the nouns into masculine and feminine genders.

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1.4 Arbitrary features of grammar The standard account of parts of speech and gender fits within the widely held notion that languages have, in addition to their communicatively motivated components, a rich array of autonomous structures that are unrelated to meaning or communication. The postulation of such autonomous components has been central to generative syntax (Chomsky 1972: 119), and was part of work on morphology long before the generative period (Chomsky 1957: 103). Gender classifications of the type found in Spanish nouns are routinely offered as telling examples of the need to postulate components in language that are unrelated to and autonomous from its communicative function (Newmeyer 1983: 7ff). A particularly clear illustration of autonomy in language is the lexical categorization required to account for morphologically conditioned allomorphy. In Spanish, verbal conjugations offer a particularly striking example. Verbs that belong to the first, -ar ending class form their imperfects with -aba (e.g., canto/ cantaba “I sing/I sang”), whereas verbs belonging to the second and third, -er and -ir ending class form their imperfects with -ía (e.g. como/comía “I eat/I ate”). This process is completely mechanical and independent of the speaker, a prototypical case of structural autonomy in language. Gender classes, and the parts-of-speech categorization that underpins them, are presented in the same light in the standard account. Just as canto takes only -aba and como takes only -ía, so does violín take only el and espada take only la, while mejor takes both el and la. In neither conjugational nor gender classes do speakers and their communicative needs play any role. The processes are in both cases completely mechanical and autonomous. 1.5 An alternative proposal In our proposal, Spanish parts of speech and gender are not instances of autonomous grammar and do not resemble verbal conjugations. Rather, they are part of a set of functionally motivated routines where communicative need and opportunity play a decisive role. In the proposed analysis, the epicenes are not the exception to the division into masculine and feminine nouns; rather, they are the best representatives of the essential nature of Spanish lexical items. Moreover, bicategorial words are not the exception to a fundamental noun-adjective distinction; rather, these words, more properly understood as acategorial, are representative of the true structure of the lexicon.

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Nouns and adjectives as lexical categories

A clarification is in order before offering a critique of the noun-adjective classification for Spanish. As is well known, the terms noun and adjective are three-ways ambiguous. They are used to refer, one, to lexical categories (asserting that two separate classes of words exist in the lexicon); two, to categories of the sentence (asserting that two types of syntactic categories are found in phrase markers); and three, to notional categories (asserting that words receive two different kinds of interpretations in a sentential or discourse context). The type of noun-adjective distinction that purports to account for the distribution of articles and lexical items is the one about lexical classes, not the one about syntactic environments or interpretive types. In evaluating the tenability of the noun-adjective distinction, the issue is not whether the particular syntactic environment in which a word is used in a sentence could be described as nominal in some cases and adjectival in others, nor whether it makes sense to speak of nominal or adjectival interpretations of words in actually occurring utterances in discourse. That this is possible could be readily conceded without it having any bearing on whether there exist in fact two lexical classes, one with and the other without inherent gender. The question, rather, is whether the possibilities of nominal or adjectival syntactic use or notional interpretation are tightly constrained for any particular word by its membership in one or the other lexical class. For example, the issue is not whether in example (1a) líder is a noun and valiente an adjective, nor whether in (1b) patrón is a noun and viejo is an adjective: (1)

a. b.

Carlos era un líder valiente. “Carlos was a courageous leader.” Carlos era un patrón viejo. “Carlos was an old boss.”

The question, rather, is whether líder and patrón are nouns, or valiente and viejo adjectives, by virtue of inherent syntactic or semantic properties that narrowly restrict them to these syntactic or interpretive roles. 2.1 The classification of a word The only way to test the lexical categorization hypothesis is by taking an individual word and checking whether it behaves as predicted by its classification, then repeating the process for another word, and so on, choosing, one

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hopes, examples that will be representative and illuminating of broader patterns. For this purpose, we use the 1984 edition of the Spanish Royal Academy’s Diccionario de la Lengua Española. The utilization of the dictionary in the testing procedure should not be taken as an indication that the purpose here is to verify the accuracy of the philologist’s work. The point, rather, is to test the tenability of the constructs of part-ofspeech and inherent gender. Such constructs involve the appeal to the existence of a linguistic lexicon or mental dictionary that is not explicitly detailed anywhere except, however imperfectly, in the philologist’s tome. And since often different philologists give different classifications to the same word, use of a single dictionary is required; the Academy’s is the obvious choice because of its wide recognition and acceptance. 2.2 Bicategorial words Once the hypothesis is taken to be the existence of syntactic or semantic features that define noun and adjective classes in the lexicon, bicategorial words acquire a special significance. These words constitute in themselves a considerable weakening of the hypothesis about noun-adjective lexical classes, for two important reasons. First, because in any taxonomy with two categories, the existence of individuals with membership in both taxons tends to cast doubt on the wisdom of the initial categorization; and second, because these bicategorial words reduce rather sharply the neatness and generality of the explanation for the distribution of el and la. The explanation can no longer simply be that lexical nouns can take only one article whereas lexical adjectives can take both. An additional, different explanation would seem to be required for words that are bicategorial in the lexicon. Bicategorial words do not constitute by any means a small group of exceptions. Depending on the text used and how one counts, between 30 and 40 percent of all words classified in Spanish as either noun or adjective also bear the other classification or the other use. Moreover, an important pattern is to be noted: Approximately eight in ten bicategorial words are adjectives that are also classified or used as nouns, and only two in ten is a noun that is also classified or used as an adjective. By a similar ratio, most words that have an initial adjectival categorization are bicategorial: Eight in ten adjectives are bicategorial. This is not true of nouns, which are only very rarely said to be also classified or also used as adjectives.7 These observations regarding word categorization amount to saying that the noun-adjective distinction, which presumably lies at the heart of the explanation

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of the distribution of lexical items in interaction with el and la, is applicable in roughly 60 to 70 percent of cases, but no more. Moreover, the hypothesis applies only to items that are said to be exclusively nouns. For the adjectives, analysts have already conceded that the hypothesis fails or that it cannot be tested, since most adjectives are bicategorial. 2.3 Word type The most common piece of morphological evidence purporting to support the lexical categorization in Spanish relates to the claim that nouns are invariant words with a single form, like café, hombre, clave and mujer, whereas adjectives are variable words that have masculine and feminine forms, like cansado/cansada, auténtico/auténtica, and sincero/sincera (“tired, authentic, sincere”). But these two groups do not match the groups of nouns and adjectives. First, because alongside variable words that are said to be adjectives one finds variable words that are said to be nouns such as niño/niña, hijo/hija, enfermero/enfermera (“boy/girl, son/ daughter, male nurse/female nurse”). Second, because alongside invariant words said to be nouns one finds invariant words said to be adjectives such as valiente, feliz, and azul (“courageous, happy, blue”). Morphological type cannot be used as a criterion for establishing the categories of noun and adjective because, quite simply, both morphological types are found in both lexical categories. 2.4 Pluralization No other morphological support exists for the noun-adjective distinction, and it is to be noted that common morphological factors that presumably help to differentiate the two categories in other familiar languages do not produce correct predictions for Spanish. The English lexicon is said to be susceptible to a division between words that can take the plural suffix and those that cannot. As a result, the latter attach a pronominal ones to form the plural. Thus one finds the boys, the tall boys, the tall ones, but not *the talls; and one finds the dogs, the ugly dogs, the ugly ones, but not *the uglies. This distribution is felt to provide morphological support for the distinction in English. Nouns are the words that can pluralize, like boy and dog, whereas adjectives are the words that can’t, like tall and ugly. Whatever its merits for English, this analysis does not apply to Spanish, where both the words said to be nouns and the words said to be adjectives pluralize equally well, without either requiring support from pronominals, as in the familiar examples displayed in (2).

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(2)

a. b. c. d.

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los niños, los niños altos “the boys, the tall boys” los altos “the tall ones” (lit.: “the talls”) los perros, los perros feos “the dogs, the ugly dogs” los feos “the ugly ones” (lit.: “the uglies”)

A point that has been made throughout the long history of this problem (as for example in Matthews 1974: 6) is that these examples do support a nounadjective distinction, because the kind of reference being made by los niños in (2a) and los perros in (2c) is different from the one made by los altos in (2b) and los feos in (2d). This difference, such as it exists, does not represent strictly speaking a distributional argument and will be taken up when semantic factors are dealt with below. 2.5 Co-occurrence with adverbials Turning now to syntactic arguments, it can be noted that for English, the lexical classification predicts correctly the co-occurrence of adverbials with adjectives but not with nouns, as in the grammatical very tall and too tall, compared to the ungrammatical *very paint and *too paint. In Spanish, however, this prediction does not come through, syntactic arguments failing to support the lexical categorization. With adverbials such as muy, más, demasiado (“very, more, too much”) words that are said to be nouns occur in (3a) as easily as words said to be adjectives in (3b): (3)

a.

b.

muy mujer, más niño, demasiado hombre lit.: “very woman, more child, too man” i.e., “very womanly, more of a child, too manly” muy alto, más alto, demasiado alto “very tall, taller, too tall”

The usage in (3a) is not limited to words said to be nouns that have animate meanings, but is also found with words that refer to inanimates. A busy, wealthy man who neglects his children can be told, to be sure, that he has to be más padre (lit.: “more father”); but if he’s about to buy a smallish house, he will also be told that a family like his needs más casa (lit.: “more house”). So again here, even though it might make sense as an argument for the lexical distinction in

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English to contrast the common use of very tall and more paint with the less likely *very boy and *more woman, the point cannot be made for Spanish. 2.6 Co-occurrence with the, a, Ø In English, adjectives as heads of noun phrases are said to co-occur only with definite articles, while nouns can occur not only with definite articles, but also with indefinite articles and zero articles. Furthermore, when the head of an English noun phrase is an adjective, it always occurs with a plural verb even though the adjective itself is morphologically singular, a distributional fact not found with nouns. The English noun boss and the adjective sincere illustrate the presumably general fulfillment of these syntactic predictions: (4)

a.

The boss always pays taxes. boss always pays taxes. The bosses always pay taxes. Bosses always pay taxes. b. *The sincere always pays taxes. *A sincere always pays taxes. The sincere always pay taxes. *Sinceres always pay taxes. ?A

This pattern of distribution, regardless of whether the grammaticality judgements are entirely tenable, and regardless of whether they actually help establish the lexical categories for English, cannot be advanced as evidence for the categories in Spanish. Using words with similar meanings and categorization, we find the distribution in (4). (4)

c.

El patrón siempre paga impuestos. “The boss always pays taxes.” ?Un patrón siempre paga impuestos. “A boss always pays taxes.” Los patrones siempre pagan impuestos. “The bosses always pay taxes.” *Patrones siempre pagan impuestos. “Bosses always pay taxes.” d. El pobre siempre paga impuestos. “The poor always pay taxes.”

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?Un

pobre siempre paga impuestos. “A poor always pays taxes.” Los pobres siempre pagan impuestos. “The poor always pay taxes.” *Pobres siempre pagan impuestos. “Poor always pay taxes.” Words classified as nouns such as patrón, and words classified as adjectives such as sincero, unlike English nouns and adjectives, show identical patterns of distribution with regard to definite articles, indefinite articles, and zero articles, thus voiding this argument too for the postulation of a noun-adjective distinction in Spanish. 2.7 Occurrence as modifier and modified There remains one environment where the hypothesis about a noun-adjective distinction generates syntactic predictions. In syntagms involving heads and modifiers in adjacent position, words classified as nouns are said to be limited to the syntactic role of heads, whereas words classified as adjectives are said to be limited to the role of modifiers. (For bicategorial words, the prediction is that they will be found in both head and modifier roles. This last prediction is easily confirmed, bicategorial words occurring often in fact in both roles. But, as we have seen, bicategorial words do not support the hypothesis, involving, in fact, a weakening of the noun-adjective distinction.) The unicategorial adjectives cursi and crudo can serve to test the lexical categorization hypothesis for unicategorial adjectives in adjacency. Examples (5a) and (5c) show the predicted modifier uses, while (5b) and (5d) show these words used as heads, in violation of the restrictions that presumably should hold because of their status as unicategorial adjectives. (5)

a. b.

c.

Anacleta es esa señora cursi que conociste en la feria. “Anacleta is that ridiculous lady you met at the fair.” La esposa de Carlos es de un cursi increíble; es esa cursi insoportable que conociste en la feria. “Anacleta is of an incredible tastelessness; she is that insufferable tasteless person that you met at the fair.” Ya utilizan casi todo el petróleo crudo para la exportación. “They already use all of the crude oil for export.”

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d.

La petrolera se ha negado a comprar el crudo árabe por miedo a represalias del gobierno. “The oil company refuses to buy Arab crude for fear of reprisals from the government.”

On the strength of this evidence, cursi “ridiculous” and crudo “raw” are simply more examples of adjectives that need to be regarded as bicategorial, casting further doubt on whether unicategorial adjectives really exist. A more important test of the lexical categorization applies to the more numerous class of unicategorial nouns, which are predicted by hypothesis to occur only as heads in adjacency. Contrary to the prediction, líder is used as a modifier in (6a). Similarly, the noun comandante “commander” is a modifier in (6b), against the prediction: (6)

a.

b.

En estos dos cayos existen 38 km de playas de arena muy fina y aguas verdeazules transparentes y limpias, de cálida temperatura todo el año, donde se comercializan 1700 habitaciones, todas 4 y 5 estrellas entre hoteles, moteles, villas y cabañas, construidas desde 1980, en el mayor complejo turístico del Caribe, administrados en asociaciones mixtas por tres compañías españolas: Tryp Hoteles, Sol Meliá y RIU; y una italiana, Viaggi del Ventaglio, junto a los grupos líderes nacionales Cubanacán S.A. y Gran Caribe, donde el Todo incluído se impone con fuerza de calidad. GRI 041798. “In these two keys there are 38 km of beaches with fine sand and blue-green, clean and transparent water, where the temperature is warm all year. Here, 1700 rooms are commercialized, all of them four-star accommodations, including hotels, villas and cabins, all built since 1980 in the largest tourist complex in the Caribbean, administered in joint ventures by three Spanish companies: Tryp Hotels, Sol Meliá, and RIU, and one Italian company, Viaggi del Ventaglio, in cooperation with the national leader groups, Cubanacán S.A., and Gran Caribe, where the ‘all expenses covered’ approach makes its quality mark.” Al día siguente, en el Hotel Capri, está el hombre comandante, pálido de cansancio. Lo rodean unas jóvenes vestidas de negro que casi no hablan por lo que lloran. Son las hijas del hombre del circo, muy jóvenes ellas. Al hombre van a fusilarlo. Pero otro grupo de mujeres les cierra el paso … El hombre comandante tiene cara de cansancio. PSN 68.

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“There, the next day, in the Capri Hotel, is the commander man, pale with exhaustion. Around him are a few young women dressed in black, who can’t speak for their crying. They are the daughters of the man from the circus, very young these girls. The man is going to be executed. But another group of women bars the way … The commander man has a tired face.” A similar point can be made with the unicategorial noun patrón, which appears as a modifier in (7). (7)

Como garante del diálogo, no sólo del EZLN sino también del gobierno, se escogió al obispo de San Cristobal, que también había puesto su catedral a disposición de aquel increíble encuentro entre los representantes indígenas y los funcionarios del estado patrón. MUC 48 “Chosen as a guarantor of the negotiations, not only for the EZLN but also for the government, was the bishop of San Cristobal, who had also opened his cathedral for that incredible meeting between the native people’s representatives and the officials of the overseer state.”

The distribution of unicategorial nouns and adjectives in adjacency does not match, as predicted, that of heads and modifiers. No evidence for the existence of noun and adjective classes can be derived from restrictions of occurrence in adjacency, where both types of words appear in both roles. 2.8 Entity and attribute interpretation Related to the failed syntactic prediction in adjacency is the semantic prediction that nouns will be limited, in any environment, to nominal or entity interpretations, whereas adjectives will be restricted to adjectival or attributive interpretations. In pointing out a child in a group and saying el niño, we are naming the entity and making a direct reference to the child. But when in the same situation we say el nuevo we are denoting one of the attributes of the child and making an indirect reference to him through one of his qualities, in this case that of being new (Matthews 1974). The noun-adjective hypothesis predicts that lexical nouns will always be like el niño and lexical adjectives always like el nuevo. This prediction, which has already been disconfirmed in adjacency with cursi, líder and patrón, can also be tested in environments other than adjacency, and it is again shown to fail. The word ilícito/ilícita “illicit”, classified as a unicategorial adjective, is used here to denote an entity and make a direct reference.

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(8)

Pérez Aguilar negó cualquier relación del gobierno estatal en este caso de intervención de llamadas privadas, y aunque en su denuncia Sansores Sanromán exige la presentación de Francisco Fernández, actual secretario de la Contraloría, para que rinda su declaración ministerial, sostuvo que ningún funcionario de la actual administración ha incurrido en ilícitos. NOV 980331. “Pérez Aguilar denied any relationship with the state government in this case of wiretapping private calls, and even though in his allegations Sansores Sanromán demands the testimony of Francisco Fernández, the present secretary of the Controller’s office, he maintains that no official from the present administration has perpetrated any illicit acts.”

Note that ilícito is not anaphoric and that it does not denote a quality of any other named object; it directly names the acts as “illicits”. The same point can be made with the unicategorial adjective, divino/divina “divine”: (9)

a.

b.

El juez noveno de distrito en Materia Penal, Cuauhtémoc Carlock Sánchez, decidió no liberar una orden de aprehensión contra Angel Isidoro Rodríguez Sáez, alias “El Divino”, ex banquero mexicano actualmente detenido en España. NOV 980331. “The judge from the ninth criminal district, Cuauhtémoc Carlock Sánchez, decided not to lift an arrest order against Angel Isidoro Rodríguez Sáez, alias “The Divine”, a former Mexican banker who is presently under arrest in Spain.” El Divino tiene a su favor dos amparos provisionales otorgados por los jueces Carlock Sánchez y por Hiram García, del 11 de Distrito en Materia Penal con sede en el Reclusorio Preventivo Sur. NOV 980331. “The Divine has in his favor two provisional orders of protection issued by judges Carlock Sánchez and Hiram García, from the 11th criminal district located in the Southern House of Detention.”

In both of these, el divino does not denote a quality but names an entity and makes reference to a single, specific individual (note the use of capital letters, indicating that the word is not only used as a noun, but as a proper noun). Finally, a similar situation obtains with the unicategorial adjective parlante “speaker”, which is used here not as an attribute, but nominally, to name an entity:

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Los pequeños detalles hacen la gran diferencia. En esta sala de estar contemporánea predominan los tonos pastel y se nota armonía en la decoración, hasta en los parlantes del equipo de sonido. VAN 980421. “Small details make a big difference. In this contemporary living room, pastel tones are predominant, and one notes great harmony in the decoration, even in the speakers of the sound system.”

Turning now to unicategorial nouns, the prediction made by the lexical categorization hypothesis, which failed in the cases of líder and patrón in adjacency, also fails in other environments: (11)

En Cuba, tanto el hombre de color como el blanco hijos del país combaten contra la dominación española. Carta de Antonio Maceo, TAM 114. “In Cuba, the colored as much as the white, who are children of the country, fight against Spanish control.”

In this passage which is difficult to translate, hijos “children” does not make a direct reference to children, but rather denotes a quality of white and colored men. In short, interpretive restrictions cannot be used as evidence for the unicategorial classification of words like cursi, parlante, ilícito/ilícita, divino/divina, líder, hijo/hija, patrón, and others like them. Irrespective of whether they are nouns or adjectives, these words can be used nominally or adjectivally, to name entities or denote attributes.

3.

Masculine and feminine as lexical categories

The gender hypothesis predicts that adjectives such as valiente or mejor will cooccur with both el and la, as in el valiente/la valiente, el mejor/la mejor, and that the same will be true of common-gender nouns, as in el telegrafista/la telegrafista, el hijo/la hija. In contrast, nouns such as violín or espada will co-occur only with the article assigned by their inherent gender. These predictions are successful with regard to adjectives and epicene nouns, since it is true enough that both types of words allow both el and la. But the prediction fails in the crucial case of nouns, which are not restricted exclusively to the article presumably generated by their inherent gender. Grammars of Spanish have traditionally offered long lists of words, usually in references to animates, where masculine words appear with la and feminine words appear with el. These are taken from a survey of Spanish novels by Fernández (1951: 156):

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(12)

a.

b. c.

Pedro es el espada más temido de la provincia. “Pedro is the most feared sword (i.e., swordsman) in the province.” María es la primer violín de la sinfónica de Valencia. “María is the first violin in the Valencia symphony.” El principal, el cabeza de familia, es una mala cabeza. “The main one, the head of the house, is a bad head.”

No evidence for the gender classification of espada, violín, or cabeza, or of any word that can be used for a human, can be derived from restrictions on cooccurrence with el and la. The distribution of el and la does not fulfill the predictions derived from the classification of nouns into masculine and feminine gender classes.

4.

Summary

The familiar morphological, syntactic, and semantic predictions that flow from the hypothesis of lexical and gender classes in Spanish all fail. The nounadjective distinction is offered in a weakened form to begin with, due to the recognition that most adjectives are in fact bicategorial. Once tested, the hypothesis is further weakened by the lack of morphological grounds on which to consistently distinguish nouns from adjectives, for even though there is a statistical skewing in favor of classifying variable words as adjectives, there are also variable nouns, and most adjectives are bicategorial anyway. Moreover, there are no co-occurrence restrictions, such as those said to be found in English with plurals, articles, and adverbials, that can establish the categories. And most damaging for the presumption that there are nouns and adjectives in Spanish, both types of words can be found as both heads and modifiers in adjacency, and both can be used for nominal, entity interpretations as well as for adjectival, attributive interpretations. Categorial nouns and adjectives are thus no different from the words that are already conceded to be bicategorial. They all bear the same morphology, occur in the same kinds of syntactic environments and are susceptible to the same types of semantic interpretations. Moreover, the critical definition of a noun, that it bears inherent gender and can occur with only one of the articles, cannot be sustained. Any time that a reference to a human is involved, inherent-gender nouns, every bit as much as agreement-gender adjectives, can occur with both el and la. In Spanish, no analogy can be established between the truly autonomous, and completely

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predictable, process whereby certain verb endings arbitrarily occur with verbs of different conjugations and the process by which articles occur with nouns of different genders. The standard account of the distribution and interpretation of lexical items and articles, built around the notion of arbitrary parts of speech and gender, does not stand up to scrutiny and needs to be replaced.

5.

Acategorial and genderless words

Our alternative analysis is presented in two parts, dealing with (a) acategorial and genderless words in the lexicon and (b) the pairing strategies. The true structure of the Spanish lexicon is best reflected by the words that the traditional account regards as bicategorial. The traditional account simply has not gone far enough in recognizing what the facts so forcefully suggest, namely, that these Spanish words are not unicategorial in some cases and bicategorial in others, but are always acategorial. Spanish lexical items are equally open to both modifier and modified uses, equally susceptible to entity and attribute interpretations, and equally useful for direct or indirect reference. The use of a word as entity or attribute at a particular place or time is not limited by linguistic categorization, but by the interaction of the word’s individual lexical meaning with culturally dictated local communicative needs. A word that, at a particular time or place, displays only adjectival uses is not a lexical adjective; it simply so happens that speakers have had no need to use its meaning as the name of anything. Conversely, a word that displays only nominal uses is not a lexical noun; it simply so happens that its lexical meaning has not been found useful to denote a quality. 5.1 Entity uses of unicategorial adjectives The lexical meaning and acategorial nature of the words that the tradition calls adjectives makes them useful, not only for denoting qualities, but also for naming people and objects. In some cases, the word may have always had this double usage. In others, there has been an initial period of attribute usage followed by an intervening anaphoric period that set the stage for uses for direct reference. The use of papel periódico “newspaper” to name the new cultural artifact led to anaphoric uses of el periódico in denotation of a quality of the paper that appeared periodically. As the artifact became more familiar, anaphora yielded to direct reference, the word periódico now being simply the Spanish word used to name a newspaper.

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Similarly, there may have been a point in the history of crudo when it only denoted raw or crude qualities, among them the qualities of unrefined oil, as in the example repeated here as (13a). But at some point it became common to use the word, not in syntagms like petróleo crudo “crude oil” denoting a quality, but as the name of the substance itself, making a direct reference to the oil, as in (13c). One might speculate that an intervening step may have seen the word used as anaphoric reference, as in (13b): (13)

a. b.

c.

Ya utilizan casi todo el petróleo crudo para la exportación. “They use all the crude for export.” Tenemos buenos precios para el petróleo refinado y para el petróleo crudo. Pero el refinado no se puede vender con tanta facilidad como el crudo. “We have good prices for refined oil and for crude oil. But refined oil cannot be sold as easily as crude.” La petrolera se ha negado a comprar el crudo árabe por miedo a represalias del gobierno. “The oil company has refused to buy Arab crude for fear of reprisals from the government.”

The point to stress here is that even if we concede that there may have been a stage when crudo was only used as a modifier or anaphor of petróleo, as in (13a), parallel to the use of periódico as a modifier or anaphor of papel, these facts of usage do not support the postulation of categorial limitations in the Spanish lexicon. The limited distributions were due to the fact that it had not become useful to name objects having as their central defining traits the properties of unrefined oil or of periodic appearance. When discussions of oil and of the difference between the refined and unrefined substances became common, the acategorial nature of the Spanish lexicon easily allowed for the entity use of crudo, just as when the newspaper became a common cultural artifact the linguistic system allowed for the entity use of periódico. Thus the exact history of usage of each word, though interesting, is however beside the point. The central idea is that the Spanish lexicon regularly licenses both entity and attribute uses, even though this license may not be exercised for every word everywhere and at every point in time. That these entity and attribute usages reflect the acategorial nature of the lexicon is supported by the multiplicity of entities named by these words, and by the fact that in different environments the word’s acategoricity is exploited to name many different types of concepts. So crudo not only denotes raw qualities and names a type of oil in general Spanish, but also names a type of unfinished

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cloth in the Spanish of Southern Spain. In other words, this is not a case of homonymy, with a word crudo1 meaning raw and being a true unicategorial adjective, and another word crudo2 meaning unfinished oil. There is a single monosemic crudo, licensed for both adjectival and nominal uses, and which in the nominal uses can name anything for which its meaning is appropriate.8 Similarly, the word blanco “white” is used to denote qualities of whiteness and also, as el blanco or los blancos, to name entities. But there isn’t just one entity named el blanco. The word can be used to name a type of person, a type of wine, a type of target, etc. The word pronto “soon, fast” is used to denote qualities of speed, but also, as in el pronto, to name an entity. But the entity named el pronto can be a burst of anger or a spark of good humor. And in Puerto Rico, where American-style commercial practices prevail, a blanco can be, in addition to all the entities already listed, an application form, and a pronto can be, in addition to the ones listed, a down payment (the money that one has to put down pronto). In a similar process, the use of the prepositional adjective contra “against” to name an abstract object, as in the familiar phrase hacer la contra “to oppose”, was joined, when the need arose, by la contra and los contra as names of opposition groups and opposition fighters in Nicaragua and other countries. These words are thus not primarily adjectives with a general meaning that gets completely narrowed when they are secondarily used, perhaps in a homonym, as names of entities. While it is true that any white object can be described as having the quality of blanco, not all white objects can be named as el blanco or los blancos, the latter themselves forming an open-ended set. The exact extent of the set of things named el blanco is limited only by local communicative needs, and by the diminishing returns that would set in if one gave the same name to large numbers of different objects. (At some point, one has to stop naming white or blank objects el blanco, or it will become impossible to distinguish one object from the other.) The point about cultural factors bears stressing, and can be illustrated not only with unicategorial adjectives and nouns but, as in the case of contra, with words said to belong to other categories as well. Participles like pedido “request” are often listed in dictionaries and classified as nouns; but a word like desaparecido is regarded as a unicategorial adjective and, being a variant of the lexeme desaparecer “to disappear”, is not even listed by the Academy. But when political dissenters in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay started to disappear into military gulags in the 1970s, the need arose to name these victims, and the nominal usage of los desaparecidos became grim but common currency in Spanish. The word auténtico “authentic”, also classified as a unicategorial adjective, may have been used only to denote attributes at some point in the

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word’s history and in some areas of the Spanish-speaking world. But in the 1950s it was used to name a famous political party in Cuba, El Partido Auténtico, whose followers were universally known as los auténticos. The words desaparecido and auténtico were not unicategorial adjectives in some dialects at some point in time and bicategorial in other places and at other points in time. They were always acategorial and were used differently in response to differing cultural-communicative factors. Thus the counterexamples to unicategorial adjectives shown in the previous section (cursi, ilícito, divino) fall into a broader pattern, whereby words that may appear to be limited by linguistic categorization to denoting qualities bear in fact no such restriction, and are deployed as the names of entities as soon as the culturally mediated communicative opportunity or need arises. 5.2 Attribute uses of unicategorial nouns There is every indication that the same is true of unicategorial nouns. Given a communicative opportunity, the lexical meanings of these words will be used to denote qualities rather than to name entities directly. It may very well be that the word líder is only used for entities in some places and periods of time; but the use of grupos líderes in (6) shows that there is no categorial limitation on the word, which is available to name a quality, in this case a quality of certain hotel groups, when a speaker or writer finds that this is useful. Similarly, the noun comandante is used as a quality in hombre comandante to great ironic effect in (6), to describe a man who is clearly not in command as he is about to be shot; he is not a commander, as naming him through the entity use of comandante would suggest; he is a mere man, fallen on fatally hard times, who happens to have the quality of being, or having been, a commander. The same is true of patrón, which is more commonly used to name a boss or an overseer, but was found useful, in the usage estado patrón in (7), as a way of characterizing a State that behaves like a plantation foreman toward its citizens. Many other familiar combinations in Spanish show unicategorial nouns being used as denotations of qualities, particularly in the environment of adjacency where they appear as modifiers. First cousins are typically called primos hermanos, with the unicategorial noun hermanos used as a modifier. And such uses as reina madre “queen mother” and rey consorte “consort king” show prototypical nouns being used as modifiers.

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5.3 Compounds There seems to be little justification for maintaining that grupos líderes, estado patrón, hombre comandante, along with primos hermanos “first cousins” and reina madre “queen mother” and many like them are compounds that do not threaten the status of these words as nouns.9 Such an analysis would help preserve the noun-adjective distinction only at the expense of making it untestable. If the argument is made, each time a unicategorial noun is shown to be used as an adjective, that the use is not adjectival but nominal inside a compound, the status of the word as a lexical noun ceases to be an empirical hypothesis. Semantically, there is no difference between, for example, grupos líderes and grupos grandes (“leader groups” and “big groups”). Just as the latter refers to large-type groups, so does the former refer to leader-type groups. Moreover, there are no syntactic or morphological differences, as líderes shows number agreement no less than grandes. While it is true that many combinations of modified and modifier in Spanish fail to show number agreement (novelas rosa “romance”, chaquetas azul marino “navy blue jacket”, tonos pastel “pastel tones”), and while it may very well be true that many unicategorial nouns do not agree, many others do (as in grupos líderes and primos hermanos). Failure to show number agreement is a complicated process in Spanish that cannot be investigated in depth here, but that does not diminish the force of counterexamples to the claim that there are unicategorial nouns. 5.4 Dictionary entries and parts of speech From the perspective offered here, the part of speech classification proposed by linguists and detailed by philologists turns out to be a record of usage rather than a statement of linguistic structure. Dictionaries simply keep a record of how a word has been used, not of how the structure of the language allows it to be used. But the record is necessarily flawed and incomplete, as it fails to keep up with usage. Worse, the record presents as essential linguistic structure what is a matter of accidental cultural need. The Academy’s dictionary classifies fenómeno “phenomenon” as a unicategorial noun, ignoring such common adjectival usages as un día fenómeno, una actriz fenómena “phenomenal day, phenomenal actress”, etc. The Clave dictionary does record these usages, and thus registers fenómeno as an adjective also used as a noun. Although Clave is more up to date culturally, both dictionaries are wrong linguistically, as fenómeno is neither one nor the other.

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5.5 Not a diachronic process The persistence of the phenomenon of nouns being used as adjectives and adjectives being used as nouns, and its active, productive character, strongly suggest that this is not a diachronic linguistic process whereby words change from unicategorial to bicategorial status. All indications are that the distribution observed for each word reflects a synchronic stage characterized by an acategorial lexicon, interacting with individual communicative creativity and changing cultural needs, and that it is these cultural needs, and not a presumed lexical categorization, that are limiting, in a temporary and contingent fashion, the distribution of words. 5.6 Indeterminate usage The acategorial nature of Spanish words is reflected with particular clarity in the many uses that cannot be classified as nominal or adjectival. Contrary to what one would expect if words were lexically marked as nouns or adjectives, there are many instances in Spanish where one cannot tell whether a particular word is denoting an attribute or naming an entity, making a direct or anaphoric reference, or even in some cases whether it is being used as head or modifier in adjacency. In (14a), the lack of context, and the habit of thinking in terms of nouns and adjectives, favors a description of el mayor as a nominal usage. But in (14b), the usage is indeterminate: it could be an anaphoric reference to the previous mention of hijo mayor, or a direct entity reference parallel to that of (a), the important point being that the message would be the same either way. (14)

a.

b.

El mayor de Carmen ya se casó, pero todavía no tiene hijos; es ese médico del que te hablé cuando el problema de Chucho. “Carmen’s eldest is already married, but still has no children; he is that doctor that I talked to you about when Chucho had a problem.” Carmen tiene dos hijos. El hijo mayor estudió para arquitecto y el menor trabaja en una fábrica, igual que el más pequeño de Consuelo. El mayor de Carmen ya se casó, pero todavía no tiene hijos; es ese médico del que te hablé cuando el problema de Chucho. “Carmen has two children. The older one is studying to be an architect and the younger one works in a factory, same as Consuelo’s youngest. Carmen’s eldest is already married, but

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still has no children; he is that doctor that I talked to you about when Chucho had a problem.” The same happens with el viejo, which one tends to think of as having a nominal use in (15a), but which could be seen as nominal or adjectival in (15b) without any consequences for the overall interpretation. (15)

a. b.

El viejo me cayó mejor que el londinense. “I like the old man more than the Londoner.” Llegaron dos hombres, un señor viejo que parecía español, y un señor de Londres. El viejo me cayó mejor que el londinense. “Two men arrived, an old gentleman who seemed to be Spanish, and a man from London. I like the old man more than the Londoner.”

This is a widespread phenomenon in Spanish and can be observed in real examples. In (16a), the unicategorial noun hermano is a head, as predicted, whereas in (16b) it is modifier, against the prediction. But in (16c), there is no way to tell, that is, the message is indeterminate with regard to the relationship between hermano “brother” and the also unicategorial noun obispo “bishop”, as there is no way to know whether the author meant bishop brothers or brother bishops. Either way, the communication is the same. (16)

a. b. c.

Es un buen hermano. “He is a good brother.” Es primo hermano de Carlos. “He is Carlos’s first cousin.” Hace tiempo viví una experiencia particular: en una Asamblea episcopal me encargaron leer un documento redactado por una pequeña comisión. Puse énfasis en una cita que no le gustó a muchos hermanos obispos, que la consideraron incluso marxista. Entonces hice la observación de que la “tremenda cita” marxista era en realidad de Isaías, del Viejo Testamento y, por lo tanto, de muchos siglos antes. MUC 64. “A long time ago I had a special experience: at an Episcopal Assembly I was asked to read a document that had been drafted by a small commission. I emphasized a quote that did not please many of the brother bishops, who even regarded it as Marxist. Then I pointed out that the “tremendous Marxist

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quote” was in reality from Isaiah, from the Old Testament and, therefore, from many centuries before Marx.” This indeterminacy of interpretation is precisely what one would expect of acategorial words. Since lexical items are not marked as nouns or adjectives, and since nominalness and adjectivalness are simply facts of usage, they hold true for many uses but not for others. When the message does not require a distinction, there is no way to tell whether the word is being used one way or the other. 5.7 Masculines with la and feminines with el If there are neither nouns nor adjectives in the lexicon, then there can’t very well be some words with inherent gender and some words whose gender is acquired. The facts of Spanish reflect this situation clearly, lexical items being not only acategorial but genderless. The lack of inherent gender is what allows for the observation that, for human reference, masculine words can be used with la, as in la primer violín, and feminine words with el, as in el espada. These crossgender uses cannot be dismissed as minor exceptions any more than can the crosscategorial uses, for they too are productive and not confined to a few items. As with the lexical categories, the observed regularities of gender usage are not structural but cultural. The reason a word appears to be used with only el or only la (about which more presently) is not inherent gender, but the always contingent absence of a culturally mediated need to use the word to name a human being. The word base “base”, which is categorized as a feminine noun, was likely used only with la in many places and for many years. But when U.S. soldiers introduced baseball in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, the genderless nature of the lexicon easily allowed for usages of base with el, as in el primera base “the first baseman”, usages that are now commonplace. The distribution in the Caribbean today shows el with primera base, segunda base, and tercera base “first baseman, second baseman, third baseman”, but not with cuarta base “fourth base”. But this has nothing to do with the Spanish language, and everything to do with the cultural accident that the baseball diamond has only three bases.

6.

The pairing strategies

Far from epitomizing lack of communicative motivation in linguistic structure, the distribution of articles and lexical items in Spanish reveals the operation of functionally motivated pairing strategies. The pairing strategies establish an

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association between certain words and one or the other of the articles through the repetition of the same article with the same word (violín is repeatedly used with el, espada with la). A paired word is one that shows a statistical skewing in favor of (not an absolute categorial co-occurrence with) one of the articles (violín occasionally occurs with la, espada with el). Pairing is made possible by the fact that el and la have the same meanings, and that as a result they are both equally compatible with all lexical items.10 6.1 The communicative motivation of pairing Pairing enables what was called “avoidance of the obvious” in Diver (1972) and will be called here the Avoidance Maneuver. That is, pairing makes possible, to a much greater extent than if there were no pairing, the familiar use of “pronouns in place of nouns”, as in (17a) and (17b), and the use of headless articles, as in (17c) and (17d), and (17e) and (17f).11 (17)

a. b. c. d. e. f.

Carlos la rompió. “Carlos broke it.” Carlos lo rompió. “Carlos broke it.” Tráeme la de Carlos. “Bring me Carlos’s.” Tráeme el de Carlos. “Bring me Carlos’s.” Tráeme el que te compré. “Bring me the one I bought you.” Tráeme la que te compré. “Bring me the one I bought you.”

In English, which has no pairing, (17a) and (17b) would be the same, and thus could not be used to pick out espada or violín as unambiguous antecedents of the pronoun; similar limitations would apply to (17c) through (17e). Pairing, then, enhances the possibilities of avoiding the obvious (in comparison to English, these possibilities are doubled); the investment in memorization required by the pairing pays off in vastly increased non-repetition of lexical items.12 6.2 Paired and unpaired words All variable words are paired according to a morphologically based principle: The -a ending form is paired with la (la niña, la buena, la presidenta), the other

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form is paired with el (el niño, el bueno, el presidente). Of invariant words, some are paired (columns A and B in Figure 1) while others are unpaired (column C). Words that skew towards predominant occurrence with la are in column A, those that skew towards predominant occurrence with el are in column B. Paired invariant words have many different kinds of endings, but, mirroring somewhat the pattern of variable words, invariant words ending in -a tend to be paired with la, while those ending in -o tend to be paired with el.13 Figure 1. Column A

Column B

Column C

Paired with la

Paired with el

Unpaired

espada mesa casa víctima persona mayoría madre hembra mujer

violín lápiz escritorio ídolo poeta planeta padre varón hombre

valiente mejor azul grande patrón bebé

6.3 The communicative motivation for unpaired words The advantage of leaving some words unpaired is that it allows the Avoidance Maneuver of pronouns and articles to be extended to lexical items themselves. Thus the fact that violín and espada are paired, but that mejor is not, allows the Avoidance Maneuver not only in (17), as already shown, but in (18) as well. (18)

a. b.

Tráeme el mejor de Carlos. “Bring me the better one of Carlos’s.” Tráeme la mejor de Carlos. “Bring me the better one of Carlos’s.”

6.4 Two pairing strategies There are two ways to pair words with articles: the Mechanical Pairing Strategy and the Semantic Pairing Strategy. In the Mechanical Pairing Strategy (MPS), no meaning criterion determines membership in the set of words that are skewed

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toward one or the other article, whereas in the Semantic Pairing Strategy (SPS) there is a meaning criterion, namely sex. Figure 2. Column A

Column B

Column C

Paired with la

Paired with el

Unpaired

MPS

MPS

espada mesa víctima mayoría persona

violín lápiz ídolo planeta centro

SPS

SPS

madre hembra mujer

padre varón hombre

valiente mejor azul grande patrón bebé

Not all words that refer to humans are paired under the SPS (la víctima, for example, is paired under the MPS). Paired under SPS are only those words that tend to be used exclusively for males (like hombre and padre) or exclusively for females (like mujer and madre). The pairing of particular words with a particular article is completely arbitrary in both the MPS and the SPS. (Pairing would work equally well if columns A and B in Figure 2 were switched, as long as they were completely switched, without scrambling the words.) But this does not mean that the entire procedure is arbitrary in the sense of being communicatively unmotivated. On the contrary, the Avoidance Maneuver, which provides the functional motivation for pairing, is made possible precisely by the arbitrary but consistent pairing of different words with different articles.14 6.5 The communicative motivation of the SPS Pairing all predominantly male words with one article and all predominantly female words with the other one enables a particularly important application of the Avoidance Maneuver. The three applications of the maneuver shown so far,

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with pronouns, headless articles, and lexical items, all rest on references of the anaphoric type to antecedents that are previously mentioned or that are salient in the context. (19)

a. b. c.

Tráeme el de Carlos. “Bring me Carlos’s.” Tráeme el que te compré. “Bring me the one I bought you.” Traéme la grande de Carlos. “Bring me Carlos’s big one.”

But given the importance of humans in human communication, the SPS allows the establishment of a strong association between la and females, leaving el to be associated with males or with collectivities of both sexes. This association is established through the repeated, consistent pairing of male words with el and female words with la. The association is not categorial enough to be regarded as grounds for postulating sex meanings for the articles. Nevertheless, it is strong enough to allow a special operation of the Avoidance Maneuver, under which reference can be made to males or females without mentioning them directly. (20)

a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Carlos la llamó. “Carlos called her.” Carlos lo llamó. “Carlos called him.” Nació la de Carlos. “Carlos’s daughter was born.” Nació el de Carlos. “Carlos’s son was born.” Llegó la mayor de Carlos. “Carlos’s eldest daughter arrived.” Llegó el mayor de Carlos. “Carlos’s eldest son arrived.” Carlos los llamó. “Carlos called them.”

Because of the SPS, items (20a), (20c), and (20e) are clear references to women or girls, while (20b), (20d), and (20f) are clear references to men or boys. In the plural, reference with el (that is, with los) can be to a group of males or to a mixed group, as in (20g). Whether the Avoidance Maneuver is relying on the MPS for references to inanimates, or on the SPS for reference to animates, appears to be entirely a matter of context.

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(21)

a. b. c.

d.

149

De los jugadores equipo, aquel era el mejor. “Of the team’s players, that one was the best one.” De los violines que vimos, aquel era el mejor. “Of the violins we saw, that one was the best one.” Le molesta la señora que le pusieron de jefe, no la que compró la compañía. “She is bothered by the lady that became boss, not the one that bought the company.” De entre esas espadas, escogió la que había usado en el torneo olímpico. “Among those swords, he chose the one he had used in the Olympic tournament.”

In (21a) and (21c) the context makes it clear that the articles refer to a human player and a human boss, whereas in (21b) and (21d) it is clear that reference is to a violin and a sword. This analysis predicts that in uses of pronouns and headless articles without antecedents, the most frequent type of reference will be to humans. That is, the analysis predicts that (22a) will be common and (22b) will be rare. (22)

a.

b.

Empezaría por Lola. A ella le interesaría aquello más que a nadie. Además, era la que mejor podía opinar si era verdad o no. MJO 16. “She would begin with Lola. She would be more interested in that than anyone. Besides, she was the one who could best tell whether it was true.” Consuélate hija. Por lo menos están juntos. Mira yo la que estoy pasando con lo de Ana y José Javier. PSN 90. “Console yourself, my child. At least they are together. Look at what I’m going through with Ana and José Javier.”

This is indeed what we find. When pronominals and headless articles have an antecedent, both the MPS and the SPS are relevant, and as expected, they refer to humans only 13 percent of the time. But when they have no antecedent, only the SPS is in fact relevant. In the absence of a word with which to associate an article, only the SPS is relevant. In such cases, as expected, pronouns and headless articles refer to humans in 83 percent of the cases and, in all of these, the reference is unambiguous to a male or a female.15 The sameness of meaning of el and la, and their pairing with words through the MPS and the SPS, allow maximal use of the Avoidance Maneuver, making

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it extensive to cases like those illustrated in (20). By selecting as a criterion for pairing the prominent feature of humanness, and within it the salient feature of sex, the fact of having two articles with the same meaning obtains maximal communicative applicability. 6.6 Conflict of strategies Pairing under the MPS is not a rule of autonomous grammar but a contingent communicative move, which allows the pairing to dissolve when more pressing needs are present. This is the origin of the counterexamples to the standard account. Any time a word like violín is used for a woman and a word like espada for a man, the pairing under the MPS clashes with the male-female association that has been established for el and la by the SPS. The association that allows the inference that la mejor is a woman in a context where human reference is suggested will also allow the inference that la violín is a woman in such a context, but at the expense of a momentary clash of the pairing of violín with el. In principle, all words can occur with el and la under the sex association established by the SPS. Many more examples of el-words with la and of la words with el can be added to la primer violín, el mejor espada, and el tercera base, as the process is completely productive. A male pop artist or sports hero is el estrella “the star” of the group, a female one is la ídolo, “the idol” and will have her picture taken in her role of la modelo “the model”, even though, when not referring to humans, estrella is paired with la, and ídolo and modelo with el. The counterpart to the man who plays third-base and pushes base into use with el is the woman who plays center in basketball and is referred to as la centro. Which of the words that are paired under the MPS thus come into conflict with the male-female association of the SPS, and which do not, is purely a matter of cultural contingency. In a culture with no violins, or with no female violin players, the conflict illustrated by la primer violín would not arise, neither would the clash of el estrella or la modelo arise in a culture that didn’t discuss show business, nor would the conflict of el tercera base and la centro have arisen if speakers of Spanish didn’t play baseball or basketball, of if they limited baseball to women and basketball to men. 6.7 Morphological structure That these uses represent a clash of strategies is shown by the fact that speakers of Spanish are in an active conflict-reducing mode. In addition to the strong, statistically-based association between males and el and females and la, there is

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a parallel association between males and the -o form of variable words, and females and the -a forms of these words. Invariant words in -o have a strong male flavor, abetted by their frequent use to refer to traditionally male occupations, such as abogado, ingeniero or ministro (“lawyer, engineer, minister”). When women engage in these professions, there is a clash of strategies similar to the one caused by the use for females of words normally paired with el. The response to the clash presents an even clearer case of the intrusion of culture into seemingly structural areas. Even though módelo and ídolo have remained as invariant words in the middle of the conflict (la modelo and la ídolo), words like abogado, ingeniero or ministro have not, changing their morphological status, in the usage of many speakers, to variable words (el abogado/la abogada, el ingeniero/la ingeniera, etc.). Handling these words as la abogado, la ingeniero etc, as some speakers still do, places them at the point where the MPS and the SPS-established sex association of el and la are in conflict (as in el modelo under MPS, la modelo under the sex association). Changing these items to variable words solves the problem (as el abogado/la abogada and el ingeniero/la ingeniera are now like el maestro/la maestra, el niño/la niña, el bueno/la buena). This development suggests once again that what appeared to be a structural fact of Spanish, the nominal, masculine, invariant nature of words like abogado and ingeniero, was a cultural fact about Hispanic culture. The reason maestro/ maestra is registered in dictionaries as a variable word is that philologists are familiar with female teachers. The reason that ingeniero was registered as invariant is that female engineers were not as common. The creation of -a endings for these words is facilitating the operation of the pairing strategies by reducing the conflict between the MPS and the SPS. 6.8 Differences between gender and pairing The standard account in terms of parts-of-speech and gender is postulated as part of the autonomous mechanism of Spanish. The gender classification, like the autonomous rule that assigns different Imperfect endings to verbs of different conjugations, has nothing to do with facilitating communication. As would be the case in any analogous procedure, any occurrence of an inherent-gender word with the “other” article represents a counterexample to the autonomous analysis. The distinction between paired and unpaired words is not simply the old noun-adjective distinction in sheep’s clothing. Pairing is a functionally motivated strategy designed to enable the Avoidance Maneuver. The counterexamples to the standard account are, in the analysis proposed here, simply cases where paired words are being treated as if they were unpaired (espada, violin, base, estrella,

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modelo, etc. are being treated like grande, mejor, etc.), for clearly motivated communicative reasons, namely their exploitation for human reference. The less frequent, unpaired use of these words is as coherent as their more frequent paired use, since both cases represent different aspects of the general Avoidance Maneuver. Uses of the el espada type, which are incoherent in the standard account, are perfectly coherent within a system designed to facilitate anaphoric reference by pronouns and headless articles under the MPS and human reference under the SPS. From the standpoint of the standard account it is simply an accident that the gender pattern is broken where it is, that is, the standard account has no explanation for why the counterexamples are mostly like el espada and seldom like el mujer. Since both espada and mujer are feminine words, the standard account cannot predict why one, but not the other, appears with the “wrong” article. In the account presented here, uses like el espada are frequent because there is a reason to exploit the sex associations acquired by the articles through the SPS, and because there is a reason to name humans through words that commonly refer to objects such as swords. In contrast, el mujer occurs but rarely because it would only be useful for the less common task of conveying a contradictory message, one having to do with a male woman.

7.

Conclusions

The force of tradition notwithstanding, there is little reason to believe that the Spanish lexicon distinguishes between categorial nouns and adjectives, or that it has inherently masculine and feminine nouns. No morphological or syntactic evidence exists for the noun-adjective distinction. And no semantic or interpretive consequences follow from it. Once the distinction is taken seriously as a testable hypothesis, all its predictions fail, including the all-important one that nouns have a masculine class that occurs only with el and a feminine class that occurs only with la. Any word classified as an adjective can be used as a noun, and most adjectives are already on record in this alternative usage. And, as supported by the illustrations here, any word classified as a noun can be used as an adjective when it becomes communicatively useful to apply its narrow meaning as the denotation of a quality. Nouns that have hitherto not been observed in adjectival usage are not being kept away by categorial classification, but by accidents of culture interacting with lexical meaning. Once it is realized that there are no nouns and no adjectives, the standard account is left without an explanation for the distribution of el and la in relation

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to these acategorial words, since the entire explanatory edifice was built on the distinction between inherent-gender nouns and agreement-gender adjectives. It is of no small theoretical interest that this collapsed explanation has been commonly regarded as a particularly strong argument for the existence of autonomous structure in language. A language possessing a categorial, gendered lexicon such as described in the standard account would not produce the observations made here. Such a language would hold its nouns to strict nominal uses, its masculines and feminines to strict co-occurrence with a single set of determiners, and its adjectives to quality and attribute interpretations. Moreover, in such a language the uses of words in discourse would be clearly identifiable as denotations of attributes or as names of entities, and would never be indeterminate in this regard. The philologists working with such a language would display a high level of accuracy in their lexical classifications, which would show considerable historical stability in the short term. None of this matches our observations for the simple reason that the Spanish lexicon is acategorial and genderless. The distribution of el and la in relation to acategorial lexical items is explained by the existence of two pairing strategies, both of which establish a match between certain invariant words and certain articles. The articles are also paired with variable words by assigning one form of the word to one article and another form to the other article. One of the pairing strategies relies on a sex criterion for grouping words, the other one does not. Paired words tend to have narrow applicability, due to their lexical meaning. Words whose lexical meaning makes them widely applicable tend not to be paired. The pairing strategies exist to make possible an important functional goal, the Avoidance Maneuver, and consequently, pairing is not automatic, but contingent on communicative need. A paired word is allowed to occur with the other article, that is, to become momentarily unpaired, any time that it becomes communicatively useful to describe a human being using a word that is more normally associated with an inanimate object. This means that any word can occur with any article, since any word can potentially become useful in this way. It also means that there will inevitably be occasions when the two strategies will come into conflict. This conflict is reduced by altering the morphology of words, increasing the size of the pool of variable words. When Spanish words and articles are seen as epitomizing autonomous structure, empirical success is elusive. A more coherent account emerges when the functional basis for acategoricity and the pairing procedure is recognized.

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Notes 1. The analysis in terms of parts-of-speech and gender is meant to account not only for the distribution of masculine and feminine articles el and la, but also for masculine and feminine indefinite articles and demonstratives. Our discussion of el and la should be made extensive to these forms too. The singular forms el and la refer here, unless otherwise specified, also to the plurals los and las. 2. Examples of words used only with el are café, hombre, líder, violín “coffee, man, leader, violin”. Examples of words used only with la are clave, mujer, tribu, espada “clue, woman, tribe, sword”. Examples of words used with both articles are el valiente/la valiente, el mejor/la mejor “courageous, best”. 3. Since Corbett (1991), and particularly with reference to syntagms where nouns and adjectives appear together, the terms ‘controller noun’ and ‘target adjective’ have been favored to express the difference between the inherent gender of nouns and the acquired gender of adjectives. 4. The words violín, espada, hombre, and mujer are unicategorial nouns. Examples of unicategorial adjectives are cursi “ridiculous” and ilícito “illicit”. Examples of bicategorial adjectives (that is, of adjectives that are said to also be, or also be used as nouns) are mejor and valiente. Examples of bicategorial nouns (that is, of nouns that are said to also be, or also be used as adjectives)are fenómeno “phenomenon”, pirata “pirate” and público “public”. 5. Examples of common gender or epicene nouns are estudiante “student” and telegrafista “telegraph operator”. Some common-gender nouns have two forms, one for the masculine and one for the feminine, as for example niño/niña “boy/girl” and hijo/hija “son/daughter”. 6. For examples of traditional analyses, see Bello 1847, Real Academia Española 1924, 1973; for analyses of categories and gender in formal syntax, see in general Chomsky 1986: 86 and Newmeyer 1983: 7 and, with specific reference to Spanish, Harris 1991; for the use of these notions in contemporary morphological analyses with reference to Spanish, see Aronoff 1994, Carstairs-McCarthy 1994 and Corbett 1991. 7. These estimates are based on two counts. The first was performed on a corpus of approximately 30,000 words extracted from the following texts: ACA pp 13–17, CAA pp 26–31, GMC pp 68–71, MNY, and VMB pp 37–41. See the List of Texts for details. A second count, based on a smaller corpus, counted words on one page from Elle magazine, two articles from the newspaper El País, an article from People Magazine in Spanish, and a conversation in Spanish in an America Online chat room. 8. For support of the notion of monosemy, and an empirical demonstration that there is much less homonymy in language than generally believed, see Ruhl (1989). 9. The temptation to assume that items like reina madre are equivalent to apparent English compounds like queen mother must be resisted. Note that even traditional syntactic arguments militate against the assumption. For example, in English, a queen mother is not a queen who is mother, but who is a mother. In Spanish, a reina madre is a reina que es madre “lit: who is mother” Note that in English mother is not in the usual position for attributive adjectives, but that madre is in Spanish. 10. The common meanings of Deixis and Discreteness in el and la are discussed in Otheguy (1977). Disallowing any notion that el and la mean male and female are: the common use of both forms with inanimates, the fact that words that are regularly paired with la, such as persona “person”, víctima “victim” and mayoría “majority”, are commonly used to refer to males, and the fact that words paired with el, such as ídolo “idol”, are used to refer to females.

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11. Very likely, articles are the heads of their constructions, so that the term headless article, which is adopted here for convenience, does not entirely make sense. For discussion, see Otheguy 1977. 12. The investment in memorization required by pairing is actually much smaller than it may seem at first. Internal morphological and semantic patternings of the type detailed for German by Zubin & Köpcke (1986) also very likely work for Spanish, making the match-up between words and articles much more motivated than the traditional notion of grammatical gender suggests. The huge morphological skewing of -o ending words towards el and of -a ending words towards la is the best known case. But, as is well known, this is a tendency, not an absolute, as there are a few -o ending words paired with la and many -a ending words paired with el (la mano, el atleta, el planeta, etc). 13. For exceptions, see previous note. 14. The terms “natural gender” and “grammatical gender”, which are used for the approximate equivalent of the SPS and the MPS, and which suggest that the SPS pairing is more motivated than MPS pairing, thus miss the point. Neither of the pairings is natural or motivated, because in neither of them is there any compatibility between the words and the article. It is in the total operation of pairing, and in the Avoidance Maneuver that it makes possible, that the motivation resides. 15. This count was based on a corpus of 50,000 words, and included all pronominal and headless article uses involving el and la. Texts used were short stories by Cela, García Velasco, Goytisolo, Mellizo, Moreno, Sanz, and Vidal, plus an editorial from the magazine Areíto by Villalón and a novel by Perera.

References Alarcos Llorach, Emilio. 1994. Gramática de la Lengua Española. Real Academia Española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Aronoff, Mark. 1994. Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional Classes. Cambridge: MIT Press. Bello, Andrés. 1847. Gramática de la Lengua Castellana. Buenos Aires: Sopena (Seventh edition, 1964). Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew. 1994. “Inflectional Classes, Gender, and the Principle of Contrast”. Language 70.737–88. Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. London: Praeger. Chomsky, Noam. 1972. “Some Empirical Issues in the Theory of Transformational Grammar”. Goals of Linguistic Theory ed. by S. Peters, 63–130. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton Corbett, Greville. 1991. Gender. Cambridge University Press. Diver, William. 1972. “Avoidance of the Obvious”. Ms., Columbia University. Fernández, S. 1951. Gramática Española. Madrid: Revista de Occidente. Harris, James. 1991. “The Exponence of Gender in Spanish”. Linguistic Inquiry 22.27–62.

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Klein-Andreu, Flora. 1983. “Grammar in Style: Spanish Adjective Placement”. Discourse Perspectives on Syntax ed. by Flora Klein-Andreu, 143–179. New York: Academic Press. Matthews, P.H. 1974. Morphology: An Introduction to the Theory of Word Structure. Cambridge University Press. Newmeyer, Frederick. 1983. Grammatical Theory: Its Limits and its Possibilities. The University of Chicago Press. Otheguy, Ricardo. 1977. “A Semantic Analysis of the Difference between el/la and lo”. Contemporary Studies in Romance Linguistics ed. by Margarita Suñer, 241–257. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Real Academia Española. 1994. Gramática de la Lengua Española, by Emilio Alarcos Llorach. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Real Academia Española. 1984. Diccionario de la Lengua Española. Madrid: EspasaCalpe. Real Academia Española. 1973. Esbozo de una Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe Real Academia Española. 1924. Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Co. Ruhl, Charles. 1989. On Monosemy: A Study in Linguistic Semantics. Albany: State University of New York Press. Taylor, John. 1989. Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zubin, David & Klaus Köpcke. 1986. “Gender and Folk Taxonomy: The Indexical Relation between Grammatical and Lexical Categorization”. Noun Classes and Categorization ed. by Colette Craig, 139–180. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

Texts cited ACA = Arenas, Reynaldo. Celestino antes del Alba. Caracas: Ediciones Monte Avila, 1980. CAA = Cepero Bonilla, Raúl. Azucar y Abolición. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, Grupo editorial Grijalbo, 1948. GRI = Gramna Internacional, Havana. GMC = García Márquez, Gabriel. Cien Años de Soledad. Editorial Sudamericana. MJO = Moreno, G. Jota. Revista Insula. No. 343, p. 16, 1975. MNY = Martí, José. Nueva York bajo la Nieve, 1888. MUC = Mina, Gianni. 1995. Un Continente Desaparecido. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. NOV = Novedades, Mexico DF. PSN = Perera, Hilda. El Sitio de Nadie. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta.

THE ACATEGORIAL LEXICON AND THE PAIRING STRATEGIES TAM = Torres-Cuevas, Eduardo. Antonio Maceo: Las Ideas que Sostienen el Arma. La Habana, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1995. VAN = Vanidades VMB = Vega, Bernardo. Memorias de Bernardo Vega.

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Grammatical and Lexical Behavior in the Development of the Spanish Third-Person Clitics Flora Klein-Andreu State University of New York at Stony Brook

1.

Pronouns: grammatical or lexical?

One difference between the kinds of elements we think of as “grammatical”, and those we think of as “lexical”, is what we might call degree of text-dependence. Such typically grammatical items as inflections or auxiliaries are necessarily tied to the presence of some other element in the utterance, a lexical stem of some kind, whose occurrence and form are viewed as more “free” — that is, as more directly determined by real-world reference (Sapir 1921: 26). In this regard, pronouns potentially stand between grammar and lexicon. By definition, their more “anaphoric” uses are more “grammatical”, to the extent that what they point to is an actual antecedent (often reflecting some of its linguistic characteristics, such as its lexical gender or case-role in the particular utterance). Their “deictic” uses are more “lexical”, in that they are determined more directly by a real-world referent and its characteristics. Thus, pronouns may be said to be more or less “lexical” or “grammatical” depending on how they are actually used. The above considerations lead us to question the utility of the lexical/ grammatical distinction, as a priori categories. But pronouns have yet another characteristic which also makes them hard to classify as either “lexical” or “grammatical” items, if degree of “text-dependence” is taken as a criterion: Typically, pronouns express several different distinctions at a time (they are “portmanteaus”). As a result, they may at the same time express distinctions which appear more dependent on the utterance itself (e.g. case), while others may refer to real-world characteristics of the referent (e.g. person and number,

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potentially also gender if used “semantically”; see Mühlhäusler and Harré 1990; Corbett 1991; Klein-Andreu 1996). These differences in the distinctions expressed by pronouns, and in the ways they can be used, can also determine different directions of historical development, depending on which kind of uses tend to prevail. As a result, cognate forms in different areas may appear synchronically as more or less “grammatical” or “lexical” in their distinctive organization.

2.

The Spanish clitics le/s la/s lo/s

For some time now I have been investigating variation in the use of the Spanish 3p clitics le/s la/s and lo/s,1 in hopes of arriving at an understanding of the relationship between different varieties. My assumption is that they can be traced to a single initial system (the “etymological system”), so that current systemic differences would be the product of historical reanalyses of the clitics’ initial meanings, motivated by their actual use.2 If this is so, synchronically different “dialects” would reflect progressive stages of reanalysis–and conceivably also differing positions along the grammatical/lexical continuum. The view that what is reanalyzed are meanings is based on Sign-Linguistics, in particular as practiced by the Columbia School. This approach regards the use of grammatical forms (e.g., particular morphological elements) as reflecting the meaning they have for the speaker, as it is applied to actual communications.3 Consequently, changes in the prevalence of particular uses over others may eventually lead to re-analyzing the meaning of a form, with the result that it then comes to be used in ways that would have been incompatible with the earlier meaning.4 Many methodological decisions are consequences of this view, notably the assumption that relevant differences between dialects can be observed in quantitative data, as differences in the relative influence of particular contextual characteristics (see e.g. García 1986 and 1990). My research is based on about 150 hours of conversations recorded in five different provinces of Northern Spain, as shown in Figure 1; they include the northwestern Castilian area where most innovations in clitic use traditionally have been observed. The recordings were made both in cities and in rural villages and include speakers of both sexes and of different ages and socioeducational levels. However, the reconstruction of the historical relationship between different geographic dialects, to be proposed here, is based solely on the results obtained from the relatively less-educated speakers, generally rural.

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Figure 1: Provinces investigated in Castilla

3.

Etymological vs. innovative usage

Figure 2 illustrates some of the differences typically observed between the more etymological (A) and the more innovative (B) use of le/s, la/s, lo/s, as well as instances in which the usage of the two dialects would be formally identical. Traditionally, the difference between the usage that is felt to be most conservative or “etymological”, (A), and the one considered most innovative, (B), has been described as reflecting a change from a system based on “distinction of case” to one based on “distinction of gender”. Thus, in the examples under (A) we find le (from the Latin Dative illi) in traditionally Dative contexts (in examples 2, 4, 6, and 8), whereas we find lo and la (from the Latin Accusatives illum and illam, masculine and feminine, respectively) in traditional Accusative contexts, depending on the lexical gender of the antecedent (with lo referring to masculines in 1, 2, and 7, and la to a feminine in 3). On the other hand in the examples under (B) we find la in both references to feminines, regardless of whether their traditional case-role would be Accusative (in 3) or Dative (in 4); similarly, we find le for masculine referents both in traditional Accusative (1 and 5) and Dative contexts (2, 4, and 6). There are, however, some difficulties with the traditional view of this difference. The first has to do with the analysis of the innovative usage (B) as based on “gender”, which begs the question of what is meant by “gender.” If it is understood as “syntactic” gender — that is, as reference to the lexical gender

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B. Innovative

Lo conocí en la mili Le conocí en la mili “I met him in the army”

(2)

Le dieron una medalla “They gave him a medal”

(3)

La conocí en clase “I met her in class”

(4)

Le dieron un premio La dieron un premio “They gave her a prize”

(5)

El auto lo compramos barato El auto le compramos barato “This car () we bought it cheap”

(6)

Al auto le cambiamos el motor “The car () we changed the motor on it”

(7)

Este vino lo bebemos en las comidas “This wine () we drink it with meals”

(8)

Al vino le añaden de todo Al vino lo añaden de todo “To the wine () they add all kinds of things to it”

Figure 2: Some differences and similarities between etymological (A) and innovative (B) use of le, la, lo

of the referent, as an explicit or clearly implied antecedent — then lo should not occur with such specific antecedents at all (as it does in 7 and 8). Since all Spanish nouns are either masculine or feminine, specific antecedents should only be referred to by either le or la–assuming that they are, respectively, the masculine and the feminine forms of dialect (B). Lo would then be limited to what is known as a “neuter”; in general Spanish, neuter forms are used only for vague, general reference, incompatible with specific antecedents in the immediate context (e.g. lo dicen pero no lo creo “they say so but I don’t believe it”, todo nos lo quitaron “everything they took it away from us”; compare also lo bueno (neuter) es caro “whatever is good quality is expensive” vs. el bueno (masculine) es caro “the good quality one (ref. specific object) is expensive”; see Mariner 1973; Otheguy 1977; Klein 1981). Secondly, there are also problems with the traditional analysis of the etymological usage in terms of ”case”, if case difference is understood, as is usual, as reflecting the syntactic difference “Direct vs. Indirect Object”. Though the examples in Figure 2 do not show this, in dialects whose use of le/s la/s lo/s generally appears to “distinguish case” we often find the etymological Dative le

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163

in Direct Object contexts--especially in those such as (1) where we would expect the Accusative lo for a masculine singular referent (Lapesa 1968; Marcos Marín 1978). Therefore, it appears that neither “case” nor “gender” is adequate to account for the current behavior of these dialects, at least not as these concepts have been understood traditionally. Moreover, from the historical standpoint, since traditional grammar does not attach a particular functional value to such notions as “case” and “gender”, they do not in themselves suggest how or why a system based, apparently, on considerations of one kind — call them “case” — could over time develop into one based on considerations of another kind — called “gender.”

4.

Measuring extent of distinctions

Because of these difficulties, the traditional interpretation of the change will be used here only as an initial guideline for comparing dialects, to the extent that it is possible to posit some kind of operational criteria for these categories. The same applies to the treatment of any other contextual differences that might appear relevant in affecting clitic use, from my own observations or from earlier studies. For example, differences have also been observed that seem to depend on the referent’s animateness and its number (Lapesa 1968). Where gender distinction is concerned it is simplest to begin with a strictly formal measure: anaphoric “agreement” with the lexical gender of an antecedent, either explicit in the context or unequivocally implied. Criteria for case distinction are considerably less obvious, but in this instance can be based on a functional analysis: Erica García’s analysis of use of le/s, la/s, lo/s in Buenos Aires Spanish (García 1975: Chapter 7),5 a dialect that is recognized as “very conservative” in its use of these clitics, thus apparently very close to etymological usage. García finds the difference between the etymological Dative le/s, on the one hand, and the Accusatives lo/s and la/s on the other, to be a matter of the relative degree of ‘activeness’ that each assigns to the object in the event expressed by the verb. As Figure 3 shows, in her analysis the Accusatives lo/s and la/s assign the lowest level of activeness, while the Dative le/s assigns a somewhat higher level (effectively intermediate between this and the highest level which, in an active sentence, is understood to correspond to the verb’s “subject”). For our present purposes this analysis has two main advantages, both of which stem from its semantic nature: (1) The meanings posited lead to certain predictions as to contextual correlations that can be expected of dialects that distinguish “case” (as a matter of the ‘relative activeness’ of the object). Consequently it suggests potential quantitative measures of the degree to which

164

FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU “less active” (intermediate activeness)

“Least Active” (lowest activeness)

Singular le

Singular la lo

Plural les

feminine non-feminine

Plural las los

Figure 3: E. C. García’s analysis of Dative vs. Accusative distinction in the 3-p clitics.

particular dialects preserve, or have lost, distinctions of case; (2) By the same token, the meanings suggest potential paths of reanalysis, via the kinds of actual uses to which they may be put. As to the contextual correlations that can be expected, the following seem most obvious and easiest to apply as quantitative measures of case distinction: First, since the “level of activeness” assigned is relative (rather than corresponding absolutely to any particular “role” in the event), it should be easiest to predict a priori where it is relatively more constrained by the context itself. Therefore, in a dialect that distinguishes case as relative ‘activeness’, it should be easiest to predict the particular case that will be assigned to an object when two objects are mentioned, rather than just one, since in the former instance the “level of activeness” of each serves to constrain, by comparison, the level of the other. On the other hand when only one object is mentioned the speaker is relatively less constrained by the context in the assignment of a lower or a higher level. In fact, traditional observations of variation between the etymological Dative le and the Accusative lo, in generally “case-distinguishing” dialects, suggest that they occur just in contexts with no more than one object (Lapesa 1968); Second, in a system where le/les are used to assign relatively greater ‘activeness’ than lo/s or la/s, we would expect le/les to tend to correlate statistically with referents that are intrinsically capable of activity–that is, with living beings. Conversely, lo/s and la/s should tend to correlate with referents that are intrinsically inert–with inanimate objects.6 Consequently, clitics in contexts with more than one object (three-participant contexts, counting the subject) can be considered more reliable as a qualitative test of “case-distinction” (in the sense of distinction of activeness), since in these contexts it is easier to predict a priori whether a particular object “should be” referred to by le/s or by lo(s)/la(s). Conversely, those in contexts with less-thantwo objects (less-than-three participants) are much harder to categorize beforehand in terms their expected “level of activeness”, or as predictably “Dative” or “Accusative”. Therefore, where less-than-three participants are involved it is more practical not to attempt such categorizations at all, but instead to deal with these instances as a whole, looking for the expected quantitative correlation

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS

165

between le/s and living referents, and lo/s and la/s and inanimate objects. In fact, the clitics occur much more often in less-than-three participant contexts, which also makes them most suitable for quantitative treatment.

5.

East vs. West

The usefulness of these criteria in practice will be seen best as illustrated in our results. To begin with consider, briefly, the simple percentages obtained of the etymological Dative in one of the easternmost provinces we investigated, Soria, and compare them with those obtained in the most western, Valladolid. Figure 4 shows the results in two three-participant (two-object) contexts: with a masculine referent in Accusative context, and with a feminine referent in Dative context. MASCULINE IN ACCUSATIVE CONTEXT

FEMININE IN DATIVE CONTEXT

10 0 90 80

% LE/S

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 SORIA

VALLADOLID

SORIA

VALLADOLID

Masculine referents

Feminine referents

in Accusative context

in Dative context

LE/S

LO/S

%LE/S

LE/S

SORIA

0

VALLADOLID

17

LA/S

%LE/S

25

0%

8

68 %

1 23

2

98%

3

1 03

3%

Figure 4: Percentage of LE/S in two 3 – participant contexts, in Soria and in Valladolid

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FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU

We see that in Soria use of le/s seems to respond to the case-role of the referent: It occurs only in the Dative context, as the hypothesis predicts. In contrast, in Valladolid use of le/s seems to respond to the referent’s masculine gender: It occurs almost exclusively where the referent is lexically masculine, and so in the Accusative context. In general, this assessment is corroborated by the results in less-than-three participant (generally single object) contexts; they are given in Figure 5, further subclassified by the referent’s animateness and number, besides its gender.7 Here again we find that in Valladolid le/s correlate best with masculine gender of the referent, being avoided with feminines; in Soria they correlate better with the referent’s animateness, as García’s analysis of case-distinction predicts. There is, however, a peculiarity of the results for Valladolid that suggests that what determines the choice of clitic is not simply the antecedent’s lexical gender. If we compare the percentages of le/s for animate masculine referents with the percentages for inanimate masculines, we see that with the animates there is little difference between the frequency of le for singulars and that of les for plurals, as expected. With inanimate masculines, however, the proportion of les for plurals is higher than that of le for singulars. Further analysis of these data suggests that this difference in the treatment of singulars and plurals is due to another distinction, prior to gender, having to do with whether the object is treated as individuated (=discrete or countable) or not. It turns out that in this area (as in neighboring non-Castilian dialects — see Penny 1971; García González 1977 and 1978) referents presented as non-discrete or non-countable are referred to by lo (and by other “neuter” or otherwise invariant forms), regardless of their lexical gender (Klein 1981; Klein-Andreu 1996).8 Consider the following examples: (1)

Referents of lo: oregano “oregano” (masculine) and pimienta “pepper” (feminine) El orégano lo pasaba luego … ¿Qué más había d’especies? Pimienta, pimienta molida, que también si no estaba molida pues lo molíamos. “Then the oregano (masc.) I ground it (neut.) … What other spices were there? Pepper, ground pepper (fem.), that too, if not ground (fem.) yet, well I ground it (neut.).”

(2)

Referent of lo: manteca “lard” (feminine) A fuego muy lento tiene que sacarse para que salga la manteca como agua de clara … Salía como agua la manteca, sabiendolo sacar, porque hay quien lo requemaba a lo mejor.

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS

ANIMATE REFERENTS

% LE/S

MASCULINE

FEMININE

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 SORIA

VALLADOLID

SORIA Singular

VALLADOLID

Plural

INANIMATE REFERENTS

% LE/S

MASCULINE

FEMININE

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 SORIA

VALLADOLID

SORIA

MASCULINE Animate referents

SINGULAR LE LO %LE

VALLADOLID

FEMININE

PLURAL LES LOS %LES

SINGULAR LE LA %LE

LES

PLURAL LAS %LES

SORIA

94

169

36%

68

113

38%

106

51

68%

23

49

32%

VALLADOLID

205

17

92%

85

10

89%

10

197

5%

2

50

4%

SINGULAR LO %LE

LES

PLURAL LOS %LES

LE

Inanimate referents LE

SINGULAR LA %LE

LES

PLURAL LAS %LES

SORIA

17

163

9%

9

115

7%

0

110

0%

1

56

2%

VALLADOLID

98

71

58%

93

14

87%

3

80

4%

0

101

0%

Figure 5: Percentage of LE/S in less-than-3-participant contexts in Soria and in Valladolid

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FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU

“The lard (fem.) had to be rendered on a very low flame, to come out clear (fem.) as water … Clear as water came out the lard (fem.), when you knew how to render it (neut.), though some might have burned it (neut.)” Example (3) shows the contrast between the masculine/feminine forms le(s) and la(s), used for individuated reference, vs. the neuter lo, for non-individuated (non-discrete) reference. Thus we find les for chorizos “(chorizo) sausages” and for ajos “garlic cloves”, but lo for chorizo “sausage meat (for making chorizos)”, carne “meat”, and masa “mass (of chopped meat)”: (3)

Referents of lo: chorizo (masculine) “sausage meat”/carne (feminine) “meat”/picao (masculine) “ground meat”/masa (feminine) “mass” (used as equivalent) Ga: Bueno pues los chorizos pues les-lo picábamos … y luego después, pues en vez de echar ajo, porque el ajo lo descompone, dicen que no se conserva bien el chorizo… dicen, eh, no sé, porque nosotros hemos tenido años que lo hemos echao el ajo machacado con un poquito de agua, encima del barreño donde está el picao …Pero otros años pues … los ajos enteros, les clavábamos en el, en el barreño, en la masa de hacer el embutido …picábamos el ajo para que cogiese el gusto y el día siguiente antes de-lo teníamos dos días en reposo … si echábamos diez o doce, la misma que les habìa metido pues les sacaba. La conservación del chorizo consiste en que la-la carne esté bien envuelta, o sea el pimiento con la carne, la masa. V: La masa. Y la masa hay que envolverlo bien todo. (19A21B:a270, p8o). Ga: “Well, the (masculine) chorizos (sausages) well they (masculine) — we chopped it (neuter) … and then after, well instead of adding garlic, because garlic spoils it (neuter) … they say, eh, I don’t know, because we have had some years when we have added (to) it (neuter, Dative context) garlic chopped with a little water, over the tub where the ground meat is … But other years well … the whole heads of garlic (masculine), we stuck them (masculine) on the, on the tub, on the (feminine) mass for making the sausage … if we put in ten or twelve, the same one who had put them (masculine) in well she removed them (masculine). The preservation of chorizo consists in that the-the meat (feminine) should be well mixed (feminine), that is the red pepper with the meat (feminine), the mass (feminine).”

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS

169

V: The (feminine) mass. And the (feminine) mass one must mix it (neuter) all (non-feminine) thoroughly.” MASCULINE

FEMININE

100 90 80 70 % LO

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 SORIA

VALLADOLID

SORIA

MASCULINE

SORIA

VALLADOLID

VALLADOLID

FEMININE

REFEREN CE

LE

LO

% LO

LA

LO

% LO

Discrete

15

88

85%

68

4

6%

Non-discrete

2

54

96%

37

1

3%

Discrete

77

21

21%

53

3

5%

Non-discrete

16

77

83%

23

104

82%

Figure 6: Percentage of LO in Valladolid and soria for singular inanimates, in discrete vs. non-discrete reference

Thus, in this area it is only when the object is being treated as individuated (that is, as discrete or countable, as it usually is when it is animate)9 that the clitic mentions its lexical gender: by le/les if lexically masculine and by la/las if lexically feminine.10 This is also shown statistically in Figure 6, which compares the frequency of lo for inanimate objects, as a function of their discreteness, in Soria and in Valladolid. We see that, in Valladolid, non-discrete objects are referred to most often by lo, regardless of their lexical gender, whereas discrete objects are not; they are usually referred to by le, if masculine, and by la if

170

FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU

feminine. The results from Soria show some tendency for greater use of lo for non-discrete than for discrete objects when they are masculine, but none when they are feminine. (We return later to compare the treatment of individuation in four different geographic areas.) In terms of these results, then, it seems that clitic use in Soria is compatible with a system based on case-distinction as a matter of relative ‘activeness’; this is also true of Logroño, the other eastern province investigated. In contrast, the preferred clitic use in Valladolid (and also in neighboring Burgos) seems to reflect distinctions such as those diagrammed in Figure 7, based first on ‘individuation’ and then on ‘gender’.11 The problem, then, remains that of accounting for the passage from one kind of distinction to the other — assuming that the system based on ‘activeness’ represents an earlier stage, and the one based on ‘individuation’ a later one. “Non-individuated reference” lo

feminine non-feminine

“Individuated reference” Singular Plural la las le les

Figure 7: Innovative system of clitic use (NW Castilla)

6.

Intermediate dialects

The results from the southernmost province examined, Toledo, suggest a possible solution, in that they seem to be intermediate between the conservative Soria and the innovative Valladolid. Moreover, it appears that the use of clitics in the more southern part of Toledo (which I have labelled as “La Mancha”) is different from their use in the more northern part (labelled Toledo-N. or simply Toledo), with the South being relatively more conservative (thus, more similar to Soria) and the North more innovative (more like Valladolid). This is seen in Figure 8, which shows the percentage of le/s in three 3-participant contexts: in Accusative contexts with masculine referents, and in Dative contexts with masculine and with feminine referents. We see that case-role is a much more pertinent consideration in La Mancha, whereas gender is more important in Toledo-N. (For example, note that in Toledo-N. use of le/s is more frequent with masculine than with feminine referents, even though the masculines are in Accusative context and the feminines in Dative context.) In less-than-three participant contexts (Figure 9) both areas seem responsive

171

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS MASCULINE

MASCULINE

FEMININE

% LE/S

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 LA M.

TOLEDO-N

LA M.

TOLEDO-N

ACCUSATIVE CONTEXT

LA M.

TOLEDO-N

DATIVE CONTEXT Singular

Plural

MASCULINE SINGULAR Accusative context

LE

LO

%LE

PLURAL LES LOS %LES

LA MANCHA

1

7

12%

0

3

0%

TOLEDO-N

12

11

52%

0

7

0%

Dative context

LE

LO

%LE

LA MANCHA

39

1

98%

18

0

TOLEDO-N

46

4

92%

9

16

LES LOS %LES

FEMININE SINGULAR

PLURAL

LE

LA

% LE

LES

10 0%

26

0

100%

5

LAS %LES 1

83%

36%

20

63

2 4%

0

10

0%

Figure 8: Percentage of LE/S in three 3 – participant contexts, in La Mancha and Toledo North

both to animateness and to gender; we will later attempt to measure whether they differ in the relative influence of each. Finally, Figure 10 compares their use of lo for singular inanimates as a function of the referent’s discreteness; it shows that Toledo-N., like Valladolid, uses lo much more often for non-discrete than for countable referents, regardless of their gender; in contrast, La Mancha is like Soria in making this distinction for masculines but not for feminines. There is, however, an interesting feature of the data from the province of Toledo as a whole, evident in references to animate objects in Figure 9: Both in northern Toledo and in southern La Mancha use of le for singulars is generally quite a bit higher than use of les for plurals; it is as though les were avoided in this general area, in favor of los for plural masculines and of las for plural feminines.12 Figure 8 shows this is also true in 3-participant contexts, though now only in northern Toledo; in the 3-participant Dative context La Mancha does use les. In general, then, it seems that we are confronted here with dialects that are

172

FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU

Animate Referents MASCULINE

FEMININE

% LE/S

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 LA MANCHA

TOLEDON

LA M ANCHA Singular

TOLEDON

Plural

Inanimate Referents MASCULINE

FEMININE

% LE /S

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 LA MANCHA

TOLEDON

LA MANCHA

FEMININE

MASCULINE Animate Referents

SINGULAR

TOLE DON

PLURAL

LE

LO

%LE

LA MANCHA

36

5

88%

18

32

TOLEDO-N

151

11

93%

19

81

SINGULAR

LES LOS %LES

PLURAL

LE

LA

%L E

36%

45

25

64%

4

22

15%

19%

70

97

42%

6

15

29%

LES LOS %LES

LE

LA

%L E

SINGULAR

PLURAL

LES LAS

SINGULAR

%L ES

PLURAL

LE

LO

%LE

LES LAS

LA MANCHA

31

95

25%

7

16

30%

5

54

8%

33

25

%L ES 11%

TOLEDO-N

82

79

51%

3

40

7%

1

90

1%

2

29

6%

Figure 9: Percentage of LE/S in La Mancha and Toledo North in contexts of less than three participants

in between the most conservative and the most innovative extremes in their use of the clitics (represented here by Valladolid and by Soria, respectively). Specifically, clitic use in Toledo-N. seems to favor a system such as is shown in Figure 11.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS MASCULINE

173

FEMININE

100 90

% LO

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 LA MANCHA

TOLEDO-N

LA MANCHA Discrete

Non-discrete

MASCULINE DISCRETE

TOLEDO-N

FEMININE

NON-DISCRETE

DISCRETE

NON-DISCRETE

LE

LO

% LO

LE

LO

% LO

LA

LO

% LO

LA

LO

%LO

LA MANCHA

21

16

43%

10

75

89 %

19

3

1 4%

29

4

12 %

TOLEDO-N

72

20

22%

15

54

78 %

58

5

8%

29

26

47 %

Figure 10: Percentage of LO in La Mancha and in Toledo-North for singular inanimates, in discrete vs. non-discrete reference

“Non-individuated reference” lo

feminine non-feminine

“Individuated reference” Singular Plural la las le los

Figure 11: Preferred use of 3-p clitics in Toledo-North

This system is similar to what we saw in Valladolid, based on individuation and gender, but with the difference that in Toledo-N. the preferred plural of the caseless masculine le is los, not les as in Valladolid. There are various indications that los was historically prior to les as the caseless masculine plural (see e.g. Correas 1635: 187); it also seems plausible that les, being more motivated morphologically in terms of the clitic system itself, is the newer of the caseless masculine plural forms. On the other hand clitic use in La Mancha is suggestive of an initial reanalysis of the original system, from being based on the referent’s ‘activeness’ to being based more on its ‘saliency’ or ‘prominence’, as diagrammed in Figure 12.

174

FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU

“more salient” Singular le

Plural les

“less salient” feminine non-feminine

Singular la lo

Plural las los

Figure 12: Preferred use of 3-p clitics in La Mancha

In many respects usage reflecting this system would be the same as the more conservative usage, since more clearly “active” referents (e.g. 3-participant objects in Dative role) would also be more ‘salient’, and therefore referents of le/ les. On the other hand in contexts that leave more latitude to the speaker’s interpretation (2-participant contexts), ‘saliency’ would be freer to reflect characteristics of the referent itself, independent of its actual role in the event expressed by the verb. One of these should still be its animateness, but another could be its number, assuming that single referents stand out more than groups. There is also a characteristic of Spanish case-distinguishing usage which might particularly predispose it to reanalysis as a matter of relative ‘saliency’: a tendency to use le to refer to the hearer, when addressed politely in the third person, more so than for other (non-hearer) third-person objects (García 1975: Chapter 7, Marcos Marín 1978). This is consistent with distinction of ‘activeness’ in that the hearer is in fact “more active” than objects being talked about. But by the same token, the hearer also constitutes a more ‘salient’ referent. Moreover, the hearer is more active specifically in the speech situation, rather than, more generally, in any situation described by a verb. Thus, this usage is already a departure from reference to the utterance itself, being based instead on objective characteristics of the situation in which it is produced.13

7.

The progress of individuation

It seems too that a system based on ‘saliency’ would constitute a natural link between ‘activeness’ and ‘individuation’. As ‘saliency’ is extended to inanimate objects as well, those that are discrete should be more salient than non-discrete ones, owing to their “well-delineated boundaries” (Otheguy 1978: 243). With masculines this would lead to a situation in which le comes to be interpreted as meaning ‘individuated (masculine)’ and lo as ‘non-individuated (masculine)’. It is less clear why the distinction of individuation should have come about first in reference to masculines, but our data suggest this is what happened.14 The progress of this distinction across the four geographic areas can be seen in

175

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANISH THIRD-PERSON CLITICS

Figure 13; it shows the percentage of lo for singular inanimates, as a function of their discreteness/non-discreteness, in Soria, La Mancha, Toledo-N. and Valladolid (combining the results shown earlier in Figures 6 and 10). MASCULINE

FEMININE

100 90 80 70 %LO

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 SORIA

LA MANCHA

TOLEDO-N

VALLADOLID

SORIA

Discrete

LA MANCHA

MASCULINE DISCRETE

TOLEDO-N

VALLADOLID

Non-discrete FEMININE

NON-DISCRETE

DISCRETE

NON-DISCRETE

LE

LO

%LO

LE

LO

%LO

LA

LO

%LO

LA

LO

SORIA

15

88

85%

2

54

96%

68

4

6%

37

1

%LO 3%

LA MANCHA

21

16

43%

10

75

89%

19

3

14%

29

4

12%

TOLEDO-N

72

20

22%

15

54

78%

58

5

8%

29

26

47%

VALLADOLID

77

21

21%

16

77

83%

53

3

5%

23

104

82%

Figure 13: Percentage of LO for singular inanimates, in discrete vs. non-discrete reference, in Soria, La Mancha, Toledo-N and Valladolid

As we already saw in Figure 6, in Soria there is somewhat greater use of lo for non-discrete than for discrete referents in the masculine, but the difference is small (c2 = 4.59005, p < .05) and does not occur with feminines. In La Mancha too the difference is found only with masculines, but it is greater and more significant (c2 = 27.53271, p < .001). In Toledo-N., however, the difference not only is still more significant with masculines (c2 = 50.71575), but it now extends to feminines as well (c2 = 23.45792, p < .001). Finally in Valladolid we find the greatest differences with both genders, in fact even greater with feminines (c2 = 93.74296) than with masculines (c2 = 71.92916). Moreover, it is important to observe not only the progressive increase in distinction of ‘individuation’, but how this increase comes about, as it is different with masculines than with feminines: With masculines it comes about as a result of increased use of le for discrete referents, but with feminines it results from increased use of lo for non-discrete referents. This is what we would expect

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if the distinction was established first with masculines, via extension of le (meaning ‘more salient’) to singular discrete inanimate objects, and then — once this had effectively led to a distinction of ‘individuation’ for masculines — it was extended to feminines as well. Finally note that, with masculines, the establishment of a distinction of ‘individuation’ does away with the possibility of using the le/lo difference to distinguish case (whether as a matter of ‘activeness’ or of ‘saliency’). It has always been supposed that a prior loss of case distinction in the masculine led to its eventual loss in the feminine as well. But it also seems likely that, as le became more associated with masculine referents, it became less appropriate for feminines — especially in a dialect where clitic differences were coming to be used to distinguish between “kinds” of referents, in other words to categorize them (Klein-Andreu 1996: 315).

8.

Other distinctions and the historical continuum

The chi-square test is also useful in assessing the relative significance of other contextual differences, in each of the four geographic areas under consideration, to further determine whether their use of le/s la/s lo/s can be viewed as representing a continuum in a sequence of reanalyses. To this end I set up a scale for each of the four areas, in which the effect of the contextual differences chosen is ordered from “most” to “least” significant, with relative degree of significance measured by c2 value. The distinctions chosen for scaling, and the measures used as criterial, are the following 15: Case, as measured by the difference in frequency of le/s, vs. la/s, for animate feminine referents, in 3-participant Dative vs. less-than-3 participant (mixed case) contexts;16 Person, measured by the difference in frequency of le vs. la in direct address to myself, compared to reference to other singular females; Animacy, measured by the difference in frequency of le/s for animate vs. inanimate referents (with masculines and feminines counted separately); Number, measured by the difference in frequency of le for singular referents vs. les for plural referents (with masculines and feminines counted separately); Gender, measured by difference in frequency of le/s for male vs. female animate referents;

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Individuation, measured by difference in frequency of lo for discrete vs. nondiscrete referents (masculine and feminine counted separately). Soria

La Mancha

Toledo-N.

Valladolid

Significant in determining clitic choice (from most to least) animacy feminines

animacy feminines

singularity masculines

masculine gender

animacy masculines

discreteness masculines

animacy feminines

discreteness feminines

Dative role

animacy masculines

discreteness masculines

discreteness masculines

singularity feminines

singularity masculines

masculine gender

animacy masculines

addressee

Dative role

animacy masculines

addressee

discreteness masculines

singularity feminines

discreteness feminines

addressee

addressee

(singularity masculines)

(discreteness feminines)

(singularity feminines)

(animacy feminines)

(discreteness feminines)

(masculine gender)

(Dative role)

(singularity masculines)

Non-significant

(masculine gender)

(Dative role)

(singularity feminines) Figure 14: Relative influence of nine contextual factors on clitic choice, in Soria, La Mancha, Toledo-N., and Valladolid

Figure 14 orders these differences in each of the four areas, in terms of their relative significance in affecting clitic choice, and Figure 15 summarizes these results simply in terms of whether a particular contextual difference does, or does not, significantly affect the choice of clitic in each area (using < .05 as the minimum threshold of significance). The results are consistent with the view that the four areas constitute a continuum as to use of le/s la/s lo/s, going from Soria as the most conservative to Valladolid as the most innovative, with La Mancha and Toledo-N. falling between the two extremes.

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Dative Context Animacy (feminines) Animacy (masculines) Singularity (feminines) Singularity (masculines) Addressee Discreteness (masculines) Discreteness (feminines) Masculine gender

Soria X X X X − X X − −

La Mancha X X X X X X X − −

Toledo-N. − X X − X X X X X

Valladolid − − X − − X X X X

Figure 15: Significant contextual factors in clitic choice, in Soria, La Mancha, ToledoNorte, and Valladolid

If we consider that the criteria for case-distinction (in the sense of distinction of degree of ‘activeness’) are significance of the objects’ case-role and its animateneness, then it is clear that they are met in Soria and in La Mancha, but not in Toledo-N. and still less in Valladolid. If the criteria for distinction of ‘saliency’ are the significant influence of singularity and of person (plus the continued influence of case-role and of animateness), only La Mancha meets them all. Finally, if the criteria for a system based on the object’s ‘individuation/gender’ are the significance of its discreteness and its gender, they are met in Toledo-N. and in Valladolid (but not in Soria or in La Mancha). However, Toledo-N. still shows significance for some distinctions characteristic of ‘saliency’ (notably animateness, but also singularity though here only with masculines), distinctions that then are lost in Valladolid.

9.

Conclusion

To recapitulate, analysis of actual use of le/s la/s lo/s in different geographic areas shows that the traditional view of the innovations, as leading from a system based on ‘case’ to one based on ‘gender’ must be modified to recognize the following: (1) “Case-distinction” (as evidenced in Soria and in Logroño) must be understood in functional terms, as assigning to the object a relative level of ‘activeness’ (as per García’s 1975 analysis);

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(2) The more innovative usage (found in Valladolid and in Burgos) must be recognized as based in the first place on distinction of ‘individuation’, with only individuated objects necessarily distinguished as to ‘gender’. The passage from distinguishing ‘activeness’ to distinguishing ‘individuation’ can then be understood as mediated by two reinterpretations, both of which tend to lead away from strictly text-based or “grammatical” considerations, in the direction of the more reference-based considerations generally associated with lexicon: First, ‘activeness’ is reinterpreted as ‘saliency’. Arguably, this is furthered by the tendency to attribute relatively greater ‘activeness’ (thus, mention by le) to the hearer, a pragmatically prominent referent increasingly being addressed in the third person. Consequently clitic use passes from being based essentially on the referent’s role in the event being talked about, to taking into account other considerations too--including the referent’s real-world nature and role in the act of speech; Secondly, as differences of relative ‘saliency’ are extended to other thirdperson referents — especially to inanimate objects — this gives rise to differentiations in terms of discreteness, hence to distinctions based on inherent characteristics of the referent itself. As a result, the clitics become associated with particular kinds of referents (that is, they are used to categorize). Once the development of le/s la/s lo/s is viewed in this way, the question of whether to consider them “grammatical” or “lexical” to begin with appears to have missed the main points.

Notes 1. Where le/s (or le(s)) is used it refers to both le and les, la/s (or la(s)) to both la and las, and lo/s (or lo(s)) to both lo and los. 2. The assumption of a single origin underlies the “classic” studies of this question (Cuervo 1895, Fernández-Ramírez 1950; Lapesa 1968) and their many followers, but it is not necessarily the only possibility; for alternatives see D. Alonso 1958 and Hall 1972. 3. In Columbia School work, the actual uses to which linguistic meanings are put are attributed to a “human factor”, that is, to psychological and socio-cultural circumstances. These characteristics are “external” to language itself, but ultimately may influence its distinctive organization. 4. Other “functionalist” approaches to change also seem, at least implicitly, to share this view — notably the recent work on “grammaticalization” (Heine et al. 1991; Hopper and Traugott 1993; Bybee 1994). 5. García’s analysis of the nature of case-distinction in Buenos Aires Spanish has since been found to apply more generally, in other areas whose use of the clitics likewise is felt to distinguish

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6. This correlation has been noted repeatedly, though until García 1975 it was never explained (except as a continuation of Latin usage, likewise unexplained; e.g. Lapesa 1968; Marcos Marín 1968). 7. Less-than-three participant contexts are by far the most frequent for clitic use, and so lend themselves better to further sub-classification in terms of additional contextual factors. 8. Demonstratives with non-discrete referents also occur in the “neuter” form; adjectives postposed to the noun, or used predicatively, may be found in an invariant form that is also used for masculines. Consequently with adjectives the lack of agreement is evident with feminines (e.g. leche fresco “fresh (non-feminine) milk (feminine)” vs. casa fresca “cool (feminine) house (feminine)”). 9. In principle, animate beings can also be regarded as constituting an unindividuated “mass”: García González (1978: 101) notes use of neuter or otherwise invariant forms for ganado “cattle”, gente “people”. Interestingly, both gender and number tend to be “semantic” or ad sensum when reference is to animates, especially people (e.g. with gente). (See Klein 1981: 173 for some preliminary counts from Valladolid). 10. If pronominal gender is regarded as an aid in referent identification (as in Otheguy 1977), then in fact mention of its gender constitutes a more precise reference (Klein 1981; see also Zubin and Köpcke: 144), appropriately applied to present objects as more precisely delineated (individuated, discrete, countable). My own view is that le/s la/s lo/s are best regarded as essentially deictic, whether they are used anaphorically (= with a co-referent in the immediate context) or not (Klein-Andreu 1996). 11. This system is essentially the same as the deictic system proposed in Otheguy 1977 for the articles in general Spanish, which would also apply to the tonic pronoun forms, demonstrative and “personal” (see Mariner 1973). In more general Spanish usage, however, the “neuter” forms never are used for specific antecedents occurring in the immediate context, whereas in the northwestern dialects (both Castilian and Asturleonese) they are. Among other things this has the effect of making “non-agreement” (with the lexical gender of the antecedent) more obvious, as well as the semantic basis for it (Klein 1980, 1981). 12. In all areas we find occurrences of le for plural referents. Although this usage may very well be related to the questions touched on here, I have not investigated it as yet; thus the instances of le counted here all refer to a singular referent. 13. Third-person address is first documented in the 13th century (Lapesa 1970), and by the 15th century was the normal form of respectful address (Pla Cárceles 1923). The traditional explanation for the preference for le to refer to the hearer is the formal similarity (analogy) of le with the first and second person pronouns me (“me”) and te (“you”) (Cuervo 1895, Lapesa 1968). But we must also note the particular pragmatic circumstances in which referents of the third-person le are most similar (“analogous”) to those of me and te, namely when they likewise refer to a participant in the act of speech. 14. Traditionally, the increasing use of the etymological Dative le for masculine singular referents, regardless or their “case-role”, has been viewed as a tendency to do away with the syncretism between masculine and neuter reference that characterizes the etymological system (in which the clitic form for both is lo). 15. Note that the c2 tests are based on measures that are less sub-categorized than those shown in the earlier figures. For instance, the c2 of “gender” difference is based on the difference in frequency between le/s and lo/s in all references to males (both singular and plural, in both

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3-participant and less-than-3 participant contexts), as compared to the difference between le/s and la/s in all references to females, and so on. Therefore the frequencies on which the c2 tests are based are not the same as those given in the earlier tables, though the results for both measures are consistent with one another. (For c2 values see Klein-Andreu 1996: 322; for the frequencies on which they are based see Klein-Andreu, In Press.) 16. Distinction of “person” had to be limited to feminine referents since the addressee was almost always a female person — myself. Consequently, distinction of “case” was similarly measured in terms of feminine referents only.

References Alarcos Llorach, Emilio. 1994. Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa Calpe. Alonso, Dámaso. 1958. “Metafonía y Neutro de Materia en España (Sobre un Fondo Italiano)”, Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie LXXIV: 1–24. Butler, Christopher. 1985. Statistics in Linguistics. Oxford and New York: Blackwell. Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Corbett, Greville. 1991. Gender. Cambridge University Press. Correas, Gonzalo. 1635 (1965). Arte de la Lengua Española Castellana. (Edited by Emilio Alarcos García.) Cuervo, Rufino José. l895. “Los Casos Enclíticos y Proclíticos del Pronombre de Tercera Persona en Castellano”. Romania 24. 95–244. Diver, William. 1964. “The System of Agency of the Latin Noun”. Word XX. 178. Fernández Ordóñez, Inés. 1993. “Leísmo, Laísmo y Loísmo: El Estado de la Cuestión”. Los Pronombres Átonos, ed. by Olga Fernández Soriano, 63–96 and 360–363. Madrid: Taurus. ———. 1994. “Isoglosas Internas del Castellano. El Sistema Referencial del Pronombre Átono de Tercera Persona”. Revista de Filología Española, LXXIV, 1 and 2. 71–125. Fernández Ramírez, Salvador. 1950. Gramática Española. Madrid: Revista de Occidente. García, Erica. l975. The Role of Theory in Linguistic Analysis: The Spanish Pronoun System. Amsterdam: North Holland. ———. 1986. “The Case of Spanish Gender”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 2/87. 165–184. ———. 1990. “Reanalysing Actualization, and Actualizing Reanalysis”. Historical Linguistics 1987 ed. by H. Andersen and K. Koerner, 141–159. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ——— & Ricardo Otheguy. 1977. “Dialect Variation in Leísmo: A Semantic Approach”. Studies in Linguistic Variation ed. by W. Fasold, 65–87. Washington: Georgetown U. Press. García González, Francisco. 1978. “El Leísmo en Santander”. Estudios Ofrecidos a Emilio Alarcos Llorach, Vol. III. Oviedo. pp 87–101.

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———. 1981. “/le (lu), la, lo (lu)/ en el Centro-Norte de la Península”. Verba (Anuario Galego de Filoloxia) 8, 347–353. Givón, Talmy. 1976. “Topic, Pronoun, and Grammatical Agreement”. Subject and Topic ed. by Charles Li. New York: Academic Press. Hall, Robert. 1972. “‘Neuters’, Mass-nouns, and the Ablative in Romance”. Readings in Romance Linguistics ed. by James M. Anderson and Jo Ann Creore, 436–444. The Hague: Mouton. Halliday, M. A. K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. Klein, Flora. l980. “Pragmatic and Sociolinguistic Bias in Semantic Change”. Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (=Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 14) ed. by Elizabeth C. Traugott, Rebecca Labrum, and Susan Shepherd, 61–74. Amsterdam: North Holland. ———. 1981. “Neuterality, or the Semantics of Gender in a Dialect of Castilla”. Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 9 ed. by William Cressey and Donna Jo Napoli, 164–176. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Klein-Andreu, Flora. 1981. “Correction Strategies in Diglossia: From Caseless to Casedistinguishing Usage in Spanish”. Paper presented at N.W.A.V.E. conference, University of Pennsylvania. ———. 1996. “Anaphora, Deixis, and the Evolution of Latin ille”. Studies in Anaphora ed. by Barbara Fox. 305–331. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ———. 1999. “Variación e Historia”. Estudios Sobre Variación Sintáctica ed. by Ma. José Serrano. Iberoamérica. ———. In Press. Variación Actual y Evolución Histórica. Los Clíticos Le/s, la/s, lo/s. Munich: LINCOM Europa. Lapesa, Rafael. l968. “Sobre los Orígenes y Evolución del Leísmo, Laísmo, y Loísmo”. Festschrift Walter von Wartburg ed. by Kurt Baldinger, 523–551. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. ———. 1970. “Personas Gramaticales y Tratamientos en Español”. Revista de la Universidad de Madrid XIX, 141–167. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcos Marín, Francisco. 1978. Estudios Sobre el Pronombre. Madrid: Gredos. Mariner, Sebastián. 1973. “Situación del Neutro Romance en la Oposición Genérica”. Revista Española de Linguística 3:1. 23–38. Marslen-Wilson, William, Elena Levy, and Lorraine Komisarjevsky Tyler. 1982. “Producing Interpretable Discourse: The Establishment and Maintenance of Reference”. Speech, Place, and Action ed. by R. J. Jarvella and W. Klein, 339–377. Wiley. Mühlhäusler, Peter, and Rom Harré. 1990. Pronouns and People. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.

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Otheguy, Ricardo. 1977. “A Semantic Difference between el, la, and lo”. Studies in Romance Linguistics ed. by Margarita Suñer, 241–257. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Penny, Ralph J. 1971. El Habla Pasiega. London: Támesis. Pla Cárceles, José. 1923. “La Evolución del Tratamiento ‘Vuestra Merced’”. Revista de Filología Española X. 245–280 and 402–403. Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt Brace. Zubin, David and Klaus Michael Köpcke. 1986. “Gender and Folk Taxonomy”. Noun Classes and Categorization ed. by Colette Craig, 139–180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

The Grammar of English Gender Lori Morris Concordia University, Montreal

1.

Introduction

A cursory examination of English gender agreement might well lead one to believe that most uses of gender-marked pronouns are amenable to a ‘natural’ explanation. She is very often used for women or female animals, he for men or male animals and it for everything left over. Indeed, the strength of these tendencies is such that it has led many researchers — including Strang (1962), Joly (1975), Mathiot (1979), Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (1985) and Corbett (1991) — to adopt biological criteria as the basis for their definitions of the terms ‘animate’, ‘inanimate’, ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. This has blurred the line between things linguistic and things extralinguistic, and has ultimately stunted the growth of gender analysis. Even though exceptions to the ‘natural’ gender hypothesis are frequently cited in the literature — sometimes by the very researchers who define gender in biological terms — few linguists completely reject biological criteria as a basis for linguistic explanations, and fewer still have set out to find an alternative explanation of the workings of the system. As a result, an explicatively weak set of hypotheses about English gender has been used repeatedly in whole or in part by a variety of linguistic schools while the question of the grammatical function of the category has remained essentially unanswered.1 An unanswered question is not, however, an unanswerable question. An examination of an extensive corpus of naturally occurring written and spoken data allows for the identification of the failings of the natural gender hypothesis and its various avatars, and for the development of a more powerful theory based on linguistic rather than biological criteria. By studying the many instances where biology and linguistics part company, it is possible to construct a theory of English gender which accounts for both pronominal and nominal usage, and which proposes a purely grammatical function for the category.

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The Unnaturalness of “Natural” Gender

Defining gender in terms of biological features such as ±animate, ±human, ±male, etc. is an enterprise fraught with problems. First of all, this type of definition gives the misleading impression that biological traits are actually present in language when, in fact, they cannot be. Language is a representation of our impressions of the world, not a repository of extralinguistic features such as biological animacy and sex. A clear line must therefore be drawn between similarly named grammatical and biological features. If such a line cannot be maintained, any attempts made to redefine gender as a linguistic category with a linguistic function are doomed to failure. The need to separate sex and gender becomes even more pressing when substantial quantities of real linguistic data are examined. Although there is a undeniable correspondence between sex and gender in many pronominal uses, particularly those involving human referents, there is no systematic conversion of biological traits into lexical or grammatical features. Exceptions to the natural gender hypothesis abound in both written and spoken texts. For example, a variety of biologically inanimate referents, including a lawn, a war, an election victory, a ski race, a musical beat, a hair brush and a bulldozer can be found with animate linguistic representation: (1)

(2) (3) (4)

(5) (6)

Staggering under the weight of her suitcases, she followed Homer up the bank, over a wide, green lawn (‘Sim here will mow her for you’) to the veranda of the house. (Engel, Bear:23.) “Ain’t war hell? I would of been a corporal at least, if she had just hung on another year.” (Faulkner, Soldier’s Pay:10) I think we’ve pulled her out. (CBC Radio News, Sept. 7, 1988.) her = election victory “We caught him on the first intermediate in fifth place. At the second intermediate he was third, and he won her on the bottom.” (CBC Radio, Sports news, December 13, 1986.) her = ski race We got her! We got the rhythm! (CBC Radio, Basic Black, Saturday, January 12, 1991.) “That’s the finger marks — three there, and two here, and smudged over in both places. No, don’t you touch’em, my dear, or you’ll rub the bloom off. We’ll stand ‘em up here till they’re ready to have their portraits taken. Now then, let’s take the hair-brush next. Perhaps, Mrs. Pemming, you’d like to lift him up very carefully by

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the bristles.” “By the bristles, Mr. Bunter?” “If you please, Mrs. Pemming — and lay him here …” (Sayers, In the Teeth of Evidence?: 63–64.) We had one [a bulldozer] bogged up to the seat last winter: took a winch and a day’s work to pull him out. (Shute, The Far Country: 137.)

Furthermore, biological animates — human beings included — can readily be referred to by means of an inanimate pronoun, even when the sex of the referent is not in doubt: (8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

As it turned to drink, she got a large whiff of shit and musk. It was indubitably male, she saw, and its hindquarters were matted with dirt. After it drank thirstily, it curled up again by the barn door. It looked stupid and defeated. She hunkered where it could not reach her and stared at it. Its nose was like a dog’s but broader. Its snout was narrow, its eyes were close together. It was not a handsome beast. (Engel, Bear:35.) “What a practical little woman it is! What’s it been reading? Theo — theo — how much?” “Theosophy.” (Forster, Howards End: 276.) “Why will it vex itself, and twist its little face into bewitching nutcrackers?” said Mantalini, putting his left arm round the waist of his life and soul, and drawing her towards him with his right. (Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby: 262.) “Where did ye find it? asked Mord Em’ly of Miss Gilliken, with a satirical accent. — “Who are you calling it?” demanded Mr. Barden aggressively. “Pr’aps you’ll kindly call me ’im’ and not ’it’.” (Pett Ridge, Mord Em’ly, as cited by Kruisinga, 1932: 100.)

To complicate matters further, pronominal reference can frequently be seen to vary within a single passage even though the referent is ostensibly the same throughout: (12)

“Did you ever see anything as big as that horse, Edith!” cried Emily. She was always the first to exclaim about things. “It is a very big horse,” sang Edith, more sober. “It’s a farm horse, from the look of it and it’s been working. See how hot it is.” Edith

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had so much observation. The big, brown horse, his sides streaked with dark sweat, tossed his head and the bells on his collar set up a loud jangling. (Mansfield, “Father and the Girls”, in The Doves’ Nest:129.) (13)

“I don’t know what I’d do if anybody laid a bear on my shoulders. All I can say is, Lucy says he’s a good bear and you know some people don’t like Indians and they can’t hold their liquor, but around here we respect Lucy, and if she says it’s a good bear, maybe I can ask you to feed it and water it while you’re here and after that we’ll decide what to do.” (Engel, Bear: 27.)

(14)

‘I don’t see the snake.’ ‘Ah! No. Mr. Kennedy took him away Thursday when he come.’ ‘Took it away?’ ‘Yus. In a van he’d got with him.’ (Wilson, The Old Men at the Zoo:262.)

A careful study of pronominal variation reveals that it never occurs in a random manner. The shifts in examples 12, 13 and 14 can be attributed to changes in narrative perspective. In the particular passage cited in 12, the perspective of one of the characters stands in contrast to the perspective of the narrator of the story. Edith, an oppressed, timid character, provides a very exact, almost scientific description of the horse which has caught the attention of Emily. In a commentary denuded of both emotion and enthusiasm, she objectively observes the animal, refraining from any sort of personal characterisation of it. The narrator, on the other hand, free from the oppressive constraints that rule Edith’s existence, can focus attention on the horse and, in a sense, bring him to life for her readers setting him into noisy motion. The pronoun change in 13 occurs as the speaker draws a line between his view of the bear and someone else’s. When Homer reports Lucy’s very favourable opinion of the bear, he uses the masculine, but the instant he distances himself from her remarks by employing a conditional or breaks entirely away from Lucy’s view to express his own rather neutral view, he adopts the inanimate. Example 14 includes a brief exchange between a zoo employee and a scientist on the subject of a missing bushmaster. The young employee, the snake’s keeper, uses he to evoke the animal, while the visitor uses it. Although the latter undoubtedly has a more detailed scientific knowledge of snakes, the former certainly knows more about the character and individuality of the particular serpent in question and is undoubtedly more attached to it. Examples of this type suggest that the kind or quality of information available to the

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speaker about the referent would be as important as the quantity of facts known when it comes to granting animate status. The pronominal shifting in 15 and 16 is somewhat subtler in nature than that found in examples 12 to 14 since it does not involve an overt change in narrative perspective. However, each change does correspond to a discernible shift in the way in which the referent is being considered: (15)

(16)

Molesworth came back and said, “Those apples want washing. There’s cholera here.” He looked again at the pushcart and said, “I think two lunch bags, just to be safe.” While Molesworth bought more food and another bottle of Bardolino, Duffill said, “I took this train in nineteen twenty-nine.” “It was worth taking then,” said Molesworth. “Yes, she used to be quite a train.” (Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar:28.) I’ve been in Baie Comeau in the winter and, boy, she gets down there … It gets cold. (CBC Radio, Fresh Air, Dec. 6, 1987.)

In 15 the speaker uses the inanimate pronoun when he passes judgement on the 1929 version of the train he is currently taking, but shifts to the feminine as soon as he establishes his unfavourable comparison of the past and present trains by recalling the particular details that made the older version so superior. In 16 the change from she to it in reference to the temperature occurred after a clear pause in the speech of the radio commentator. The commentator would seem to have caught himself using a register inappropriate for national radio and then brought his pronominal use more in line with broadcasting norms. The above examples provide irrefutable proof of the inadequacy of biologically-based explanations of English gender. Such explanations fail to account for actual gender use in discourse and, as a corollary, fail to explain the grammatical function of the category in tongue (Saussure’s and Guillaume’s langue). In short, the “natural” approach to English gender is a well paved and heavily frequented road, but, in spite of its familiarity, a dead end. If one hopes to gain a true understanding of the grammatical function of the category of gender, new paths must be explored and new definitions found.

3.

Redefining the Terms

Somewhat ironically, the new path to understanding English gender is most easily picked up where the old path becomes impracticable. The very examples that are used to disprove the natural gender hypothesis constitute the starting

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point of a new type of reflection on the meaning and purpose of gender. Since these “exceptional” examples clearly do not involve the direct mapping of biological features onto language, they allow for the separation of sex and gender, the isolation of the grammatical workings of the system, and ultimately the redefinition of key gender terms. The first terms to be redefined are animate and inanimate. The biologicallybased definitions of grammatical animacy and inanimacy prove particularly weak in cases involving reference to young children, animals and plants. Although the referents in all three groups are biological animates, the pronominal representation accorded them is highly variable, ranging from fairly consistent inanimacy in the case of plants to fairly consistent animacy in the case of children, especially of those children who have matured beyond the infant stage. The case of plants can be explained away with relative facility; the biological animacy of a silent, immobile referent is somewhat removed from the prototypical animacy of a referent which moves about and produces sounds. This means that plants are less likely to attract individual attention and be highly characterised by speakers. The case of children and animals is far more problematic however. As 17 and 18 illustrate, even when their sex has been firmly established, they are not always accorded the status of grammatical animates. (17)

(18)

“‘My baby,’ she said. ‘My little boy! In there!’ She pointed to the compartment next to mine. The fire was just beginning to take hold, and when I peered in I could see the child in the light of the flames. It was lying on the underside of the overturned coach, pinned in by some timbers which had saved it from being crushed to death, but I didn’t see how we were going to shift all that stuff before the fire got to it.” (Sayers, In the Teeth of Evidence:144.) The bitch was dragging itself along the veranda growling … (Greene, The Power and the Glory:184.)

Once sex has been rejected as the determining factor in pronominal gender assignment an alternative explanation must be sought. A careful study of cases in which animals and very young children are referred to by means of inanimate pronouns leads the researcher towards such an explanation. The first noteworthy observation is that inanimate pronouns tend to be used when a referent is not well known or is not of particular interest to the speaker at the moment of speech. Furthermore, animal referents evoked by means of inanimate pronouns are often perceived to be behaving in a species-typical manner, showing little or no strong individualisation. In short, referents given inanimate representation show low degrees of individual characterisation.

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Should the amount of characterisation accorded a referent rise, the pronominal representation can shift from an inanimate form to an animate form. This explains the general tendency of speakers to use inanimate pronouns in an initial reference to a previously unknown baby or animal, and then to switch to an animate pronoun if the referent is characterised to a higher degree in the course of an exchange. Such pronominal “upgrading” is nicely illustrated by the following example, in which the creature being described is the winner of the World’s Largest Cockroach Competition. The speakers are a male CBC announcer and the male owner of the champion from New York City. (19)

Announcer: Where did you find it? Owner: It was in the basement, Announcer: How did you catch it? Owner: Using cat food and a jar. (…) Announcer: How did you get him to the competition? How long was he? Owner: He was two inches long. (…) I hope to find another one like him next year. (CBC Radio, As it Happens, July 11, 1988.)

Human referents that have matured beyond the infant stage are quite systematically deemed to be sufficiently individualised and characterised to merit animate pronominal reference. This is probably due to the emergence of two distinct forms of characterisation: language and a sexual identity. The development of an ability to communicate gives the referent the potential to enter the conversational locus. Those capable of speaking are also capable of assuming the roles of either I, the first person singular, or you, the second person singular. The development of a sexual identity provides further characterisation of a different nature. With sexual oppositions comes an almost paradoxical situation that could best be described as ‘an otherness within a sameness’. For example, men and women share completely common characterisation as human beings, and, without forfeiting that characterisation, can still be opposed in terms of their sexual identity. Very simply put, men and women are at once the same in terms of their membership in the category of human beings and diametrically opposed by virtue of their sexual differences. Grasping the potential for otherness to exist within sameness is crucial to understanding the workings of English gender. Otherness can exist within sameness in the biological world. Sexual oppositions within a single species provide a fine example of this. More importantly still, otherness can be perceived to coexist with sameness in completely different situations as well. For instance, the first and second persons share the conversational locus, yet, as speaker and

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listener, stand in diametrical opposition to one another. This means that the perception of otherness within sameness is not limited to a single field, but is instead applicable to a variety of different fields. The consequences of this are of great importance to the discussion of English gender, for herein lies the possibility of separating sex from gender without losing sight of the close correlation of the two systems. It will be argued here that sex and gender overlap in that they each involve representations of otherness within sameness. But only the fundamental structure of the situation is shared, not the particular situational content. Thus, there is no need to postulate the transfer of biological traits into the category of gender. The advantage of moving gender theorisation in this direction can be seen when the responses of other linguists to the problem of exceptions to the natural gender hypothesis are examined. The tendency among these linguists is to multiply the number of possible pronominal patterns with various types of referents or to come up with finer and finer categorisations of referents. Good examples of the former are found in Strang (1962) and Quirk et al. (1985) where children and higher order animals are said to pattern with both animate and inanimate pronouns, while lower order animals and plants are said to pattern with inanimate pronouns. The problems with this approach are obvious. As the number of ‘exceptions’ grows, so does the number of patterning possibilities and the complexity of the system. Indeed, an analysis of thousands of ‘exceptions’ to prescriptive rules reveals that in the end all referents can pattern with all three genders. This finding reduces the explicative power of the patterning solution or the multiplication of referential categories to near zero. Once sex and gender have been separated through the abstraction of the idea of otherness within sameness which characterises the biological opposition of male and female, it becomes much easier to understand the use of grammatically animate pronouns with biologically inanimate referents. Clearly there is no transfer of sexual traits to linguistic entities. However, there could be a reproduction of the otherness-within-sameness situation characteristic of sexual oppositions. As the evidence reveals, this is indeed what happens. Although it is impossible to draw up list of all of the biologically inanimate referents that can be given animate pronominal representation, it is possible to find a number of characteristics common to such uses. For instance, when he or she is used in reference to a biological inanimate, there is usually a good deal of speaker familiarity with the particular referent being evoked. Example 20 is particularly eloquent in this regard. The contrast between the bumbling student helper and the experienced worker is sharpened by the older man’s use of the feminine pronoun.

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Once he said to me, “Here, take the other end of this.” It was the hoist for the backhoe. I lifted my end, and right then I went from a 34- to a 36-inch sleeve. I thought my back was going to break. “Heavy?” he said. Nooo. “Want to set her down?” Nooo. That’s okay. “Well, better set her down, cause this is where she goes.” Okay. All my bones had been reset, making me a slightly curved person. “Next time try lifting with your legs,” he said. (Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days:120.)

The importance of expertise and familiarity in animate pronominal assignment is further supported by research into the pronominal use of children.2 Morris (1991) found that children have a very “prescriptive” understanding and use of gender — marked pronouns up to age 14 or 15. They look for a woman behind she, a man behind he, even when given examples of animate pronoun usage which bring to mind inanimate objects for adults. For example, almost 90% of a broad sampling of adults named an inanimate object when asked what she brought to mind in How does she run in cold weather? Over 90% of children under 14 surveyed said that the same example brought to mind a woman or a girl.3 This suggests that the speaker has to have accumulated a certain amount of experience of a type of inanimate referent before an individual example can be evoked by means of an animate pronoun. Animate gender also tends to be used when a biologically inanimate referent is perceived to be “behaving” in a manner worthy of attention or in a way which stands out from the norm. In other words, the more salient the behaviour of the inanimate referent is perceived to be, the greater the chances of it being evoked by an animate pronoun. In many respects this parallels what was observed in the case of animals and young children where higher degrees of characterisation usually resulted in an animate pronominal reference. The problem now is to link speaker familiarity and referent salience with the broader otherness-in-sameness schema proposed above. Fortunately, the task is not a difficult one. In order to perceive a particular referent or phenomenon as being salient or out of the ordinary, a speaker must first have a grasp of what constitutes normal or expected behaviour. This is where speaker experience comes into play. A sense of what is normal is built up through repeated experiences of similar phenomena. It is only after a speaker has built up a sufficient experiential base that he or she can perceive particular occurrences of a phenomenon to have salience. The process is best understood when a real utterance is used in illustration. Example 21, produced by someone moving a kitchen table with a group of

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friends, should suffice nicely: (21)

Swing her around! (Overheard.)

The table that is being referred to as she at once fits into the speaker’s general experience of tables (sameness) and stands out from other experiences by virtue of its salience (otherness), probably attributable to all of the attention focused on the table during the move. If no otherness or salience is perceived by the speaker, then the referent is assigned inanimate gender. Had the group of friends simply been sitting round the table over a meal, it is highly unlikely that an animate pronoun would have been used. It could be argued that animate and inanimate gender represent two different levels or steps in the definition process of any set of impressions a speaker is seeking to represent linguistically. If the speaker’s impressions of a referent are characterised by a sameness or uniformity with no internal opposition, then minimal definition is sufficient and inanimate pronominal representation results. If, however, the speaker perceives an internal opposition within the uniformity, a second step is required in the definition process. It is the presence of the second step that is characteristic of grammatical animacy. Within the field of animacy, a further distinction is made between masculine and feminine gender. Sexual differences in referents have traditionally been considered the source of this grammatical distinction, but, as the examples given thus far show, this explanation is inadequate. Referents with no sexual traits can readily be given animate representation and referents with clearly mentioned sexual traits can be evoked by means of inanimate pronouns. As was the case for the distinction between animate and inanimate gender, the masculine/feminine opposition is best understood when one examines cases in which sex is not a factor. When this is done, two striking tendencies emerge. Firstly, the masculine is the gender of predilection for animals of unknown sex which are given animate representation. The major exceptions to this are domestic cats and caged birds, which are sometimes referred to as she. Secondly, almost all biological inanimates that are given animate pronominal representation take the feminine. The few biological inanimates given masculine representation tend to be things which are behaving in a highly unpredictable manner and over which the speaker has little to no control. For example, a number of non-biologically motivated masculine pronouns were used in detective stories to refer to key pieces of evidence which had not yet yielded their secrets. Example 6 above provides one illustration of this. Examples 7 above and 22 and 23 below offer other examples of the unpredictability and lack of speaker control that characterises biologically inanimate referents evoked by means of an inanimate pronoun:

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(23)

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He replaced the revolver in its case on the mantelshelf, took out one of the cartridges, and laid it on the spacious palm of one hand; then, taking a small object from his waistcoat pocket, he laid it beside the cartridge. It was a little leaden bullet, slightly battered about the nose, and having upon it some bright new scratches. ‘Is that the one?’ Trent murmured as he bent over the inspector’s hand. ‘That’s him,’ replied Mr. Murch. ‘Lodged in the bone at the back of the skull. Dr Stock got it out within the last hour, and handed it to the local officer, who has just sent it on to me. These bright scratches you see were made by the doctor’s instruments. These other marks were made by the rifling of the barrel — a barrel like this one.’ (Bentley, Trent’s Last Case:73.) The “fragile” submarine does not fare well in attacks upon anything which can hit back. Out of 100 ships armed with a single gun, which he assails, some 70 to 75 beat him off and escape, while out of 100 unarmed ships 74 become his victims. (As cited by Kruisinga, 1932: 111.)

When hundreds of examples of non-sexually motivated animate gender usage are considered, a clear pattern emerges.4 The feminine pronoun is used when the referent being evoked is behaving in a manner which is salient but which falls within the realm of what might be expected or predicted. The masculine is used for referents whose behaviour is also salient, standing out from the speaker’s experience of that type of referent, but in an essentially unpredictable manner. Thus we find ourselves with two different forms of otherness, one predictable and the other unpredictable. If this opposition is expressed in spatial terms, it could be said that the feminine gender is perceived to occupy a space whose limits can be clearly defined. The masculine, on the other hand, occupies a space whose limits cannot be clearly defined. The next step is to see how this explanation fits with the numerous cases in which sex seems to play a deciding role in pronominal gender attribution. It could be argued that there is a reasonable match. In purely physical terms, the male sex is the greater force of the two and therefore the less controllable and the less likely to be contained in a clearly defined sphere of influence or activity. Given that the roots of the system of gender are lost in time, no further proof can be offered that this is indeed the case. However, it can be argued that this view of gender has a great deal of explanatory power as far as pronominal gender use is concerned since it accounts for all of the examples studied, including more than 1500 “exceptions” to the natural gender hypothesis.5

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If gender is viewed in this way, it can be seen to serve a clear linguistic purpose. When a speaker wishes to talk about something, he or she is faced with the problem of converting impressions of referents into lexical content and then organising that content into a formal arrangement which can then be integrated into a syntactic structure. The way in which a speaker has mentally structured a set of impressions has an impact on the formal arrangements into which it can fit. Gender indicates how a speaker has structured or given mental representation to a particular lexical content. It constitutes the first step in the grammaticalization process. An inanimate pronoun is the sign of the simplest possible act of representation. The speaker has simply distinguished his or her impressions of the referent from all other possible impressions of a different nature. The use of animate gender indicates that the speaker has not only distinguished his or her impressions from all others, but gone on to oppose them to impressions of a similar nature in order to complete the definition process. Very simply put, inanimate gender is the sign of a one-step definition process, while animate gender is the sign of a two-step process. The distinctions can be somewhat imperfectly represented as follows:

Speaker’s Impressions Background Semantic Space Figure 1: A Representation of Inanimate Space

Speaker’s Impressions Masculine Space

Feminine Space

Comparable Impressions

Background Semantic Space Figure 2: A Representation of Animate Space

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Grammatical function of English gender

When one looks at gender as a means of providing information concerning how lexical content is structured by the speaker, a number of characteristics of the system of English gender begin to make sense. For instance, one might well wonder why gender is marked in the pronominal system in contemporary English yet not in substantives. If, as has been argued thus far, the purpose of gender is to provide an indication of how the speaker has thought or defined a particular lexical content, it could be argued that there is no need to provide explicit gender indications where the lexical content is part and parcel of the word, as in the case of substantives. In the case of pronouns, where there is only minimal lexical content, explicit gender markings would be essential. Postulating that the lexical content of a substantive conveys information concerning the gender classification of the word allows us to account for the feeling, reported by linguists6 and non-linguists alike, that the use of she or he in reference to a biologically inanimate referent (such as a lawn, a drink, a bulldozer or an election victory) is hypocoristic or emotively charged. This feeling cannot arise unless there is a norm of some sort in tongue which serves as a foil to the particular pronominal occurrences in discourse which are felt to be exceptional. The only conceivable place for this sense of norm to exist is within the speaker’s concept of ‘lawn’, ‘drink’, ‘bulldozer’ or ‘election victory’, or more precisely in the internal structure of the speaker’s concept, part of which is reproduced in the lexical content of the substantive. This position calls for a few additional remarks to account for the workings of epicenes, nouns such as doctor, teacher or pupil which can be readily realised as either masculines or feminines in discourse. It is proposed here that epicenes are always cases of animate gender in that every epicene is characterised by the sameness within otherness that is typical of animacy. At the level of tongue, the type of animacy (masculine or feminine) is not specified in the conceptual content, but when an epicene is used in discourse in a specific reference, the speaker will realise only one of the two possibilities. In the case of a nonspecific reference, as in A teacher doesn’t get much respect in the classroom these days, it is difficult to say whether the speaker must think of teacher as masculine or as feminine. What is clear, however, is that teacher must be thought as an animate. Thus far, the definition of gender proposed here has held up well when confronted with what can be observed about gender usage. There are, however, a few more tests to which it can be submitted. For instance, it was mentioned above that gender is not marked in the first and second person singular pronouns.

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It will be argued here that the category of gender is present in these pronouns, even though it is not overtly marked. First of all, it can be proposed that having a linguistic category in part of the pronominal system but not all of it would be a rather strange situation. This is not a strong argument, but it cannot be ignored. A stronger case can be made by studying the “present but unmarked option” to assess its viability. The first point to consider here is the fact that the first and second persons differ markedly from the third person in some important respects, a number of which were mentioned previously. The first and second persons are both situated in the conversational locus. In other words, they share a common communicative space. Furthermore, each depends on the other for its definition. The first person cannot be adequately defined unless the second person is evoked, and vice versa. The astute reader will notice that these conditions replicate very nicely the definition of animate gender proposed above. Both I and you share a sameness (the conversational locus) while standing in opposition to each other. One might therefore argue that both I and you have animate gender by virtue of the way they must be defined. Any overt marking of their gender would be redundant. The final point to consider is the apparent absence of gender markings in the third person plural. Given that gender is probably present — albeit sometimes in an unmarked form — in all three persons of the singular pronouns, it is rather implausible that the category would completely disappear in the plural, even though the evidence seems to indicate that this is in fact the case; indeed, they does not seem to maintain even the very basic animate–inanimate distinction. It would seem a more viable proposition to look for some reason why gender would be present but not overtly indicated in the plural, much as was done in the case of the first and second persons. To this end, a few general comments about gender and number are in order. They, like the other plural pronouns, does not take an -s, even though it is followed by a plural form of the verb. In other words, it shows all of the signs of what Hirtle (1982) and Wickens (1992) refer to as internal plurality: a situation in which several different members of a group are considered as a single set of members rather than a number of individual members. This situation is highly significant since it shows certain parallels with representational situations that arise in the field of gender. Indeed, it could be argued that internal plurality shares some features with animate gender; in each case it is possible to discern an otherness within a sameness. In the case of animate gender, the sameness is a mass of shared lexical features and the otherness is a fundamental opposition founded on a single unshared feature. In the case of internal plurality, the sameness results from a grouping feature common to all of the members of

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the set and the otherness comes from the discreteness of each member of the set. The links between they and animate gender are strengthened by additional evidence. When they is used to evoke a single referent, as in example 24, the referent is necessarily animate and almost always a human being. (24)

Someone called for you. They said they’d call back.

At the opposite end of the scale, when they is used with no clear antecedent, as in 25, the reference is to people, not to the plants and animals of the region.7 (25)

They get cold weather in the north.

In other uses they can evoke inanimate referents or a mixture of animate and inanimate referents, but only when all of the referents are linked together in some manner (ex. by virtue of sharing a common temporal or spatial framework). If the link is hard to discern, the reference becomes difficult to interpret, sometimes with humorous expressive effects: (26)

— Where’s the woman with the white Ford? — They’re out in front waiting for an oil change. (Overheard by a graduate researcher.)

Clearly the type of mental representation that underlies they is not identical to that which underlies he and she or you and I. Neither the sameness nor the otherness aspects are completely shared. The overlap is strongest when they is used to refer to a single referent, but even here the system is not completely identical to the representation of animate gender described above. While he and she each evoke one of two possible versions of a single type of referent, they evokes the idea of more than one referent of a group (internal plurality). It is the context that indicates that only one possibility is actualised. Now, if they has properties that seem rather genderlike, why is it that the form is apparently unmarked and invariable? It could certainly be argued that if they in fact represents a broad “plural gender” there would be no need to have separate masculine and feminine forms. However, this argument is not completely satisfying since it fails to account for the affinities between internal plurality and animate gender which are discussed above. If our look at pronominal gender is broadened slightly to include the demonstratives, the whole complexion of the problem changes. These and those, plural pronouns which both have a morphological -s, show a distribution pattern which partially complements that of they. For instance, the animate leanings of they are partially counterbalanced by the inanimate leanings of these and those. In the absence of further linguistic context, the utterance These are nice tends to

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bring inanimate referents to mind. In contrast, They are nice could refer to either an animate or an inanimate referent. When the demonstratives are used in reference to human animates, they usually appear in adjectival form with an accompanying substantive, as in these girls, those people. Furthermore, unlike they, these and those can never be used in reference to a single human being. Their external, discontinuate plurality renders the creation of a space analogous to animate space impossible. Although it would be premature to conclude on the basis of this limited evidence that there are two plural genders in English, one with animate affinities and the other with inanimate affinities, one can safely argue that the relationship between gender and number certainly merits closer consideration than it has been given to date. It seems quite clear that the way in which a speaker structures the content or intention of a concept can impact on the way in which he or she structures the form or extension of a concept, and vice versa. Exactly how gender and number interact and in what order are subjects for future studies.

5.

Conclusions

There is some fairly strong evidence to support the claim that the grammatical function of English gender is to indicate the manner in which a speaker has organised his or her mental representation of a set of impressions. Inanimate gender is characterised by the lodging of impressions within an undivided, homogeneous space which is simply set off from background space. In contrast, animate space shows more complex architecture; the basic homogeneous space of inanimate gender is subdivided into two opposing spaces, only one of which can be occupied at any one time. Hence with animacy comes potentiality; one of the two opposing spaces is not actually occupied. The conditions necessary for animate representation are partially reproduced in internal plurals. Here a common space is shared by a number of different members of a set. When the set is reduced to two possibilities — one male and one female — , only one of which is actualised, as in the case of “singular” uses of they, the result is representation which is virtually identical to that of animate gender. When all of the members of the set are actualised and all of the representational space is filled, the possibility of reproducing the conditions necessary for an animate representation are lost. When plurality is of the external variety, represented over discontinuate space, there is no potentiality whatsoever for finding the conditions necessary for animate representation. Viewing gender as a form of spatial representation given to a notional

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content rather than as a collection of biologically inspired traits presents a number of distinct advantages. It allows the researcher to account for the many exceptions to the natural gender hypothesis without ignoring the strong correlation that obviously exists between sex and gender. The idea of otherness within sameness can be abstracted from biological realities and applied to linguistic realities without biological traits being taken as linguistic traits. Furthermore, this basic abstraction can be used to explain why both substantives and the first and second person singular pronouns are not marked for gender. More importantly, the spatialisation of gender offers the researcher a common denominator which can be used as the basis of a comparison of gender and number, two closely related grammatical categories whose interaction is impossible to understand if a biological explanation of English gender is maintained. In short, looking at gender as the spatialisation of a notional content allows the linguist to examine some three hundred years of grammatical “exceptions” and see order where others see only chaos.

Notes 1. More attention has been paid to the grammatical function of gender in languages where biological influences do not obscure the grammatical workings of the category to the extent they do in English. Both Jakobson (1963) and van Schooneveld (1977) have looked at the semantic workings of the category of gender in Russian. Van Schooneveld’s work is particularly worthy of note given its parallels with some of the findings of the present study. For instance, van Schooneveld argues that gender in Russian (partially in combination with case) provides information concerning the permanency of a particular semantic classification. He proposes that “gender poses the problem to what extent an element in a given situation and identified in a corresponding parole is identifiable beyond this one narrated situation, and then classifies various lexical meanings accordingly” (van Schooneveld:137). As will be shown here, English pronominal gender also serves to recategorize meaning to a certain extent by providing English speakers with a means of expressing very fine and fleeting semantic nuances in discourse (parole). 2. This study was done within the framework of research reported in Morris (1991). Children and adults were asked to list whatever he and she brought to mind in certain contexts. 3. Significantly, the sentence How does he run in cold weather? resulted in a completely different interpretation. Almost all respondents, regardless of their age or sex, suggest that he was a man or an animal. See below for a brief discussion of the meaning of he. 4. See Morris (1991) for a detailed analysis of a substantial number of such uses. 5. See Morris (1991). 6. Svartengren (1927, 1928 & 1954), Erades (1955 & 1956) and Joly (1975) offer interesting discussions of the emotive expressive effect obtained when animate pronouns are used in reference to biological inanimates.

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7. While it could be argued that animate gender, being the more salient of the two, is the default gender in examples such as 24 and 25, this does not explain why animacy should be so closely associated with they. It will be argued below that the basic spatial representation underlying they lends itself to an animate interpretation.

References Corbett, Greville. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erades, P.A. 1955. “‘Its’ Referring to a Person”. English Studies XXXVI.139–140. ———. 1956. “Contributions to Modern English Syntax. A Note on Gender”. Modern Sprak 50.2–11. Hirtle, Walter H. 1982. Number and Inner Space. Québec: Les Presses de L’Université Laval. Jakobson, Roman. 1963. Essais de Linguistique Générale. 1. Les fondations du langage. Trans. by Nicolas Ruwet, Paris: Editions de Minuit. Joly, André. 1975. “Toward a Theory of Gender in Modern English”. Studies in English Grammar, ed. by André Joly and Thomas Fraser, 229–287. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Lille. Kruisinga, E. 1932. A Handbook of Present-Day English. Groningen: P. Noordhoff. Mathiot, Madeleine. 1979. “Sex Roles as Revealed Through Referential Gender”. Ethnolinguistics: Boas, Sapir and Whorf Revisited ed. by Madeleine Mathiot, 1–47. Paris, The Hague, New York: Mouton. Morris, Lori. 1991. Gender in Modern English: The System and Its Uses. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Québec: Université Laval. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svarkvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman. Strang, Barbara. 1962. Modern English Structure. London: Edward Arnold. Svartengren, Thomas. H. 1927. “The Feminine Gender for Inanimate Things in AngloAmerican”. American Speech 3.83–113. ———. 1928. “The Use of the Personal Gender for Inanimate Things”. Dialect Notes 6. 7–56. ———. 1954. “The Use of Feminine Gender for Inanimate Things in American Colloquial Speech”. Moderna Sprak 48. 261–292. van Schooneveld, Cornelius. H. 1977. “The Place of Gender in the Semantic Structure of the Russian Language”. Scando-Slavica 23.129–138. Wickens, Mark. 1992. Grammatical Number in English Nouns. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

References for Examples Bentley, E. C. 1954. Trent’s Last Case. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Dickens, Charles. 1937. Nicholas Nickleby. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. Engel, Marion. 1985. Bear. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

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Faulkner, William. 1954. Soldier’s Pay. New York: Liveright. Forster, E. M. 1910. Howards End. London: Edward Arnold. Greene, Graham. 1960. The Power and the Glory. London: Heinemann. Keillor, Garrison. 1985. Lake Wobegon Days. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mansfield, Katherine. 1923. “Father and the Girls” in The Doves’ Nest and Other Stories. Toronto: Macmillan. Sayers, Dorothy. 1937. Busman’s Honeymoon. Rahway, N. J.: Quinn and Boden. ———. 1936. Gaudy Night. London: Victor Gollancz. ———. 1940. In the Teeth of Evidence and Other Stories. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Shute, Nevil. 1963. The Far Country. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Theroux, Paul. 1977. The Great Railway Bazaar. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Wilson, Angus. 1964. The Old Men at the Zoo. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Recasting Animacy The Codification of Perceptual Distinctions in Language Edna Andrews Duke University

1.

Introduction

The property, or category, of animacy has been the focal point of a great deal of research in contemporary linguistic theory. Studies on the subject may be restricted to one language or a particular linguistic family or deal with animacy as a language universal (Comrie 1989: 185–200). In the present analysis, I will briefly survey the studies on animacy and gender in the context of Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR) and make available new information concerning the realization of animacy in CSR and its relationship to both lexical and grammatical meaning. In addition to the linguistic data from CSR, I would like to consider evidence from cognitive science that supports the following points: (1) normal humans and monkeys have more difficulty in identifying pictures of animate objects than inanimate ones; (2) brain-damaged patients can manifest a deficiency in naming animate objects while simultaneously perform normally in the naming of inanimate objects (Kosslyn 1994: 113; Gaffan & Heywood 1993: 118–128; Damasio 1990: 95–98); (3) human knowledge about “external reality” is only achieved via representations of stimuli, not directly, and there is a high degree of consistency “in the constructions of reality that our brains make and share” (Damasio 1994: 235). By comparing and contrasting the linguistic data with the cognitive experiments, it becomes possible to more aggressively pose the question of the importance of perception in defining the fundamental principles upon which human language functions and develops.

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EDNA ANDREWS

Animacy in Contemporary Standard Russian

In the context of CSR, much of the research on animacy has been done in the context of the question of its relationship to gender (cf. Corbett 1980, 1991; Crockett 1976; Klenin 1983; Stankiewicz 1968; van Schooneveld 1977; Zaliznjak 1964, 1977 and Andrews 1990, 1993, 1996). The types of answers typically assigned to defining the relationship of animacy to gender include: (a) animacy and gender are independent categories; (b) animacy IS a gender; (c) animacy is a subgender. It is clear from these studies that part of the terminological confusion stems from the definitions of gender. Crockett, for example, claims that suffixes in CSR should be “treated as independent lexical units with their own inherent gender and corresponding declension paradigm” (1976: 13). Such an opinion is incongruous with the stance taken by Corbett or Zaliznjak and is challenged by data from CSR, especially augmentative suffixes. My position has been similar to the one articulated by Stankiewicz (1968) and van Schooneveld (1977) in that animacy, like gender, may be signalled via agreement or declension in CSR. I would also add that in CSR animacy and gender are complex phenomena that interact in a significant way. I would not be prepared to claim that one of these categories dominates the other in the synchronically-given code of CSR. One of the goals of the present analysis is to attempt to determine the mechanism that allows (or even requires) animacy in CSR to be definable in terms of both lexical and grammatical meaning. In order to explore more fully this point, I will present data from augmentative (cf. Russian -išcˇ-e/a) and diminutive (cf. Russian -(cˇ )ik) suffixes and their grammatical and lexical functioning in CSR.

3.

Russian Suffix -išcˇ -e/a

The suffix -išcˇ-e/a is one of two suffixes in CSR that produces substantives with a general meaning of augmentation of physical size or intensity (cf. dom/ domišcˇe — “house/large house”; vino/vinišcˇe — “wine/hard liquor, vodka”). The -išcˇ-e suffix is productive in word formation, and produces substantives that exhibit, in some cases, shifts in agreement gender of the resulting substantive (cf. pozor[m]/pozorišcˇe[n] — “shame”, tolpa[f]/tolpišcˇe[n] — “crowd”). In some cases, feminine base nouns may maintain the same declension and agreement gender (cf. tolpa[f]/tolpišcˇa[f] — “crowd”, sobaka[f]/sobacˇišcˇa[f] — “dog”). Substantives in -išcˇ-e generally exhibit either masculine or neuter agreement gender. The declensional gender in these instances is distinguishable exclusively

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in the accusative case form, where animate masculine nouns utilize the genitive desinence in the accusative and inanimate masculine or neuter nouns utilize the nominative desinence in the accusative case form. As I have shown in great detail elsewhere (Andrews 1996a: 124–138; 1996b: 109–140), there is a large group of substantival derivatives in -išcˇ-e that preserve the gender type of the base noun, thus corroborating the principle of gradation, where one expects the gender, if not the declension of the substantive, to be maintained in derivation (Stankiewicz 1968: 98). The gender most preserved in formation with -išcˇ-e is usually masculine. However, it is precisely within this class of masculine-based substantives that gender doublets with varying syntactic agreement gender may occur with distinct meanings: gorodišcˇe dvorišcˇe požarišcˇe kostrišcˇe sudišcˇe toporišcˇe

masculine agreement large city large courtyard large fire large campfire big court, building large axe

neuter agreement archeological site; remains of a city site of former court (cf. Jaroslavo) place where fire occurred place where campfire had been court (abstract) axe handle

The combinatory capabilities of the suffix -išcˇ-e demonstrate the following: (1) substantives in -išcˇ-e may represent all three genders, although most generally masculine or neuter; (2) feminine nouns are most often represented by the form -išcˇ-a; (3) both animate and inanimate substantives form with the suffix -išcˇ-e; (4) there are no shifts in gender from the base noun to suffixed form if the meaning of ‘large’ is signalled; (5) the meaning of -išcˇ-e forms where a gender shift has occurred is usually one of ‘place’ and not ‘object’; (6) a change in syntactic agreement gender necessarily signals a change in meaning; (7) no -išcˇ-e suffixed forms may become animate if the base lexeme (or root morpheme) is not already marked for animacy. Animacy, in this context, functions as an invariable type of marker, unlike gender. It is not necessarily the case that animacy remains invariable in word formation with other CSR suffixes or that gender is variable (cf. otvet/otvetcˇik – “answer/the accused” (in a court of law) [both masc.]; karman/karmannik – “pocket/pick pocket” [both masc.]). Animate masculine forms in -išcˇ-e require special attention in order to explain the problems encountered when these substantives occur in case forms other than the nominative. (Feminine forms in -išcˇ-e or -išcˇ-a do not allow for such variation, and even in those rare instances where a form in -išcˇ-e may have feminine agreement gender in the nominative case, only masculine/neuter agreement gender is available in oblique case forms [cf. Ona takaja [nom. fem.]

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urodišcˇe “She is such an ugly person” vs. Ja razgovarival s takim [instr. masc./ neut] urodišcˇem – “I was talking with such an ugly person”.) Forms like urodišcˇe (“freak, ugly person”) and medvedišcˇe (“large bear”), which are masculine in their nominative singular form, do not behave like typical masculine animate nouns in the accusative: (1) (2)

Ja uvidel takoe urodišcˇe. “I saw such an ugly person.” Ja uvidel takogo medvedišcˇu/medvedišcˇe. “I saw such a huge bear.”

Instead of the genitive desinence expected in the accusative of all animate masculine singular forms, the -išcˇ-e suffix only permits neuter declensional desinences (1), an unexpected -u- desinence with varying syntactic agreement, both animate and inanimate (2), or genitive case modifier with -e- desinence of the substantive. The situation as given in the second example is indicative of a series of substantives in -išcˇ-e denoting humans, obscenities and animals. The source of the -u- desinence is not without controversy and is most likely interpreted as a second declension accusative ending. The other potential source would be a partitive genitive form. The use of the -u- desinence is perceived by speakers as the norm and is preferred, although Zaliznjak characterizes its usage as “less literary” (1977: 74). In fact, my assessment agrees with Zaliznjak if one notes that these forms, particularly obscenities in -išcˇ-e, are not common in official literary discourse. In terms of a general meaning for the -išcˇ-e suffix, I have argued that -išcˇ-e always involves an extended range of reference that may be perceived in either spatial or temporal terms, where spatial meanings dominate (Andrews 1996a: 87–89, 134; Andrews 1996b: 129–133). In fact, the semantic range of -išcˇe is compatible with other quantifiers in CSR, especially numerals, and adds explanatory power to the grammatical variability one finds in desinences in the plural with -išcˇ-e suffixed forms.1 With this in mind, we now move to consider the suffix -cˇik in as an example of a typical diminutizing suffix in CSR.

4.

Russian Suffix -cˇ ik

The suffix -cˇik, related to the suffix -ik, is one of the more productive suffixes in CSR. While the -ik suffix type defines a restricted range of reference, most notably given in terms of specific, well-delineated boundaries, the -cˇik suffix focuses specifically on the particular relationship determined by the speaker/

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addressee vis-à-vis the referent. In most of the current literature, the suffixes -cˇik and -šcˇik are considered to be allomorphs. However, I have demonstrated that not only are the meanings of these two suffixes distinct, but the significant number of minimal pairs, unique source forms and animacy differences argue strongly in favor of a reinterpretation where -cˇik and -šcˇik are treated as distinct suffixes (Andrews 1996a: 54–58). What is particularly striking about the minimal pairs in -cˇik and -šcˇik is the distinction in animacy, where, when there exists minimal pairs, all of the forms in -cˇik are inanimate and all of the corresponding forms in -šcˇik are animate. Note the following examples: garderobcˇik/garderobšcˇik zaborcˇik/zaboršcˇik kalamburcˇik/kalamburšcˇik karmancˇik/karmanšcˇik millioncˇik/millionšcˇik tramvajcˇik/tramvajšcˇik uborcˇik/uboršcˇik

small wardrobe/coat checker small fence/person who buys goods on credit little pun/person who puns small pocket/pick pocket little million/millionaire little tram/person who works with trams small head dress/janitor

This sampling of minimal pairs is important because not only does it show the difference in animacy but also demonstrates that the source forms for substantives in -cˇik are not merely verbal, but are also strongly substantival.2 In general, the -cˇik suffix represents both animate and inanimate referents, while the -šcˇik suffix almost exclusively gives animate referents.3 In some instances, both animate and inanimate references can be given by one form (cf. ogurcˇik – “fresh cucumber, person who is clean and energetic”; bolvancˇik – “idiot, piece of wood”; rozancˇik – “endearing address form for child or woman, little flower”; puzancˇik – “person with a big tummy, type of sunflower” ). Notice that when the referent is animate, the form in -cˇik does not necessarily give a diminutive meaning, but does give a non-neutral, endearing or ironic one. Thus, it becomes clear that the principle of selection of the suffixes -cˇik or -šcˇik depends not on phonology (although there will be restricted instances where -cˇik is not a viable phonological option), but more specifically on the semantics of the root lexeme. Unlike the situation found with the -išcˇ-e suffix, there are no gender shifts given in word formation with the -cˇik suffix and all of the nominal base forms available are only first declension masculine, never second or third declension and never feminine or neuter (cf. golub’/golubcˇik – “dove/dovey”, magazin/magazincˇik – “store/store”, sup/supcˇik – “soup/soup”, etc.). Thus, the only variable available in word formation with the -cˇik suffix is the potential shift from inanimate to animate.

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When comparing the suffixes of CSR and the role of animacy, it is possible to state without controversy that so-called diminutizing, endearing suffix types will often add animacy markings to substantives in the process of word formation even if the base form is inanimate, while the augmentative suffixes do not produce animate substantives if the root lexeme is not already marked for animacy. The explanation for such a phenomenon lies within the realm of both grammatical and lexical meaning: Grammatical categories are recruited by lexical morphemes in order to iconically and indexically signal the new meanings that are created as a result of word-formative processes. In the case of animacy, we find that CSR has internally-defined parameters for the potential signalling, as well as nonsignalling, of a special form of enduring identifiability of the linguistic referent that may have nothing (or very little) to do with extralinguistic animacy. That is why one and the same form in CSR (cf. above puzancˇik, ogurcˇik, bolvancˇik, etc.) may simultaneously signal both animate and inanimate referents in exogenous reality. These examples reiterate the integrated, multifaceted nature of linguistic meaning and that the primary principles of category definition may be internally determined by the specific linguistic code. In the case of Russian, it is clear that linguistic animacy is not only a lexically-given phenomenon, but is also tied to grammatical categories. Is such a point of view supportable from a non-linguistic perspective, i.e. is animacy redefined and recodified from language to language in such a way that it is only marginally related to so-called ‘natural’ animacy? In order to test such an hypothesis, it would be necessary to identify corroborating evidence from the area of human perception that would support the viability of a culturally-determined, languagespecific definition of animacy. That is the goal of the final section. But first, let’s review the question of animacy as a potential language universal in the context of the world’s languages.

5.

Animacy as a Language Universal

Comrie devotes a great deal of attention to the potential placement of animacy as a language universal. He notes immediately that animacy is primarily an extralinguistic, not a linguistic, property. However, the significance of animacy as a language universal rests solely on the fact that it is “found to be of structural relevance across a wide range of languages” (Comrie 1989: 185). There are many different gradations of animacy distinctions in languages of the world, including human/non-human, animate/inanimate, inanimates capable of motion/inanimates not capable of motion, or implicational hierarchies of the type human > animal

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> inanimate or adult male human (cf. Polish virile) > non-male human, animal > inanimate, etc. (Comrie 1989: 185, 197). Even though animacy seems to be defined primarily via lexical meaning, it plays a major role in morphological oppositions (i.e. case markings, pronominal declensions, number agreement, etc.) in the world’s languages. An example of animacy and its role in morphology is very clearly demonstrated in our data taken from both word formation and inflection in CSR. But is it possible to define the category of animacy as a single property of a purely linguistic phenomenon? Comrie provides two alternatives to animacy — topic-worthiness (salience) and a hierarchy of individuation (1989: 198–200) — both of which he finds to be unsatisfactory.4 He concludes his discussion with the claim that animacy may not be reducible to a single property, and may require “interaction among several parameters” (1989: 199). Thus, Comrie opens the door to a new view of animacy, where it is a conglomerate of non-linear properties that can be defined linguistically. In attempting to provide a more useful formulation of so-called animacy in language systems [with the understanding that there may be no fundamental linguistically-given property that corresponds to such a category], it would be useful to consider how extra-linguistic animacy might be defined and how it is perceived by the human organism.

6.

Animacy and Perception

In order to discuss how animacy might be perceived, we need to review fundamental information about the human brain. The human cerebral cortex is divided into four lobes determined by the consistent position of certain sulci (or grooves) in the brain — frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital. (There is no language cortex although some neuroscientists are still interested in prospects of a localized language center in the brain.) Typical descriptions of the four lobes generally note the following functions: (1) frontal — motor control; (2) parietal — somatosensory and body image; (3) occipital — vision; (4) temporal — hearing, learning, memory, emotion. It is in the occipital lobe that the primary visual cortex is located. Surrounding part of the primary visual cortex (also called Area 17, striate cortex, OC, and V1) is the secondary visual cortex (called Area 18 ). There are several aspects of the human visual system that are relevant for our discussion of perception in the context of language. The underlying hypothesis is as follows: If aspects of language acquisition, language usage, language categories and change in time are related to and determined by perceptual operations and categories of the organism, then understanding the mechanism

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of perception and the storage and retrieval of perceptual information will play a role in elucidating these linguistic phenomena at a fundamental level. One of the most profound discoveries concerning the functioning of V1, which is the first cortical area to receive input from the eyes, is that the area is retinotopically mapped, i.e. spatial structures are literally mapped multiple times in particular layers of area V1 within the first hundred milliseconds after neuronal firing of convergence zones.5 This fact has profound implications for questions of diagrammaticity in sign perception because of its iconic structure. It is also important to note that V1 analyzes regions of the visual field in units called hypercolumns (Kandel et al. 1991: 433). Each hypercolumn contains its own complete set of orientation columns which allow for perception of placement, orientation and color (ibid.). It is, in fact, these hypercolumns that parallel the structure of distinctive features in phonology. 6 Another significant discovery concerning V1 relates to the interrelationship between perception and imagery. Kosslyn (1994: 15–16, 53–78) refers to a body of research that argues in favor of a feedback relationship between visual perception and imagery: These neuroanatomical features suggested to us that stored visual information might be capable of evoking a pattern of activity in at least some of the retinotopically mapped areas — which would produce a mental image (1994: 15).

In one set of experiments, Kosslyn and his colleagues, using PET [positron emission tomography], demonstrated that V1 can be activated in subjects when their eyes are closed while imagining how certain alphabet letters look (1994: 17). They also determined that the size of the image affected specific regions of V1, where larger objects activated the anterior part of V1, while the posterior part of V1 were more active when small sizes were imagined (1994: 18). The conclusion formulated from such experimental results supports the hypothesis that “imagery relies on topographically organized regions of cortex, which support depictive representations” (Kosslyn 1994: 19). The alternative theories have argued in favor of propositional, not depictive, representations that specify “unambiguously the meaning of an assertion” (Kosslyn 1994: 5).7 Other significant research has raised questions about the distinctive nature of visual identification used in the perception of faces and written words, which is compounded by studies that support the conclusion that it is more difficult to visually distinguish between animate objects as opposed to inanimates when projected through a tachistoscope (Kosslyn 1994: 64, 113–4). Some of the reasons postulated for the difference in difficulty is based on (1) curvature, as

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curved lines are more difficult to extract than straight ones, and (2) the similarity of animate objects to each other in counterdistinction to inanimate objects. Thus, the conclusion is formulated that it is more difficult to distinguish living (or animate) organisms than inanimate ones (Kosslyn 1994: 113). What is missing from these experiments is a discussion of the relevance of dynamic motion as a factor in distinguishing animate objects. Another interesting finding derived from these studies is the conclusion that viewer-oriented representations dominate object-oriented representations (Kosslyn 1994: 127–136). What this means is that the information encoded in the individual’s neural mappings will retain perceptual properties that are defined by the viewer’s specific perspective, as opposed to the actual dimensions of the object viewed. The encoding of viewer-centered representations is more complex, but the parameters defining visual memory are sufficiently large that this is not a problem. Furthermore, both the encoded input representations as well as the subsequent patterns of activation of these representations demonstrate viewercentered perspectives (Kosslyn 1994: 128–129). While rejecting extremes, Kosslyn argues that both viewer-centered properties and object-centered properties of visual representations are typically stored, such that some viewer-centered properties would, in any case, be maintained. One of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon is the viewer-oriented representations found in the activation of retinotopic mappings (Kosslyn 1994: 128).8 What these findings show is that the older view of visual perception as operating in a mechanical fashion (like a camera) is no longer valid. Rather, visual perception is transformational in nature and requires an evaluation, or even reevaluation, of the stimuli being perceived. Finally, the fact that visual imagery and visual perception share “the same underlying mechanisms” facilitates an understanding of their interactive nature (Kosslyn 1994: 54–55). This is particularly important in the context of the potential interference of visual images in visual perception, where maintenance of a visual image may hinder visual perception. In this regard, it is important to note that the maintenance of an auditory image has the opposite effect on auditory perception (Kosslyn 1994: 55).9 Thus, we find that, in terms of perception, the perception and coding of animate objects is more complex than that of inanimate objects for two primary reasons: animate objects are defined more in terms of curved lines, not straight ones, and animate objects are more generally similar than inanimate ones. In terms of the encoding process itself, evidence supports a dynamic model of viewer-oriented representations as opposed to a static, object-based coding. Such a theory of encoding requires that a Platonic view of reality be reevaluated in terms of a more relativistic, dynamic relationship between internal and external

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processes in the human organism. In this context, we have the beginnings of a new approach to the study of animacy as a relatively autonomous linguistic (not extralinguistic) category. If it is more difficult to encode and distinguish between animate objects, then it would make sense for language to have some additional way of signalling reference to such externally-perceived objects. However, the linguistic signalling is determined within the context of the morphological and lexical system of the individual language. Just as perception is not solely dominated by an object-oriented point of view, but rather contains a salient viewer-oriented component, so are linguistic categories determined initially and primarily within the parameters of the grammar of the language system. Our cursory description of the functioning visual cortex, specifically Area 17, presents salient information concerning the nature of stored visual perceptions, the coordination of perception and imagery, and the importance of the viewer’s unique perspective in the storing of visual stimuli. Visual perception as described above bears interesting parallels to principles of language perception and production in the semiotic framework. We will return to some of these similarities in the conclusion as we attempt to more rigorously define the importance of visual signs in language and the category of animacy. In order to strengthen our argument, which has primarily been based on cognitive research in visual perception and imagery, it is relevant to consider what happens to language development and semantic space when visual perception is absent.

7.

Language Development and the Absence of Vision

Jakobson specifically identifies “audible speech” as “the only universal, autonomous, and fundamental vehicle of communication…” while visual signs are either concomitant (cf. facial expressions, gestures) or substitutive (letters or other written symbols) (1987: 467–8). He concludes that “the universality of music, the fundamental role of speech in human culture, and, finally, a mere reference to the predominance of word and music in radio suffice to prove…the supremacy of sight over hearing in our cultural life is valid only for indexes or icons and not for symbols” (1987: 469). This statement is challenged specifically in relation to symbols when one considers language acquisition and the problems connected with this phenomenon in blind children.10 Dunlea (1989: 2) sets forth in her introduction the importance of growing evidence that vision is important in “the emergence of communication” and its potential impact in language acquisition and development in the blind. In numerous studies conducted with sighted infants, the role of visually based

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strategies is enormously important in establishing “elicited behaviors”, especially those that involve specific eye contact (ibid.). Vision and visual signs are an important aspect in concept development and establishing referential relationships. One particular outcome of this relationship is the child’s ability to abstract from a concrete, specific referential name to comprehension and usage of that “name” on a more general, symbolic level (Dunlea 1989: 3). In conceptual development, the congenitally blind child, deprived of visual perception, is obliged to come to know the world through the remaining senses.11 Tactual perception becomes the primary sense that allows comprehension of spatial qualities in lieu of vision. The question of whether or not the haptic representations of the blind share common features with visual representations in the sighted is a question that has been raised, but not resolved. In the following discussion, I will present an overview of some of the language difficulties experienced by blind children, contrast these points with language acquisition of deaf children, and conclude by raising questions concerning the importance of the visual cortex in imagery and determination of semantic fields. Blind children often exhibit more difficulties in first language acquisition than their sighted counterparts. These difficulties appear in the realm of phonology, morphology and semantics. Specifically, blind children often have problems learning certain speech articulations, including voicing and stuttering, and delays in word production at the initial stage (Dunlea 1989: 15–17). Clearly, blind children rely on manner, not place of articulation in learning to distinguish phonemes since they are deprived of the visual similarities involved in the articulation of specific speech sounds. Another significant problem occurs in the blind child’s acquisition of deictic terms. Correct use of pronouns, as well as other deictic terms (cf. “this” and “there”) present difficulty for acquisition (Dunlea 1989: 16, 18, 46). The explanation for this difficulty seems to revolve around the blind child’s absence of perspective with respect to the speaker of a given utterance (Dunlea 1989: 18, Mulford 1983: 89–107). Blind children also demonstrate more errors in selfreference for longer periods of time (Dunlea 1989: 83).12 In the realm of semantics and semantic categories, blind children tend to overgeneralize based on categories while sighted children overgeneralize based on associative complexes (Dunlea 1989: 55). However, underextension is more significant in differentiating the language of blind and sighted children. The semantic space of lexemes in the blind is more directly tied to the original context for a longer period of time with no word mortality (Dunlea 1989: 50, 61–2). In fact, Dunlea points out that blind children often fail to recognize that a word is not part of the referent (1989: 63). If this is true, then it seems plausible

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to characterize this phenomenon as a reduction of the symbolic level in the use of language in blind children accompanied by an increase in the indexical level. Finally, visual-based lexemes are not meaningless in the language of blind children; rather, they have different meanings which result in a tactic/haptic meaning for verbs like “look” and “see” (Dunlea 1989: 15, 20). Deaf children, who demonstrate high levels of creativity and overextension, both of which are missing in blind children, exhibit behavior more like sighted children (Dunlea 1989: 64–5). Information of this nature has often been missing or overlooked when comparing deaf to hearing children. In fact, many generalizations concerning language acquisition problems in the deaf have often been used to support the preeminence of auditory over visual signs in the acquisition and production of human language. However, we now have access to a considerable amount of data that demonstrates the affinity of language acquisition in sighted children versus non-sighted children. In this vein, I would like to argue for the reevaluation of visual signs and their importance in language. Returning to Kosslyn’s research on the connection of visual perception and imagery, I believe that it is possible to infer certain conclusions that might help to explain the difference in language acquisition and production in sighted and blind children. If, as Kosslyn argues, stored visual information might be able to trigger activity in certain areas of V1 that are retinotopically mapped, then certain parts of the brain that are used in visual perception are also used in visual mental imagery. This relationship would imply that imagery can affect what one actually perceives, a point that has been demonstrated in terms of visual imagery and visual perception. In fact, if imagery is based to a large degree on viewercentered representations, then we can begin to see why blind children have semantic fields that are less flexible and dynamic and generally stable over time. The misinterpretation of sign for referent in the blind child is related in part to the disengaged visual cortex (which would necessarily impact imagery and retinotopically mapped areas in sighted speakers), thus reducing the viewercentered representations in favor of object-centered representations. However, would such a relationship as described above imply that visual perception and imaging could impact auditory perception? The answer to this question is affirmative.13

8.

Concluding Remarks

The extensive and diverse patterning of suffixation and word formation in CSR substantives provides numerous examples of the multiple ways in which animacy

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and gender interact on the boundary of grammatical and lexical meaning. By considering what potential differences exist in the formation of augmentative vs. diminutive substantives, the exact role of animacy and gender in the Russian system come more clearly into focus. This data, in comparison with evidence from other languages analyzed in the present volume, can allow for bolder conclusions about the actual relationship between language-based animacy and so-called “natural” animacy. Such new conclusions will require not only a more profound definition of linguistic categories of animacy, but also a redefinition of “natural” animacy. If we summarize the information and analysis given above, it may be possible to ascertain certain principles of organization of linguistic and extralinguistic manifestations of animacy that would be fundamental for a reevaluation of the traditional category in such a way that results in more than a name change. In the case of CSR, the category of animacy overlaps to some degree with declensional and agreement gender and is signalled at the levels of both lexical and grammatical meaning. Within grammatical meaning, animacy is expressed in a variety of ways: (1) in the accusative singular and plural case desinence; (2) accusative singular and plural adjectival agreement; (3) the preference of plural predicates (Corbett 1983: 110–111, 142–146) with animate subjects. Within lexical meaning, animacy is expressed either in a root morpheme or in the combination of root + suffix. However, the ultimate labelling of lexical animacy is only achievable in the dynamic instantiation of reference, not by mere formal criteria. [Note that even in the instance where the root morph/ suffix yields an animate referent, there is no guarantee that further additions to the form will in a substantive with an animate referent in all contexts (cf. snegouboršcˇik “snow plow” < uboršcˇik “cleaning man”).] Regardless of the primary source of animacy signalling (i.e. lexical or grammatical), the resulting substantives are EQUALLY ‘animate’. With regard to the -išcˇ-e and -cˇik suffixes, the source of animacy is clearly defined. While the -išcˇ-e suffix defines an extended range of reference as its general meaning, animacy can never be added in word formation if the base form is not already animate. Thus, the -išcˇ-e suffix can never contribute the signalling of animacy in lexically-based word formation. However, the -cˇik suffix, whose general meaning is defined by a restricted range of reference with well-delineated boundaries that always includes the relationship between the participants of the narrated event and referent, can provide an animate referent in lexical word formation, even if the base form is inanimate. This signalling is possible because the lexically-given restrictedness in the range of reference shifts

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the balance away from grammatical variation and makes identifiability more probable at the lexical level. Research in cognitive science on the visual perception of animate objects provides evidence that (1) image size affects distinct regions of the visual cortex; (2) animate objects are more difficult to visually distinguish than inanimate objects; (3) information encoded will contain viewer-oriented representations that dominate over object-oriented representations; (4) visual perception and encoding requires evaluation and is not purely mechanical; and finally, (5) visual imagery and perception share the same underlying mechanism (Kosslyn 1994: 17, 54–5, 64, 113–4,128–9). What is lacking in this description is a rigorous definition of animacy other than that of “living” things. However, what is most significant in this body of analysis is the determination of the salience of size, curvature, viewer-oriented evaluation and dynamic movement. There is no natural animacy in terms of perception — only a series of characteristics whose coded representations may or may not be equivalent to an ‘animate’ organism in exogenous reality. And the degrees of animacy remain to be negotiated within various species and cultures. I believe that the perceptual features mentioned above are also essential in defining linguistic animacy and they represent the first step in beginning to define the mechanism of animacy signalling in grammatical and lexical meaning. Returning once again to the Russian suffixes -išcˇ-e and -cˇik, we see a clear strategy for achieving an enduring identifiability of the referent. Namely, -cˇik (like other diminutizing suffixes) may signal animacy that is determined at the lexical level (i.e. the root morph need not be animate) while -išcˇ-e (and other augmentative suffixes) cannot contribute animacy in lexical word formation (i.e. if the root morph is inanimate, the resulting form in -išcˇ-e will also be inanimate). But the augmentative suffix -išcˇ-e gives, by definition, an extended, more enduring range of reference than the -cˇik suffix. Thus, the mechanism for signalling animacy in the -išcˇ-e suffix is fundamentally grammatical, with stronger animacy signalling in the plural than in the singular.14 In the case of the -cˇik suffix, animacy signalling is given specifically at the lexical level, and no variations in grammatical signalling are permitted (i.e. no animacy shifts between singular and plural and no gender shifts from base form to word-formative derivative). More restricted semantic fields require lexical input for shifts in animacy, while extended semantic fields only require grammatical input. Therefore, the evidence from CSR demonstrates that both grammatical and lexical categories are essential for the signalling of animacy, and that these two levels appropriate for themselves specific functions vis-à-vis the semantic fields that are determined, first and foremost, by the lexical morphemes. Once the semantic field is

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established, then either grammatical or lexical operations will be required to achieve animacy signalling, where animacy is a multifaceted supercategory involving parameters of size, quantity, complexity and distinguishability in order to define a referent of enduring identifiability.

Notes 1. Substantives in -išcˇ-e that demonstrate varying degrees of animacy in the accusative singular may also take variable nominative plural desinences while these same forms are treated exclusively as animates in the accusative plural (cf. urodišcˇe [..]: urodišcˇe [..]; medvedišcˇe [..]: medvedišcˇe/medvedišcˇu [..]; but urodišcˇ/medvedišcˇ [..]). 2. The source forms for substantives in -cˇik are generally stated as verbs, verbal nouns and nouns. However, adjectives also contribute to this class (cf. sšcˇastlivcˇik < scˇastlivyj “fortunate person < fortunate”; sl’un’avcˇik < sl’un’avyj “baby bib < slobbery, spit” [.]). 3. Utilizing Zaliznjak’s listing of forms in -šcˇik (1977: 463–69), there are only 3 inanimate substantives, all related to machinery: tral’šcˇik — “trawler”, bombardirovšcˇik — “bomber plane”, rasštybovšcˇik — “detail on a coal cutter”. Any other forms (no more than 7) that potentially have an inanimate meaning are (1) forms where the primary meaning is animate (cf. korrektirovšcˇik — “proof reader, airplane”, sortirovšcˇik — “person who sorts, sorting machine”) or (2) derivatives of root + šcˇik suffix that are themselves animate (cf. snegouboršcˇik — “snow plow” < uboršcˇik — “cleaning man”). The semantic basis for these exceptions may be related to the fact that the potential referents involve motion. 4. The substitution of a new name for animacy, which would claim to define the phenomenon as one specific thing, fails to solve the essential problem. Thus, as I mentioned in the introduction, attempted to equate animacy with gender or calling it a subgender does not solve the fundamental issue, which is the mechanism by which ‘animacy’ is signaled in lexical and/or grammatical categories linguistically. 5. For a detailed description of the structure of the primary visual cortex (V1), see Tootell et al. 1982, 1988; Kosslyn 1994; Fox et al. 1986; Damasio 1994. 6. For more information on hypercolumns, see Calvin & Ojemann 1994: 208ff. 7. Kosslyn (1994: 6) further explains that the debates are not whether propositional and depictive representations are used in cognition — all agree that both are used. Rather, the argument is over the degree of importance of depictive representations versus propositional ones. It is also worth noting that the question of iconic memory has taken on a new look as researchers have become more committed to dynamic, as opposed to static, models (cf. Greene 1992: 7–15). 8. According to Kosslyn (1994: 129–130), studies of visual memory have determined that as many as 51,180 pictures per second may be stored and searched in long-term memory, while shortterm memory has a potential recall rate of 986,300 from 1 million if tested immediately. 9. For information on the exact studies conducted concerning the relationship between visual and auditory images in perception, see Segal and Fusella (1970: 458–464). 10. Jakobson does not include sign languages in this discussion. His argument is that speech is primary, while all visually-based systems are secondary to the auditory one and thus derivative. 11. For more on the question of imagery in blind subjects, see Kosslyn (1994: 334–5) and Kidwell

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EDNA ANDREWS and Greer (1973). The cause of blindness will be significant in determining the degree of imagery, if any, that is functional. This includes a difference in recalling “high-imagery” words (Kosslyn 1994: 129–130).

12. Mulford’s research demonstrates that blind children do, in fact, use spatial deictic terms but only for locations that did not require sensitivity with respect to the position of the speaker (1983: 89–107). 13. The McGurk/MacDonald experiments (1976, 1978) have demonstrated that visual perception, particularly lip movements, play a distinctive role in auditory perception of speech and adults rely more heavily on visual, not auditory, clues than children. These findings are generally reproducible (cf. Massaro 1987; O’Neill 1954; Mills 1983a/b; Mills & Thiem 1980). Other important studies using sophisticated technologies (cf. Tanenhaus et.al. 1995) show that subjects visually identify objects given in verbal discourse before the lexeme has been completely pronounced. 14. The -išcˇ-e suffix in CSR behaves semantically like a quantifier in much the same way as a numeral in that several substantives in -išcˇ-e are grammatically inanimate in the singular but animate in the plural (cf. cˇudovišcˇe, urodišcˇe [.. = ..] vs. cˇudovišcˇ, urodišcˇ [.. = . .]). This phenomenon is paralleled in Russian numerals, where the larger the numeral, the more variability in case usage following the numeral, depending directly on the referent’s lexical animacy: Ja igral s millionom druzej, košek, dollarov “I played with a million friends, cats, dollars” [all forms following numeral in genitive plural] Ja igral s tys’acˇju druz’jami/druzej, košek/koškami, dollarov “I played with a thousand friends, cats, dollars” [animate forms in either instrumental or genitive, with instrumental preference for humans and genitive preference for animals; inanimate only in genitive plural form] Ja igral so sta druz’jami, koškami, dollarami/dollarov “I played with a hundred friends, cats, dollars” [all animates in instrumental plural; inanimate in instrumental or genitive with instrumental preferred] For more information on variable case usage with numerals, cf. Andrews (1996a: 133–138).

References Andrews, E., Nick Staddon, Mary St. John Zaiim & F. Borchardt. 1993. “Gender Signalling in Russian: A Comparison of Native Speakers and Neural Network.” Language Quarterly 31: 1–2. 1–40. Andrews, E. 1994. “The Interface of Iconicity and Interpretants.” The Peirce Seminar Papers, vol. II, 9–28. Providence & Oxford: Berghahn Books. Andrews, E. 1995. “Seeing is Believing: Vision Categories in Russian.” In Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory. Ed. by E. Contini-Morava and B. Sussman Goldberg, 361–377. Berlin: Mouton. Andrews, E. 1996a. The Semantics of Suffixation. München & Newcastle: Lincom Europa.

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Andrews, E. 1996b. “Gender and Declension Shifts in Contemporary Standard Russian: Markedness as a Semiotic Principle.” Towards a Calculus of Meaning: Studies in Markedness, Distinctive Features and Deixis, ed. by E. Andrews and Y. Tobin, 109–140. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Calvin, W.H. and G.A. Ojemann. 1994. Conversations with Neil’s Brain: The Neural Nature of Thought and Language. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Comrie, B. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Corbett, G.G. 1980. “Animacy in Russian and other Slavic Languages: Where Syntax and Semantics Fail to Match.” Morphosyntax in Slavic, ed. by C.V. Chvany and R.D. Brecht, 43–61. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. Corbett, G.G. 1983. Hierarchies, Targets and Controllers: Agreement Patterns in Slavic. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Corbett, G.G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Crockett, D.B. 1976. Agreement in Contemporary Standard Russian. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. Damasio, A.R. 1990. “Category-related Recognition Defects as a Clue to the Neural Substrates of Knowledge. Trends in Neurosciences 13: 95–98. Damasio, A.R. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Grosset/Putnam Book. Dunlea, A. 1989. Vision and the Emergence of Meaning: Blind and Sighted Children’s Early Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fox, P.T., M.A. Mintun, M.E. Raichle, F.M. Miezin, J.M. Allman & D.C. Van Essen. 1986. “Mapping Human Visual Cortex with Positron Emission Tomography.” Nature. 806–809. Fox, P.T., F.M. Miezin, J.M. Allman, D.C. Van Essen, and M.E. Raichle. 1987. “Retinotopic Organization of Human Visual Cortex with Positron- Emission Tomography.” Journal of Neuroscience 7. 913–922. Gaffan, D. and C.A. Haywood. 1993. “A Spurious Category-Specific Visual Agnosia for Living Things in Normal Human and Nonhuman Primates.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 5. 118–128. Greene, R.L. 1992. Human Memory: Paradigms and Paradoxes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Jakobson, R.O. 1987. Language in Literature, ed. by K. Pomorska and S. Rudy. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Jakobson, R.O. 1964/1987. “On the Relation between Visual and Auditory Signs.” Language in Literature, ed. by K. Pomorska and S. Rudy, 466- 473. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Kandel, E.R., J.H. Schwartz, T.M. Jessell. 1991. Principles of Neural Science. Norwalk, Connecticut: Appleton & Lange.

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Kidwell, A. and P. Greer. 1973. Sites, Perception and the Nonvisual Experience: Designing and Manufacturing Mobility Maps. New York: American Foundation for the Blind. Klenin, E. 1983. Animacy in Russian: A New Interpretation [UCLA Slavic Studies, 6]. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. Kosslyn, S.M. 1994. Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Landau, B., Gleitman, L. 1985. Language and Experience: Evidence from the Blind Child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Massaro, D.W. 1987. Speech Perception by Ear and Eye: A Paradigm for Psychological Inquiry. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. MacDonald, J. and H. McGurk. 1978. “Visual Influences on Speech Perception Process.” Perception and Psychophysics 24. 253–257. McGurk, H. and J. MacDonald. 1976. “Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices.” Nature (264). 746–748. Mills, A.E., ed. 1983a. Language Acquisition in the Blind Child. London: Croom Helm. Mills, A.E. 1983b. “Acquisition of Speech Sounds in the Visually-Handicapped Child.” Language Acquisition in the Blind Child, ed. by A. Mills, 46–56. London: Croom Helm. Mills, A.E., and R. Thiem. 1980. “Auditory-Visual Fusions and Illusions in Speech Perception.” Linguistische Berichte 68/80. 85–108. Mulford, R. 1983. “Referential Development in Blind Children.” Language Acquisition in the Blind Child, ed. by A. Mills, 89–107. London: Croom Helm. O’Neill, J.J. 1954. “Contributions of the Visual Components of Oral Symbols to Speech Comprehension.” Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 19. 429–39. Repp, B.H., S.Y. Manuel, A.M. Liberman, and M. Studdert-Kennedy. 1983. “Exploring the ‘McGurk Effect.’” Paper presented at the 24th meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Diego, CA. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 358. Segal, S.J. and V. Fusella. 1970. “Influence of Imaged Pictures and Sounds on Detection of Visual and Auditory Signals.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 83. 458–464. Stankiewicz, E. 1968. Declension and Gradation in Russian Substantives in Contemporary Standard Russian. The Hague: Mouton. Švedova, N., ed. 1980. Russkaja grammatika, I. Moscow: Nauka. Tanenhaus, M.K., et al. 1995. “Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension.” Science 286. 1632–1634. Tootell, R.B.H., E. Switkes, M.S. Silverman, and S.L. Hamilton. 1988. “Functional Anatomy of Macaque Striate Cortex.” II. Retinotopic Organization. The Journal of Neuroscience 8. 1531–68. van Schooneveld, C.H. 1977. “The Place of Gender in the Semantic Structure of the Russian Language.” Scando-Slavica 23. 129–138. van Schooneveld, C.H. 1978. Semantic Transmutations. Bloomington, IN: Physsardt.

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van Schooneveld, C.H. 1987. “Linguistic Structure and Autopoiesis.” Language, Poetry and Poetics, ed. by K. Pomorska, E. Chadakowska, H. McLean, and B. Vine, 123–142. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Vinogradov, V.V., ed. 1960. Grammatika russkgo jazyka, I. Moscow: ANSSSR. Zaliznjak, A.A. 1964. “K voprosu o grammaticˇ eskix kategorijax roda i oduševlennosti v sovremennon russkom jazyke.” Voprosy jazyoznanija 4. 25–40. Zaliznjak, A.A. 1977. Grammaticˇeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka. Moscow: Russkij jazyk.

P II Verb Systems and Parts of Speech Across Languages 1. Tense and Aspect

Eventuality Classification Meaning and Use of Spanish Simple Past Tenses Bob de Jonge Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Precisamente ese es el problema: nunca sabremos lo que la gente nos quiere decir. “That is precisely the problem: we will never know what people want to say to us.” Fernando del Paso, Palinuro de México, p. 172

1.

Introduction

The abstractness of grammatical meaning makes it difficult to get ahold of it. In contrast to lexical meaning, grammatical meaning is an indication of a concept that forms part of a closed system and therefore excludes other members of the grammatical (sub)system. The lexicon is an open system, which means that in principle it is a productive system with no limitations as far as the number of forms included in it is concerned. However, from a paradigmatic point of view, use of a lexical form does implicate exclusion of other forms, so also in the case of the lexicon, the use of one form implicates exclusion of other ones, albeit with other semantic implications. But, as is shown in this volume, grammatical systems appear to have some overlap with lexical ones, as for instance grammatical and “natural” gender (cf. Tobin, this volume). Also classifiers, although generally considered grammatical elements, appear to be close to the lexicon from a semantic point of view (cf. Kirtchuck, this volume, and especially Contini-Morava, this volume). In the present paper, a problem will be dealt with that I would like to define as “eventuality classification”, namely the use of two simple past tenses in opposition (the Spanish verb-forms imperfecto and indefinido).1 As will be shown

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below, this opposition, expressed through verb morphology, is generally explained by means of temporality. However, in those cases where there is variation among speakers in the use of the two forms, temporality fails to provide an explanation. Empirical data taken from two short stories show that there is a functional meaning in the use of the two verb-forms that may account for all situations, including the latter. The basis for the analysis is the idea that the existence of two simple past tenses presupposes two types of past eventualities with their own individual functional meaning and that the two grammatical forms represent a meaningful categorization of eventualities in order to organize discourse optimally from a communicative point of view. An attempt will be made here to explain the meaning and use of the Spanish simple past tenses, the imperfect (imperfecto) and the simple perfect tense (indefinido). As will be shown below, a number of hypotheses have been presented concerning this grammatical problem, but these hypotheses have not been supported on the basis of systematic and independent quantitative empirical data. This paper provides such a basis for the most promising hypothesis, one that can provide a theoretical foundation for applied linguistics — as in De Jonge (1994) — as well as theoretical linguistics. In my opinion a linguistic theory that takes human behavior into account to explain linguistic structure in a broad sense can account for so-called languagespecific phenomena as well as generally considered universal ones.2 I will not enter the discussion whether the phenomenon discussed here is language-specific or not; it is, however, a fact that the discussed phenomenon is common to more than one language, and probably to more than one language family.3 For the purpose of this paper, this fact is not as important as the fact that the grammatical distinction discussed here is a tool that serves a specific communicative goal that is not restricted to one group of speakers, and is to be seen as a more general phenomenon that speakers may (or may not) resort to. The study of particular tools in order to optimize communication may lead to general knowledge of strategies that language-users resort to in order to get messages across, and therefore to the human language ability in general. First, I will give some general considerations on grammatical meaning and the ways to look for it; then I will move on to some proposals in the existing literature for the meaning of the simple past tenses in Spanish and French. The next step will be the postulation of a meaning, which is followed by an analysis, based on empirical data. Finally, I will draw some general conclusions.

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Lexical and grammatical meaning

The meaning of linguistic forms is a slippery thing. The mere fact that, in general, there is an arbitrary relation between the linguistic form and its meaning (Lyons 1968: 54–55, with the exception of onomatopoeia) already indicates that meaning is a convention, attached to a linguistic form that perhaps can be described as the tacit agreement between speaker and hearer as to its real-worldreference, without absolute certainty that both refer to the same thing. It is very difficult to give an accurate description of the meaning of a given linguistic form. Maybe the forms whose meanings can be described with less difficulty are the ones that deal with the “material contents” of communication (lexical meanings). And even then, a speaker cannot be sure his hearer conceives exactly the same thing as he has in mind. Take, for instance, the case of a father who points at a blackbird, saying: “blackbird” to his three-year-old son; the child might conclude from it that all black flying animals are blackbirds and hence refer to a crow by saying “blackbird” (see also Andersen 1978: 344).4 Grammatical meanings, the ones that deal with “formal modifications”, on the other hand, tend to be more abstract, and less apparent in the message, as a specific part of the Spanish verb system I am going to discuss here will show. However, as illustrated above, also lexical meanings do not represent real-world entities, but categories in the mind. It is this category that establishes the relation between the linguistic form and entities in the real world. With grammatical categories, this is even more complicated: here the linguistic form (the morpheme) is the expression of a mental category that cannot be related to a real-world item. Therefore, we cannot look into reality in order to reveal its meaning. The question now is, how to determine the value of this mental category, or grammatical meaning and make it observable (objectively, if possible). In a way, grammatical meaning is like an illness; you cannot observe it independently, but as speakers, we simply know that it is there. With illnesses, it is much the same (Hirtle 1995: 159): if a person has red dots over his body, a bit of fever and some other symptoms, we “know” that he probably has measles. If grammatical meaning is, in a way, comparable to illnesses, why not treat it in a comparable way in order to get ahold of it? Linguists should then behave like doctors and try to look for symptoms of grammatical meaning. Just as a doctor may conclude that, given the observed symptoms, the patient has measles, the linguistic analyst may look for clues (symptoms) that point in the direction of the postulated grammatical meaning. If the analyst has detected enough clues for it, he may come to the conclusion that

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the postulated meaning is indeed correct. It is important, however, to state that all clues have to point in the same direction, or, in other words, to the same meaning. The purpose of this paper is to look for these contextual clues in order to detect the functional meaning of the Spanish imperfecto-indefinido opposition. Therefore, a sample of authentic linguistic material will be used that is representative of one particular language type in order to obtain clean samples of the clues that are looked for. Before starting with the analysis, however, I will discuss some other views on this particular problem in the existing literature.

3.

Theories on the simple past tenses opposition

In general, Spanish grammars treat verb tenses from a temporal point of view. For example, Gili Gaya states that Podemos medir el tiempo desde nuestro presente, y entonces todas las acciones verbales que nos representamos se hallan situadas mentalmente con anterioridad, con posterioridad o en coincidencia con el momento en que hablamos: de aquí el pretérito, el futuro y el presente como tiempos fundamentales. (Gili Gaya 1961: 150–151) “We can measure time from our present, and then all verbal actions that we are representing are mentally situated before, after or coinciding with the moment of speech: hence the preterite, the future and the present as fundamental tenses. [all translations mine, BdJ]”

And so, when dealing with the imperfecto–indefinido-opposition, the difference in meaning is expressed in terms of moments or periods of time: En los tiempos imperfectos, la atención del que habla se fija en el transcurso o continuidad de la acción, sin que le interesen el comienzo o el fin de la misma. En los perfectos resalta la delimitación temporal. (Gili Gaya 1961: 148–149) “In the imperfect tenses, the speaker’s attention is drawn to the process or continuation of the event, without paying interest to the beginning or end of it. In the perfect tenses, the temporal demarcation is salient.5”

Another point of view on past tenses was introduced by Reichenbach (1966 [1947]) and further elaborated by others. Reichenbach (1966 [1947]) introduced the trichotomy “point of speech, point of reference and point of event”. The latter two are especially relevant for the simple past tense, because past tenses imply a separation from the point of speech (1966: 288–289). Languages that have two simple past tenses, like French (and also Greek), have a tense system that distinguishes between an extended tense (Fr. imparfait) and a punctual one

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(Fr. passé défini) (1966: 291–292). The postulation of the three Reichenbachian points is very interesting in the sense that it may account for (some part of) the interrelation of events in discourse and their relevance for the speech moment. Nevertheless, it is a fact that it depends solely on a temporal structure of speech without taking into account other semantic relations that, in my view, are equally essential for the organization of discourse. This is an important factor because in many cases, speakers show variation in the use of the forms, as is shown in the questionnaires studied by García & Van Putte (1988). Also Reichenbach’s followers, like Molendijk (1990), who surely has refined Reichenbach’s theory to a great extent, lean heavily on its temporal basis and are reluctant to entertain the possibility of another basic function of the past tenses in French. Rojo (1990) takes a stand most similar to that of Reichenbach, although in my view, not as elegantly put. He also postulates a point of reference, called origen “origin”, and states that in principle there are three sorts of temporal relations: anteriority, simultaneity and posteriority (1990: 26). After having established a system in which all Spanish tenses are temporally related to an origin that coincides with the moment of speech (1990: 27–30), he claims that aspect, at least in Spanish, is a phenomenon that is related to temporality. The basic aspectual opposition, according to Rojo, is the one between perfectivity and imperfectivity (1990: 33). The difference between temporality and aspect is that the former is fundamentally of a deictic nature, which is oriented on the time axis, whereas the latter only refers to the internal situation of the event, without having any other relation outside of it (ibid.). The association of temporality and aspect is a logical one, in Rojo’s view, for a given situation has to be perfective in order to be anterior to another one (1990: 34). Therefore, Rojo concludes that an adequate view on temporality permits viewing aspect as a derived, secondary value within the Spanish verb system (1990: 39–41). In modern generative linguistics, little attention is given to the imperfecto– indefinido-opposition.6 However, Zagona (1994) — although focussing on the difference between simple and compound Spanish past tenses — pays some attention to this problem. As Zagona states, the difference between imperfecto and indefinido are “properties that are not characteristic of past tense more generally” (1994: 540–541). Her comment on some cited examples is that “punctuality is characteristic only of the Preterite” [indefinido, BdJ] and that the “imperfect […] describes a past state that held for an indeterminite [sic] duration” (1994: 541). This view resembles that of earlier grammarians, but it is interesting, however, that on the same page, she calls one of the instances of the imperfecto

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a “subevent” with respect to the indefinido, which would indicate some hierarchic position, which is not self-evident from the temporal statements. And so, in the conclusion of the article, it seems that Zagona assumes some sort of event structure for argument specificity in the preterizing parameter that may account for the differences between indefinido and imperfecto (1994: 542–543). There seems to be an overall agreement that the fundamental ingredient of verb tense is time, and that verb inflection, apart from its reference to the subject, is basically an organizer to categorize events in time. Although I do not intend to enter into this matter, it is very doubtful if the same can be said about the opposition we are studying here.7 The positioning of the two verb-forms under focus in a temporal setting presupposes, in my view, that variation in use by native speakers can only be explained within this theory in two ways. The first way would be that, if temporality can account for all cases, including those of variation, reasoning becomes fundamentally circular, for the explanation varies along with the alternating forms. The second explanation should consider (an)other strategy/-ies for the cases of variation which cannot be based on the, basically temporal, postulated difference. This, then, is highly uneconomical, for it would suggest that the opposition inhibits more than one functional meaning: a temporal one, and other ones of a fundamentally different nature, which leaves the problem basically unresolved (Diver 1969: 46). Of course, we could aim higher and postulate a strategy that would explain both the “clear” cases and those of variation. There are two additional arguments that point in another direction. In the first place, Zagona makes an interesting observation concerning the occurrence of the pronoun se in contexts with both verb-forms: it appears that se can only have an impersonal reading in combination with an imperfecto-form, whereas with an indefinido, it can only have a personal interpretation. This leads to the conclusion, according to Zagona, that the “construal of subject pronouns [i.e., se, BdJ] appears to depend on the perfect/imperfect distinction, rather than on tense per se” (Zagona 1994: 542). This observation could lead to the suspicion that there is more to the opposition than a purely temporal difference in meaning. In the second place, Rojo’s reasoning that a situation, anterior to another one is necessarily perfective can also be turned around: a situation that is perfective, that has ended, necessarily leads to a new situation that in itself is posterior to it. Viewed in this way, temporality would be derived from perfectiveness, and not the other way around. In my view — and not only in mine, but for instance also in Diver’s (Diver 1969, which treats a similar problem in Homeric Greek) —, neither temporality nor (im)perfectiveness are necessarily the main ingredients of the imperfectoindefinido-opposition. It is clear that both tenses are past tenses, but if we

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consider the following fragment, taken from the beginning of the short story “Nabo, el negro que hizo esperar a los ángeles” [1951] by Gabriel García Márquez (1984), it may be clear that the claimed specific temporal meaning and aspect are quite redundant: Nabo estaba de bruces sobre la hierba muerta. Sentía el olor a establo orinado, estregándose en el cuerpo. Sentía en la piel gris y brillante el rescoldo tibio de los últimos caballos, pero no sentía la piel. Nabo no sentía nada. Era como si se hubiera quedado dormido con el último golpe de la herradura en la frente y ahora no tuviera más que ese solo sentido. Un doble sentido que le indicaba a la vez el olor a establo húmedo y el innumerable cositeo de los insectos invisibles en la hierba. Abrió los párpados. Volvió a cerrarlos […]. “Nabo lay face down on the dead straw. He smelled the urinated stable while scratching his body. He felt the warm heat of the last horses, but he did not feel their skins. Nabo did not feel anything. It was as if he had fallen asleep because of the last stroke of the horse-shoe on his forehead and now only had this feeling. A double feeling that gave him the smell of humid stable and the innumerable sounds of the invisible insects in the straw. He opened his eyelids. He closed them again […].8”

In fact, all speakers know that Nabo’s opening and closing his eyelids are perfective events of very limited duration. His lying in the straw and smelling, on the other hand, are imperfective events which, within this context, do not have identifiable beginnings nor endings. This knowledge is not only common to speakers of Spanish, but also of other languages. We simply know that Nabo’s opening his eyes takes place before closing them again, and that during both events he kept on lying on the floor: the iconic order of the last two verbs in discourse helps to interpret this common real-world knowledge (see also Diver 1969: 57 and Reid 1980: 18). Claiming a fundamentally temporal function of the opposition would give Spanish a redundancy that English apparently does not need and that may be taken as quite uneconomical, and therefore maybe even likely to disappear in due time. However, it is also a well-known fact that this opposition in Spanish is very much alive and not at all disappearing. This must mean, then, that there is another communicative goal for the opposition, which makes the effort of using it worth while. This would also explain why speakers of languages that know oppositions of this kind, in so many cases show uses that appear to be contrary to the temporal facts, or at least less plausible. For instance, it might theoretically be possible to use an imperfecto-form in one of the two indefinido’s in the example above. Moreover, García & Van Putte, who did a questionnaire study on the uses of imperfecto and indefinido, registered variation in the use of the

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forms: in 37% of the investigated contexts in which they had to change a story told in the present tense into the past, native informants did not agree on the form used (1988: 266). In the next section, I will discuss functional meaning for the imperfecto– indefinido-opposition, derived from a number of studies which take another point of view, like Weinrich (1968). This meaning will then be submitted to a test in the analysis, in which not only the clear cases in which speakers agree on the use of the forms, but also those of possible variation will be explained.

4.

A postulated grammatical meaning for Spanish past tenses

It can be questioned if time is really the basic ingredient for tense as expressed in verb morphology, despite time being a fundamental means of relating eventualities to the moment of speech, just as for example Reichenbach and Rojo claim. Studies like Traugott (1978) have shown that this is not necessarily so, and that in general,  seems to play an even more fundamental role, as evidence in numerous other languages shows. Therefore, the question is whether the imperfecto–indefinido-distinction has a fundamental temporal value, for both tenses already have the same global relation to the speech point and/or the reference point, namely “past”. Weinrich (1968) claims that, in a story, the heart of the matter (el núcleo de la narración) is told in indefinido and the circumstances in imperfecto (1968: 206). This is, of course, a rather different meaning than the one(s) indicated in the previous sections. The former were always time-based, whereas Weinrich’s value is a functional one.9 The question is how the latter value can account for language data, like the temporal phenomena that have formed the basis for the other meaning(s) discussed above, and the variation as signalled by García & Van Putte (1988). According to García & Van Putte, the indefinido has a “sequence-building potential” (cf. also Hopper 1979: 214), whereas the imperfecto indicates a “dependent reference” (García & Van Putte 1988: 264), basing themselves on Weinrich. Their interpretation of these assertions in the course of the article is that the indefinido indicates the narrative line of the story, while the imperfecto is used to refer to background events. This view strongly resembles the figure/ ground distinction Langacker takes as a valid and fundamental feature of cognitive functioning (1987: 120). “Figure” in this case is to be taken as the narrative line and “ground” as the backgound events (cf. also Hopper & Thompson 1980: 280). However, Hopper & Thompson (1980) and Langacker (1987) treat fore-

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grounding and backgrounding as discourse-functions that occur in various aspects of language cross-linguistically, and do not posit meanings for the morphemes of specific languages. Therefore, also García & Van Putte’s “sequence-building potential”, something seen by Traugott as basically a discourse deictic (1978: 383–4), can hardly be taken as a meaning for the indefinido. Positing explicit meanings for both competing forms would account for a number of facts: the fact that for a substantial number of cases, native speakers show variation in their use of the forms and the fact that, as Weinrich also observes (1968: 205), in a narration, neither form occurs without the other. Studies like Diver (1969) and Reid (1980) do test specific meanings of similar oppositions systematically, namely in Homeric Greek and French, respectively. The meanings Diver posits for Homeric Greek have to do with the degree of , ranging from   (aorist active) to   (imperfect middle) (Diver 1969: 48). Reid, on the other hand, postulates the meanings  vs.  focus of attention for the French Passé Simple and Imparfait, respectively (Reid 1980: 12). These meanings share the phenomenon that the highest member of the opposition receives a meaning postulated in positive terms (+relevant, +focus), whereas the lowest member on the scale gets a negative value (−relevance, −focus). This would suggest that these members have a default meaning, something that seems undesirable, since speakers are more likely to use signals that express (positive) meanings than forms that indicate relative absence of one particular meaning. Therefore, in the analysis of this study, the alleged similar meanings for the Spanish opposition will be put in positive terms and tested, using quantitative as well as qualitative data, gathered from two stories by García Márquez. The hypothesis that will be put to a test is the following. In view of the fact that the imperfecto/indefinido opposition implicates a division of past eventualities into two groups which can be taken as mental categories, it should be so that speakers use two cognitive meanings for each eventuality category. The first one, indicated by the indefinido, is a category which is supposed to draw the hearer’s attention and should therefore indicate   . The other category, indicated by the imperfecto-form, is characterized by a low degree of focus attention and indicates  . The latter eventualities serve to explain the circumstances of the eventualities in focus and make their correct interpretation and importance in the message as efficient and economic as possible. The eventualities in focus are those eventualities considered to be central to the general message by the speaker. In short, the hypothesis that is being tested in this paper is the following:

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Hypothesis: The indefinido indicates    The imperfecto indicates   The most important difference between this hypothesis and the ones discussed in the literature above, is that this hypothesis postulates a conceptual categorization of eventualities in the mind of the language users that enables them to use both forms as adequately as possible from a communicative point of view. Most other theories in fact postulate a categorization in the real world (time, type of eventuality) which should then correspond to the language used by speakers. This cannot, in my view, lead to an accurate description of grammatical meaning, since language is a product of the human species, and cannot be separated from it and studied independently. The speaker constitutes the bridge between language and the real world. Therefore, it is the distribution of the forms, produced by (groups of) speakers that needs to be studied in order to understand the structure of language. In this particular case, the task that lies ahead of us is to see whether we can demonstrate the validity of our hypothesized meaning in order to explain all occurrences of the use of the forms. In the next section, this hypothesis will be tested by means of a search for symptoms, to be detected in the contexts of the used forms, that may be taken as indicative of the postulated hypothesis.

5.

Analysis: the symptoms

5.1 The corpus In order to check the postulated hypothesis in real language data, I selected two short stories by Gabriel García Márquez, which supply the examples of the present analysis. The stories are “La viuda de Montiel” and “La siesta del martes”, both written in 1962, and form part of the book Los funerales de la mamá grande (García Márquez 1994). These stories were selected because both contain sentences with imperfecto and indefinido forms in the vast majority of the cases. Moreover, both stories have a comparable structure, in the sense that in both of them, within the main story, a short, secondary story is told. 5.1.1 “La viuda de Montiel” [viuda] The story begins with the death of Montiel, a local shop-keeper with a lot of political power in a small Latin-American village. The story relates how his widow reacts to his death and how the shop gets ruined because the villagers

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cease to buy there. Halfway, in a separate story-line García Márquez describes how this is possible: Montiel was a sort of cacique who terrorized the village. Therefore, after his death, the villagers do not have to obey him any more and take revenge by ceasing to buy anything at his shop. The story ends with the death of the innocent widow. 5.1.2 “La siesta del martes” [siesta] This story relates a visit of a mother and child to a graveyard in a village, where their son and brother is buried. The story begins by reporting the voyage by train, their arrival at the village and the priest’s house where they have to collect the keys to the graveyard. In the middle of the description of the formalities to get the keys, García Márquez informs the reader how the man got to be buried in a place where he did not come from: he tried to break into a house, but was shot during the attempt. The story ends when the two women leave the priest’s house on their way to the graveyard. 5.1.3 Description of the corpus For these two stories, all instances of imperfecto and indefinido forms were copied with their immediate contexts and subsequently submitted to the analysis. Although both stories are comparable as to their general structure, they are of course not equal. In a way, viuda is the less dynamic of the two; in fact, nothing actually happens; it merely describes the decline of the widow after the death of her husband. Siesta, on the other hand, describes the visit to a village and subsequently relates part of the voyage. As a result of this difference, it may not be surprising that the proportion of indefinido forms is somewhat higher in siesta, the more dynamic story of the two. This could mean, then, that there is a greater proportion of verb-forms that pertain to the category of the eventualities in focus as compared to the other ones, than in viuda. In Table 1 the general proportion of imperfecto and indefinido verb forms is given. Table 1: Overall frequencies of imperfecto and indefinido in “La viuda de Montiel” (viuda) and “La siesta del martes” (siesta) by García Márquez N/%; c2 = 3,9 p < 0,05

Indefinido

Imperfecto

Overall frequencies viuda Overall frequencies siesta

099/56% 169/65%

78/44% 90/35%

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The results of Table 1 confirm the general expectation: in fact, siesta shows a slightly higher percentage of indefinido forms (65%) than viuda (56%).10 This should be taken as the result of the difference between the stories, and not as a result of difference in meaning of the opposition by the same speaker on different occasions: if this were so, then speakers could arbitrarily change the use of forms, and therefore meaning, which would make communication very haphazard, if not impossible. If our hypothesized meaning is indeed correct, then we should find that all of its symptoms we are going to investigate in the next sections will show similar correlations with the use of the two forms in both stories, although (of course) not in the same proportions. 5.2 The illness and its symptoms In this section various symptoms of the proposed meaning will be discussed and investigated in the gathered corpus. If the investigated symptoms all point in the direction of the hypothesized meaning, then we may conclude that our diagnosis is indeed correct. But before passing on to the first symptom, an aspect of past tense utterances will be discussed that might also be indicative of some of the other studies discussed before, that claim that the difference between the imperfecto and indefinido is basically of a temporal nature. Afterwards, a number of symtpoms will be discussed that can be related more directly, and most of the time only, to the hypothesized meaning. 5.2.1 Time indications If scholars that adopt the temporal point of view are correct, then it should be possible to measure a difference in occurrences of time indications (from here onwards: TI) that signal the precise moment of the event, indicated by the inflected verb. It should be expected, then, that these TI’s occur more frequently with verbs in the indefinido, for these actions are supposed to be identifiable on the time axis. It can be expected that these redundant elements occur more frequently with indefinido’s than with imperfecto’s, which would only indicate simultaneousness with respect to an indefinido (cf. for example Molendijk (1990: 25), who quotes other studies that work in a temporal perspective). In view of the hypothesis proposed in this study, it could be expected that TI’s function as a symptom of the postulated meaning of the indefinido, for an eventuality in focus is likely to be identifiable in time, and may therefore also bear TI’s for explicitness. On the other hand, it not impossible for a TI to appear

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as an informative element for a supportive eventuality, for instance in sentences like “at three o’clock, the sun was shining”, in order to describe the setting for another eventuality in focus, but in view of the deictic nature of TI’s they should show a preference to co-occur more with eventualities in focus, i.e., with indefinido’s. As TI’s, we have classified cases like (1) and (2), which show an explicit TI (1) and an abstract one (2): (1)

(2)

[siesta] El tren se detuvo diez minutos en una estación sin pueblo para abastecerse de agua. “The train stopped for ten minutes in a station without a village to take in water.” [siesta] Después fue a los servicios sanitarios a poner en agua el ramo de flores muertas. “Then she went to the bathroom to put the dead flowers into water.”

All other cases were classified as not having a TI in their direct contexts. The result of this test are rendered in Table 2. Table 2: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido with time indications (TI) N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

+TI −TI

023/79% 076/51%

006/21% 072/49%

siesta

+TI −TI

014/64% 155/65%

008/36% 082/35%

all c2 = 3,0 p < 0,1

+TI −TI

037/73% 231/60%

014/27% 154/40%

Table 2 shows that in viuda there is a correlation between TI’s and the indefinido: 79% of the examples with a TI have a verb in indefinido, whereas in the other examples this is the case in 51%. In siesta, however, the presence of a TI does not influence the choice of the verb-type at all: both the cases with a TI and those without have the same proportion of indefinido forms (64 and 65%, respectively). When taken together, the results show that, in spite of the observed differences, they cannot be taken too seriously: there is a possibility of 1 out of 10 that they are due to chance.11 There is another interesting result from Table 2: it appears that only in 51 cases of the total of 435 examples there is a TI present. This is not too surprising,

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for it concerns a mere redundant element in the contexts, but it surely shows that in almost 90% of the cases, the reader has to rely on contextual information other than the TI. This should be taken as proof that the TI can hardly be taken as symptom of the hypothesized meaning, as also the significance test shows, and that even less as the basis for the meaning of the opposition.12 5.2.2 Symptom 1: movements If the hypothesis that the indefinido indicates eventualities in focus is correct, then it should follow that in a given real-world situation in the past, those eventualities that imply a (visually) observable movement would show a preference to be reported in an indefinido, and others in an imperfecto, because supposedly, observable eventualities are more likely to be eventualities in focus (Diver 1969: 63) than the ones that are not directly observable. This reasoning is supported by Langacker, who states that “motion is a highly influential factor”, as far as ‘figure’ as opposed to ‘ground’ is concerned (1987: 120). This is not difficult to check. We can imagine the narrated situation in each of the two stories as if it were a picture. If we see a movement in our imagined picture, then we would expect an indefinido; if not, an imperfecto. In (3) and (4) examples of this classification are given: (3)

(4)

[siesta] La niña se quitó los zapatos. Después fue a los servicios sanitarios a poner en agua el ramo de flores muertas. “The girl took off her shoes. Then she went to the bathroom to put the bunch of flowers into water.” [siesta] Cuando volvió al asiento la madre la esperaba para comer. “When she returned to her seat, her mother was waiting for her to eat.13”

In (3), the verb quitó “took off” expresses an action that implies a movement of the child, whereas in (4), esperaba “waited, was waiting” does not. Both stories were classified accordingly; the results of this test are shown in Table 3. Table 3 shows that the general expectation comes true, although not with equal strength in both texts. In viuda, movements show a small preference for indefinido’s (62%, vs. 53% for other verbs), but in siesta the preference is clearer (85% vs. 27%). When taken together, the results appear to be highly significant: the probability that they are due to chance are lower than 1 out of 1000. However, there is a fair number of counterexamples.14 (5) and (6) are examples of indefinido forms that do not imply a visible movement, and an imperfecto that does, respectively.

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Table 3: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido over actions that imply a movement in the narrated scene and other actions N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

movement other

038/62% 061/53%

023/38% 055/47%

siesta

movement other

139/95% 030/27%

007/05% 083/73%

all c2 = 96,2 p < 0,001

movement other

177/86% 091/40%

030/14% 138/60%

(5)

(6)

[siesta] El tren salió del trepidante corredor de rocas bermejas, penetró en las plantaciones de banano, simétricas e interminables, y el aire se hizo húmedo y no se volvió a sentir la brisa del mar. “The train left the stumbling strip, made of red rocks, penetrated the symmetrical and endless banana plantations, and the air turned humid and the sea wind was not felt any more.” [siesta] No vio nada más que la llanura desierta por donde el tren empezaba a correr de nuevo, pero metió en la bolsa el último pedazo de galleta y se puso rápidamente los zapatos. “She did not see anything but the deserted plain in which the train started to move again, but she put the last bit of the cookie in the bag and quickly put on her shoes.”

In (5), the turning humid of the air, and the sudden absence of the sea wind are not visible movements, but they do represent changes in the described scene and are therefore referred to by indefinido forms. On the other hand, (6) implies a visible movement in “started to move”, and grammatically speaking, an indefinido form could have been used. However, the author chose not to do so, because the indefinido would probably draw the reader’s attention to something that is not central to the general message: the girl had taken off her shoes and was eating something, but in spite of the fact that she could not see anything but a deserted plain, she knew they were almost arriving and acted accordingly. The fact that the train started to move again is not relevant to her conclusion and even appears contrary to it; it is therefore only presented as a secondary fact that did not alter her conclusion about the imminent arrival. This should not be taken as a fact contrary to our general hypothesis: visible movements can be taken as a symptom of an eventuality in focus, but not all movements necessarily pertain

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to this group of eventualities. Examples like (5) and (6) show that “visible movement” is a symptom that has its flaws. In fact, this symptom might be improved by taking into account not only visible movements, but any action that implies a change in the situation. These actions will be called ‘events’, and will be discussed in the next section.15 5.2.3 Symptom 2: events In the discussion of the counterexamples of the first symptom, it appeared that movement as such, although it proved to be a good symptom of the hypothesized meaning, is too narrow a description in order to account for the vast majority of examples in both texts. In many cases, the verbs express actions that imply events, things that happen, but that do not lead to visible movements. So, in the next test all events are separated from other eventualities. It may be clear that all visible movements can be taken as events in the sense in which it is used here, but to this group of actions, cases like (5) above have been added. The expectation for this test is that it considerably improves the relation between the tested parameter and the use of the indefinido, as compared to the test, rendered in Table 3. The results of the test are given in Table 4. Table 4: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido over verbs that indicate an event and other verbs N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

event other

083/70% 016/27%

035/30% 043/73%

siesta

event other

162/88% 007/28%

022/12% 068/72%

all c2 = 160,3 p < 0,001

event other

245/81% 023/17%

057/19% 111/83%

It can be concluded that both texts indeed show a strong correlation between events as defined above and the use of the indefinido. As was expected, it is not surprising that this table shows a higher statistical significance than Table 3 (c2 = 96,2 for Table 3 and 160,3 for Table 4). Nevertheless, there are still events rendered in the imperfecto, as the following example shows: (7)

[siesta] La niña tenía doce años y era la primera vez que viajaba. “The girl was twelve years old and it was the first time that she traveled.”

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In (7), an imperfecto is given that does not imply a movement in the observed scene, since she is sitting in the train, but to travel may be seen as an event. Nevertheless, contrary to the expectation, this action is rendered in an imperfecto form, because from the immediate context, the reader is already aware of the fact that the two persons are travelling; this is a comment saying that it is the first time she is doing so and thus, use of the indefinido is indeed very unlikely in this particular context. Therefore, a form meaning   is used. As this example shows, and as we saw in the case of the visible movements, also here not all events need to be eventualities in focus, and so it should be; it is the speaker, or, in this case, the writer, who decides which eventualities in the real world are central to his story, and which eventualities are not. Of course, he could have chosen not to mention the latter at all, but some less central eventualities may be worthwhile mentioning on a supportive level for the sake of comprehension, as examples like (7) show. 5.2.4 Symptom 3: main and subordinate clauses In this section a possible symptom will be treated that is not directly related to the postulated meaning of Spanish past tenses, but can indirectly be related to them. However, compared with the parameters tested in tables 3 and 4, the observation of the parameter takes place objectively: the tested parameter is the occurrence of the observed verb form in a main clause or in a subordinate one. What we expect to see should be the following: as the division in two past action references in indefinido and imperfecto forms implies a classification of past eventualities into eventualities in focus, and supportive ones with background, explicatory information, we may conclude that, in a sense, the ones in focus have an independent meaning, whereas the supportive eventualities lean heavily on the former as far as their contextual relevance is concerned. This resembles the syntactical status quo of main and subordinate clauses: the latter depend syntactically, and therefore also semantically, on the former. Therefore, it is to be expected that the indefinido, the form that is supposed to render an independent eventuality in focus, occurs more frequently in main clauses, whereas imperfecto’s, which supposedly indicate supportive eventualities, should show a relative preference for subordinate clauses. Subsequently, all examples were analyzed according to this parameter; the results appear in Table 5.16 Table 5 shows that both texts correspond to the parameter as expected, although in different degrees: viuda shows that in 58% of the main clauses an indefinido was used and in 51% of the subordinate clauses an imperfecto form, whereas siesta shows a much stronger preference of 72% in both cases. The

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Table 5: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido over main clauses and subordinate clauses N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

main subord.

078/58% 021/49%

056/42% 022/51%

siesta

main subord.

158/72% 011/28%

062/28% 028/72%

all c2 = 21,5 p < 0,001

main subord.

236/67% 032/39%

118/33% 050/61%

observed tendencies prove to be significant on the 0,001 level. However, in Table 5, also simple sentences (and therefore always main clauses) were taken into account, which might have blurred the results. Therefore, the test of Table 5 was carried out once more, but this time only with complex sentences that contained at least two clauses.17 Table 6 shows that the tendencies are highly comparable to those of Table 5 and even a little bit better, in spite of lower total numbers. Significance also appears to be slightly higher with a c2 of 23,7, as opposed to 21,5 in Table 5, both at the 0,001 level.18 Table 6: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido over main clauses in complex sentences and subordinate clauses N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

main subord.

051/62% 021/49%

31/38% 22/51%

siesta

main subord.

086/76% 011/28%

27/24% 28/72%

all c2 = 23,7 p < 0,001

main subord.

137/70% 032/39%

58/30% 50/61%

It is needless to say, of course, that eventualities in focus may occur in subordinate clauses, for eventualities in focus and main vs. subordinate clauses represent different categorizations of the message, but, as claimed above in the general expectation, they should show a general preference for main clauses, as tables 5 and 6 indeed have demonstrated.

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5.2.5 Symptom 4: human vs. other subjects Another directly observable parameter which can be related semantically to the use of verb tenses is the type of subject: human or other. It should be so that human subjects, which are of more inherent interest to the argumentation line than non-human subjects, occur more frequently with indefinido’s than non human subjects: humans are more likely to be in focus than non-humans. The results of the testing of this parameter are rendered in Table 7 below.19 Table 7: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido with human and inanimate subjects N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

human non-human

080/56% 012/48%

062/44% 013/52%

siesta

human non-human

143/75% 019/40%

047/25% 029/60%

all c2 = 19,1 p < 0,001

human non-human

223/67% 027/39%

109/33% 042/61%

In Table 7, we see that both texts respond in the expected manner to the tested hypothesis: in viuda and siesta, human subjects show a preference for indefinido’s in 56% and 75% of the cases, respectively. Non-human subjects, on the other hand, show preferences for the imperfecto in 52% and 60% of the cases, respectively. Again, this test proves to be significant on the 0,001 level. Also here, it is needless to say that human subjects also appear in supportive eventualities, and even non-human in the ones in focus, but again, the general tendencies are confirmed. 5.2.6 Symptom 5: text structure The last test to be executed in this study is one in which text structure provides a symptom for the proposed meaning of the verb tenses in opposition. As stated earlier (5.1), both texts can be characterized by a double-level structure: at the first level, the actual narration line is presented, and in both stories, at a certain, clearly identifiable moment, the reader is taken to a secondary level, in which the raison d’être for the main story line is presented. This secondary story can therefore be seen as supportive for the main story: it explains why things occur as they do in the main story. In the following fragments the ruptures in the texts are shown. In both, the main story is printed in normal printing and the supportive fragments are printed underlined. It can be seen that, again in both stories,

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the supportive part is clearly separable from the main story line, both at the beginning and at the end.20 In the first fragment, taken from siesta, the main story line has arrived at the point where the priest is filling in the forms in order to lend the two women the keys to the graveyard: El padre empezó a sudar. La niña se desabotonó la rabilla del zapato izquierdo, se descalzó el tacón y lo apoyó en el contrafuerte. Hizo lo mismo con el derecho. Todo había empezado el lunes de la semana anterior, a las tres de la madrugada y a pocas cuadras de allí. La señora Rebeca, una viuda solitaria que vivía en una casa llena de cachivaches, sintió a través del rumor de la llovizna que alguien trataba de forzar desde afuera la puerta de la calle. […] El hombre que amaneció muerto frente a la casa, con la nariz despedazada, vestía una franela a rayas de colores, un pantalón ordinario con una soga en lugar de cinturón, y estaba descalzo. Nadie lo conocía en el pueblo. — De manera que se llamaba Carlos Centeno — murmuró el padre cuando acabó de escribir. “The priest started to sweat. The girl untied her left shoe, took her foot out of the heel and let it rest on top of the heel section of her shoe. She did the same with her right shoe. Everything had started the Monday of the week before, at three o’clock in the morning and only a few blocks away. Mrs. Rebeca, a lonely widow that lived in a house full of bric-a-brac, heard through the noise of the rain that someone tried to break in the street door from the outside. […] The man that appeared dead in front of the house with his nose blown away wore a striped shirt, a common pair of trousers with a piece of rope instead of a belt, and was barefoot. Nobody knew him in the village. — So his name was Carlos Centeno — murmured the priest when he finished writing.”

The next fragment is from viuda, and describes the reason why people ignore the widow after the death of her husband: En espera de clientes que no llegaron, la leche se cortó en los cántaros amontonados en el patio, y se fermentó la miel en sus cueros, y el queso engordó gusanos en los oscuros armarios del depósito. En su mausoleo adornado con bombillas eléctricas y arcángeles en imitación de mármol, José Montiel pagaba seis años de asesinatos y tropelías. Nadie en la historia del país se había enriquecido tanto en tan poco tiempo. Cuando llegó al pueblo el primer alcalde de la dictadura, José Montiel era un discreto partidario de todos los regímenes, que se había pasado la mitad de la vida en calzoncillos sentado a la puerta de su piladora de arroz. […]

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A ese ritmo, en menos de un año estaba liquidada la oposición, y José Montiel era el hombre más rico y poderoso del pueblo. Mandó a sus hijas para París, consiguió a su hijo un puesto consular en Alemania, y se dedicó a consolidar su imperio. Pero no alcanzó a disfrutar seis años de su desaforada riqueza. Después de que se cumplió el primer aniversario de su muerte, la viuda no oyó crujir la escalera sino bajo el peso de una mala noticia. “While waiting for customers that did not arrive, the milk curdled in its containers, piled up in the patio, and the honey fermented in its leather sacks, and the worms grew fat with the cheese in the dark closets of the warehouse. In his tomb, adorned with electric light bulbs and little angels made of imitation marble, José Montiel paid six years of murder and abuse. Nobody in the country had become so rich in so little time. When the first mayor of the dictatorship arrived at the village, José Montiel was a discrete partisan of all regimes, who had spent half of his life sitting by the door of his rice deposit. […] At this pace, within a year the whole opposition was eliminated, and José Montiel was the richest and most powerful man of the village. He sent his daughters to Paris, got a job for his son at a consulate in Germany, and dedicated himself to the consolidation of his empire. But he did not live to enjoy even six years of his extreme richness. After the first anniversary of his death, the widow did not hear the staircase creak if not under the weight of bad news.”

Both fragments are, in fact, a story within the story, and therefore both verb tenses are used. However, since the embedded stories have an explanatory function in the main story lines, it should follow that they consequently are expected to show relatively more imperfecto forms, and in both main story lines, indefinido forms should be relatively more frequent than in the former. The results of this test are rendered in Table 8 below.

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Table 8: Distribution of imperfecto and indefinido in two parts of the story: argumentation line and background N/%

Indefinido

Imperfecto

viuda

arg.line backgr.

083/59% 016/44%

058/41% 020/56%

siesta

arg.line backgr.

158/66% 011/58%

082/34% 008/42%

all c2 = 4,1 p < 0,05

arg.line backgr.

241/63% 027/49%

140/37% 028/51%

Table 8 shows that in both texts, although with different numbers, the expected tendencies are indeed observed: in viuda, the main story line exhibits 59% indefinido forms, whereas in the supportive story this is the case in 44%. In siesta, these numbers are 66% and 58%, respectively. The fact that these numbers are not as high as in the other symptoms, treated above, should not surprise us. In the test of Table 8, we have been comparing different fragments, where both forms should occur with reasonable frequency. The prediction was only that in certain parts of the texts, indefinido forms should occur more frequently than in other parts, because of their mutual functional relation. This has indeed shown to be the case. Moreover, the significance test shows that the observed results, although not as significant as the other tests, are significant at the 0,05 level.

6.

Conclusion

In this article, I have tried to demonstrate, on the basis of independent, empirical data, that the hypothesized meaning as stated in Section 3 is fundamentally correct, as opposed to the general time-based meaning, maintained by the vast majority of grammars and scholars. The test in order to prove the hypothesis was executed by means of some sort of medical examination of the contexts of the two verb-forms, where contextual clues were taken as symptoms or indications of the postulated meaning, which, as stated earlier, is comparable to an illness, in the way that it is also not directly observable. The symptoms that were investigated are the relations of imperfecto vs. indefinido uses and: –

“observable” moving actions

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events main vs. subordinate clauses human vs. other subjects main story vs. embedded story

All clues, which can be related qualitatively to the hypothesized meaning, as explained in the respective sections, proved to be quantitatively related to the use of one or the other past tense, and were statistically significant. The only test that showed to be not significant was the relation of the verb forms with TI’s, the only test that could be related directly to the time-based theories. It is remarkable that it is this clue that proves to be of relatively little interest, because it is the only one that can be related qualitatively both to the hypothesis based on a purely temporal point of view, as to the hypothesis tested in this article. It should be noted that, although some of the other results may be related also to some competing hypotheses, the presented hypothesis in this article is the one that explains all other results. The other tests can be related qualitatively only to the meaning hypothesized in this article, for all other clues imply categorizations in the occurring actions that can be related to a difference in relevance for the main story line: moving actions are presumably more likely to be in focus than non-moving actions in a comparable way as events to nonevents; main clauses are likely to convey main information (i.e., information under focus), whereas subordinate clauses should render subordinate information (i.e., supportive information); it is also self-evident that human subjects are more likely to be in focus than non-human subjects and, finally, both embedded stories have an explanatory, supportive function for the main story lines. These results may be taken as a strong argument for the existence of something like ‘eventuality classification’ in the mind of speakers, and in particular of two categories of eventualities in the past that differ with respect to the speaker’s assessment of their relevance to the ongoing communication. It is the strength of this kind of hypothesis vs. the traditional ones that it is not only capable of describing the “uses” of the forms, but also of justifying their non-random distribution with other contextual elements and even large parts of the contexts. The crucial difference between other theories on the use of simple past tenses and the one presented in this paper, is that we have presented a meaning based, not on real world or linguistic structure alone, but based on a conceptual structure in the mind of speakers as the explanatory relation between linguistic form and the real world that surrounds language users. It is the speaker that establishes this relation via the linguistic means he has at his disposal and in this sense there is no fundamental difference between the functioning of concepts

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indicating lexical items or eventuality types as we have studied here: both imply a categorization in the mind. These results may also be taken as an indication of the explanatory force of the study of human behavior in order to account for the structure of language, because it appears that the hypothesized meaning in this article is not only capable of explaining the clear cases in which all native speakers coincide, but also accounts for the more fuzzy ones: if the option between one or the other verb tense depends fundamentally on the view a speaker has of a particular realworld-situation, and views may vary among speakers, then also the use of the two forms may vary without undermining the fundamental meaning of the opposition.

Acknowledgments I am indebted to Arie Molendijk, Dorien Nieuwenhuijsen, Marjolijn Verspoor, Co Vet and the editors of this volume for helpful suggestions and corrections of my English in earlier versions of this article. All remaining flaws and errors are, of course, my own responsibility. The data presented in this study are largely the result of various seminars on this subject. I am indebted to the students who participated in these seminars, who have inspired me on many occasions, most of the time unwittingly.

Notes 1. I have chosen this denomination instead of “event classification” in view of the fact that in some theories on verb systems, “event” is used to indicate certain eventualities as opposed to “states” that may also be expressed by inflected verbs. In the present paper, the denomination “eventuality” indicates the real-world connection indicated by any inflected verb. 2. This theoretical position was developed at Columbia University, cf. Diver (1975). Other important studies within this framework are García (1975) and Reid (1991). In two words, this theory considers language fundamentally as a communicative device, which is subjected to human behavior. In this theoretical standpoint, not only language as output, but also its internal structure should be the result of the strategies of the language user in order to achieve his communicative goals (Diver 1975: 1–2; García 1975: 40–41), and not the result of any innate language device. In more recent work, Diver rejects the existence of language as an ideal construct, in view of the fact that language learners create their own communication device on the basis of observation of other speakers’ behavior. For reasons of convenience, ‘language’ remains the term used in his and our work, in spite of its inadequacy (Diver 1995: 45). 3. For example, Reichenbach (1966) does not only speak of French, but also of Greek; Diver’s (1969) treatment of Homeric Greek also points into the same direction (see below) and Hopper (1979: 213–216) states that Swahili verb forms possess foreground and background markers that are definitely not temporal. 4. This is, in a nutshell, the principle of reinterpretation. In the example, the boy will soon enough

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correct his wrong interpretation, but the “errors” that remain unnoticed may affect the language system as a whole if they are passed on to greater groups of speakers. 5. Although this might be considered as an aspectual approach to the problem, it can surely be viewed from a temporal point of view: continuation is in itself a temporal statement. 6. The reason for the general absence of this subject matter in generative linguistics is probably because this phenomenon is considered to be language-specific, and therefore of little theoretical interest to Universal Grammar. 7. This can be questioned, for speakers can manipulate verb tenses as compared to real time, as the use of the praesens historicum shows. This could mean, therefore, that also use of verb tenses, other than the opposition studied here, is a focusing device rather than a classification in real time. For an extensive discussion of this matter, cf. Tobin (1989, especially pp. 61–62). 8. All verbs are translated by simple past tenses in order to cut out possible redundancy in English that is absent in Spanish. In some cases, a better translation would be given by means of using verb forms ending in -ing. The fact that it is not difficult to indicate which forms should need these forms in English only strengthens my argument below. The imperfecto-forms are indicated with underlining, the indefinido’s with boldface, both in the original as in the translation. 9. I am taking “time-based” in a broad sense: in many cases, time is related to moments in discourse, but since discourse in itself is always related to the reference point R, all discourse relations may, in this sense, be indirectly related to R. 10. For the chi-square test (c2) and the corresponding probability that the observed differences are due to chance (p < …), see Butler (1985: 112–127). 11. In statistics, a significance of p < 0,05 is generally considered to be significant. 12. And, subsequently, for grammar rules, as has been the case in so many Spanish grammars for foreigners. 13. For the English translation, a complex construction was chosen, in spite of the fact that the Spanish original does not give the construction estaba esperando, which is theoretically also possible. Nevertheless, an English simple past tense cannot render the connotation that the imperfecto has in this sentence and would probably be impossible. We must therefore conclude that both formally equal constructions cannot share the exact same meaning. 14. This should not surprise us. As Langacker states (1987: 120), “These natural tendencies are occasionally overridden, however, and often a scene lacks the striking contrasts or asymmetries that make a particular substructure the obvious one.” 15. With the term ‘event’, I am not referring to any technical term in a specific framework, but to its literal every-day meaning, namely of something that is happening. I am parting from the idea, however, that in general it is possible to distinguish between verbs that indicate events and verbs that do not. For example, a verb like to be does not indicate an event, whereas a verb like to go as a main verb, does. 16. There was only one problem in classifying between main and subordinate clauses: it is not certain whether mientras is a coordinate or a subordinate conjunction. It can appear as an independent adverb, meaning “in the meantime”, and then it is generally followed by a comma. On the other hand, since there is also a clear subordinate construction with mientras que “whereas”, I decided to classify clauses introduced with mientras as main ones, because it lacks the unquestionably subordinate element que. Below, an example of such a case is given. [Siesta] Mientras comían, el tren atravesó muy despacio un puente de hierro y pasó de largo por un pueblo igual a los anteriores, sólo que en este había una multitud en la plaza.

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BOB DE JONGE “While they were eating, the train passed an iron bridge very slowly and passed through a village just like the ones they had passed already, only in this one there was a crowd on the main square.”

17. These complex sentences contain at least one main clause and another, main or subordinate one. 18. This is a remarkable fact, because, all other things being equal, lower totals would automatically have given a lower c2-ratio. The observed difference was not only enough to neutralize this effect, but even produced a higher c2. 19. Totals are slightly lower than in other tables, for I did not take into account impersonal constructions with hay, those which do not have an identifiable subject and those which have an inanimate subject, but in the real world have a human experiencer. The following example is such a case; in the italic form it is clear that the sea wind must be felt by humans, but grammatically “the sea wind” is the subject. Since I do not know how this construction may influence the choice of the verb form, these constructions were excluded from this test. [siesta] El tren salió del trepidante corredor de rocas bermejas, penetró en las plantaciones de banano, simétricas e interminables, y el aire se hizo húmedo y no se volvió a sentir la brisa del mar. “The train left the stumbling strip, made of red rocks, penetrated the symmetrical and endless banana plantations, and the air turned humid and the sea wind was not felt any more.” 20. To conserve space, the entire fragments are not printed here. In both fragments no reference is made to the main story line until the end of the background fragments.

References Andersen, Elaine S. 1978. “Body-part Terminology”. Universals of Human Language ed. by Joseph H. Greenberg, Vol. 3, Word Structure, 335–368. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Butler, Christopher 1985. Statistics in Linguistics. Oxford & New York: Blackwell. Diver, William 1969. “The System of Relevance of the Homeric Verb”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 12. 45–68. ———. 1975. “Introduction”. Columbia University Working Papers in Linguistics 2, Fall. 1–26. ———. 1995. “Theory”. Meaning as Explanation. Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory. (=Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 84) ed. by Ellen Contini-Morava and Barbara Sussman Goldberg, 43–114. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. García, Érica 1975. The Role of Theory in Linguistic Analysis: the Spanish Pronoun System. Amsterdam: North Holland. García, Érica, & Florimón van Putte 1988. “The value of Contrast: Contrasting the Value of Strategies”. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 26:4. 263–280. García Márquez, Gabriel 1984. Ojos de Perro Azul. Bogotá: La oveja Negra. ———. 1994. Los Funerales de la Mamá Grande. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes. Gili Gaya, Samuel 1961. Curso Superior de Sintaxis Española. Barcelona: Bibliograf.

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Hirtle, Walter 1995. “Meaning, Data and Testing Hypotheses”. Meaning as Explanation. Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory. (=Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 84) ed. by Ellen Contini-Morava and Barbara Sussman Goldberg, 153–168. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hopper, Paul 1979. “Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse”. Discourse and Syntax. (= Syntax and Semantics 12) ed. by Talmy Givón . 213–241. ———. & Sandra A. Thompson 1980. “Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse”. Language 56:2. 251–299. De Jonge, Bob 1994. “Functionele Uitgangspunten voor het Grammatica-onderwijs. De Verleden Tijden in het Spaans”. Levende Talen 492. 411–415. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I, Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Lyons, John 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Molendijk, Arie 1990. Le Passé Simple et l’Imparfait: une Approche Reichenbachienne. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Reichenbach, Hans 1966 [1947]. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: The Free Press. Reid, Wallis 1980. “Meaning and Narrative Structure”. Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 5. 12–20. ———. 1991. Verb & Noun Number in English: A Functional Explanation. London and New York: Longman. Rojo, Guillermo 1990. “Relaciones entre Temporalidad y Aspecto en el Verbo Español”. Tiempo y Aspecto en Español ed. by Ignacio Bosque, 17–44. Madrid: Cátedra. Tobin, Yishai 1989. “Space, time and point of view in the Modern Hebrew verb”. From Sign to Text ed. by Yishai Tobin, 61–93. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs 1978. “On the Expression of Spatio-Temporal Relations in Language”. Universals of Human Language ed. by Joseph H. Greenberg, Vol. 3, Word Structure, 369–400. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Weinrich, Harald 1968. Estructura y Función de los Tiempos en el Lenguaje. Madrid: Gredos. Zagona, Karen 1994. “Perfectivity and Temporal Arguments”. Issues and Theory in Romance Linguistics: Selected papers from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages XXIII, April 1–4, 1993, 523–546. Washington D.C.: Georgetown U.P.

Resultativeness Constructions with Phrasal Verbs in Focus Marina Gorlach Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

He grabbed my hand and led me toward the door. “Hold on,” I said. “I want to check this book out.” At the circulation desk, he gave me a quick kiss. “Oh and just for the record,” he said, “it’s ‘I want to check out this book.’ You don’t split your verb phrase.” (Lamb 1992: 317)

1.

Introduction

Resultativeness has very rarely been treated as a linguistic category in its own right, though the concept of resultativeness as a lexical-grammatical category has lingered long in the arena of linguistic discussion. It was applied in an intuitive way in studies on the topic of aspect and aspectuality in English and mentioned in a peripheral way in respect to a wide range of grammatical phenomena. Generally, it has been merged with the perfective aspect or the passive voice (cf. Streitberg 1889; Poutsma 1926; Jespersen 1924; Hirtle 1975; Comrie 1976; Nedjalkov 1988), or attributed to the semantics of certain word classes (cf. Quirk et al. 1982; Forsyth 1970; Bolinger 1971), or morphemes (Chafe 1970). This article is a review of the notion of resultativeness and aspires to define its status as a linguistic category, finding a common denominator for multiple manifestations of this category, making the specific focus on English and the role of resultativeness in that language. The problem will be approached from the sign-oriented point of view, based on the concepts of invariance, markedness and distinctive feature theory. I will support my theoretical claims by providing lexical and grammatical means of its representation in the language.

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The category of result, or resultativeness, rather frequently used in passing, did not seem to require a precise definition, since it was thought of as a subcategory of aspect, which itself was a source for much controversy. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the inadequacy of merging or delimiting resultativeness to ‘aspectual’, ‘passive’ or any other role, to show the system of oppositions of linguistic signs based on the distinctive feature of resultativeness, and to present my findings about the special status and legitimacy of resultativeness in a particular group of verb-particle (phrasal) constructions. I will show that the category of resultativeness is represented in English by a system of lexical-grammatical oppositions, among them: a. b.

the opposition ‘simple verb phrase’ versus ‘phrasal construction’: break the vase — break up the vase the opposition ‘phrasal construction with adjacent particle’ versus ‘phrasal construction with postposed particle’: break up the vase — break the vase up

I suggest that the members of the system: c.

simple verb + NP — [V Prt NP] construction — [V NP Prt] construction break the vase — break up the vase — break the vase up

establish oppositions based on different degrees of resultativeness in their meaning, its intensity increasing as we proceed to the right. The members of this system stand in the relationship of ‘unmarked for result’ versus ‘marked for result’, being thus one of concrete realizations of the category of resultativeness in English. The Problem In this article I wish to examine the following problems: a. The notion of resultativeness. b. The language means used to express the category of resultativeness. c. Resultativeness and the system ‘V NP — V Prt NP — V NP Prt’.

2.

Methodological Premises

I shall follow a basic sign-oriented theoretical and methodological linguistic approach to language as originally presented in Tobin (1990). The main theoretical foundations I will rely on are: linguistic sign theory, invariant meaning, markedness and distinctive feature theory. I will examine the non-random

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distribution of V NP constructions with nominal direct object versus parallel phrasal constructions, as well as the non-random word-order distribution of the two types of phrasal verb constructions (the alternative position of the particle) as a possible way of expressing resultativeness.

3.

The Notion of Resultativeness

If we investigate the historical development of the category of resultativeness in the English language, we find out that no clear definition was ever postulated for it, or at least no two linguists agree upon it. Many scholars have attempted to assign a ‘resultative meaning’ to the various tenses and aspects of English, particularly to ‘perfect’ tenses or to the passive voice, others attributed it to certain morphemes, functional words or word forms. 3.1 Traditional Analyses In Jespersen (1924) and Poutsma (1926) the term ‘result’ was applied to an element of the semantics of the perfect, different from the purely temporal one. They did not necessarily regard the concept of result as a category, which may, in itself, include all aspects of a possible cognitive and perceptual universal. Moreover, alongside the term ‘completion’, used by Charleston (1941) and Allen (1966), the notion of ‘result’ (‘resultative’) is often implied by the terms ‘effect’ or ‘consequences’, used in analogical contexts (cf. Onions 1904; Poutsma 1926; Joos 1964; Comrie 1986). The distinction between lexical and grammatical forms, based on the claim they make (or not) for the result of the action/event, was observed and discussed, though usually rather marginally, by various authors representing many linguistic schools. It was pointed out in regard to certain morphemes and lexical words, verbal categories and forms, as well as syntactic patterns and structures. The phenomenon was treated from different angles and analyzed within different theoretical frameworks, but the task to establish a system of oppositions underlying the category of resultativeness in English has yet to be accomplished and serves as a topic for future discussion. I will try here to bring these analyses together and add my own in search of a lexical-grammatical system to distinguish English verb forms according to the degree of resultativeness in their invariant meaning. Generative grammarians regard resultatives as a type of transformation, for example, the definition we find in Chafe (1970) holds:

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MARINA GORLACH The item labeled resultative is a derivational unit, which converts a verb root, which is intrinsically a process into one, which is derivatively a state. process → state The dish broke. root root + resultative The dish is broken. (Chafe 1970: 124)

As follows from the definition, the term ‘resultative’ refers here to the suffix -en, added to the verb denoting the state derived from the process, and applied regularly for passive derivation. In Comrie (1976) the term ‘resultative’ is interpreted as “…indicating the successful completion of a situation.” Further Comrie suggests a concept of resultativity: But the resultativity is only one possible type of perfectivity, and the term ‘resultative’, like the term ‘completed’, puts unnecessary emphasis on the final stage of the situation rather than on its totality. [italics mine] [M.G.] (Comrie 1976: 21)

What follows from the definition is that resultativeness is associated and included in the aspectual category of perfectivity, its meaning being judged by a criterion of success which seems to be too vague and ambiguous to serve as the basis for the categorization or establishment of oppositions. In my view the negative or zero result remains yet to be a result, which makes me disagree with Comrie’s position in regard to ‘successfulness’ of the action completion as equal to the result achieved or intended. Furthermore, the ‘completion’ of the action should be distinguished from its ‘completeness’, which implies that “the speaker has in mind the performance of the action as a total event” (Forsyth 1970: 11), or an ‘indivisible whole’, i.e. together with its outcome. ‘Completeness’ does not necessarily imply the actual completion of the action, since it may be located in future time, while an action related to the past time may specifically not have been carried out. On the other hand, an action, which in reality is completed, may nevertheless be perceived as ‘finished’ in a temporal sense only, without having in view its result. Therefore we find the concept ‘completeness’ much closer to the resultative reading: the speaker has in mind the performance of the action as a total event, including its result. The authors of A University Grammar of English, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik, claim that the resultative meaning is a semantic property of prepositions or prepositional phrases, for example, of over: 6.16 Resultative meaning All prepositions which have motional meaning can also have a static resultative meaning indicating the state of having reached the destination:

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I managed to get over the fence (i.e. so that I was then on the other side) Resultative meaning is not always distinguishable out of context from other static meanings; its presence is often signaled, however, by certain adverbs: already, just, at last, (not) yet, etc. (Quirk et al. 1982: 142)

The difficulties experienced in establishing the category of resultativeness in English are sometimes ascribed to the fact that this category was borrowed or mechanically transmitted from the Slavonic languages, where any verb belongs inevitably to either perfective or imperfective aspect. The grammarians investigating the Slavic verb, usually mention the term ‘result’ referring to the category of aspect. Streitberg (1889) distinguished between ‘three semantic categories’ which govern the whole verbal system of the Slavonic as well as the Baltic dialects: (1) (2) (3)

the imperfective or durative or continuous aspect which gives the action in its uninterrupted duration or continuity; The perfective or resultative aspect, which adds the additional notion of termination to the sense of the verb; The iterative aspect, which gives the notion of its repetition. (Chatterjee 1988: 5)

Here the term ‘resultative’ serves for denoting the semantic category whose meaning is deemed to be identical to the ‘perfective’, though, as will be shown further, these categories overlap only partially, remaining independent and distinct. A similar approach is found in Forsyth (1970) in his thorough analysis of the aspect of the Russian verb: The category of aspect indicates that the action expressed by the verb is presented: (a) in its course, in process of its performance…; (b) as something restricted, concentrated at some limit of its performance, be it the moment of its origin or beginning of the action or the moment of its completion or result… [italics mine] [M.G.] (Forsyth 1970: 3)

The resultative meaning is one of the basic meanings of the perfective verb in Russian, according to Forsyth: “(b) The perfective verb is consequently used whenever emphasis is placed upon a new state of affairs produced by the action, i.e. the result or consequence of the action.” [italics mine] [M.G.] (Forsyth 1970: 8) Forsyth remarks further that “This does not mean that ‘result’ is the principal meaning of the perfective, as is assumed, for instance, by Mazon. Many

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actions, expressed by perfective verbs produce no results beyond themselves” (Forsyth 1970: 8f.). As far as Forsyth’s interpretation of the term ‘resultative’ is concerned, he restricts this category to a very specific semantic group included into ‘procedurals’ (Aktionsarten): The only type of procedural to which the name resultative can be properly attached is that formed by the addition to a simple verb of the prefix do- and the reflexive particle, and expressing achievement of the desired result or, ironically, performance of the action to an undesirable or absurd degree: dobudilsa, dozvonilsa. (Forsyth 1970: 23)

Each aspectual form in Russian has its own morphologic means of derivation, usually prefixes, suffixes or auxiliaries, as well as their combinations, i.e. uses both synthetic and analytical ways of word-formation, and the two forms establish a regular opposition as to the distinctive feature of completion or result of the action/event: budil [‘woke/was waking someone up’] — dobudilsa [‘have/ has been waking someone up and finally succeeded’]; zvonil [‘called/was calling’] — dozvonilsa [‘have/has been calling for a long time and finally succeeded’]. One of the basic works devoted to the resultativeness is Nedjalkov’s “Typology of resultative constructions” where he defines the term ‘resultative’ in the following way: The term resultative is applied to those verb forms that express a state implying a previous event. The difference between the stative and the resultative is as follows: the stative expresses a state of a thing without any implication of its origin, while the resultative expresses both a state and the preceding action it has resulted from. [italics mine] [M.G.] (Nedjalkov 1988: 6)

In his cross-linguistic analysis, Nedjalkov sums up that resultatives may constitute part of other verbal categories and gives five possible types of relationship between the resultative form and other grammatical categories in various languages: The resultative form enters into the system of tense forms (e.g., Archi, where it is called the perfect). – The resultative form is one of the voice forms (e.g., German). – The resultative is one of the two forms of a special category (neither tense nor voice), e.g., pre-literary Ancient Greek (the stative form made up an opposition with the dynamic form). – The resultative is one of the functions of some other form, entering into

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either the voice, or aspect, or tense system (e.g., Russian, Chinese, Selkup). – The resultative occurs at a juncture of two categories (e.g., Evenki, where it is represented by passive forms in the perfect only). (Nedjalkov 1988: 22)

As far as the English language is concerned, Nedjalkov claims that the English resultative is homonymous with the passive form, and regards the opposition of perfective versus passive forms presented below as a regular way to derive resultative forms in English verbs: (1) (2) (3)

John has built the house — The house is built; John has opened his eyes — John’s eyes are opened; John’s eyes have inflamed. — John’s eyes are inflamed (Nedjalkov 1988: 7–8)

I agree that the meaning of English passive forms may usually contain the element of resultativeness, but I view resultativeness as a wider lexical-grammatical category, distinct from passive, perfect or other categories, which may partially overlap in form with the passive, remaining voice-neutral per se. To support this view, I will present examples of resultative constructions in the active voice which exist alongside those in the passive, since the category of resultativeness is not restricted to any specific tense, aspect, voice or mood, but cuts across all of them. English is considered to be a ‘tense’ versus ‘aspect’ language, and probably for this reason it has been defined as having developed no morphological way to derive resultative forms of verbs. Consequently, the opposition process/result was analyzed in English mostly in semantic terms, which, in turn, resulted in a diversity of meanings that various linguists attached to this notion. The definitions of resultativeness, or resultativity, as suggested by the traditional grammarians, may be divided rather schematically into several groups: 1. Resultative = Perfective (Jespersen, Poutsma, Comrie, Charleston, Onions, Joos, Streitberg, and others) 2. Resultative = Passive (Nedjalkov) 3. Resultativity = One of semantic properties of word classes (Quirk et al. — of prepositions; Forsyth — of verbs; Chafe — of morphemes) This analysis indicates that merging the category of result with the passive voice in a manner similar to its merging with the perfective aspect is erroneous and theoretically unsound, since each of these categories has its own meaning and

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morphological means of expression. Thus the category of resultativeness has not been elaborated sufficiently by traditional grammarians due to its rather specific and non-obvious means of morphological representation. This will be the topic of discussion in the next section. 3.2 Sign-Oriented Analyses Some sign-oriented analyses show the tendency to relate the notion of aspect in general to the ‘boundaries’ of predication within the time-field, or to discuss the phenomenon within a ‘boundaries of orientation’ approach, which distinguishes the action as perceived as a whole within a predication or, on the contrary, when the predication is within the boundaries. Such an approach is found in Diver (1986), Huffman (1989), Penhallurick (1981) and others. Allen (1966), being a representative of Jakobsonian-van-Schooneveldian School, sets up a markedness relationship between the inclusive (or perfective) and intrusive (or imperfect) aspects based on the concepts of ‘completion’ or ‘non-completion’. He argues the view that the meaning of resultativeness is identical to that of the perfect, and validates his hypothesis by means of examples of sentences where the verbs in the perfect lack the ‘element of result’ in their meaning: …the ‘element of result’ felt to be present in a given sentence containing a present perfect verb-cluster probably comes from the lexical meaning of the verb or of some other word or words in the sentence rather than from the grammatical form of the cluster. The ‘element of result’ does not seem to be evident — at least to the present writer — in sentences like the following, for example: I’ve seen it before. It’s only been three or four times that we’ve come face to face. (Allen 1966: 220)

Allen believes that the concrete result (cf. ‘element of result’) should be distinguished from the result phase of the event (cf. the expression ‘before now’), and is by no means obligatory in the sentences containing a present perfect verbcluster. Hirtle (1975), belonging to the Guillaumean Psychomechanics School, has analyzed the correlation of the action and its result. He regards the English aspect system as involving two positions or moments, one in which any development, any duration, any actualization is represented as taking place within the confines of the event’s duration, the other in which the only event time open to further duration is the result phase, the interior of the event being left behind. To strengthen this view, the Guillaumean chart of ‘notional chronology’

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where the following oppositions are established in the framework of Psychomechanics School is cited: before cause condition operation

after effect consequence result

The Guillaumean approach to actions, states and events as being divided according to their result- versus process-oriented phases leads into my approach to the problem. The term ‘resultative’ has been often associated in English with the socalled verb–particle combinations, or phrasal verbs. Bolinger (1971) in his discussion of the English phrasal verbs points out: “The notion of resultant condition is essential to phrasal verbs. …the phrasal verb pictures the action as leading to a conclusion. The same can be cited, of course, for resultant condition: resultant condition implies perfectivity.” I cannot accept this last assumption, because I see no reason why any two categories having presumably the same meaning should co-exist in language. It contradicts the basic premises of the sign-oriented theory, advocating economy and efficiency of language and striving to explain the individual contribution of each sign to the whole system. Tobin (1993) devotes great attention to the place of the category of result in the English verb within the lexical-grammatical system of the language, and defines it as “a fundamental semantic distinctive feature which cuts across almost all traditional categories: verb, noun, adjective, infinitive, gerund, participle, particle, auxiliary.”

Tobin claims further that the concepts of process and result should be viewed as part of a primary distinctive feature in language, instead of being ignored or mentioned as a secondary principle of categorization within the realm of verbal aspect, inferior to the opposition of ‘perfective’ versus ‘imperfective’. He proposes that “language may reflect two fundamental ways of viewing actions, states, or events; either as focusing on the (ongoing) process involved in the action, state, or event, or, alternatively, from the point of view of the result (outcome, endpoint, consequence, completion, destination, or telic or teleological goal).” (Tobin 1993: 15) We may conclude that the authors who investigated the category of resultativeness used different terms, which reflected the different meanings they

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assigned to it: ‘result’, ‘completion’, ‘completeness’, ‘effect’, ‘consequence’, ‘resultative’, ‘resultant condition’, ‘the result phase’, ‘result-orientation’, etc. Beside the meaning identical with perfective or passive, the resultative message is described as expressing both a state and the preceding action (Nedjalkov), or an action viewed together with its future result (Tobin). I base my hypothesis on Tobin’s view of resultativeness, though my analysis, unlike his, deals with syntactic units (constructions) rather than lexical pairs, auxiliaries, irregular verbs or infinitives, and my definition of the resultativeness widens the scope of the meaning attached to this category. The meaning I assign to resultativeness — actions and events viewed integrally with their result be it achieved or intended–attempts to cover the whole range of the invariant meaning of this linguistic category.

4.

The language means used to express the category of resultativeness

Resultativeness, like any other category in language, is regarded by sign-oriented theory as a linguistic sign, composed of concept and sound pattern. One of the reasons why resultativeness remains a poorly defined category is that it embraces both lexical and grammatical levels going beyond each of them. In order to arrive at a comprehensive definition of resultativeness I am to determine the signal of this linguistic sign, which is manifested in an inventory of language forms used to signify the resultative meaning. My claim is that resultativeness exists in language as a distinctive semiotic or semantic feature, which may be realized as part of a marked invariant meaning for numerous language forms. This approach is based on the assumption that there exist two alternative ways of perceiving actions and events: either as making special claim for the result (the marked form) or making no such claim (the unmarked or neutral form). I am going to argue that English did not develop a regular opposition based on the semantic feature of resultativeness, and therefore this category has no morphological or other (like word order, for example) representations in the language. I wish to suggest instead a systematic opposition based on this semantic distinctive feature to supplement the system of lexical-grammatical oppositions set forth by Tobin (1993). I believe that the reason for the controversy or negligence, which characterizes the treatment of the category of result in the linguistic literature is the failure

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to find any systematic morphological or other way to represent the opposition of resultative versus non-resultative meaning. Any category can only be defined and analyzed adequately provided it has its own means of expression in language: “…not to admit any semantic category which does not correspond to a means of expression in the language itself.” (Zandwoort 1962: 18) Reviewing the previous analyses we come across a number of systems of oppositions based on the distinctive feature of result, each of them dealing with a particular phenomenon and discussing it separately, which I will attempt to unite into an orderly system — one of the essential subsystems of language. My hypothesis is that each verbal category is in a marked/unmarked relationship with some other category as to the distinctive feature of result, this opposition underlying both lexical verbs and their grammatical forms. Tobin (1993) provided a detailed analysis of troublesome pairs of verbs, belonging to various semantic groups, whose meaning is usually referred to as synonymous: (4) (5) (6) (7)

performative verbs do — make sensory verbs look — see; listen — hear speech act verbs say — tell; speak — talk aspectual verbs begin — start; end — finish; shut — close

The sign-oriented analysis of these lexical pairs, carried out by Tobin, presents a non-synonymy explanation of the non-random distribution of these forms in speech based on their invariant meanings and concrete discourse messages. The invariant meaning integrates two issues: a) a common semantic domain shared by the two forms, and b) distinctive semantic features placed in an asymmetric relationship of marked/unmarked forms, serving as a basis of systematic distinction between them. The members of each pair stand in opposition as to the distinctive feature of result, one of them making a special claim for it, and the other being unmarked or neutral, i.e. presenting an action or event as either process or result: (8)

do (U) versus make (M); look (U) versus see (M), etc.

The role of process-marker performed by the verb do is motivated by its invariant meaning, which is unmarked for process/result, compare: (9) (10)

What did you do today? [either process or result] What did you make today? [result] (Tobin 1993: 40)

It remains such in all the uses of this verb, including its auxiliary function, which belongs rather to the grammar of the language, than to the lexicon.

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Several recent analyses are devoted to the contrasting of grammatical categories based on the resultative meaning they possess (e.g., Vestergaard 1977; Beedham 1982; Huffman 1989; Vanrespaille 1989; Battistella 1990; Fradkin 1991). They discuss the invariant meaning of the derivational suffixes and auxiliaries and the oppositions established by the derived verbal categories. Huffman (1989: 113–114) suggests that the suffixes used for deriving the English participles (-ing and -ed) each has a constant semantic value (invariant meaning in our terms) and compose a two-member grammatical system. The suffix -ed is used here to include any #III form of the verb. He formulates their respective invariant meanings as ‘actual activity’ (MORE VIVID) versus ‘a state resulting from the activity’ (LESS VIVID) which may be translated as ‘process’ (-ing) versus ‘result’ (-ed) opposition displayed on the morphemic level: (11)

a. b.

When I got to the office I found John going. When I got to the office I found John gone.

Since -ing signifies the present participle or gerund, and -ed is a marker of the past participle, it is logical to view the oppositions of corresponding categories: Progressive versus Perfect; Progressive versus Passive as based on the semantic feature of result in their invariant meaning. (12)

a. b.

The dog is biting. — The dog has bitten. The dog is biting. — The dog is bitten.

Fradkin (1991) postulates the invariant meaning for the -ing forms as referring either to the action in general or to particular instances of the action: is cooking; was defrosting. The invariant meaning of the -ed forms he defines as describing “results of actions, rather than actions themselves” (Fradkin 1991: 165). Therefore, the progressive forms may be regarded as unmarked for result as contrasted to marked perfect forms, the same being true about the opposition of progressive versus passive forms. The second elements of these compound forms, namely auxiliaries be and have, also establish an opposition based on markedness, where be is unmarked for process/result, and have is marked for result (see Tobin 1993: 298–9). The above example may illustrate both the opposition of participles and that of auxiliaries: (13)

The dog is biting. — The dog has bitten.

The result-based oppositions are found not only in the English aspect system, but also in the voice. I have already shown that resultativeness has been often merged with the passive voice due to the vivid resultative meaning it conveys.

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“The passive emphasizes the result of the event rather than describing the event itself, which is considered to be already known.” (van Schooneveld 1989: 106) This view has a lot in common with Nedjalkov, who identifies English resultative with passive, or Chafe, who applies the term ‘resultative’ to the passive derivation. The meaning of the passive voice includes the resultative meaning, which allows us to regard the opposition of active versus passive forms as based on the process/result distinction between the two forms: active forms are neutral for the result of the action or event they indicate, whereas passive forms are marked for result. In the opposition ‘broke’ — ‘was broken’ the first member may either suggest resultative reading or not (I saw how the dish broke), while the second reports the action viewed together with its result, leading to a change of state (The dish was broken under her very eyes). Beedham (1987) draws our attention to “close similarity in meaning between the passive and the resultative perfect. Both constructions express a state as the result of an action…” (Beedham 1987: 10) The marked resultative meaning of the passive forms makes Beedham identify it with ‘aspect’, replacing the traditional division into aspect-voice by the classification of verb categories according to the degree of result in their invariant meaning. Morphologically, however, there exists an even subtler distinction: between the participles derived by -en and -ed suffixes. The -ed participles indicate actions integrally with their result, whereas the -en participles report states either resulting from the previous action or not (see Huffman 1989). Another distinction according to the distinctive feature of result exists between two English passives: the so-called ‘be-passive’ and ‘get-passive’, the latter form being marked for result even more due to the resultative meaning of the auxiliary ‘get’ versus ‘be’: The BE-passive can have either a stative meaning or an actional meaning. The GET-passive, however, can never be stative. It is always actional. But at the same time a reference to the outcome of the action, the result is implied. Compare: The book was lost. (stative or actional) The book got lost. (actional and resultative) (Vanrespaille 1989) (quoted in Tobin 1993: 263)

My assumption is that though the distinction neutral/resultative is displayed in both progressive-perfect and active-passive oppositions, neither ‘passive’ nor ‘perfect’ is equivalent to ‘resultative’, since none of them is the only language form possessing resultativeness as a part of its invariant meaning. One of the main sign-oriented principles holds that no two linguistic signs (in our case

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lexical-grammatical categories) are fully synonymous, so let us continue looking for still other means of expressing resultativeness in language, which may prove to be more specific. Recently a great deal of attention has been paid to the so-called ‘resultative constructions’ (cf. Jackendoff 1997; Carrier & Randall 1992; Simpson 1983; Tenny 1994; Levin and Rappaport 1995). Levin and Rappaport’s (1995) analysis of the syntax of the resultative constructions provides a definition of the resultative construction as a structure: A resultative phrase is an XP that denotes the state achieved by the referent of the NP it is predicated of as a result of the action denoted by the verb in the resultative construction. (Levin and Rappaport 1995: 34)

The fixed word order typical of resultative constructions may be presented as V + NP + Resultative phrase, where the latter element is expressed by ‘resultatives’: adjectives, verb-particles and adverbs, occupying a permanent position in the structure of the resultative construction — following the direct object. (14) (15) (16)

Woolite safely soaks all your fine washables clean… Sylvester cried his eyes out. Sleep your wrinkles away. (Levin and Rappaport, 1995: 34)

We see from the above examples that the resultative constructions are distinguished structurally by [verb-direct object-’resultative’] word order, accompanied by a special intonation pattern: the final element must be stressed. The role of word order as a linguistic sign was suggested also in Waugh (1976) referring to the position of French adjectives and in Klein-Andreu (1983) referring to the same phenomenon in Spanish. Diver (1986) bases his Systems of Differentiation on the adjective position as to the direct object and illustrates his view by presenting the following minimal pairs: (17) (18)

Differentiation from Other He painted the red barn. He left the empty house.

Differentiation from Self He painted the barn red. He left the house empty.

The right column contains constructions we refer to as ‘resultative’. They imply a change in the state of the object, thus achieving the desired result, while their discontinuous structure is typical of resultative constructions both syntactically and prosodically. In the investigation of the aspectual role of resultative constructions Tenny (1994) draws a parallel between extraposed verb particles and resultatives. She

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uses the terms ‘verb particle’ and ‘resultative’ as synonyms, emphasizing this way the similarity of their position and meaning: Resultatives, like verb particles, serve the semantic function of introducing a temporal endpoint and measuring-out to the event. Particles do this by indicating the event ‘travels through’ the object completely (e.g. eat the apple up) and resultatives by indicating the endpoint is achieved when the object is in a certain state (e.g. paint the barn red). (Tenny 1994: 152)

These and other up-to-date analyses of resultative constructions make me associate resultativeness with a special type of word order, which appears to function as a linguistic sign distinguishing meaning and marked for result. Resultativeness — my hypothesis: a lexical-grammatical category which reflects a fundamental way of perceiving actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result, characterized by a specific word order. The language forms involved in marked/unmarked relationship based on the distinctive feature of result include verbal morphology (-ing versus -ed, -en versus -ed, be versus have, be versus get, etc.), lexical meaning (begin versus start), grammatical categories (active versus passive, progressive versus perfect, simple versus phrasal verbs), word order and stress, cutting this way across all the traditional categories and justifying the application of one and the same set of principles (invariant meaning, markedness and distinctive feature theory) for the analysis of various language phenomena.

5.

The system ‘V NP — V Prt NP — V NP Prt’

This section intends to show that in the oppositions of VP containing simple verbs versus those containing phrasal verbs with particle either preceding or following the NP, each member has its specific invariant meaning, and that the established opposition reflects a fundamental distinction relevant for all languages, namely the perception of actions/events as either result-oriented or process-oriented: to eat the apple — to eat up the apple — to eat the apple up My hypothesis is that the VP composed of a simple verb + NP has the invariant meaning of PRESENTATION OF ACTION/EVENT AS NEUTRAL FOR THE RESULT, depending on the lexical meaning of the verb itself and the construction it appears in. The verb-particle combinations where the particle precedes the

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NP, possess the invariant meaning, which may be postulated as PRESENTATION OF ACTION/EVENT AS EITHER PROCESS OR RESULT WITH GREATER POSSIBILITY FOR RESULT as compared to the simple VPs. The invariant meaning for the verb-particle combinations, where the particle follows the NP, may be postulated as PRESENTATION OF ACTION/EVENT AS RESULTATIVE, irrespective of the initial lexical meaning of the verb: (19) (20) (21)

to eat the apple to eat up the apple to eat the apple up

either process or result greater possibility for result compulsory claim for result

The verb-particle constructions similar to (20) will be further referred to as continuous phrasal constructions, and those similar to (21) — as discontinuous ones. Prior to this study, none of the major linguistic analyses of Modern English has presented or even aimed at presenting an adequate explanation of why English speakers may choose phrasal verbs over simple ones, as well as one structural variant of verb-particle construction as opposed to the other in concrete discourse situations. The syntax of the verb-particle constructions has been often found ‘not suitable’ and difficult to put into the preconceived grammatical categories, both syntactic and morphological, since they can hardly be explained in terms of noun (verb) phrase: … the Verb^Particle construction is a unique lexical item (such as ‘look up’, ‘bring off’, ‘look over’). In all cases, however, the syntactic structure is apparently the same, with respect to the possibility of applying familiar transformational rules. I see no way, for the present, to give a thoroughly satisfactory treatment of this general question. (Chomsky 1965: 190)

Further, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time this phenomenon is being analyzed within the theoretical and methodological framework of the signoriented approach. The hypothesis that there might be at least a slight semantic distinction between any physically distinct forms arises from the very concept of the linguistic sign, which serves a basis of the semiotic linguistic theory. The linguistic sign perceived semiotically is a single unit composed of a signal in the form of concrete morphological forms, zero morphology or word order, inseparably connected to a concept in the form of an abstract invariant meaning (Saussure 1983). Consequently, one of the theoretical assumptions underlying the signoriented approach, which has been postulated by linguists from different postSaussurean linguistic schools, such as the Jakobsonian-van-Schooneveldian

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school, the Columbia school and the Guillaumean school, is that there must be a strict correspondence between form and meaning, which is justified, on the one hand, by the requirements of the communication factor: the linguistic signs establish oppositions which enable the speakers to encode and decode messages; and, on the other hand, by the demands of the human factor, as presented in Tobin (1990): human efficiency, human intelligence and memory limitations require that only one meaning be attached to one signal. As it is formulated by Penhallurick: There are, in fact, strong reasons for assuming that the normal relationship between form and meaning, particularly with grammatical forms, is one-to-one. This is the normal relation between form and meaning in all other systems of communication, whether human or not. If human languages are in some fundamental sense systems of communication, then we should expect them to share this basic characteristic with other such systems. (Penhallurick 1987: 104)

It can be logically concluded that a change of signal (form) should bring about some change in concept (meaning), and vice versa, i.e., there should be internal reason (motivated by the meaning implied) for any change of external signal. Bolinger has suggested the following rule: … any word that a language permits to survive must make its semantic contribution; and the same holds for any construction that is physically distinct from any other construction. (Bolinger 1977:p.ix)

Bolinger (1971) views the nature of the resultative meaning of phrasal verbs as motivated exclusively by the semantic properties of the particle forming a phrasal verb: The importance of the resultant condition suggests a hypothesis about the nature of the adverbial particles that may form part of a phrasal verb. I offer this: In its core meaning … the particle must contain two features, one of motion-through-location, the other of terminus or result. [italics mine] [M.G.] (Bolinger 1971: 85)

I disagree with Bolinger on this last point, since as I have shown already, resultativeness is not restricted to the semantics of particles, prepositions or other word classes, but rather is an independent lexical-grammatical category expressed through the combined effect of several factors, such as lexical meaning, specific derivation, word order and prosody. Simple verb phrases, as well as continuous and discontinuous phrasal constructions, are distinct signs, where the signals are grouped together in different ways. My claim, therefore, is that their meaning is not identical, which

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does not obligatorily imply that it differs greatly. Yet I insist that the existence of different forms in language must be explained and justified, instead of being overlooked and ignored, since “the task confronting linguistics resembles that of other sciences and consists in searching for explanation of the non-random character of observable phenomena”. (Diver 1969: 45) The explicit distinction in word order as reflection of implicit semantic distinction of VPs with simple verbs and phrasal constructions may be explained by the varying degrees of resultativeness conveyed in their meaning. The format I suggest for this analysis is based on the systematic opposition of simple verbs versus phrasal verbs as well as continuous versus discontinuous phrasal constructions, where a more complex (discontinuous) form is more marked for resultativeness, which means that actions and events expressed by this form are viewed from the point of view of their result, the notion of result being applied here in its broad sense, i.e. spatially (destination, outcome), temporally (completion, terminus, endpoint) and existentially (consequence, telic point, goal). I view markedness here in a way similar to Comrie (1976): …markedness is apparently not an all-to-none choice (marked versus unmarked), since there are oppositions where the markedness difference between the members is very great, and oppositions where the difference is much less, i.e. there can be degrees of markedness. (Comrie 1976: 112)

The very existence of such an opposition is deemed to be justified by the necessity to provide a structural representation to the semantic category of resultativeness — the opposition of simple verb constructions (V+NP) versus continuous (V + Prt + NP) and discontinuous (V + NP + Prt) phrasal constructions, where the degree of resultative meaning increases as we proceed to the right: (22)

to eat the apple — to eat up the apple — to eat the apple up process/result greater possibility for result result

In simple verb constructions resultativeness is manifested in lexical meaning of the verbs, which has been analyzed in detail for some troublesome lexical pairs in Tobin (1993), for example: (23) (24)

to shut the door (unmarked) — to close the door (marked) to end the conversation (unmarked) — to finish the conversation (marked)

Quite a new type of relationship exists between simple verbs and their combinations with particles. The grammatical development of simple, or lexical, verbs

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into phrasal verbs is motivated by their invariant meaning, which is composed of an asymmetrical markedness relationship with regard to the distinctive feature of result: the grammatical opposition SIMPLE VERB versus PHRASAL VERB is based on the semantic opposition PROCESS/RESULT versus GREATER POSSIBILITY FOR RESULT. Semantically, phrasal constructions are characterized by their broad scope — they may embrace the meaning of the action itself alone and/or together with its result, according to the semiotic principle of synergesis: the joint meaning of two-element structure is greater than the sum of the discrete meanings of its elements taken separately, which is true for other disciplines, including psychology — Gestalt theory: “a whole has properties that its parts, taken individually, do not have. Harmony and rhythm are properties of a sequence of notes but never of an isolated note…” (Holenstein 1976: 16–7) The difference between simple verb constructions and phrasal constructions lies in a greater morphological and semantic complexity of the latter form, which adds the element of resultativeness to the meaning of the simple verb. An event that achieves a result is an event with a temporal endpoint — a delimited — and measured out — event. The class of verb particles has the semantic property of imposing delimitedness on the event described by a verb phrase or sentence… If I look up a name or think up an answer my action of looking or thinking has a clear result or termination. The name has been found; there is an answer that did not exist before. (Tenny 1994: 148–9)

In order to validate this point I will bring several discourse examples from Evening in Byzantium by Irwin Shaw, where the verb I have just used will acquire various more complex meanings when accompanied by different particles: (25)

Although each time Belinda brought in the checks to sign she put on what Craig has come to recognize as her steadfastly noncommittal face, he found it difficult to meet her gaze and always pretended to be busy… (Shaw 1973: 96)

The meaning of the phrasal verb combines here its proper meaning and the spatial component — ‘bring inside’ and is more complex, integrating the notion of process and result.

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(26)

There was a gallantry about their devotion to their profession that brought tears to Craig’s eyes, even though, as he watched, he saw the faults in casting, direction and interpretation that had obscured the subtle, multiple intentions of the play and brought down the critics’ wrath on Brenner’s head. (Shaw 1973: 113)

Here the meaning is highly idiomatic and may be paraphrased as ‘caused to descend’, the resultative meaning being expressed even more strongly. (27)

Maybe her program’ll get one person to go into a bookstore to buy one of them or two or all of them. Or since they’re out of print, maybe it’ll get a publisher to bring out my collected works in paperback. (Shaw 1973: 181)

The phrasal verb ‘bring out’ is used here in the sense of ‘produce’ which is resultative in the way ‘make’ is resultative in Tobin (1993). (28)

(29)

As the discussions grew more heated, Penelope swore that she watched every cent, called on the names of wives of their friends who spent more on their clothes in one month that she did in a year, which was true, brought Heaven to witness that all her efforts and expenditures were designed to make him a decent home, give him a wife he would not be ashamed to be seen in public, bring up his children decently. (Shaw 1973: 95) ‘…Listen, I don’t like to bring up unpleasant matters, especially on a holiday, but I know you must be worrying about dough just about now…’ ‘Just about now,’ Craig said. (Shaw 1973: 53)

In the last two examples one and the same verb-particle combination ‘bring up’ is used with different meaning: the first can be paraphrased as ‘educate’ or ‘raise’, the second — ‘introduce’ or ‘mention’, each of these actions being more complex than ‘bring’ and relatively more marked for result. The ability of phrasal constructions to picture the action as leading to result was first noticed and described by Kennedy (1920) who suggested that phrasal verbs containing the ‘adverbs’ up and down had a resultative meaning as compared to simple verbs: (30) (31)

He chopped the tree. He chopped down the tree.

(Kennedy 1920: 27–8)

But resultativeness is viewed by Kennedy as one of the semantic properties of

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the particles, in his case, particularly up and down, disregarding the role of alternative word order in emphasizing the resultative reading of the entire construction: “It simply appears that some of the particles — most especially up — have in some cases traded their full resultative meanings for the bare meaning of ‘result achieved’.” (Kennedy 1920: 96) Unlike Kennedy, who treats the phrasal construction as having no word order distinction, I claim that alongside the ‘simple-phrasal’ opposition based on resultativeness, the resultative reading of verb-particle constructions becomes even stronger with the change of the particle position through the combined effect of the particle meaning, its position and the shift of nuclear accent: (32)

He chopped the tree down.

Bolinger in his detailed analysis of phrasal verbs in English, points out that they possess two semantic features, namely the process and the result. Like the majority of linguists, he believes that the positional variants of verb-particle constructions do not make up a problem worthy of attention. Bolinger claims that their distribution in language is arbitrary, refusing to comment on the obvious word order distinction between the two forms. Though the phrasal verb embodies both the action and the result, the position of the particle tends to make one or the other paramount. With transitive verbs, when the particle is postposed it tends to modify the noun; when it stands next to the verb it behaves more like a verbal affix. Much of the time there is no practical difference — if there were, the prosodic nuances would have to be sacrificed. (Bolinger 1971: 82)

Although the assumption that the meaning of the phrasal verb integrates process and result, as well as the recognition of the significant function of the particle position, support my view, I can not accept that the difference in form fails to bring about any difference in meaning. Consequently, I would modify the second part of the above quotation in the following way: When the particle follows the verb, the meaning of the construction is motionthrough-location (process), whereas if the particle follows the object, the construction acquires resultative meaning. [M.G.]

Quirk et al. motivate the position of the particle by the length of the object or by stress demands: With most phrasal verbs, the particle can either precede or follow the direct object. The particle tends to precede the object if the object is long or if the intention is that the object should receive end-focus. (Quirk et al. 1982: 304)

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These reasons are rather secondary and not supported by the language data, neither with regard to the length of the object: (33)

Failing to get any results, I turned the rest of the local stores over to one of the boys from the Agency, and went across the bay to canvass the Oakland stores. (Hammett 1934: 424) [italics mine] [M.G.]

nor concerning the ‘end-focus’ the object is supposed to receive: (34)

That’s exactly the way I’m bringing up these children. (Bolinger 1971: 54) [italics mine] [M.G.]

The Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs provides examples of phrasal constructions whose meaning differs according to the position the particle occupies with respect to the direct object: *set up 4. (usu. in sport) to reach or establish (a new record): [T1a] The young swimmer has set up a new fast time for the backstroke. 7. to cause (pain or infection): [T1a] This wet weather sets up the ache in my old wound. 8. to express (a loud noise): [T1a] The crowd set up a shout as the winner neared the post. 9. not fml to make (someone) feel better: [T1b (often simple tenses)] You need a holiday to set you up again after all that hard work. 12. not fml to cause (someone) to receive (something such as blame): [T1b (for) (usu. simple tenses)] The thief tried to set his companion up for punishment, but he too was caught and tried. (Courtney 1983: 559)

By T1a Courtney encodes the constructions where the ‘adverb’ (particle) always comes just after the verb (having only continuous form), and T1b serves for denoting phrasal constructions having only discontinuous form. In the above examples the message of discontinuous phrasal constructions is much more marked for result than that in continuous ones: in 9 the action is presented as aiming at the change of someone’s state; in 12 the action is described as having in view certain consequences. It supports my hypothesis that the two structural variants of phrasal construction are in marked/unmarked relationship as to the distinctive feature of result, both possessing resultative meaning as part of their invariant meaning, though varying in the degree of markedness. Still other messages are conveyed by the forms allowing both variants, indicated in the dictionary by T1:

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*set up 1. to build; raise (something) in a fixed position: [T1] Do you know how to set up a tent? 2. to start (something such as an organization): [T1] They needed the money to set up a special school for gifted children. 3. to prepare or organize (something): [T1] All the arrangements have been set up for the newspapermen to meet the Queen. 5. (in printing) to arrange (something such as type or a book) in order: [T1] You can set up this type by hand or by machine. 6. to place (drinks or glasses) ready: [T1 (for)] Will you set up the drinks while I look after the party food? 10. to (cause to) start in business or in some other activity, as by giving money or other help; provide (someone or a group) with something needed: [T1 (as, in, with)] He gave his son some capital to set him up. It will take a lot of work for the party to set up the young politician. 13. (in theatre) to put (scenery) into position: [T1] We shall need help in setting up the scenery for the second act. 14. naut to tighten (ropes): [T1] Set up those ropes there, the sail is too loose! (Courtney 1983: 559)

All these examples depend on the position of the particle for realizing their latent resultativeness: the continuous form may make a claim for result or not, while the discontinuous form is used for the expression of highly resultative meaning. I will make the analysis of the semantics of phrasal verbs my future topic, as their distribution needs to be explained in the sign-oriented framework. I claim that the simple verb constructions and the two alternative phrasal constructions can not be viewed as identical on the following grounds: a. b.

c.

d.

Each of these constructions being an independent linguistic sign, possesses a single invariant meaning, motivating its distribution in the language. The invariant meanings of simple verb phrases and phrasal constructions are in a marked/unmarked relationship revolving around the distinctive feature of RESULT. The simple VPs establish oppositions as to the distinctive feature of result, based on their lexical meaning. The simple VPs are neutral for the result, if compared to their combinations with particles, in spite of the fact that the lexical meanings of verbs themselves differ along the process-result continuum. Continuous phrasal constructions are more marked for the result, i.e. describe actions or events as either perceived from the point of view of RESULT or not, making no special claim for RESULT, though having an

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obviously higher degree of resultativeness than simple verbs, irrespective of their initial lexical meaning. The marked (discontinuous) construction makes a special claim for RESULT: an action or event is perceived including its result (destination, consequence, etc.), and is therefore marked for RESULT. Viewing language as an isomorphic system, I see that the prosodic, syntactic and semantic aspects of language all are involved to distinguish between these three constructions. My assumption agrees also with the semiotic principle of iconicity, correlation between form and meaning, since placing the particle in the construction-final position reflects the message of finality, completeness, and resultativeness.

Various investigations have found out that the psychological status of sentencefinal position is particular and demonstrates the universal tendency to reserve sentence-final position for the most relevant, important, ‘dominant’ or ‘marked’ information. This point was advocated by researchers of various linguistic schools: The entire question of sentence-final position as being reserved for dominant material is an important one… In this context it would be relevant to examine all transformations that move elements to the right. An extremely likely result of such an investigation would be that all such movement rules function to place dominant material in sentence-final position. (Erteschik-Shir 1979: 449)

The resultative reading of the verb phrase is independent of tense or aspect factors, it cuts across all the traditional grammatical categories of a verb and is represented in language by the comprehensive and complete verb paradigm, embracing all tense, voice, mood and aspect forms, as well as verb complements. I see no need to show that simple verb phrases can be conjugated along all grammatical categories, and will illustrate and confirm this claim with the following examples involving marked resultative constructions, which seem to be the least flexible: Tense Forms: The Present Simple (35)

They dress some of their animals up.–the action results in the change of state (Foster 1987: 140). Compare: They dress some of their animals. — the action is presented as process-oriented.

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The Past Simple (36)

Mudge brought the lynx down with an arrow before he could get ten yards toward the jetty. — the achieved result is implied (Foster 1987: 100).

The Future Simple (37)

No doubt, they will buy their competitors out. — the potential result is implied.

Aspect Forms: The Present Perfect (38)

Okay, so we congratulate ourselves that we’ve held losses down to three quarters of one per cent of total business. — the achieved result is implied (Hailey 1975: 54)

The Past Perfect (39)

Later, she tried to carry the affair further, but he was not interested, and subsequently, probably consequently, the girl had come to dislike him, and taken her mother away. — the achieved result is implied (Fitzgerald 1983: 214)

The Present Progressive: (40)

No offense, mate, but ‘ow do we know you ain’t making this tragedy up as you go along. — the truthfulness of the story is questioned here as leading to certain consequences (Foster 1987: 89)

The Present Perfect Progressive: (41)

‘People haven’t been knocking your door down asking you to get me to work for them, have they?’ — his life has not been disturbed, it remained in its usual form and rhythm, the result is rather negative, thus being nonetheless result. (Shaw 1973: 52).

Mood Forms: The Imperative Mood (42)

Shut the damn machine off ff. — the intended result is implied (Shaw 1973: 179).

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The Subjunctive Mood (43)

If I left you alone with this for five minutes you’d snort your brains out. Everyone needs to be sharp if we’re going to get out of this. — the probable result is implied (Foster 1987: 145).

Verb Complements: Infinitive (44)

A week before the opening night, Craig took Susan Brenner aside and told her they were heading for disaster and that the only sensible thing was to call the whole thing off ff.–the only solution leading to a desired result is implied. (Shaw 1973: 72)

Gerund (45)

There was still a worthwhile chance, he decided, of getting the airplane out by use of its own engine power. — the release of the plane meaning freeing the runway for landing aircraft is implied here as the result of the action. (Hailey 1981: 79)

Participle (46)

‘Take me into another room, Jesse,’ she was saying, stretching her hand out in greeting. — the change in the position of the heroine’s hand is reported, and due to the combination of syntactical and prosodic factors the action is perceived as more finite than in its continuous variant: ‘stretching out her hand in greeting.’ (Shaw 1973: 139)

Of course, the emphasis put on the resultativeness is not so vivid in the examples taken out of context, but contextual analysis further supports my hypothesis. The way phrasal constructions are used in discourse evidences that their distribution is semantically motivated, since the invariant meanings of continuous and discontinuous constructions make up an opposition of unmarked/marked as to the distinctive feature of result. (47)

“Mr. Benson — he’s a furrier, by the way. Beautiful stuff. If you ever want to buy anything for your sweetheart, I can get you a discount. Anyway, Tuesday, the night of the accident, he was comin’ out of an office building where his sister-in-law works. He dropped some pills off ff because his brother Matthew, who’s a Bible salesman, had the flu an’ she was going to take the pills home to him.” Judd controlled his impatience. If Norman Z. Moody felt like

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sitting there and reciting the entire Bill of Rights, he was going to listen. “So Mr.Benson dropped off ff these pills an’ was comin’ out of the building when he saw this limousine headin’ toward you. Of course, he didn’t know it was you at the time.” (Sheldon 1970: 80) In the first paragraph the action is described having in view its telic goal, which was to pass the medicine to a sick brother, which explains the use of a discontinuous (resultative) construction. In the second case the action is described as occurring at the time of a run-down accident, its temporal component being the essential one, consequently the unmarked form is used. (48)

Craig hesitated. Unconsciously, he patted his coat over his wallet. He knew he had five hundred dollars in American money and about two thousand francs in his wallet. Superstitiously, in memory of the time he had been poor, he always carried a lot of money with him. Turning down requests for loans, even from people who were strangers, was invariably painful, almost impossible, for him. He regarded this trait, rightly, as a weakness in his character. He always remembered that in War and Peace, Tolstoy had used Pierre Bezouchov’s new-found ability to turn down supplicants for money as a sign of maturity and ripening intelligence. (Shaw 1973: 85)

The very act of refusing people made the character suffer, he could hardly adopt such behavior. No special claim for resultativeness is made, which is consistent with the unmarked continuous construction used. (49)

It is common knowledge that at least on one occasion he was offered the top position at one of the most prestigious studios in the industry. It is said he turned the offer down in a brief telegram, “Have already deserted sinking ship. Craig.” (Shaw 1973: 28)

The result is strongly implied in a resolute refusal of the character to accept the offer, his unwillingness to accept the position is expressed in a clear-cut way, the author using the resultative form to convey the irreversibility of the action. The three-member system I suggest in this chapter can be traced in the following contextual examples: (50)

He had intended to drive without a halt until Madrid, sleep over, go farther south, to Malaga, the next day. A man he knew, something of a friend, a matador, really the friend of a friend, was fighting in Malaga the next afternoon. (Shaw 1973: 88–89)

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The simple verb phrase here describes the process of fighting, making no claim for the result of the action. (51)

Judd’s head began pounding again. The pain was returning. He swallowed to fight off ff the nausea that engulfed him. He wanted to ring for the nurse, but he was damned if he would give McGreavy the satisfaction. (Sheldon 1970: 46)

The character in this paragraph is struggling to overcome pain, and his actions are aimed at achieving this goal. His actions are displayed in regard to their telic point, and the meaning of the verb phrase acquires the resultative component, which makes it more resultative than the simple verb phrase, though it is unmarked, being oriented either for process or result. (52)

Standing there in the bright sunshine, he felt deserted. He didn’t want to be alone that afternoon, remembering what it had been like when he was twenty seven. He had the impulse to hurry after her, touch her arm, walk beside her. But he fought the impulse down. (Shaw 1973: 75)

He knew that he had no right to make his desires and dreams come true, so he made an effort to suppress them, and the discontinuous phrasal construction reports here the result of his inner conflict. The element of resultativeness attributed to the phrasal verb is reinforced here by the specific resultative word order and stress. The following examples also help to illustrate my hypothesis: (53)

‘It sure does explain things. This whole deal: the van, the furniture, it’s just cover. Those two guys are coke runners. Two suitcases full of cocaine. Jesus.’ He got out of the chair and against Mudge’s protests shut the suitcase. Then they checked its mate. It was just as full. He lifted first one, then the other. (Foster 1987: 144)

Checking the suitcase is reported here as a step in the chain of actions the characters performed when captured by two drug runners and locked in their van. I believe that the analysis of the lexical pair ‘check-examine’ might show that the invariant meaning of ‘check’ is unmarked for result. But it can obtain the element of resultative meaning, if accompanied by a particle: (54)

“Doctor, my men and I spent the night checking out every Don Vinton in Manhattan and all the other boroughs. We even covered New Jersey and Connecticut.” He took a ruled sheet of paper out of his pocket and showed it to Judd. (Sheldon 1970: 107)

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In this case the emphasis is put not only on the activity itself, but also on its telic goal, the meaning of the phrasal verb combines process and its intended result, being more resultative than the simple verb phrase, but still containing a heavy processual gradient. (55)

As both Vandervoort and Wainwright knew, there were devices used by criminals to decide whether a credit card in their possession could be used again, or if it were ‘hot’. A favourite was to pay a headwaiter twenty-five dollars to check a card out. (Hailey 1975: 49)

Now the meaning of the phrase in question is marked for result, since the weight of the resultative component in its meaning prevails. Throughout these examples the category of resultativeness is expressed with an increasing strength. Therefore, the categorization of verbs and verb phrases according to the semantic feature of result crosses the traditional grammatical categories of parts of speech, tense, aspect, voice, mood and others, which allows me to view resultativeness as a comprehensive category, represented on all language levels: lexicon, grammar, word order and prosody.

6.

Conclusions

In this chapter I surveyed the category of resultativeness as it was treated, or more often overlooked, by different scholars, focusing on the problems of defining its status in language. I showed why I see no reason for this category to be merged with the passive voice, perfect tenses or other categories, each of which performs its own function in the language. I conclude that resultativeness is a category in its own right, characterized by its own meaning and structure that exploits diversified language forms for its realization. The opposition of resultative versus non-resultative forms exists on all levels of language: morphemic, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, and prosodic. I suggest that the semantic feature of result may be applied to explain linguistic concepts both in grammar and lexicon in a unified and systematic way, which reflects the human perception of entities in space as process- or result-oriented. My claim is based on concepts of markedness, invariance and distinctive feature theory. The marked/unmarked relationship in simple verbs is based on the component of resultativeness in their lexical meaning, the derivation of phrasal verbs is based on adding up the resultative meaning to the initial lexical meaning

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of the verb and the particle. Phrasal verbs have two positional variants, continuous and discontinuous, which display different degrees of resultative meaning. The continuous phrasal construction may denote either process or result, while the discontinuous is marked for result, i.e. always makes a special claim for result. The definition of resultativeness I suggest is: a lexical-grammatical category which reflects a fundamental way of perceiving actions and events integrally with their actual or potential result, characterized by a fixed marked word order. Exploiting word order for derivation purposes is rather typical for English as analytical language with non-inflectional morphological patterns. In the framework of sign-oriented theory, the ‘resultative’ word order is viewed as a linguistic sign distinguishing meaning. The discontinuous phrasal constructions are a particular type of resultative constructions, where the particle functions as resultative phrase: to eat the apple up. They are marked for result as contrasted to both simple verbs and continuous phrasal verbs, regardless of the initial resultative or non-resultative lexical meaning of their verb element. I claim that one of the systematic ways to form resultatives in English is derivation of phrasal verbs from simple verbs, which may be intensified if accompanied by a meaningful change in word order and stress shift, i.e. derivation of discontinuous from continuous phrasal constructions. Resultativeness can therefore be represented in English by the following system: V NP — V Prt NP — process or result greater possibility for result

V NP Prt result

Invariant meanings of linguistic signs are opposed here as to the distinctive feature of result, and the degree of markedness grows from the left to the right. The place of resultativeness in English is at the junction of lexicon, grammar and semantics. The meaning of the resultative form is then rather complex. It reflects the perception of the action/event together with its result (endpoint, consequence, telic point, final goal), either preceding or following that action in time, both achieved and potential, positive and negative. The resultative forms, in accordance with my definition, appear in all tense, aspect, voice and mood paradigms. Further research remains to be done on the topic of resultativeness in general and on the two types of phrasal verb constructions in English in particular.

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank Fran Markowitz for her support and interest in my ideas, and the editors of this volume, Ellen Contini-Morava and Yishai Tobin, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. By NP I mean everywhere in this paper the nominal direct object, which allows the change of particle position I am focusing on.

References Allen, R.L. 1966. The Verb System of Present-Day English. The Hague: Mouton. Beedham, Ch. 1987. “The English Passive as an Aspect”. Word 38:1.1–12. Bolinger, D. 1971. The Phrasal Verb in English. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ———. 1977. Meaning and Form. London: Longman. Carrier, Jill & Janet Randall. 1992. “The Argument Structure and Syntactic Structure of Resultatives.” Linguistic Inquiry 21.147–85. Chafe, W. 1970. Meaning and the Structure of Language. Charleston, B. 1941. Studies on the Syntax of the English Verb. Bern: A.Francke. Chatterjee, R. 1988 Aspect and Meaning in Slavic and Indic. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge University Press. Diver, W. 1969 “The System of Relevance of the Homeric Verb.” Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 122.45–68. Erteschik-Shir, N. 1979. “Discourse Constraints on Dative Movement.” Syntax and Semantics, vol.12 ed. by Talmy Givón, 441–466. New York: Academic Press. Forsyth, J. 1970. A Grammar of Aspect. Cambridge University Press. Fradkin, R. 1991. Stalking the Wild Verb Phrase. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America. Hirtle, W.H. 1975. Time, Aspect and the Verb. Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Holenstein, E. 1976. Roman Jakobson’s Approach to Language: Phenomenological Structuralism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Huffman, A. 1989. “Teaching the English Tenses.” Columbia University Working Papers in Linguistics 10. Jackendoff, R. 1977. “Twistin’ the Night Away.” Language 73:3.534–559. Jespersen, O. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar. George Allen & Unwin. Joos, M. 1964. The English Verb. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Kennedy, A. 1920. The Modern English Verb-Adverb Combination. Stanford University Press.

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Klein-Andreu, F. 1983. “Grammar in Style: Spanish Adjective Placement.” Discourse Perspectives on Syntax ed. by F. Klein-Andreu, 143–179. New York: Academic Press. Levin, B. & M.Rappaport. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantic Interface. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Nedjalkov, V. 1988. Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Onions, C. 1904. An Advanced English Syntax. Swan Sonnenschein. Penhallurick, J.M. 1987. “The Semantics of Auxiliary Inversion in English.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 7:7.97–128. Poutsma, H. 1926. A Grammar of Late Modern English. Groningen: P.Hoodhoff. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Saussure, F. de. 1983 Course in General Linguistics. Duckworth. Simpson, J. 1983 “Resultatives.” Papers in Lexical-Functional Grammar, ed. by Lori Levin, Malka Rappaport & Annie Zaenen, 143–157. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Tenny, C. 1994. Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Tobin, Yishai, ed. 1989. From Sign to Text: A Semiotic View of Communication. (= Foundations of Semiotics, 20.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1990. Semiotics and Linguistics. London: Longman. ———. 1993. Aspect in the English Verb: Process and Result in Language. London & New York: Longman. Vanrespaille, M. 1989. “The English get-passive.” Paper presented at the Cognitive Linguistics Symposium, Duisburg, 1989. Van Schooneveld, C.H. 1989. “Paradigmatic Oppositions and Syntagmatic Relations: Tenses and Moods in Ancient Greek.” Tobin 1989. 99–121. Waugh, L. 1977. A Semantic Analysis of Word Order: Position of the Adjective in French. Leiden & New York: E.J.Brill. Zandwoort, R.W. 1962. “Is Aspect an English Category?” Contributions to English Syntax and Philology ed. by C.L.Barber et al. Goeteborg: Almquist and Wiksell.

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Corpus Courtney, R. 1983. Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. London: Longman. Fitzgerald, F.S. 1983. Tender is the Night. Moscow: Raduga Publishers. Foster, A. 1987. The Time of the Transference. London & Sydney: Futura Publishers. Hailey, A. 1975. The Moneychangers. London & Sydney: Pan Books. Hailey, A. 1981. Airport. Moscow: Military Publishing House. Hammett, D. 1985. Selected Detective Prose. Moscow: Raduga Publishers. Lamb, W. 1992. She’s Come Undone. Washington Square Press. Shaw, I. 1973. Evening in Byzantium. New English Library. Sheldon, S. 1970. The Naked Face. New York: A Dell Book.

2. Parts of Speech

Complex -er Nominals Where Grammaticalization and Lexicalization Meet? Mary Ellen Ryder Boise State University

1.

Introduction

There is a growing conviction among researchers interested in grammaticalization and lexicalization, and indeed in historical change in general, that language change occurs by degrees (e.g. Harris and Campbell 1995; Timberlake 1977; Naro and Lemle 1976; Aitchison 1980). For example, a change may spread from one lexical item to another, or the frequency of an innovation may increase gradually by occurring in a broadening range of contexts in an individual speaker or in the speech of an ever wider range of speakers in a community. There are at least two important implications of the gradual nature of change. One is that at various points in the spread of the innovation, there will be variation, with old and new forms and uses co-existing. This has been noted by a number of people studying grammaticalization processes (e.g. Hopper 1991). The second is that in the earliest stages, the new linguistic situation will be only minimally different from the old, and it may not be clear at that point that a significant change is in fact in progress. Some small alterations, in an individual’s grammar or even in the language system as a whole, may never develop further. Unfortunately, this means that we are often trying to determine the earliest stages of a change in hindsight, and that we know less than we would like about how changes begin. As Hopper and Traugott (1993: 106) point out, “…because historical records are rarely long enough to permit the recovery of the entire sequence of events, …usually we must either posit reconstructed forms for past stages, or else indulge in speculation about future stages.” Thus, we have to examine whatever stages, or even potential stages, of different grammaticalization processes we have available at any one time in the

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history of a language, attempting to extract from them the general parameters and characteristics of grammaticalization, even if we can never be sure of all the details of any one development. And of course, the onset of grammaticalization will be one of the hardest phases to recognize and so it is important for us to find even potential examples of it, so that our understanding of this elusive stage can be increased. Another way to look at the usefulness of possible cases at the diachronic borders of grammaticalization is to see them as instances pushing the limits of the definition of grammaticalization. As Ramat and Hopper (1998: 1) note in assessing recent research done on grammaticalization, “In the course of this work, more and more examples were unearthed of borderline phenomena, which as historical processes seemed to share much in common with the classical type of grammaticalization and yet lacked some perceived crucial component.” They also note (Ramat and Hopper 1998: 2–4) that some of the problems encountered in defining grammaticalization are based on varying conceptualizations of lexicalization, and even of the very nature of grammar and the lexicon. As a result, any linguistic situation which seems to lie on the chronological or conceptual borders of lexicalization or grammaticalization is worth a detailed examination. The present distribution of the nominal -er suffix in English exemplifies this kind of situation. Therefore, in this article, I will examine developments in the use of this suffix, found in such words as singer, foreigner, villager, in-the-parker, up-and-comer, and blue-chipper. I will discuss all types of -er nominals, but I will concentrate especially on the type I call complex -er nominals: (1)

complex -er nominal: a noun with the nominalizing -er suffix whose base consists of more than one free morpheme

because they differ most from the original form, and represent some of the most recent developments in the suffix. I suggest that the -er suffix is in the earliest stages of a process that may lead to full-scale grammaticalization. I base this on several facts. First, the suffix has already achieved some of the prerequisites for grammaticalizing, especially those of increasing frequency and widening of meaning. Second, it is often being used for the primarily grammatical function of anaphora, and many of these anaphorical uses involve non-lexicalized forms. Third, it is becoming more clitic-like, in that there is a significant increase in its attachment to non-lexicalized phrases. In considering the implications of these facts, I hope not only to provide additional evidence that grammaticalization, cliticization, and lexicalization are all matters of degree, but to show that the

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very lack of firm boundaries between such categories provides the opportunities for forms to move gradually from one category to another.

2.

Development of the -er suffix

I will begin with a brief description of the changes in this suffix between the Old English period and the present. The -er suffix has been a highly productive morpheme at least since the Old English period, and there is a lot of evidence that it has been increasing its productivity steadily over the period from then to now (Dalton-Puffer 1994). In Old English, it was primarily a verb-based suffix (though there were also a significant number of noun bases) and its referents were mostly human, and took the role of Agent or Actor in relation to their verb base: (2)

andettere “one who confesses,” andettan “confess, acknowledge” tolnere “tax gatherer,” toln “tax, custom, duty”

Thus, in its earliest stages in English, -er was a fairly prototypical derivational morpheme, restricted in the types of bases to which it could be attached and limited in its range of meanings. In Modern English, the -er suffix can be added not only to verbs and nouns, but also to adjectives, prepositions, verb-particle constructions (sometimes with an “extra” -er) with the particle preceding or following the verb and if following the verb, preceding or following the -er suffix, and a variety of phrases, including various kinds of noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adverb phrases, conjoined phrases, verb phrases and a handful of less easily categorized constructions. One or two examples of each are given in (3). (From this point on, attested constructions from my collection are marked with †; all other words and dated citations are from the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM (OED)): (3)

Sampling of -er nominals with different bases: a. verb + -er: writer, singer b. noun + -er: porker, glover c. adjective + -er: foreigner, loner, outlandisher d. preposition + -er: upper, downer, in-betweener e. particle + verb + -er: onlooker, bystander f. verb (+ -er) + particle + -er: †butt-inner, washer-upper, †summer-upper g. verb + -er + particle: passer-by, looker on, stander-by, washerup, diner-out

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h. i.

verb + -er + adverb: reader-aloud quantifier + measured unit + -er: †two-footer, †250-pounder, three-master, every-nighter j. modifier + noun + -er: bird’s-nester, blind-pigger, fast tracker, level-lander, daily breader k. prepositional phrase + -er: †in-the-parker, back-to-the-lander, †by-the-roader (“person waiting for the bus by the road rather than at a bus stop”) l. adjective phrase + -er: brass bounder m. adverb phrase + -er: homeward-bounder, †all-arounder (“psychedelic drug that takes you ‘all around’”) n. conjoined verbs + -er: smash-and-grabber, rock and roller o. conjoined nouns + -er: knife-and-forker, half-and-halfer p. conjoined prepositions + -er: up-and-downer, in-and-outer, down-and-outer q. verb phrase + -er: get-rich-quicker, do-gooder, †read-alouder, do-it-yourselfer, never-waser, go-getter, go-slower, struggle-forlifer, stand-patter, stay-putter, †carry-arounder, seldom-seer, follow-througher r. miscellaneous: perhapser, me-tooer, †not-in-my-back-yarder, ten per center, †two-a-dayer, penny-a-liner, hear-hearer, †fewand-far-betweener The range of referents for -er nominals is quite broad as well, including people, animals, plants, concrete objects denoting instruments, clothing, locations, and events or activities: (4)

Referents of -er nominals: a. people: left-hander, singer, down-easter b. animals: mouser, pointer, milker, mudder c. plants: creeper, †Venus fly-catcher d. instruments: sweeper, lawn-mower, typewriter e. clothing: romper, sleeper, †joggers, swimmers, plunger (“dress with plunging neckline”) f. locations: diner, sleeper, shitter g. events/activities: †laugher, †no-brainer, no-trumper, twentyfirster

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In the case of the verb-based forms, the range of semantic roles the referents play in relation to their base is also quite wide. There are examples from the most common semantic cases as well as categories not generally considered in discussions of case: (5)

Roles of -er nominal referents in relation to their verb bases: a. Agent/Actor: baker, seller, singer b. Instrument: stapler, dish-washer, †clothes drier c. Location: diner, sleeper d. Patient: †scratcher, †steamer, †stepper (“exercise device you step on”), reader, †drowner (“the runt of a litter that will/ should be drowned”), †put-to-sleeper (“an animal that is going to be put to sleep”), †profiler (“person being profiled in a job employment office”), †squeezer (“bottle of mustard that is squeezed to remove the contents”), †builder (“a car that can be rebuilt”), †scribbler (“pad to scribble on”), †jotter (“notepad to jot things on”), †carry-arounder (“something that is meant to be carried around rather than being stationary”) e. Causer: gully-washer, yawner, †nail-biter, †thinker (“a movie that makes you think”) f. Clothing/device worn when Verbing: loafers, rompers, sneakers, †kneeler (“pad to put around knee to kneel and scrub”) g. Instance of Verbing: †fundraiser, †come-backer

And when the base of the -er form is nominal or phrasal, the relationship between the base and the referent of the -er noun is probably even wider, resembling the possible relationships between elements in noun-noun combinations (Ryder 1994). Following is a small sample of these: (6)

Relations of -er nominal referents to noun bases: a. Acting on base: mouser, birder, fowler b. Using base as instrument: †shotgunner c. Located at spatial base: villager, forester, prisoner, Virgin Islander d. Occurring within temporal base: weekender, Saturday nighter, †year-rounder e. Movement with base as Goal: †upper-decker f. Movement with base as Path: †right-to-lefter g. Whole composed of the base: †coupleter “a poem of rhymed couplets”

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h.

3.

Acting like the base: †twinners (“people looking alike in ways they have control over, e.g. hairstyle, clothes jewelry”)

Indications of early grammaticalization

As the brief survey just given shows, the most notable characteristic of the modern -er suffix is the extremely broad semantic and syntactic range of both bases and referents. This sets the suffix apart from most, perhaps all, other bound morphemes, both derivational and inflectional. Bound morphemes tend to attach to one or two parts of speech, and the meanings of the resulting stem + morpheme form tend to be limited as well. While the -er suffix began with the type of restricted range of bases and referents typical of derivational morphemes, its uses are now extremely general. These types of semantic and syntactic broadening, combined with an increase in frequency, are exactly the conditions that license grammaticalization (Traugott and Heine 1991: 7–9). Of course, the presence of these conditions is never an assurance that grammaticalization will take place, so how does one determine if in fact the process has begun? In regard to this problem of recognizing the onset of grammaticalization, Paul Hopper (1991: 20–21) starts by describing the concomitants of grammaticalization proposed by Lehmann (1985): paradigmatization (the tendency for grammaticized forms to be arranged into paradigms) obligatorification (the tendency for optional forms to become obligatory) condensation (the shortening of forms) coalescence (collapsing together of adjacent forms) fixation (free linear orders becoming fixed ones)

but points out the following problem: Such principles are useful, indeed indispensable, as guides to historical change, and have repeatedly proven their value in the study of grammaticization. They are, however, characteristic of grammaticization which has already attained a fairly advanced stage and is unambiguously recognizable as such. They work best, in fact, when the stage of morphologization has been reached. It is then usually possible to see that the kinds of changes typified by these labels have indeed occurred. By the time forms and constructions reach the stage of grammaticization implicit in being able to apply this typology, the question whether grammaticization has occurred is usually already answered. The problem of identifying grammaticization when it is not already obvious is precisely that the form or construction in question has not yet reached a stage of being “obligatory”, “fixed”, and so on. (Hopper 1991: 21)

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He then goes on to suggest some further principles that may be “characteristic of grammaticization not only at the later, more easily identifiable stages, but also at the incipient stages where variable phenomena occur, and where the question more cogently arises as to whether we might speak of grammaticization” (Hopper 1991: 21). I would like now to look at these principles one by one to see whether they support the notion that the -er suffix may in fact be entering the early stages of grammaticalization. 3.1 Divergence, specialization and persistence One of Hopper’s principles is: (7)

Divergence. “When a lexical form undergoes grammaticization to a clitic or affix, the original lexical form may remain as an autonomous element and undergo the same changes as ordinary lexical items.”

There is no doubt that the -er suffix as a derivational affix is alive and well. And given its extreme productivity, I would expect this function to be quite persistent. In fact, the earliest uses of the suffix found in Old English are probably still the predominant ones, showing it to be a very robust morpheme. A second principle Hopper proposes is: (8)

Specialization. “Within a functional domain, at one stage a variety of forms with different semantic nuances may be possible; as grammaticization takes place, this variety of formal choices narrows and the smaller number of forms selected assume more general grammatical meanings.”

The -er suffix has certainly been generalizing its use in comparison with other nominalizing suffixes serving similar functions. For example, Old English had several suffixes that could be added to verbal bases to form nominals referring to humans: (9)

-er(e), -ester, -el(s), -end(e), -ild1

By late Middle English, only -er had survived (Dalton-Puffer 1994). English has added some similar suffixes since then. Dalton-Puffer lists the following for Late Middle English and Early Modern English: (10)

Late Middle English: -ard, -ant, -ary, -o(u)r, -ess Early Modern English: -ess, -man, -(i)an, -ist, -ite

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However, some of these, like -ard, are no longer productive in Modern English and I think it’s safe to say that none of them is as productive as the -er suffix. At the same time as these developments, according to Dalton-Puffer the -er suffix was increasing its range of referents from human agents to instruments and locations, taking over these functions from the Old English suffix, -el(s). It also seems to be making inroads into the areas of other processes involving no overt morphological change, such as functional shift and metonymy or synecdoche: (11)

egg slice/egg slicer, index/indexer, sit-in/sit-inner (compare shut-in), bluestocking/bluestockinger (18th century), fetish/fetisher, fop/fopper, four-legger (“four-footed animal”) vs. Forty Legs (17th and 18th century name for a centipede), forty/forty-tonner (19th century), knife-and-fork/knife-and-forker, no-good/no-gooder, outtentouns (1697)/outentowner (1882), out-of-town/out-of-towner, right wing (sports)/right-winger (politics), round-heels/round-heeler, rubber heel/rubber-heeler, ruffle shirt/ruffle shirter, second-rate/secondrater, short-field/short-fielder, south down/south downer, square rig/ square rigger, stay-put/stay-putter, three-piece/three-piecer, tip-top/ tip-topper, two-piece/two-piecer, Boy Scout/†BoyScouter

In one case, both forms appear in the same citation: (12)

1928 Even if it’s only a sixer in the pen, too many sixes are bad for the health (OED entry for sixer)

And as we know, in Present-Day English, -er has increased its range remarkably, while none of the other forms have expanded to include any non-human referents. Thus, it has certainly been taking over lexical territories from other morphemes. (13)

Persistence. “When a form undergoes grammaticization from a lexical to a grammatical function, so long as it is grammatically viable some traces of its original lexical meanings tend to adhere to it, and details of its lexical history may be reflected in constraints on its grammatical distribution.”

Obviously the original lexical meanings of the -er nominals are still very salient, and there is at least shadowy evidence that they are affecting the meanings of some of the -er nominals referring to non-humans. For example, many speakers find a slight but significant difference in meaning between (14a) and (14b):

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(14)

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(Referring to a missed putt that caused the golfer to lose the tournament) a. That last stroke was a real heart-break. b. That last stroke was a real heart-breaker.

The second is felt to imply more cause, almost agentivity, on the part of the action, somewhat along the lines of the difference between: (15)

a. b.

He hit that last putt and (seeing the result) his heart broke. That last putt broke his heart.

3.2 Layering We now come to layering, one of the principles proposed by Hopper that is of most interest in regard to the -er suffix. (16)

Layering. “Within a broad functional domain, new layers are continually emerging. As this happens, the older layers are not necessarily discarded, but may remain to coexist with and interact with the newer layers.” (Hopper 1991: 22)

Hopper is referring here to the fact that a language often has more than one technique for accomplishing some function, since as a new technique begins to develop, it does not immediately replace the older ones and in fact may never replace them completely. Instead, each technique “may be specialized for particular lexical items, particular classes of constructions, or sociolinguistic registers; they may have slightly different meanings, or simply be recognized as “stylistic” alternatives. Sometimes layering merely represents a transition from one technique to another, but it may also be quite stable” (Hopper 1991: 23). Thus, when a form begins to grammaticalize, on the one hand there will be a spread into new functions for the old form, while on the other hand, the form will still be somewhat specialized in its new uses in comparison with older techniques performing the same function. This creates both a broadening and a specializing of the form’s uses. I will start by discussing the broadening of the -er suffix. The radical extension of possible referents is a clear example of such a broadening, and it is especially interesting because the semantic extension in the meaning of -er nominals is in the direction predicted for forms that are grammaticalizing. For example, it follows the Metaphorical Abstraction Hierarchy (Heine, Claudi, Hünnemeyer 1991: 48): (17)

person > object > process > space > time > quality

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Thus, -er nominals originally referred primarily to persons, then extended to instruments, which are objects, and now include more abstract referents such as events. For example: (18)

writere: broiler:

a person who writes (Old English origin) a gridiron or instrument used in broiling (Middle English origin) no-brainer: decision which requires no brain (no thought) to make (Present Day English origin)

The functions of -er are also spreading toward more grammaticalized uses according to the scale proposed by Traugott (1989, 1990) as being the most common path of semantic change in grammaticalization: (19)

propositional/ideational > textual > interpersonal/expressive

This is refined somewhat by Traugott and König (1991: 208) where they propose that the first of these changes could be formulated as follows: (20)

meanings based in the described external or internal situation> meanings based in the textual situation

It is in the anaphorical use of -er nominals that we find a shift from the first stage to the second. This use seems much more grammatical than the original function of the -er suffix which was primarily lexical; in anaphorical functions the suffix could be considered to be acting as head of a new type of what I would call under-determined noun phrases, similar to the following, clearly syntactic, constructions: (21)

You go in Bill’s car and I’ll go in John’s. I don’t really know yet what I need to do. I’d like something to help me sleep. If I’m buying a novel, I like it to be a fat one.

It’s hard to know exactly how to characterize such constructions, which bear at least a family resemblance to each other. Many but not all are anaphoric, and though some are headless and some have dummy heads, they all seem to function in very much the same way (Croft, 1997). My claim is that more and more -er nominals are functioning anaphorically or deictically, as many of these constructions do. The most obvious cases are those in which an -er nominal can be substituted directly for a noun phrase headed by the word one:

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(22)

a. b. c.

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Many people like rehearsed jokes, but I think off-the-cuff jokes are much funnier. …but I think off-the-cuff ones are much funnier. …but I think off-the-cuffers are much funnier.

As has been noted (e.g. Bosch 1983), anaphoric references can be used even without a syntactically straightforward surface antecedent as in: (23)

Mary Ellen became a guitarist because she thought it was a sociable instrument.

as long as the antecedent is morphologically transparent and not just semantically inferrable. Compare this last to a sentence like: (24) *That car is kaput, and this one doesn’t/won’t either. Therefore, even in cases where -er is not a straightforward substitution for one, it can still play an anaphoric role, as long as the base to which it is attached is morphologically related to the antecedent, as in: (25)

a.

Many people like to rehearse jokes rather than just tell them off the cuff, but I don’t like those who rehearse them nearly as much as those who tell them off the cuff. b. …but I don’t like rehearsers nearly as much as off-the-cuffers. c. *…but I don’t like rehearse/rehearsing ones nearly as much as off-the-cuff ones.

Following are at least a few attested examples where the -er nominal seems to be functioning in an anaphoric way: (26)

a. †I’m teaching two composition classes and a lit class next semester. The lit class should be okay, but I’m a little worried about the compers. b. †A: Your sister picked out the card. B: Oh? Well, she’s always a good card-picker. c. †One jungle explorer to another about a group of natives drawn with squiggly lines: Now watch your step, Osborne…The Squiggle Line people have an inherent distrust for all smoothliners. (Gary Larson cartoon) d. †A: Do any of these have three-car garages? B: No, I don’t see any three-car garagers. e. †A: You won’t have any of the two-step problems on the test, will you?

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f.

g. h. i.

j. k. l.

m. n.

o.

p. q. r. s.

t.

B: No. A: Good, because I have problems with the two-steppers. †I suddenly remembered a girl in my grade nine class who had killed herself. [two sentences intervening] We grade niners had been intensely absorbed in this tragedy when it happened. (Death at Buckingham Palace, C. C. Benison, p. 21) †A: And those people who fold a sock over and tuck it in? B: Yes, well, we’re both tuckers. †A: You’re not growling yet. B: I’m not much of a growler; I’m more of a sigher. 1712 These are ever harping upon things they ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in double meanings..for your double-meaners are dispersed..thro’ all parts of town or city. 1880 Several Irish elections…were fought out on the question for or against Home rule; and the Home Rulers were successful. 1890 It is often said that a single-footing horse never trots well…My best single-footer is my fastest trotter. 1896 The public bodies under Socialism could watch the results of private enterprise..Under the present system we pay the successful private enterpriser too well. 1898 A half-pound trout on this tiny lake will show as good sport as a pounder elsewhere. 1906 [Heading] Black-sand beaches on the West Coast…At present there are small parties who earn a good average living by what is known as ‘blacksanding’… between Jackson’s Bay and Karamea…The ‘black-sanders’ reaped their harvest… 1910 S.Z. Poli..will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house, under the booking direction of J.J. Clancy, and in conjunction with the other Poli ‘small timers’. 1929 In deciding whether to advance the No Trump..the no trumper’s partner uses the same count. 1934 ‘All out for the half-mile!’…Why did none of the other half-milers move? 1959 ‘Marta..said you wanted something looked up.’ ‘And are you a looker-upper? 1960 Our hope is that people in the New Left will feel, with a special urgency, the poverty of ideas in the Labour Movement…The anarchism of young New Lefters 1970 On a right-hand bend I usually do not dip so early, as the

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u.

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lights are pointing away from oncoming traffic, but on certain right-handers I find it an advantage to have my lights dipped. 1977 New wave band Penetration, the premier new wavers in the North-East.

While forms like pronouns that are almost exclusively deictic or anaphoric in use are uncontroversially considered to be grammatical, it is not so clear with -er nominals used in this fashion. Can they be considered to be grammaticalized, at least to a certain degree? After all, as Kastovsky (1986) has pointed out, forms derived by derivational processes can be used not only for naming permanent objects, but also to identify an entity within a particular discourse context. He states that: Word-formation basically serves two complementary functions, a lexical and a syntactic one. It is the lexical function that is usually made the basis of the definition of the field…(409) Important as it is, labelling is not the only function of word-formation, however. There is another, equally important function that is basically syntactic…(410)

He goes on to say, “As these examples clearly demonstrate, word-formation patterns thus also convert information contained in a sentence, present in the context, into nominal, adjectival, verbal or adverbial forms, which is clearly a syntactic-grammatical function…” (Kastovsky 1986: 411). The naming function is the one that contributes forms to the lexicon. Once a form enters the lexicon, it can of course be used for the second, syntactic function (for which Kastovsky uses Motsch’s (1979) term syntactic recategorization, but which I would consider to be anaphoric). Thus, the possibility of a form being used anaphorically cannot be sufficient to consider that form grammatical. The issue then turns out to involve questions about criteria for lexicalization as well as for grammaticalization. That is, if the form is not lexicalized, and it has simply been created on the spot to use in one context for anaphoric reasons, it is serving only a syntactic-grammatical function, and thus the morpheme that is the head of that form might be considered to be primarily if not completely grammatical, at least in that context. To answer this question, of course, requires a consideration of the nature of lexicalization; what exactly are the criteria for deciding if a form is lexicalized? While there is not complete agreement on the exact criteria for grammaticalization, those for lexicalization seem even less fixed.2 As Ramat and Hopper (1998: 2) point out, these depend at least in part on what forms are considered to belong to the lexicon, a question that is not at all resolved. Lipka (1992) offers a useful survey of differing views on lexicalization,

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drawing primarily on treatments of the subject by Bauer (1983, 1988) as well as his own previous work (e.g. Lipka 1977, 1981, 1990). Bauer (1983: 42–61) proposes three stages leading to full lexicalization: (27)

(28)

nonce formation: “a new complex word coined by a speaker/writer on the spur of the moment to cover some immediate need” (Bauer 1983: 45, quoted in Lipka 1992: 103) institutionalization: “potential ambiguity is ignored and only some, or only one, of the possible meanings of a form are used” (Lipka 1992: 103)

This is the stage at which “the nonce formation starts to be accepted by other speakers as a known lexical item” (Lipka 1992: 103). Such a lexeme is still transparent, in the sense that the meaning assigned to it is one of those that could be constructed from the components of the word. (29)

lexicalization: “the final stage comes when, because of some change in the language system, the lexeme has, or takes on, a form which it could not have if it had arisen by the application of productive rules. At this stage the lexeme is lexicalized.” (Lipka 1992: 104)

Bauer also distinguishes between institutionalization and lexicalization by stating that institutionalized words are created by a process that is still productive, while the process used in creating lexicalized words is no longer productive, a distinction that is not without its problems, as Lipka (1992: 105) points out. Lipka himself has similar, though not identical, definitions of these last two stages: (30)

(31)

institutionalization: “the integration of a lexical item, with a particular form and meaning, into the existing stock of words as a generally acceptable and current lexeme” (Lipka 1992: 107) lexicalization: “a gradual, historical process, involving phonological and semantic changes and the loss of motivation. These changes may be combined in a single word. Semantic changes, e.g. idiomatization, may be formalized as the addition or loss of semantic features. Synchronically, the result of this process, various degrees of idiomaticity, form a continuous scale. This process of lexicalization in general, as well as its result, namely the irregularity of the lexicon, can only be explained historically.” (Lipka 1992: 107)

The phrase “loss of motivation” refers to demotivation, which involves a decrease in transparency of the word, either phonological, morphological, or

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semantic. For example, Lipka (1992: 109) cites as factors contributing to demotivation the semantic changes that add general or idiosyncratic SFs (semantic features). (32)

Features like HABITUAL, PROFESSIONAL can explain sleepwalker, gambler, writer while streetwalker…involve[s] rather specific semantic material…Loss of features can be seen in ladykiller, saddler (who makes other leather articles as well)… (Lipka 1992: 109)

One over-riding principle of many of these characteristics is that they result in increasing idiosyncracy in a form as it moves toward final lexicalization. Lehmann’s (1989) proposal of a lexical-to-grammatical cline, with movement toward the former being a case of lexicalization and movement toward the latter being grammaticalization, captures this notion very elegantly. Since syntax is generally considered to be characterizable in terms of general rules, while the lexicon is the repository of more idiosyncratic linguistic facts, Lehmann views the principle underlying both lexicalization and grammaticalization to be that of a decrease or increase respectively in the generality of the patterns of the construction in question. Thus we can also keep this more general notion in mind as we consider the characteristics of lexicalization. Based on all these proposals, I am suggesting the following tentative list of features for forms at the stages of nonce-formation, institutionalization and lexicalization: (33)

Nonce formation a. The form is newly created, and thus unfamiliar to the listener/ reader. b. It is morphologically transparent; the meanings of the components provide the broad limits on the meaning of the nonceform. c. The exact meaning of the form is further constrained or determined by the context in which it is used. d. It is created using productive morphological processes. e. It has no dictionary entry, or if it has one, the only meaning given is what I would call the generic meaning, that is, the one that can be constructed from the morphological structure alone. Institutionalized form a. The meaning has narrowed to a small subset (perhaps only one) of those made possible by the compositional structure of the

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b. c. d. e.

word. However, the institutionalized meaning is still constrained by that structure. The meaning is relatively independent of the context(s) in which the form is used. The form is accepted as a known lexical item by many if not most members of a speech community. It was created using productive morphological processes. It is listed in the dictionary with a range of definitions that may include the generic meaning but will certainly include the more specific meanings mentioned in a.

Lexicalized form a. The meaning (as well as the form, perhaps) is not completely predictable from the word’s historically attested morphological structure. b. The meaning is even more independent of context than in the institutionalized cases. c. The form is accepted as known by the speech community. d. The process that created it is no longer productive. e. It is listed in the dictionary with the specific meanings it has developed. The historical generic meaning is unlikely to be listed unless it is given as part of the form’s etymology. Since the movement from nonce-formation to full lexicalization is gradual and not always completed, clearly a form might satisfy some but not all of the criteria for any of these phases, but at least they provide a sort of road-map on which to locate problematic words. One major problem even with this set of criteria, however, is that it seems to involve the assumption that institutionalization or lexicalization of one form-meaning unit implies loss of all other possibilities. This is definitely not the case, as we will see in looking at developments involving the -er suffix. With these criteria and caveats in mind, we can return to consideration of the degree of lexicalization of -er nominals. The results are quite interesting, and perhaps even surprising. First, if we hold by Bauer’s criterion about the productivity of the source processes, no -er nominal has reached full lexicalization. And even if we omit this requirement, full lexicalization seems surprisingly rare for a process that has been in the language as long as this one has. To begin with, there is little evidence of phonological or morphological demotivation; the -er has a constant pronunciation and spelling,3 and the boundary between stem and suffix is clear, except perhaps in a few cases such as seer. In fact, most, perhaps

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all, cases of morphological or phonological opacity are located in the stems, as in: (34)

sutler, butler, chandler, necromancer, warmonger

which are often archaic or obsolete words. This leaves semantic demotivation. How many -er nominals have meanings that cannot be constructed from the component morphemes? This is a complex question that should be broken down into two issues: whether the meaning of the nominal falls completely outside the range allowed by the morphological structure, or, if the meaning is inside that range, whether it is only a subset of it, having had semantic features added to the generic meaning. If the first is the case, the nominal, or at least the nominal with that meaning, has lexicalized. If the second, it has only institutionalized. The first question of course depends on what is considered to be the meaning of the -er suffix. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in its entry for -er lists as possible referents for -er nominals people, animals, things and actions, combined with a broad range of relationships with the nominal’s base, including “involved in or with,” “originating or resident in,” “belonging to or connected with,” “done by or involving,” “does,” “suitable for.” One could reasonably sum up such a broad set as: (35)

X + -er: “entity or abstract event or state saliently connected with X”

Obviously, if one accepts this as the most accurate present generic meaning, it would be hard for the meaning of an -er nominal to fall outside the range! However, even if one takes the historically more established range as the generic meaning, which would be something like: (36)

X + -er: “a person, animal or thing saliently connected with X”

most if not all of the -er nominals whose attested use falls outside this range can still be used with the generic meaning. In the following, the first is the attested meaning and the second is one given by a native speaker who wasn’t familiar with the word: (37) †one-notcher: a dinner that makes you let out your belt one notch (attested) a guy who thinks he’s a ladies’ man but only has one notch in his bed (elicited as most likely meaning) backgrounder: a handout of background publicity material; also, a press conference or interview at which a government official explains the background of an action or policy someone who has to do background checks on people

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back-hander: a back-handed stroke or blow someone good at back-handed strokes in tennis Thus, few if any meanings of -er nominals are fully lexicalized, nor can they be, given the broadness of the meaning of the suffix.4 In fact, one could argue that when a morpheme acquires such a broad meaning that lexicalization of the forms resulting from its attachment is practically impossible, it has moved at least a significant distance along Lehmann’s (1989) continuum from lexical to syntactic. This leaves the question of institutionalization of -er nominals. It is certainly true that some of them have fairly strong default meanings, such as streetwalker or murderer, so that they cannot easily be used with any other meaning predicted by the morphological structure: (38)

a. ?*Leah prefers to walk only in the greenbelt, but I’m a streetwalker myself, because I prefer shop windows to wildlife. b. ?*Everybody likes different kinds of books. I’m a romancer, but Sharon is much more a murderer (readers of books about romances or murders respectively.)

Yet even when there is a fairly strongly institutionalized meaning, in many cases different interpretations based on the generic meaning and determined by context are still possible, as in the following examples (the first two from my own collection): (39)

pusher: dealer in illicit drugs †(Comment made while shoving a piece of heavy furniture across the floor): You know, it’s easier to be the puller than the pusher. (40) dropper: implement used to administer liquid medications †A group of roommates have been playing a game of catch which will end if one of the participants drops the ball. A previously absent roommate comes in and wants to join the game, at which point the others say: “Don’t let him play — he’s a dropper!” (From the American sitcom Friends, episode shown May 6, 1999) (41) letter-opener: an implement to open letters They’re all very nice folks except the letter opener who is universally disliked by everyone. (London-Lundt Corpus) Morita (1995: 472) also cites one of these: (42)

The thousands of students who do not get accepted at the one university of their choice spend a year, sometimes even two, in cram schools preparing to try again. These crammers are called ronin, a

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word used to describe the masterless, wandering samurai of the 17th and 18th centuries. (E. McGrath, “The Test Must Go on”, in Magazine English, ed. C. Hamagami, Asahi Press, 1984, p. 10) He then explains that: The word crammer usually means “a school or instructor that crams students.” But in the discourse (12) [my (42), MER], given the preceding context in which those who failed in entrance examinations go to cram schools preparing to try again, crammer is readily interpreted as “one who goes to a cram school.” In other words, crammer in (12) [(42)] does not have its usual compositional meaning, but the contextual force serves to give the word an otherwise unusual interpretation.

These cases of a construction being capable of having both a lexicalized and nonlexicalized meaning seem exactly parallel to those where a phrase has become idiomatized while still being usable in its compositional, non-idiomatic sense: (43)

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Idiomatic sense of to get away with: Don’t expect me to shield you; I’d turn you in myself before I let you get away with it. (Created example.) I need to write down the grade for that paper before I let you get away with it. (Attested example: professor talking to a student about to leave with a graded homework assignment.)

In the case of idioms versus compositionally transparent phrases, there is no doubt that the former belong in the lexicon while the latter are a product of the syntax component, suggesting that non-lexicalized cases of words formed from highly productive suffixes like -er also have at least some grammatical characteristics. The limits of this article preclude me from exploring these claims much further, but I want to examine a handful of instances of -er nominals used anaphorically in order to determine whether they can be considered to be lexicalized, or whether they are nonce-formations and therefore as dependent on context for interpretation as are uncontroversially grammatical anaphoric forms such as pronouns. Morita (1995) discusses several such cases, using as a criterion for nonce-words the fact that they are not listed in The Oxford English Dictionary. If we examine the examples given by Kastovsky and Morita, we will see that many of these forms being used anaphorically involve -er nominals that are not fully lexicalized, or even institutionalized:

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(45)

Examples of “syntactic recategorization” (Kastovsky 1986: 410–411) a. One of them was faking. (…) Could the faker keep up free association (…)? b. A few thought they had noticed someone resembling the man in the picture. I wasted two days tracking one of the supposed resemblers, and found no resemblance at all. c. Solarians did not bud, they birthed; and the female was always the birther. d. …and I patted her shoulder. Patting a shoulder can be anything from an apology to a promise, and only the patter can say which. Examples of nonce-word formation, Morita (1995: 469) e. Jean: We were wondering — at least I know I was — why you should think it worth while going on here. Rex: Right. Dad, why not pack it up now? Professor: We can’t all pack it up, as you call it, Rex. And one packed-up man in a family is probably quite enough. As for you, Jean, who are not a packer-up, well, I’m surprised at you. (J.B. Priestley, Time and the Conways and Other Plays, Penguin, 1969, pp. 254–5) f. Automatically the guest who ordered a bottle of liquor a few minutes after arrival aroused the credit manager’s suspicion. Most new arrivals who wanted a drink quickly — after a journey or a tiring day — ordered a mixed drink from the bar. The immediate bottle-orderer was often starting on a drunk, and might not intend to pay, or couldn’t. (A. Hailey, Hotel, Pan Books, 1965, p. 82)

We can consider first the question of whether there are dictionary entries for any of these. Neither Webster’s Third International nor The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has entries for birther, packer-up, bottle-orderer or patter. They do both have entries for faker, though The Shorter OED gives a fairly generic meaning: (46)

faker: “a person who fakes; a swindler”

Webster’s Third does give several more lexicalized meanings for this word along with the generic one:

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faker: one that fakes: as a: a person who makes fakes…b: a street or fair vendor who seeks to deceive by ascribing great value or efficacy to cheap or worthless products…c: one that passes himself off as something other than he is or pretends to qualities or abilities that he does not possess

Webster’s Third also has an entry for resembler, but has only the generic meaning for it: (48)

resembler: one that resembles

while The Shorter OED lists it at the end of the entry for resemble and gives no definition for it at all, which presumably shows that it is considered to have only a generic meaning. In order to test speaker intuitons, I gave these six forms to seventeen English speakers, asking them to judge whether or not they were familiar with the form, whether or not they would expect to find the form in the dictionary, and what they thought the form might mean. The ratings are as follows: (49)

Word faker resembler birther patter packer-up bottle-orderer

Unfamiliar 14% 88% 59% 76% 88% 41%

Average 61% Average without faker 70%

Not likely to be in the dictionary 24% 94% 76% 71% 94% 82% 74% 83%

With the exception of faker, most of the consultants felt that the forms were unlikely to be in the dictionary, even though both faker and bottle-orderer were considered by more than half of the consultants to be familiar. I believe the reason that they did not expect bottle-orderer to be in the dictionary is either that they are less likely to expect complex -er nominals to have dictionary entries, or that they could find no meaning for it that was likely to be institutionalized. This last consideration would also hold for resembler and patter. One consultant said about resembler, “I wouldn’t expect to find it in the dictionary because how can you resemble someone or something all the time?” The overall difference in ratings between familiarity and likelihood of dictionary entries I believe is due to people’s perception of -er as a very productive process, highly likely to produce forms with meanings predictable enough that they will not need to be

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included in the dictionary. The interpretations the consultants gave for each word also support this conclusion, since they closely matched the generic meanings in almost every case. In sum, although these are just a few examples, I believe it is safe to say that a number of -er nominals used anaphorically are not lexicalized or even institutionalized according to the criteria discussed. Moreover, there are many anaphoric uses of -er nominals in which the form of the nominal may be lexicalized, but not with the meaning it has in the anaphoric use. As a result, to the extent, which seems not insignificant, that these non-lexicalized -er nominals are used for grammatical purposes such as anaphora, I would claim that the -er suffix producing them has become, if not completely grammatical, at least significantly grammaticalized. If the -er suffix is indeed moving in the direction of being a bona fide anaphorical device, it is easy to see why, given its wide range of both bases and referents. Such a movement has been enabled by the broadening changes discussed above that are taking place in its formation patterns. Anaphoric constructions need to be sufficiently specific in meaning to allow the listener to determine their antecedent. However, they should also be as semantically and phonologically simple as possible . These needs are in conflict with each other, and languages will have an array of anaphoric devices for different purposes (see e.g. Givón 1983). Thus personal pronouns, which are maximally simple but relatively non-specific, are generally used shortly after their antecedent and in an environment where there are no other potentially conflicting referents: (50)

The girl tossed the kite into the air, but it/she fell to the ground immediately afterwards.

If the anaphoric expression is further from its antecedent, or if the antecedent is potentially confusable with other entities in the discourse, more semantically and phonologically detailed anaphoric expressions will be used (see e.g. Kibrik 1996): (51)

The tall guy spent a lot of time with his friend who was quite short. They looked quite odd together, because the tall one ended up slouched over most of the time.

-Er nominals are not as low in specification as pronouns, but they are usually more general semantically, and at the same time shorter than most noun phrases: (52)

she, the singer, the one singing, the woman over there who is singing folk songs

As such, like many underdetermined noun phrases, they would be suitable as

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“mid-range” anaphoric expressions, where there is some distance from and/or some potential confusion with the antecedent (see Cumming and Ono 1996 for examples of other types of mid-range expressions in a text) While this was probably somewhat true even in Old English, as -er nominal formation became more and more general to include an increasing range of possible referents and bases, it would have become even more potentially useful in this regard. The increase in range of referents meant that -er nominals could be used to refer back not only to human antecedents, but also to animals, plants, objects, and actions. Perhaps even more important, as its range of bases increased, the possibilities of tying it syntactically to its antecedent also increased. At the point when -er bases were primarily verbal, verbs provided almost the only potential antecedents: (53)

Some people were singing, others were dancing. Oddly enough, the dancers were making much more noise than the singers.

However, the syntactic range of possible antecedents has spread as the range of -er stems has widened, which should allow anaphoric -er nominals in a much wider range of instances. If we examine the attested anaphoric uses given in (26) above, we see as antecedents the following: (54)

(N +) N + N: composition classes, Home rule, squiggle line people, grade nine Modifier + N: double meanings, private enterprise Modifier-N + (N +) N: right-hand bend, New wave band, black-sand beaches, small-time vaudeville house Quantifier + (N +) N: half-mile, half-pound trout, three-car garage, two-step problem N + Prep Phrase: people in the New Left Two-part Verb: looked up, pick out Other: No Trump, single-footing horse

It can be seen both from the attested examples in (26) that -er nominals can be used anaphorically with a syntactically wide variety of antecedents, something that could not have occurred when they were limited to verb-based nominals referring primarily to people. We can now return to the other aspect of the layering process posited by Hopper (1991) as part of beginning grammaticalization, that of specialization of the form in its new use. There are several ways in which the -er nominal in its anaphoric function is somewhat specialized in comparison with the other techniques with which it is competing.

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Anaphoric -er nominals are in competition with at least one, if not more, of the set of underdetermined noun phrase constructions in English discussed above (examples given in (21)). The one it seems most similar to is the structure with one already mentioned: (55)

the X one(s) Prescription drugs are often stronger than any of the over-the-counter ones.

which is part of a family of noun phrases headed by very general nouns: (56)

an X (typekind of) guy, the X thing †I’m a classic not-show-your-work-and-lose-credit kind of kid. †She’s not a live-alone type person. †your average worm-and-hook kind of guy †I’m one of those learn-the-hard-way people.

There are certainly a number of signs that the anaphoric -er nominal is somewhat specialized vis a vis anaphoric one, as Hopper would predict. First, while anaphoric one can be used in any register, most of the examples of complex -er nominals, which are all of relatively recent construction, are informal register, often marked in writing by enclosing the construction in single quotes. (57)

a. †(Cartoon by Gary Larson) One jungle explorer to another about a group of natives drawn with squiggly lines: Now watch your step, Osborne…The Squiggle Line people have an inherent distrust for all smoothliners. b. 1906 [Heading] Black-sand beaches on the West Coast…At present there are small parties who earn a good average living by what is known as ‘blacksanding’… between Jackson’s Bay and Karamea…The ‘black-sanders’ reaped their harvest… c. 1910 S.Z. Poli..will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house, under the booking direction of J.J. Clancy, and in conjunction with the other Poli ‘small timers’. d. 1914 California passed from the ‘get rich quickers’ into the hands of scientific exploiters. e. 1930 They are in fact (to use the colloquial but expressive phrase) ‘daily breaders’. f. 1959 all..’me-tooers’–men whose chief appeal was to the vague, uncontroversial idealism of the non-partisan

and they are also quite often derogatory, either overtly by their component parts:

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315

mother-fucker, ass-licker, mucker-upper, dirty-trickster, down-andouter, round-heeler, never-waser, no-gooder, no-hoper, pie-in-theskyer

or covertly in that their use is often in a ridiculing or contemptuous context: (59)

a.

1778 I hope I shall never pay-off another ‘Round Towner..The Roundtowners are wholly ineligible as indoor Servants. b. 1856 The sand-hillers..are small, gaunt, and cadaverous, and their skin is just the color of the sand-hills they live on. c. 1858 mobs of cheap-trippers d. 1864 much you know of hills, you level landers! e. 1904 ..but it is not the fumbling, ineffective way of the townsman Back-to-the-Lander. f. 1914 California passed from the ‘get rich quickers’ into the hands of scientific exploiters. g. 1922 a sort of ennuyé, triste, pitiable busy-idler h. 1926 Those among the free-versers who are not purely imbecile are disgruntled, sarcastic, and gloomy. i. 1927 a selfish four-baller j. 1927 Leaving this suggestion of a restricted meaning of the term idea to the tender mercies of the stay-putters. k. 1930 that type of journalist who used to be rudely called a penny-a-liner l. 1948 all those soft-brained pig-islanders m. 1959 all..‘me-tooers’–men whose chief appeal was to the vague, uncontroversial idealism of the non-partisan n. 1964 bunch of crackpots, long-hairs, foreigners, out-of-staters o. 1963 I’ve been tailing that toffee-nosed sweet-lifer. p. 1973 Out-of-towners or won’t-works agitate at so much the hour, never mind what about. q. 1974 a mere pink-cheeked one-pipper r. 1977 Bartók pours them [chromatic sequences] out with a lavishness of invention which the twelve-toner, working away with his slide rule, will never know. s. 1982 a borderline New Waver who looks as though she has been out in the rain upside down

Secondly, -er suffixation seems especially productive for certain types of bases. Verbs and nouns are still by far the most common single-word bases. And for

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the complex -er nominals, most of the bases that are not institutionalized or lexicalized belong to one of a small number of phrase types that produce both lexicalized and non-lexicalized phrases, i.e. modifier + noun, quantifier + noun, noun + noun.5 In connection with the latter, of the 360 complex forms I collected from the OED, these three patterns accounted for 57.7% of the total: (60)

Most common patterns in the complex -er nominal data set Modifier + Noun 31.9% (free-verser, bitter-ender) Quantifier + Noun 17.2% (one-suiter, seventeen-hander) Noun + Noun 08.6% (port-winer, nose-ender)

And I think these figures are somewhat misleading, because the Quantifier + Noun pattern is so productive and predictable that most of them won’t have dictionary entries at all. Thus, though there are no clear constraints on the -er bases, there are some clear preferences. 3.3 De-categorialization; possible cliticization The nature of the privileged bases just discussed also provides evidence relevant to the last of Hopper’s principles. (61)

De-categorialization. “Forms undergoing grammaticization tend to lose or neutralize the morphological markers and syntactic privileges characteristic of the full categories Noun and Verb, and to assume attributes characteristic of secondary categories such as Adjective, Participle, Preposition, etc.”

The -er in most ways is still a normal derivational affix morphologically. The one obvious way in which it is becoming atypical is that it is increasingly attached to phrasal bases, which is one of the common characteristics of the secondary category of clitics. Like most of the concepts discussed in this article, clitic has been defined in a number of partially overlapping ways, e.g.: (62)

(63)

…usually used to refer to a set of unaccented forms that tend to be found attached to a more heavily accented form (known as the ‘host’). The attachment may be so close that the clitic becomes affix-like…Or the attachment may be quite loose and more like an autonomous word… (Hopper and Traugott 1993: 132–133) a term used in grammar to refer to a form which resembles a word, but which cannot stand on its own as a normal utterance, being structurally dependent upon a neighbouring word in a construction…

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Examples are the contracted forms of be, such as I’m and he’s. The articles of English, French, etc., are sometimes referred to as clitics… (Crystal 1985: 51) a grammatical element treated as an independent word in syntax but forming a phonological unit with the word that precedes or follows it…The distinction between clitics and affixes is naturally fluid: e.g. English -n’t in haven’t or aren’t is a clitic by some criteria but has been claimed as an affix by others. So too is the boundary between clitics and full words: e.g. unstressed to is a clitic, by some relevant criteria, in I have to [haft6] go. (Matthews 1997: 56)

When considering the status of the -er suffix, the treatment of clitics proposed by Jerrold Sadock is especially interesting. In his discussion (Sadock 1991: 52–77), he points out that many forms in a language show non-congruent characteristics in the different areas of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, making it hard to categorize them neatly. For example, clitics are phonologically like bound morphemes but syntactically and semantically more like free morphemes. He gives a list of fifteen features involving morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology and the lexicon that are commonly found in forms that have been considered clitics. Some of these features are commonly found in affixes and some in words. He then demonstrates that few if any of these can really be considered defining features for clitics. To what extent does the -er suffix conform to Sadock’s features? I will start by considering the ones from phonology: (65)

Phonology a. Clitics are phonologically dependent. b. They are agglutinative. c. They are stressless. d. They are subject to automatic phonological rules only.

Because it is historically a bound morpheme, the -er suffix already behaves phonologically somewhat like a clitic, being phonologically dependent, agglutinative, and stressless.6 These similarities alone are not compelling, since clitics share them with many bound morphemes. It is, nevertheless, interesting to note that on the scales of fusion and dependence developed by Bybee, Pagliuca and Perkins (1991), the phonological characteristics of -er place it toward the more independent end, which would make it more like a clitic than the average suffix. The correspondence of -er to clitics is more interesting in areas other than phonology. For example, the characteristics Sadock gives for the lexicon are:

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(66)

Lexicon a. Host plus clitic are not lexicalized. b. Clitics alternate with free words.

I have already made the argument at length that many -er nominals are not lexicalized, and that among those that are, they are still available for nonlexicalized uses. Likewise, the fact that non-lexicalized -er nominals often alternate with phrases ending with one or with another of the underdetermined nouns means that -er formations often satisfy the second of these criteria as well. For semantic characteristics, Sadock proposes: (67)

Semantics a. Clitics are semantic functions. b. They take the meaning of a phrase as argument.

The -er suffix certainly qualifies as a semantic function which takes its base as argument. This first criterion, like the phonological ones above, is fulfilled by derivational morphemes in general. It is the second criterion that really separates derivational morphemes from clitics, and when the base of an -er nominal is a phrase, -er satisfies this criterion as well. (68)

Syntax a. Clitics are independent elements of syntax. b. They are syntactically adjacent to their morphological host.

The kind of argument Sadock uses to show that forms like ’d are independent elements of syntax is that such a form doesn’t join with its morphological and phonological host to form a “syntactic atom” (Sadock 1991: 48). The same argument can be used to show that the -er suffix in a complex -er nominal doesn’t form a syntactic atom with the last word in a phrase to which it is attached, since the suffix would not attach to the last word alone: (69)

in-betweener, homeward-bounder, low-downer, never-waser, nogooder, do-it-yourselfer, goodbyer, point-blanker, stand-patter, hands-upper

Likewise, in these complex -er nominals, the suffix can be syntactically adjacent to its morphological host, given that English does allow phrasal pre-nominal modifiers: (70)

an in-the-park home run an in-the-park-er a do-it-yourself guy a do-it-youself-er

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The last set of features Sadock considers are morphological: (71)

Morphology a. Clitics are bound morphemes. b. They attach outside inflection. c. They block further morphology. d. They attach without regard to the morphological class of the host. e. They are completely productive.

As with the phonological critera, the first morphological criterion will be met by the -er suffix as well as by any other derivational morpheme. And again like typical derivational morphemes, it fails to satisfy criteria b and c. But perhaps the most interesting criteria of all are the last two morphological ones. Both of these criteria concern productivity, and it is in productivity that the -er suffix looks most like a clitic. It can be attached to at least some members of most, perhaps all, morphological classes, and for the classes of nouns and verbs, it is almost completely productive. More significantly, it can even attach to all or most syntactic constituent types. True, there are some constraints on affixation to these classes, but I have argued elsewhere (Ryder forthcoming) that at least in the case of simple-stemmed -er nominals, there are semantic and/or pragmatic reasons for the limitations, which could probably be said of clitics as well. In short, if one tries to define productive limitations on -er formation solely in syntactic terms, disregarding semantic or pragmatic concerns, it appears to have virtually no constraints. However, the picture is not quite as simple as that. The fact is that one cannot attach -er to every semantically or pragmatically appropriate member of every syntactic or lexical category, or at the very least, it is difficult to attach to some members, and the relative ease or difficulty seems to be related in many cases to the degree of lexicalization of the base. Certainly the bases for most of -er nominals found in the dictionary are institutionalized or lexicalized. While we have already considered general criteria for lexicalization, it will be useful here to examine proposed criteria for phrases in particular, as it is the -er suffix in phrasal-based nominals that looks most clitic-like. Pawley, who is especially interested in the lexicalization of phrases, points out (1986: 98) that, although “morphemes and out-and-out idioms belong in the lexicon”, there are different judgments on the characteristics of a lexicalized phrase. He does, however, state, “It is convenient to have a term for all expressions that native speakers recognize as conventional or institutionalized, in one or another sense other than being well-formed according to the conventions of syntax and sematnics” (Pawley 1986: 103). Pawley goes on to suggest a set of criteria that help distinguish

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lexicalized expressions from ordinary phrases. He admits that the list is not exhaustive, nor are all the criteria of equal weight. Nor will every item satisfy every criterion. However, they do provide a useful set against which to check the types of stems we find in complex -er nominals. He divides the criteria into six broad areas: institutional status, resemblance to simple lexemes, special syntactic restrictions, ellipsis, writing conventions and arbitrariness: (72)

a.

b.

c.

d. e. f.

Institutional status: recognized name or term for something, social institution, legal status, speech act formulas, or use of acronyms Resemblance to simple lexemes: single-word synonyms, belonging to a terminology with single-word morphemes, a base for inflected or derived forms, internal pause acceptable, inseparability of constituents, written as a single word, conventional reduced pronunciation, or stress and intonation pattern Special syntactic restrictions: invariable constituents, transformational defectiveness, derived compound with no underlying structure, use of definite article on first mention, sentential (pre-nominal) modifier, or syntactic idiom Ellipsis: omission of final constituents and still recognizable, ellipsis of head-word Writing conventions: written with initial capitals or quotation marks Arbitrariness: semantic idiom, arbitrary selection of one meaning, arbitrary selection of one form

Some of the criteria are somewhat difficult to judge for forms that are no longer current, such as the possibility of a pause within the expression, or the optional omission of final constituents or head-word. I examined 341 complex -er nominals listed in the OED7 for evidence that the stems satisfied any of Pawley’s criteria for lexicalization. Since the set of phrases we are examining were selected precisely because they allow the derivational suffix -er to be attached, the criterion of allowing derivational or inflectional affixes is satisfied by 100% of the forms. Unfortunately, use of that criterion results in circular reasoning; I would be claiming that -er nominal stems were lexicalized, yet my basis for this is that they can carry the derivational suffix -er! However, 64% of the forms also satisfy at least one and often more, of Pawley’s other criteria. I will give examples from each of his broad categories. It is worth noting that many if not all of these examples could as easily have been included under other criteria. (Related -er forms are given in parentheses):8

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Institutional status a. Church of England (Church of Englander: a supporter of the Church of England) b. Hall of Fame (Hall of Famer: one elected or belonging to a Hall of Fame) c. Little League (†Little Leaguer: a player in the Little League, an official baseball organization for children and young teenagers) d. New Left (New Lefter: a supporter or member of the New Left) e. NFL (†NFL’er: member of the NFL, the National Football League) f. Wall Street (Wall-Streeter: a Wall Street financier) Resemblance to simple lexemes (the following expressions were chosen because they show inseparability of constituents) a. daily bread (daily breader: one who earns his or her daily bread) b. first aid (first-aider: one who practices first aid) c. free verse (free-verser: one who produces free verse) d. sweet life (sweet-lifer: one who lives the sweet life) Special syntactic restrictions a. busy-idle (busy-idler: someone who is busy-idle, i.e. busily employed about trifles) b. down-and-out (down-and-outer: one who is down and out) c. get-rich-quick (get-rich-quicker: person engaged in a get-richquick scheme) d. rank-and-file (rank-and-filer: a member of the rank and file) e. right-to-life (right-to-lifer: person opposed to the abortion of the unborn foetus or concerned with this issue) f. stand pat (stand-patter: one who stands pat) g. stay put (stay-putter: one who stays put) Ellipsis a. CB (CB’er: one who operates a citizen’s band radio transmitter or receiver) b. John Birch (John Bircher: a member or supporter of the John Birch Society) c. Tourette (†touretter: someone suffering from Tourette’s syndrome)

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d.

women’s lib (women’s libber: a member or supporter of women’s liberation)

Writing conventions a. Fair Deal (Fair Dealer: a proponent of Fair Deal, the name given to the policy of social improvement by Truman) b. New Thought (New Thoughter: a follower of New Thought, a theory of the nature of disease, a system of therapeutic practice, and also a religious sect believing in these things) c. Primrose League (Primrose Leaguer: a supporter or member of the Primlose League, a political association formed in 1883) d. Third World (Third Worlder: an inhabitant of the Third World) Arbitrariness a. blind pig: a place where liquor is illicitly sold (blind-pigger: a frequenter of a blind pig) b. to have cold-feet: to be fearful, reluctant (cold-footer: one who has cold feet, a fearful person) c. to give the glad hand: to act cordially towards people (gladhander: one who gives people the glad hand, one who acts cordially towards everybody) d. hot-rod: a motor vehicle specially modified to give high power and speed (hot-rodder: a driver of a hot rod) e. to soft-soap: to flatter (soft-soaper: one who soft-soaps) Thus, there is certainly abundant evidence that many complex -er nominals have lexicalized stems. These stems may play a crucial role in recent developments in -er nominals in that they provide a plausible base for extension of the stem patterns to include phrase types that are often or always non-lexicalized. And this does seem to be what is happening. Members of the phrasal pattern types that are probably most productive as bases for the -er suffix, given in (60) above, often are not lexicalized. First, we find a large number of complex -er nominals with noun-noun stems. Noun-noun expressions exist on the boundary of lexicalized and non-lexicalized forms, ranging from highly idiomatic expressions such as cathouse (“house of prostitution”) to extremely predictable and productive patterns such as “substance + item made of it”, for example plastic fork and stone wall. Thus, stems of complex -er nominals that consist of two nouns will show a wide range of lexicalization as well, with some being very close to the non-lexicalized, syntactic end:

COMPLEX -ER NOMINALS

(74) a.

b. c. d.

e.

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Non-lexicalized phrase Related -er nominal Saturday night Saturday-nighter “a person who attends an entertainment on a Saturday night” (OED 1966) bridle bit bridle-bitter “maker of bridle bits” (OED 1500) hall bedroom hall-bedroomer “one who sleeps in a hall-bedroom” (OED 1899) sand hill sand-hiller “one of a class of ‘poor whites’ living in the pine-woods that cover the sandy hills of Georgia and South Carolina” (OED 1848) white suit †white suiter “a volunteer at the Rose Bowl who patrols the parade route, wearing a white suit as a uniform”

Secondly, we have stems consisting of modifier + noun. Again, while some forms of this type are clearly lexicalized, e.g. blackboards aren’t necessarily black and Redcoats aren’t coats at all, many such phrases are not lexicalized: (75) a.

b.

c. d.

e.

f.

Non-lexicalized phrase Related -er nominal first line †first-liner “someone who can only remember the first line of texts such as books or poems” black sand black-sander “a beach-comber who washes the black sand of the beach for gold” (OED 1906) cheap trip cheap-tripper “one who makes a cheap trip” (OED 1858) fastest time fastest timer “one who or that which completes a race etc. in the fastest time” (OED 1891) high rank high ranker “a person of high rank, especially in one of the Services” (OED 1953) small town small-towner “an inhabitant of a small town, one who comes from a small town” (OED 1969)

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Finally, one of the most common types of stems for complex -er nominals is a quantified noun phrase, consisting of one of the following: (76)

quantifier + measurement term quantifier + other countable noun

cannot be considered lexicalized at all. Fifty-five forms in the Oxford English Dictionary (16% of the 341 I categorized) have stems showing this pattern. Examples of these include: (77)

eleven-pounder, five-percenter, forty-footer, four-footer, halfpounder, one-liner, quarter-miler, six-wheeler, thirty-pounder, thousand-miler, three-master, twelve-toner, two-seater

And this percentage is very misleading, as many such phrases do not appear in dictionaries at all. The patterns for these stems are two similar and extremely productive prenominal modifying phrases in English: (78)

quantifier + measurable unit (+ -ed)

as in the following sentences: (79)

a. b. c.

He’s a 6-foot, 250-pound athlete. It was a 12-legged, 4-tentacled, 3-eyed monster. I bought a 32-inch, 300-dollar necklace.

The -er nominals based on these phrases are relatively recent. There are a handful from the 17th and 18th centuries, all having to do with the military: (80)

a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

four-pounder “a gun to carry a four-pound shot” (OED 1684) six-pounder “a cannon throwing shot six pound in weight” (OED 1684), also a shot weighing six pounds” (OED 1855) ten-pounder “a cannon throwing a ten-pound shot” (OED 1695) three-pounder “a gun firing a three-pound ball” (OED 1684) thirty-two-pounder “a gun throwing a shot of thirty-two pounds” (OED 1769) three-decker “a three-decked ship” (OED 1792) two-decker “a two-decked ship or boat; formerly specifically a line-of-battle ship carrying guns on two decks” (OED 1790)

But beginning in the 19th century, -er nominals based on this pattern have a wide range of meanings:

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a.

every-nighter “one who attends every performance of a play” (OED 1905) b. five-percenter “an agent who, in return for a percentage fee, assists businessmen to obtain Government contracts etc.” (OED 1949) c. four-baller “a golfer playing in a four-ball match” (OED 1927) d. four-footer “a creature having four feet, a quadruped” (OED 1906) e. one-acter “a short play or other production, consisting of a single act” (OED 1895) f. one-liner “a headline consisting of only one line of print” (OED 1904) g. one-lunger “slang, an engine with a single cylinder, a vehicle or boat driven by such an engine” (OED 1908) h. one-suiter “a suitcase designed to hold one suit” (OED 1961) i. quarter-miler “one who is good at running a quarter-mile race” (OED 1899) j. seventeen-hander “a horse of seventeen hands” (OED 1886) k. six-roomer “a house of six rooms” (OED 1853) l. ten-pointer “a stag having antlers with ten points; a ‘hart of ten’” (OED 1883) m. twelve-toner “a composer employing the twelve-tone technique” (OED 1966) n. two-hander “a two-handed sword” (OED 1866) o. two-holer “a privy or lavatory accommodating two people” (OED 1971) p. two-piecer “a suit consisting of two garments (as a jacket and trousers, or coat and dress) matching or meant to be worn together” (OED 1963) q. two-seater “something (as a vehicle or settee) that has two seats” (OED 1891) r. two-yearer “a voyage lasting two years” (OED 1894)

Note that the last, which refers to an event, has a meaning toward the grammatical end of the hierarchy proposed by Heine et al. (1991: 48). In most cases where the stem belongs to one of these non-lexicalized patterns, it seems reasonable to propose that the resulting -er nominal is hardly ever completely lexicalized or even institutionalized and thus will most often be used anaphorically. It would take more data than I presently have to prove this, but Morita (1995: 473) has a clear example:

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(82)

Like crystals, competitive skate-boarding and, of course, Proposition 13, slow growth has begun to make its effect felt elsewhere in the country. Last week Hawaiians voted on an initiative to limit resort development; they will vote on a plan to restrict urban development in November. Slow growthers in Seattle want a referendum on curbing the construction of highrises, while… (Newsweek, October 3, 1988, p. 13)

Langacker (1987) among others has pointed out that between fully lexicalized expressions and completely syntactically free ones, there are a series of low-level patterns showing varying or even mixed degrees of lexicalization, which he calls entrenchment: Linguistic structures are more realistically conceived as falling along a continuous scale of entrenchment in cognitive organization. Every use of a structure has a positive impact on its degree of entrenchment, whereas extended periods of disuse have a negative impact. With repeated use, a novel structure becomes progressively entrenched, to the point of becoming a unit…(59) An event-type is said to have unit status when it is sufficiently well entrenched that it is easily evoked as an integrated whole, i.e. when it constitutes an established routine that can be carried out more or less automatically once it is initiated. (100)

The fact that the distribution of -er bases is spreading along this continuum to the less entrenched end is an important development in the history of the -er suffix. It suggests that the -er suffix, which for most of its history in English was attached only to highly lexicalized units, only in the last couple of centuries including a significant number of complex ones, is spreading into less lexicalized forms, perhaps on its way to being attachable to a range of completely unlexicalized phrases, at which point, it would have become much more clitic-like. Thus, the instances of Noun + Noun, Modifier + Noun, and Quantifier + Measurable Unit among the stems for -er complex nominals are providing a bridge that may lead speakers to create -er nominals including all syntactically possible phrases as stems, both lexicalized and non-lexicalized, at which point the -er suffix will be well on the way to complete grammaticalization.

4.

Conclusion

In this article I have tried to show that the -er suffix is showing interesting signs of entering the early stages of grammaticalization. I have based this on a number

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of phenomena, many of them relatively recent in the development of the suffix. Always a frequent morpheme, it has been expanding its range of bases and referents in directions commonly found in grammaticalization. In addition, while its bases have been lexicalized forms throughout most of its history, and perhaps many of its referents have been as well (although that is less clear), both bases and referents are showing ever decreasing lexicalization or even institutionalization. The spread of -er bases from lexicalized words to lexicalized phrases to non-lexicalized phrases is one of the major factors contributing to the grammaticalization of -er and as such provides a thought-provoking example of the interaction of lexicalization and grammaticalization in language change.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions.

Notes 1. These suffixes are not identical in usage; rather they are overlapping, while showing the types of semantic nuances Hopper cites. They all form nouns primarily from verbs, with a small number of noun stems and a scattering of other types of stems. They varied in productivity, with -er(e) and -end(e) being the most productive. They also varied in range of referents, with those of -el(s) probably being the most diverse, including agents, instruments and locatives, while the nominals ending in the other suffixes referred predominantly, though not exclusively to humans. See Kastovsky (1992) and the references cited therein for more information. 2. For further discussion of lexicalization see e.g. Bauer 1983; Bauer 1988; Cabrera 1998; Lehmann 1989; Lipka 1992; Pawley 1986; and Shimamura 1986. 3. I am ignoring here the words ending in -ar and -or. If these suffixes are to be considered variants of -er, the problem becomes somewhat more complex. It is clear that speakers are aware of the similarities among these suffixes, as evidenced by the number of misspellings of -ar and -or as -er, and by the backformation of the verb peddle from peddlar. 4. Some -er nominals may have institutionalized or lexicalized meanings due solely to their stems, as in blackmailer. However, if the meaning of the stem is known, the meaning of the nominal as a whole is within the predicted range. 5. There are also an extremely large number of -er nominals of the form N + V + -er, but I have not included them here since it is not clear whether the structure for these should be [N + [V + -er]] or [[N + V] + -er]. 6. The movement from bound morpheme to clitic is rather unusual; generally clitics develop from words. However, it is not unknown; other examples include the English possessive ’s (Janda 1980; Tabor 1992), regional Spanish agreement affix -mos “first person plural” becoming nos“subject-marker” (Janda 1995, 1996), and Estonian suffix -ep becoming a clitic functioning as “affirmative adverb” (Campbell 1991), among others (Jeffers and Zwicky 1980; Joseph and

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MARY ELLEN RYDER Janda 1994; Greenberg 1991). Tabor and Traugott (1998) have developed a revised notion of directionality that may account for all of these. If so, it would account for the -er developments as well.

7. The OED lists 397 such nominals. However, for many of them, especially the obsolete ones, neither the data in the entries nor my intuitions allowed me to judge with any confidence whether or not their stems were lexicalized. 8. Because their meaning is derived in part from their stem, the -er nominal resulting from these stems often show the same characteristics of lexicalization as their base. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, CB’er could easily mean “CB radio” instead of “one who operates a CB radio” and free-verser could refer to the poem itself rather than the poet. On the other hand, the meaning of women’s libber does seem to be fairly strongly constrained to the meaning given below. Thus, the degree of lexicalization of an -er nominal depends both on the degree of lexicalization of the stem and that of the relationship between that stem’s meaning and the referent of the -er nominal as a whole.

References Aitchison, Jean. 1980. Review of “Principles of Diachronic Syntax” by David Lightfoot, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Linguistics 18.137–46. Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1988. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bosch, Peter. 1983. Agreement and Anaphora: A Study of the Role of Pronouns in Syntax and Discourse. New York: Academic Press. Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca, and Revere D. Perkins. 1991. “Back to the Future.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume II: Focus on Types of Grammatical Markers ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 17–58. Amsterdam & PHiladelphia: John Benjamins. Campbell, Lyle. 1991. “Some Grammaticalization Changes in Estonian and their Implications.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume I: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 285–300. Amsterdam & Philadelphia:John Benjamins. Croft, William. 1997. “Introduction.” Talk given at the Manchester NP Workshop. Manchester, February 1997. Crystal, David. 1985. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 2nd edition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cumming, Susanna and Tsuyoshi Ono. 1996. “Ad hoc Hierarchy: Lexical Structures for Reference in Consumer Reports Articles.” Studies in Anaphora ed. by Barbara Fox, 69–94. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dalton-Puffer, Christiane. 1994. “Are Shakespeare’s Agent Nouns Different from Chaucer’s? — On the dynamics of a Derivational Sub-system.” Studies in Early Modern English ed. by Dieter Kastovsky, 45–58. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Givón, Talmy, ed. 1983. Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-Language Study. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1991. “The Last Stages of Grammatical Elements: Contrastive and Expansive Desemanticization.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume I: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 301–314. Amsterdam & Philadelphia:John Benjamins. Harris, Alice C. and Lyle, Campbell. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hopper, Paul J. 1991. “On some Principles of Grammaticization.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume I: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 17–35. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ——— and Elizabeth C. Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janda, Richard D. 1980. “On the Decline of Declensional Systems: The Overall Loss of OE Nominal Case Inflections and the ME Reanalysis of -es as his.” Papers from the 4th International Conference on Historical Linguistics ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Rebecca Labrum and Susan Shepherd, 221–231. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ———. 1995. “From Agreement Affix to Subject ‘Clitic’ — and Bound Root: -mos > -nos vs. (-)nos(-) and nos-otros in New Mexican and Other regional Spanish Dialects.” Papers from the Chicago Linguistic Society 31:118–139. ———. 1996. “The Alleged Unidirectionality of Grammaticalization vs. the Discontinuity of Language Transmission.” Paper delivered at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, San Diego. Jeffers, Robert J. and Arnold M. Zwicky. 1980. “The Evolution of Clitics.” Papers from the 4th International Conference on Historical Linguistics ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Rebecca Labrum and Susan Shepherd, 221–231. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Joseph, Brian D. and Richard D. Janda. 1994. “The How and Why of Diachronic Morphologization and Demorphologization.” Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics ed. by Michael Hammond and Michael Noonan, 193–210. San Diego: Academic Press. Kastovsky, Dieter. 1986. “Diachronic Word-formation in a Functional Perspective.” Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, Volume I: Linguistic Theory and Historical Linguistics ed. by Dieter Kastovsky and Aleksander Szwedek, 409–21. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ———. 1992. “Semantics and Vocabulary.” The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume I: The Beginnings to 1066 ed. by Richard M. Hogg, 290–408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Kibrik, Andrey A. 1996. “Anaphora in Russian Narrative Prose: A Cognitive Calculative Account.” Studies in Anaphora ed. by Barbara Fox, 255–304. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Langacker, Ronald. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lehmann, Christian. 1985. “Grammaticalization: Synchronic Variation and Diachronic Change.” Lingua e Stile 20:3.303–318. ———. 1989. “Grammatikalisierung und Lexikalisierung.” Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikation forschung 42:1.11–19. Lipka, Leonhard. 1977. “Lexikalisierung, Idiomatisierung und Hypostasierung als Probleme einer synchronischen Wortbildungslehre.” Perspektiven der Wortbildungsforschung, ed. by D. Kastovsky and H. E. Brekle, 155–164. Bonn. ———. 1981. “Zur Lexikalisierung im Deutschen und Englischen.” Wortbildung, ed. by L. Lipka and H. Günther, 119–132. Darmstadt. ———. 1990. An Outline of English Lexicology: Lexical Structure, Word Semantics, and Word-Formation. Tübingen. ———. 1992. “Lexicalization and Institutionalization in English and German, or: Piefke, Wendehals, Smog, Perestroika, AIDS etc.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 40:2.101–111. Matthews, Peter. 1997. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morita, Junya. 1995. “Lexicalization by Way of Context-dependent Nonce-word Formation.” English Studies 5.468–473. Motsch, Wolfgang. 1979. “Zum Status von Wortbildungsregularitäten.” DRLAV-Papier 20.1–40. Paris. Naro, Anthony J. and Miriam Lemle. 1976. “Syntactic Diffusion.” Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax ed. by Sanford B. Steever, Carol A. Walker, and Salikoko S. Mufwene, 221–40. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Pawley, Andrew. 1986. “Lexicalization.” Languages and Linguistics: The Interdependence of Theory, Data, and Application ed. by Deborah Tannen, James E. Alatis, 98–120. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Ramat, Anna Giacalone and Paul J. Hopper. 1998. “Introduction.” The Limits of Grammaticalization ed. by Paul J. Hopper and Anna Giacalone Ramat, 1–12. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ryder, Mary Ellen. 1991. “Why Cliff-Hangers Don’t Hang Cliffs: A Model of -Er Nominal Formation.” Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, Chicago. ———. 1994. Ordered Chaos: The Interpretation of English Noun-Noun Compounds. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. Forthcoming. “Bankers and Blue-chippers: An Account of -er Formations in Present-Day English.” English Language and Linguistics.

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Sadock, Jerrold M. 1991. Autolexical Syntax: A Theory of Parallel Grammatical Representation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Shimamura, Reiko. 1986. “Lexicalization of Syntactic Phrases.” English Linguistics: Journal of the English Linguistics Society of Japan 3.20–37. Tabor, Whitney. 1992. “Reanalysis is Early.” Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, Philadelphia. ——— and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1998. “Structural Scope Expansion and Grammaticalization.” The Limits of Grammaticalization ed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paul J. Hopper, 229–272. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Timberlake, Alan. 1977. “Reanalysis and Actualization in Syntactic Change.” Mechanisms of Syntactic Change ed. by Charles N. Li, 141–77. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1980. “Meaning-change in the Development of Grammatical Markers.” Language Sciences 2:1.44–61. ———. 1989. “On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: An Example of Subjectification in Semantic Change.” Language 65.31–55. ———. 1990. “From Less to More Situated in Language: The Unidirectionality of Semantic Change.” Papers from the Fifth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics ed. by Sylvia Adamson, Vivien Law, Nigel Vincent, and Susan Wright, 496–517. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ——— and Bernd Heine. 1991. “Introduction.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume II: Focus on Types of Grammatical Markers ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 1–14. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ——— and Ekkehard König. 1991. “The Semantics-pragmatics of Grammaticalization Revisited.” Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volume I: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues ed. by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Heine, 189–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Modern Hebrew Adverbials Between Syntactic Class and Lexical Category

1.

Dorit Ravid

Yitzhak Shlesinger

Tel Aviv University

Bar Ilan University

Introduction

This paper discusses the class of manner adverbials in Modern Hebrew within a theoretical framework that regards lexical, morphological and syntactic expression as a continuum (Bybee 1985; Langacker 1983). The three well-known content-word (or ‘open’ class) categories in the world’s languages are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. A fourth category of adverbs is less uniform in linguistic analysis from a number of aspects, and it straddles the boundary between ‘open’ and ‘closed’-class systems, sometimes encompassing elements which might otherwise be called connectives (van der Auwera 1998). For example, consider the following pair in which the English adverb curiously appears. In 1, it modifies the verb; in 2, it is a sentential modifier with a different meaning which relates the sentence to the previous discourse: (1) (2)

He looked at her curiously Curiously, no one was there.

This paper focuses on the structure of what is traditionally termed ‘manner’ adverbs, or that type of adverb “whose function is to add to the meaning of the verb” (Givón 1993: 71), which we broaden to refer to a class of ‘manner adverbials’ (Ramat & Ricca 1994). From a language-particular perspective, Hebrew offers an interesting case of a language with no really productive morphological class of adverbs, despite its synthetic Semitic character, on the one hand, yet containing a large and varied cluster of adverbial mechanisms, on

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the other. The inherently secondary and heterogeneous nature of the category of Hebrew adverbials is accounted for in this work in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics construal of categorization. 1.1 Cognitive linguistics framework The purpose of this study is to discuss the place of Hebrew adverbs and adverbials in morphology, syntax and the lexicon. The cognitive models approach to categorization develops the idea of prototypical categories: they are graded and radial rather than absolute, that is, more typical members gravitate towards the middle and less typical ones orbit the peripheries (Taylor 1989; Ravid & Hanauer 1998). Some categories have clear boundaries while others have fuzzy ones, that is, they are harder to define as a coherent group. Categories have parts which relate to the whole, and typical parts may represent the whole (Rosch 1978); knowing about a category means knowing about its part-whole structure and how the parts function relative to the whole (Lakoff 1987: 56). In this paper, we will focus on the category of manner adverbials in Hebrew within a cognitive approach to categorization (Ramat & Ricca 1994 1998). Specifically, we discuss the various facets which are usually used to define lexical categories, and aim to show that (a) Hebrew adverbs are not typical members of the class of lexical categories; (b) that they occupy a less central place in the category of “modifiers” than adjectives; and (c) that it makes sense to discuss Hebrew nouns, verbs and adjectives as morpholexical classes, whereas the function of “manner adverbials” is expressed in Hebrew by diverse mechanisms that cut across the lexicon, morphology, semantics, and syntax. The methodology used in this study follows Langacker’s (1983) maxims of factuality and generality in linguistic explanation. Factuality refers to the encyclopedic view of language: the need to include as many facts as possible in a linguistic theory; accounting for linguistic data at a number of levels, and regarding the lexicon, morphology and syntax as belonging to the same linguistic realm. Generality refers to the dual nature of language phenomena: on the one hand, sweeping generalities or “rules”, on the other hand clusters of minor rules, idiosyncratic exceptions and suppletion. Both facets of grammar are typical of human language and serve cognitive goals in a usage-based model which regards cultural and context-governed variability as inherent factors in cognition and language (See discussion in Edri 1997). Our discussion also follows the assumption formulated in Tomasello (1998): Different languages provide different resources for symbolizing certain universal events and situations. While the internal structure of Modern Hebrew adverbials

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is a language-specific phenomenon that is the result of the special history of the Hebrew language, it is of interest to general linguistics as one example of the way a language encodes the concept of a manner adverbial. These assumptions about the nature of grammar, of cognitive and linguistic categories, and about languagespecific effects motivate our discussion of Hebrew adverbs and adverbials.

2.

Lexical categories

There are three traditional ways to characterize a lexical category. Two classifications are universal: Semantically, by the concepts it refers to, and syntactically, by the syntactic functions the lexical class fulfills. A lexical class may also have language-specific morphological characteristics. In addition, it has been proposed that lexical categories have discourse roles, and that the prototypical status of members depends to what extent they introduce participants or events into the discourse (Hopper & Thompson 1984). Typical members of the class of lexical categories fulfill these requirements. The two basic lexical categories that participate in “making up” a language either onto- or phylogenetically are nouns and verbs. Although both these categories contain semantically more and less typical members (e.g., concrete vs. abstract nouns, dynamic vs. state verbs), they are primary lexical classes in the sense of referring to the basic lexical notions of objects and events, and implementing primary syntactic functions such as arguments and predicates (Schachter 1985). In English and Hebrew, they are rather easy to characterize in uniform grammatical and structural terms such as morphosyntactic behavior (e.g., nouns take possession and verbs decline in tenses). Adjectives, a third content-word class, are less primary in a number of senses. Semantically, adjectives denote properties of nouns, that is, they serve in a secondary function to a primary class. Accordingly, the syntactic functions of adjectives are also less sharply defined than those of nouns and verbs. Hopper and Thompson, for example, discuss the class of adjectives in the framework of verb stativity (1984: 726–728). In distributional terms, adjectives emerge after nouns and verbs in acquisition (Ravid & Nir, in press), and not all languages have a morphological class of adjectives. Biblical Hebrew, for instance, did not (Gesenius 1910). Where such a class is lacking, nouns and verbs carry out the semantic and pragmatic tasks usually assigned to adjectives (Schachter 1985). Thus in the class of lexical categories, the representative members are nouns and verbs, while adjectives are a less typical member with a modifying function. This paper focuses on a fourth lexical category in Hebrew, which is even less typical and more heterogeneous than that of adjectives, namely, the category of adverbs.

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2.1 Adverbs and adverbials From all points of view, adverbs constitute a peripheral content-word category. Unlike adjectives, which modify nouns alone, the syntactic function of adverbs is to modify almost any part of speech. Edri (1997) shows that what is traditionally called an “adverb” in English can modify almost any other kind of word, from verbs (3)

They worked hard

to adjectives (4)

It’s hardly worth it

and adverbs (5)

They worked very hard

through prepositions (6)

It went right through the wall

and numerals (7)

She’s almost four.

Moreover, adverbs modify more than a large number of categories or parts of speech: they can also refer to the gestalt situational context, e.g., (8)

Hopefully, she’ll get there first

and thus have a central discourse function. The peripheral, “fuzzy” nature of the notion of “adverb” is manifested in their structural properties as well. In English, for example, both morphological and syntactic adverbs may fulfill the same semantic functions. In 9, the adverbial function is marked morphologically, while in 10 its expression is periphrastic: (9) (10)

She handled the explosives carefully. She handled the explosives with care.

The semantics of adverbs is also diverse and has been subject to differential treatments by various linguists (e.g., Givón 1993; Jackendoff 1972; Parsons 1990, to mention a few). There are as many adverb classification systems as there are scholars working in this domain (van der Auwera 1998). They all note the inherent heterogeneity of the notion “adverb” as modifier of various elements in the sentence as well as expressing the speaker’s point of view. They also note

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the broad semantic scope that adverbs convey, including manner, time and frequency, epistemic, evaluative and emphatic adverbs, as well as adjective modifiers (Haspelmath & Buchholz 1998; Kortmann 1998). Most of the semantic classification systems of adverbs distinguish among verb-oriented, subjectoriented, and context-oriented adverbs which take an external or metalinguistic point of view. It may thus be useful to disassociate the semantic, syntactic and morphological criteria characterizing adverbs by making a distinction between ‘adverbs’ and ‘adverbials’. The former constitute a lexical class with morpho-syntactic characteristics, e.g., English -ly manner adverbs, and may not be found in every language. The latter are a functional class which expresses “properties of eventualities” (Zucchi 1993) using lexical, morphological, and semantic means (e.g., a prepositional phrase). For example, an adverbial phrase may consist of a preposition (with) and a noun (care) and contain no adverb at all. The lexical class of adverbs thus constitute a subcategory of the functional category of adverbials. Within this multifunctional view of adverbials we have chosen to focus on Hebrew manner adverbials (with meanings such as “effectively”, “with care”). This is because, while all adverbials relate to properties of the event (where did it happen? Why did it happen?), the meaning of the manner adverbial is related to the “how” of the event or situation, and thus to the specific semantic components of the verb (e.g., dynamic, goal-oriented, state) which may find expression in appropriate adverbial modifiers such as slowly, successfully, to a large extent). The verbal properties highlighted by manner adverbials seem to be more inherent to the verb than those described by other adverbials such as temporals and locatives. Moreover, we focus on those adverbials which may either be oriented towards any part of the sentence or towards the sentence as a whole (1 and 2 above). Historical investigations of English adverbs (e.g., Traugott 1989), for example, show that the sentence-internal, event-modifying functions of adverbs precede and evolve into sentence-external, discourse functions, and that both should be taken into account in an analysis of adverbs. Moreover, manner adverbs seem to us to capture the “essence” or “basic level” meaning of adverbs and thus to embody the prototype effect designated as “metonymic” by Rosch (1978) and Lakoff (1987) perceiving the whole in terms of some part or parts.

3.

The structure of Hebrew content-word classes

This paper analyzes the structural properties of a number of mechanisms in Hebrew expressing the function of manner adverbials. The analysis intends to

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show that the lexical category of manner adverbs is a peripheral member of the class of lexical categories not only semantically and pragmatically, but also from a morphological point of view. Its inherently heterogeneous nature is an illustration of the essentially secondary, functionally-dependent character of the universal category of adverbs, and which entails their inclusion in a larger category of adverbials. Our discussion will take both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective of Hebrew adverbials in line with the encyclopedic view of language and what language change can teach us about the nature of language. The corpora that we have used for this analysis are two: Most of our sources are journalistic Hebrew texts (Shlesinger, in preparation). These belong to a variety of subcategories such as reports, feature stories, editorials, literary and theater criticism, and sports reports. We also looked at spoken and written expository texts produced by children and adolescents aged 12 and 17, and by adults (Aisenman 1999). One fact about Hebrew adverbs that indicates their atypical character as Hebrew content words is the fact that they do not resemble any other content word class in structure. Hebrew is a Semitic language with a large number of diverse morphological devices expressing a wide variety of lexical and syntactic notions (Blau 1971). Modern Hebrew morphology is essentially Biblical in structure, with additional structural devices deriving from other historical periods of Hebrew, such as Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew (Glinert 1989). All verbs and many nouns and adjectives are constructed from a consonantal skeleton (the root) and a vocalic tier (the pattern) that complements it to create a word. Patterns are restricted to the verbal and nominal components of the lexicon: Verbs take 7 verbal patterns, termed binyanim (literally: “buildings”), while nouns take about 40 nominal patterns, termed mishkalim (literally: “weights”). The other major word-formation device which sets nouns and adjectives apart from verbs is stem+suffix linear formation, akin to, say, English line-ar or formation. Nouns and adjectives take different suffixes, e.g., adjectival -i as in savlan-i “patient” and abstract nominal -ut as in savlan-ut “patience” (see discussion of Hebrew adjectives below). Only loan nouns such as télefon and a small number of ancient so-called “primitive” nouns such as yad “hand” (Gesenius 1910) may lack internal morphological structure in Hebrew. These, too, are subject to extensive denominal formation which makes use of their consonants to form new roots as in tilfen “telephoned” or attaches suffixes to the stem as in yadani “manual”. All three content word classes inflect: nouns and adjectives are inflected for number and gender, and verbs for number, gender, person and tense (Berman 1987; Ravid 1990). Hebrew adverbs differ from the other content word categories as they do not make extensive productive use of

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morphological structure in their formation; and they do not inflect. In other words, adverbs are a peripheral lexical category in a language which defines its content words by both derivational and inflectional markers. 3.1 A structural analysis of Hebrew manner adverbials Two interesting structural properties of Hebrew manner adverbials as a secondary and multifunctional category emerge from the analysis of our corpora: Firstly, unlike nouns, verbs and adjectives, their formation is not restricted to morphological structure. There are in fact three structural expressions of the notion of manner adverbials in Hebrew: (i) lexical, or rather lexicalized forms; (ii) morphological structure, and (iii) syntactic structure. None of these devices is the Semitic root + pattern construction that is so central to Hebrew. Thus it would make more sense if we were to talk of manner adverbials rather than manner adverbs. Secondly, all structural devices employed in the formation of Hebrew manner adverbials either diachronically or synchronically are “parasitic” in the sense that their primary function originates in other content classes, including verbs, nouns, and in particular — adjectives (Kaddari 1985). Below we analyze the structure of Hebrew adverbials in the three forms of expression: Lexical, morphological, and syntactic. 3.1.1 Lexicalized expression of manner adverbials. Manner adverbs may be expressed in Modern Hebrew lexically, in forms which lack synchronic morphological structure and are viewed by current Hebrew speakers as monomorphemic amalgams, or at most as partially motivated forms, that is containing what appears to be discernible affixes whose removal does not result in currently independent morphemes (Aronoff 1976). All of these lexicalized adverbs are historically complex forms of Biblical and Mishnaic origin which have “bleached” into lexicalizations, and none of them contains even what diachronically can be termed as a uniquely adverbial affix: their diachronic structures were based on other lexical categories and syntactic constructions. There are three main classes of lexicalized adverbs in Hebrew: accusative adverbs, absolute verb infinitives, and PP adverbials. A small number of so-called accusative adverbs are -am suffixed, e.g., (11)

hi yašva dumam she sat: silently “She sat silently. “

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They carry an obsolete accusative noun marker, e.g., xinam “freely”, reykam “in vain” (Avineri 1962). For the contemporary Hebrew speaker, they are structureless, at most partially motivated by relating to extant words, e.g., reykam “in vain”/reyk “empty”, dumam “silently”/dmama “silence”. Some adverbs of Biblical origin are zero-converted absolute verb infinitives (Gesenius 1910). For example, the construction haškem ve-haãarev in (12) (12)

dibárti ito haškem ve-haãarev I-talked with-him rising and setting “I spoke to him morning and night”

contains the adverbs haškem “early to rise” (cf. Modern Hebrew hiškim “rose early”) and haãarev “to set” (with no current derivational verbal paradigm, though related to érev “evening”). Two frequently used adverbs in this class are maher “fast” (= “to hurry”; cf. miher “hurried”, le-maher “to-hurry”); and heytev “well” (= “do good”; cf. heytiv “did good”, le-heytiv “to-do good”). These zeroconverted adverbs bear no current structural relationship to verb infinitives; yet, beyond these lexicalized cases, absolute verb infinitives function productively as frequency adverbs in syntactic phrases as in (13)

dibárnu xazor ve-daber, we-talked returning and-talking “We talked again and again”

using the absolute infinitives xazor “to-return” (cf. xazar “returned”) and daber “to-talk” (cf. diber “talked”). Another function “infinitive” adverbs have is in modifying adjectives, e.g. yafe le-hafli “beautiful to-wonder = wondrously beautiful”, kacar le-haxrid “short to-alarm = alarmingly short”. A third group of lexicalized adverbs have a partial PP form. They are all prefixed by the prepositions le- “to”, be- “in/with” , ke- “like, as” (or their fused forms with the definite article la-, ba- ka-), followed by what looks like a noun stem, no longer viable: leãat “slowly”, kayaãut “properly”, laxalutin “totally”, bemeyšarin “directly”, baãakifin “indirectly”, leserugin “alternately”. When stripped of the prepositional prefix, the remaining segment which has the form of an abstract noun is not an extant word: *at, *yaãut, *xalutin, *meyšarin, *akifin. Historically, some of these (historically plural) abstract-noun bases functioned as adverbs in Biblical Hebrew and in Aramaic (Avineri 1962). Though lexicalized into a single word, these adverbs are related to a vast class of syntactically transparent adverbials, productively constructed from a preposition and an abstract noun (see below). In line with the claim that Hebrew adverbials are parasitic on other lexical

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classes, lexicalized adverbs thus historically originate in two other content-word classes: nouns (accusative adverbs and partial PP adverbs) and verbs (absolute infinitives). 3.1.2 Morphological expression of manner adverbials As noted above, Hebrew nouns, verbs and adjectives have distinct morphological class markers and are productive morphologically. In sharp contrast, none of the structures described below are uniquely adverbial, and most adverbs are not morphologically productive. All adverbs with morphological structure are parasitic on the category of adjectives by zero conversion and adjectival suffixation, and correspond closely in structure and productivity to Contemporary Hebrew adjective types. Hebrew adjectives belong to roughly three morphological classes: basic, usually historically verb-related, adjectives (e.g., xam “hot”); root-and-pattern adjectives, sharing patterns with nouns and verbs (e.g., vatik “veteran”, nominal pattern CaCiC, merukaz “concentrated”, present-tense verb pattern meCuCaC); and a very productive class of -i suffixed denominal adjectives (e.g., avivi “spring-like” from aviv “spring”, šnati “annual” from šana “year”). This is a relatively recent morphological device originating in Medieval Hebrew (although a precursor appears in the Bible as designator of ethnic origin, e.g., yevusi “of the nation of Yevus”) which is extremely productive in Modern Hebrew (Ravid & Shlesinger 1987; Ravid & Nir, in press). Adverbs are formed by zero-converting adjectives or by using their inflectional suffixes as adverb-formers. Adverbs may be zero-converted from adjectives, tantamount to English Stay close together, She travels light (Avineri 1962; Edri 1997). This happens mostly with basic, nonderived adjectives e.g., (14)

(15) (16)

hi asta et ze ra she did:  it bad/ly “She did it badly” hu avad kaše “He worked hard” nasánu yašar la-mesiba We-drove direct/ly to-the-party “We went directly to the party”

In some cases, syntactic constraints govern choice of adverbial form, e.g., the two grammatical possibilities in (17a)

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(17)

a.

ha-ések oved tov / heytev the-business works good () / well “The business functions good / well”

compared to the second ungrammatical choice in (17b) (17)

b.

ha-ések oved yoter tov / *yoter heytev The-business works more good / *more well. “The business functions better”

Adjectives take on suffixes to agree with nouns in number and gender, e.g., mora nehedéret “teacher: wonderful: = wonderful teacher”. Singular feminine is marked by -a, -éCet and -t, and plural feminine is marked by -ot. These feminine adjectival inflectional suffixes take (usually) root-and-pattern adjectival bases to cross category boundaries to adverbhood. Of these, three suffixes are restricted in application as adverb-forming devices: (i) The ubiquitous singular feminine inflection -a, as in gvoha “in a high and mighty manner”, adjective base gavóha “high”; neãemana “loyally”, adjective base neãeman “loyal”; (ii) singular feminine inflection -éCet, as in hu medaber šotéfet “he speaks fluently”, adjective base šotef “fluent”; and (iii) plural feminine inflection -ot as in kcarot “briefly, succinctly”, nimracot “energetically”, arukot “lengthily”, brurot “clearly”, which is somewhat more productive than the first two. The last morphological device is the only one that can be termed truly productive in Modern Hebrew, and it is a rare recent development which actually started in Modern Hebrew (Avineri 1962; Ben-Asher 1973). It consists of attaching the feminine suffix -t to denominal -i suffixed adjectives to form a manner adverbial as in the following examples: iši “personal”/išit “personally”; simultáni “simultaneous”/simultánit “simultaneously”; ‘telefónit “of the telephone”/telefónit “by telephone”; ekroni “principled”/ekronit “in principle”; and zmani “temporary”/zmanit “temporarily”. The domain of application of -t is restricted to -i suffixed adjectives, but unlike adverbs formed with other inflectional adjectival suffixes, -it adverbs are formed productively and nonconditionally on any -i suffixed adjective. Moreover, unlike adverbs formed with other inflectional adjectival suffixes, whose meaning is restricted to manner verb-modification and which cannot be moved from their post-verbal position, adverbs suffixed by -it can take on both manner verb-modification as well as discourse connective functions and change position in the sentence, as in the following examples:

MODERN HEBREW ADVERBIALS

(18)

a.

b.

(19)

a.

b.

343

ha-télefon menutak zmanit. the-telephone disconnected temporarily “The telephone is disconnected temporarily” zmanit, yišhu po od kama orxim. temporarily, will-stay: here more several guests “For a short time, an additional number of guests will be staying here” hisbárti lo et ha-inyan klalit. I-explained to-him the-matter generally “I explained the matter to him in general” klalit, ha-macav xamur. generally, the-situation grave “Generally speaking, the situation is grave”.

All feminine inflectional markers on adjectives thus double as manner adverbial markers, with varying degrees of productivity. Adverbs are formed by morphologically appropriate inflectional suffixes, which correspond to the formation of feminine adjectives (Schwarzwald 1982). A similar situation of forming adverbs via adjectival suffixes can be found in Italian and Spanish, though in that case this is a result of their common historical descent. One idea why this is the situation in Hebrew may be ellipsis from a PP whose head are the feminine nouns “form, manner” or dérex “way, manner”, e.g., be-cura šotéfet “in-form: fluent: = in a fluent form” or be- dérex išit “in way: personal: = in a personal way”. However, the ellipsis solution can explain the formation of only a few of the -it, -éCet, and a manner adverbs, while this explanation is not possible for -ot which is plural (e.g., nixbadot “seriously”) and therefore not in concord with any possible NP head. It certainly cannot explain the sites of enhanced or reduced productivity in morphological adverbials such as -it vs. -a. Moreover, there is no a priori reason to claim the head of such an elliptic NP might not be a masculine noun, such as ófen “manner” as in be- ófen iši “in a personal manner”. Another line of approach may be to look at both base and suffix. The bases of morphological adverbials are all (masculine singular) adjectives, which are functionally the closest to adverbs out of all content-word classes. Adverb-forming feminine inflectional suffixes are shared by both adjectives and nouns, as well as by present-tense verbs (unlike possessive suffixes such as -o “his” which only attach to nouns). It is only past and future tense verbs that take completely different feminine suffixes, e.g., i as in bói, which are also stressless, unlike nominal suffixes. Singular and (feminine) plural inflectional suffixes are thus the “default” suffixes available in the system for

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marking another lexical class without causing structural ambiguity, since adverbs do not appear in an NP and do not follow a nominal head which would lend them agreement. 3.1.3 Syntactic expression of manner adverbials Manner adverbials are also expressed periphrastically in prepositional phrase (PP) structures and in serial verbs. PPs come in two main variants: P + NP with an abstract or action nominal head; and P + NP with an adjective head (Ben-Asher 1973). PPs with abstract heads are a major productive adverbial device, e.g., behictaynut “with distinction”, be-kicur “in short”, be-kalut “with ease”, be-haginut “with decency”, be-cédek “justifiably”, be-mikre “by accident” (Fruchtman 1984). The abstract nominal PP head is either deverbal (bi-zxila “crawling”) or deadjectival (be-adinut “gently”) which entail different morphological constructions: deverbal nouns take root-and-pattern action nominal or other abstract pattern structures (e.g., patterns CCiCa, haCCaCa, miCCaC) while deadjectival nouns usually have the structure of stem + the abstract suffix -ut (Ravid, 1999). These PP adverbials are virtually unlimited in productivity, and their meaning is completely transparent. In fact, the extreme productivity of adverbial PPs continues a historical trend already indicated in Biblical Hebrew and remarkably prolific in Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew (Avineri 1962). In many cases the abstract noun is modified by an adjective or a bound compound, e.g., be-haclaxa adira “with vast success”, be-hanaãat yéter “with excessive enjoyment”. This happens often with nominal heads explicitly denoting manner such as ófen “manner”, dérex “way”, cura “form”, e.g., be- ófen barur “in a clear manner”, be-dérex nes “(literally) by way of miracle = miraculously”, be-cura mevukéret “in a controlled form”. Another type of adverbial PPs which derives from Mishnaic Hebrew and has greatly expanded in Modern Hebrew takes adjectival heads, e.g., me-xadaš “from-new = anew”, be-gadol “in-large”, bi-meduyak “precisely”, bi-meforaš “explicitly”, be-mezid “with-malicious = with bad intent”, be-maftia “with-surprising = surprisingly” (Mor 1995). Are these constructions “words”? A linguistic approach which regards periphrastic expression as being on the same continuum as morphological and lexical formation will treat adverbial PPs as possible words which easily lexicalize, as evidenced by lexicalized adverbs with partial structure described in 3.1.1 above. In fact, Hebrew morphophonology allows us to distinguish between adverbials on this continuum: compare the adverbial PP be-diyuk “with-precision” with the lexicalized adverb bidyuk/bidiyuk “exactly” (col.) in (20):

MODERN HEBREW ADVERBIALS

(20)

345

rav, bidyuk kmo še-racíti asíta et ha-avoda be-diyuk you-did  the job with-precision great, exactly as I-wanted. “You did the job with great precision, exactly according to my wishes”

Finally, a second class of periphrastic adverbials is completely syntactic in nature. It involves serializing verbs in an expanded VP so that the first one functions as an adverbial modifier of the second. Verb serialization may take the (very restricted) form of a conjoined phrase, the first component of which is a manner verb, e.g. miher ve-ala “hurried and went up = went up quickly”; or else a finite manner verb followed by an infinitival form , e.g., exer la-vo “was-late to-come = came late”; and higbíha uf “rose flying = flew high”, miher laãalot “hurried to go-up = went up quickly”. This is a literate device, typical of adults’ written forms, and usually absent from less formal discourse (Cahana-Amitay 1999). The existence of numerous adverbial-forming devices in Modern Hebrew, deriving from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, is a source of lexical and syntactic wealth. In many cases there exist side by side manner adverbials derived from the same adjective with subtle meaning and syntactic differences, e.g., (21) (22)

(23)

(24)

4.

hu avad kaše zero-converted adjective “He worked hard” hi dibra ito kaš-ot she spoke: with-him harshly “She spoke to him harshly” (plural feminine) suffixed adjective (kaše+ot) hem avdu be-kóši rav they worked: in-difficulty great “They worked with great difficulty” PP with an abstract de-adjectival head avdu hem be-kóši they in-difficulty worked: “They hardly worked” PP with an abstract de-adjectival head, preverbal

Discussion

Our discussion will focus on two points: accounting for the secondary and heterogeneous nature of Hebrew adverbials in a cognitive linguistics framework;

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and a particular example of distributing a single adverbial notion across lexical and syntactic space (Ramat & Ricca 1994 1998). 4.1 Blurring categorial boundaries To borrow a metaphor from prototype categorization models, Hebrew adverbs constitute penguins in the class of open-class or content-word categories. The two primary categories of nouns and verbs constitute the “basic level” in the class of categories. There are two secondary, or more peripheral modifying categories whose very existence is a function of the classes of the modified: the categories of adjectives and adverbs. By virtue of both being members of the supercategory of “modifier”, the boundaries between adjective and adverb have been “bleached”, with the category of adjective taking over the metonymic function of a part representing the whole. In this case, the modifier category of adjectives, which denotes only nominal properties, is perceived and accordingly functions as a more central member of the category of modifiers than that of adverbs, which modifies almost everything. However, within the category of adverbs, manner adverbs that relate to the verb are construed as the most typical members of the category. They are the ones that are expressed by a variety of structures and the only ones that are expressed also by morphological devices denoting “manner”. Hebrew adverbs are best accounted for by prototypical categorization principles and following the principles of cognitive linguistics model. “A classical category permits only two degrees of membership, i.e., member and non-member, while membership in a prototype category is a matter of gradience” (Taylor 1989: 54). Thus if we were to assign either/or category membership to Hebrew adverbs on the basis of obligatory features this attempt would fail. This category embodies the notion of blurred and bleached edges. Firstly, one cannot separate linguistic levels here, for expression of adverbhood is lexical, morphological and syntactic. Thus the classical distinctions between lexicon and syntax are bleached. Secondly, the morphological essence of Hebrew adverbs is in fact adjectival, for both synchronically and diachronically, Hebrew adverbs are derived from adjective stems either by zero conversion or by linear suffixation. All morphological adverbs are formed from adjectives by the attachment of feminine inflectional suffixes used in inflecting adjectives. This means the distinction between content word classes — adjectives and adverbs — is blurred, and they may be taken to form a single “modifier” class. Thirdly, the category sits on the borderline between inflection and derivation. The only morphological markers that create adverbs are inflectional. The only productive class of

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morphological adverbs is restricted to one type of adjectives as its base -i suffixed denominal adjectives which become adverbs with the attachment of the feminine marker -t. And finally, the boundary separating syntax and morphology — sentence-level phenomena — from discourse is also indistinct: manner adverbials serve as both local, syntactic modifiers, as well as discourse markers such as ekronit, ani maskim, aval… “In principle, I agree, but…” which signify a relationship with units larger than the clause or the sentence. Thus Langacker’s requirement of factuality — the need to include as many facts as possible about linguistic phenomena — is necessary here to account for the continuum of language levels that we term manner adverbs in Hebrew. Generality, the other cognitive requirement, is needed to account for the fact that adverbial subclasses may be lexical and nonproductive, morphologically semi-productive, or syntactic, with the almost unlimited productivity that is the nature of syntax. 4.2 A sudden example A final note which should point the way towards further investigation of Hebrew adverbs has to do with the vast cultural heritage that underlies the wealth of adverbial forms and their shades of meanings in various contexts. This is part and parcel of the encyclopedic view of language relating to the variety of ways of expressing a certain adverbial notion, and exemplifies Tomasello’s recommendation to look for the different ways languages provide different resources for symbolizing certain universal events and situations. For example, let us take the various expressions of the notion “suddenly”. This is expressed by two lexical, ancient forms, and three modern syntactic adverbs. The ‘index’ form is Biblical pitãom “suddenly”, and another Biblical “suddenly” is péta (also appearing in various preposition + adverb constructions such as le-féta, be-féta, and in combinations with pitãom). The three contemporary counterparts are be-pitãomiyut (normatively: be-fitãomiyut) “with suddenness”, be-maftia “in-surprising”, and beófen pitãomi “in a sudden manner”. Biblical pitãom and péta are lexicalized adverbs, the first with the obsolete accusative suffix, the second with a nominal segolate CéCeC pattern. These two share a common root, although pitãom contains a glottal stop and péta–a pharyngeal voiced fricative, which are known to interchange in Biblical Hebrew. The root of péta now serves as the lexical core for words denoting surprise. The first two contemporary adverbs are transparently constructed of a preposition and a stem. The first stem is an abstract nominal with an interesting internal linear structure: its stem is the Biblical pitãom, with two suffixes — the denominal adjectival -i, and a nominal abstract suffix -ut. We thus come full circle from the Biblical to the contemporary

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structure: pitãom: > pitãomi: > pitãomiy-ut:  > be-fitãomiyut:. The second modern ‘sudden’ adverb is be-maftia, whose stem is a benoni presenttense adjective sharing the root p-t-ã with Biblical leféta. The last one is a full NP with a manner abstract nominal head — ófen “manner” and an -i suffixed adjective pitãomi. From a syntactic point of view, we also find differing behavior: pitãom can modify both verbs and nouns: yored pitãom géšem “it’s suddenly raining” and zo haclaxat pitãom “this is a sudden success”, where “sudden” acts as a noun in a nominal compound. As a verbal modifier, pitãom occurs very frequent in daily usage, and appears very early on in Hebrew child language to indicate sudden change of state. As a noun modifier, it is rarely employed in high-register, literary usage. The rest of the “sudden” adverbs carry one syntactic function as verb modifiers. A final facet of the quintet described here is embedded in discourse. As we have seen above, the usage of manner adverbials is often extended beyond verb modification to discourse functions. Berman and Slobin (1994: 300–302) describe the functions of pitãom in oral narratives elicited from Hebrew-speaking children and adults by the Frog Story series of pictures. It has a U-shaped developmental distribution in their subjects’ texts. Young children under 5 use it sparingly in idiosyncratic, nonconventional ways. 5 year olds use pitãom extensively to mark noteworthy new occurrences at clause initial positions, usually accompanied by the conjunction ve- “and”, as a mechanical means of dividing up the narrative into its component parts, although the content of the episodes introduced by pitãom does not suggest an unexpected and abrupt change of state. From age 9 onwards, the frequency pitãom starts to drop and it appears in positions other than clause-initial. Adults use pitãom sparingly again and for specific narrative styles. They also combine le-féta and pitãom to form the literary, high-register expression le-féta pitãom “all of a sudden”. We do not have empirical information yet about the other “sudden” expressions, but a preliminary survey shows that their categorization relates to genre rather than degree of formality, since they can be divided into literary péta/le-féta and be-maftia vs. high-register though academic be-pitãomiyut and be-ófen pitãomi. This example constitutes an initial window into the mapping of adverbial constructions onto discourse functions from developmental, functional and semantic perspectives.

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Conclusion

This paper has applied a Cognitive Linguistics framework of analysis to Hebrew manner adverbials. We have shown that the class of Modern Hebrew adverbs is a peripheral member of the class of lexical categories, and is included in a larger category of adverbials. The heterogeneity of Hebrew adverbials is the result of both the wealth of structures bequeathed by a long history and a universal characteristic of a modifying rather than primary class. Clearly, these stand at the junction of the universal and the particular, the lexical and the syntactic, the productive and the lexicalized. We believe that a theoretical linguistic model which regards variation, heterogeneity and multifunctionality as inherent in language is particularly appropriate to this analysis.

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Name Index

A Abélard 50 Adams, Karen 52 Adouaini, Abdellatif 24, 27 Aisenman, Ravid A. 338, 349 Aitchison, Jean 291, 328 Alarcos, Emilio Llorach 124, 155, 181 Allan, Keith 52 Allen, R.L. 257, 262, 285 Allon, Yigal 107, 116 Alonso, Dámaso 179, 181 Andersen, Elaine S. 229, 252 Andrews, Edna xvii, xxv–xxvi, xxviii, xxix, 95, 102, 116, 206, 207, 208, 209, 220–221 Aphek, Edna 95, 101, 116 Apollonius Dyscolus 42 Arens, Hans ix, xxix Aristotle ix Arnott, David 52 Aronoff, Mark xi, xxix, 154, 155, 339, 349 Austin, Peter 52 Auwera, Johan van der 333, 337, 351 Avineri, Shlomo 340, 341, 342, 344, 349 Avisar, S 87, 116 B Bates, Elisabeth xii, xxx

Battistella, Edwin 102, 116–117, 266 Bauer, Laurie 23, 27, 304, 306–307, 327, 328 Baugh, Albert C. 87, 117 Beard, Robert 27 Beauvoir, Simone de 50 Beedham, Christopher 88, 117, 266, 267, 285 Bellos, Andrés 155 Ben-Amotz, Dan 91, 94, 117 Ben-Asher, Mordechai 342, 349 Ben-Yehuda, Netiva 91, 94, 117 Bentley, E.C. 195, 202 Berman, Ruth A. 339, 348, 349 Bialik, Chaim Nahman 91, 94 Birbaumer, Niels xxxi Blau, Yehoshua 338, 349 Bleek, W.H.I. 4, 27 Bloomfield, Leonard x, xxx Boas, Franz x, xv, xxx Bolinger, Dwight 95, 116, 117, 255, 263, 271, 275, 285 Bosch, Peter 300 Bouquiaux, Luc 52 Bruno, Lidia 52 Buchholz, Oda 337, 350 Bühler, Karl xx, 41–42, 47, 51, 52 Burton, Michael 52 Butler, Christopher 26, 251, 252 Bybee, Joan xv, xxx, 23, 27, 179, 181, 317, 328, 333, 349

354

NAME INDEX

C Cahana-Amitay, Dalia 345, 349 Calvin, W.H. 219, 221 Campbell, Lyle 291, 327, 328, 329 Carrier, Jill 268, 285 Carroll, Lewis 87, 109, 117 Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew 154, 155 Carstens, Vicki 24, 28 Chaffe, Wallis 255, 257–258, 261, 267, 285 Charleston, B. 257, 261, 285 Chaterjee, R. 259, 285 Chomsky, Noam xi, xxx, 51, 125, 154, 155, 270, 285 Clark, Herbert 101 Claudi, Ulrike xxx, 27, 28, 182, 299, 329 Cole, Pascale xii, xxx Comrie, Bernard 205, 210–211, 221, 255, 258, 272, 285 Conklin, Nancy 52 Contini-Morava, Ellen L. xvii, xviii–xix, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, xxx, xxii, 3, 11, 13, 22, 24, 27, 28, 52, 88, 95, 100, 117, 227, 285 Corbett, Greville 3, 28, 154, 155, 160, 181, 185, 202, 206, 217, 221 Correas, Gonzalo 173, 181 Courtney, R. 276–277, 286 Craig, Colette 40, 52–53 Crockett, D.B. 206,221 Croft, William 300, 328 Crystal, David 317, 328 Cuervo, Rufino José 179, 180 Cumming, Susanna 313, 328 D Dalton-Puffer, Christiane 293, 328 Damasio, A.R. 205, 219, 221 Danon-Boileau, Laurent 27, 28, 41, 55

Denny, J. Peter 53 Dickens, Charles 106, 109, 186, 202 Dinneen, Francis, P. ix, xxx Diver, William xi–xv, xxx, 95, 96, 97, 111, 117, 145, 155, 181, 232–233, 235, 250, 252, 262, 268, 271–272, 285 Dixon, Robert M.W. 40, 53 Doke, C.M. 11, 28 Dostál, Antonín 77, 85 Dunlea, A. 214–216, 221 Dyonisius Thrax ix, xi, 42 E Edri, Hagit 336, 341, 349 Engel, Marion 186, 187, 202 Erades, P.A. 201, 202 Erteschik-Shir, Nomi 285 F Fauconnier, Gilles 84, 85 Faulkner, William 186, 203 Fernández Ordoñez, Inés 181 Fernández, S 135, 155 Fernández-Ramínez, Salvador 179, 181 Fillmore, Charles xii, xxx, 53 Fitzgerald, F. Scott 279, 286 Fodor, Istvan 27, 28 Fontinoy, Charles 89, 94, 117 Forster, E.M. 186, 203 Forsyth, J. 255, 258, 259–260, 261, 285 Foster, A. 279, 280, 282, 288 Fox, P.T. 219, 221 Fradkin, Robert 266, 285 Frei, Henri 53 Friedman, Victor 82, 85 Friedrich, Paul 53 Fruchtman, Maya 344, 349 Fusella, V. 219

NAME INDEX G Gaffan, D. 205, 221 García González, Francisco 166, 180, 181–182 García Márquez, Gabriel xxvi, 233, 235, 236–237, 252 García, Erica C. 24, 95, 97, 100, 101 117, 160, 163–164, 166, 174, 178, 179–180, 181, 231, 233–234, 235, 250, 252 Gesenius 335, 340, 349 Gili Gaya, Samuel 230, 252 Givón, T. 49, 101, 117, 182, 312, 329, 333, 336, 350 Gleitman, L. 222 Glinert, Lewis 87, 117, 338, 350 Goldberg, Adele xii, xxx Goldberg, Barbara Sussman xvii, xxx, xxxii, 100 Goodman, Judith C. xii, xxx Gorlach, Marina xvii, xxii, xxiii, xxvii–xxviii Gorup, Radmila 95, 117 Grappin, Henri 79, 85 Greenbaum, Sidney 185, 202, 258–259, 286, 350 Greenberg, Joseph xx, 19, 27, 28, 45, 47, 48–49, 50, 53, 328, 329 Greene, Graham 190, 203 Greene, R.L. 219, 221 Greer, P. 219–220, 222 Gregersen, Edgar 46, 53 Grégoire, Claire 25, 28 Guillaume, Gustave xiii, xvii, xix, xx–xxi, xxii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxx, 70, 71, 95, 98–99, 100, 117–118, 189, 262–263, 271 Guthrie, Malcom 4, 25, 28, 46–47 H Haas, Mary 53 Hailey, A. 279, 280, 283, 286

355

Haiman, John xvii, xxx Hall, Robert 179, 181 Halliday, M.A.K. 182 Hamilton, S.L. 222 Hammett, D. 276, 286 Hanauer, David 334, 350 Harré, Rom 159, 182 Harris, Alice C. 291, 329 Harris, James 154, 155 Hasan, Ruqaiya 182 Haspelmath Martin 337, 350 Haywood, C.A. 205, 221 Heath, Jeffrey 53 Heeschen, Volker 53 Heine, Bernd xi, xv, xxx, 26, 28, 88, 118, 179, 182, 296, 299, 325, 329 Hemingway, Ernest 50, 53 Herbert, Robert 4, 28 Herskoits, Annette xv, xxx Hillel, A. 94, 109–111, 118 Hinnebusch, Thomas 4, 22, 29 Hirtle, Walter xiii, xvii, xviii, xx–xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxx, 16, 28, 71, 95, 98, 99, 118, 198, 202, 229, 253, 255, 262, 285 Hoeningswald, Harry 54 Holenstein, E. 273, 285 Hopper, Paul xi, xxx, 53–54, 179, 182, 234, 235, 253, 291, 292, 296–297, 299, 303, 313, 316, 327, 329, 330, 335, 350 Hottenroth, Priska-Monika 54 Huddleston, Rodney 50, 54 Huffman, Alan 95, 118, 262, 266, 267, 285 Hünnemeyer, Friederike xxx, 88, 182, 299, 329 Hurskainen, Arvi 25 Hussein, Ebrahim N. 9, 28

356

NAME INDEX

I Innis, Robert E. 74, 85 Iturrioz-Leza, José 54 J Jackendoff, Ray 268, 285, 336 350 Jacqout, André 54 Jakobson, Roman O. xiv–xv, xvi, xvii, xxii, xxx–xxxi, 42, 51, 95, 100, 118, 201, 202, 214, 219, 221, 262 270–271 Janda, Laura A. xvii, xviii, xix, xxi–xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 24, 73, 78, 79, 85, 86, 87, 94, 100 Janda, Richard 327, 328, 329 Jarvella, Robert 41, 54 Jeffers, Robert J. 327, 329 Jespesen, Otto 50, 54, 62, 87, 118, 255, 257, 261, 285 Jessell, T.M. 221 Johnson, Frederick 8, 24, 29 Joly, André 185, 201, 202 Jonge, Bob de xvii, xix, xxiii, xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, 228, 253 Joos, Martin 257, 261, 285 Joseph, Brian D. 327–328, 329 Jurafsky, Dan 25, 29 K Kaddari, Menachem T. 339, 350 Kadima, Marcel 4, 25, 28 Kandel, E.R. 212, 221 Kastovsky, Dieter 303, 309–310, 327, 329 Keillor, Garrison 193, 203 Kennedy, Arthur 274–275, 285 Key, Mary Ritchie 54 Kezilahabi, E. 10, 29 Kibrik, Andrey 312, 330 Kidwell, A. 219–220, 222 Kimura, Doreen 50, 54 Kirk, Lorraine 52 Kirsner, Robert S. 95, 118

Kirtchuk, Pablo Isaac xvii, xix, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxiv, 50, 51, 54, 227 Klein, Flora 162, 166, 180, 182 Klein-Andreu, Flora xvii, xix, xxi, xxii, xxiii–xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxxi, 100, 118, 156, 160, 166, 176, 180, 181, 182, 268, 286 Klein, Wolfgang 41, 54, 55 Klenin, Emily 79, 85, 206, 222 König, Ekkehard 300, 331 Köpcke, Klaus-Michael 27, 29, 155, 156, 180, 182 Kortmann, Bernd 337, 350 Kosslyn, S.M. 205, 212–213, 216, 218, 219–220, 222 Kovac´ s, Ferenc 101, 118 Krauss, Michael E. 54 Kronasser, Heinz 101,118 Kruisinga, E. 186, 195 Kuryłowicz, Jerzy 41, 54 L Lacroix, Pierre-Francis 54 Lakoff, George 54, 75, 85, 334, 337, 350 Lamb, W. 255, 287 Landar, Herbert 54 Landau, B. 222 Langacker, Ronald W. xi, xii, xxxi, 26, 29, 234, 235, 251, 253, 326, 330, 333, 334, 347, 350 Lapesa, Rafael 163, 179, 180, 182 Leech, Geoffrey 185, 202, 258–259, 286, 350 Lehmann, Christian xi, xxxi, 296, 308, 327, 329 Lemki, Mark 9, 29 Lemle, Miriam 291, 330 Levelt, Willem J.M. 54 Levin, Beth 268, 286 Levin, Saul 87, 118 Levy, Elena 182 Liberman, A.M. 222

NAME INDEX Lipka, Leonhard 303–305, 327, 330 Lutzenberger, Werner xxxi Lyons, John 54 182, 229, 253 M MacDonald J. 220, 222 Makkai, Adam 101, 118 Malotki, Eckehart 54 Manelis-Klein, Harriet 45, 52, 54 Mansfield, Katherine 186, 203 Manuel, S.Y. 222 Marcos Marín, Francisco 163, 174, 180, 182 Mariner, Sebastián 162, 179, 182 Markowitz, Fran 284 Marlsen-Wilson, William 182 Martinet, André 42, 54 Massaro, D.W. 220, 222 Mathiot, Madeleine 54, 202 Matthews, P.H. 23, 29, 133, 156, 317, 330 McCawley, James 26, 29 McGurk, H. 220, 222 Meeussen, A.E. 4, 25, 29 Meinhof, Carl 11, 25, 29 Miehe, Gudrun 25, 29 Mills, A.E. 220, 222 Mircˇ ev, Kiril 82, 85 Mithun, Marianne 28 Mohamed, Said A. 7, 29 Molendijk, Arie 231, 238, 250, 253 Mor, Galila 344, 350 Morel, Mary-Annick 41, 55 Morita, Junya 308–309, 310, 325, 330 Morris, Lori xvii, xx–xxi, xxii–xxiii, xxiv–xxv, xxvii, 50, 54, 70, 95, 118, 193, 201, 202 Motsch, Wolfgang 303, 330 Mufwene, Salikoko 11, 19, 25, 26, 27, 29 Mulford, R. 220, 222 Mullhaüsler, Peter 159, 182

357

N Najlis, Elena 52 Naro, Anthony J. 291, 330 Nedjalkov, V. 255, 260–161, 264, 267, 286 Newmeyer, Frederick 125, 154, 156 Nieuwenhuijsen, Dorien 250 Nir, Michal 335, 341, 350 Nurse, Derek 4, 22, 29 O O’Neill, J.J. 220, 222 Ohly, Rajmund 25, 29 Ojeda, Almerindo E. 99, 118 Ojemann, G.A. 219, 221 Onions, C. 257, 261, 286 Ono, Tsuyoshi 313, 328 Opalka, Hubertus 54 Otheguy, Ricardo xvii, xix, xx–xxi, xxii–xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxxi, 27, 100, 154, 155, 156, 162, 174, 180, 182 P Pagliuca, William xv, xxx, 317, 328 Parret, Herman 54 Parsons, T. 336–337, 350 Paso, Fernando del 227 Pauliny, Eugene 81, 85 Pawley, Andrew 319–320, 327, 330 Payne, Doris L. 55 Peirce, Charles Sanders xvii, 71, 74 Penhallurick, John M. 262, 271, 286 Penny, Ralph J. 166, 182 Perkins, Revere D. 317, 328 Pike, Kenneth 101, 118 Pinker, Steven xi, xxxi Pla Cárceles, José 180, 182 Plank, Franz 55 Pollard, Carl xii, xxxi Palomé, Edgar 4, 29

358

NAME INDEX

Pottier, Bernard 48, 55 Poutsma, H. 255, 257, 261, 286 Prat J. 25, 29 Pulvermüller, Friedemann xi–xii, xxxi Putte, Florimon van 97, 100, 101, 117, 231, 233–234, 235, 252 Q Quirk, Randolph 50, 55, 185, 192, 202, 255, 258–259, 261, 275, 286, 350 R Ramat, Anna Giacalone 292, 303, 330 Ramat, Paolo 33, 334, 346, 350 Randall, Janet 268, 285 Rappaport, M. 268, 286 Ravid, Dorit xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxviii–xix, 89, 334, 335, 339, 341, 344, 350 Reichenbach, Hans 230–231, 234, 250, 253 Reid, Wallis H. xiv, xvii, xxxi, 95, 96, 118, 233, 235, 250, 253 Repp, B.H. 222 Ricca, Davide 333, 334, 346, 350 Robert, Shabaan 10, 29 Rojo, Guillermo 231, 232 Rosch, Eleanor 40, 55, 334, 351 Rosén, Haiim 87, 90, 118 Ross, Charles 351 Rudnick, Paul 109, 118 Rudy, Stephen 95, 118 Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida xxxi Ruhl, Charles 154, 156 Rukeyser, Alison 77, 78, 85, 87, 99, 118 Ryder, Mary Ellen xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxviii, 295, 319, 330 S Sadock, Jerrold 317–319, 331 Sag, Ivan xii, xxxi

Sangster, Rodney xiv, xxxi Sapir, Edward x, xv, xxxi, 159, 182 Saussure, Ferdinand de xii–xiii, xxxi, 51, 95, 118, 189, 270, 286 Sauvageot, Aurélien 50, 55 Savitzky, Leah 51 Šaxmatov, A.A. 79, 86 Sayers, Dorothy 186, 189, 203 Schachter, Paul 335, 351 Schooneveld, Cornelis H. van xiv–xv, xvii, xxxii, 42, 201, 202, 206, 222–223, 262, 267, 270–271, 286 Schwartz, J.R. 221 Schwarzwald, Ora Rodrigue 343, 351 Segal, S.J. 219 Segui, Juan xii, xxx Selvik, Kari-Anne 26, 29 Senkoro, F.E.M.K. 9, 29 Shaw, Irwin 273–274, 279, 280, 281, 282, 287 Sheldon, S. 280–281, 28, 287 Shimamura, Reiko 327, 331 Shlesinger, Yitzhak xvii, xxi, xxiv, xxviii–xix, 89, 341, 350, 351 Silverman, M.S. 26 Simpson, J. 268, 286 Slobin, Dan I. 348, 349 Smith-Stark, Cedric 25–26, 29 Stanislav, Ján 81, 86 Stankiewicz, Edward 206, 207 Stern, Nancy xvii, xix, xx–xxi, xxii–xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, 27 Strang, Barbara 185, 192, 202 Studdert-Kennedy, Michael 222 Svartengren, Thomas H. 201, 202 Svartik, Jan 185, 202, 258–259, 286, 350 Švedova, N. 222 Swadesh, Morris x, xxxi Switkes, E. 222 T Tabor, Whitney 327, 324, 331

NAME INDEX Talmy, Leonard xi, xxxi, 18, 26, 29, 75, 86, 88, 96, 99–100, 118 Tanenhaus, M.K. 220, 222 Taylor, John 156, 334, 351 Tenny, C. 268–269, 273, 286 Tesnière, Lucien 48, 55 Theroux, Paul 189, 203 Thiem, R. 220 Thomas, Jacqueline 52 Thompson, Sandra 54, 234, 235, 253, 335, 350 Timberlake, Alan 291 Tobin, Yishai xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xx–xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxix, xxxi–xxxii, 16, 24, 52, 77, 86, 88, 90, 91, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103–104, 109, 111, 115, 117, 118, 227, 251, 253, 263–264, 265, 266, 267, 285, 286 Tomasello, Michael 334, 351 Tootell, R.B.H. 219, 222 Toporova, I.N. 4, 25, 29 Townsend, Charles E. 78, 86 Traugott, Elizabeth Closs xi, xxx, xxii, 55, 88, 101, 118, 179, 182, 234, 235, 291, 296, 300, 316, 328, 331, 337, 351 Turner, Mark 84, 85 Tyler, Lorraine Komisarjevsky 182 V Vanrespaille, Mia 266, 267, 286 Verspoor, Marolijn 250

359

Vestergaard, Torben 266 Vet, Co 250 Vidal, Alejandra 45, 55 Vinogradov, V.V. 233 W Waugh, Linda 95, 118, 268, 286 Weinrich, Harald 234, 235, 253 Weissenborn, Jürgen 41, 55 Whitney, W.D. 96, 118 Wickens, Mark A. 62, 63, 64–66, 71, 95, 98, 118, 192, 202 Wierzbicka, Anna 101, 118, 351 Williamson, Kay 4, 24, 29 Wilson, Agnus 186, 203 Wright, William 50, 55 Y Yahya, Saad S. 7, 29 Z Zagona, Karen 231–232, 253 Zaliznjak, A.A. 206, 208, 219, 223 Zandwoort, R.W. 265, 286 Zawawi, Sharifa 26, 29 Zeki, Semir 52 Zubin, David 13, 17, 29, 155, 156, 180, 182 Zucchi, Alessandro 337 351 Zwicky, Arnold 327, 329

Subject Index

A abduction 74–75 acategorial/genderless words 137, 142–144 action/event 242, 257, 258, 259–260, 262, 265, 267, 269–270, 277–278, 294, 325 activeness 163–165, 170, 174–176, 178–179, 180 adjacency 131–132 adjectives (unicategorial) 137–140 adjectives xxii–xxiii, 11, 80, 81, 98, 123, 126, 127–128, 131–133, 217–218, 316, 334, 335, 338, 339, 342–347 adverbs/adverbials xxviii–xxix, 46, 52, 89, 98, 101, 129–130, 327–349 agreement 3–11, 33, 123, 163, 180, 208, 217–218 Aktionsart 260 Amerindian 52, 87 analogy xi, 77–78, 80–83, 84–83 anaphor 42–43, 159, 163, 180, 300–303, 309–310, 312–316 animacy vs. gender 195–219 animate/inanimate xix–xx, xxii–xxv, xxv–xxvi, xxvi–xxvii, 11–12, 23–24, 33, 78, 163–168, 170–171, 176–178, 180, 186, 189–196, 197–200, 205–219, 313 antecedent 159, 180, 313

Arabic 42 arbitrariness 322 articles xxii–xxiv, 46, 49, 123, 130–131, 144 aspect/aspectuality 255, 256, 258, 278–281 Australian 87, 99 avoidance 145, 147–150 B Baltic 259 Bantu xviii, xix, 3–27, 46 Basque 49 be passive/get passive 267 Belarussian 79, 81 bicategorial words 127–128 biological features 186–189, 192–196, 197–200 Bulgarian xviii, xix, 79, 81–82, 83 C case 77, 78–82, 88, 160–179, 176–178, 207–208 categories (lexical/grammatical) ix, ix–xxix, 73–85, 88, 111–116, 123, 126–128, 205–219, 227–230, 270, 291–328, 333–349 cerebral cortex 211–212 Chinese 261 classes (open/closed) x, xi–xii, xxii–xxiv, 3–27, 111–116, 126, 327–349

362

SUBJECT INDEX

clauses (main/subordinate) 243–244, 249, 251–252 cliticization 292, 316–326 clitics xxiii–xxiv, xxviii, 316, 317 cognitive grammar xi, xii–xiii, xv, xxi, xxviii–xxix, 73–85, 334, 345–346, 349 cognitive science 195–219 Columbia School xiii–xiv, xvii, xix, xxii–xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, xxvii–xviii, 95, 160, 232–235, 271 competence/performance 51 complements 34, 278, 280–281 completion/consequences 257, 258, 260, 262, 263, 284 compounds 141 content/form x–xi, 11–15, 95 contextual correlations 163–165 continuate/discontinuate 63–70, 95, 98–100, 100–104, 111, 200, 255–284 copula 33 core/periphery 83–84 Czech 79 D decategorization 316–326 deixis xix–xx, xxiii–xxiv, 31–32, 40–42, 44–45, 49, 50, 159, 215 demonstratives 32, 42, 49, 200 demotivation (semantic) 304–305, 307 dialects xxiv–xxv, 74–75, 160–179 dictionary entries 141–142, 291–328 dual/paucal xviii, 3, 73–85, 87–116 E elements (optional/obligatory) x ellipsis 321–322 English xviii, xix, xxiv–xxv, xxvii–xxviii, 44, 50, 59–70, 87, 96–98, 101–102, 185–201, 255–284, 291–327

English (Middle) 44, 297 English (Old) 293, 297, 313 entrenchment 326 –er nominals xxviii, 291–327 Eskimo-Aleut 49, 87 Evenki 261 eventualities 335–250 F figure/ground xxi, 3–27, 76–77, 78, 84, 234–235, 240, 250 Finno-Ugric 87, 99 French 44 G gender xvii, xix–xxvi, 3, 32, 73–85, 88, 123, 160–179, 192–196, 205–219 gender (common/epicene) 124, 135, 200 gender (inherent/natural) 123–124, 135, 185, 186–189, 189–196, 227 gender (virile) 77–78 gender vs. sex 186–189, 189–196 generative grammar xi, 231–232, 251, 257–258 generics 46, 67, 311–312 German 260 gerund 266, 280 Gestalt Theory 273 grammaticalization/lexicalization xi, xxviii, xxviii–xix, 88, 270, 291–327 Greek 50, 96–97, 99, 260 Guaykuruan xviii, xix–xx, 31, 52 H heads/dummy heads 301 Hebrew xviii, xxii, xxviii, 44–50, 87–116, 327–349 homonyms 5 Hungarian 83

SUBJECT INDEX I iconicity 51, 104, 108, 233 ideation 300 idioms 309, 322–323 imperative mood 280 imperfecto/indefinido 227–250 individualization/boundedness xix–xxiv, 15–23, 76–77, 99, 100–104, 168–170, 173–174, 174–179, 210–211, 217–218, 262 Indo–European xviii, 77, 87, 99 institutionalization 304–305, 308, 316, 321 interpersonal/expressive 300 invariant/variable words 128, 145–146 J Jakobsonian sign theory xiv–xv, xvii, xxii, xxvii–xxviii, 95, 99, 102–104, 262 Jerusalem School xvii L language acquisition/aphasia xii language change/reanalysis 74–75, 83–85, 160, 176–178 language development 214–219 langue/parole 19, 51 Latin 49, 50, 96 layering 291–326 lexicon/grammar distinction ix–xxix, 3–27, 88, 108, 227–230, 271 Lingala 19 loanwords 5, 40, 42 M Macedonian xviii, xix, xxi, 79, 81–82 markedness 19, 46, 95, 99, 102–104, 111, 264–265, 277–278, 283–284 metaphor/metonomy 12–13, 23, 50, 299 modifier/modified 131–135, 313, 323–326

363

morphemes x, xix–xx, xxv, xxviii–xxix, 3–27, 59–70, 73–85, 87–88, 125, 205–219, 291–327, 333–349 morphogenesis of language xvii, xix–xx, 59–70 morphology (inflectional/derivational) 3, 23, 41, 77, 78–83, 125, 205–219, 262, 266, 296–297, 303, 316 N Nahuatl 49 nominal patterns (mishkalim) 338 nonce formation 304–305, 310 noun class (asymmetries) 4–11 noun classes (semantic structure) 11–15 noun classification xvii, xviii–xx, 3–27, 31–48, 227 noun/substantive ix, xix, xx–xxvi, 3–27, 59–70, 197–200, 201, 205–219, 295 nouns (collective/mass/count) 19–22, 46, 52, 96 nouns (unicategorial) 139–140 number xvii, xviii–xix, xx–xxvi, 3–27, 59–70, 73–85, 88, 96–100, 176–178, 201 numerals 80–82 O onomatopoeia 229 P participants 164–165, 167, 170–173, 180 participle 266, 267, 280, 316 parts of speech ix, xvii, xx–xxiv, 48, 123–124, 141–142, 296 passive voice 255, 256, 258, 261, 266–267, 278, 283

364

SUBJECT INDEX

perfective/imperfective 231, 255–260, 266 person xxii–xxv, 49, 77, 176–178, 191, 197–200, 201 PET (position emission tomography) 212 phrasal verbs xxvii–xxviii, 255–284 Pilagá xviii, xix–xx, 31–48 plexity 18–19, 96 pluralization 128–129 Polish xviii, xix, xxi, 79–80, 81, 83 prepositions 52, 300, 316 process vs. result 258, 265, 266, 275, 281–283 progressive/continuous 266 pronouns/pronominals xxiii–xxiv, 32, 42, 45, 48, 52, 188–189, 190–191, 192–196, 197–200, 215, 303, 309–310, 312 prototype 74–75, 83–84, 334, 346 proximal/distal 44 Psychomechanics of language (Guillaumean theory) xiii, xvii, xx–xv, xvii–xviii, 70, 95, 98, 262–263 psycholinguistics/neurolinguistics xi–xii, xxv–xxvi Q quantifiers 33, 60–61, 62, 101, 324, 326 Quechua 42

Selkup 261 Semantic Integrality xix, 16, 95, 100–104 Semantic Pairing Srategy 146–150 Semitic xviii, xxviii–xxix, 87, 99, 327 Serbo-Croation 79, 82 sign–oriented linguistic theory xii–xvii, xvii–xxiv, xxvii–xviii, 95–100, 160, 232, 255–257, 262–264 significant/signifié 50, 95, 109 singular/plural xviii–xix, xx–xxv, 3–27, 59–70, 87–90, 95, 197–200 Slavic/Slavonic xxi, 41, 77–78, 87, 259 Slovak 79, 81, 83 Spanish xviii, xix, xx–xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, 44, 123–153, 159–179, 227–250 Spanish Royal Academy 124 spatio/temporal/existential cline 52, 77, 95, 100–104, 208, 299 state/destination 358–359 stative 267 style/register 299 subject/predicate 32, 48 subjunctive mood 279–280 Swahili xviii–xix, 3–27 synchrony/diachrony xxi, xxviii, 5, 40, 42, 87, 142 synergesis 273 syntactic recategorization 303–304, 310

R reference (direct/indirect) 133–135 resultativeness xxv–xxvi, xxvii–xxviii, 255–284 Romanian 83 Russian xviii, xxi, xxv–xxvi, 79, 81, 205–219, 260, 261

T tense/aspect xvii, xxvi–xxvii, 255, 256, 258, 260, 278–281 Toba 52 truth/falsity ix typology 32

S Sanskrit 96–97, 99

U Ukrainian 79–80, 81, 83

SUBJECT INDEX unicategorial/bicategorial 124, 127–128, 131, 133, 137–140, 142 V valency 32 verb ix, 11, 32, 48, 216, 227–250, 294–295, 313, 315 verb systems (tense/aspect/mood) xvii, xxvi–xxvii, xxvii–xviii, 51, 227–250, 255–284 verbal patterns (binyanim) 338 verbs (aspectual) 265

365

verbs (performative) 265 verbs (sensory) 265 verbs (speech act) 265 VI (visual imagery) 211–214 visual signs 214–219 W word (content/function) xii, 95, 205–219, 328–349 word order 257, 268, 271, 272, 283 word/logos ix

CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY E. F. K. Koerner, Editor Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa OTTAWA, Canada K1N 6N5 [email protected] The Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT) series is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning and development. CILT has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. It offers an alternative outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, and furnishes the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. In this series the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

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