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Contents Acknowledgements 1 A Roadmap to Roget’s Thesaurus
vii 1
2 Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed 2.1 Four assertions 2.2 The first and third assertions 2.3 The second and third assertions 2.4 The fourth assertion 2.5 The new text genre of synonym definition
8 8 9 14 17 19
3 Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002 3.1 Old and new: the macrostructure 3.2 Old and new: the microstructure and pragmatic structures 3.3 Old and new: horse 3.4 New into old: photo 3.5 Old: the introduction
22 22 26 28 33 35
4 Three Words from the Thesaurus: Negro, Sex, and Tolerance 4.1 Interest of topic 4.2 Negress, Negro 4.3 Sex 4.4 Tolerance, toleration 4.5 Conclusion
37 37 39 45 53 58
5 Roget in Germany: The Adaptation of the Thesaurus (1852) in Daniel Sanders’ Sprachschatz (1873) 5.1 Roget’s Thesaurus in Germany 5.2 The structure of Roget’s Thesaurus 5.3 Daniel Sanders as lexicographer 5.4 Identical structures 5.5 Some divergent structures
60 60 61 63 65 67
6 Roget in the Romance World: Théodore Robertson’s Translation of Roget’s Thesaurus (1852) into French as Le Dictionnaire Idéologique (1859) 6.1 The teacher of modern languages 6.2 The semantic order of words 6.3 Comparing Roget and Robertson: introduction and macrostructure 6.4 Comparing Roget and Robertson: entry article 566 6.5 Detailed comparisons
76 76 79 84 86 89
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7 Wilkins and Roget Meet. An Experiment in Thought 7.1 Structures of thesauri 7.2 John Wilkins’ Essay (1668), chap. XI, genus XXXVI, Civil Relation II, profession or vocation 7.3 Roget’s Thesaurus (2002), entry article 687
92 92 96 103
8 On Background Knowledge and Seriality 8.1 On background knowledge 8.2 A typology of seriality 8.3 The undergrowth
108 108 111 120
9 The Didactic Potential of Thesauri 9.1 Retrieval techniques 9.2 Thesaurus structure and word meanings 9.2.1 The macrostructure explicitly given 9.2.2 Pragmatic structures implied 9.2.2.1 Headword index 9.2.2.2 Entry articles 9.3 The essential gain
122 122 129 129 132 132 135 140
10 A Cognitive View of Synonymy 10.1 The cognitive groundwork 10.1.1 Linguistic competence as semiotic competence 10.1.2 Linguistic competence as communicative competence 10.1.3 The identification of meaning(s) 10.2 Meaning as construal 10.2.1 Componential aspects of meaning 10.2.2 Semantic malleability 10.3 On synonymy 10.3.1 Similarity and synonymy 10.3.2 Fields and frames 10.3.3 Antonyms 10.4 Synonyms and antonyms in texts 10.5 Dictionaries and thesauri
Acknowledgements The permission to reprint, given by the publishers Niemeyer, Tübingen (Germany), and Kümmerle, Göppingen (Germany), is acknowledged with gratitude for: ‘Roget’s Thesaurus, deconstructed’, first published in Julie Coleman and Anne McDermott (eds.), Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research, Tübingen: Niemeyer 2004, 83–94; ‘Roget in Germany’, first published in German with the title of ‘Die Adaptation von Rogets Thesaurus in Daniel Sanders’ Sprachschatz’ in William J. Jones, William A. Kelly, and Frank Shaw (eds.), ‘Vir ingenio mirandus’. Studies presented to John L. Flood, Göppingen: Kümmerle 2003, vol. II, 897–920; ‘Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852–2002’, first published in Lexicographica, International Annual for Lexicography, Tübingen: Niemeyer 2005, vol. 21, 71–82. The remaining chapters were written for international conferences on historical lexicography and lexicology in Gargagno (Lake Garda) and Leiden, or for this publication.
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1 A Roadmap to Roget’s Thesaurus In 2004, I published the first edition of my monograph on Roget’s Thesaurus (Hüllen 2004). It dealt with the ‘origin, development, and design’ of this seminal book. The three aspects to be investigated were regarded as historically and systematically important. The book was the continuation of my research on the history of English lexicography as far as it consists of non-alphabetical, socalled topical, dictionaries (Hüllen 1999). My monograph on this subject had appeared in 1999. This, too, was the continuation of earlier investigations which dealt with the origin and development of the scientific register of English in the orbit of the Royal Society. I tried to explain this in a monograph (Hüllen 1989), written in German. One of its central chapters was ‘the search for the onomasiological alphabet’ in the so-called ‘Tables’ of John Wilkins’ book on a universal language. 1 Since 2004, Roget’s editio princeps and the many subsequent editions have not ceased to catch my attention. Whenever asked to lecture ‘on Roget’, I selected aspects which I had not dealt with in the books mentioned, either because I could not integrate them there or because I had not been aware of them at all. The following chapters are, therefore, again a continuation of my former work. Continuations mix old insights with new ones. In order to understand the latter, the reader must remember the former. It seems advisable, therefore, to give an outline sketch for readers on my relevant deliberations, at least since 1999—although this means reducing almost a continent of phenomena and ideas to the size of a roadmap. But the sketch can, nevertheless, help to allocate the adequate locus of the following arguments and explain the terms 1 In the chapters to come I will omit general references to these three publications, except for quotations or references to relevant pages.
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used since 1999. It does not go beyond the two books mentioned (Hüllen 1999, 2004), and everything is explained there in much greater detail. (i) Synonyms are words whose meanings overlap in parts. This means that the speakers can use them in two different ways: they can either substitute them for each other in order to give the text to be produced internal (structural or stylistic) variety, or they can express with them subtle differentiations of meanings without lengthy explanations. Both these ways of dealing with synonyms are typical of normal linguistic behaviour and have been in practice ever since we have had relevant sources. This means that, generally speaking, scholarly deliberations on the matter are engaged in making lucid and explaining what speakers do every day without further reflection. It is what I call an autonomous tradition, i.e. a traditional habit of using language which is obviously ingrained in nature rather than being consciously founded. Linguistics is, after all, the analytical continuation of language use. Yet, we are far from understanding it in this way. This is because we only start to realize that using synonyms, in whichever of the two potential capacities ever, is an inevitable necessity in language use. The chapter on a cognitive view of synonymy deals with these important background phenomena in some detail. (ii) In both their capacities, synonyms have always been scholarly discussed and collected. Prodikos of Keos (b. c.470 BC) initiated an unbroken tradition of arguments on the nature of synonyms and their use. It goes right through the centuries of European intellectual history and can be found in many languages. Of a particular impact on the English—but naturally also the French and the German—tradition was the book by the Abbé Gabriel Girard (1718). Unintentionally perhaps, he promoted a new text genre which had, however, been prefigured in many earlier writings, namely that of the concise, frequently pithy, in almost all cases comparative, often antithetical word definition in short essays. The chapter on ‘Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed’ epitomizes this historical development and gives examples. The collecting and discussing of synonyms had led to lists (glossaries) and later dictionaries in which one headword was juxtaposed with several (or even numerous) synonyms which were
A Roadmap
3
either just given or accompanied by explanations. In such dictionaries of synonyms, the headwords were ordered according to the alphabet. But the collecting and discussing of synonyms has also resulted in a particularly rich tradition of so-called topical dictionaries (glossaries, lists of differentiae and aequivocae, nomenclators, thesauri, etc.) which were used for various purposes, mainly for native and foreign-language teaching. Their words are not arranged by the alphabet but by their semantic affinity. Almost all chapters of this book approach these historical sources and comment upon them in the limits of their topics. Finally, synonymy was given an important function in general explanatory dictionaries of the alphabetic type. As the great majority of monolingual and multilingual dictionaries are of this type, they all use synonyms. Whenever word meanings are explained, synonyms are needed and used. (iii) Topical dictionaries have a semantic order. The inevitable question is how this order is arrived at in the minds of the compilers. If it pertains to a strictly delimited domain of reality, for example, in a thesaurus of fruit trees or domestic buildings, it is the matterof-fact order of these domains which decides on the arrangement of words—for example, the various kinds of fruit trees ordered according to continents where they grow, or the various kinds of buildings ordered according to usability for man or animal. If it pertains as comprehensively as possible to the world of mankind, the arrangement of words is dominated by the various philosophical, scientific, political, and other generated ideas of people on the objective and human reality. This accounts for the strongly encyclopedic interest in such dictionaries. They used to be and still are something akin to philosophical treatises in disguise. In any case, the order is not given but man-made and has a meaning of its own. (iv) With this meaning of its own—apart from all the meanings of individual words—a topical dictionary has all the linguistic qualities of a text. It has a semantic macrostructure which shows how the author of the dictionary saw (sees) the world. It has a syntactic microstructure which—comparable to the sentence in a text—uses a small number of formal principles to formalize each entry or entry
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article. It also has pragmatic structures—comparable to linguistic properties like style, politeness, illocutionary force, etc.—which give the syntactic units, the entries and entry articles their special nature. Just as in ordinary texts, it is sometimes difficult to separate clearly pragmatics from syntax. The most obvious indication of pragmatic structures in a topical dictionary is the sequence of words within entry articles or between small groups of them. All three structures of topical dictionaries are targeted in lexicographical analysis. The pragmatic structures are the most difficult to explain because they change according to the nature of the domain of reality which the words belong to. The categories of order pertaining to the names of fruit trees are, for example, different from those pertaining to words denoting buildings. In their textual qualities, topical dictionaries of the past differ naturally from those of the present, for example because their authors believed that the categories of order of the macrostructure were nature-given (or God-given), whereas it is the philosophical conviction, certainly after John Locke, that they are man-made. Since then, universal topical dictionaries have no longer been supposed to mirror reality in their macrostructure but to indicate the ideas which human beings develop in their various and controversial ways of regarding reality and living with it. (v) Typologically, Roget’s Thesaurus can be defined as a merger between a universal topical dictionary and a dictionary of synonyms. It was not the very first in the middle of the 19th century but of course the one with the most eminent success. It is noteworthy that all the subsequent editions use, almost exactly, the macrostructure of the editio princeps. Their syntactic structure is the same, too, the regrettable fact excepted that the typographical arrangement of opposing entry articles has been given up. It was a visual corollary to Roget’s dichotomous arrangement of synonyms and antonyms. Naturally, the pragmatic structures of the Thesaurus changed in later editions because the selection of words changed. As the number of these words increased steadily, although the macrostructure remained the same, the question arose how new words could, in great numbers, be allocated to the old slots. The chapter on ‘Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002’ is devoted to these phenomena. At the same time, the question arose how the new stock of words in each of the later editions shows what can be
A Roadmap
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called the spirit of the time. In spite of its structural stability, each Thesaurus edition has the linguistic profile of the era in which it was compiled and appeared. The comparisons of the words ‘negro’, ‘sex’, and ‘tolerance’ in the relevant chapter are meant to show this. Finally, the question arises how the transfer of the macrostructure to other languages, for example to German and to French, affected the choice of words. Above all, it is the pragmatic structures which must be questioned in this respect. The chapters on Daniel Sanders and Théodore Robertson do this and are also proof of the international impact which Roget’s Thesaurus has had for more than 150 years. (vi) Since the 1970s, lexical semantics and psycholinguistics have aimed at showing that the vocabulary of a natural language is not just a mass of words, ready for adaptation into syntactic formats. It has an order of its own which is determined, first, by the reality of the world and, second, by the ability of the human mind to process linguistic signs. As such, words are real in what is called the ‘mental lexicon’. Its internal order and the ways of retrieving its units (words) pose questions of high theoretical interest. They can pertain to didactic problems as the chapter on ‘The Didactic Potential of Thesauri’ shows. The linguistic concepts of the ‘semantic fields’ and ‘frames’ have been defined and discussed in this context. They were prepared by structural semantics and are now concepts of psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics. ‘Fields’ are words of one class (nouns, verbs, etc.) which cover a coherent domain of reality. Originally, they were thought to cover this domain in the way in which a mosaic creates a picture. Semantic fields are typically represented by collections of synonyms. ‘Frames’ do very much the same; however, their word stock is not of one class. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs belong to one frame if they are likely to occur together in the speech acts of one situation (‘in the restaurant’, ‘buying a ticket’, etc.). Thus, they are represented by collections of synonyms in all word classes. The concept of a ‘semantic feature’ was originally created in transformational grammar and structural linguistics in order to define and compare words in a formally adequate way. However, their status and their efficiency have remained highly questionable. In spite of this, ‘semantic features’ are still used as a convenient means of referring to one or several composite and dominant
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
part(s) of word meanings. Finally, the older idea of a logically defined ‘class’ of words was replaced by the experientially defined ‘prototype’. For a long time, it has been observed that old word collections (glossaries and dictionaries) can be subjected quite well to the modern terms of analysis mentioned. The affinity of Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ with structuralist semantics, for example, was observed quite early. His ‘Tables’ can be regarded as a version of the mental lexicon stabilized, as it were, with the old means of logical derivation. As the chapter ‘Wilkins and Roget Meet’ shows, affinities between the two can be realized by mapping some arbitrarily chosen pieces of the two-word collections to each other. (vii) The topical dictionaries of the past, Wilkins’ ‘Tables’, and Roget’s Thesaurus can all be regarded as proof for what has recently been called mental word order. They are collections of extremely high numbers of words that have never been brought together in more theoretically-orientated investigations into lexicology and semantics. Therefore, analysing and measuring old topical dictionaries with the help of such modern concepts is a way of finding out what the structure of the vocabulary of a natural language, understood to be a mental lexicon, actually is. The old dictionaries are a means of putting modern projections to the test. If linguists endeavour to explain analytically what native speakers do intuitively—here is a perfect case for their work. The dictionaries under discussion were for centuries past what corpora of words are for the present. They bring us close to linguistic reality. Each of the chapters in this volume is meant to be read and understood in and by itself. Understanding an argument does not depend on having read the previous text. The method of reading can therefore be quite disorderly. This accounts for some inevitable repetitions, in particular in opening and closing paragraphs where the point of reference is determined which leads from the topicalized problem to the general assumptions. But each of the chapters is also planned to be an enhancement of the general knowledge about topical (onomasiological) lexicography as explained in the two earlier monographs. For the new reader, it will be possible to understand the chapters in this volume as they are; for the experienced reader it will be easy to locate them at the special places in
A Roadmap
7
the monographs to which they refer. All chapters have the tendency to concretize what has otherwise been stated in more abstract terms and to deliver more exemplary proof where this seemed feasible to me. The first seven chapters pertain strictly to Roget’s seminal book, the following two, and in particular the last one, draw wider circles, though the starting point of their ideas and the underlying theme are again Roget’s Thesaurus.
Four assertions The first and third assertions The second and third assertions The fourth assertion The new text genre of synonym definition
2.1 Four assertions Roget’s Thesaurus appeared for the first time in 1852 (Roget 1852), i.e. exactly 157 years ago. As everybody knows today, it was to become a most successful book. More interesting than the reasons for this success are, perhaps, those for the unbroken attraction of this dictionary type between then and now, which gave the title of Roget’s work a generic meaning. The 150th Anniversary Edition (Roget 2002) is visibly constructed according to the 1852 model, albeit with changed vocabulary. It was followed by another pocket book edition (Roget 2004). The problem how to define this dictionary type—founded by the retired scientist and amateur lexicographer Dr Peter Mark Roget (Emblen 1970)—is of outstanding interest for the historiographer of lexicography. Four assertions can serve as a preparation for an answer to this question: (i) Roget’s Thesaurus is a cumulative dictionary of synonyms. (ii) Roget’s Thesaurus is a topical (or onomasiological) dictionary. Into these two assertions two others can be integrated because they apply to each of them: (iii) Both dictionary types mentioned had their own history and popularity before Roget.
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
9
(iv) The new and obviously seminal characteristic of Roget’s Thesaurus was the amalgamation of properties resulting from assertions (i) and (ii). These four assertions will be used for a deconstruction of the book that we have before us at the beginning of the 21st century.
2.2 The first and third assertions: the history of cumulative dictionaries of synonyms Using synonyms is part of everyday linguistic performance, and this has presumably always been so. One can, for example, understand large sections of Plato’s dialogues as the differentiating and weighing of synonyms until the right one is selected for presumably the right meaning and put into the (for Plato) right perspective. Indeed, the first critical treatment of the matter is attributed to the sophist Prodikos of Keos (born c.470 BC, i.e. a contemporary of Socrates) whose works appear mirrored in Plato’s Laches and Protagoras. His ideas on synonyms in oratory initiated a long sequence of texts, during the many ensuing centuries of European intellectual history, where the class of words was focused on which could easily be confused because of the proximity of meanings, but which also gave the authors a chance to express the same thing in different words. Today’s definition of synonyms as words with ‘not quite the same meanings’ has been present since the beginnings of this discussion. The relevant terms were synonyma, aequivoca, differentiae, communio nominis, polyonyma, plurivoca, and others (Hüllen 2004, 73–96). However, the more recent interest in synonymy was stimulated by the Abbé Gabriel Girard’s book La Justesse de la langue françoise (Girard 1718), which was frequently reprinted in France and caused an astonishing wave of interest in synonymy all over Europe. It also gave rise to a new text genre (see 2.5), namely a rather loose collection of articles containing a sequence of mostly short, often pithy, precisely formulated definitions of word meanings, arranged either in dichotomies or in groups of three to five, rarely more, members. We may find late examples of this genre, for example, in some articles in H. W. Fowler’s widely known Modern English Usage (Fowler 1926 and later) or in Simeon Potter’s influential book
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
Our Language (Potter 1950). In 18th-century France and later, André Roubaud, Nicolas Beauzée, Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Pierre Benjamin Lafaye, and others compiled and edited such books of synonyms (Gauger 1973). In Germany, it was Johann Christoph Gottsched, Samuel Johann Ernst Stosch, and Johann August Eberhard (Hahn 2002). There were similar publications in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, whose authors can all be said to belong to one linguistic school (Schmitz 1883). It was even suggested that a comparative dictionary of synonyms of the main European languages should be compiled, and indeed the twelfth edition of Eberhard’s famous Handwörterbuch (Eberhard 1863) had German, English, French, Italian, and Russian entries. Girard’s book (1718) originally consisted of an introduction and 295 articles on synonyms. Beauzée’s second edition (Girard 1780) had 421 articles, and in the third posthumous edition there was a list of an additional 500 words awaiting analysis. The English tradition began in 1762 with an anonymous translation of Girard’s preface and a selection of 21 of his articles, followed by a postscript reading: ‘To be continued, if found acceptable to the publick.’ (Anonymus 1762). An announcement of this book in The Monthly Review (1762) was quite unfriendly, doubting whether translation could be done effectively in these cases. The anonymous translator had already had the same problem himself: ‘The idioms of the French and English languages, differing so greatly, would not by any means (in many places of a work of this kind) allow a close translation; but only a sort of parody at most.’ However, these intelligent doubts were not to play a great role in the further English treatment of synonyms. In method and in the selection of lexemes, the French model always exercised great influence on the English writers. Their tradition in this matter continued with John Trusler’s new translation (Trusler 1766) of Girard’s preface, entitled The Difference Between Words, Esteemed Synonymous [. . . ], followed by a selection of articles some of which were direct adaptations from the French. The book was quite successful, and went through six re-editions. There then followed British Synonymy; Or, An Attempt At Regulating The Choice Of Words in Familiar Conversation [. . . ] by Hester Lynch Piozzi (Piozzi 1794), then English Synonyms Explained, In Alphabetical Order; With Copious Illustrations, published by George Crabb (Crabb 1816), and English Synonyms
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
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Discriminated, published by William Taylor jun., of Norwich (Taylor 1813). George F. Graham published English Synonymes Classified And Explained; With Practical Exercises, Designed For School and Private Tuition (Graham 1846), and Bishop Richard Whately A Selection of English Synonyms (actually compiled by his wife Elizabeth Jane Whately) (Whately 1851), i.e. only one year before Roget. Authors writing after Roget’s book had appeared were Charles J. Smith (1867) and Richard Soule (1871). Smith was the first after Roget to systematically juxtapose synonyms and antonyms. There were, moreover, several books in the linguistically awakening United States, mainly in connection with Webster’s dictionary. All these are very similar in the way in which they treat the topic, although each had its own features. Trusler followed Girard closely, Piozzi obviously wrote with non-native (i.e., in her case, Italian) speakers in mind, Taylor added etymological explanations, where the other authors had been strictly synchronic. George Crabb’s book is usually credited with having more linguistic substance than the others. He also took the first step towards a dictionary of synonyms, not a mere treatment of selected examples, by giving the first words of his articles an alphabetical arrangement. None of the books mentioned above was scientific in the manner in which we understand the term now. They addressed the educated speaker and learner. However, in their own way these books presaged what would later become scholarly semantics— a subdiscipline of linguistics which we usually think of as having started much later with Karl Christoph Reisig’s lectures of 1839 not published until 1890 (Reisig 1839/1972). This was mainly due to the general attention directed to word meanings, contrary to the traditional attention to grammar. More concretely, three pertinent ‘semantic’ ideas can be found in these books, not as their topics but as working principles: first, that the meanings of words can only be identified by the meanings of adjacent words, whose semantic analysis is subject to the same condition; second, that the meanings of words cannot be strictly delimited, that they have no clear-cut edges but are subject to an endless number of shades and aspects which can only be found in performance
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and presuppose, in various ways, the totality of human knowledge and behaviour, as far as it expresses itself in language; third, that there is a set of abstract concepts in existence which are used over and over again for explaining the meanings of words, such as, for example, ‘human’ and ‘non-human’, ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’, ‘action’ and ‘state’, etc. The similarities to 20th-century semantics (and beyond) are obvious. The step from a loose collection of essays on comparable word meanings to a dictionary was taken in all the European countries mentioned. In the English-speaking world, it was reinforced by the existence—previous to the innovation from France—of so-called hard-word dictionaries. As is well known, they were the lexicographic answer to the ynkhorne controversy in the late 16th and the 17th centuries (Hogg 1999) which was a reaction to the widespread Latinization of the English vocabulary at that time. The works of William Bullokar (1582), Edmund Coote (1596), Robert Cawdrey (1604), John Bullokar (1616), Henry Cockeram (1623), Thomas Blount (1656), Edward Philipps (1658), and Elisha Coles (1676) are usually and rightly credited with marking the beginnings of English monolingual lexicography (Starnes and Noyes 1946/1991). It usually appears not worth mentioning, but certainly is so in the present context, that this was done by compiling alphabetical dictionaries of synonyms, even if limited to a selection of synonymous pairs chosen according to the historical character of English (i.e. the Germanic and Latin roots of its vocabulary) and the didactic purposes that were felt to be urgent at the time (i.e. making hard words intelligible for speakers without any knowledge of Latin). They do not show any sophisticated theory, but we may infer some relevant concepts of synonym selection from the use of such markers as ‘hard vs easy’, ‘common vs rare’, ‘indigenous vs foreign’, ‘proper’, and ‘significant’, etc. Because of the proximity of English Renaissance vocabulary to Latin, this first wave of English dictionaries of synonyms was (and is) understood to be the legitimate successor to the earlier English–Latin dictionaries for which the juxtaposition of an English lemma with Latin synonyms had been a common practice. Among them were Richard Huloet’s Abecedarium Anglicolatinum (1552) and Simon Pelegromio’s Synonymorum sylva (1572)—two large-scale dictionaries of synonyms, the latter even furnished with a detailed theory of synonymy in its extended preface (Stein 1985).
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In the second wave of dictionaries, starting with J. K. (John Kersey, 1702), the collection of lemmata with their explanatory synonyms was extended to all ‘proper and significant’ words. Its peak in the 18th century was, of course, Dr Johnson. Besides paraphrases and examples (by way of quotations), he used synonyms as a third way of explaining lexemes. His ideas on synonymy, as explained in the preface to his dictionary, prefigure the later publications on synonyms in many respects. Note: The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly onto each other so that though on one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the same race, though not exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it, when they are exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion of acceptations, that discernment is wearied, and distinction puzzled, and perseverance herself hurries to an end, by crouding together what she cannot separate (Johnson 1755/1979: not pag., par. 50).
The passage betrays a certain scepticism about the possibilities of answering Johnson’s own postulate that ‘the explanation, and the word explained, should always be reciprocal’ (Johnson’s words and italics). In 1805, William Perry published The Synonymous, Etymological, And Pronouncing English Dictionary; in Which The Words Are Deduced From Their Originals, Their Part of Speech distinguished. Their Pronounciation pointed out, and their Synonyma Collected [. . . ] (Perry 1805). It is in fact a re-working of Dr Johnson’s dictionary with the collection of synonyms worked out more elaborately with regard to etymology, grammar, and pronunciation. William Perry pruned Johnson’s dictionary of all the paraphrases and quotations—sometimes however keeping the names of quoted authors—and, thus, presented a potentially complete dictionary of the whole language consisting of nothing but lexemes (in alphabetical order) with more or less long chains of other lexemes. In the ‘Preface’ he, rightly, called his work ‘the only synonymous vocabulary ever offered to the public’. Here the English vocabulary appeared as a network of semantically related lexemes for the first time, with the alphabet as an artificial and external device for giving access to it at any point. This is what, in terms of semantics, lexicographers call today ‘cumulative synonymy’. Perry’s was an academic book and an eminent practical achievement as well, because he
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knew that looking for synonyms was the educated layperson’s way of handling language. ‘Every person accustomed to write, whether on private concerns, or for public instruction, must have felt the want of such an assistant, not only to guard him against the tiresome repetition of the same words, but to enable him to select terms to express his ideas with greater clearness and precision’ (Perry 1805, v). The idea of using a book like this as a word-finder for everybody presupposes that synonyms need no explanations for native speakers. By definition, they (the speakers) are able to understand the words of their own language, so they can also be trusted to recognize overlapping meanings and the, frequently minimal, contrasts between them. All this comes very close to the arguments presented by Roget in the preface as a rationale of his Thesaurus. William Perry did not reflect in this way on his own work. For historiographers with the advantage of hindsight, however, it becomes clear that, in effect, he transposed the phenomenon of synonymy from the area of style, where it had been at home at least since Girard, to the area of lexical semantics. What Trusler, Piozzi, and Taylor had regarded as isolated cases of tricky word usage, Perry turned into a method for the definition of word meanings in general. If nothing else, his dictionary can be seen as the introduction to this kind of linguistic procedure. It is the door that leads into a practical form of network semantics. It is, moreover, easy for us to recognize that with Perry the threshold was also reached beyond which Peter Mark Roget was waiting. However, Roget was not waiting alone. William Carpenter (1842), Thomas Fenby (1853), and D. L. Mackenzie (1854) published cumulative dictionaries as did Roget and almost in the same year. So Roget was not a unique figure. The only difference between them and him was in the alphabetical/non-alphabetical arrangement of their books.
2.3 The second and third assertions: the history of topical dictionaries Concerning the arrangement of lexemes, there are two kinds of dictionaries (if we consider only such languages as are expressed in alphabetical writing), and we find them both in the present
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
15
and in the past: their entries are either in alphabetical order or in order of topical affinity. The alphabetical order is precise and nonambiguous. It is easy to handle. It presupposes only a knowledge of the fixed sequence of letters. Some minor difficulties arise with homographs. Its perfect formality is at the cost of complete semantic emptiness. Topical affinity, however, is extremely difficult to handle. It presupposes an arrangement of semantic domains which must cover, in comprehensive word collections, the whole universe of human experience and thought. This is so because the sequence of entries is in itself meaningful. We all know that, at least where they are free to do so, people disagree in their opinions about the universe. So they also disagree in their judgement of topical dictionaries. This gives onomasiology what could be called philosophical depth. The two principles, the alphabetical and the topical one, are not just two ways of organizing the same matter, lexis. They are the consequence of two different approaches to language which can be best explained by the two types of language acquisition. Children and other learners either point to something and ask: What’s its name?, or they hear a word and ask: What does it mean? With the first question they go from reality to language (from meaning to form), with the latter from language to reality (from form to meaning). The topical (onomasiological) approach from meaning to language serves linguistic production, i.e. expression; the semasiological approach from language to meaning serves linguistic reception, i.e. understanding. This difference entails that the dictionaries of each of the two types serve different ends. In so far as dictionaries are planned to serve both purposes (as is mostly the case nowadays) they combine semasiological and onomasiological methods in various ways. The same happens in natural language acquisition and language use, where production and reception always occur concomitantly (Hüllen 1999, 11–15). From what has been said so far, it should be clear that topical dictionaries depend very much on certain philosophical assumptions. Arguments of the 19th and the 20th centuries, under the general headings of ‘cultural relativity’ and ‘linguistic pragmatism’, have convinced us that there is no apprehension of what might be called objective truth by language, among other reasons because the experience of reality and human ways of thinking depend just as much on language as language depends on them. Logically speaking,
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
onomasiology is, thus, caught in a vicious circle. But earlier in the history of European thought this was different. This is why, in principle, older works of the topical tradition were thought of as being objective and universal, i.e. denoting reality as it is and doing this in such a way that everybody was obliged to agree. Historically, topical dictionaries are much older than alphabetical ones. Between the beginnings of post-classical European written culture and 1700, we find the onomasiological principle employed in various genres of text. These are non-alphabetical glosses, glossaries, and their expanded variants, that is dictionaries. In the 16th and 17th centuries a special type of these dictionaries was called nomenclators. They appeared much more frequently on the Continent than in the British Isles, but were adapted there, e.g. in Adrianus Junius’ book of 1567 (Junius 1585). They regularly contained one of the classical languages (or both) and several, often as many as seven, vernaculars. Topical word lists and dictionaries (like Withals 1553 and Howell 1660) had the broad aim of assembling knowledge. Therefore, they either served a general encyclopedic function, or were instruments for learning languages or crafts. This is most clearly evident in the various dictionary-like genres. Many treatises on terminology (concerning, for example, the sciences [Robert Recorde 1551], agriculture [Garvis Markham 1613, 1615], navigation [William Bourne 1577], etc.) and many dialogues in foreign-language textbooks contained topical word lists integrated into their own structure (Schäfer 1989, Hüllen 1999, 140–67). In his various textbooks, Comenius made wide use of this technique. Historiographically, lexicographers did not pay much attention to this branch of their discipline. Finally, there is a word collection with outstanding onomasiological properties which is almost regularly overlooked by lexicographers, namely the so-called ‘Tables’ of John Wilkins’ Essay (Wilkins 1668) on a universal language, which is meant to have the whole potential of human (lexical) expressions in a systematic arrangement. Roget refers to it in the preface of his Thesaurus (Hüllen 2000a). For topical word lists and dictionaries to be able to collect knowledge, it (i.e. knowledge) must be representable in words. This presupposes a semantic theory according to which the words are names which can be tagged onto things, either of the world or of the human mind. The relatively simple idea of two worlds, one given
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
17
and one mirroring the first, did not preclude the use of general categories as they appear in the philosophia perennis of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Very influential among them were the classifications of Greek and Latin natural history, the predicates of Aristotelian logic, and general religious assumptions, often taken from the Bible. It was with the turn of the century, more precisely, with the works of John Locke, that this traditional and firm framework started giving way. Words were not regarded as being the names of things and notions any longer but as the expression, by signs, of simple and complex ideas. They do not copy the objective and the subjective world as in a mirror but are constituted, ‘made’, by the human mind according to experience and communicative needs (Hüllen 1999, 433–47). With very few exceptions, no onomasiological works appeared between 1700 and 1852, i.e. roughly speaking, between John Wilkins and Peter Mark Roget.
2.4 The fourth assertion: Roget’s Thesaurus as the amalgamation of a dictionary of synonyms and a topical dictionary It is easy to see what happened in 1848 when Roget resigned from his obligations and decided to fill the empty days of his retirement by doing something useful. He married two lexicographical partners who, although both of old and good standing, had never been coupled before. The one was the idea of an endless web of synonymy which could work only when words expressed ideas and not things and notions. The other was a comprehensive ordering of the universe by ideas. John Locke was the priest who helped him (Aarsleff 1995, Hüllen 1999, 433–47; 2000b). This does not mean that Roget, newly developing though aged lexicographer that he was, had all the historical knowledge and the many ideas in his mind which we can detect in his enterprise today. He was merely the agent of a marriage à la mode of ideas. His preface, however, is full of interesting suggestions and shows that he was not at all ignorant about the intricacies of his plan. His most successful innovation was obviously finding a meaningful order, different from the meaningless alphabet, for gaining
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
access to the synonymous vocabulary. It was taken from the general scientific outlook of the so-called utilitarians of the second half of the 19th century, of which the natural historian and biologist Roget had ample knowledge. We should see it in the context of various other attempts at classsifying human knowledge, for example, in the projects of Chambers’ Cyclopedia (1728) and the Encyclopedia Britannica (1771). According to his own words in the ‘Preface’, he classified words in the same way in which this was done in biology and anatomy. The ‘Plan of classification’ was certainly Roget’s most influential personal achievement, although, again, he was not the first or the only one to see the necessity of an arrangement of synonyms. G. F. Graham (1846), for example, published his English Synonymes Classified And Explained; With Practical Exercises, Designed For Schools and Private Tuition, mentioned above, in which a different order was suggested using the guidelines (i) generic and specific, (ii) active and passive, (iii) intensity, (iv) positive and negative, and (v) miscellaneous. The author, who offered exceptionally erudite and well-thought-out arguments on the nature of synonymy in English, considered these five guidelines to be principles of the human mind and also of language. We need not speculate on this schema, as it hardly convinces at first sight and did not find any followers. The same happened to a later schema (Schmitz 1883), whose author was a philologist with an excellent knowledge of French, English, and German developments in these matters. He proposed breaking down synonyms into eight groups: (i) general activities, (ii) general characteristics and states, (iii) special activities (emotive, sensitive, rational, volitive, speaking), (iv) special characteristics of a moral kind, (v) terms for time, mass, and modes, (vi) geographical terms and terms from nature, (vii) terms concerning the state, and (viii) those denoting objects, institutions, instruments, products. This schema, too, was no serious competitor to Roget and to the acceptance of his book in Europe. In Germany, Daniel Sanders (1877, 1985) and August Schlessing (1881), in France, Théodore Robertson (1859, 1894) adopted Roget’s Thesaurus for their German and French dictionaries respectively. The microstructure of the Thesaurus still awaits close analysis. The grouping of lexemes follows some general guidelines which the author could easily find in other dictionaries. To them belong the
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
19
juxtaposition of synonyms and antonyms and the sequencing of word classes in the traditional way, namely nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and phrases. Paragraphing, indenting, the distribution of semicolon and comma and other graphical devices are scrupulously used to mark interior structures. The semantic concepts of fields (for cohesion within one word class), features (for comparisons), and frames (for cohesion transcending word classes) prove very helpful in doing this. All of them are easily discernible in the Thesaurus although it is avant la lettre. This gives Roget’s book not only the character of a summary of the past but also of a timid prefiguring of the future. For the historiographer of lexicography, the exciting observation is the way in which Roget brought together, almost with a stroke of genius, two bundles of ideas which had been current in his country (in fact in Europe) for centuries. He was supported by general trends in English lexicography and by the interest of other contemporary lexicographers. In so doing, he popularized ideas before professional linguists found ways and words to make them the new linguistic discipline of semantics.
2.5 The new text genre of synonym definition The aim of the following quotations is to illustrate the new text genre of synonym definition which became popular subsequent to the work of Abbé Girard. Girard (Gauger 1973) Faire. Agir. On fait une chose; on agit pour la faire. Le mot de Faire suppose, outre l’action de la personne, un objet qui termine cette action & qui en soit l’effet. Celui d’Agir n’a point d’autre objet que l’action & le mouvement de la personne, & peut de plus être lui-même l’objet du mot Faire. L’ambitieux, pour faire réussir ses projets, ne néglige rien; il fait tout agir. La sagesse veut que, dans tout ce que nous faisons, nous agissions avec réflexion. Façons. Manières. Il me semble que Façons exprime plus quelque chose d’affecté, qui tient de l’étude, ou de la minauderie; et que Manières exprime chose de plus naturel, qui tient du caractère ou de l’éducation.
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Beaucoup d’hommes ont aujourd’hui, comme les femmes, de petites façons, pour se donner des graces; & quelques femmes ont pris les manières libres des hommes, pour se distinguer de leur sexe, cet échange n’est pas à l’avantage des premiers. Les Manières de la cour deviennent des façons dans la province. Taylor (1813) Gentle. Tame. Gentle animals are the naturally docile; tame animals are made so by the art of man. The dog, the sheep, are gentle animals; the wolf, the bear, are sometimes tame. Gentle means well-born; as in gentleman; tame is etymologically connected with [German] zaum, bridle, and with team, yoke, or harness; it means broken on to carry, or draw. Haughtiness. Disdain. Haughty is rightly deduced by Dr Johnson from the French hautain, and ought therefore to have been spelt without the gh—hauty. Hautain is a devirative of haut high, and describes that position of mind which stimulates an erect and lofty deportment. From the Latin dignari, to worship, and the privative syllable dis, derived the French verb dedaigner, or the Italian substantive sdegno, from one of which comes our disdain, which signifies, to withdraw worship, to desist from reverence. Haughtiness is founded on the high opinion we entertain of ourselves; disdain on the low opinion we have of others. Blair. Fowler (1952) Gesticulation, gesture. The usual relation between the two is that of abstract to concrete: gesticulation is the using of gestures, & a gesture is an act of gesticulation. On the other hand, gesture also is sometimes used as an abstract, & then differs from gesticulation in implying less of the excited or emotional or theatrical or conspicuous. Similarly, if a gesticulation is preferred to a gesture, it is in order to imply those characteristics. The use of gesture in political & diplomatic contexts, = advance, manifestation of willingness to treat or compromise or make concessions, exhibition of magnaminity or friendliness, &c., is so recent that the OED (1901) has no example of it. It dates from the war, & is apparently a GALLICISM, having been substituted for the French beau geste; that, after having a great vogue in the
Roget’s Thesaurus, Deconstructed
21
newspapers for a year or two, has now ceased to puzzle us, & bequeathed its vogue to gesture; see VOGUE WORDS. lampoon, libel, pasquinade, skit, squib. There is often occasion to select the most appropriate of these words, & the essential point of each may be shortly given. A lampoon is a bitter published attack; a libel is a defamatory statement made publicly or privately (see also LIBEL); a pasquinade is a published attack of unknown or unacknowledged authorship; a skit is a making game of a person or his doings especially by parody; a squib is a casual published attack of no elaboration.
Old and new: the macrostructure Old and new: the microstructure and pragmatic structures Old and new: horse New into old: photo Old: the introduction
3.1 Old and new: the macrostructure In 2002, the so-called Anniversary Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus (Roget 2002) appeared in order to commemorate the editio princeps of this book in 1852 (Roget 1852). Its history has been marked by a unique stability of lexicographical structures, which can also be regarded as the foundation of its unique success in sales. There were six British editions 1 after the first one (Roget 1879, edited by John Lewis Roget; Roget 1925, edited by Samuel Romilly Roget; Roget 1962, edited by Robert A. Dutch; Roget 1982, edited by Susan M. Lloyd; Roget 1987 and Roget 1998, both edited by Betty Kirkpatrick) with many print runs, sometimes in an annual sequence, of each of them. All followed the original ‘Plan of classification’ and the ‘Synopsis of categories’, and also the dichotomy of polar meanings (generally called synonyms and antonyms), although the words presented in the complex system of semantic compartments naturally changed. Their number was permanently enlarged and their kind modernized. Over 150 years, the Thesaurus remained what it was at the beginning—a structural merger of an onomasiological dictionary with a cumulative synonymy. Both had had their own traditions before 1852, but their combination as a ‘thesaurus’ was new. 2 Roget was obviously convinced that these two 1 2
For American editions see Piotrowski (1994). Hüllen (2004) is keen to illustrate this fact in great detail.
Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002
23
lexicographic principles reinforced each other and created a powerful aid for language use. The great success of his book confirmed this presupposition. 3 The lexicographical stability of the succeeding editions of the Thesaurus was not only of a formal kind. It also appears semantically in the ideational framework of the ‘Plan’ and the ‘Synopsis’—from the most abstract six classes down to the headwords of the, originally, exactly one thousand entry articles. It is obvious from a glance at the first pages that all editions repeat the stable pattern of the preceding ones, which had already done the same. The six classes with their 39 sections are identical in meaning, headings, and hierarchical arrangement. Slight terminological modernizations correct minor blemishes in the first edition (e.g. when, since 1962, ‘voluntary action’ has appeared in the ‘Plan’ instead of the original ‘action’, taking up, however, the heading ‘voluntary action’ from the text of the first edition) or are self-evident (e.g. when the original ‘intersocial volition’ is, in 1982, replaced by the new ‘social volition’). The most conspicuous of these alterations is the renaming of class VI ‘Affections’ (old) with ‘Emotion, religion, and morality’ (new since 1982), and of its section 3 ‘Sympathetic [affections]’ (old) with ‘Interpersonal emotion’ (new since 1982). But even here, the headwords and the sequence of the entry articles under the new class-name make it quite clear that each new editor, including the most recent, wanted to stick to the old order of Roget. The change of this heading is due to a modernized way of speaking about religious phenomena. Wherever the headword of an original entry article is changed, editors usually take a lexeme out of the row of synonyms from this entry, e.g. by exchanging vinculum (old) for bond (new). 4 The result is a rearrangement which is intended to give the entry more profile for the present-day reader. The same can be said of all those cases where an entry article has been transposed either from the positive to the negative column or vice versa, or where one was added or deleted altogether. The obvious intention behind these manipulations is always to chisel out Roget’s system in its details in a more 3 However, there has never been any serious research into the reasons for this success and the ways in which the Thesaurus was and is used by practical readers. 4 The old text was: 45 Connecting medium: vinculum, link, connective, [six more], bond, filament, [etc.]. The 1962 text and that of later editions is: Bond: connective medium, vinculum, chain, [etc.].
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
precise way than he did himself. The succeeding editors may not have always been felicitous in this; 5 nevertheless their permanent intention is quite clear and the aim of keeping the bond between each new edition and the older ones is successfully achieved. The macrostructure of the Anniversary Edition is an exact copy of the version edited by Robert A. Dutch in 1962, i.e. it faithfully follows the older book’s deletions from and additions to the original. 6 The only difference is that in class 6, section 3, the intermediate heading ‘4◦ retrospective’ is missing. 7 Faithful though the Anniversary Edition is in following the 1962 model, it also deviates from it in one important point. P. M. Roget had planned his Thesaurus as a dichotomous lexeme accumulation in which groups of synonyms are opposed to other groups of synonyms and both groups stand, as entry articles, in an antonymous relation to each other. Admittedly, the precise nature of this polar (antonymous) relation is manifold and therefore most difficult to define. It is the polarity of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ in most cases, 8 but there are numerous polarities of a different nature. In the ‘Plan’ and in the ‘Synopsis’ as well as in the text, this arrangement was made visible in print. The two groups opposed each other on the left- and right-hand side of each (column of a) page. In the text, this typographical means was, actually, not really helpful in the many cases where the entry articles had no polar pair; and there are quite a number of them. In the introductory ‘Plan’ and ‘Synopsis’, however, it visualized convincingly the fact that every article was 5 Three examples: In the 1852 edition, there is an obviously erroneous arrangement of 15 Difference and 16 Uniformity which leads to the unique case that in the text an antonym (absence or want of uniformity) is inserted without an article number. The correct dichotomy would have been ‘15 Difference—16 Uniformity’. Instead of giving this correction, already the 1879 edition and all the following, including the one in 2002, place Difference in the middle position and insert, on purely formal grounds, a new entry article 16a or 17 (respectively) Nonuniformity.—It is certainly questionable whether the introduction of a new entry article 108a or 112 (respectively) Contingent duration in the 2002 edition which contains only three adverbs and five clauses is really worthwhile.—For no discernible reason, the clear dichotomy 486 Credulity—487 Incredulity in the 1852 edition is one-sidedly pruned to 487 Credulity in the 1962 and the later ones. It would certainly have been useful to maintain the old positive-negative juxtaposition. 6 An exact comparison between all the succeeding editions of Roget’s Thesaurus is still due. It cannot be given here. It would present many facts concerning transpositions, additions and deletions but (I think) no conceptual surprises. I confine myself mainly to the original and the editions of 1962 and 2002. 7 I am inclined to think that this was merely erroneously omitted and not intentional. The same may be true for two cases where the divisions on the level of sections and the entry articles do not exactly match; see 28–9 and 52–3. 8 See, for example, the first entry articles: 1. Existence—2. Inexistence, 3. Substantiality— 4. Insubstantiality, 5. Intrinsicality—6. Extrinsicality, 7. State—8. Circumstance.
Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002
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part of a horizontal relation to its pair (unless it was a default case) and of a vertical relation to semantically discriminated other articles. Robert A. Dutch, the editor of the 1962 edition, did away with this technical device. 9 He did not substantially change the onomasiological order of the entry articles, but he rearranged the ‘Plan’ and the ‘Synopsis’ into a merely serial succession of terms and did the same with the typographical order of the entry articles, leaving it to the readers to find their interrelations. It is doubtful whether these readers were successful in doing this on their own. In her 1982 edition, Susan M. Lloyd had already discontinued Dutch’s innovation as far as the ‘Plan’ and the ‘Synopsis’ were concerned, and George Davidson, the editor of the Anniversary Edition, followed her in this. So the binary arrangement was reintroduced in the two conspectuses, but (unfortunately?) not in the text of the Thesaurus. We can regard this as a felicitously taken half-step backwards. We must assume that the dichotomous arrangement was indeed important for Peter Mark Roget—for his way of thinking about language and, probably, about the world in general as captured in scientific terms. The success of his book confirmed this attitude. Lloyd and Davidson at least rescued it in the two introductory overviews. Printing costs will have been an influential determinant for the sequential arrangement of the text. But note that the old and half-regained new order reduces the memory load on the Thesaurus user by half. Of course, only few (if any) people will actually start their search from the abstract classifications, but even those who look a word up in the index must then turn to the relevant section in order to find it. This presupposes that they take notice of the article(s) to which the word in question and its synonyms belong and in this process two opposing entry articles will easily be memorized as one with a binary division. The reintroduction of Roget’s dichotomous arrangement did not preclude the correction of certain cases where it had been rather doubtful. In a few cases, a ‘middle’ category between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ had already been convincingly introduced by J. L. Roget in his 1879 edition. For example, 732 Averageness is indeed ‘between’ 730 Prosperity and 731 Adversity, just as 770 Compromise is ‘between’ 768 Observance and 769 Nonobservance. The first Roget 9
There may have been financial reasons for this.
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Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
had not allowed for such exceptions. Davidson reintroduced this technique, faithfully following Roget’s son.
3.2 Old and new: the microstructure and pragmatic structures Leaving some details aside, the microstructure of entry articles in Roget’s original version can be said to consist, after the number, of nominal 10 headwords printed in capitals, followed by rows of synonyms grouped as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and idiomatic phrases, all printed in roman. Within these groups, paragraphs are used to indicate subgroups, and within the subgroups semicolons are used to indicate sub-subgroups. The first lexeme of each paragraph usually adopts a special signalling character as a ‘keyword’, in particular when printed in capitals again. 11 Numbers of other entry articles point out that a lexeme appears there, too. Compared to the overall numbers of lexemes given, such cross-references are only few. Contrary to the macrostructure, these differentiations of the microstructure are intuitive rather than systematic. They are nowhere explained. They show the cognitive order of the words in the human mind rather than a fixed schema. This order differs pragmatically with the meanings of lexemes. Beginning with Dutch’s 1962 edition and with ever-growing precision up to the anniversary one, this arrangement has become more and more schematized. In this way, lucidity and clarity were given to the entry articles, even if not much was changed in the selection and the order of lexemes. Each paragraph now has a keyword of its own, highlighted in italics. Their number depends, of course, on the length of the article and the polysemy of its headword; verbs, adverbs, and phrases often do without them. The keywords are the immediate synonyms of the headword of the entire article and are the points of reference for their own rows 10 11
There are many de-verbal and de-adjectival nominalizations as headwords. Entry article 498 Intelligence, for example, was originally structured thus: 498 Intelligence, capacity, nous, parts (eight more lexemes) Acuteness, acumen, shrewdness, astuteness (15 more lexemes) Head, brains, head-piece, a long head Wisdom, sapience, sense, good sense (12 more lexemes) Genius, inspiration, the fire of genius Wisdom in action; prudence, discretion, à plomb (3 more lexemes).
Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002
27
of synonyms. These are broken down into groups by semicolons, which embrace lexemes of narrow synonymy separated by commas, unlike the wider synonymy which relates those groups to each other. Of course, the exact meaning of ‘narrow’ and ‘wide’ synonymy depends on the lexemes employed. The cross-references point to the headwords or keywords of other entry articles or paragraphs of such. This means they do not point to individual lexemes as was the case originally. They telescope whole entry articles or paragraphs of them into others. 12 Article 498 of the 2002 edition, for example, has this structure: 498 Intelligence intelligence: 62 lexemes, 10 groups, 4 cross-references sagacity: 49 lexemes, 8 groups, 7 cross-references wisdom: 31 lexemes, 7 groups, 2 cross-references adjectives intelligent: 74 lexemes, 15 groups, 6 cross-references wise: 68 lexemes, 15 groups, 9 cross-references verbs be wise: 60 lexemes, 17 groups, 11 cross-references. 13 nouns
To the total of 344 lexemes must be added the lexemes that are included by the total of 39 cross-references, which increases the number considerably. Given the fact that in the entry articles of these cross-references there will be new cross-references, the network character of the lexis of any given language—in this case English—becomes apparent. This was already so in Roget’s original book, but has been given a much clearer profile in the subsequent development of the Thesaurus, including the Anniversary Edition. The linking principle of this network is the partial synonymy of words. In the edition of 1962, Dutch had boosted this aspect by listing below the text a (frequently not small) number of entry articles which could be consulted in addition to the cross-references. In the sample article 498 Intelligence, for example, no fewer than 24 more entry articles were quoted. George Davidson discontinued this measure—probably with the correct assumption that such advice is of no use to average Thesaurus users, because they can lead to 12 This technique is to be found for the first time in The Synonymous, Etymological, and Pronouncing English Dictionary (1805) by William Perry (Hüllen 2004, 244–53). For the linking lexemes, he introduced the term ‘radical synonyms’. 13 Entry article 498 has 21 lexemes and one cross-reference more than the same article in earlier editions. There is no (stylistic or other) principle discernible behind these additions.
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hundreds of words. Following the cross-references (if it is done at all) probably makes them goggle already. An absolute innovation of the Anniversary Edition is what is called in the introduction ‘literary quotations and text boxes’. Printed as an indented insert (mostly not as a box) we find, for example, four lines of Keats’ ode ‘To Autumn’ in entry article 129 Evening. Autumn. Winter and three shortened paragraphs from Thorstein Veblen’s notorious quotation on conspicuous consumption in entry article 815 Prodigality. One can have strong reservations about the feasibility of this device. Unlike such snippets of education are, however, inserts which list, for example, 75 different phobias in alphabetical order in entry article 854 Fear. This is a helpful contribution of information hard to find elsewhere. Having more of them would probably be very useful, for example concerning fruit trees, countries of the world or other lists of common knowledge.
3.3 Old and new: horse In the numbers of lexemes mentioned, the most recent Roget exceeds the first one by more than four times. 14 In 1852 as well as in 2002, the vocabulary has certainly been selected according to its modernity and salience in the relevant period. The faithfulness of the more recent editors to Roget’s old arrangement and ideational framework entails, however, that the new vocabulary must have been apportioned to the system of old slots. This means that lexemes must now appear under headwords which were originally not meant to embrace them. There are only two exceptions to this: the new entry articles 271 Aeronautics and 276 Aircraft, which were already introduced in the 1962 edition. 15 But there are no entry articles pertaining, for example, to nuclear physics or photography. Some minor additions did not answer the need for providing a locus for the relevant names of new domains of reality, but corrected lacunae of the original system. They can be ignored. 14 A projected calculation from the alphabetical indexes of the original edition (70 lexemes per column per page) leads to 36,750 lexemes, the same calculation from the Anniversary Edition (65 lexemes per column per page) leads to 169,000 lexemes. 15 The ‘Synopsis’ of this edition lists earlier additions with numbers like 40a or 100a by giving them new numbers. All of them appear in the 2002 edition.
Roget’s Thesaurus, 1852 to 2002
29
The development over 150 years can be illustrated by an example. It is the semantic frame (Ungerer and Schmid 1996, 205–13) concentrated around the lexeme horse which is meant to illustrate the growth of the old entries to their present state. 16 Concerning horse, the alphabetical index of the original edition refers in seven entries to section IV ‘Motion’ of class II ‘Space’. 17 The reader infers that the name of the animal is not given a locus in sections, for example, on natural history or mammals but on its service roles in society. It is a beast of burden, connected with traffic and speed. In detail, the relevant lexemes are distributed in the following way: 18 (266) Motion in general; locomotion by land: 52 nouns in five paragraphs, among them ride, equitation, cavalcade. 65 verbs in three paragraphs among them in their own paragraph ride, jog on, trot, amble, canter, gallop, take horse, prance, fisk. Among 29 more adjectives, adverbs, and phrases none pertains to horse. (268) Motion in general; traveller by land: 34 nouns in three paragraphs, among them as a second paragraph: rider, horseman, equestrian, cavalier, jockey, postillon. No other entries. (271) Motion in general; carrier: 60 nouns in five paragraphs, the second paragraph containing 39 names of kinds of horses. The other paragraphs give the names of legendary horses and other beasts of burden. No other entries. (272) Motion in general; vehicle: 63 nouns in three paragraphs, the second paragraph containing 39 names of kinds of carriages, coaches, etc. No other entries. (274) Degrees of motion: 67 nouns in seven paragraphs, the fourth paragraph containing 13 names for the various paces of horses, 51 verbs, among them 16 In order to gain significant contrasts (and to save space) I shall compare the first and the last edition directly without mentioning intervening editions. 17 For a detailed report on this analysis see Hüllen (2002, 359–62). The selection of horse was triggered by the fact that traditional topical (onomasiological) dictionaries devote full chapters to the popular animal species. 18 I ignore singular mentions of horse, mostly in compounds (215 horse as stand, 245 horse-shoe as curvature, 726 horseman as hussar, 938 horse laugh as expression of joy, 972 horse whip as punishment [spelling here and elsewhere according to Roget]). It is interesting to find that these singular mentions all reappear in the last edition.
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whip and gallop (which may however be intended metaphorically), 15 phrases, among them to clap spurs to one’s horse, 30 adjectives and phrases and 28 adverbs and phrases, among them whip and spur. The parallel entry articles which deal with motion on water are in no case pertinent. Among the 465 entries 19 of the sections mentioned are three clusters: 39 names of kinds of horses under ‘carrier’ (although the various names do not point to them alone as beasts of burden), 39 names of horse-drawn carriages and 13 names for the various gaits of the animal. They are given the character of semantic fields by being printed in indented paragraphs. The other lexemes are dispersed among the many entries concerning motion. The ratio 465 : 91 of general to horse-frame specific entries certainly allows different interpretations. Note that in 1852 horses were indeed an important factor in transport (but also in agriculture and mining). The rather concrete nature of the lexemes of the frame ‘horse’ often look rather strange in the mass of more abstract notions pertaining to one of the essential phenomena of natural reality, motion. In spite of the undoubted importance of horses, many readers of the first Roget edition may have been surprised to find themselves informed here about them. Those who were interested, however, must have missed many words: for example, concerning the parts of the body and the skeleton, the details of the hoof and the techniques of horse-shoeing, the various tools for bridling (e.g. types of bits), the specifics of horse racing and harness racing, etc. The general character of the Thesaurus is confirmed in this one frame. It orders its material much more according to ideas than according to things, and if the latter are given a place (as in the types of carriages), it is almost tucked away in pockets (semantic fields) but never made the guidelines of the macrostructure or an entry article. In comparison with the first edition, the 46 entries of the alphabetical index of the last edition show, above all, the difference of size between the first and the last Roget. Even when keeping this in mind, it soon becomes obvious that the principles of the 19 Of course, there are many entries of a general nature which, however, might also be meaningful in a collocation with ‘horse’ (like stop, rush, slow down, wait, etc.) They are not included in this analysis.
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treatment of the lexeme horse remain unchanged. Nevertheless, the introduction of sub-headwords (i.e. keywords), instead of mere paragraphing, indicates a difference in the cognitive ordering of entries and facilitates for the users the finding of the word they are looking for. In the Anniversary Edition, section IV ‘Motion’ of class II ‘Space’ is again central. In detail, the relevant lexemes are distributed in the following way: 20 (265) Motion, successive change of place: Two keywords for nouns: motion with as many as 141 nouns and 40 references to other keywords, among them riding with reference to 267 equitation; and gait with 48 nouns, among them trot, piaffer, amble, canter, gallop, handgallop, with four references, among them again to 267. No entries in the relevant sections of similar length concerning adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. (267) Motion, land travel: Seven keywords for nouns: land travel, wandering, walking, marching, equitation, conveyance, leg, itinerary, with as many as 252 nouns and 28 references to other keywords. 21 Equitation consists of 23 lexemes of quite general meanings with four references to 694 skill, 716 contest, 162 athletics, and 265 gait. These four point towards the domains from which the 23 lexemes are taken. The verbal part of this entry article with five keywords presents under ride lexemes like mount, take horse, hack, trot, amble, etc. (nine more), and then goes on to mention ride in combination with ‘bicycle’, ‘by train’, etc. The three cross-references open up entry articles with only a few lexemes concerning horse directly, but with plenty of general vocabulary of which ‘horse’ and ‘dealing with horses’ are a part. For the fourth cross-reference, see above. (268) Motion, traveller Nouns only, with five sub-headwords (traveller, wanderer, pedestrian, rider, and driver). Under rider 36 lexemes are to be found expressing ‘men on horses’ from the general horse-rider to the specific rodeo-rider, before the ‘cyclist rider’ takes over. References 20 I ignore singular mentions of horse, mostly in compounds (215 horse as ‘stand’, 245 horse-shoe as ‘curvature’, 726 horseman as ‘hussar’, 938 horse laugh as the expression of joy, 972 horse whip as ‘punishment’). It is interesting to find that these singular mentions all reappear in the last edition. 21 I discontinue counting now; the numbers given show the enlarged size of the entry articles.
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point to 529 courier, 722 cavalry, 619 hunter, 369 breeder, and 162 athlete. Again, the number of direct lexemes is fairly small in them, but the attachment of whole domains (529 news, 722, combatant, army, 619 pursuit, hunting, 369 animal husbandry, and 162 strength) is most informative. (273), Motion, carrier Nine sub-headwords, of which seven are pertinent, beast of burden, horse, thoroughbred, draught horse, warhorse, saddle horse, and pony. Under them 113 lexemes are listed, the keywords indicating their domain. There are four cross-references (365 cattle, mammal, 277 speeder, 722 cavalry). The first one, together with the lexemes under horse, establish the important link between horse and the general entry article on animal and animality. The adjectival part of the article contains only equine (as sub-headword) and horsy, horse-faced, neighing, roan, grey. 22 (274) motion, vehicle An extraordinarily rich entry article with 15 keywords in the part on nouns of which vehicle (with nine pertinent lexemes), cart (with 15 pertinent lexemes), carriage (with 51 pertinent lexemes), war chariot (with five pertinent lexemes) and bus and tram (with one each) are the most important ones in the whole book. There is only one lexeme among the adjectives. The vocabulary—e.g. in the naming of types of coaches—is historical as well as present-day. There is only one cross-reference (722 cavalry) here. There are many other mentions of ‘horse’, above all in compounds, which have metaphorical or idiomatic meanings (15 horse of another colour = difference, 122 horse and buggy = old fashioned, 445 horse opera = kind of film, 678 horse = busy person, etc.) or are indirectly related (160 horse power = energy, 259 horse hair = material for lining, 618 horse racing = gamble, 963 horse-whip = instrument for punishment). The most recent edition of Roget’s Thesaurus is similar to the first in that ‘horse’, i.e. a useful and variously treated concrete animal, is subjugated to the abstract idea of motion. The dense clusters (semantic fields) are the same as at the beginning: the horse as beast of burden, the types of carriages, the various types of gait. But the pertinent lexeme clusters are much better delimited as constituent 22
There are some lexemes pertaining to ass and mule in this article.
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parts of the general vocabulary and the choice of words is, of course, richer. But many ‘things’ in the world of horses—the parts of its body and skeleton, the tools for bridling, and the specifics of horse racing and harness racing and probably many more—are missing here just as they were reported missing in the first edition and the intermediate ones.
3.4 New into old: photo A word like photo and its derivations and compounds is a drastic case of innovation, because the thing—and in consequence the word—hardly existed at all in 1852. 23 As the ideational framework of the Thesaurus never changed, the lexeme and its various extensions into the vocabulary had to be injected into the pre-established order of classes, sections, and entry articles. Looking for it in the Anniversary Edition whose vocabulary is up to date, although its order is 150 years old, enables us see how this was done and which general vocabulary was adopted to serve the new communicative needs which originated with the technical innovations. The main slot in which to park lexemes like photo, photograph (noun and verb), photographer, photographic, etc. is the entry article 551 Representation. 24 Its nouns are arranged under five keywords: representation (108 entries, including the trademarks ‘Photofit’ and ‘Xerox’ and the lexeme ‘photographic likeness’), image (78 entries), art (52 entries), map (32 entries) and photography (placed between art and map). The first four are only roughly preshaped in Roget’s original article, with a paragraph on ‘representation in letters (hieroglyphic, etc.)’ completely deleted, the last mentioned is entirely new. Taken as a whole, this entry article has changed its original design almost completely. The paragraph under photography has 73 entries (lexemes) plus seven cross-references to 445 cinema, 531 broadcasting, 445 film, 417 radiation, 22 copy, 555 printing, and 442 camera (in this sequence). 23 Roget (1852) has ‘photometer’ in entry article 445 Optical instruments and ‘photography’ in entry article 556 Painting. I am not sure about the precise meaning of ‘photometer’. 24 The number is that of the 2002 edition. In the 1852 edition, the same article has the number 554. This is the key of the articles to be mentioned: old 17=new 18, 19=20, 21=22, 27=28, 90=91, 194=197, 197=200, 232=235, 420=417, 445=442, 448=445, 494=494, 505=505, 551=548, 553=549, 554=551, 591=587, 594=590, 720=716. The numbers given in the text are always those of the recent edition.
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The entries deal with the technique in general, then with the objects of photography (pictures, film, etc.), with special techniques (close up, zoom, etc.), and finally with the people involved. The cross-references show neighbouring semantic fields which have their own order and cross-references. To follow them up would, once again, illustrate the network character of vocabulary. The entries of adjectives are not pertinent. The verbs have two keywords, represent and photograph, the latter consisting of 20 lexemes, mostly denominal verbs. The next three important entry articles are: (i) 442 Optical instrument with 158 nominal entries (no others) under six keywords (optical device, eyeglass, telescope, microscope, mirror, camera). The pertinent entries are to be found under the first and the last one. They give plenty of details (92 entries), including abbreviations and trademarks. Crossreferences mention 422 transparency, 417 optics, 86 computing, 445 cinema, 551 photography, 321 astronomy, 484 detector, and 420 lamp (in this sequence). The original article 445 Optical instruments contained a list of 36 names in four paragraphs which are recognizably reflected in the modern keywords. It is extraordinary because the headword denotes a group of objects and not an idea. The process of modernization is much more easily imaginable here than anywhere else. (ii) 549 Recorder with three keywords (recorder, chronicler, recording instrument). Under recorder (36 entries) we find photographer and also cameraman, under recording instrument (46 entries) we find photocopier and Xerox, but also camera, etc. (iii) 587 Print with six sub-headwords (print, letterpress, print-type, type size, press, and printer); under print we find as entries photolithography, photolitho, photocopying, photocomposition, phototypesetting; in all 39 lexemes, of which the majority belong to the domain ‘printing’. Cross-references point to 586 Writing, 555 Printing, and, of course, 551 Photography. The original entry article pertaining to Recorder has only 12 entries (recorder—bookkeeper) without any mention of technical conditions; the original entry article pertaining to Print—understood to
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be the opposite of Writing—has 29 entries. They are exclusively devoted to book-printing. Apart from these entry articles, the lexemes circling around photo are to be found as—mostly—singular entries under such headings as 18 Similarity, 20 Imitation, 22 Copy, 28 Equality, 91 Duplication, 197 Expansion, 200 Nearness, 235 Enclosure, 417 Light, 445 Appearance, and others. These articles are interesting, because they list much of the general vocabulary which can be adapted to the communicative needs in the frame ‘photo’ at any time. Analyses like these show, at least for the examples chosen, that P. M. Roget’s original ‘Plan of classification’ and ‘Synopsis of categories’ indeed allows a permanent modernization and growth of the listed vocabulary. With the help of relatively minor changes, like the introduction of keywords since 1962 and the ameliorated system of cross-references, new vocabulary can be integrated into the old and old vocabulary can be discarded without creating unnatural appendices or lacunae. The network of ideas which Roget devised proves helpful even in the face of drastic linguistic change.
3.5 Old: the introduction Every editor of a new edition of Roget’s Thesaurus has prefaced the book with the original author’s original ‘Introduction’. In it, the onomasiological principle is explained with Lockean ideas about language and with the lexical collections of the two authors whom Roget knew as inventors of universal languages (pasigraphie), John Wilkins and Jean de Maimieux. Moreover, it rests on the systematization of knowledge as it was developed during Roget’s lifetime, for example by Jeremy Bentham and by the instigators of the great encyclopedias. Roget also shows his awareness of the contemporary literature on synonymy. The ‘Introduction’ is not a systematic essay, but a justification of Roget’s project with such deliberations as were current in the first half of the 19th century. The aim of the project was to provide practical help for people who needed it or wanted it for the expression of their ideas and the writing of literary composition. No editor has ever seriously commented on this essay, put it into a perspective of tradition, or criticized and modernized it. Neither have any of the subsequent editors embedded the Thesaurus in
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more recent concepts of semantics. Since the beginning of the 20th century, theories have been developed in general linguistics—for example, by developing the notion of the semantic field—which have obvious affinities to what Peter Mark Roget undertook as a layman. In particular, during the last two centuries, such theories were (and still are) debated under the label of ‘cognitive linguistics’. This means that, in spite of Roget’s own allusions to Locke, no editor has so far been aware of the fact that language is a mental phenomenon and that, therefore, the order of lexis as given in the Thesaurus mirrors the order of ‘words in the mind’ (Aitchison 1987) and should be evaluated in this respect. G. Davidson, the editor of the Anniversary Edition, comments on the development of Roget’s Thesaurus rather than on its original concept, except that he repeats the original author’s idea that the classification of the book, which has proved to be so stable and successful, might be valid for ‘any language in the world’. Indeed, in German, French, and Spanish such adaptations have been made and published. These attempts need extra evaluation. That a multilingual thesaurus would be possible along the lines drawn up by Roget, which would go beyond some narrow objective and the practical domains of Anglo-Saxon-dominated life, seems impossible to linguists after such ideas as have been developed by Humboldt, Sapir, Whorf, and ethnolinguistics in general. The cultural relativity and independence of languages is most obvious in the order that people of the relevant cultures give to lexis. That a thesaurus like this would assist international understanding in more than some rather technical and practical applications is a political optimism of the editor which it is hard to follow.
4 Three Words from the Thesaurus: Negro, Sex, and Tolerance 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
Interest of topic Negress, Negro Sex Tolerance, toleration Conclusion
4.1 Interest of topic Dictionaries of any sort are documents of the state of a language at the time when they were compiled. 1 The editor’s (or editors’) judgement on the usability of a word determines whether it is to be included or excluded. This judgement can come from experience and intuition or from the careful observation of corpora, as they are now available. In both cases the editors act in their capacity as supposedly well-informed native speakers. The generative nature of language precludes that the words of a language can be listed in toto (in the strict sense), because the lexical stock changes from minute to minute. For whatever reasons, words fall out of use and others are newly coined. So the lexical stock (in this case, of English) is always open to development in the future and closed to the past, although there is a large margin of words which hover between present-day use and final obsoleteness. With reference to a dictionary of a language in present-day use there will always be words which are excluded because they are hardly, rarely, or never used any more (but still remembered). As the life of a society is documented in those texts which make use of its language, dictionaries of any sort document this life in its 1 Dictionaries of a language as used in the past (Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, etc.) are documents of the state of our knowledge of the past at the time when they were compiled.
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convictions and hopes, its experience and knowledge, its virtues and vices. In particular topical dictionaries do so, because their vocabulary is arranged according to semantic criteria which are themselves the outcome of these convictions and hopes, experience and knowledge, virtues and vices. In particular a work like Roget’s Thesaurus with its ambition of presenting the lexis of English according to a universal semantic plan is an excellent example of this documentary value. Moreover, the fact that it has been re-edited time and time again over 150 years gives the thesaurus’ users a chance to follow the path of characteristic changes in the societal relevance of words through this span of years. With this statement we regard Roget’s Thesaurus as being a semantic conspectus of English words which is as universal and objective as can be—knowing very well that this opinion is an abstraction and idealization. The fact that the original plan of classification has been retained almost unchanged since 1852 actually makes comparisons quite easy. The essential criteria are (i) which words were selected or abandoned, (ii) where in the macrostructure of the Thesaurus they appeared, and (iii) in which way were they grouped. ‘Being grouped’ here means: where are they located in the macro- and microstructure and which are their neighbouring, i.e. synonymous and antonymous, words, because they shed a light on the meaning of a lexeme under consideration. Although Roget’s entry articles are typically divided into parts with nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs plus phrases, it is the nouns which most frequently provide the semantic concepts in accordance with the categories of the semantic macrostructure. In the majority of cases the adjectives and verbs merely repeat these in the other word classes, and the phrases often merely depend on formal word identity without regard to meanings. Attempts at understanding the entries in their societal value will therefore often depend mainly on the nouns. In the following, three case studies are given of words in respect of their documentary value in language use between 1852 and today. They were chosen at random with the hypothesis of a general interest in them because of their appearance in four succeeding editions (1852, 1899, 1962, 2002) and the practice of language use today. They will be semantically explained in the relative contexts of these editions and then compared and juxtaposed to each other in the differences which can be recognized. The aim of this work is quite modest. It is not to uncover any hidden paths of
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semantic developments of English, it is merely the confirmation of the general assumption that dictionaries are as time- and societydependent as other works on language are. No detailed historical explanations of the semantic differences found are given. It is expected that readers will form their own tentative hypotheses from them. 2
4.2 Negress, Negro The first case study centres around the lexeme negress, negro. It was chosen because of the recently growing political implications of its use. Except for literary sources (written, for example, by Mark Twain), the two words are not used any more naively to denote people with black skin. They imply a large number of associations pertaining to relations between them and Europeans. The definition of the OED (1971) is still strictly descriptive in the naive sense: An individual (esp. a male) belonging to the African race of mankind, which is distinguished by a black skin, black woolly hair, flat nose and thick protruding lips. Quotations range from 1555 to 1855; no quotation is taken from Roget. There are many special uses and combinations mentioned which do not appear in any edition of Roget’s Thesaurus. The definition of nigger is even more matter-offact than would today be regarded as politically acceptable: A negro. (Colloq. and usu. contemptuous). Note the change of perspective in the COBUILD definition of 1987: Nigger is an extremely offensive word for a black person, especially a Negro. In the OED definition it is the white person who speaks contemptuously, in the COBUILD definition it is the black person who raises the accusation of offence. 2 Note for the following analyses: ‘Class’ (‘division’), ‘section’ (‘subsection’) are the categories of the macrostructure. The numbered entries are ‘entry articles’ or just ‘articles’ with ‘headwords’ and ‘groups’ of words according to word classes. The groups have ‘subgroups’ indicated either by a semicolon (as different from the usual comma) or by paragraphs or by both—in which latter case we find sub-subgroups. But the term will not be used. In the later editions of the Thesaurus subgroups as paragraphs have their own headwords which I call ‘keywords’. ‘Entries’ in the groups and subgroups are either called ‘lexemes’ (as types) or ‘words’ (as tokens mostly with different word formation). They are always printed in italics but without inverted commas. The names of categories and key- or headwords of entry articles are printed in roman with inverted commas. So are expressions which semanticize lexemes and words. Quotation of lexemes and words are in many cases from longer series without any indication of this fact. It is advised to use a copy of the Thesaurus in order to follow the descriptive part of the discussions.
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The supplement 1987 mentions that Negress is now written with a capital N (as in fact Negro is). The entry Negritude, which is missing in the 1971 edition of the OED, is again defined strictly according to descriptive principles: The quality or characteristic of being a Negro; affirmation of the value of Black or African culture, identity, etc. Quotations start in 1950. None is taken from the Thesaurus. 3 Today’s meaning of negress, negro is more complex because of the problems connected with political correctness. Note: Negress [. . . ] A Negress is a woman with black skin who comes from Africa or whose ancestors came from Africa; an old-fashioned word that some people find offensive. Negro [. . . ] A Negro is someone with black skin who comes from Africa or whose ancestors came from Africa; a fairly old-fashioned word that some people find offensive. COBUILD 1987. 1852 (editio princeps) The alphabetical index contains Negro and refers to entry article 431 ‘blackness’. Its locus in the macrostructure is class III ‘matter’ → section III ‘organic matter’ → subsection 2◦ ‘sensation’. This means: Negro is registered as a special item of the objective world connected with the sensation of light, i.e. the medium of one of the human senses. Its enveloping semantic fields are: 428 ‘colour’ and 429 ‘achromatism’, 430 ‘whiteness’ and 431 ‘blackness’, 432 ‘grey’ and 433 ‘brown’ (six more colours), and finally 440 ‘variegation’. According to the system of the Thesaurus, ‘blackness’ (with the lexeme negro 4 in article 431) is the antonymic partner of ‘whiteness’, i.e. it is not understood in itself but as the opposite of something else. Negro does not appear in connection with, for example, race or ethnic. They have their own significant loci. Race appears in entry article 75 ‘class’. This means it is used as a purely formal term. Ethnicism appears in entry article 984 ‘heterodoxy’ (paganism, heathenism, ethnicism, mythology). The name ethnology as a discipline of the science of man is to be found in entry article 372 ‘mankind’. It contains many words with associations to political and philosophical convictions, but nothing that could be linked to 3 Knappe (2006b, 206) mentions with reference to phrases that Roget’s Thesaurus is completely neglected as a source in the second edition of the OED. See also Knappe 2006a. 4 No capital here.
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negro. Therefore, this lexeme points only to the objective and visible but not to the social or moral world. Only the capitalization works counter to this tendency; however, it is used inconsistently. With a negligible difference in the article number, 5 negro has retained its place in all the following editions of the Thesaurus. As late as 2002, it appears in entry article 428 ‘blackness’. This means it has most probably all the time been understood to be a special case of darkness in the visible world, defined in its difference to whiteness. It is a matter-of-fact phenomenon. This is the long shadow of the original author who, as a scientist and doctor of medicine, placed many social and moral phenomena under scientific categories and headwords. The entry article 431 lists a total of some 47 6 lexemes. The part which is devoted to nouns is divided into three groups. The first contains lexemes denoting general blackness applied to various objects and this in various grades of intensity (blackness = general; swarthiness, swarthness = blackness of human face; dinginess = blackness of houses, clothes; lividity = blackness of corpse; inkiness, pitchiness = intensification of blackness). These descriptive details go together with the general meaning of unpleasantness, dirtiness, and depression. The second group contains the two lexemes nigrification, infuscation as de-verbal nouns denoting ‘rendering/becoming black’, and consequently refers back to the objects of the first group. The third contains such lexemes as denote black material (jet, ink, ebony, coal, pitch) and rather exceptional black ‘things’: sloe is a black fruit whereas prototypical colours of fruit are green, red, or yellow; smut is the sign of a black-spotted disease of cereals whose healthy colour is yellow; raven is a black bird with certain symbolic meanings, and negro and blackamore are (obviously) exceptional human beings, whose prototypical colour is (obviously) white. The following parts of entry article 431, which are devoted to verbs, adjectives and phrases adapt the meanings—and often repeat the lexemes—of the nouns. In addition, there is a reference to night (nocturnal) and general phrases like black as November which stress 5 I shall not give any explanations for such differences which are always the result of minor changes of the macrostructure. 6 The numbers given here and in the following are the result of careful counting; nevertheless, they are merely an approximation because in almost every entry article there are doubtful cases because of repetitions, cross-references, abbreviations, and the indication to further words by etc.
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the darkish undertone. New among the adjectives is Ethiopic in the humorous meaning ‘negro’ or, as in Ethiopian serenader, ‘nigger minstrel, performer with face blackened to imitate negro’. 7 The word nigger is not in this edition of Roget. 1899 The alphabetical index contains negro and nigger and refers to entry article 431 ‘blackness’ and 746 ‘slave’. In 431 there are a total of some 80 entries. All the words of the earlier edition are repeated, and also the order of the article is quite reminiscent of article 431 in the editio princeps. The three groups of nouns are complemented by a fourth one which lists lexemes for pigments (lampblack, ivory black, printer’s black). Among the lexemes denoting black things (third group of nouns) are to be found: negro, blackamoor, man of colour, nigger, darkie, Ethiop, black. This is a considerable extension of the relevant vocabulary as compared to the earlier edition, and which also embraces low-standard words. Among the adjectives is Ethiopic. Verbs, adjectives, and adverbs adapt the meanings of the nouns just like the older edition does. The cross-reference to 746 ‘servant’—as antonymous to 745 ‘master’—opens a semantic field which is outside that of the world of visible objects. There are some 120 words denoting posts and functions of subordinate service, mostly belonging to the world of civil households. Among them we find serf, vassal, slave, negro, helot. The field ‘servant’ is (of course) antonymous to ‘master’ in entry article 745 which lists many more hierarchically arranged posts and functions belonging to various kinds of authorities. Race appears at exactly the same locus as in 1852 (75 ‘class’). It is again only a formal term. Something similar can be said of ethnic and ethnicism in entry article 984 ‘heterodoxy’ and (again) 372 ‘mankind’. The two articles are obviously modelled on the first edition, although they list a far greater number of words. In spite of this, negro is in the 1899 edition still understood to be a special case of darkness in the visible world, defined in its difference to whiteness. The derogatory words given for the first time do not show any sensibility with reference to their use. But in addition to this, negro is now also given a locus in the semantic field which enlists words for the social order. It is an item in the rather long list 7 OED, Ethiopian. Ethiopic is defined here as referring only to language, but Roget’s entry is certainly meant in the meaning which the OED attaches to Ethiopian.
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of words whose meanings are opposed to offices and functions of a state dominated by monarchies and nobility, military—including naval—and civil authorities. Clerical authorities are not mentioned. It is the British and other comparable (worldly) white societies in the high days of the European empires that are reflected here. 1962 In this edition, the alphabetical index lists Negritude (with references to nation and civilization), Negro, Negress (with reference to blackness), and Negroid (with reference to ethnic). 8 The spelling with a capital initial letter gives the words the elevated status of a name. The choice of words indicates an extension but also a curtailing of the semantic fields to which they belong. In 428 ‘blackness’ there is a total of some 150 entries in this edition. In principle, the entry article is constructed as in the previous editions whose lexemes are repeated. As a new meaning appears ‘black as the colour of mourning’. The nouns are this time grouped by the keywords ‘blackness’, ‘black thing’, and ‘black pigment’, the adjectives by ‘black’ and ‘blackish’. Among ‘blackness’ we find black man, black woman, black, Negro, Negress, Negrillo, Negrito, coloured man or woman, coloured, Ethiopian, blackamore. There is an increase here in more formal words and the elevation of some of them to the status of proper names. Among the adjectives we find black-skinned, Negroid, Ethiopian, pigmented (?), 9 coloured, and black-faced. But nigger and darkie are missing. They were obviously regarded as too offensive even in a thesaurus which subscribes to descriptivism. It is, therefore, also not really a surprise to find that there is no relevant entry any more in 742 ‘servant’, although the list of names of posts and functions in subordinate service has been here considerably prolonged. There is no entry pertaining to people with dark (black) skin in the subgroup ‘slave’. An additional semantic field, however, is opened by Negritude, which appears in 371 ‘humankind’ and 654 ‘improvement’. The entry article 371 was renamed from the old 372 ‘mankind’. It still has its locus in class III ‘matter’ → section III ‘organic matter’, surrounded by 369 ‘animal husbandry’, 370 ‘agriculture’ 8 Note that Negro, Negress violates the alphabet in the index. Obviously the masculine form was supposed to be prototypical and therefore more useful for Thesaurus users. 9 (?) indicates that the semantization of the word in relation to Negro is just a guess from its location. We must not forget that (of course) a host of words are open to this interpretation and metaphorization. They are not included in our deliberations.
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and 372 ‘male’, 373 ‘female’. It shows a biological view of humankind, although in this edition many entries are now taken from anthropology and ethnology and even religion. Negritude appears in the noun subgroup ‘nation’ together with Pan-Slavism, Pan-Africanism, ultranationalism, chauvinism, jingoism, expansionism, imperialism, colonialism. The words connect the meaning of Negro with African and general politics. The racial aspect of ‘blackness’ is perhaps not seen from the European point of view any more as was certainly the case before. There are also combinations with ethno-. Race is again listed in 11 ‘consanguinity: relations of kindred’, but also in 371 ‘humankind’. It is not a purely formal term any more. There are new entries concerning racism and racist now. In 481 ‘misjudgement, prejudice’ racialist, racist, white supremacist, chauvinist appear in the noun subgroup ‘narrow mind’; in 888 ‘hatred’ phobia, xenophobia, Anglophobia, anti-Semitism, racialism, colour prejudice do so in the noun subgroup ‘hatred’. The former belongs to class IV ‘Intellect: the exercise of the mind’, the latter to class VI: ‘Emotion, religion, and morality’. In these cases, the lexemes take their meanings from the intellectual, social, and moral and not only from the natural world. In particular, recent politics seem to be the underpinning. This is also the case in 654 ‘improvement’ where black culture and Negritude are both listed in the noun subgroup ‘civilization’, together with such entries as ancient culture, modern culture, civility and refinement. The article is part of class V ‘Volition: exercise of the will’ → ‘prospective volition’. 2002 The 150th Anniversary Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus is almost a replica of the previous one with an enrichment in its entries. The enormous extension of the quantity of words does not result in any real innovation regarding the loci and the semantic fields of Negro and related lexemes. The alphabetical index shows exactly the same entries: Negritude (with reference to nation and civilization), Negro, Negress 10 (with relation to blackness) and Negroid (with relation to ethnic). There are some 174 entries in 428 ‘blackness’. The relevant ones read: Nouns: black man, black woman, black, Negro, Negress, Negrillo, Negritos; coloured man or woman, coloured; 10
Still in this non-alphabetical sequence.
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African-American, Afro-American, African-Carribean, AfroCarribean, West-Indian; Ethiopian, blackamoor. Adjectives: black-skinned, Negro, Negroid, coloured, African-American, Afro-American, African Carribean, Afro-Carribean, West-Indian; Ethiopian; pigmented (?), coloured (?); Afrocentric; black-faced. New in this series of entries are the words following an adequate sensibility towards the races in the sense of political correctness mainly in American English. The relevant entries in 654 ‘improvement’ read: Nouns: black culture, Negritude—surrounded by ancient culture, modern culture and civility, refinement. The relevant entries in 371 ‘humankind’, subgroup ‘nation’ read: Pan-Slavism, Pan-Africanism, Negritude followed by ultranationalism, chauvinism, jingoism, gung-ho nationalism, expansionism, imperialism, colonialism; Lebensraum. The relevant entries under 11 ‘consanguinity: kinship’, subgroup ‘race’ read: Nouns: ethnic group (followed by nation, people; racialism, race hate); ethnic cleansing (followed by nationalism, prejudice, racial equality). Adjectives: ethnic, racial; Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid. New in this series of entries are again a few words denoting very recent political occurrences and following political correctness.
4.3 Sex Another obvious candidate for a case study is the lexeme sex in words like sex, sexism, sexist, sexuality, homosexuality, etc. The definition of the OED (1971) is again strictly descriptive: Either of the two divisions of organic beings distinguished as male and female respectively; the males and the females (of a species, etc., esp. of the human race) viewed collectively. And: Quality in respect of being male and female. So is the definition of homosexual (OED, Supplement, 1987): A person who has a sexual propensity for his or her own sex, esp. one whose sexual desires are directed wholly or largely towards people of the same sex. Entries on sexism and sexist appear in the Supplement. Quotations with sex begin with the Book of Genesis in the Wyclif translation 1380; quotations with homosexual in 1892. There is a long additional list in the Supplement. Today’s dictionaries follow this descriptive practice, yet remarks on the use of the word are added.
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Note: Sexism [. . . ] is the idea or belief that the members of one sex are less intelligent or less capable than those of the other sex, and that certain jobs or activities are suitable for women and others are suitable for men; often used by women expressing disapproval. Sexist [. . . ] Something that is sexist is based on sexism; used showing disapproval. COBUILD 1988 1852 (editio princeps) Sexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality are not mentioned at all in the original Thesaurus, although, according to the OED, the words were in use in 1852. Sexual is as old as 1651, sexuality appeared in 1800—i.e. half a century before Roget. The first quotation of homosexual stems from 1892—i.e. after the first but before the second edition under examination. A doctor, such as Roget, would have been more likely than most people to know those terms. The prefixes ortho- and hetero- are mentioned (entry article 983a, 984: orthodoxy, heterodoxy), but not in connection with sex. The lexeme appears in entry article 75 ‘class’ as a purely formal term together with similar formal terms—some 36 entries in all— (class, division, category; kind, sort, genus, etc.) in the noun group gender, sex, kin, manner. It is located in class I ‘abstract relations’ → section IV ‘order’. More interesting is the mentioning of sex in entry article 374, located in class III ‘matter’ → section III ‘organic matter’. It pertains to ‘woman’ and is juxtaposed to entry article 373 ‘man’. This means that ‘woman’ is to be understood not in her own nature but as a being different from ‘man’. The preceding article is 372 ‘mankind’. Man and woman together make the humankind in a classificatory sense. Article 374 ‘woman’ consists of some 38 entries. The group of nouns is broken down into four subgroups, interrupted by a phrase. The first lists words with abstract meanings synonymous with womanhood; the second consists of womankind, the sex, the fair, the fair sex, the softer sex; the third gives names for the status of women in society (dame, dowager, gammer), and the last names for young, unmarried women with a somewhat poetic (flippant) quality (lass [also as a dialect word], nymph). The adjectives repeat some of the lexemes given before. These words are put into profile by
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the 22 lexemes of the corresponding article 373 ‘man’. Its entries correspond to the first and third subgroup of 374, but the second and fourth are missing. This means only women are qualified by (fair, softer) sex and by what would later be called ‘sex appeal’ in their youth, not men. Article 374 ‘woman’ shows little more than a scientist’s and a (common) man’s interest in the topic. The OED (1971) confirms that the sex was understood to be ‘the female sex’ (after the French le sexe) and that sex, without ‘the’, in adjectival use, meant ‘feminine’—although both ways of using the lexeme are marked as ‘now rare’. It also mentions such phrases as the fairer, gentler, weaker, devout sex. In 161 ‘production’, begetting, giving birth to, and procreation are mentioned, but the medical doctor Roget does not include one word denoting the human genitals in his Thesaurus. As is to be expected, these entries on sex which hover between the biological and the trivial are complemented by other entries which pertain to the traditional professionalization and debasement of the matter. Prostitution and prostitute (verb) appear in 659 ‘deterioration’ which gives a long list of relevant entries with quite general meanings (impairment, iniquination, injury, vitiation, debasement, alloy, perversion, corruption, prostitution, pollution, etc.). In particular, the verbal and the phrasal parts of the entry article are unusually long. Prostitution and prostitute also appear in the rather short entry article 679 ‘misuse’. The entry articles 961 ‘impurity’ and 962 ‘libertine’, which are both juxtaposed to 960 ‘purity’, swarm with numerous lexemes speaking of carnal lust, the people who engage in it professionally or at least illicitly, and the places where such happens. Men and women of the profession are treated in separate subgroups. An almost humorously convincing proof of the fact that vices generate much richer language than virtues is the size of the articles. The 21 entries of 960 ‘purity’ are juxtaposed by some 100 entries in 961 ‘impurity’ and some 57 entries in 962 ‘libertine’. Not all the words denote aspects of lust, carnality, flesh, but most of them do and some more neutral ones may be understood in this light. The aspect of violence is represented when violation and rape are mentioned together with seduction and defloration. The two articles belong to class VI ‘affections’ → section IV ‘moral’ → subsection 4◦ ‘practice’. This locus guarantees the moral attitude of the compiler towards sex in general.
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1899 With regard to sex, the 1899 edition is in many respects a replica of the editio princeps. Entry article 75 ‘class’ contains some 42 entries. The relevant word group is now kind, sort, genus, species, variety, family, gender, sex, kin. The reordering of the words does not give them any different meanings. Entry article 374 ‘woman’ is again similar to the earlier one, but shows some noteworthy additions. The first subgroup of nouns reads: woman, she, female, petticoat. It looks like a somewhat helpless addition in order to compensate for something which had previously been forgotten. There then follow words with abstract meanings synonymous to womanhood, followed by the series womankind; the sex, fair sex, softer sex; weaker vessel. After them the names of the status of women in society are given as before, but complemented with words that denote married women: good woman, wife; squaw; matronage, matronhood. The list of names for unmarried young women is much shorter now; instead 13 words are added denoting the female species of animals: hen, bitch, sow, etc. The corresponding entry article 373 ‘man’ is changed in very much the same way. Besides the lexemes taken over from the first edition, we find names for married men (good man, husband) and a 25-entries-long list of names for the masculine species of animals (cock, drake, gander). This stresses the biological aspect of both these entry articles on the two human sexes and their links with matrimony. As compared to the original edition, the relevant entries pertaining to the individual or professional debasement of sex have considerably grown in their numbers. This does, however, not change their meanings or the moral attitudes by which they are quoted. The same is true for words missing. There is, for example, not one here— just as in the editio princeps—which denotes the human genitals. In 659 ‘deterioration’ the lexeme de-flower 11 has, however, been added to the subgroup ‘render less good’. 1962 The differences between the first two and the following two editions (here under consideration) are indeed noteworthy. Sex is now mentioned in old and new contexts, but also sexism, sexual, sexuality, and combinations like sex appeal, sex discrimination, sex 11
Roget’s spelling.
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maniac, sex desire, all of which were absent in the earlier editions. As the number of entries was increased, more lexemes can be mentioned. Well-known is the quotation of sex and gender 12 as classificatory terms (77 ‘class’) together with category, group and many others. New, however, is sex in 360 ‘life’ where it is mentioned together with sexual activity and sexual as a property of living beings as opposed to dead ones. Yet, only these three words are mentioned in over 100 philosophical and scientific terms. It is the cross-reference to coition, after sexual, which leads to a really new semantic field. Entry article 45 ‘union’ has some 220 nouns and 345 adjectives and verbs denoting anything that can be formally understood as ‘fusing two things into one’. Its locus is under class I ‘abstract relations’ → section III ‘quantity’ → subsection ‘conjunctive’. But the words assembled in this long article are not just speaking of an abstract relation. Among them are under the keyword coition: coitus, copulation, sexual intercourse, sex, intimacy, carnal knowledge; generation, propagation; pairing, mating, coupling; union, marriage; enjoyment, consummation; violation, ravishment, rape. This is the meaning the word sex is prototypically thought to stand for in modern use. The Thesaurus has left the narrow limits of biology and common conventions, and has done so with a pretty detailed vocabulary. Syngamy, wedlock, marriage; copulatory, coital, venereal appear in the same entry article outside the set mentioned. In the verbal part, there is another block of some 42 words, all denoting the love act in various stylistic registers between know (in the biblical sense) and knock off or tup. An entry article of similar importance for the lexeme sex is 167 ‘propagation’. As the headword tells, it does not deal with sexual activity itself but its outcome, i.e. pregnancy, obstetrics, childbirth, etc. But there then follows a group of some 31 nouns as names for the human genitals and body fluids—again a semantic field which was missing so far. Article 371 ‘humankind’, 372 ‘male’, and 373 ‘female’ repeat the older articles 372 ‘mankind’, 373 ‘man’, and 374 ‘woman’. Their renaming in the new edition is, of course, due to a new understanding of the sexes. 12 I doubt if this points already towards the later and present-day difference between biological sex and societal gender. In the earlier editions it certainly does not.
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Article 373 ‘female’ consists of some 195 entries. The grouping of the nouns and adjectives (there are no verbs) is somewhat different from the earlier edition, but the old order is still distinctly discernible by the words repeated. But in addition there is a new choice of words with characteristic meanings. They are, for example: feminism, women’s rights, bachelor girls, career woman, women’s libber, suffragette, bint, crumpet, nonconformist, amazonian, lesbian, androgynous. All of them denote aspects and concepts which are new in the context of sex. They eliminate the somewhat flippant hue of the former choice. This is also the case in entry article 372 whose number of words (c.150) has trebled the previous size. This alone explains many differences. But again the choice at least of some of the new words is interesting. To them belong: machismo, male chauvinism, male-dominated society, male chauvinist pig (=MCP), sissy, stag party, manfolk. It is obvious that the relatedness of these articles to ‘male’ and ‘female’ is quite different from that of the earlier edition. Obvious are the many words that indicate friendship among boys and men which are taken from a slangy register, like guvnor, mate, buddy, chum, gaffer, bloke, chap, gay dog. The word homosexual is to be found in article 372. This is worthwhile mentioning in itself because it is the fist time that it appears in the Thesaurus. It has a cross-reference to entry article 84 ‘nonconformity’ where, among many lexemes of that general denomination, we find two blocks of words: (i) sexual abnormality, bisexuality; sexual inversion, homosexuality, lesbianism, Sapphism and (ii) transsexual, hermaphrodite, gynander, androgyne, invert, homosexual, lesbian; gay; pansy, fairy, nancy, poof, poofter, queen, queer. New as it is that these words are selected at all, it is still noteworthy that they are enlisted under ‘nonconformity’. Homosexual, lesbian, gay, bent, queer, bisexual are mentioned a second time in the same article under the keyword ‘abnormal’. On the other hand, chauvinism, sexism, sex prejudice are, together with race prejudice, racialism, racism, colour prejudice, colour bar counted among ‘prejudice’ in entry article 481 ‘misjudgement’ and sex discrimination, together with race discrimination, among ‘injustice’ in the entry article 914 ‘wrong’. Prostitution and prostitute (verb) appear in 655 ‘deterioration’ just as they did in 1899. The same is true for entry article 675 ‘misuse’. Again there are a number of lexemes which may be read
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generally but also in their sexual sense (pervert, pollute, do violence to). The entry articles 951 ‘impurity’ and 952 ‘libertine’, which are both juxtaposed to 950 ‘purity’, again swarm with numerous lexemes speaking of carnal lust, the people who engage in it professionally or at least illicitly, and the places where such happens. The gross disproportion between entries concerning ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ has been amended in that both entry articles are roughly of the same length now. (There is of course the additional article 952 ‘libertine’). Of the c.170 words in 950, about half express notions of sexual modesty and temperance, if in the somewhat ambiguous guise of prudery and coyness. The sub-headwords for nouns are purity, prudery, virgin, prude, for adjectives pure and prudish. In 951 the sub-headwords are for nouns impurity, unchastity, illicit love, rape, social evil, brothel, for adjectives impure, unchaste, lecherous, extramarital, for verbs be impure, debauch, for adverbs impurely. In the following article 952 we find libertine, cuckold, loose woman, kept woman, prostitute, bawd. Whereas the vocabulary of 950 keeps a certain standard—which is perhaps dictated by the facts rather than by a conscious choice of the editor—the vocabulary of 951 and 952 is often (but not always) rather vulgar—which again may be dictated by the facts rather than by a conscious choice of the editor. It is also very much up to date in 1963 (soft porn, girly magazine, buggery, womanizing, wife-swapping, pimping, bed-hopper, easy lay, call girl). It is certainly a panorama of modernity, urbanity, and progressive civilization. Read against the background of entry article 950 ‘purity’ the moral stance of the editor(s) towards entry articles 551 and 952 is nevertheless obvious. It becomes very concrete and time-dependent, for example, in grouping words together like homosexuality, lesbianism, abnormality, perversion, pederasty, buggery, sodomy, bestiality. After all, these articles are part of class VI ‘emotion, religion, and morality’ → section IV ‘moral’ → subsection 4◦ ‘practice’. But read in itself it is just a panorama of modern life without open moral indications. 2002 Judging from the alphabetical index, the large semantic field sex is treated in the Anniversary Edition in very much the same way as in 1963. Differences are indicated with the lexemes sexual pleasure, sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and homosexual. It
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seems warranted to single these additions out for special inspection. All the other ones (sex, sex appeal, sex discrimination, sexist, sexual, sex desire, sex inversion, prostitute, prostitution) can be regarded as being treated as in 1962 with allowances for the fact that the number of words has again been increased considerably. Sexual pleasure is a keyword in the noun group of entry article 376 ‘physical pleasure’. In the verb group we find a keyword have or give sexual pleasure. In the 1962 edition, this entry article had no words concerning sex at all. Among the c.38 nouns are four with the marker ‘sl[ang]’. Others, like fellatio or masturbation, did not appear in the previous edition. Again others, like excitation and orgasm, appeared there in non-sexual contexts. In the 1962 edition, for example, orgasm is found in 318 ‘agitation: irregular motion’, sub-headword spasm. Of course, it has its proper meaning there, but the preceding words are convulsion, paroxysm, access and the succeeding fit, epilepsy, falling sickness. The word appears again in 821 ‘excitation’ of the same edition, in the noun subgroup pitch of excitement, fever pitch, orgasm, climax, excited feeling, passion, emotion, enthusiasm, lyricism. In both cases, an extremely ‘sexual’ word is framed by words with a general biological meaning. Among some 24 verbs of 376 ‘physical pleasure’ in the 2002 edition are seven with the marker ‘sl[ang]’. All this means that the words in this article are direct and unconcerned about decency and taboo. Moreover, the locus of 376 ‘physical pleasure’ is not class VI: ‘emotion, religion, and morality’ but class III ‘matter’ → section III ‘organic matter’ → subsection ‘sensation: general’. Something similar is to be said about entry article 45 ‘union’ whose noun group ‘sexual intercourse’—called coition in the 1962 edition—has been increased in number—some 50 words in all— and enriched with slang expressions. In part, the words are the same as in 376 ‘physical pleasure’. A new subgroup has been added, called sexual partner with some 20 words. New is the inclusion of sexual assault and rape. Words for sexual abuse also appear in entry article 827 ‘painfulness’, namely: child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual harassment—apart from the fact that many general words of this extremely long article can be given a sexual meaning. There is also fucker as name of an ‘unpleasant person’, marked as ‘offensive’. The words child abuse, sexual abuse, elder abuse, sexual harassment, stalking, e-stalking also appear in entry article 898 ‘malevolence’.
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They are only a few among many others, but the noteworthy thing is that they have been included at all. Entry article 951 ‘impurity’ repeats its forerunner in the 1962 edition with increased vocabulary but the same subgroups of nouns and adjectives. Words for homosexuality appear in the same places in the 2002 edition as in the earlier one, except that two noun groups are added under the headwords transvestite (six words) and non-heterosexual [!]. The latter consists of 24 words of which many are marked as ‘sl[ang]’ or as ‘offensive’. Note: batty-boy, fairy, fruit, homo, nancy, nancy boy, pansy, poof, poofer, queen, queer, shirtlifter (all derog[ative] or offensive, sl[ang] or inf[ormal]). Also lesbian and dike are characterized as ‘sl[ang], often offensive’. Such markings of style and register are rather rare and therefore quite important. To sum up, the innovative traits of the Anniversary Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus in the context of sex are the inclusion of unacceptable language and of—though relatively few—words pertaining to abuse of women and children.
4.4 Tolerance, toleration The third sample for a case study following the various editions of Roget’s Thesaurus is tolerance, tolerate, toleration. In this case it is not the changing conditions of language use between 1852 and the beginning of the 21st century which create our interest. It is the general difficulty of defining the meaning(s) of an abstract and polysemous term like this. The OED definitions show these difficulties quite clearly. They distinguish three senses of the word: (i) The action or practice of enduring or sustaining pain or hardship; the power or capacity of enduring, (ii) The action of allowing; licence, permission, granted by an authority, and (iii) [. . . ] the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions or practices of others; [. . . ] catholicity of spirit.
The first sense concerns the disposition of individuals, the second a special aspect of interpersonal (political) action, and the third a general habit of philosophical indulgence. The quotations start in 1412 for (i), 1539 for (ii), but only as late as 1765 for (iii). A further sense of tolerance, tolerate as a term in physics (the ability of a substance to endure heat, physical stress, treatment with
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chemicals, etc., COBUILD) will be disregarded. The entries of COBUILD agree with the OED definitions. But the remark is added that tolerance and tolerate are used ‘to show approval’. Because of the absence of any definitions in the Thesaurus, the semantic character of words like tolerant, tolerate, toleration demands even more careful observation of its synonyms and antonyms and its location in the macrostructure of the book in order to find the sense of each of its occurrences. The relevant semantic fields are rather complex and only vaguely delimited. 1852 (editio princeps) Macrostructurally, the first Roget’s Thesaurus distinguishes between class V ‘volition’ and class VI ‘affections’. According to the alphabetical index, the lexeme tolerance, tolerant, tolerate, toleration occurs in both of them. The lexeme is mentioned in four entry articles under class VI ‘volition’ → division II ‘intersocial volition’. 738 ‘laxity’ is antonymously opposed to 737 ‘authority’. This means that ‘authority’ is the positive, ‘laxity’, defined as ‘absence of authority’, the deficient case. 737 is a very long article with words all pertaining to strong public government. 738, however, is a short article with some 34 entries. The nouns are given in three groups: laxness (in general, together with looseness, toleration 13 ), misrule (anarchy), and deprivation (dethronement). Though toleration is not identified with anarchy, it is put very close to it. The verbs and adjectives repeat the concepts of the nouns; to tolerate appears in one group together with to misrule. It has quite negative connotations. Entry article 740 ‘lenity’ and the antonymously opposed article 739 ‘severity’ are very similar to the two preceding ones except for the fact that the negative attitude is much more ‘lenient’. To tolerate appears in one group together with to be lenient, to allow one to have his own way. The meaning of the lexeme agrees in both cases with the OED definition (ii) plus a rather strong negative connotation. Note that this does not confirm to the remark in the COBUILD dictionary about the expression of approval. Entry article 750 ‘liberation’, just like 760 ‘permission’, is on the positive side, with 751 ‘restraint’ and 761 ‘prohibition’ as antonym entries against them. So ‘liberation’ and ‘permission’ are not the 13 The OED definitions of tolerance and toleration are virtually identical. In Roget’s Thesaurus the two words are often quoted side by side without giving the reader a chance to recognize a semantic difference between them. COBUILD has no entry ‘toleration’.
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deficient cases which take their definitions from something opposite as the articles with the headwords ‘laxity’ and ‘lenity’ are. The nouns and verbs under ‘liberation’ stress (i) a change of living conditions towards liberty in general (liberation, emancipation), (ii) an act of will (escape, absolution) leading to that end, and (iii) a state of life reached by this act (licence, toleration). With some 80 words it is of medium length. But there is not one word which could have a connection with order or authority in the state or with politics, not even liberation and emancipation, and certainly not toleration. This is also the case in respect of the words under ‘permission’. Leave, allowance, sufferance, tolerance, toleration, liberty, law, licence, concession—they all just mean generous or indulging attitudes towards other human beings. It is the verbs in particular (permit, tolerate, leave alone, dispense with) which make this clear. With some 70 words the article is of medium length. It agrees again with the OED definition (ii), though with a much more positive connotation. In the two remaining entry articles things are different. Tolerance here pertains to personal states. In 821 ‘feeling’, it is a passive kind of emotion (tolerance, sufferance), which also has its affective (blush, perturbation, etc.) and its passionate kinds (rapture, ecstasy, etc.). 826 ‘inexcitability’ is defined as the antonymous article to 825 ‘excitability’, which means that an ‘excess of sensitiveness’ is a normal (in the way in which pleasure is), its absence however a deviating state of personality (in the way in which pain is), even if this sounds somewhat surprising vis-à-vis the word ‘excess’. This leads to the surprising effect that intolerance (in 825) is the positively, tolerance (in 826) the negatively marked psychic quality. With some 170 entries, the latter article is rather long and lists many nouns, adjectives, and verbs that denote a cool, submissive, and moderate temperament. Tolerance goes together with dispassion, inirritability, hebetude, and patience. The negation intolerant, which occurs in 885 ‘undue assumption of superiority’ in the sense of insolent, overbearing is the opposite of ‘tolerant’ in a very special sense, that of (almost bodily) behaviour. Certainly typical is the mention of stoicism as a philosophical attitude. All this agrees with the OED definition (i) though sometimes (not always) with negative connotations. A new tone appears in entry article 906 ‘benevolence’ under class VI ‘affections’ → section III ‘sympathetic’. Toleration is here mentioned as the name of a Christian virtue. With some 65 entries
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the article is of a medium size. The part devoted to nouns is broken down into three groups: (i) benevolence, and other virtues like charity, amiability, and toleration, (ii) charitableness, almsgiving, and (iii) acts of kindness like good treatment. Among the phrases the good Samaritan appears, among the adjectives charitable, complacent, and brotherly. This is not the world of (socio-)psychology, it is the world of the Christian religion, although the entry article is not located under the relevant section. It is the catholicity of spirit with its fully positive connotation of which the OED definition (iii) speaks which we meet here. The negation intolerance, which occurs in 481 ‘misjudgment’ in the sense of prejudice, bias, dogmatism is not just the opposite of Christian virtues; it moves towards a more philosophical attitude which will come to the fore in the edition of 1962. 1899 With respect to tolerance, tolerant, toleration, tolerate, the 1899 edition of Roget’s Thesaurus is an exact replica of the editio princeps. The number of words listed in the relevant entry articles is, on an average, greater; but their groups and their relations to synonyms and antonyms are certainly the same. The negation intolerance in 907 ‘malevolence’, which does not occur in the earlier edition, represents a vice in the Christian sense. 1962 As per the usual case, the later edition keeps all the entries of the former editions with their meanings within the framework of the macro- and even the microstructure, but adds some which have come to the fore in the meantime, although this is not so obvious here as with negro and sex. 734 ‘laxity: absence of authority’ and 736 ‘leniency’ correspond to 738 and 740 in the former edition. And so do their entries: toleration, licence, overindulgence, permissiveness, leniency (734), and indulgence, toleration, sufferance, allowance, leave (736). They represent the definition (ii) of the OED with its rather strong or mild negative connotation. This is corroborated by the entry tolerate (not mind, put up with) in 488 ‘assent’ and in particular in 677 ‘inaction’ where tolerate goes together with do nothing, turn a blind eye. In 746 ‘liberation’, corresponding to the earlier 750, there is no entry tolerate any more. Obviously, the link between liberation and toleration was thought to be doubtful. But in 756 ‘permission’, corresponding to the earlier 760, there is: allowance, sufferance, tolerance, toleration, indulgence, leniency,
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acquiescence, passive consent. Among the verbs we find suffer, tolerate, put up with. These entries again show the sense of the OED definition (ii), but this time with a positive connotation. In addition, there is 758 ‘consent’ with such entries as tolerate, recognize, allow, connive, be lenient in the verbal part. In 823 ‘inexcitability’, corresponding to the former entry article 826, the words tolerance, toleration, refusal to be provoked, stoicism, resignation, acquiescence, submission denote the individual disposition (definition (i) of the OED) of a philosophic temper and stoicism, to which Quakerism has been added. In 818 ‘feeling’, corresponding to the earlier 821, the entries tolerance, sufferance have been omitted although the other entries have largely been kept. Obviously the meaning ‘tolerance as the individual disposition of a human being’ was not regarded as prototypical any longer. Finally, 897 ‘benevolence’, corresponding to the earlier 906, displays roughly the same entries concerning the Christian virtues and catholicity of spirit. The relevant words are: charitableness, hospitality, beneficence, unselfishness, generosity, magnanimity, tolerance, toleration, laxity, and even Christian charity. They coincide with the OED definition (iii). They are corroborated by such entries as forbear, tolerate, make allowances, plead for forgiveness, ask mercy in the verbal part of 909 ‘forgiveness’. New in the 1962 edition is that the entry article 498 ‘intelligence, wisdom’ provides words with meanings quite similar to 897 except that they speak of a catholicity of spirit not in the context of Christian virtues but of worldly wisdom. With some 320 entries it is a rather long entry article which is unusually strong in its adjectival part. In the editio princeps article 498 ‘intelligence’ contains words pertaining to intellectual capacity and wisdom in action. The subgroups of the nouns are devoted to intelligence, acuteness, head and brains, wisdom, genius, and wisdom in action. After a very short verbal part there then follow adjectives with the subgroups intelligent (applied to persons), wise, cool, and prudent. The edition of 1899 follows this order exactly but, in the adjectival part, adds a subgroup unprejudiced, of unwarped judgment, fair and furthermore a small group with words pertaining to intelligent (applied to actions). In 1962, finally, the nominal subgroup wisdom is, among some 30 words, represented by tolerance, broadmindedness, catholic outlook, right views, soundness, mental poise, enlightenment. The adjectival subgroup wise is, among some 60 words, represented by tolerant, fair-minded, enlightened, unbiased, nonpartisan,
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unfanatical, unbigoted, unprejudiced, broad, broad-minded, latitudinarian. These insertions move the entry article, originally devoted to ‘intelligence in thinking and in acting’ into the direction of ‘acting with common sense and reasonableness’, i.e. the citizen virtues of modern societies. These virtues are not so much grounded in Christian concepts, as indicated in article 897, but in enlightened wisdom. In this context, it is also noteworthy that a new subgroup has been added in the verbal part of 897 ‘benevolence’, although it does not have tolerate in its list. It is headed by philanthropize and shows words like do good, have a social conscience, show public spirit, go slumming. They, too, move the Christian attitude of charity towards a humane attitude of having a social conscience. Finally, the word ‘intolerance’ points—by way of negation—to this new understanding of ‘intelligence’. In 16 ‘uniformity’, intolerance goes together with totalitarianism and closed shop, in 57 ‘exclusion’ with repression and suppression. In 481 ‘misjudgement, prejudice’ intolerance is in one subgroup with persecution and anti-Semitism, and in 602 ‘obstinacy’ with rigorism and fanaticism. In 757 ‘prohibition’ it is brought near censorship and abolition, and in 976 ‘orthodoxy’, finally, near heresy-hunting and persecution. All these are words denoting phenomena of the political world, and the words included together with intolerance are expressions of strong disapproval. Similar readings can be given to the adjective intolerant in entry articles 489, 735, 822, 881, 898, and 906. 2002 With respect to the lexeme under investigation here, the Anniversary Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus is an exact calque of the 1962 edition. The same words appear in the same entry articles at identical locations of the macrostructure. This can only mean that no change in the use of the words tolerance, tolerant, tolerate, toleration has occurred in the years between. It also means that the remark in the COBUILD dictionary is not entirely correct. ‘Tolerate’ (etc.) does not always show approval.
4.5 Conclusion Roget’s Thesaurus is a very special case in the history of topical dictionaries (Hüllen 2004, 277–321). It does not only allow a look
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behind philosophical positions and the classification of knowledge at the time of its origin, as other topical dictionaries do; it also allows a look into the more subtle changes of vocabulary since 1852. The reason is, of course, that the book has been re-edited time and again, basically by retaining the original stock of words and then adding to them the new ones that entered the scope of public language use in the meantime. The years—1852, 1899, 1962, 2002—are not provided by the language but by the book. Path-finding analyses, like the three presented, could be applied to every lexeme—of course with quite different expectations. The three carried through here had three different outcomes. In each case they uncovered a time-dependent linguistic phenomenon which could be corroborated by investigations into the accompanying real world and societal phenomena. It is important to realize that the words in focus are only those that the thesaurus compiler was interested in. The gain of knowledge to be gleaned from all this is more in the lexicographical than in the semantic field. After going through them (or others) we understand the Thesaurus better than before, but not necessarily the semantic system of English. The latter would demand comparisons on a corpus basis and, perhaps, a formalization of the method. In this case it was simply the competent speaker’s intuition.
5 Roget in Germany: The Adaptation of the Thesaurus (1852) in Daniel Sanders’ Sprachschatz (1873) 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5
Roget’s Thesaurus in Germany The structure of Roget’s Thesaurus Daniel Sanders as lexicographer Identical structures Some divergent structures
5.1 Roget’s Thesaurus in Germany Roget’s Thesaurus (1852) is one of the most successful dictionaries of the English language, as the number of reprints and new editions since the year of its first publication show. In all these re-publications the original structure of the book has remained the same. It is also a milestone on the path to a new European lexicography, because it spawned the production of many, typologically identical, dictionaries in various European languages. To these belong, with pertinence to the German language, the dictionaries by August Schlessing (1881), Daniel Sanders (1873, 1877) and Hugo Wehrle & Hans Eggers (1954). Franz Dornseiff (1933, 2004) and Hallig & von Wartburg (1952) ignored the English model in the texts accompanying their own works; but the typological similarities between their planned and actually written dictionaries and the Thesaurus are obvious. Older lexicographical deliberations on an academic level (as summarized in Baldinger 1952) dismissed Roget as ‘merely practical’, although they acknowledged his seminal influence on lexicography (Baldinger 1956, Hüllen 1990).
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5.2 The structure of Roget’s Thesaurus As a work which integrates two types of dictionaries, Roget’s Thesaurus naturally has a complex structure. The onomasiological macrostructure is organized on three and four levels respectively. It consists of six ‘classes’ with between two and eight sections each. Classes are numbered with roman digits, sections with Arabic ones. Many sections are broken down into between two and five groups (my term, indicated by 1◦ , 2◦ , 3◦ ). In class III, subgroups (my term, indicated mostly by 1., 2., 3.) constitute a fourth level, in classes IV and V so-called ‘divisions’ (two each) have the same effect. This is a concept tree as is well known from traditional logic and can be found in many earlier works. Obviously, the author wishes to facilitate a general conspectus for the benefit of the users. The fourth level is introduced whenever the order of a section tends to become confusing because of too many subgroups on the third level. The principle which governs this order is the inclusion/exclusion of objective and mental phenomena in the threefold or fourfold acts of abstraction (Hüllen 2001). The (sub)groups consist of entries numbered from one to one thousand. 1 They constitute the microstructure of the Thesaurus. They are articles with a strictly repeating order: number, headword printed in capitals, 2 and following a series of synonyms. These synonyms are ordered according to word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, idiomatic phrases). The series of synonyms are almost in every case broken down into paragraphs. The lexemes of each paragraph are separated by a comma, sometimes by a semicolon. The latter indicates coherent clusters of words which belong to each other more closely than to the other clusters of words in the same paragraph. Occasionally, explaining remarks are given. The same is frequently done with cross-references to the numbers of other articles. Sometimes the ampersand (&) appears instead of further synonyms which the author, obviously, took for granted. 1 The macrostructure of the Thesaurus from classes to numbers was printed as the ‘Plan of classification’ and the ‘Synopsis of categories’ in the first edition and has been reprinted in almost all subsequent publications. The Anniversary Edition of 2002 reproduces only the ‘Plan’ and, regrettably, just one sample page of the ‘Synopsis’. 2 The first words of paragraphs, which are sometimes also printed in capitals, are called ‘keywords’.
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The sequence of paragraphs and also that of the synonyms in each of them follows an order which can be called its ‘pragmatic structure’ (Hüllen 1997; 1999, 22–7). 3 In its form it depends on the headword, on potential objective (i.e. non-linguistic) circumstances and other contextual constraints. It pertains to the order of lexemes but has no fixed gestalt. This is its ‘pragmatic’ character. Entry article 417, for example, is devoted to musical instruments and orders them ‘pragmatically’ according to string instruments, wind instruments, vibration instruments, and others. Entry article 420, devoted to Light in general, separates ‘pragmatically’ general words from such denoting daylight, reflections, celestial lights, fire, and glance (i.e. light in an indirect sense)—in this order (see below). Each article of the Thesaurus can be characterized by its own objectdependent and context-sensitive and therefore pragmatic arrangement. Naturally, this is more difficult to discern in paragraphs than between them. Pragmatic structures do not follow general rules, if we disregard such trivial ones as ‘from the general to the specific’ or ‘from common language to special language’. The sequence of synonyms is, therefore, not ‘cumulative’ in the literal sense of the word. It is ordered in a pragmatically meaningful way. One can expect that a close reading of entry articles will uncover much of the worldview and language philosophy of the author. Most of the entry articles have matching ones with antonymous keywords and their own synonyms. Typographically, they face each other in two columns on the page. 4 Wherever a negative or positive counter-article is missing, an empty margin either on the right- or on the left-hand side indicates clearly in which column the Thesaurus user is momentarily reading. However, the nature of antonyms which refer to the corresponding ‘positive’ keywords varies considerably. Onomasiological systems must answer the question of what their philosophical groundwork is. After all, they claim to represent the world. A few lexicographers raised the question and gave answers; others did not, obviously they assumed that everybody believed them. Peter Mark Roget did not do so, either, at least not in an 3 The choice of this term is determined by my hypothesis that onomasiological dictionaries, unlike semasiological ones, are texts in the full linguistic sense. Therefore, they show a semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic structure. See Hüllen (1997). 4 Unfortunately, this important device has been dropped in many subsequent editions, probably because of financial reasons.
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explicit way. But from the wording and the style of his ‘Preface’ we can deduce that for him the words of a language name ideas in the sense of John Locke (Hüllen 2001). Even the title of the book says that the Thesaurus serves to facilitate the expression of ideas. For Locke (and Roget) words are not the names of independently existing objective or mental items. They constitute simple or complex ideas which the human mind creates following experience in the world and by introspection (Aarsleff 1995). With regard to philosophy, Roget does not explain himself in any detail, but he is not a naive man. Consequently, he is not naive with reference to linguistics either. The fact that he did not explain the philosophical groundwork of his book in more detail may be due to his plan of serving everybody in their linguistic needs. Therefore, the book should not be burdened with theory. Roget’s philosophical point of departure has its consequences for the selection and the arrangement of entries. He subsumes every individual lexeme within a wider concept (expressed in the macrostructure) which is orientated towards ideas. This is why inorganic matter, for example in the group solids, appears in articles headed density and rarity, hardness and softness, elasticity and inelasticity (321–6). Organic matter appears in the group special vitality in articles headed animality and vegetability, animal and vegetable (adj.), zoology and botany, cicuration and agriculture (364–71). Here, where other onomasiological dictionaries abound in the enumerations of objects, Roget offers an order in the sense of Locke and not a taxonomy of things.
5.3 Daniel Sanders as lexicographer The development of monolingual dictionaries in Germany—as far as it is relevant in the given context—has two intersecting aspects (Haß-Zumkehr 2001). One is the programme of a comprehensive German dictionary which reached its apogee in the Deutsches Wörterbuch initially compiled by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1852–1960). It signals the beginnings of Germanistik as a national academic discipline and the triumph of historically orientated philology. Lexicographically, the importance of etymology for the semantization of words was introduced once and for all. This led to the disdain for such dictionaries as served the national
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programme, but did not do so according to the method of historical philology. Such books were rejected as merely ‘useful’. In the preface to his Deutsches Wörterbuch, Jacob Grimm devoted to them just one critical paragraph (Haß-Zumkehr 2001, 164). The other aspect is the stimulating effect which Abbé Gabriel Girard’s book on synonyms had in Germany and also in other countries of the Continent. It led to the production of many new dictionaries of synonyms and concomitant semantic analyses (Hausmann 1990b). Their authors 5 knew that they worked on a European, not on a national, level. In Germany, Samuel Johann Ernst Stosch (1770–73) and Johann August Eberhard (1795–1802) compiled multi-volumed alphabetical dictionaries of synonyms. In particular, Eberhard was very popular. His work went through many editions—17 before and in 1910, with several editors (Maaß, Gruber, Rückert, Lyon; for foreign languages Asher and Boltz). Stosch as well as Eberhard quarrelled with the Grimms’ concept of philology. Therefore, Friedrich Ludwig Karl Weigand, the author of a three-volume Wörterbuch der Deutschen Synonymen, demanded that they observe what he called the historical view (‘historischen Standpunkt’). His argument was that German was richer in its history and showed a greater age than other languages. ‘In this [high age] the present state of the language shows itself more clearly to the observing eye just like through the clear water of a well. The meaning, its shades and colours emanate from the history of every word and are found there only after a more adequate look.’ 6 (1852, ‘Vorrede’ to vol. 2, iii, transl.). This sentence exudes Grimms’ philology. However, synonymy research in Europe according to Girard and his followers was present-day orientated and synchronic. This did not preclude occasional derivations from Latin. But Weigand’s theory and practice tended to force these lexicographers into the German paradigm (Kirkness 1980, 214 and passim). Daniel Sanders, whose personality and academic work has been well researched (Haß-Zumkehr 1991, 1994 and 1995; Wiegand 1998: 683–9), resisted this German paradigm. 7 He criticized the 5 See Taylor (1813) for English authors, Weigand (1852) and Schmitz (1883) for German ones. They present the work on synonymy as a European enterprise carried on by a group of experts with common interests. 6 ‘In diesem tritt, wie aus dem durchsichtigen Gewässer eines Brunnens, der Sprache Gegenwart klarer vor das schauende Auge. Der Begriff, die Schattierung und Färbung desselben quellen aus der Geschichte des Wortes und werden aus dieser erst mit richtigerem Blicke erkannt’. 7 So did Christian Friedrich Ludwig Wurm. See the detailed analysis by Kirkness (1980, esp. 168f.), moreover Huber (1987), Wagner (1996).
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Grimms’ dictionary as methodically wrong. He observed not historical but contemporary language use as exemplified in the style of classical literature, mainly that of Lessing and Goethe, but also in the daily practice of people in commerce, traffic, military affairs and administration. He wanted his four dictionaries (1871, 1873–77, 1881 and 1889) 8 to be immediately useful. He avoided any excessive display of Germanness, although he worried about the linguistic unity of the nation after 1871. His interest in Roget confirmed this personal and academic independence. He was extraordinarily successful; one of the most popular German–English and English– German dictionaries still bears his name: Muret–Sanders, 1974, orig. 1891. But he paid for this by general disregard of German linguists. His Jewish ancestry and his support for political liberalism after the revolution of 1848 were contributory factors in this poor reputation.
5.4 Identical structures From the correspondence between Daniel Sanders and his publisher Julius Campe we know that he (Sanders) wished to adapt Roget’s Thesaurus to an alphabetical dictionary of German synonyms (Kühn 1985: xxvi, Haß-Zumkehr 1994). He resented the limitation of entry articles to exactly one thousand and thought that Roget’s system was artificial and not user-friendly. But Campe decided in favour of the original English version and allowed only an additional reduced alphabetical index. The reasons for this decision remain unclear from the correspondence. The index was published five years after the Wortschatz and was not reduced at all. As long as we have no other sources we must assume that Campe was impressed by the success of Roget’s Thesaurus throughout Europe, and this means also in Germany. More important than this haggling between author and publisher is the question of discovering, by comparison between the two books how the reluctant German lexicographer adapted, i.e. changed, the English model. Even in the advertisement (‘Prospekt’) which accompanied his book he mentioned that every systematic order is unavoidably marked by some kind of artificiality. 8
Detailed bibliography in Haß-Zumkehr (1995).
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A rough comparison between the macrostructures of the English and the German dictionaries shows no divergences. Sanders cut down the number of entries from the artificially ambitious one thousand to an actual 688 and increased the number of classes from six to seven. But there is no conceptual modification behind these changes. The entry articles which Sanders dropped were all of them quite short ones in Roget’s book, frequently listing less than a dozen lexemes. 9 The new class VI Besitz, Eigenthum [possession, property] is nothing more than the logical upgrading of Roget’s section IV Possessive Relation (division II Intersocial Volition of class V Volition) to class rank. This is no conceptual novelty. It may show the societal importance which this domain of reality had for Sanders. The different renderings of names of classes and sections do not show any serious criticism of Roget’s terms either. What is intellect for Roget is Erkenntnisvermögen [ability of comprehension] for Sanders. The English Affections, Sympathetic, Social appear in German as Empfindungen, Gefühle, Gemüthsbewegungen in betreff der Verbindung mit Andern und der daraus entspringenden Beziehungen [sentiment, feelings, movements of mind relating to others and relations resulting from them]. This somewhat lengthy rendering is nothing more than the outcome of the German author’s pedagogical intentions together with a certain clumsiness of his language. There is no substantial change in such adaptations of the English headings in the German dictionary. At first sight, the comparison of microstructures leads to a similar result. Both books have entry articles with numbers, headwords, series of synonyms ordered according to word classes, two-column arrangement for entries whose headwords stand in antonymous relation to each other, and cross-references by numbers. Sanders marks the paragraphs in his entry articles more clearly because he gives them letters (a, b, c, etc.). There are some other typographically different details. Regrettably, the clear differentiation between comma and semicolon in Roget has vanished in Sanders’ book. He separates words only by semicolon. This means that 9 Sanders corrected a mistake which Roget seems not have noticed at all. We still find it as late as 1949 in the Everyman’s Library edition of the Thesaurus (Roget 1949). The entry article 15 Difference in the negative column, which has no counter-entry in the positive column, was printed erroneously one line too high. Placed on the lower line, it would have correctly been the matching entry article to 16 Uniformity. After this correction, the numbers 15 and 16 would have to be exchanged. Sanders did this. The detail may show how important the ‘Synopsis’ was for Sanders when he modelled his German dictionary on the English book.
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the borderlines of clusters in the series of synonyms are hard to discern. Besides Kühn (1985) and Haß-Zumkehr (1995) there are no relevant analyses existent which deal with Sanders’ dictionary on the entry level. 10 Kühn (1985: xxxiii–li) speaks of synonymous, antonymous, and hyponymous structures. They constitute a hierarchy with relations of inclusion and coordination. Lexemes are hyponyms relative to the headwords (inclusion) and cohyponyms relative to each other (coordination). Such logical interrelations are a natural corollary of the conceptual system which constitutes the macrostructure. Moreover, there is a tendency from the general to the special to be found on all levels. Kühn gives plenty of examples. However, in these respects the structures of the Thesaurus and the Sprachschatz are again very similar. In addition to the logical relations mentioned, Haß-Zumkehr (1995, 241–55) introduces tropes, i.e. rhetorical figures, to the definition of word meanings. To them belong metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. She postulates that such general principles determine the organization of entry articles in order to make them illustrate the semantic order of the language. There are no examples given, either in Roget or in Sanders. Yet, there are some deviations in the microstructures of Roget and Sanders which do indicate conceptual differences between the two lexicographers. They result from the fact that Sanders lists c.16,400 and Roget only 8,700 lexemes. 11 This shows that the German lexicographer worked with intentions in mind which were different from those of the Englishman and which, naturally, influenced the microstructure of their works. There is the external reason for this—that Sanders included the rich material of his earlier dictionaries. Roget, who compiled the Thesaurus as a retiree, could only rely on (perhaps) lifelong, but certainly not systematic, notes.
5.5 Some divergent structures The entries devoted to light and perception (Roget) and Licht and Sehen (Sanders) can be used for the purposes of comparison. 10
Referring to Roget (as far as I know), only Hüllen 2001. This is a projection from the two alphabetical indices. Roget: some 120 lexemes on 73 pages = 8,760 in toto; Sanders: some 15 lexemes on 1,095 pages = 16,425 in toto. Note that Sanders’ index includes compounds and derivations which were not counted. The absolute number of lexemes in Sanders is therefore even much higher. 11
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Macrostructurally, they occupy the same locus of the two books. In this case, Sanders follows Roget exactly. They cover the numbers 420–49 (Roget) and 298–319 (Sanders) respectively. There are obvious differences in the numbers of entry articles. The following is an arrangement of Roget’s and Sanders’ articles so they can be mapped to each other. Except for two headwords—Einfarbigkeit [unicolouredness] and Fehlen des Gesichtssinnes [absence of vision] the headwords of each dictionary are exact translations of each other.
Roget
Sanders
(1) Light in general 420 Light 421 Darkness 422 Dimness 423 Source of 424 Shade light 425 Transparency 426 Opacity
Two conclusions can be drawn from this conspectus: (i) According to the headwords, the entries coincide semantically. There are only a few and insignificant exceptions. Sanders followed Roget faithfully. However, unlike his model, as can be seen from the numbers in front of the entry articles, he placed the entries 441– 449 Perceptions of light before the others, giving them the adequate German heading Gesichtssinn, Fehlen des Gesichtssinns (298–301). Obviously, light was mainly a phenomenon of nature for Roget, but Licht a phenomenon of human perception for Sanders. This may indicate a difference of thinking between the scientist (doctor of medicine) and the philosophically (perhaps Kantian) trained philologist. (ii) Roget uses in-between headings which Sanders drops. This may indicate a difference in the degree of precision of planning. The same can be said of the number of entry articles. Roget has 30, Sanders 22. He integrates some of Roget’s articles with only a few lexemes into the topically similar but larger ones of his own plan. 12 This means that no phenomena are lost. The only exception is Sanders’ entry article 308 Einfarbigkeit [unicolouredness] which is missing in Roget—possibly because there is no convenient word for it. ‘Unicolouredness’ is a rather clumsy construction. It consists of only 16 lexemes which is an extremely low number for Sanders’ book. The real divergence between these blocks of entry articles is their sizes: an estimated 1,200 in Roget against an estimated 5,000 in Sanders. 13 Even a quick glance over the relevant pages shows how much the sheer number of words changes the character of the later dictionary as compared to the earlier one. With reference to this, innovation and reception of Roget by Sanders can be shown on the level of pragmatic structures. Note the following comparison of entry articles 420 and 423 in Roget with entry article 302 in Sanders. In their nominal parts, Roget’s two entry articles together consist of 12 paragraphs whose first words (headwords and keywords) are given plus another one for better illustration. Sanders’ one entry article consists of eight paragraphs. Again each keyword is given plus one 12 Roget: articles 422 and 424 integrated into Sanders’ article: 303; R: 423 into S: 302; R: 427 into S: 305; R: 443 into S: 299; R: 444 and 445 into S: 298; R: 448 into S: 300, and R: 449 into S: 301. 13 A projection from one page with the number of 200 lexemes.
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illustrative entry. The sequence of Sanders’ paragraphs is changed in order to show that Roget and Sanders can be mapped to each other. 14 Roget
Sanders
(420) [1] Light, sun-beam [2] day, noonday [3] glimmer, play of light [4] flush, halo [5] meteor, jack-o’-lantern [6] spark, lightning [7] lustre, luminosity [8] science of light, catoptrics
[a] Licht, Beleuchtung [c] Sonnenlicht, Wetterleuchten [c] Mondhof, Heiligenschein [c] Fixsternlicht, Blitz [d] Himmelslicht, Sterne [d] Sonne und Mond [a] Schimmer, Funkel [b] Lehre vom Licht, Katoptrik
The first impression is again that the two dictionaries are quite similar in the topics they cover concerning the domain ‘light’. They move from the general phenomenon (1/a) to daylight in its various aspects (2–4/c), still quite general, but also in metaphorical meaning. Then there follow words concerning the celestial bodies (5– 6/d) and various qualities of light (7/a). The science of light and what pertains to it (8/b) is placed differently in the two books, in Roget much more convincingly than in Sanders. So are some words pertaining to the qualities of light which Sanders subsumes under the generalities of the beginning—this time certainly more convincing than Roget. The next entry article in Roget lists various natural sources of light and then a number of artificial ones, Sanders doing the same in his one article (9–12/d–e). Self-luminous materials, 14 For easier reference, I add numbers to Roget’s paragraphs. With reference to Sanders, I use his own letters. The English translations of Sanders’ entries read (in the sequence given above): [a] light, illumination, [c] sunlight, summer lightning, halo of moon, halo, light of fixed star, lightning, [d] skylight, stars, sun and moon, [a] lustre, sparkle, [b] science of light, catoptrics, [d] celestial body, heavenly body, [f] luminous material, phosphorus. [e] candle, torch, chandelier, dark lantern, lighthouse, beacon, [g] photo, [h] friend of light.
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photography, and the somewhat enigmatic ‘friend of light’ appear in Sanders (f–h) but not in Roget. Obviously, the German lexicographer follows his English model but adapts his work freely at the same time. The integration of small entry articles into larger ones has no small consequence: for Sanders, the synonymy of lexemes becomes less important than encyclopedic information. In Roget [11], for example, the words chandelier, candelabra, girandole, lustre, cresset were obviously chosen because one can substitute the one for the other in a given text. This is the usual test for synonymy. This is also the reason why, in Roget [12], the words light-house, beacon, watch-fire, cresset appear. These words are therefore understood to be cumulative synonyms. If they are integrated (as indeed they are) into the much longer series of words in Sanders [e] together with Kerze, Fackel, Span, Lampe, Laterne, Leuchter, Krone, Flamme, Pfanne, Feuer, Signal, Zeichen, Turm 15 and many compounds, they are no longer cumulative synonyms but a detailed enumeration of artificial sources of light, i.e. differentiating synonyms. The concept of the semantic field announces itself here. There may be some words which are indeed substitutes for each other and therefore cumulative synonyms. But the general observation is still correct that Sanders prefers the complete enumeration of the names of details of objects to the culling of synonyms. His book is on the path from a dictionary of synonyms to an encyclopedia. At least this tendency is much stronger than in the Thesaurus, where it can also be found occasionally. Articles like 296 Tonkunst, Wohlklang [musical art, euphony] and 297 Missklang [dissonance] read like an index to musicology and instrumentation. Article 298 Gesichtssinn, das Sehen [vision, to see], i.e. the beginning of entries pertaining to light in Sanders, contains a long list of optical instruments. In article 299 Fehlen, Fehler des Gesichtssinns [failure, deficient vision], technical words are given side by side with common ones. In addition to Augen-Schwäche and Augen-Blödheit [!] [weakness of eyes, feeble vision] we find Chromatopseudoblepsie and Leukäthiopie [colourblindness, albinoism with black people]. All this is far from synonymy in the sense of substitutionability. Moreover, Sanders boosts his encyclopedic tendency by exploiting the possibilities of German word formation with compounds and derivations (using prefixes 15 Candle, torch, spill, lamp, lantern, chandelier, crown, flame, pan, fire, signal, sign, lighthouse.
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and suffixes) in an extreme way. Roget did not do this, obviously not because of any limitations in the English language. Sanders’ method is encyclopedic rather than exemplary. Roget, on the other hand, uses the typically English possibilities of parallel Germanic and Latinate words in an often extreme way. He disregards the borderline between educated and common language. Note the two paragraphs of article 421 Darkness: Darkness, night, midnight, obscurity, dusk, duskiness, gloom, gloominess, shade, glade, umbrage, shadiness, penumbra, Erebus. Obscuration, adumbration, obumbration, obtenebration, obfuscation, caligation, extinction, eclipse, gathering of the clouds, dimness. Entries of verbs are much smaller in number than those of nouns. Their order is also less complex. Roget has two paragraphs in entry article 420 (there are no verbs in 423) which differ in transitivity/ intransitivity as in to shine and to illuminate. Among each other the verbs of each paragraph are, as a rule, synonymous in the sense of substitutionability. Some verbs have the same root morphemes as the nouns. Things are different in the longer verb list of Sanders’ entry article 302. In both books, nouns have a dominant role for the selection of verbs. In addition, three deliberations seem to be at work in Sanders’ book, if not with the same grade of importance. (i) There is a natural sequence of verbs which, in this case, is obviously stimulated by the development ‘from sunrise to full sunlight’ (but no further on in the day). (ii) There then follow verbs with the semantic feature ‘reflect’ and more transitive verbs, irrespective of synonymy (e.g. schimmern, leuchten and polieren, bohnern, firnissen). 16 (iii) As he does with nouns, Sanders exploits the possibilities of German word formation by combining verb stems with local prefixes. Quite frequently, the resulting verbs have only weak semantic relations to each other. These three aspects concerning verbs can be found in the entry articles, but they are not to be interpreted as a coherent system. In most cases, adjectives go back in both dictionaries to preceding nouns and verbs (as participles). Roget breaks them down into two paragraphs, the second of which seems reserved for adjectives with hyperbolic meanings (garish, refulgent, blazing, etc.). Sanders’ 16
shimmer, shine, polish, wax and polish, varnish.
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adjectives are arranged quite similarly; instead of giving the words, he just writes u.s.w. (etc.). Adjectives with rather general meanings are followed by others that have more intensive ones. Again, many compounds are mentioned. There then follow adjectives which include the source of the light (goldglänzend, strahlen-leuchtend [!]), 17 and finally those that are topically unrelated to the others (as, for example, in Wichs, i.e. in the uniform of the so-called Korpsstudenten, i.e. student associations) and negations (e.g. unverdunkelt [not blacked-out]). The relation between reception and change in Roget’s and Sanders’ works is confirmed in the articles which deal directly with colours, if in a new way (Roget 430–9, Sanders 310–19). At first sight, the quantitative misproportion between them is again obvious. An estimated 250 lexemes on one page of Roget’s Thesaurus is faced by an estimated 2,500 lexemes on six and a half pages of Sanders’ Sprachschatz. As can be seen in the conspectus below, Roget’s relevant articles appear under the headwords whiteness, blackness, gray, brown, redness, greenness, yellowness, purple, blueness, and orange. The nominalizations using -ness show that the Lockean idea of a colour is meant and not the real phenomenon of perception. Why this is so for six colours, but not for the three others, remains Roget’s secret. 18 Sanders, however, is obviously thinking of this phenomenon. He makes use of the fact that colour words in German may be understood as adjectives or as nouns. Roget chooses the following pragmatic structure for whiteness and blackness (430, 431): ideas of colour processes of colouring coloured objects states (intransitive) actions (transitive) shades of colours comparison
17
whiteness (etc.) albification (etc.) snow (etc.) be white render white (etc.) milk-white (etc.) as snow (etc.)
blackness (etc.) nigrification (etc.) jet (etc.) be black render black (etc.) sable (etc.) as my hat (etc.)
golden, beaming. We can exclude linguistic reasons, because morphologically orangeness is the same as, for example, greenness. Frequency of use can also be excluded, because these articles on colours abound in the most rare hard words imaginable (e.g. albification, infuscation, ciniritious, etc.). Perhaps it is remarkable that only mixed, i.e. not primary, colours are given as adjectives. 18
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Some words of Roget’s Thesaurus are rather far-fetched (etiolate for ‘render white’, atramentous for ‘shade of black’). This pragmatic structure is applied only for whiteness, blackness and redness. All other relevant articles are much shorter, most of all those concerning gray and orange, where only few synonyms of the headword are given. However this is to be explained, 19 Roget obviously found it difficult to find synonyms in this semantic field. He could not turn them into nouns denoting ideas. Sanders did not have this problem. In the paragraphs reserved for nouns, verbs, and adjectives plus adverbs he listed lexemes which are comparable to those in Roget, although they outnumber them by far, but also many compounds. In particular, the names of coloured objects and of shades of colours are given in great numbers. There are 38 adjectival compounds derived from weiß (white), and some 30 compound words pertaining to brown objects with their special shades. There is no clear pragmatic structure to be found here. Time and time again, small homogeneous clusters of lexemes appear (plants, animals, diseases with reddish symptoms, paints, etc.) without any recognizable order. Endless series of adjectives list words of shades of red and green, among them an alphabetical group of reds (from abend- and amarantrot to zundel- and zunderrot)—69 adjective compounds as a closed set in a list twice as long, and also an alphabetical list of greens (from apfel- and aquamaringrün to wiesengrün and zeisiggrün) 20 —this time 58 adjective compounds as a closed set again in a list twice as long. In the article pertaining to yellow there is a list of 45 compounds, and in the article pertaining to blue one of 67. Of course, alphabetization here indicates that Sanders refrained from finding a semantic order in his overrich material. His main intention was completeness. These entry articles are prototypical for Sanders’ wish to enumerate the lexemes available for the denotation of colours in German as completely as possible. And they are also prototypical for Roget’s difficulties in dealing with this domain of reality which does not lend itself easily to clear meanings and structures. Summing up, we meet two lexicographers who, though bound to a common macrostructure and microstructure, as presented by Roget, differ 19 One possibility is to assume that articles in a still tentative state found their way into the printed version. 20 Sunset-red, amarantine, ignition-red (?), apple-green, sea-green, meadow-green, siskin-green.
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clearly in the pragmatic structures of their dictionaries. Roget follows the principle of cumulative synonymy as defined by the possibility of mutual substitution of lexemes, whereas Sanders follows the principle of a possibly complete enumeration of lexemes of one semantic field. If anything, his words are differentiating synonyms. Sanders’ dictionary prefigures the concept of the semantic field that was to be discussed in the 20th century.
6 Roget in the Romance World: Théodore Robertson’s Translation of Roget’s Thesaurus (1852) into French as Le Dictionnaire Idéologique (1859) 6.1 The teacher of modern languages 6.2 The semantic order of words 6.3 Comparing Roget and Robertson: introduction and macrostructure 6.4 Comparing Roget and Robertson: entry article 566 6.5 Detailed comparisons
6.1 The teacher of modern languages There is hardly any biographical information about the man with the pseudonym Théodore Robertson (who constantly abbreviated his surname to T.). One of the rare entries in a Dictionnaire biographique reads: ‘Robertson (P. Ch. Théod. Lafforgue). 1803, Paris.—Grammairien, a fait à Paris, de 1822 à 1852, et selon la méth. Jacotot, des cours d’anglais qui ont été fort suivis.’ (Dantès 1875: 865). There then follow 11 references to publications concerning English. T. Robertson made himself quite a name in France and Germany as a teacher of English and in England as a teacher of French. Between (roughly speaking) 1835 and 1900, he published an abundance of teaching materials—textbooks, dictionaries, and collections of literary texts—which spawned more teaching materials in these and even in other European countries written by authors who followed what they called ‘the Robertson method’. The decade between 1850 and 1860 seems to have been a particularly fertile
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one. There were adaptations of his books to Polish and Russian. Between 1880 and 1885, the German publisher Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig published a ‘library of textbooks according to the Robertson method’. 1 As a rule, his name is mentioned alongside James Hamilton, Joseph Jacotot, and Toussaint-Langenscheidt, i.e. teachers who were less orientated to grammar and translation than had traditionally been the case. Naturally, this gave rise to criticism by others, like F. Gouin and A. Heydemann (Macht 1986: 60–1; Klippel 1994: 322; Howatt–Widdowson 2004: 168, 183). Robertson’s textbooks were broken down into lectures with a strict sequence of parts whose function was to guarantee strict sequence of teaching steps in the classroom. Note the order of each lesson in the Nouveau cours pratique, analytique, théorétique et synthétique de langue anglaise, published 1838 and re-published many times: (i) pronunciation (sentences or texts marked with phonetic signs, rules of pronunciation): (ii) interlinear translation of text (literal); (iii) free translation (into acceptable French); (iv) grammatical analysis (exercises, word-centred); (v) free conversation on text; (vi) composition (French sentences with reference to text to be translated into English) (according to Macht 1986: 60). Noteworthy is Robertson’s attention to phonetics—as early as 1841 in his Cahier analytique de prononciation anglaise and as late as 1870 in his Dictionnaire de prononciation anglaise contenant les racines, [. . . ] les syllabes initiales et finales. 2 As can be seen, T. Robertson was a well-known linguist and teacher when Roget’s Thesaurus appeared in 1852. He had already published a Dictionnaire des racines anglaises, et traité de la formation des mots in 1839 and was engaged in more work on lexis as can be seen from the préface of the English rendering of Roget: J’avais employé des années à réunir et à classer des matériaux. En examinant l’ouvrage de M. Roget, je reconnus que le recueil, qui devait servir de base à mon travail, était déjà tout fait: qu’il était plus complet que celui qui m’avait coûté tant de soins, et qu’il lui était bien supérieur sous le rapport de la classification. (i) 3 1 Kurs j˛ezyka Angielskego podług metody T. Robertsona w polskím j˛ezyku ułozony przez J. B. (1846); Friedrich Wilhelm Booch-Arkossy: Methode Robertson für das Russische. Praktisch-theoretischer Lehrgang der russischen Schrift- und Umgangssprache (1864); Bibliothek ausführlicher Lehr- und Lesebücher der modernen Sprachen und Literaturen nach Robertson’s Methode (1880–85). 2 All of Robertson’s books were published by E. Derache, Paris. 3 I have been engaged for years in collecting and classifying material. By inspecting the publication of Mr Roget I recognized that the collection [of words] which must serve as the
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How close Robertson’s ideas, in fact, came to Roget’s Thesaurus can be seen from the preface to his book Synthèse de la langue anglaise (1857), where he collected the texts which he had offered to his learners in the earlier Nouveau cours de langue anglaise and translated them into French. For him, these texts had a synthetic, i.e. integrating, function whereas grammars and dictionaries represented analysis. With pertinence to vocabulary, he selected texts like the following (from 1001 Nights): I shall have my apartments fitted up in the daintiest manner that fancy can devise. The floors, wainscots, doors, windows, shutters and blinds, will be made of precious wood, such as mahogany, rose wood and ebony. The hinges, bolts, locks and keys, which are everywhere of common iron and brass, will be made of the purest polished steel, inlaid with gold. Ivory and marble will be lavished on all sides; and silk, muslin, satin and velvet, skilfully interwoven, will dazzle the eye with the gayest colours. [. . . ] I come next to the sleeping chamber, the furniture of which is less showy, but not less rich. The bedstead is of foreign wood; the mattresses are of the softest wool; the bolster and pillow richly heaped with down; the sheets of cambric, and the blankets as white as the lambs which bore the fleece that made them (Robertson 1857: 22, 24).
By the selection of such texts—which can easily be read as a contextualization of one or several entry articles of the Thesuarus— Robertson planned to define 10,500 words according to his own words. He thought he could manage that many because of the similarity of many French and English words in form and meaning. Of his own books, he said: Je n’ai pas la présomption de croire que je n’aie pas tout prévu et qu’il ne me reste plus rien à faire. J’aurais sans doute des omissions à réparer, des lacunes à remplir, des suppressions à faire (Robertson 1857: xii). 4
This is obviously the material which Robertson had tried to collect for many years and where Peter Mark Roget had overtaken him in one stroke. It does not seem far-fetched to assume that his interest in and even admiration for the English lexicographer had its roots in the didactic potential which he thought to be incorporated in basis of my work has already been completed: that it is more perfect than the one which I had worked on with such pains, and that his was far superior as regards classification. (i) 4 I am not so presumptious as to believe that I planned everything and not much remained to do. Without doubt, I shall have to repair mistakes, fill in gaps, and cancel mistakes.
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the Thesaurus. He most probably wished to exploit this for the teaching of English in his own and in other European countries and for the teaching of French in England and on the Continent. One proof of this is that in the introduction, which is largely a literal translation of Roget’s own introduction, Robertson inserts a few paragraphs where the immediate practical usefulness of the thesaurus arrangement of words, as distinct from the alphabetical arrangement, is shown by examples as concrete as can be. Si, par exemple, l’écrivain cherche une série de mots relatifs à l’idée de courage, que trouvera-t-il à la suite du mot courage, dans un dictionnaire ordinaire? Couramment, courant, courante, courbature, courber, courbette, etc., mots qui n’ont aucun rapport avec l’idée de courage. En effet, l’ordre alphabétique ne tient aucun compte de la liaison des idées; il amène à la suite les uns des autres les mots les plus disparates, comme abri et abricot, aigrette et aigreur, ami et amidon, [etc.]. (iii) 5
There is a teacher’s more than a linguist’s experience behind such observations.
6.2 The semantic order of words But T. Robertson was certainly also aware of the fact that in the lexicographical past of his own country the topical tradition had been just as strong as in other countries of the European Continent (Quemada 1968: 365–8, Marello 1990). Part of this tradition were the many word lists in the dialogue books which served the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages outside the Latin tradition of schools. They used as a didactic principle what is today called le classement par centres d’intérêt. Cette logique interne, essentiellement didactique, explique aussi que l’organisation générale de ce type d’ouvrages soit restée sensiblement inchangée au cours de trois siècles de pratique lexicographique par ailleurs si mouvante (Quemada 1968: 362). 6 5 When, for example, an author is looking for a series of words pertaining to the idea of courage, what does he find in an ordinary dictionary following the word ‘courage’? Couramment, courant, courante, courbature, courber, courbette, etc., words which have no relation to the idea of courage. In effect, the alphabetical order does not help in any way the connection of ideas; it presents, in a sequence, some of many words which differ greatly like abri et abricot, aigrette et aigreur, ami et amidon, [etc.]. (iii) 6 This internal logic, which is essentially a didactic one, also explains why the general organization of this type of publication had almost remained unchanged during three centuries of lexicographical practice which had otherwise seen much movement.
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The words which together make a centre d’intérêt are variously called mots synonymiques, mots analogues, mots qui ont un rapport avec le sujet, etc. The arrangement itself is termed ordre sémantique, analogique, philosophique, ontologique, or idéologique. These terms are not strictly delimited against each other. The headwords are called mots chefs, mots générateurs, or mots vedettes. They are understood to indicate an idea which is surrounded by the many words expressing its various aspects and which is part of another idea on a higher level of abstraction, and so on. This universe of ideas mirrors the universe of facts and objects in the world. Both are of the same order. Because this is so, a dictionary arranged according to ideas is also a dictionary which facilitates the work of memory. The ideational order is often modelled on the descriptive system of plants and animals in natural history, but also appears in a cosmic vision: Dans le Dictionnaire mnémonique tous les mots de la langue, avec eux tous les faits qu’ils représentent, gravitent vers un mot central, vers un fait dominant, qui lui-même se relie à un centre universel; de même que les satellites gravitent vers les planètes et les planètes vers le soleil, le Dictionnaire Mnémonique n’est qu’une simple application, en effet, du système de l’univers [. . . ] (Quemada 1968: 379). 7
This is a high-sounding concept (however, without repercussion on the dictionary market) without any further philosophical or scientific explanation except that the choice of the headwords is admitted to be un problème majeur in practice and that the links between the headwords and the ideas are often difficult to understand. It is more in the style of arguing and the terminology used than in the substance that French and English lexicographers differ. They both follow the visionary idea of a comprehensive system whose fixed items (ideas) bear clear relationships to each other (e.g. hyponymy, inclusion or exclusion of classes) and where the locus of each word in the all-embracing grid ultimately defines its meaning. This is why T. Robertson could render a French thesaurus which is in almost all respects an exact calque of the English one. He could use the Trésor/Thesaurus very directly for his own teaching purposes, although he admits in the introduction that he would have 7 In a Mnemonic Dictionary all the words of a language, together with everything they signify, circle around a central word, a dominant fact which is linked to a universal centre; just as the satellites circle around the planets and the planets around the sun, the Mnemonic Dictionary is nothing but, in effect, a simple application of the system of the universe [. . . ].
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chosen a different order if, as originally planned, he had completed his own collection of words. In 1853, that is one year after Roget’s Thesaurus and six years before T. Robertson’s version of the Thesaurus appeared, A. Ponton d’Amécourt published his Panorama des mots, ou Nouveau Dictionnaire des Synonymes which shared obvious similarities with Roget/Robertson. It had the well-known affinity with the natural sciences and ideational organization, and its macrostructure cannot help but remind people of the English model. This is no hypothesis on a direct transfer from Roget to Amécourt and Amécourt to Robertson: it is the temporal co-occurrence of the books which seems noteworthy (see section 6.5). But neither Amécourt’s nor Robertson’s works were successes in the market, and they did not trigger the production of similar academic dictionaries either. Instead, only three years later, namely in 1862, Prudence Boissière published his Dictionnaire analogique de la langue française. Répertoire complet des mots par les idées et des idées par les mots, and in doing so created a new type of dictionary which should win the day. It can be characterized as an attempt at retaining the semantic order of words but using the alphabetic order at the same time. 8 The term analogique is equal to synonymique with the exception that there is a new technique of presenting the relevant words. Boissière’s work is distinguished by the fact that two kinds of macrostructure are dovetailed. There is an arrangement of words with their synonyms ordered according to the alphabet and there are entry articles under a mot vedette which list synonyms or ‘analogous’ words that belong to its centre d’intérêt. For example: the lemma opinant appears in an alphetical list between opimes and opiniâtre. Among the synonyms of opinant the reader finds *opinion, whose star indicates that it is part of an inserted entry article (often printed in a box) which can be found on the lower part of the page. This article lists all the synonyms that can be allocated to opinion—either again in alphabetical order or in some other— hopefully self-evident—arrangement. 9 This means that the words that have been elected as synonyms appear twice—in the running list of the dictionary and in the inserted groups. The alphabet is 8 Admittedly, even Roget had left a loophole open for the alphabet when adding a general alphabetical index to his thesaurus. 9 This example is taken from Boissière and quoted by illustration in Hausmann 1990.
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used twice or even three times: (i) in the main body of the dictionary, (ii) in the sequence of headwords of the synonym groups, and (iii) within these groups, although other principles of order may prevail there. Indeed, Boissière uses it three times. There are no reasons or explanations given for the selection of the mots vedettes (chefs). They are the result of careful empirical study of language use. There is no theoretical discussion of synonymy either. It is a point of debate whether the dictionnaire analogique is a step forward or a step backwards in the construction of dictionaries with a semantic order of words. Re-introducing the alphabet as the essential path-finding technique certainly facilitated the daily use of such dictionaries, in particular the use by speakers without linguistic training. However, it does away with the holistic and philosophical aspect according to which reality is a global unity with its own order, and language a means of expressing this with the help of signs. There is good reason to speculate that this holistic aspect caused the unique success of Roget’s Thesaurus in the English-speaking world and that T. Robertson was impressed by it. The introduction to his translation gives clear evidence of this. Whether one or the other version of a semantic word list is preferred obviously depends on the compiler’s expectations. The dictionnaire analogique is easier to handle, the thesaurus offers richer possibilities for insights of a linguistic nature. In fact, the alphabetical version of the dictionnaire analogique was introduced to US-American speakers of English (without adopting the name) at the beginning of the 20th century with the Thesaurus Dictionary of the English Language (1902, 1911) compiled by Francis Andrew March and Francis A. March (father and son), and it has found quite a number of followers there. It did not break ground in Great Britain where Roget’s Thesaurus remained in its unique position. In 1993, however, the Longman Language Activator followed the ‘analogous’ principle for the first time and quite recently rather short and very practice-orientated dictionaries of synonyms have been introduced to a practice-orientated readership also in Great Britain, e.g. the Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus and Wordpower Guide (2001) which is a general-purpose dictionary on the upper and a dictionary of synonyms on the lower half of each page (Hüllen 2009). In France and the other Romance countries, the dictionnaire analogique developed almost into the standard form of the synonym dictionary.
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Julio Casares’ Diccionario ideológico de la lengua española (1942) is considered as the ideological dictionary par excellence. It consists of a parte sinóptica, a parte analógica, and a parte alfabética. The first part, the Plan general de la classificación ideológica, gives a conspectus of ordering categories on three levels which serve to define semantically 38 tables (cuadros). Following this conspectus, but not synoptically any longer although still belonging to the parte sinóptica, are lists with synonyms, broken down into paragraphs with a headword each. Some of them have juxtaposed headwords with negative meanings (roughly speaking, antonyms), some have cross-references added. These lists vary greatly in length, some extend over many pages. All this reminds us very much of Roget’s Thesaurus with the exception that the system of categories is quite different from his (see 6.5). The second part is a dictionary of synonyms with headwords in alphabetical order. Each headword is printed in bold capital letters and followed by the number of the cuadro. The words are ordered according to classes (nouns, verbs, verbs with phrases, adjectives, adverbs, idiomatic expressions). Words which function as headwords in their own groups are printed bold, words which appear in such groups (but not as headwords) are mentioned at their proper alphabetical places in italics. The division according to word classes reminds us again of Roget, the alphabetical order with cross references of Boissière and his followers, possibly also of F. A. March. The third part is a conventional alphabetical index of all words mentioned. It has its own pagination (1–1124). The author, a philologist of high reputation in Spain, regards his dictionary to be the ultimate goal of lexicographical development, as he shows in the prólogo. Los precursores immediatos de la clasificación ideológica del léxico, Roget en Ingleterra (1852) y Boissière en Francia (1862), tuvieron que emplear copiosos argumentos para hacer comprensibles y viables sus respectivos sistemas, que, a la sazón, habrían podido malograrse sin una justificación cumplidísima que los recomendase a la atención del público. Hoy, por fortuna, toda persona culta sabe lo que es un diccionario ideológico, y los servicios que presta. 10 10 The immediate precursors of the ideological classification of dictionaries, Roget in England (1852) and Boissière in France (1862), had to use many arguments in order to make people understand their systems. They could, at that time, have failed without the perfect proof that commended them (the systems) to the attention of their public. Luckily, today
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6.3 Comparing Roget and Robertson: introduction and macrostructure ‘Le Dictionnaire idéologique, publié avec l’autorisation de M. Roget, est l’application à la langue française du plan développé dans le Thesausus of English words and phrases’ (vi). 11 There are indeed many signs showing that T. Robertson wished to remain as close as possible to the admired English original. The introduction is almost entirely a literal translation of Roget’s introductory text. In the beginning (iii–iv), Robertson adds two paragraphs showing with quite a number of examples the advantages of a nonalphabetical sequence of words for the speaker who is looking for synonymous, i.e. semantically related, words. There is obviously the eagerness of the teacher behind this passage to prove the practicality of the new arrangement. Another addition (vi) compares Roget’s work with that of Lavoisier for chemistry or Linné and Jussieu for botany proving how much Robertson shared with Roget the general background of natural history as an ordering principle. Roget had inserted a similar remark in a rather long footnote (1853: xxiii–xxiv) in which he quoted botany and zoology in their model function, but without giving names, and where he also mentioned other dictionaries and relevant publications as exemplary, among them the Sanskrit dictionary by Améra Cósha, John Wilkins’ ‘Tables’, i.e. the semantic part of his universal language project (Wilkins 1668), and Jean de Maimieux’s pasigraphie (Hüllen 2004: 285–91, 310–21). Robertson omits this passage, which is somewhat astonishing, because he agrees expressly with Roget’s idea that the Thesaurus could be applied to all languages of this world and could therefore contribute to international understanding and peacemaking. So why did he suppress references, even to a French author, to projects with similar aims? Roget’s quotation of Horne Took at the end of the introduction (xxv) is also missing. An issue between the appreciation of style in English and French surfaces in Robertson’s remarks on ‘beaucoup d’expressions que les partisans de la pureté classique condamneront peut-être’ (xii). He assures his readers that he does not find himself entitled to exclude every educated human being knows what an ideological dictionary is and what purposes it serves. 11 Le Dictionnaire idéologique, published with the authorization of Mr Roget, is the application to the French language of the plan developed in the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.
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words which are generally and therefore authentically used, but not without adding in a footnote: ‘Toutes les expressions populaires ou triviales, que j’ai insérées, ont pour elles la sanction de l’Académie.’ A difficulty which T. Robertson simply chooses to ignore lies in Roget’s remark on ‘a considerable number of words and phrases borrowed from other languages, chiefly the French and Latin, some of which may be considered as already naturalized’. He continues discussing the role of neologisms in particular in scientific terminology and deplores ‘the habit of fabricating new words and a newfangled phraseology, without any necessity’ (xxii). Robertson only speaks of ‘beaucoup d’expressions empruntées à d’autres langues, principalement au latin’ (xii). He misunderstands (or deliberately ignores) the fact that the use of French words in English, i.e. a language with mixed lexis, and the use of Latin words in French, i.e. a language whose lexis is entirely Latinate, are of a stylistically quite different quality. Other deviations of the translation from the original are of a trivial nature. The ‘Plan of classification’ and ‘plan de classification’ are identical. As Roget uses Latinate English words here, Robertson has the chance of rendering direct translations. The same is true for the ‘Synopsis of categories’ and the ‘tableaux synoptiques des catégories’ with a few exceptions. These are: 12 Roget: Abstract relations, causation: constancy of sequence → Robertson: Rapports abstraits, causalité: en général. Roget: Intellect → Robertson: Facultés intellectuelles. Roget: Intellect, extension of thought → Robertson: Facultés intellectuelles, direction de la pensée. Roget: Volition, individual volition, prospective volition, conceptional and subservience to ends → Robertson: Volonté, volonté individuelle, volonté prévoyante, raisonné and moyens d’exécution. Roget: Affections, personal, discriminative → Robertson: Affection, personnelle, motivées. Roget: Affections, sympathetic, diffusive → Robertson: Affection, sympathique, expansives. 12 The deviating translations are given in italics. There are two misprints in the French edition: II. Causalité should be VIII. Causalité, I. Modes de communication should be II. Modes de communication.
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These deviations are self-explanatory so that no discussion is needed.
6.4 Comparing Roget and Robertson: entry article 566 Of greater interest are the few rearrangements of entry articles and changes of headwords which show that T. Robertson, after all, was also a critical reader of Roget’s Thesaurus, although his overriding rule was obviously the exact imitation of his source text. 13 There are two reasons for leaving this rule: (i) The popularity of certain French words overrode an exact translation. Roget: 110 Diuturnity 518 Intelligibility 914 Piety
It may be a matter of speculation why Robertson preferred inhumanité to impitié. (ii) An obvious mistake or inconsistency was corrected. Roget: 140 Change 141 Cessation 987 Piety
Both Roget’s erroneous arrangements, the first obviously hastily covered up with an a-number, were corrected in the edition of 1899 in the way in which Robertson had translated them. If he avoided the word impiété in 914 bis because he did not want to repeat it in 988, this shows how careful Robertson’s reading of Roget was. It looks as if Robertson followed each entry article word for word when writing the English translation. Wherever Roget listed Liatinate English words Robertson follows him with words of the 13 In order to keep in step with Roget’s numbers, Robertson occasionally uses one number twice (e.g. 983 bis).
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same etymon. So the two books actually look very much alike. Note and compare entry article 566 Phrase, for example, in the two versions with the words listed in the original sequence: Roget
Robertson
P HRASE expression phraseology paraphrase periphrase circumlocution set phrase round terms; mode, or turn of expression idiom, idiocism wording façon de parler
P HRASE expression phraséologie paraphrase périphrase circonlocution tournure de phrase
manière de parler locution phrase faite période carrée coupe des phrases, des vers, du style forme, incise tournure gauloise, anglicisme, gasconisme, germanisme, gallicisme, hébraïsme, hellénisme, italianisme latinisme
couch clothe in words give expression to. Expressed etc.
exprimé rendu proverbial
couched in periphrastic circumlocutory. Comme on dit.
There are 31 English words, with 18 directly translated and 17 added ones plus the noun phrase tournure gauloise etc. This means that the number of English and of French entries is, roughly speaking, the same. When reading the columns of entry article 566, we are looking over the translator’s shoulder, as it were. He did not render into French the English words round terms, plain terms, plain English, sentence, motto, antiphrasis, couch, clothe in words, give expression to, circumlocutory. With the exception of motto, antiphrasis and circumlocutory (for which there is no explanation) all these words belong to the non-Latinate English vocabulary and/or have particular English meanings which are of no direct help for people learning French. He adds few words with particular French meanings and which can rouse French intellectual attention as, for example, the various tournures and terms from rhetoric. The untranslated periphrastic appears in the added périphraser. The added words appear in slots which have been offered to them by the English list. Of course, there is no checking all the articles of the two thesauri in this way. But entry article 566 seems to be quite typical. T. Robertson’s book is a real translation of Roget’s, not a new and particularly patterned dictionary in the guise of Roget, as, for example, Daniel Sanders’ Deutscher Sprachschatz (1873–77) is. Roget is the leading author, Robinson his follower. The close relationship between the Latinate part of the
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English lexis and French makes the task of translating relatively easy.
6.5 Detailed comparisons There is no doubt that Roget’s Thesaurus has had an impact on European lexicography as no other dictionary had. Although it is itself the outcome of a long and complex European tradition, the particular form in which it appeared in 1852 was so convincing that after about one hundred years almost every European language had its own thesaurus. This form, created by Roget, lent itself as a guide to many thesauri, even if they used their own system of categories. A detailed comparison has been overdue for a long time. It might disclose in some detail the national spirit of languages and thought which has been maintained time and time again. Note below the synoptical parts of Ponton d’Amécourt (1853) and of Julio Casares (1942), each presented with a modernized number code. Both shed light on T. Robertson’s French version. Both show how much the French teacher of foreign languages was using concepts which were taken from Roget but backed by national traditions. Ponton d’Amécourt (1853): Panorama des mots 14 Livre premier: Objet des Mathématiques, de la Physique, de l’Histoire naturelle et de la physiologie 1 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3
Temps (1–45) Espace Espace vide, plein ou corps.—Rapport des parties de l’espace [. . . ] (1–127) Actions des corps les uns sur les autres (128–162) Etat liquide, état gazeux (163–188, 189–194) Monde physique, règne minéral, végétal, animal (195–199, 200, 201–213, 214–246) Habitation, vêtement (247–267, 268–281) Mouvement (1–85)
14 According to Quemada 1968: 387–9, slightly simplified. The numbers in brackets refer to the entries. Of course, a detailed comparison between this dictionary and Robertson/ Roget is recommended, concerning the categories, their arrangement, and the number of entries showing how detailed a domain of reality is presented.
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4 5 5.1
Quantité, qualité (1–90) Phénomènes vitaux ou physiologiques Vie et santé, maladie, sommeil, mort, guérison (1–11, 12–18, 19–21, 22–37, 38–41) 5.2 Génération (42–47) 5.3 Nutrition (75–94) 5.4 Sensations 5.41 Son, parole (95–110, 111–179) 5.42 Chaleur, lumière, vision (180–183, 184–204, 205–221) Livre deuxième: Tout ce qui concerne les personnes 6 7 8 8.1 8.2 8.3 9 9.1 9.2 10 10.11 10.12 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 11 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 12 13 14 15 16 17
Intelligence, opinion, vrai et faux (1–141) Emotions de l’âme autres que celles qui procèdent de l’amour ou de la haine (1–27) [relations sociales] Volonté (1–80) Désir, goût et amour des choses (81–102) Amour envers les personnes, concorde, relations sociales, estime [. . . ] (103–178) [l’art militaire] Colère et violence, douceur (1–21, 22–34) Haine, guerre [. . . ], crainte, courage (35–37, 37 [!]–56, 57–72, 72–89) Bien et mal physique, intellectuel et moral Plaisir, douleur (1–17, 18–48) Punition, récompense (49–58) Beauté, laideur (59–72, 73–80) Bon en général, mauvais en général (81–83, 84–87) Vertu et vice, bien et mal moral (see 15) Utile et nuisible (see 10 and 14) [action et événement] Causation, pouvoir (1–23) Action (24–100) Evénement (101–109) Affaires publiques et politiques (see 12) Politique (1–23) Posséder (1–95) Utilité (1–11) Moralité (1–22) Religion (1–36) Jurisprudence (1–14)
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15
Julio Casares (1942): Diccionario idéologico ‘Desde la idea a la palabra; desde la palabra a la idea.’ 1 2 2.1 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.2 2.21 2.22 2.221 2.222 2.2221 2.22211 2.222111 2.222112 2.222113 2.22212 2.222121 2.222122 2.222123 2.22213 2.222131 2.222132 2.2222 2.22221 2.222211 2.222212 2.22222 2.22223
Dios: Religión, culto, etc. (1) El Universo Mundo inorgánico Física y Química (2) Geografía, Astronomía, Meteorología (3) Geología, Mineralogía (4) Mundo orgánico Reino vegetal: Botánica (5) Reino animal Los irracionales: Zoología (6) El hombre El individuo Como ser vivo Anatomía (7) Fisiología (8, 9–11) Medicina (12) Como sujeto racional Sensibilidad (13, 14) Inteligencia (15–24) Voluntad (25) Como agente Conducta (26) Acción (27) La sociedad Comunicación (ideas y sentimientos) Lenguaje (28) Arte (29) Instituciones sociales (30–34) Industrias y oficios (35–38)
15 According to Casares 1942: xxix–xxxi, slightly simplified. The numbers in brackets refer to the cuadros, i.e. tables of varying length. Some of them extend over many pages. Of course, here again a detailed comparison between this dictionary and Robertson/Roget is recommended, concerning the categories and the depth of their logical arrangement.
7 Wilkins and Roget Meet. An Experiment in Thought 7.1 Structures of thesauri 7.2 John Wilkins’ Essay (1668), chap. XI, genus XXXVI, Civil Relation II, profession or vocation 7.3 Roget’s Thesaurus (2002), entry article 687
7.1 Structures of thesauri In their order of words, thesauri defy the tyranny of the alphabet because they follow a topical arrangement. The consequence of this is that words which, semantically speaking, belong together actually occur together. There is a great practical advantage in this, for example if an author of an essay is looking for words in order to be precise and to avoid clumsy repetition. To support this kind of productive linguistic performance is the main purpose why thesauri have been compiled over centuries. There is also a great theoretical advantage in this, because the observation of semantic affinities of words on a large scale allows insights into the organization of lexis and its cognitive foundations in general. However, this advantage is combined with a particular disadvantage. Alphabetical dictionaries are organized according to the one principle which everybody who is literate knows by heart. It is the only guideline for authors as well as for users. With the exception of homographs (which are frequently also homophones) there are no really problematic cases here. At least in those countries that use the Latin alphabet, the principle of order is therefore fairly straight forward (though this does not preclude the occurrence of errors). Letters combined with diacritics or umlauts are sometimes slightly confusing. The organization of topical dictionaries, however, is not because there is no canonical order of ideas and objects in existence.
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This causes difficulties with everyday use. They may be only small ones in the case of topical dictionaries, for example, devoted to technical instruments like bicycles or cameras, i.e. precisely delimited and well-known objects. Everybody who knows these objects will find his or her way through the word lists that enumerate their parts. However, the difficulties grow quickly and may indeed render a thesaurus next to unusable if it presents words located in greater, less precisely delimited, domains of reality or even in the imaginable world of abstract ideas. This is exactly what Roget’s Thesaurus has been doing since it appeared for the first time in 1852. In order to be helpful at all, its order must be intelligible to the common—if educated—language user. This means the compilers of topical dictionaries must find a certain order and the users must be able to understand this and work with it. So there must be a preassumed harmony here between the two. Whether this harmony is always warranted and successful is a different matter. It must be intelligible. All thesauri explain their so-called macrostructure (Hüllen 2004, 331–6). This is the system of ordering categories which dominate the word entries of a topical dictionary on the most abstract level. They are part of all the meanings of words that are subsumed under each of them. Note the macrostructure of The Lexicon of Contemporary English (McArthur 1981): A Life and Living Things B The Body; its Functions and Welfare C People and the Family D Buildings, Houses, the Home, Clothes, Belongings, and Personal Care E Food, Drink, and Farming F Feelings, Emotions, Attitudes, and Sensations G Thought and Communication, Language and Grammar H Substances, Materials, Objects, and Equipment I Arts and Crafts, Science and Technology, Industry and Education J Numbers, Measurement, Money, and Commerce K Entertainment, Sports, and Games L Space and Time M Movement, Location, Travel, and Transport N General and Abstract Terms.
Note, in comparison, the macrostructure of the 150th Anniversary Edition of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (Roget 2002), which is, with a few insignificant exceptions, identical to the macrostructure of the first Thesaurus (1852): 1 Abstract relations: 1 Existence, 2 Relation, 3 Quantity, 4 Order, 5 Number, 6 Time, 7 Change, 8 Causation. 2 Space: 1 Space in general, 2 Dimensions, 3 Form, 4 Motion
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3 Matter: 1 Matter in general, 2 Inorganic matter, 3 Organic matter 4 Intellect: the exercise of the mind: Division I: 1 General, 2 Precursory conditions and operations, 3 Materials for reasoning, 4 Reasoning processes, 5 Results of reasoning, 6 Extension of thought, 7 Creative thought. Division II: 1 Nature of ideas communicates, 2 Modes of communication, 3 Means of communicating ideas 5 Volition: the exercise of the will: Division I: 1 Volition in general, 2 Prospective volition, 3 Voluntary action, 4 Antagonism, 5 Results of action. Division II: 1 General social volition, 2 Special social volition, 3 Conditional social volition, 4 Possessive relations 6 Emotion, religion, and morality: 1 General, 2 Personal emotion, 3 Interpersonal emotion, 4 Morality, 5 Religion.
It is easy to see that the two macrostructures differ in the categories which they employ and in the sequence in which they are rendered. It would be an interesting challenge to define these differences and relate them to the spirit of the time when they were set up and/or to the frame of mind of their authors. According to presentday philosophical convictions, the categories of macrostructures do not mirror any reality directly, they mirror the mind which works in order to understand reality. 1 Acknowledging this point of departure means acknowledging the fact that there are many potential ways of ordering the lexis of a language, and not just one. So any thesaurus must in its macrostructure have its own cognitive roots. Macrostructures, like the two given, are always knowledge- and logic-based. They use the concepts which people develop in order to understand the world and live in it, and they establish coherent relations between them. But there are also ordering principles at work in topical dictionaries which are not expressly spelt out in any kind of structure and are more difficult to grasp for the dictionary user. They are located on the concrete level of word entries, dominating their selection and the sequence of their appearance in a matter-of-fact, almost covert, way. They, too, have their origin in the minds of dictionary compilers—because there is no other source available—and must be understood by the dictionary users. Following the terminology of text linguistics, they can be called ‘pragmatic structures’. 2 It is very important for these users to 1
47).
For the difference between speculative and mental lexicography see Hüllen (1999, 433–
2 The macrostructure is for a topical dictionary what the overall meaning is for a text. The relevant linguistic discipline is semantics. The microstructure, i.e. the formal
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understand them—if only intuitively—because they determine the word searches in detail, after the macrostructures have given them the more general guidelines. The following is an attempt at finding and describing such pragmatic structures. They can then be used as tools in consulting procedures. Bishop John Wilkins is famous as the author of a universal language which was more elaborate than other attempts of this kind in the 17th century. His idea is that national languages can be avoided by a sign system which presents ideas and objects directly so every expression in a national language can be translated into and can be understood by the universal one. 3 The theoretical and practical feasibility of this plan need not be discussed here. Besides extensive deliberations on the generalities of phonetics, grammar, and word formation, Wilkins presents a thesaurus of words whose meanings are determined by the order in which they appear and which are the lexical elements of all potential expressions. In the framework of his universal language plan, Wilkins collected a thesaurus of English with the aim of giving an ordering grid for a general thesaurus for all possible languages, in particular the universal one. Peter Mark Roget counted John Wilkins among the models of his own project, as is shown in the ‘Preface’ to the original Thesaurus, which has been reprinted in almost all subsequent editions. He even shared the general ambition of the bishop’s universal plan to enhance peace among the nations with different languages (Hüllen 2005, 328). Roget had the idea that all other languages might follow his Thesaurus. The question whether Roget understood Wilkins correctly need not be discussed here. Wilkins’ so-called ‘Tables’ can be regarded independently from his universal language project. Taken by itself, it is a list of words with a macrostructure, expressively given, and with pragmatic structures to be discovered just as Roget’s Thesaurus is. The particular feature of Wilkins’ thesaurus is that the macrostructure and the words are not simply rendered in a terminological system and a list but are embedded in a running text which explains why the relevant words were chosen and why they were arranged in the way they were. This feature of the earlier work arrangement of word entries, is for a topical dictionary what the syntax of sentences and their formal combinations are for a text. The relevant linguistic discipline is syntax or syntactics. In consequence, pragmatic structures of a topical dictionary are what situational and stylistic constraints are for texts. See Hüllen (1999, 22–7). 3 For a thorough analysis, including bibliographical references, see Hüllen (1999, 244– 301).
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will be used to understand the more recent one. Two chapters— one from Wilkins and one from Roget—, which can be compared to each other because of their size, are mapped to each other so each can shed light on the other. This means that, at a certain point, Wilkins’ word list can be presented à la Roget and Roget’s word list will à la Wilkins. This is, of course, only an experiment in thought (Gedankenexperiment) which, however, may facilitate understanding topical dictionaries in general.
7.2 John Wilkins’ Essay (1668), chap. XI, genus XXXVI, Civil Relation II, profession or vocation In the macrostructure, 4 the group of words to be treated in the following is found in chapter eleven of the ‘Tables’, which deals with the ‘world distributively’ and not as a whole, i.e. ‘according to the several kinds of beings’ which exist. These ‘kinds of beings’ are broken down into such as belong not to substance but to accident. Among these are relations which are either private or public. In genus XXXVI, words expressing ‘civil relations’ are divided into such as pertain to persons and such as pertain to things. The ones pertaining to persons are ranked according to their degrees (from king to freeman), according to their professions or vocations (from divine to prestigiator) and according to conventions (i.e. institutions, from nation to faction). All these are typical dichotomies which Wilkins uses over and over again. The middle group pertaining to professions/vocations will now be subjected to the special arrangement tests mentioned. The body of words Wilkins is dealing with are the following in alphabetical order: Actor – agriculture – artificer – artisan – bard – bailiff – calling – cargo – carrier – chase – chirurgion – civil lawyer – clerk – comedian – common lawyer – course – course of life – cowherd – craft – critic – dancer on the ropes – dealing – divine – dress a wound – empiric – exercise – fair – farrier – fisher – fodger – follow – fowler – function – game – georgic – handicraft – hawker – herdsman – hinde – hocaspocas – hogherd – huckster – hunter – huntsman – husbandman – interlude – juggle – leach – leggerdemain – manufacture – mariner – market – mart – mechanic – medicine – 4 See the famous ‘General Scheme’ in Wilkins (1668, 23), frequently reprinted, also in Hüllen (1999, 256).
Obviously, the order of these words is purely external, as all alphabetical order is, and has no mental validity. If people wished to learn this list by heart they would have to force their learning capacities by will in a most unnatural way (something which can, of course, be done). An attentive reader without prior information will find that all the words deal with professional activities, but no semantic reasons can be given for their sequence in this presentation. But Wilkins does not list the words according to the alphabet. He gives them embedded in a text which explains why they were selected, and this ‘why’ is integrated into the order of their appearance. With some slight alterations, this explanative text reads thus: That course of life upon [somebody] is usually employed, and to which he applies himself for the getting of a subsistence is styled his profession. To which may be adjoined the word denoting the actual practice. These may be distinguished into such as are either more necessary and beneficial to human life, and [such as are] not necessary. [The necessary ones] comprehend liberal professions, such as become free and generous men, and the illiberal ones; [the not necessary ones] comprehend those professions which tend to the diversion of [people]. The necessary and liberal professions relate either to things sacred, things civil or political, and [to] things natural; or [they relate] to language. [The ones relating to things sacred are] divine vs philosopher, [the ones relating to things civil or political are] civil lawyer vs common lawyer, [and the ones relating to things natural] with particular reference to the diseases of men’s bodies and their cure [are] physician vs chirurgian. Liberal professions [relating to] language or to the ornament of discourse [are] philologer vs poet. The necessary and illiberal professions belong either to the town or to the country or to both. [The ones belonging to the town are] trades of exchange or manufacture, [i.e.] merchant vs mechanic, [the ones belonging to the country are] the professions of tilling the ground and feeding the cattle, or of the catching of wild animals [i.e.] husbandman vs herdsman vs huntsman. [The ones belonging to both the town and the country refer] to the carriage of things by water or by land
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[i.e.] mariner vs carrier. The not necessary professions for the diversion of others [pertain to] acting or personating some particular story or fiction or by amusing men [i.e.] player vs prestigiator. 5
If looked at closely, it becomes apparent that Wilkins’ text has the ordering function of a stemma with mostly binary, sometimes tertiary, branches. The stemma could look like this: PROFESSION
necessary
not necessary
amusing acting (prestigiator) (player) liberal
not liberal
town
exchange ( merchant) tilling (husbandman)
country
manufacture
town and country water land (mariner) (carrier)
(mechanic) feeding catching (herdsman) (huntsman)
things
words
sacred
civil
natural style language ( philologist) (poet)
revelation (divine)
knowledge (philosopher)
general national direction operation (civil (common (physician) (chirurgian) lawyer) lawyer)
5 The differentiating style of this text is typical of philosophical and logical treatises as they appeared in the course of the 17th century, in particular among the so-called schoolmen. Note, for example, works by Dudley Fenner (1584), Thomas Blundeville (1599), and others, discussed in Hüllen (1999, 288–91). They show the great impact of Petrus Ramus and the method in which his arguments were presented.
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Wilkins does not work with stemmata but with a rather complex system of numbers, brackets, paragraphs, indentations, and fonts which serve the same purpose of showing logical interrelations (Dolezal 1983, Hüllen 1999, 255). In fact, reading Wilkins’ word lists correctly is kind of a semiotic adventure because it presupposes understanding these special signs. In order to retain some of the classifications expressed in this way (and in the stemma), Wilkins’ word list can be given in the following way by pruning the word entries from the explaining, introducing, and linking text: profession, vocation, calling, trade, function, occupation, course of life, craft, mystery practice, exercise, use, follow, put in use divine, theology, clerk, schoolman philosopher civil lawyer common lawyer, pettifogger physician, medicine, patient, empiric, mountebank, quacksalver, farrier, leach, receipt chirurgian, dress a wound philologer, critic poet, poetry, poem, bard, muse merchant, market, peddler, huckster, fodger, hawker, regruter, shopkeeper, traffic, dealing, merchandize, fair, mart mechanic, handicraft, artificer, manufacture, artisan, workhouse husbandman, georgic, hinde, agriculture, tillage, bayliffe herdsman, shepherd, pastor, cowherd, hogherd huntsman, hunter, fowler, fisher, chase, trace, course, venison, game, poacher mariner carrier, ripier, cargo player, actor, comedian, tragedian, play, stage, theatre, interlude, personate prestigiator, shower of tricks, juggle, legerdemain, hocaspocas, tumbler, dancer on the ropes &c, mountebank
This comes indeed very close to an entry article in Roget’s Thesaurus. About one hundred lexemes—mostly words, some noun phrases and verb phrases—are arranged here according to a classification which is, semantically speaking, specific in regard to profession but, formally speaking, generic because it uses principles which are generally applicable also to other topics and are therefore called ‘logical’. The general idea is that words stand in certain semantico-logic relations to each other and can only fully be recognized by them.
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These relations work as a logical path (or derivation) over several levels. They end in what can be called a ‘semantic slot’. Understanding the meaning of a word, if it is not done intuitively or visually but discursively, must take the whole system into account which allocates these slots their places (Hüllen 1999, 264–6). However, in most cases in our sample it is not a single word which appears in a slot but groups of them. This means that their members own a semantically identical derivation, although there are still differences enough left to give each its own meaning. By definition, they are therefore differentiating synonyms (if of the same word class), or words occurring together in a semantic frame (if of different word classes). The relations between the slot entries (inter-group relations) are strictly organized. In spite of a few irregularities, they work according to a small number of rules. (i) By the principles of hyponymy, subclasses are constituted which differentiate top-down and generalize bottom-up. Hyponymy leads in most cases to co-hyponymy. This means class inclusion in the vertical and class exclusion in the horizontal dimension. In the sample under investigation, (at most) five such levels are defined. (ii) The defining criteria of classes appear as semantic features in the lexemes. In most cases, they stand in binary opposition to each other, which explains the occurrence of two co-hyponyms. (Admittedly, this principle is occasionally violated in favour of three instead of two.) This means that the lexemes have all the features in common which are ‘above’ them and differ in respect of those which are ‘between’ them. For example, divine and philosopher have in common that they both denote professions (0) which are necessary for mankind (1), practised by liberal men (2), and devoted to things (3) which are sacred (4); they differ in that the one depends on revelation (5 left), the other on knowledge (5 right). The semantic qualities of these features must be acquired by experience. (iii) The words in the groups appearing at the end of their derivative paths (slots) stand to each other in a relation of synonymy. Cohyponyms stand to each other in a relation of antonymy. 6 6 The vocabulary of a language, as given in this sample, shares the properties of a terminological system. This is in accordance with the ideas of the 17th and following centuries, as they were also developed by people like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and
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The intra-group relations at one slot are less strict and vary in varying tables (which the inter-group relations do not). Yet, they, too, can be defined formally. (i) There are accumulating synonyms in the usual meaning of the term, like profession – vocation – calling – trade, or peddler – huckster – hawker, and mechanic – artisan. There are also differentiating synonyms like shepherd, cowherd, and hogherd; or hunter, fowler and fisher. All these words are paradigmatically related to each other. (ii) We find cognate verbs, i.e. verbs which predicate the meaning of a noun, like profession and to practice, chirurgian and to dress a wound, hunter and to chase. They are syntagmatically related to each other. (iii) Finally, there are lexemes which belong to a certain ‘frame’ (Ungerer and Schmid 1996, Aitchison 1987), i.e. which are likely to occur in a homogeneous context of situation. They do not belong to the same word class, as members of a semantic field do. They relate to each other in the way of theta-roles. To them belong, for example, physician (agent), patient (experiencer), medicine (instrument), receipt (instrument/objective), or carrier (agent) and cargo (objective). 7
The two systems complement each other. For example, the opposition between ‘revelation’ and ‘nature’ as the sources of knowledge (in divine vs philosopher) is quite different from the opposition between ‘town’ and ‘country’ as the geographical fields of professional activities (in merchant vs husbandman) and again between that of ‘water’ and ‘land’ as the media of transport (in mariner vs carrier). This means that the formal (logical) binarism of the tables works on quite unrelated contents. The ability to do this makes the very strength of their abstract power. In spite of their formal arrangement, the semantic network of the tables and, as a consequence, the very selection of lexemes are time– and culture– dependent. For, literally, every lexeme we could find references in the real world of the 17th century, to which Wilkins belonged. He scanned the various professions of his time and chose those which he thought relevant. With words like pettifogger or quacksalver he also accepted general judgements of his contemporaries. Only the rules of classification are logic-driven and therefore independent. John Locke. For them, the common language was to be upgraded in such a way that it became precise and ‘philosophical’. 7 There are also words with only loose relations to their fellow members in the group, which we can ignore.
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This is why these rules can, in our sample, lead to an overview of professional life in the 17th century, even in a sequence which clearly shows the predilections of Bishop Wilkins. He mentions theology, the law, medicine, language, trade, crafts, agriculture, cattle raising, wild animal hunt, and transport as fields of professions without which a society cannot live, besides amusement as a pleasant addendum. A similar conspectus for the 20th century, rendered with the same formal rules, would of course be quite different. And yet he follows a logical, time-independent, procedure. What we encounter here is the fact, basic for cognitive linguistics, that abstract processing structures deriving from perception and logic work together with acquired and entrenched knowledge deriving from culture and experience in time and in various places (Glynn 2004). In the words given, such knowledge is incorporated in such features as ‘necessary vs non-necessary profession’, ‘liberal vs illiberal profession’, ‘sacred vs civil vs natural objects of profession’, etc. To sum this up, the path from a chaotic assembly of lexemes, which is given an external alphabetical order, towards a semantic arrangement obviously leads through various cognitive operations. To these belong vertically the formation of classes according to features and their arrangement in different grades of abstraction and differentiation respectively. To these belong also the arrangements of lexemes according to synonymy and antonymy and to frame coherence. These operations function over lexemes with their own meanings. These come to the language users by experience. Thus time- and context-dependent meanings are organized by general and time-independent processes. A careful reading of Wilkins’ text in its various adaptations demands going through the various acts of division which have gone into it. It would still be difficult to learn it by heart. But the people attempting this could at least mobilize their semantic knowledge in a certain order to find out why the words are arranged this way. If we adapt Wilkins ‘Table’ to the typographical routines of the Thesaurus, we end up with the following entry à la Roget: PROFESSION , vocation, calling; trade, function, occupation, course of life, craft; mystery. Practice, exercise, use, follow, put in use.
Obviously, this simple arrangement indicates exactly what Wilkins’ ‘Table’ does. But the only typographical means used here are bold fonts of headwords, paragraphs, comma, and semicolon. The cognitive investment of the thesaurus user must therefore be much greater and much more spontaneous. This means more linguistic competence is needed, and in working with thesauri more linguistic competence is developed than working with alphabetical dictionaries.
7.3 Roget’s Thesaurus (2002), entry article 687 Roget’s entry article 687 on ‘workshop’ has approximately the same length as the table chosen from Wilkins and therefore offers itself for a comparison. In the macrostructure, it is to be found in class five (of six classes) on ‘volition’, division one (of two) on ‘individual volition’ and section three (of five) on ‘voluntary action’. To this section belong entry articles 676 to 696. Their first part (676–687) pertains to ‘simple’ voluntary action, their second part (688–699) to ‘complex’ one. The last two entries of this group have the keywords agent (686) and workshop (697), i.e. the acting person and the place of voluntary action. This is the body of words Roget is dealing with in alphabetical order: Activity – armoury – arsenal – atelier – bench – blast furnace – brewery – building site – bureau – business house – business park – call
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centre – coalmine – coalface – colliery – company – construction site – cotton mill – creamery – dairy – den – distillery – dock – dockyard – energy – factory – farm – firm – forge – foundry – gasworks – hive of industry – industrial estate – installation – kitchen – laboratory – laundry – library – loom – maltings – manufacturing town – manufactory – metalworks – mill – mine – mint – nursery – office – offices – paper mill – pit – plant – powerhouse – power station – production line – quarry – refinery – research laboratory – sawmill – science park – secretariat – shed – shipyard – shop – shopfloor – slips – smelter – smithy – stannary – steelworks – steelyard – stithy – stock farm – store – studio – study – sweatshop – technopole – tin mine – wharf – Whitehall – workroom – works – workshop – yard. 8
Again, the alphabetical order of these words is purely external, as all alphabetical order is, and has no mental validity. If people wished to learn this list by heart they would have to force their learning capacities by will in a most unnatural way. An attentive reader without prior information will find that all the words deal with places where various kinds of work can be done, but no semantic reasons can be given for their sequence. Indeed, Roget does not adhere to the alphabet. He presents the words topically, however, without any explanation of their arrangement. Indications on pragmatic structures are only given by the fonts of the headwords (italics) and by comma or semicolon. The entry article reads like this: Workshop, studio, atelier; workroom, study, den, library; laboratory, research laboratory; plant, installation; business park, industrial estate, science park, technopole; works, factory, manufactory; workshop, yard; sweatshop; mill, cotton mill, loom; sawmill, paper mill; foundry, metalworks; steelyard, steelworks, smelter; blast furnace, forge, smithy, stithy; powerhouse, power station, gasworks, energy; quarry, mine, store; colliery, coalmine, pit, coalface; tin mine, stannary; mint; arsenal, armoury; dockyard, shipyard, slips; wharf, dock, shed; construction site, building site; refinery, distillery, brewery, maltings; shop, shopfloor, bench, production line; nursery, farm; dairy, creamery, stock farm; kitchen, laundry; office, bureau, call centre; business house, firm, company; offices, secretariat, Whitehall; manufacturing town, hive of industry, activity. 9 8
Cross-references omitted.
9
Cross-references omitted.
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The warranted assumption is that the structure of this entry is not so different from that of Wilkins’ ‘Table’ as one might think. Roget’s list is certainly not without order. To find this out, we can go through the adaptations of Wilkins’ ‘Table’ in reverse. We can elaborate the series of words in Roget’s entry article into an argumentative text à la Wilkins and a stemma. The text could run thus: Workshops in general can be divided into such as serve intellectual and such as serve technical work. The former is done in studios (etc.), the latter in plants. Plants for technical work are either assemblages that cover whole areas (estates etc.) or living quarters (town, etc.). As installations (works, yards, etc.) these plants are either artificial, or natural, or institutional. The artificial ones serve production in mills, or the production of food either in refineries (etc.) or nurseries (etc.). Or the artificial ones are factories (shops etc.) that work either with metal (foundry etc.) or produce energy (powerhouse etc.). The natural ones are mines or quarries (etc.) and yards (etc.). This text and the logico-semantic dependencies expressed in it can be visualized by a stemma (see page 106). Roget’s word list can also be given in the following way by pruning the word entries from the hypothetical text but retaining the clustering and logical dependencies which become visible in the stemma. Workshop, studio, atelier, workroom; study, den, library Laboratory, research laboratory, plant Business park, industrial estate, science park, technopole Manufacturing town, hive of industry, activity Installation, works, factory, manufacture; workshop, yard, sweatshop Mill, cotton mill, loom, sawmill, paper mill Shop, shopfloor, bench, production line Foundry, metalworks; steelyard, steelworks, smelter; blast furnace, forge, smithy, stithy; mint, arsenal, armoury Powerhouse, power station, gasworks, energy Quarry, mine, store; colliery, coalmine, pit, coalface; tin mine, stannary Dockyard, shipyard, slips; wharf, dock, shed; construction site, building site
It is easy to see (and not necessary to elaborate on) the choice of words which is integrated into their arrangement. The words are time- and culture-dependent, just as those of Wilkins were, and the arrangement is dominated by the same formal, i.e. time- and culture-independent, principles. In this way, the two works shed light upon each other. The lexicological value of Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ is that they present to us the cognitive principles of ordering words
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and not just a list of them; the lexicological value of Roget’s Thesaurus is that it stimulates us into hypothesizing the same cognitive values from a mere series of words. Both approach the network character of lexis in a natural language in their own way. Wilkins presents to us words and demonstrates ad oculos corporis what Roget presents to us in words with an appeal ad oculos mentis.
8 On Background Knowledge and Seriality 8.1 On background knowledge 8.2 A typology of seriality 8.3 The undergrowth
8.1 On background knowledge Topical (onomasiological) dictionaries provide language users with a means of finding local linguistic information on the level of words. This presupposes two important properties: (i) a pathfinding order 1 which leads them (the users) to the locus they are looking for, and (ii) the information itself. The latter, i.e. the store of words, can be the same in both types of dictionaries, although it is, as a rule, narrower in topical than in alphabetical ones. Most of the former simply list words, but do not explain them in any way. Most of the latter give defining or paraphrasing explanations. But it is in the path-finding order where the two really diverge. Alphabetical dictionaries use a purely formal, ultimately phonotactic, arrangement which has no meaning in itself. 2 Topical dictionaries use semantic coherence for this purpose. This entails several important lexicographical differences. Among them is that alphabetical dictionaries are never meant to be read in toto, but topical dictionaries are constructed in such a way that they demand of their users at least a general conspectus of their semantic arrangement, which can only be gained by looking at the whole book. Otherwise they (the users) will not find their way through it. A second difference is that all alphabetical dictionaries follow the same order, varying 1 In a different context and from a different angle, I call this path-finding order ‘retrieval techniques’. See also Aitchison 1987, 3–15. 2 We can ignore attempts at defining a subphonemic meaning of words.
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3
only in the degree to which they make exceptions, whereas topical dictionaries vary depending on what their author’s (or authors’) concept of semantic coherence is. As has frequently been explained, topical dictionaries must be regarded as texts in the full linguistic sense. The (semantic) coherence of texts, 4 which constitutes their messages, reappears as the lexicographical macrostructure; the (syntactic) cohesion reappears as the lexicographical microstructure. The readers of texts are supposed to construct a comprehensive representation of the message of the text in their minds after going through it sentence after sentence with their interrelating signals—perhaps with the support of a title, several subheadings, an introducing abstract, a logical plan made visible by graphical means, or some other aid. The users of a topical dictionary are supposed to do something quite similar, namely to memorize the ‘great plan’—perhaps with the help of an overview, a table of contents, an index of headwords, running titles at the top of each page, or something similar. Roget’s Thesaurus is a good example of all these aids. Topical dictionaries of the general kind provide their users with a view of the world. 5 This is why some of them come very near to encyclopedias, in particular in their selection and arrangement of words (entries). Most authors trust that their view represents shared knowledge between them and the average speaker and dictionary user. Otherwise the usability of their work would be at risk. Some are, however, not content with tacitly assumed background knowledge but are more explicit. There are various historical cases which testify to this. Nicodemus Frischlin (1600), for example, mentions Aristotle on the title page of his Greek–Latin–German dictionary, calling it ‘opus nova quadam methodo, secundum Cathegorias[!] Aristotelis’. The anonymous author of a Latin–German dictionary (1610) uses headings which are clearly taken from the same philosopher for the sections of his dictionary: on substance, on accidence; quantitas, qualitas, relatio, actio, etc. Moreover, he defines these headings accordingly: 3 The alphabet can, for example, be disrupted in order to arrange compounds or derivations in a ‘nest’. 4 Terminology according to Halliday and Hasan (1976), and de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981); see also Dirven and Verspoor (2004). 5 Topical dictionaries of the special kind (e.g. on geometry or the law) provide the user with a general outline of the discipline concerned. I must leave this case undiscussed.
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Quantity: Quantity belongs to a creature [and] it is distinguished by it from others by size and number. There are, however, three kinds of size: line, surface, and body. / Quality: Quality embraces what is in things or [goes] with them. Inside, however, it is either natural or by chance, or [it] is artificially put inside. (Hüllen 1999, 352)
By using such terminology and definitions, a philosophical skeleton is erected inside the dictionary proper which signals to the dictionary users which conceptual framework to expect. Of course, modern users assume this framework to be man-constructed, but old authors and dictionary users took it to be a mirrored picture of reality. A unique method of explaining the macrostructure of his work was introduced by Adrianus Junius to his Nomenclator (1577). He prefaced 19 sections of the first volume with concise remarks explaining why the division of the dictionary was what it is. The first chapter, for example, is not on God, as might be expected, but De re libraria libroru(m) materia. The argument, in Latin, runs: Words are names for things. They are produced by the voice and received by the ear. They are prevented from being forgotten by writing and made common property by printing. If forgotten, they can be recovered from books. This is why the first chapter turns to books—‘mutis quasi magistris (as if from silent teachers)’—and presents all those words which are connected with books as objects. It leads directly to the idea in the second chapter that the human being should be its topic ‘animi cultum è libraria supellectile haurire datum est’ (because it is given to his mind to derive culture from books). (Hüllen and Haas 1992, 585–7; 1999, 354–6)
Hence it presents all those words which are connected with the human body. Here, as in all the following chapters, Junius does not refer to some philosophical model author but gives his own version. Another example of explaining the philosophical substance of the macrostructure of his word lists is provided by John Wilkins in his Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (1668). We find in the so-called ‘Tables’, which form a thesaurus as the semantic part of a universal language (Hüllen 1999, 250–84), that argumentative introductions and linking texts are not given exclusively to each chapter but to each subchapter, sub-subchapter, etc. and even to many individual entries. The linking and argumentative texts therefore outweigh by far the vocabulary given. One could rearrange and print this whole book in such a way that its
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dictionary character disappeared altogether and a normally flowing philosophical treatise was left, as we find in fact in the so-called ‘Arts of Logic’ by, for example, Dudley Fenner (1584) and Thomas Blundeville (1599). 6 Much later, a book of this kind did indeed appear. David Booth published An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language, in which the words are explained in the order of their natural affinity, independent of alphabetical arrangement (1835). It is a continuous narrative on word meanings without any dictionary format. But its author called it a dictionary. In fact, it is a history of philosophical ideas of European provenance and therefore, though concentrating on words, readable only as a monograph (Hüllen 2004, 305–9). These examples show that the macrostructure of a topical dictionary consists of a corpus of knowledge which is shared by the author and the dictionary users—whether this common knowledge is taken for granted, or whether the authors chose various ways of teaching their users which body of knowledge to accept. This knowledge determines the path-finding order which is a precondition for the usability of the dictionary.
8.2 A typology of seriality No text can be deconstructed by semantic and syntactic structures alone. Phenomena such as style and register, politeness strategies, informational density, situational adequacy, illocutionary intention, contextuality and others, all of which leave linguistic traces, have their own rules and, in consequence, their own structures which are called ‘pragmatic’. Such pragmatic structures differ from others because they are not linguistic in the pure sense. They pertain to modes of thinking and of behaviour, to acting in society, to the environmental (visual, tangible) context and to general features of communication. To them belong many far-reaching, in their character quite various, basic rules—like those of logical connections, of politeness strategies, or of metaphorization. But to them also belong rules of very limited pertinence—such as forms of address or reference to objects, both in dependence on a given situation. This makes it difficult to systematize pragmatic structures in the way in 6
These could therefore be turned into topical dictionaries.
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which this is done in semantics and, above all, in syntax and this is why they are felt by some to be a challenge to scientific linguistics in general. Quite obviously, topical dictionaries, too, are determined by such pragmatic structures which, however, tend to be overlooked in lexicography. They are obviously different from the encyclopedic or philosophical assumptions of the macrostructure as given in the historical examples. Nevertheless, the dictionary users must be aware of them if they want to be successful. Pragmatic structures with shifting demarcations are located between macro- and microstructures. They are never explained, as macrostructures sometimes are, but taken for granted. They are, however, of great importance for dictionary users who, once they have found their orientation on the macrolevel, need signposts in the narrower areas of the vocabulary in order to find the word they are looking for. Of particular interest in this context are some rules which dominate what can be called seriality, i.e. the order in which some words in a very special group follow each other. This order is determined by the semantic affinity of the words concerned which is, in turn, determined by the kind of reality they refer to. This linguistic affinity has direct mental consequences, because the pertinent words are obviously remembered as parts of groups, not by themselves. Instead of the single word, the series of words is obviously made the unit of mental representation. Though the degrees to which this is done vary, the general rule still holds. The following is a discussion of several types of seriality. They rank from those that seem to be perfect and natural strategies of language behaviour to those that are the outcome of linguistic education. (i) There is strict seriality. It is actuated whenever a rather limited set of words can only be given in one fixed sequence. The obvious examples are numerals, the days of the week, the months of the year, the seasons, or the cardinal and directional points of the compass. There is sometimes a choice of where to begin the series. One may start enumerating the days of the week with Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday—depending on religious convictions or other conventions. But once a decision has been made on this, one is bound to adhere to a strict order. There are, however, many cases where the initial member cannot be chosen freely. It would, for example, be rather odd not to run
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through the cardinal directions of the compass by starting with the north—probably because of its importance in spatial orientation (e.g. with reference to the north pole, the polar star, the magnetic field, etc.). Family relations, military ranks, professional hierarchies provide many more examples, which cannot be started with any member ad libitum. Possible starting points for such series are either the top or the bottom member, or one group of the whole series (e.g. that of commissioned officers in military ranks). The sequence of the seasons will (most probably) follow the life cycle from birth to death (i.e. spring via summer and autumn to winter). There are many other examples. They show that strict seriality, although purely formal in its character, stems from rather deep-rooted experience and convictions and has an ideological (philosophical) background. It is important to see that this seemingly simple linguistic fact is the outcome of very different kinds of motivation. (ii) There is also what can be called natural seriality. The difference to strict seriality is that more than a limited set of lexemes is included and that the relevant order allows certain variations. A convincing case is, for example, the word list which gives the parts of the human body, always named from head to feet. It would be odd to start from the left hand. Even the order in which the features of the head are named follows a rigid routine. The limbs (arm, leg, etc.), however, may follow the shoulders, or they may be added at the end (i.e. following ‘feet’) (Hüllen 1994; 1999, 223–8). Some other principles can come into play (or lend support)—like outside (visible) members vs inside (invisible) organs. Again the serial order is obviously dictated by basic human experience—meeting a human being means, first of all, getting to know and remembering a face. But there is also a long literary tradition behind this. In rhetoric, the description of the human body followed the top-to-toe sequence, and can therefore be found in a number of narratives, for example in Chaucer’s Boke of the Duchesse (1369). The ultimate source for this personarum descriptio a corpore was the biblical ‘Song of Songs’ (Salmon 1961, Gallo 1971). Unlike strict seriality, natural seriality is a method of coping with potentially very many words. Quite often, it has a temporal dimension and turns into a narrative. (Even the sequence from head to feet might be understood as the narrative of a medical check-up.) In James Howell’s Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660), for example, a list of
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the wooden parts of a sailing boat is given in exactly the sequence in which the carpenters put them together when building a ship in the dockyard. The list itself and its order is actually taken from John Smith’s well-known Sea Grammar (1627), which is another example of a hybrid text located between a monograph on ship building plus seafaring and a dictionary. It is written in continuous prose, but the lexemes explained are printed in the margin. In Smith’s book, the chronological order is actually the macrostructure of the first part, 7 but when integrated into Howell’s dictionary it functions as the pragmatic structure of a dictionary proper. Subjecting words of one semantic domain, like that of the human body, to natural seriality is a creative act of ordering in which linguistic knowledge (vocabulary) and world knowledge meet. The latter is supposed to be common to the compiler of the dictionary and its users and can therefore function as a path-finding device. Other examples of this achievement are the parts of a house given in the order in which an architect thinks of them when planning one, even beginning with the first sketches. They appear in this way in Noviliers’ Nomenclatura in Italian, French, and Spanish (1629), which Howell exploited for his own work. They can also be given in the order in which they are seen by a visitor when entering by the door and walking through the rooms and up the stairs, as is done by Jan Amos Comenius in his Orbis pictus (1659). Howell’s dictionary also has a chapter on war, which is divided into two parts: the first starts with the declaration of war, the assembling of an army, a battle, burying the dead, and thanks to God for the victory. The second speaks of the siege of a town, its surrender and the army marching off. Thus, the vocabulary—206 entries in all—is split into two chains of actions in which the second focuses on an episode of the first. Again, Noviliers’ dictionary is the model, and he certainly followed an earlier source. 8 What we find here is the lexicographical echo of a general rule in art theory, namely that the description of a panorama with many details, as is done in paintings, should be changed into a sequence of actions when appearing in epic or drama. The classical example is the shield of Achilles depicted by Homer in the process 7
The chronological order of the second part is ‘preparing for a journey’. So far unknown to me. Pointing out such interconnections between dictionaries seems important, because it shows how broadly the pragmatic structures are used. They are not the whims of individual authors. 8
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of being made by a blacksmith. The ancient rhetorical rule that spatial arrangements are best memorized when imagined as serial sequences also comes to mind. For topical lexicography we can infer from this that the dictionary compiler may have bound himself or herself to rhetorical norms. Again, they are of a very general nature. (iii) Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between natural seriality and script seriality, the third type of pragmatic structure. Scripts are chains of actions which, taken together, form a serial unity. They have a natural beginning and end. Outside lexicography, well-known examples are ‘going to a restaurant’, ‘sitting an exam’, ‘divine service’, etc. (Ungerer and Schmid 1996, chap. 5). In the narrow sense of the word, scripts are the written versions of ordered conversation as it occurs, for example, in movies. In topical dictionaries, script seriality topicalizes a chain of actions as constituting a unit where the principle of chronological order is not merely a means of facilitating memorization but essential. (Admittedly, the borderline is not always that clear.) Again in Howell’s Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660) we find a series of entries, embedded in the section on man, which covers the biological life of two generations in the format of a script. It starts with the entries A young man, a young maid, moves on to To contract for marriage and The marriage, or wedding and via To get one’s maidenhead, The being with child leads to the entry To bring forth. There then follow words for well-shaped and misshapen babies, for baptism and growth. The entries A pretty boy well grown, A pretty girl well grown lead to the end of the natural cycle. The order of entries is predetermined by reality and, therefore, by general encyclopedic knowledge. The script (or dramatic) seriality of these entries is corroborated by the fact that lexemes already mentioned are repeated in order to keep the chain of actions going. (iv) There is schematic seriality. A schema is an ordering principle such as it appears in a classification of terms according to genera and species whose definitions meet the standards of their time. Its classical fields are the kingdoms of nature, which form an important part in all older topical dictionaries. Its binary development goes back to the rules of formal logic. Schemata are in fact Porphyrian logic adapted to natural phenomena. They have long been regarded as the model cases of taxonomies in general. John Wilkins or John Locke, for example, have the tendency to improve their judgement
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of vocabulary of any language, in the philosophical sense, the more it follows this kind of strict order. 9 Schemata provide the classical categories of human thinking—meeting the Cartesian postulates of claire et distincte—and moving inside them from one layer to the next (up or down) is identified with logical thinking in general. In topical dictionaries, schematic seriality is much more frequently part of the macrostructure than of pragmatic structures. But depending on the size of the dictionary, it may also be found here. In addition to the equine, bovine, canine, etc. species, other categories are used, for example the difference between wild animals and domestic animals, dangerous animals and labouring animals, known animals and unknown ones (like elephants, gryphons, leopards, etc.)—as they appear, for example, in Johannes Murmellius’ popular Latin–German dictionary Pappa (1513). There is also a link here to the system of the four elements by differentiation between animals of the air, the water, and the earth. In pre-Socratic fashion, fire is usually reserved in these dictionaries for man. As the pragmatic structures of dictionaries, such schemata tend to be enriched with folkloristic criteria. Although natural history is the usual topic of such schemata, they also appear in other domains. P. M. Roget (1852), for example, classified musical instruments in this way. 10 (v) Semantic fields are groups of related words of one grammatical class. Roget, for example, follows this principle by dividing his entry articles into groups of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and phrases. The arrangement of semantic fields is a type of pragmatic structure for which the common term ‘seriality’ does not seem to be appropriate. The reason is that fields as such determine the choice of lexemes, but only to a very limited extent their order. This is taken care of by the other structures, already mentioned, such as natural or script seriality. Fields are therefore an overarching principle. Words subjected to strict, natural, script, and schematic seriality can, in most cases, all be said to belong to one field. They are bound together by synonymy. Their members have certain features of meaning in common—those summarized by the ‘archilexeme’ 11 9 P. M. Roget wrote that the sections of his Thesaurus were comparable to the species of plants and animals (Hüllen 2004, 17–20). 10 Entry article 417 in the 1852 edition; entry article 414 in that of 2002. 11 If there is no appropriate lexeme available, an abstractive expression can be used instead.
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of the field name—and differ in others. ‘Fields’ coincide with the structure of schemata except that the relations of members to each other are not classified logically and do not therefore follow a strict order. Rather, the members of a field fit into each other like the stones of a mosaic and together, form a picture. 12 The consequence is that many rules of natural seriality reappear in semantic fields— for example, the order of the rainbow in the field of colour words, the order of popularity (from well-known to exotic) in the field of words of fruit trees, or simply the order from small to big—or big to small—in the field of words of animals or habitats. As is the case with schemata, semantic fields are frequently parts of the macrostructure, but they also occur on the pragmatic level. Roget’s Thesaurus of 1852 and all succeeding editions are organized as semantic fields in fields in fields, etc., until the whole vocabulary of English appears as a superstructure of fields. Because of the preponderance of things and objects in older topical dictionaries, verbs do not occur here too often. But we do find them in typical synonym dictionaries, which, even if alphabetical, may be regarded as being topical in a special way. 13 Abandon, desert, forsake, relinquish and abandon, resign, renounce, abdicate are typical and are to be found in almost all of them (here Crabb 1816). (vi) The concept of ‘field’ demands that only words of one class are grouped together. The new concept of frame, which is rather similar to ‘field’, abandons this condition and groups words of various classes under one semantic term. Its best-known example is perhaps ‘commerce (buying/selling)’, which served as its first illustration in semantics. 14 Frames have a much more descriptive character than fields. They assemble all those lexemes which pertain to one domain of reality and/or life irrespective of word class. However, it is rather seldom that groups of lexemes in the sense of frames come together in a topical dictionary. They are much more likely to be found, for example, in textbooks. There is no reason, however, why such dictionaries should not be put together 12 This metaphor—admittedly more picturesque than present-day semantics allows— was actually used by Jost Trier, who introduced the term to modern linguistics (Trier 1931). For the development of the term in the meantime, see Herbermann (1995). 13 In this case they combine an alphabetical macrostructure with a topical microstructure. 14 The instigator of frame semantics is Charles Fillmore. However, his early publications on this matter are hard to come by (see Aitchison 1987, 287). Competent information is given, for example, in Ungerer and Schmid (1996), Dirven and Verspoor (2004), and in Fillmore (2006).
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by culling the frame-relevant lexemes of all classes. But in the history of lexicography this has not happened. Possibly, there is one exception, however. The special microstructure of Roget’s Thesaurus (1852), which assembles nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and phrases, if all in their own paragraphs, comes close to the concept of frames in the modern sense when combined with each other. (vii) The seventh type of pragmatic structure is what can be called prototypical seriality. It is derived from a rather recent concept (Ungerer and Schmid 1996, 1–59; Aitchison 1987, 66–74) according to which the cognitive order which we impose on reality is not motivated by classical systems—i.e. schemata—but by a salience in the mind which may have many reasons, among them simply tradition, custom, gestalt, and function. Well-known examples are drinking vessels, chairs (Ungerer and Schmid 1996, 20–41), and birds (Aitchison 1987, 53–66). The criterion of prototypical serial arrangement is somewhat difficult to grasp. All kinds of gradations may go into it: from the well-known to the less known, from the frequent to the rare, from the small to the large, from the perfect to the imperfect, from the old to the new, from the near to the distant, etc. The names of fruit trees can (after Howell 1660), for example, be broken down into (i) common indigenous kinds of trees (apple, pear, cherry, plum, apricot, peach), (ii) uncommon indigenous and foreign kinds of trees (fig, mulberry, olive, pomegranate and others), and (iii) vines. This is certainly an order which goes from the generally accepted to the rarely accepted, from the best-known to the least-known case. Even within these groups, prototypical seriality is obvious (apples are commoner than pears, they are both commoner than cherries (etc.)). The rather elusive character of prototypicality may be responsible for the fact that it can be found as a pragmatic structure almost everywhere. As a rule, it works in addition to other pragmatic structures and—as mentioned above—in particular to those that do not produce rigidly fixed orders. There are many cases of mammals, for example—but how can we sequence rabbits, horses, elephants, and kangaroos? (viii) The last pragmatic structure to be mentioned is seriality by feature distinction. Again it is usually combined with other structures, notably prototypical seriality. If we consider word meanings to be
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constituted by semantic features, the presence or absence of one feature may create—potentially large—groups which serve as an ordering principle. If one collects ‘places of habitation, or resort’, as Roget did (1852, par. 189) one can differentiate, for example, between (i) ‘permanent houses for humans’ and (ii) ‘permanent houses for animals’, (iii) ‘temporary man-made places of habitation for humans’, and (iv) such places ‘provided by nature’, and others. This explains the following entries: (i) abode, dwelling, lodging, domicile, residence, address, habitation, local habitation, berth, seat, lap, sojourn, housing, quarters, headquarters, resiance, tabernacle, throne, ark (ii) nest, nidus, lair, habitat, haunt, eyry, den, hole, aerie, rookery, hive, resort, retreat, perch, roost; nidification. (iii) bivouac, camp, encampment, cantonment, castrametation, tent, wigwam, awning. (iv) cave, cavern, cell, grove, grot, grotto, alcove, bower, arbour, cove, chamber, etc. Within each of these groups, prototypical seriality can then be applied. 15 One special adaptation of feature theory is synonym discrimination. It proceeds by determining certain features which two (or more) lexemes have in common and, in so doing, by determining those features that are different. Logically speaking, it is particularly elegant if this difference is defined by plus and minus in only one feature. The technique can be easily studied in all synonym dictionaries. The systematic juxtaposition of lexemes and their antonyms, as in Roget’s Thesaurus (1852) but also in other dictionaries, is a special case of synonym discrimination because a perfect antonym is equal to a synonym except that one hierarchically high feature is negative in one case whereas it is positive in the other (or the other way round). In general, topical dictionaries abound in synonyms—or at least in presenting series of lexemes which can be regarded and used as such. What was earlier called ‘feature selection’ could in very many cases also be called ‘synonym discrimination’. Together with finding antonyms it is a well-known 15 Numbers added. The entry article has ten more paragraphs which could be given the following headings: ‘habitation as home’, ‘habitation as building for humans’, ‘habitation as building for animals’, ‘kinds of houses’, ‘functions of houses’, ‘kinds of places (from hamlet to metropolis)’, ‘kinds of streets’, ‘habitations for ships’.
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method of explaining words in ordinary speech. Dead is not being alive, small is not being big, narrow is not being wide, etc.
8.3 The undergrowth Human beings store the words of language(s) in their minds. The way in which this is done is open only to careful and intelligent observation. Most important in this respect are retrieval techniques. But language is also an ideational structure which exists over and above the individual speakers. The so-called mental lexicon (Aitchison 1987), the representation of the words in the mind, 16 is the locus where language as an ideational and language as a mental phenomenon meet. The semantic structure of background knowledge and the pragmatic structures of linguistic seriality have obviously both a cognitive base, i.e. they have mental reality. This is why they are necessary as path-finding devices. It is important to see that the pragmatic structures outlined here are certainly not the only ones that exist. Others come to our mind almost immediately, for example antonymy or collocation. Stating something by rejecting its opposite is a frequent technique of argumentation which shows that a word and its antonym must be stored close to each other and both are easily retrievable. By definition, collocating words occur together. But there are certainly more such strategies, and they can also be situation-dependent and quite idiosyncratic. Owing to the nature of pragmatic rules, the structures mentioned vary enormously in their applicability. Some pertain to only two words, some to almost every word conceivable. This is why only a typology but no system can be set up. The types may work on their own and in combination with each other. For two reasons it is important and interesting to deal with them. First, pragmatic structures support the handling of semantic structures. They relieve the users of the strain of keeping the framework of a whole dictionary in their memories when seeking local linguistic information. Nobody can be permanently aware of the ‘great plan’. The attention of dictionary users is therefore directed towards clusters of medium size with varying numbers of entries below the various criteria of 16
Something similar applies to phonetic, grammatical, and textual structures.
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the macrostructure. But seriality also relieves the users of the strain of memorizing single words. Instead, they keep groups of words in their minds. It is neither the great plan nor the individual word which the dictionary user must remember, it is some group between the two which is geared to his memorizing capacity. Making use of the concept of prototypicality, we could say that these clusters between the macrostructure and single entries are the prototypical sections of enquiry. It is like finding one’s way in a large dark room with the help of a rather limited torchlight. Second, the insight to be gained from this is that in these lower regions of topical dictionaries there is semantic order, too, not the imposed, carefully planned, and in many cases carefully explained order of macrostructures but the normal order of language use which is determined by the way in which we store language in our minds. In determining the pragmatic structures of such dictionaries, we see the compiling authors at work, handling language according to the cognitive rules given. Cognition of language is the ground common to dictionary author and user. Obviously, the cognitive rules for language storage are quite divergent and flexible. Human speakers can shape them according to their needs and their intentions. They map them to each other. It seems important to stress that the pragmatic rules of language as visible in historical and in present-day dictionaries may be compared to the undergrowth rather than to a line of carefully planted beds in a garden. Turning this argument on its head, we can say that historical topical dictionaries are a great reservoir of evidence confirming the deliberations of cognitive linguistics. It is astonishing that they have not yet been revealed in this light. Roget’s Thesaurus is a most suitable case in point.
9 The Didactic Potential of Thesauri 9.1 Retrieval techniques 9.2 Thesaurus structure and word meanings 9.2.1 The macrostructure explicitly given 9.2.2 Pragmatic structures implied 9.2.2.1 Headword index 9.2.2.2 Entry articles 9.3 The essential gain
9.1 Retrieval techniques Whoever consults an alphabetical dictionary is looking for local information. As a rule, its size is limited to a word or an idiomatic phrase. Their meanings may be unknown because they are part of a different register in one’s own language or part of a different one altogether. This is why people consult an explanatory dictionary, monolingual or bilingual. Admittedly, there are cases which transcend this narrow purpose, for instance, when the member lexemes of a semantic field are being searched for. But even then a number of individual acts of consultation are performed rather than a single non-local one. Moreover, a search such as this is usually outside the dictionary’s genuine purpose. It is driven by some metalevel idea, often an academic one. Without any doubt, ordinary users 1 who consult a dictionary are not interested in the store of words as such. It is merely a condition for answering their local need for information, and it is not accessible in toto anyway. It is therefore a potential. The retrieval techniques offered to the users in a dictionary in order for them to find the targeted word are real, as is the recognition 1 For reasons which hopefully will become clear later, I always speak of ‘users’ of alphabetical dictionaries and ‘readers’ of dictionaries of synonyms and thesauri.
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of this word itself. Therefore, we should obviously distinguish in a dictionary, first, a potential of linguistic possibilities, printed on paper or stored electronically; second, retrieval techniques which allow users to select and find the items of their choice from this potential; and, third, the acts of acquiring local information. Only the last two have what can be called cognitive presence. It is a matter of everyday experience that the greater the store of potential words, the more successful the cognitive acts of retrieval can be. This pertains to the use of a dictionary according to its purposes. As soon as we move to the metalevel and reflect on dictionaries, as in this chapter, things are of course different. It is not without interest that this tripartite relationship also prevails in other areas of language-related reality. A library, for example, is a store of books with the cosmos of information they contain, physically kept in stacks, cognitively inaccessible in toto and, as such, therefore hardly of interest to ordinary readers. Its system of retrieval techniques, i.e. the selection 2 and loan procedure, however, enables them to consult whichever book they are interested in. The intake of information proceeds from this consultation. These two latter procedures are cognitively present in the mind of the library user. Moreover, the human brain seems to be structured in very much the same way. All the words which we understand or use meaningfully in a lifetime are stored there—somewhere and somehow. They are accessible by using certain retrieval techniques—and only by them. Unlike their appearance in dictionaries and libraries, these retrieval techniques are very hard to recognize in the workings of our brain. It is a normal life experience that they vary— culturally, situationally, biographically, mnemotechnically, individually, and otherwise. In everyday language, retrieval means ‘finding what seemed lost, remembering’. Quite often we are surprised by words which we still remember (although we never use them) just as much as by words which we have forgotten (and which we are reminded of). These facts render the substratum of our memory in the brain almost inscrutable. The only thing we can be sure of is that the ‘black box’ and our linguistic retrieval abilities are two separate phenomena of our cognitive apparatus. General anxiety can result from this about the limits of our linguistic knowledge in 2
What the store of books is for the library, the catalogue is for the retrieval techniques.
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general. There may be pieces of information which are permanently inaccessible to us—in dictionaries, in libraries, and in our own cognitive organ because the retrieval techniques do not allow them to (re)appear. These reflections will be agreed with but also queried by lexicographers because, after all, the retrieval technique of a dictionary is very simple. It is the alphabet. Dictionary users usually take it for granted that the entries of the book in front of them are ordered in this way. Indeed, this is normally so. The alphabet is a cultural artefact with the widest possible currency, at least in those parts of the world where languages with alphabetical writing systems are spoken. They are perhaps the only linguistic convention which is universally acknowledged and has never been contested in its history. Nevertheless, the alphabet is not a natural law but a rule system of human making. These rules are external to language, i.e. they are etic, not part of the emic system. In order to retrieve some local information from a dictionary, people must have learnt the alphabet by heart. If they have done so, they can be sure to have an instrument which works effectively without exception. 3 There are some default cases. For example, homographs (e.g. lead=guide and lead=[metal]) cannot be distinguished. Other difficulties are created by letters or diacritics not in common use (like ß and ü in German and Turkish, accents and the haˇcek in French and Czech respectively). These default cases do not, however, violate the system. We must simply learn and interiorize them as an extension to the general alphabet. This (the alphabet) is so common that it is not the system itself but only its exceptions and additions that are usually mentioned and explained in the introductory paratexts of dictionaries. The alphabet may be present in the human mind as an abstract schema. But we do not remember words by it, except by a kind of force against nature. Working with an alphabetical dictionary partakes in this force. The alphabet is indeed the artificial macrostructure of what is usually called a dictionary (Wiegand 2003, 217–33). But there are also dictionaries with a non-alphabetical macrostructure. They have their entries arranged according to semantic affinity. This is a principle within the linguistic system, i.e. it is emic. Such 3
From now on, deliberations are limited to the Latin alphabet.
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dictionaries are used with intentions which are different from those which motivate the use of the alphabetical type. Dictionaries with words arranged according to semantic affinities stand at the beginning of post-classical European dictionary making. 4 They established a tradition through the centuries until today. In the context of historical lexicography and of cultural history they are of outstanding importance, although alphabetical dictionaries have overtaken them in the market. Both the origin and the historical development of semantically arranged dictionaries were very similar in most European languages. The relevant works preceded alphabetical word lists as semantic glossaries and then developed into classified Latin–English and English–Latin works which were used for language teaching and language learning. They were given various names, besides ‘dictionary’ itself, for example, ‘nomenclator’, ‘vocabulary’, and ‘thesaurus’. 5 They are now called ‘onomasiological’, ‘ideational’, or ‘topical’ dictionaries. 6 They dichotomize with ‘alphabetical’ or ‘semasiological’ dictionaries or just with ‘dictionary’. Besides being works in their own right, they were and are integrated into schoolbooks, dialogues, treatises of different kinds, for example those explaining skills (agriculture, seafaring, etc.) and technical devices. In the 20th century, many comprehensive works appeared in various European languages with the ambition of presenting all the pertinent words according to a semantic order. 7 If we measure them against the alphabetical kind, nonalphabetical dictionaries are explaining dictionaries in reverse. Whereas alphabetical dictionaries give the word as a linguistic sign in the leftmost position of an entry and juxtapose it with a semantic explanation (for example, in the form of a definition or a sample 4 The ‘topical tradition’ in English has been extensively researched and described in Hüllen 1999. Earlier treatments are to be found in historiographical works as, for example, Stein 1985. 5 For example, John Withals: A shorte Dictionary for yonge begynners (1553), Adrianus Junius: Nomenclator omnium rerum (1577), John Greenwood: The London Vocabulary (c.1700), Peter Mark Roget: Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1852). The name of Roget’s book, which has been on sale ever since its first publication, has become a generic noun (like ‘hoover’ for vacuum cleaner), at least in the English tradition. 6 ‘Onomasiological’ is mostly used in Germany, ‘ideational’ in France, ‘topical’ in the UK. 7 For example, Franz Dornseiff: Der deutsche Wortschatz (orig. 1934, 2004), L. Brouwers: Het Juiste Woord (1973), Julio Casares: Diccionario ideológico de la lengua española (1942), Theodore Bostanjoglou: Antilexicon, or Onomasticon of the Neo-hellenistic Language (1962), V. V. Morkovkin et al.: Leksichevskaja osnova Russkogo jazyka– Kompleksny uchebny slovar (1984), and others.
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sentence, or, in the case of a bilingual dictionary, of a translation), thesauri start from a statement of a meaning and then juxtapose it with one or several words as the matching linguistic signs. According to this difference in their semiotic structure, the semasiological (alphabetical) and the onomasiological (non-alphabetical) dictionaries serve different purposes. The semasiological is most useful as a support of receptive performance. Words read or heard, which remain unintelligible, can be semanticized by looking them up in their alphabetical places. Onomasiological dictionaries are most useful as a support for productive performance. Meanings, only commonly and inaccurately expressed, can be made precise and adequate for the communicative aims of speakers and writers. They find the relevant synonyms here and are even provided with a choice of words usable as alternatives for stylistic and textual reasons. Note: Word not understood: addiction Explained: A[ddiction] is the condition of taking harmful drugs and being unable to stop taking them. (COBUILD) General idea of meaning: habit Words of similar meanings: habit disposition; habit of mind, temperament; habitude, assuetude, force of habit; familiarity, second nature; study, occupation; addiction, confirmed habit [. . . ]. (Roget)
Semantic affinity is a characteristic feature of synonymy, if we understand the term in a broad sense. Dictionaries with entries arranged according to this principle can, therefore, also be called synonym dictionaries. The definition of synonymy is semiotically and linguistically rather complex. Important in the present context 8 is that synonyms are words which share areas of their meanings and can, therefore, replace each other in texts. As all the words of a language have such common areas of meanings, they all have, in a broad understanding of the term, synonyms. These can be assembled in so-called semantic fields. This aspect is essential for language use because it is essential for the semantic determination of lexemes. 9 A lexeme without any semantic overlap with other 8 In order to avoid the terminological difficulties which regularly arise when the ‘meaning’ of a ‘sign’ has to be discussed, I will resort to the metaphor that words (signs) have a ‘semantic area (region, ground)’ which they denote. At least partly, these semantic areas can be mapped upon each other in order to allow for comparisons. I am aware of the drawbacks of this planar image for a mental (cognitive) process. 9 See this volume. Exceptions are proper names and indexical lexemes such as pronouns.
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lexemes would be unexplainable and therefore communicatively dead. As mentioned above, in thesauri the statement of meanings precedes the nomination of linguistic signs whose denotation these meanings present. It can be made, for example, by using pictures, but is mostly given as the headword of an entry in the form of a hypernym. 10 The relationship of the words in an entry to the headword is therefore that of hyponym and co-hyponym. Following the principle that the meaning of any hypernym is contained in the meaning of any hyponym, we can count this relationship as belonging to synonymy, too. Note as an example, entry article 716 of Roget (2002): Contest [hypernym as headword synonym to the following entries] trial, trial of strength, test of endurance, tug-of-war, tug of love [synonyms to the headword] marathon, triathlon, pentathlon, decathlon [four co-hyponyms to the headword]
As a rule, the term ‘synonym’ is not used in the broad sense but reserved for such words as have a large common ground in meaning and, in consequence, only small areas of different ground which set them apart from each other. It is easy to show that in Europe, starting with the Sophists of the 3rd century BC, synonyms have always been used in this capacity and have been collected in order to enhance the linguistic abilities of speakers (Hüllen 2004, 73–118). When using them, these speakers are confronted with two alternatives. They can either use synonyms as linguistic signs with identical meanings or they can use them as linguistic signs with finely differentiated meanings. That is, they can either use them in their overlapping or in their non-overlapping semantic ground. Whatever people do is the result of their cognitive work. The terms ‘accumulating synonyms’ and ‘differentiating synonyms’, which are often used in this context, do, therefore, not pertain to any quality of lexemes themselves (as is often stated) but to a decision by language users on how to use them in texts. This is also the case when people read thesauri. However, it is true that some lexemes lend themselves much more easily to the 10 For example, Jan Amos Comenius’ world-famous Orbis sensualium pictus (1659 with many reprints, Hüllen 1999, 392–418); in our present time Jean-Claude Corbeil and Ariane Archambault: PONS. Bildwörterbuch Deutsch–Englisch–Französisch–Spanisch (1992).
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one or to the other type of use. Special dictionaries which collect such synonyms in the narrow sense are often hybrids which unite the onomasiological and the semasiological, the alphabetical and the non-alphabetical, principle because they order the headwords alphabetically. Semantic ordering rests on synonymy in the widest sense, and synonymy is essential to the lexis of natural languages. In consequence, retrieval in the relevant dictionaries does not make use of an extrinsic principle like the alphabet. Recognizing words as members (synonyms) of a semantic field means making use of an intrinsic linguistic property. This is quite common for people who handle their language without consulting dictionaries. Recognizing similarities between word meanings, juxtaposing positive and negative meanings (antonyms), or differentiating words by shades of their meanings can all be met with, as it were, in the street. Note, for example, such common sentences as: Whether you call this a shed or a sty doesn’t really matter, it is a narrow and dirty place. (=recognizing similarity) At 18 you are not a child any longer but an adult. (=juxtaposing oppositions) This man was not killed in an accident, he was murdered. (=differentiating shades of meanings)
Remembering the words of a field—like colours, rooms of a building, or kinds of animals—is an achievement of linguistic competence which is taken for granted in educated native speakers. Together with many others, these cognitive procedures are part of the mental lexicon (Aitchison 1987). In spite of all this, retrieval techniques in thesauri are felt to be difficult to understand and to handle. The semantic order presented there is not a tool which guarantees quick and faultless retrieval as the alphabet does. The question, namely, is how the unlimited possibilities of semantic affinities can be ordered and rendered available. As our knowledge of the world, objective and ideational, is stored in words and is the sum of their meanings, this question concerns the possibility of rendering a world view in toto. This is why thesaurus authors often go out of their way to explain how people should consult their books. This is also why some lexicographers who
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do not believe in the efficiency of these explanations call thesauri ‘useless bestsellers’ (Wiegand 1994). The cognitive processes involved in consulting semantically arranged dictionaries differ from those concerned with alphabetical ones in principle. The tripartite relations mentioned above are the same. But the store of words as such is not inaccessible in its order and not without interest for dictionary readers. On the contrary, compilers are eager to present it by ‘plans of classification’ 11 and other means of explicit arrangement. The readers must take note of them—even if not word for word—in order to find the locus of the entry they are looking for. They are explicit supports for retrieval of a holistic kind. They usually operate with hierarchical terminology and work on several levels of logical derivation. They tend to mirror the order of human knowledge and are therefore philosophically interesting. They show what this order was (or is) as at a given moment in history. They envisage large lexical chunks of the language. The readers’ need and wish for information when consulting a thesaurus may initially be local in the strict sense, because they are looking for just one word which can replace another one. But in order to be successful, they must adopt a top-down approach and address several, or possibly a large group of, words. The thesaurus is like a whole library or the entire memory of a human mind laid open in its principles of order. Roget’s Thesaurus is unique in the English-speaking world in that it has operated for more than 150 years on the same retrieval plan (macrostructure) although the store of words has, of course, changed considerably. In discussing it, we will find that there are not only explicit but also implicit semantic structures of the lexis of English to be found which correspond to explicit and implicit retrieval techniques. This fact contains a considerable didactic potential. Further deliberations will be devoted only to this book.
9.2 Thesaurus structure and word meanings 9.2.1 The macrostructure explicitly given
The Anniversary Edition of 2002 12 shows a macrostructure on three levels: classes (six with two additional subclasses called ‘divisions’), 11
Thus in Roget’s Thesaurus. This is my standard work of reference. There is an even more recent edition of 2004. For a thorough structural analysis of the thesaurus see Hüllen 2004, 323–90. 12
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sections (between three and eight in each class), and groups (my term; Hüllen 2004, 331; between zero and five in each section). They are given in the ‘Plan of classification’ and the ‘Tabular synopsis of categories’. 13 Except for unimportant details, they have been retained from Roget’s original edition of 1852. The far-sighted concept of the first author which is revealed by this permanence has often and rightly been praised. He did not adopt a given schema, but—as we see today—modelled the order of his Thesaurus on several relevant works such as, for example, on John Wilkins’s so-called ‘Tables’ in his Essay Towards a Real Character, And a Philosophical Language (1668), John Locke’s division of the sciences in the last chapter of the Essay on Human Understanding (1689), Carl von Linné’s Systema naturae (1735), Jeremy Bentham’s so-called ‘chrestomatic table’ (1816), and George Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom (1840), which was modelled on Linné’s system (Christmann 1992). The terms used as names for this classification mirror what could be called the classical weltbild of the natural sciences as it developed during the 18th and 19th centuries and is still current in the popular views on the matter that govern our thinking and our language. The six overarching classes are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Abstract relations Space Matter Intellect (The exercise of the mind) Volition (The exercise of the will) Emotion, religion and morality [originally called ‘affections’].
This macrostructure allocates to each of the 990 headwords its locus in the system. The headwords are, as it were, the flags of the following entry articles, i.e. they are the points of reference of the subsequent rows of words. Contrary to earlier editions, many entry articles have each a headword and several additional keywords which are marked by italics and which open a paragraph each. 14 Because of the principle, already mentioned, that the meaning of each hypernym is part of the meaning of each hyponym, the classes, 13 There are some further divisions on the level of subsections printed in brackets which can be ignored. 14 The first keyword of an entry article is always identical with the headword, as it is given in the headword index. So it might be called either headword or keyword. The following first lexemes that introduce paragraphs of synonyms are called keywords.
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sections, and groups reappear in the meanings of the headwords and keywords and subsequent lexemes. Note the following example: Entry article 475 Reasoning belongs to Class 4 (intellect), division I (formation of ideas), section 4 (reasoning process). It has six keywords: reasoning, premise, argumentation, argument, reasons, reasoner. 15 The word entry ratiocination is bound as a synonym to ‘premise’ and as a hyponym to ‘reasoning process’ and ‘formation of ideas’. Part of its meaning could therefore be paraphrased as ‘ratiocination is a (kind of) premise, which is a special reasoning process as the possibility of the formation of ideas, and all of this belongs to the exercises of the mind, i.e. the intellect’. Indeed, it is not difficult to define on an informal basis each word entry of the thesaurus in this way, as far as the abstract features— i.e. the coarse-grained allocations of vocabulary—are concerned. Examples of fabricated definitions: 16 State of being (7 state) is a modality of existence and as such an abstract relation. Synchrony (123 synchronism) is an abstract order of time relative to succession and as such an abstract relation. Wayfaring (267 land travel) is a general kind of motion in space. Adam’s ale (339 water) is a specific fluid in the world of inorganic matter. Smell (394 odour) is a special sensation of vitality in the world of organic matter. Cognition (490 knowledge) is one result of reasoning in the process of the formation of ideas which is an exercise of the mind (intellect). Speech (557 language) is a conventional means of communicating ideas which is an exercise of the mind. Motivation (612 motive) is the complex of causes for volition in general which is an exercise of the individual will. Commitment (764 promise) is an instance of conditional social volition. Alleviation (831 relief ) is a passive personal emotion.
In order to grasp the full meanings of words, these definitions have, of course, to be complemented by the mentioning of concrete 15 I disregard the fact that Roget’s Thesaurus has a fixed sequence of word classes (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs). It is an important feature of this collection of synonyms, but has no impact on retrieval techniques. 16 The definiendum is the word entry, in brackets are the number of the entry article and the headword or keyword. Classes and sections can be extracted from the paraphrases. For the use of such definitions in the classroom, see later.
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features that differentiate the lexemes from each other. The important idea is not whether the classes, sections, and groups mirror the world correctly—after all, a thesaurus is not an ontological treatise. There is also no doubt that some of the sections are hardly convincing if we look at them as strict hyponyms of the six classes. There are certain domains of reality which do not lend themselves easily to this kind of ordering. Note, for example, entry articles 514–520 (meaning, intelligibility, metaphor, interpretation and their negative counterparts) as hyponyms of ‘nature of ideas communicated’. One would rather expect such terms as ‘abstract vs concrete’, ‘general vs individual’, ‘complex vs simple’, etc. The important idea is that the cognitive processes which are needed in order to become aware of the meaning of a word—either by intuition or by reflection—are themselves explicitly named in the categories of the macrostructure. The semantic arrangement of the thesaurus (macrostructure), as explained in the classes, sections, and groups, is part of the general definition of each word. It marks great chunks of words of the English language, because they have a common semantic ground on the abstract levels of their meanings and are therefore more synonymous with each other than with other words, without being synonyms in the strict sense. 17 This allows the readers of Roget’s Thesaurus who are looking for some local information to concentrate on a narrower group of entries after being confronted with the thesaurus in its entirety. 9.2.2 Pragmatic structures implied 9.2.2.1 Headword index
The semantic arrangement (macrostructure) is not the whole definition, however. Attention to the headword index, i.e. the headwords of entry articles from 1 to 990, is the next step any user of the thesaurus will take when trying to retrieve some special term (word). This index shows an implicit order whose categories obviously vary from group to group and are neither stated nor explained anywhere. 18 They can be called ‘situational’ or 17
See similar ideas in Kay and Roberts (2004) concerning the Thesaurus of Old English. The editor of the Anniversary Edition describes in his ‘Instructions’ the sequence of headwords and of the synonyms within entry articles as ‘logical’. This is only correct if he does not mean ‘logical in the strict sense’ but simply ‘not arbitrary’. 18
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19
‘pragmatic’. Therefore, the thesaurus readers have to supply such structures out of their own linguistic knowledge. Retrieval, therefore, does not just follow the categories given, which trigger the functions of memory, it depends additionally on an activation of tacit linguistic knowledge. There is only one exception to this, namely the juxtaposition of positive vs negative meanings, which is such an outstanding feature of Roget’s book. It is not explained either, but was, already in 1852, clearly indicated in the choice of headwords 20 and the twocolumn arrangement in print. It was Roget’s original idea to do this, obviously relying on the fact that one of the most common ways of handling word meanings is to negate their antonyms. 21 It is therefore much to be regretted that subsequent editors did away with this visual juxtaposition. George Davidson at least retains it in the ‘Tabular synopsis of categories’, but drops it in the thesaurus itself. This means that readers, in looking through articles, have constantly to remind themselves of whether they are, semantically speaking, on the positive or the negative side. This is particularly confusing where entry articles are positioned in a grading intermediate between these alternatives, e.g. 15 Difference (between 13 Identity and 14 Contrarity), 30 Mean (between 28 Equality and 29 Inequality), and 70 Middle (between 68 Beginning and 69 End), etc. 22 The precise relation between the two opposites of a pair of lexemes is never specified. A thesaurus is not an ontological treatise, as has been stated, but it is not a logical one either. Differences between, for example, directional oppositions (depart–arrive), orthogonal (north–south), antipodal (black–white, but not black – blue), cyclical (winter–summer), and graded oppositions (icy, cold– warm, hot, boiling) are to be found, without any explanation, only motivated by their occurrence in lexicalized vocabulary. Rightly, language use—which does not differentiate between these relations (Lyons 1977, I, 270–90)—is more important for a thesaurus than logical precision. 19 The choice of this term in Hüllen (2004, 323–7) was prompted by text linguistics. Assuming that thesauri are texts in the full linguistic sense, they have a semantic structure (macrostructure), a syntactic structure (the formal order of entries), and pragmatic (situational, context-bound) structures. 20 For example, 1 Existence – 2 Nonexistence, 3 Substantiality – 4 Insubstantiality, 5 Intrinsicality – 6 Extrinsicality, etc. 21 For example, ‘Being alive means not being dead.’ 22 The most likely reason for this is, of course, the reduction in printing costs.
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It is again to the credit of Peter Mark Roget that most of the headwords of entry articles have been retained for 150 years, although the articles themselves, i.e. the rows of synonyms, which they introduce, have changed considerably. Obviously in most cases, Roget’s choice allowed the succeeding editors to subsume the new vocabulary—even the naming of things which did not exist at all at Roget’s time—under the old headwords. This is obviously so although their choice and their arrangement in opposing pairs also betray many traits of Roget’s own era-bound thinking, which it would be very worth while discussing (Hüllen 2004, 347–50). The concepts which the reader has to supply are variable. Of supreme importance is so-called tacit encyclopedic knowledge. 23 Konerding and Wiegand (1994, 106, 126–7, and passim) distinguish between ‘object knowledge’, ‘gestalt knowledge’, and ‘functional knowledge’. 24 The first pertains to objects, persons, organisms, events, states, properties, etc.; the second pertains to measures, colours, designs, special visual properties; and the third to intentions, roles, habitat, part–whole relations, accidental properties, etc. These are the aspects which are used for popular definitions and paraphrases. It is characteristic of this kind of knowledge that it defies strict systematization. For the headword index of the thesaurus this means, depending on the nature of (a group of) the headwords, 25 general knowledge and experience are activated concerning the aspects mentioned. They usually remain unarticulated but are available on demand. Their influence on the semantic recognition of lexemes is certainly strong, but mostly undetected (Kay and Roberts 2004, 64). To them also belong symbolic knowledge and popularized forms of academic knowledge. Note as examples: For tacit encyclopedic knowledge: 534 Teaching, 535 Misteaching, 536 Learning, 537 Teacher, 538 Learner, 539 School; for symbolic knowledge: 126 Newness, 127 Oldness, 128 Morning, 129 Evening, 130 Youth, 131 Age; for popularized academic knowledge: 557 Language, 558 Letter, 559 Word, 560 Neology, 561 Nomenclature, 562 Misnomer, 563 Phrase, 564 Grammar, 565 Solecism, 566 Style, 567 Perspicuity, 568 Imperspicuity, 569 Conciseness, 570 Diffuseness. 23 The term tacit knowledge implies that there is no sharp line between language-based and encyclopedic knowledge. 24 Objektwissen, Gestaltwissen, funktionales Wissen; my translations, W. H. 25 Headwords are always nouns.
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The number of headwords in one group of entry articles is rather limited, which is good for retrieval. In particular, the juxtaposition of positive and negative articles helps to shorten the sequence which has to be comprehended. They form a double-unit for attention, which facilitates using the book because positive and negative entry articles taken together almost never exceed ten in one group. 26 If they do, they are supported by some additional headings which narrow the group down further. In fact, for thesaurus readers with some practice, the group will be the prototypical unit to work with. It holds the middle ground between abstract categories and mere taxonomies of lexeme meanings. The travelling eye can easily identify and use a group as a conspectus of such words as are relevant in a special search. The large chunks of words in the classes and sections are broken down and become the small-world models of words in groups (Old 2003, 36). They are distinguished by a high probability of co-occurrence in real-world communication and thus by common sense. Note the following example: Class VI (Emotion, religion and morality) section 1 (general): 817–823 in five (pairs of) articles section 2 (personal emotion) group 1 (passive): 824–840 in nine (pairs of) articles group 2 (discriminative): 841–851 in seven (pairs of) articles group 3 (prospective): 852–863 in eight (pairs of) articles group 4 (contemplative): 864–865 in one pair of articles group 5 (extrinsic): 866–879 in nine (pairs of) articles. In the various groups an irregular sequence of entry articles—either only positive, or positive vs negative, or only negative—is to be found; but the sum never exceeds nine. 9.2.2.2 Entry articles
However, more implicit pragmatic concepts which give order to the sequence of lexemes are to be found in the entry articles themselves. They pertain to keywords, synonyms, and lists, 27 and—in 26
It is to be greatly regretted that this juxtaposition has not been realized in print. Fields are collections of words which denote meanings close to each other in the real world; members of fields belong to one word class (e.g. words (nouns) for various kinds of buildings). Frames are collections of words which occur in typical situations or actions; members of a frame belong to different word classes but have preferred syntactic structures (e.g. ‘selling and buying’). See Ungerer and Schmid 1996, 205–49; Hüllen 2004, 40–63). 27
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the background—semantic features, fields, and frames. It does not matter whether they were deliberately, but covertly, used by Roget or by Davidson, or whether they are merely the surface of cognitive language processing. After all, Roget and his followers were nativelanguage speakers with their own competence. The entry articles vary enormously in length and in their interior arrangement. The pertinent motivation for this variety is regularly the meaning of the headword in the context of class, section, and group, i.e. it is of a semantic nature. There is also much formal correspondence. Every entry article starts with a keyword which is identical with the headword. 28 In most cases, additional keywords (given in italics) initiate new paragraphs. This creates an individual paragraph structure which alleviates the retrieval process. All paragraphs consist of rows of lexemes or phrases, separated either by a comma or by a semicolon. The keyword gives the name of a semantic field or frame, of which it is itself a member. Mostly, they move from the general to the specific. This means that there is at least a limited synonymy between them which can be used mutually for word definition. The keywords show the (normal) polysemy of the headword. Read in sequence, they provide many elements for a complete definition of word meanings with the help of such general categories as appear in the classes, sections, and groups of the thesaurus and with the additional help of tacit encyclopedic, symbolic, and otherwise popular knowledge. Note as an example: 350 headword: stream: water in motion keywords: stream (identical with headword) = a geographical phenomenon current = water or anything comparable in motion, more general than stream eddy = special kind (1) of geographical phenomenon and water in motion A list is a series of words pertaining to one field which denotes various precisely delimited and well-ordered items of that field. This is why they belong to synonyms. 414 Musical instruments gives a typical list. Its members are usually not meant to be replaceable but, on the contrary, to be kept apart. However, there are contexts imaginable where this is indeed the case. Note: When musicians complain about the difficulty of carrying their bulky instruments, the player of a piccolo flute might say: My cello is in my breast pocket. 28 The following analysis is very selective, following the aim of this chapter, and as non-technical as possible. Because of lack of space, my examples pertain to nouns only. The obvious preponderance of nouns in the original Roget has been subsequently much counterbalanced, in particular in the Anniversary Edition, although it is still present.
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waterfall = special kind (2) of geographical phenomenon and water in motion wave = special kind (3) of geographical phenomenon and water in motion rain = meteorological phenomenon and water in motion.
These keywords can be combined to yield a more comprehensive definition: Stream is water, i.e. inorganic matter in space, pushed along by waves in different kinds of motion, as e.g. turning around, precipitating from high to low, or as rain falling out of the sky. In this way, the abstract meaning definition of a headword is underpinned by the subsequent keywords with a sometimes considerable number of distinguishing details. Each paragraph under a keyword repeats a certain order. What the paragraph is for the entry article, the word group 29 between semicolons is for the paragraph. The first is usually a row of true synonyms to the keyword, including proper names; 30 it is followed by specifications of various sorts, either indicated by modifying adjectives or lexemes in their own meaning. Linguistically, they have a special semantic feature 31 in common. The synonyms in the opening row are certainly meant to be exchangeable, but they can also be used in a differentiating manner. However, this presupposes considerable linguistic skill, towards the achievement of which the Thesaurus does not lend any support. 32 The number and kinds of specifications (lexical features) are, of course, dependent on the subject matter. They can be of a logical or encyclopedic or even an idiosyncratic nature. They show people’s linguistic and tacit encyclopedic knowledge. This arrangement entails that the words inside a group, which is limited by a semicolon, tend to be synonyms, but not the words between groups. That is, synonymy does, as a rule, not cross the semicolon. This is important for a proper understanding of the thesaurus. Note as an example: 29 ‘Word group’ on the level of entry articles is not to be confused with ‘groups of headwords’ on the level of macrostructure. 30 They are synonyms only when used metaphorically. 31 Semantic features are meaning specifications with a differentiating function. For example: float means ‘being carried by water without any movements of its own’ (as piece of wood, dead body); swim means ‘being carried by water with the help of its own movements’ (as a human being, fish). 32 It is important to keep in mind that Roget’s Thesaurus is meant for use by native speakers.
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350 headword: stream: water in motion keyword: stream synonyms: first word group: stream = running water, watercourse, river, Amazon [eight more words] second word group: subterranean river; feature: subterranean third word group: navigable river, waterway; feature: navigable fourth word group: tributary, branch, feeder, distributary; feature: feeding fifth word group: streamlet, rivulet, brook, brooklet [eight more words], feature: smallness sixth word group: freshet, torrent, mountain t., force; feature: destructive power seventh word group: arroyo, wadi; feature: dried up eighth word group: spring, fountain, fountainhead, headwaters; feature: source ninth word group: jet, spout, gush; feature: under pressure source tenth word group: geyser, hot spring; feature: pressed source and temperature (heat) eleventh word group: well, store; feature: store.
Depending on the matter that is denoted by the headword and the keywords, some rows of words are not synonyms but members of a list. They are given in a fairly strict order and cannot replace each other. 33 It looks as if the new editions of Roget’s Thesaurus include more and more lists, as compared to the original version of 1852. This is particularly so with the Anniversary Edition of 2002. There is obviously a growing interest in the encyclopedic knowledge behind this. It is also answered by additional boxes which give lists alphabetically. Note as an example: 551 representation, keyword: art entries (list) among others: classical art, oriental a., Byzantine a., Renaissance a., Trecento, Quattrocento, Cinquecento, Baroque, Rococo; art nouveau, Jugendstil, art deco, modern art, abstract art [. . . ].
This means the whole paragraph of an entry article contributes to providing conceptual material for the semantic determination of the headword, and this determination decides on the range of 33 Exceptions to this are cases where members of lists are used as metaphors or metonymies. They cannot be discussed here.
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synonymy between words. In addition to the macrostructure and the headword index, the whole entry article provides elements to the meaning definitions of the word contained in it. The method is not formalized according to the standards of contemporary semantics (if this is supposed to be the case), but it is rich, realistic, and practical. A means of stimulating retrieval techniques which hovers between the explicit and the implicit are cross-references (Old 2003). There is an abundance of them in Roget’s Thesaurus, although there are entry articles—in particular those full of lists— with only a few. Cross-references are a way of pointing out overlapping meanings, i.e. synonymy, which undercuts the macrostructure and even the article structure of the Thesaurus. A conspectus of the total system, which could only be the result of a thorough electronic analysis of the whole thesaurus (Old 2003), would certainly yield many semantic relations so far hidden. In all cases, cross-references point to the headwords or the keywords of entry articles. This means their target is not just one lexeme, but the lexical small-world relationship of an entry article or part of it, which—in practically all cases—has its own crossreferences to more head- or keywords, and so on. Following even a single case can result in a mind-boggling impression of the general interconnections of linguistic units, i.e. words. There are cross-references pointing to places within a paragraph or an entry article. More interesting are those that point to a different entry article, or even section and class. The semantic relationship between the paragraphs (under the keywords) of an entry article and its rows of lexemes (limited by semicolons) is that of specification within a field or a frame (under the headword). The semantic relationship between the source of a cross-reference and its target is that of extension. Its distance can vary in width. Naturally, the cross-references with a narrow range outnumber those with the long (and longest) ones, but the latter are by no means absent. Note as examples: 121 present time; entries pertain to time as an abstract relation (class 1, section 6). Cross-references pertain to 126 modernism 116 instantaneousness 137 occasion
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146 continuance 123 contemporary. They are all extensions, not specifications, of ‘now, this moment’. 125 past time: retrospective time; again entries pertain to time as an abstract relation (class 1, section 6). Cross-references pertain to 119 priority 505 remembrance 564 grammar 126 newness 127 oldness 110 era. Again they are all extensions, not specifications of ‘then, that moment’ (particularly obvious in 505, 564).
Cross-references are a complex tool for stimulating more encyclopedic knowledge than normally comes to mind. They make use of a rather sophisticated retrieval technique.
9.3 The essential gain The present analysis of Roget’s Thesaurus brings to light the fact that the structure of the book and of others modelled on it, i.e. of onomasiological dictionaries, mirrors the cognitive processes in linguistic performance as far as words are concerned and as far as this is possible. It is therefore pedagogically reasonable to expect that working with it (or them) will result in a general improvement of such linguistic abilities as are cognition-based. Alphabetical dictionaries may have a short-term and direct usefulness, but as their macrostructure goes against the nature of linguistic competence they do not disclose to the learner any essential feature of linguistic performance. As they usually accompany thesauri, they can open up the path into the general semantic system. Once inside this, the readers have a chance to adopt a holistic approach and let themselves be guided down from high-level categories via intermediate concepts to the words whose synonyms are targeted. The essential gain to be had from thesauri is, therefore, the awareness that the lexis of a language is a huge semantic web in which every unit (word) is dependent on many others, or—carrying the idea to an extreme—where each unit is determined by every other one. The lexis of a language has no central point and no periphery,
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it is an endless functioning of interdependencies. The awareness of this fact can motivate the retrieval techniques of language users and raise them to the level of cognitive consciousness. And this will, in turn, affect the fluency, variety, and precision of word use. It is certainly worth the time which must be spent if Roget’s Thesaurus is made a tool (among other tools) for teaching linguistic competence. At the beginning, learners certainly need the help of their teachers to get used to this practice. It cannot, for example, be too difficult for teachers to train their learners in the techniques of handling thesauri by explaining their organization. Moreover, other tasks which promise results with a generalizing effect present themselves. Concretely, they depend on the classroom situation and the resources of teachers and learners alike. But they could, for example, look like this: (i) Take words like car, computer, toothbrush and look for the class, section, group, and headword where they are likely to be found. Check with the alphabetical index whether you are right, and explain why. Do the same with words like pleasure, piety, shame (and other examples). (ii) Group more words with meanings similar to those above, give them (‘the field’) a name, and try to find a locus for them in the thesaurus. (iii) If the words selected appear in different entry articles, explain why this is so. What are the meanings of these words in their various places? (iv) Take any entry article of the thesaurus and explain the sequence of its paragraphs as well as the sequence of words inside them. Paraphrase the meaning(s) of the keywords with the help of the classes, sections, and groups, and paraphrase the words following the keywords with the help of these. (v) Explain the order of these words (or state that no convincing explanation can be found), in particular the word groups terminated by a semicolon. Try to find a different order which would also make sense. (vi) The teacher will give you sentences with gaps. Fill these gaps with the words from a particular entry article. How does the meaning of sentences change when you fill in various words?
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(vii) Paraphrase the meanings of various words and state explicitly what the newly added words have in common with the old ones and where they differ. (viii) Write an essay on any topic and note exactly which words you look up in the thesaurus. Explain why you have decided on a certain word and not on another. Etc. These and other possible tasks are not ‘linguistics’ in the academic sense. But they are erected on the principles and insights of linguistics and can give them a practical turn. In fact, the better the linguistic knowledge of teachers is, the more effective their work in the classroom will become. Cognitive linguistics is an approach based on the careful observation of psychological procedures, mainly geared by intuition. It is not based on statistical knowledge as other approaches to lexicology such as corpus linguistics are. This does not preclude projects which test various intuitions empirically. In consequence, linguistics-driven suggestions for the classroom are inevitably at first of a hypothetical and planning nature. But this is the usual and inevitable state of hypotheses in pedagogy. (This is also their state in this chapter.) As a rule, scholastic practice can be empirically falsified only after the teaching has been conducted in a certain manner for a while. Such investigations are also encouraged in the present case. But even then it is hardly possible 34 to allocate objective causes to learning processes. Even if we admit this, work with a thesaurus has all of linguistic intuition speaking in its favour. There have been attempts at preserving the schematic formality of alphabetical dictionaries together with the advantage of the semantic ones. They started with a new type published in the USA early in the 20th century. In it, the English vocabulary was given alphabetically, and parts with synonyms were inserted at the places where the headwords appeared in the alphabetical lists (Francis Andrew March et al., 1911 with many reprints). The title shows the wish to imitate Roget: A Thesaurus Dictionary of the English Language designed to suggest immediately any desired word needed to express exactly any given idea—with the help of synonyms and antonyms. Such mixtures of the lexicographical design were also 34 In my opinion it is impossible, because success or failure in teaching is always determined by many more variables than any investigation can control.
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devised for the Longman Language Activator (1993) and the later Compact Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordpower Guide (2001) whose pages are divided into an upper half with alphabetical lists and a lower half with rows of synonyms which complement the words above. Certainly these books are quite successful with people who wish to quickly gain some local information and then learn it by heart (or forget it). At least they retain some of the long retrieval journey through vocabulary. Finally, a thesaurus was created as an electronic lexical database in WordNet. The special handling of words which any thesaurus requires almost cries out for electronic methods as they are applied here. Roget’s Thesaurus itself was subjected to electronic analysis (Old 2003). But WordNet is not meant to be a tool for manual investigation of words as Roget’s printed thesaurus is. It is therefore not the right source to be investigated for its didactic potential. What is disadvantageous is, above all, the relatively small number of synonyms given and the fact that short definitions of meanings are provided. This, however, is the task which the readers (of Roget) are supposed to solve on their own. In principle, WordNet can, of course, be used for acquiring a refinement of vocabulary. What is advantageous, compared to Roget’s Thesaurus, is that WordNet regularly gives literal and also indirect or metaphorical meanings. These were (and are) sadly neglected by Roget and his followers. 35
It was promoted by the publisher as the world’s first encoding dictionary.
10 A Cognitive View of Synonymy 10.1 The cognitive groundwork 10.1.1 Linguistic competence as semiotic competence 10.1.2 Linguistic competence as communicative competence 10.1.3 The identification of meaning(s) 10.2 Meaning as construal 10.2.1 Componential aspects of meaning 10.2.2 Semantic malleability 10.3 On synonymy 10.3.1 Similarity and synonymy 10.3.2 Fields and frames 10.3.3 Antonyms 10.4 Synonyms and antonyms in texts 10.5 Dictionaries and thesauri
The following reflections describe, on an abstract level, why a book like Roget’s Thesaurus, which is looked upon by many as a simple means of reference, is so important to me. They define the point of departure but also the point of arrival of my work, i.e. they explain the importance of synonyms, and also what I have learnt by thinking about them. It is my intention to give reasons why synonymy is an essential phenomenon of semantics and why, therefore, more research on synonymy is needed. The general framework for this argument will be cognitive linguistics (e.g. Dirven and Verspor 2004). Note the following conspectus of its main principles whose aim is to separate cognitive linguistics from the transformational model: (i) Semantics is based on speakers’ construals, not on objective truth conditions; (ii) Semantics and pragmatics form a continuum; (iii) Categorization does not typically involve necessary and sufficient conditions, but central and extended senses; (iv) The primary function of language is to convey meaning; (v) Semantics is associated directly
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with surface forms; (vi) Grammatical constructions have cognitive status; (vii) Grammar consists of an inventory of form-meaning pairings (Goldberg 1996, 3–4 with detailed references). My cognitive view of synonymy must necessarily rest on certain assumptions of a general nature. The envisaged results are changes in the definition of synonymy, as compared to the accepted ones in systematic semantics, and the acknowledgement of their essential role in achieving communication. As communication is dominated by the criterion <successful/unsuccessful>, the question arises as to what extent synonymy contributes to this. In answering I follow common intuition as closely as possible. This means that my deliberations are not corpus-based; rather they provide the guidelines for later work with corpora which I recommend strongly. Extensive work with old and modern thesauri provide the experiential foundation for my deliberations which should be seen as a theoretical correlate to my previous research on the history of onomasiological and synonym dictionaries.
10.1 The cognitive groundwork 10.1.1 Linguistic competence as semiotic competence
It is common knowledge that, on a high level of abstraction, language is to be regarded as, first, a store of signs, and, second, a complex system of rules for their concatenation. As the common definition stands, signs are real-world occurrences to be comprehended by the human senses. But their signifying function is apprehended in the human mind. They are interesting, above all, because they stand not for themselves but for something else which is generally called ‘meaning’ (in the broadest sense of this term). 1 Meaning, too, is apprehended in the human mind, although it often coincides with something in the outer world and which can, for example, be seen or touched. If there is no signifier, there is no meaning and, in consequence, no sign. In the case of language, this semiotic relationship is most obvious on the middle level of the linguistic system, the 1 This definition has in fact been accepted since it was used by the Stoic philosophers around the turn of the 4th to the 3rd century BC (Coseriu 2005, 110). For ‘the meaning of meaning’, see below.
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words. But it also pertains to the lower level, i.e. the sounds, and the upper level, i.e. sentences and texts. The rules of concatenation (i.e. syntactics), which are often understood as purely formal, are themselves autonomous signs with their own meaning(s) as can, for example, be shown by the word order rules for statements vs such rules for questions or by the rules for the sequence of phrases in a sentence. 3 These rules are themselves non-linear signs which arrange words, i.e. linear signs, into multi-segmental units. From this general state of affairs we can derive three possible starting points for linguistic analysis as far as it pertains to the semiotic nature of language: (i) the word as a semiotic unity; (ii) the word as a building block of larger (phrasal, sentential, textual) chains; and (iii) syntax as a meaningful and autonomous principle of language organization. For the purposes of analysis, each starting point has its own justification within its limits (Taylor 2003). None is entirely correct or entirely wrong. Performance is neither solely bottom-up (starting with the words or even the sounds) nor solely top-down (starting with sentential units/patterns) but operates concomitantly both ways. More starting points will be found. The (acoustic, optic, olfactory, etc.) substance of signs ensures their comprehensibility by the human senses, in the case of language therefore by the ear and/or by the eye. This substance stimulates its own representation in the respective areas of the human brain. Its special quality or form provides the recognition and construction of meaning. The phonetic substance of language as such ensures that we can become aware of it; the qualities (forms) of this substance ensure that we can understand its meaning(s). ‘Understanding the meaning(s)’ therefore depends, above all, on finding the differences between the variously formed signs (i.e. words). These 2 Owing to the concatenated nature of the linguistic sign, it is difficult to define the word as a semiotic unit. In addition to the usual delimitations, as signalled by writing, we include in the definition of ‘word’ compounds and derivations, fixed noun phrases of collocating words (like ‘apple of the eye’ or ‘heir to the throne’), phrasal verbs (like ‘to come round’ or ‘to fall for’) and other fixed expressions of an idiomatic nature (like ‘bless you’ or ‘no idea’). Also verb phrases (like ‘to have a smoke’) can count as semiotic units which function as synonyms of words. I do not differentiate strictly between ‘lexeme’ and ‘word’. Both terms are used synonymously, ‘lexeme’ is often meant to stress that there are what are commonly called multiword units with one-word meanings. 3 For example, ‘Veni, vidi, vici’; but also ‘He painted the green door. / He painted the door green’ (Dirven and Verspoor 2004, 9). See also below. It is the central idea of so-called construction grammar to regard syntactic patterns as genuine linguistic units with their own meanings which are autonomous against the words (Croft 2001).
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differences do not only pertain to the words and lexemes themselves but also to their position in the concatenated larger units, i.e. their syntactic qualities. 4 It is a difference whether the word ‘person’, for example, is read as a subject (agentive) or as a second object (beneficient). For humans, the ability to go from the realized semiotic substance to its apprehended meaning(s) is obviously guaranteed by a special cognitive faculty which can be called ‘semiotic competence’. It is the wider domain in which ‘linguistic competence’ has a particular place. It is obviously a feature of life itself and therefore determined by nature. It is the all-important interface where physiological perception (of the substance) and its mental correlates (the meaning[s]) meet. All living beings endowed with senses and brains have it in one way or another, human ones, however, to a singularly high degree of development. How this step from the physiological to the mental can be taken is to be explored by other disciplines than linguistics. Neurophysiologists are the nearest candidates. Linguists should not meddle with their world but should truly follow the phenomena of their own linguistic intuition and concomitant experiments (if necessary). They merely have to recognize the facts and explore what this means for the acquisition, the knowledge, and the use of one or several language(s). The most important consequence following from the identity of a language system and a sign system is that the locus of linguistic competence is the human mind, although the operations of this competence depend on products of an acoustic or graphic substance which, naturally, exist outside, i.e. in the non-mental world. They are mediated to the brain by the sensory systems of the body. The linguistic, not the physiological, processes of the mind are given the name ‘cognitive’. Language is usually called ‘linguistic knowledge’. Yet this term fails to describe in any detail the varying ways in which linguistic competence appears to our intuition (Murphy 2003, 6). These are (i) fixed mental representations of the semiotic link between signifier and signified, most typically given in words but also in multi-word units (lexemes), and (ii) procedural knowledge on how to concatenate these signs into hypersigns, generally called ‘rules’ and most typically given in sentences and including provisions to integrate sentences into texts. 4
For the impact of the non-linguistic situation, see below.
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Fixed mental representations are, without further reflection, available to speakers—provided they are grown-up and not impaired in any way—when needed on the spur of the moment and, as a rule, without any (or with only slight and simple) searching procedures. They are a ready-made stock. 5 This observation does not claim any special kind of mental representation—neither an independent item-by-item one which can pertain to monosemous as well as to polysemous lexemes, nor a dependent one which derives lexemes from other lexemes following morphological or analogous rules in a general cognitive framework (Croft 1998). There may also be kinds of representation between these two. The important phenomenon in our argument is only the direct availability of such words as form–meaning pairs. Contrary to this, the procedural knowledge applies to formal but nevertheless meaningful constructions. Using them, speakers follow rules which they know (knowing that) without being aware of their details (knowing how). Again no special kind of mental representation of such rules is claimed. The important phenomenon in the argument is this time that the implementation of these rules in performance demands the searching, selecting, testing, and finally approving or instantiating of various syntactic possibilities. This is why sentences are often formulated hesitatingly or with interruptions or finished wrongly. It is a matter of general experience that, in concatenation with other words as in speech or in writing a text, word meanings are often not identical with what is called their prototypical models (see below). For example, generally speaking ‘to eat’ means , whereas in the following phrases it means this in a particular specification each of which can be expressed by a synyonym: to eat ice cream , to eat soup , to eat a steak , etc. (Taylor 2003, 38). In these cases, the grammatical objects, i.e. the words syntactically closest to the verbs, obviously co-determine the preceding part of the phrase. This leads us to conclude that the representation of words in the human mind is at least twofold: a word is an easily recognizable unit, fairly clearly delimited; but it is also a kind of template (see below), open to change, adaptable, the product 5 It is a question of language acquisition theory, but not of a general theory of language, to explain how this stock comes to exist.
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of co-textually (see below) triggered differentiation. Naturally, the question arises what the relationship is between the isolated and the co-textually determined meanings. Two proposals for answering this question have been made which both conform to general experience. One is that every lexeme per se denotes a ‘Gesamtbedeutung’, i.e. a sum total of all the narrower meaning versions which can occur; the other is that it carries a ‘Grundbedeutung’, i.e. such meaning versions as appear to be most common, frequently used, and convincing to speakers and listeners (Allwood 2003). 6 The first model presupposes a fairly high level of abstraction in some configurative order, because the higher the abstraction is the more special meanings it can encompass (for example, the meaning of ‘bird’ expressing all the differentiae of the relevant genus and species in a logical order). According to the second model, lexemes are given the qualification of being prototypical (Rosch 1978). This is why they express a medium level of abstraction (for example, the prototypical meaning of ‘bird’ being located between, for example, that of ‘duck’ and ‘sparrow’). Their origin is experience rather than logical order. What is most important for the understanding of linguistic competence as far as it is of a semiotic nature is that stability and flexibility are combined in a unique way. Handling language implies both principles. To find how this pertains to the relationship between the meaning of a word or lexeme (in isolation) and its meaning as a building block of a syntactical unit is one of the tasks of cognitive semantics (Pustejovsky 1996) and will also prove to be crucial for the understanding of synonymy. Linguistic competence furthermore consists of (iii) the ability to generate new mental representations, following inherent regularities of the stored ones, in order to cope with the ever-changing and -growing experience of reality and the ensuing special needs of communicative acts, and (iv) the development of a general, rather abstract, awareness of what we do when we speak or listen, write or read. Examples of generated new representations that come to mind right away are the possibilities of active word formation, but also of the common meaning extensions by metaphor, synecdoche, or metonymy of given words (Seto 2003). There is, furthermore, the 6 The habit of making the etymologically first meaning of a word its ‘Grundbedeutung’ was a way out of this problem under the auspices of historical linguistics which is no longer accepted.
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coining of new words, for example by using proper names 7 on the one hand, and new structural (syntactic) elaborations of texts on the other. The general awareness comes into practice almost automatically when people encounter difficulties in expressing their messages or realize that they have made a mistake. Self-corrections in speech are therefore most significant for this kind of knowledge. Intuitive experience tells every speaker that, with a special group of exceptions, 8 the adaptation of word meanings depends on certain situational constraints. They must be added to the three starting points of linguistic analysis already mentioned. These constraints are the co-text, i.e. the surrounding structural units beyond the immediate one, and the context, i.e. the surrounding situation which includes non-linguistic objective peculiarities. In the sentence ‘This operation was a success’ it depends on the preceding—and to a smaller degree also on the succeeding—text what ‘operation’ means: , <military measure>, <surgical activity> or something else. This co-text with its manifold encyclopedic information determines, as another example, which is the meaning of ‘to race’ as different from ‘to jog’ and which limitations and possibilities of syntactic concatenation can be derived from there for using both verbs (Taylor 1996). The context with its many non-linguistic signals also determines what the statement ‘The weather is improving’ means: in a ferry at sea: ; on a farm in the country after a drought: ; during the preparations for the start of a space shuttle: . 9 It is part of linguistic competence that individual semantic allocations within the limits of fixed representations are easily mastered in performance unless cultural and encyclopedic experience is missing. Everybody understands ‘eat’ in its various co-texts and contexts and can use it accordingly (Nerlich 2003, 61), unless one 7
Such as ‘condom’, ‘silhouette’, or ‘Montague logic’, ‘Chomsky grammar’. These exceptions pertain mostly to technical words in the language for specific purposes whose essential character it is to be used in exactly the same meaning (sense, see below) on all occasions. However, the exceptional character of technical language is not linguistic quality but an efficiency-driven convention of its use. Unlike this, the obvious resistance of structure words, i.e. mainly syncategorematic lexemes, against semantic adaptability is grounded in their linguistic character. This problem has been hardly discussed in lexical semantics and must also be left undiscussed here (Allwood 2003). Our deliberations only pertain to content words. 9 Additional constraints can come, for example, from illocutions of speech acts and normative (stylistic) elements of cultural heritage. 8
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does not know what, for example, ice cream is. The same is true for the verb ‘to jog’ etc. Obviously, the human mind has no difficulties in combining the decontextualized word meaning(s), as they appear in dictionaries, with the co- and contextualized (situation-bound) meaning variants as used in speech or writing. 10.1.2 Linguistic competence as communicative competence
The various elements of linguistic competence are not to be regarded as modular and independent of each other. The general awareness of words conforms to what in psychology is called ‘cohesion and continuity’, i.e. the ability of the mind to grasp objects as something to be identified clearly, irrespective of time and space, in contrast to other objects. This includes reliance on these objects’ predictable behaviour. And yet, ‘cohesion and continuity’ do not prevent people from adapting these objects to special situations. In this way, the various elements of linguistic competence are part of the general cognitive endowment of humans as becomes apparent, for example, by the awareness of one’s own body (e.g. Lakoff and Johnson 1980) or by the perception of objective surroundings (e.g. Jackendoff 1995). The two-level organization (i and ii vs iii and iv) of competence enables humans to answer all their unlimited needs of communication with the limited means of their cognitive (linguistic) system. It guarantees that languages do not petrify in the course of time but grow, and that this growth remains manageable and intelligible for individuals. It is the permanent concomitant reflection on linguistic performance which controls this development. 10 It is the most important function of signs to establish that kind of contact between individuals which is called communication. Its essence is that the instigators of a communicative act who produce a sign or use its existence in nature for their purposes draw somebody else’s attention to it and want it to be understood in their (the instigators’) own way. ‘Understanding’ here means that, after the act, the receiving mind finds itself in a state of information equal to that of the producing one. This exchange is a true act of recognition. 10 This reliance on common-sense intuition may for many experts be questionable. Note: ‘Science is an eternal battle against common sense’ (Fauconnier and Turner 2003, 79). But my own conviction is that explanatory models which ignore the results of natural intuition are almost certain to fail in the domain of human behaviour.
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As such, it is also an essential human ability. Philosophical scepticism shows that it is very difficult or even impossible to prove this identity of information in two or more minds (Taylor 1992). Nevertheless, we depend on the possibility of communication in this way. Exchanging and sharing mental representations of linguistic signs is one way of coping with the needs of humans in society and vis-à-vis reality. This is the general sense to which all acts of communication contribute. Therefore, these acts pertain, in one way or the other, to aspects of the world which sign producers bring to the attention of sign receivers. This is why linguistic practice is never an activity which makes sense in and of itself. This also makes the proximity of linguistic practice and thinking something most natural. Realizing that the use of linguistic signs is the common ground of transferring human knowledge—given and newly developed—warrants attaching the qualifying epithet ‘cognitive’ to the academic discipline which deals with this. Semiotic, and therefore linguistic, competence can be called a half-autonomous faculty. This means it develops in children on its own as a natural endowment of humans, but nevertheless needs a stimulating environmental experience to do so. Language acquisition therefore goes together with the acquisition of general cognitive faculties, for example those of structured vision and logical thinking. In semiotics, three types of signs have been differentiated according to how they indicate their meanings. We usually define them in the way introduced by Charles S. Peirce and Charles Morris (Morris 1938). Indices—in language represented by so-called indexical words like ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘today’ and ‘yesterday’— ultimately go back to the pointing gesture of a speaker 11 who directs the attention of somebody else to something indicated in a spatial relation to their own hic et nunc origo. 12 Icons—in language represented by onomatopoetic words like ‘cuckoo’ and ‘chirp’, ‘bang’ and ‘buzz’—ultimately go back to some kind of apprehended similarity between the form of (the substance of) the sign and, therefore, its meaning. Finally, symbols—in language represented by the vast majority of all other words—ultimately go back to an arrangement between sign users according to which a particularly 11 In writing, we need circumscriptive techniques to stand for gestures. They are usually given co-textually. 12 In fact, in speech indexical words are mostly accompanied by pointing gestures.
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formed sign has a particularly defined meaning, with no other reasons but the arrangement itself. With indices, the understanding of meaning is the result of a pointing gesture, with icons it depends on the perceived similarity between the signifier and the signified, 13 and with symbols it depends on the recognition of differences between the qualities of the semiotic substance. Each of the three types of signs obviously goes in tandem with a stage in the general development of living beings: indices with basic situational orientation, icons with direct experience by the senses, and symbols with generalization and abstraction. But it is important to realize that all three of them are present in our linguistic practice, if with a heavy predominance of symbols. They are the main means of communication whereby the human mind can work with the greatest ingenuity and creativity. The first to explain systematically the importance of these three types of signs working together in language was the linguist Karl Bühler, who distinguished between the Zeigfeld, Malfeld, and Symbolfeld (pointing field, painting field, symbolic field) of lexis (Bühler 1934). In order to guarantee the fact that sign recognition is communicative, the formed substance of a sign and its meaning(s) must be comprehended by all individuals so that the link between them is understood in the same way. In the case of indices and icons there are natural conditions which support this understanding, though there may even here be reasons for this to break down. Pointing can be very vague and natural noises—for example those of animals— are comprehended quite differently, as the relevant words in various languages show. But symbols have no natural support of this kind. They depend on the agreement of the speakers. An artificial link is needed which closes the gap between the symbolizing part of the sign and the symbolized meaning(s). In its most general form, we nowadays call this link ‘convention’—a metaphorical term describing the handling of language as if people had met one day and allocated certain meanings to certain linguistic units by a contrat linguistique. As convention is something artificial, i.e. made by humans, it can also be changed. Human beings can rule over symbolic signs much more easily than over indices and icons. This fact is of great importance for the flexibility and adaptability of words, 13 This similarity is mostly of an acoustic nature, but can also pertain, for example, to kinetic phenomena (when verbs with , like flutter, fling, flash, mean ‘quick movement’ etc.).
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which is (as will be shown) a prerequisite for the construction of synonymy. In history, allocating meaning(s) to words as symbolic signs is a process over long periods of time rather than an act of decision at a given moment. 14 It is closely connected to the origin of language itself. 15 Theologians, philosophers, and logicians have tried to explain it (e.g. Law 2003). From the beginnings of linguistic reflection in Europe, 16 it has been debated whether meaning is allocated to words ‘by nature’ (physei) or ‘by convention’ (thesei). This means taking either icons or symbols as the general model for linguistic signification. Historically, Plato’s dialogue Kratylos is the most seminal discussion of this problem (Coseriu 2004). Nowadays, linguists only state the fact that communication by language is obviously possible as if there were a kind of contract. After Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours (1917), the conventionalist solution to the problem has generally been accepted. Only the idea of natural morphology runs counter to this tendency with the argument that principles of iconicity are also at work in linguistic morphology and give it a natural—not a conventional—foundation (Bauer 2003). In the concrete circumstances of semiotic (linguistic) development in which we are today, various central institutions—such as academies, committees of language planning, dictionaries or grammars, influential speakers and the like—assume the role of imaginary agreements. Counter to the rather philosophical freedom of human speakers to define their linguistic signs by convention stands the dependence, i.e. the unfreedom, of the individual speaker vis-à-vis the linguistic system he or she has chosen for self-expression. The highly complex relation between the philosophical freedom and the practical unfreedom of speakers must remain a moote point. 10.1.3 The identification of meaning(s)
Inside the framework of co-text and contexts, the human mind succeeds in identifying word meanings as fixed representations by various means which confirm and, if necessary, correct each other. They 14 This does not preclude the fact that, in some rare cases, it is exactly this, e.g. with such technical ad-hoc words as ‘gas’ or ‘quark’. 15 Note that in Genesis Adam is said, at the bidding of God, to have given the plants and animals their names, i.e. the relevant words their meanings. 16 I am convinced that this also applies to extra-European cultures.
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are (i) the comprehension of semiotic contrast, (ii) the recognition of semantic relations and extensions, and (iii) the understanding of some semi-semantic clues. As the meaning(s) of words depend(s) mainly on the contrast of forms of the semiotic substance, identical signs must indicate identical meanings; different ones must indicate different meanings. Logically speaking, the ideal shape of the linguistic system would therefore be that each sign, i.e. word or lexeme, clearly indicates one and only one meaning, or that each meaning is clearly defined by one and only one sign. Many European linguists and philosophers who reflected on the possibilities of a perfect, and therefore universal, language have postulated exactly this. Alas, we know that our natural languages are far from this state—if it should really prove true that this is the ideal one. Semiotic contrast: homonymy For various historical reasons, the relation between the forms and meanings of words is frequently faulty (if judged by the norm mentioned). There are words, identical in form, with different meanings. These are usually called homonyms. Such homonyms can come into being because the laws of sound change have had, in the course of history, the effect that early differences have collapsed into one form and made the original ones indistinguishable. Such is the case, for example, in ‘ear’ as a name for the human organ and ‘ear’ as the name for the grain-bearing part of a plant (Hock 1991, 297). Already in Old English they are both ‘éar(e)’. The consequence of this lack of semiotic contrast is called a homonymic clash. It can also occur if words are phonetically so close to each other that there is a danger of mistaking them in performance. An example is Old English ‘shirt’, meaning and Old Scandinavian ‘skirt’, also meaning . When the latter invaded Old English during the time of the Danelaw (1020–80), the clash was inevitable. The meanings separated with ‘shirt’ denoting and ‘skirt’ denoting . So there was (and is) no risk of their being misunderstood any longer. Historically, such homonymic clashes (Bynon 1986, 186–90) usually drop out of the system if the two (or more) words pertain to the same semantic domain, as is the case with ‘shirt’ and ‘skirt’, or with Middle English ‘brede’, meaning and ‘brede’, meaning . In these cases, either one falls out of use, as ‘brede’ did, or it changes its meaning, as
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is the case with ‘skirt’ which adopted the new (additional) meaning <edge/fringe part of mountains, towns, parks, etc.>. Another means of avoiding the clash is borrowing words from a different language. This is why Old Scandinavian ‘þeir’, leading to modern ‘they’, was preferred to Old English ‘hie’ which was liable to misunderstanding because of the very similar pronouns ‘he’ and ‘heo’, leading to modern ‘he’ and ‘she’. If the words belong to different semantic fields, however, homonymy is easily tolerated, because misunderstandings are most unlikely to occur. Nobody needs to bother about such homonyms as ‘rose’ and ‘rose’ (from ‘rise’) or ‘father’ and ‘farther’. Such words are, moreover, often kept apart by their spelling, indicating their different origin, as is also the case in ‘made’ vs ‘maid’, ‘tale’ vs ‘tail’, ‘daze’ vs ‘days’, etc. 17 A second cause of homonymy is that, again in the course of history, meaning varieties, extension, and specifications developed in such diverging directions that they eventually appear as two (or more) semantically unconnected words. A ‘bank’ can today be (1) and (2) . The original Scandinavian word (*banke, *banki) meant (OED). It adopted the narrow meaning of ; but it also adopted the meaning of by applying the original meaning to a context (scene) in which one table was raised above many others for better visibility, for example in a market place or in front of a church. It then migrated from the metaphorically named table to the institution of money-lending itself. Hence ‘bank 1’ and ‘bank 2’ came into being. 18 Another example: The Latin original of ‘box’ (buxus) meant the relevant species of tree and so did the Old English loan as does its English derivative still today. But then the English word also adopted the metonymic meaning of , from there the generalization of and, finally, that of a which conforms abstractly to normally shaped containers. So ‘box 1’ and ‘box 2’ remained in the lexical system. ‘Bank’ and ‘box’ can each count as two words. 17 The examples show that further help for the differentiation between homonyms is word class. 18 See OED. The latter meaning developed obviously under the influence of Romance languages which used the Germanic word.
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Almost all the words of the English (and any other natural) language have adopted several meanings in the course of history, making them polysemous. The question is whether this fact is rulegoverned or idiosyncratic in the sense of creative. There are certainly some rules recognizable which govern the resulting semantic vagueness of meanings. There is, for example, the substitution of a deed (act, behaviour) for the agent. A failure is , but it is also a . A flirt is a special , but also . Similar, but not identical, is the habit of hospital and restaurant personnel of identifying the person with his or her sickness and the guest with his or her order. The appendix cannot wait another day and The steak is getting impatient are normal discourse-bound ways of speaking which, however, are constrained by a definite context. Another rule pertains to the place (room) and the function a word serves. An office is , it is , and it is . Obviously, the various meanings, as a rule to be described as originating by metonymy or synecdoche, are similar to each other and quite normal. There are countless other meaning transfers which seem not to be strictly rule-governed. Ten types have been defined (Blank 2003, 270–1) which work in the diachronic and synchronic dimension. But the cognitive principle of understanding polysemous words so they can be used in varying situations, without stripping them of their character as fixed representations, is itself more important than such rules. There is obviously no conflict between the semiotic anomaly of homonymy and the existence of words in the mind as fixed representations. The difference that separates homonymy from polysemy is whether the various meanings are recognizably related to each other. The German word ‘Absatz’, for instance, means , , <paragraph in a written/printed text>, and quite a lot of other things. It must remain open whether the word qualifies as a series of homonyms or as one polysemous lexeme. It would be rather difficult to find an overarching meaning. The historical development of natural languages is such that the dividing line between true homonyms and the various shades of
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meaning of individual words is blurred. Synchronically, homonymy is marked by an ambiguity of meaning which goes together with a loss of phonemic differentiation (Blank 2003, 273–4). The best criteria to distinguish between polysemy and homonymy are provided by etymology, recognizable semantic relatedness, and membership in one word class. In English, etymology is often indicated by spelling, Although homonymy can aggravate meaning recognition, because the semiotic contrast is missing, it does not interfere with the processes of understanding signs too much. The borderline cases are ruled out in a natural way. There is always a remedy for the other ones. Co-text and context lend enough support. The chance that ‘bank’ and ‘bank’, ‘box’ and ‘box’ are confused is very small. If the error occurs, it will soon be detected and corrected. Semiotic contrast: synonymy At first sight, synonyms seem to present the same problem as homonyms, but in reverse. These are two or more words with the usual differences of forms which, however, are supposed to have identical meaning(s). At least at first sight, ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’, ‘innocent’ and ‘chaste’, for example, have such identical meanings as can be shown by their exchangeability (Jones 1986) in such sentences as: (1) The big statue in New York harbour signals the {liberty freedom} of the new world. (2) He didn’t have the {chaste innocent} appearance of a lilywhite boy. However, this is a mere practical and local test without any proof of theoretical generalizability. The proof needed would be that the two (and possibly more) relevant words could be exchanged in all possible sentences (and texts) in which they occur without changing its meaning and its ploy (Jones 1986, 92). Note the definition: X is a cognitive synonym of Y if (i) X and Y are syntactically identical, and (ii) any grammatical declarative sentence S containing X has equivalent truth-conditions to another sentence S*, which is identical to S except that X is replaced by Y. 19 19 Cruse 1986, 88. The term ‘cognitive’ as is different from mine as used in this chapter. In this respect, Cruse follows Lyons (e.g. 1968, 448–50). The term points to the question of how far the pragmatic elements of a word-in-cotext according to time (diachronic), place (diatopic), and register are part of its meaning. This cannot be discussed here. Suffice it to say that the time and
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It is, of course, impossible to carry this proof through for only one single case, and, moreover, it is a misunderstanding to try to do this. Language is an infinitely creative system which never exhausts itself, so nothing of this sort can be proved definitively. But even if it could be, the problem would hardly be solved in its principle. Even if universal exchangeability could be confirmed for two words, users would still be confronted with a dilemma. If there were absolutely no semantic differences, no clues would be available for choice. The possibility of a choice without a rule on how to use it is pointless for any cognitive decision. The natural way out would be the two escape roads for homonymic clashes already mentioned, namely to disregard one word or to give it a new meaning. Historical experience shows that if a case of, assumedly perfect, synonymy comes into use one word either disappears or adopts a different meaning and, therefore, is no longer a synonym. 20 After the Scandinavian word wing, for example, was borrowed, the, at first, synonymous Old English ‘feðer’ became restricted in its meaning, now indicating an individual feather. Old English had ‘wolcen’, meaning <sky, cloud> and ‘heofon’, meaning <sky, heaven>. The arrival of Scandinavian ‘sky’ caused ‘wolcen’ and ‘heofon’ to differentiate more clearly, ‘heofon’ now adopting exclusively the religious meaning and ‘wolcen’ disappearing altogether in favour of the new word (Burnley 1992, 491; also 472–6, 491–3). These and many other examples show that a clash of synonyms is obviously felt to be counterproductive and that its dissolution contributes heavily to semantic change, which, generally speaking, results in elaborating the resources of a language’s meaningful expressions (i.e. words and lexemes). It again testifies to the fact that speakers meet the demands of communication by adapting the semiotic system of their language to new necessities. This presupposes continuous cognitive awareness and energy. place of language use are not constituents of meaning. If there are two absolutely identical words with geographically different uses (like ‘Samstag’ and ‘Sonnabend’ in German), they are two words of independent sublanguages which share vast areas of structure and lexis but not the two lexemes in question. Their relation to each other is that of a translation. The differences of register, mainly style, turn out to be truly semantic as explanation on a metalevel shows. The same holds true for so-called expressive language (Cruse 1986, 270–7). The difference between ‘father , ‘mother’ and ‘daddy’,‘mummy’ is semantic. Note: He may not be a father, but he is my daddy. See also Lyons 1968, 459. 20 An observation like this concerning the Middle High German words wîsheit, kunst, list, and wizzen at the beginning of the 12th century led Jost Trier to develop his seminal idea of the semantic field (Wortfeld) (Trier 1931).
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These observations seem to exclude the fact that synonyms exist. Yet, in naive linguistic intuition we generally assume that this is not so—that there are indeed synonymous words in natural languages. ‘These two words have the same meaning’ is an often heard opinion which will have to be discussed. Semantic relations and extensions Regularly occurring semantic relations between words which serve as cognitive coordinates for word meanings (Murphy 2003, 9) are a much-used means of semantic definition. They are: (i) synonymy (in the above-mentioned sense), as in ‘sofa’ = ‘couch’ = ‘divan’ (ii) antonymy, as in ‘good’ // ‘bad’; ‘life’ // ‘death’; ‘come’ // ‘go’ (iii) equipollence and gradation, as in ‘green’ ∼ ‘blue’, ‘red’, ‘yellow’; ‘sweet’ ∼ ‘bitter’, ‘sour’, ‘salty’ (iv) hyponymy, as in ‘cat’ < ‘mammal’ < ‘animal’ (v) hyperonymy, as in ‘animal’ > ‘mammal’ > ‘cat’ (vi) meronymy (partonymy), as in ‘line’ + ‘stanza’ + ‘poem’. Because of their largely binary character, 21 these paradigmatic relations between word meanings constitute predictable contrasts. This is an entailment from the conceptual nature of semantic relations which is not based on lexicalization (Murphy 2003, 45). Rather, these relations are based on more general concepts such as identity (for synonyms), variety, non-identity (for antonyms), scale (for gradation), hierarchy (for hyponymy and hyperonymy), and part– whole, membership (for meronymy). They coordinate the signbased lexical knowledge of words with the concept-based encyclopedic knowledge of things. They are part of the cognitive outfit of (adult) speakers. But they are certainly not something innate but simply the outcome of life-long experience like any other knowledge. As they represent a high level of abstract knowledge, they may be the result of a higher-order mental activity which differs from just gathering information. Even in non-sophisticated wording, the following sentences show the general concepts mentioned as well as more concrete encyclopedic experience. 21 (i) and (ii), (iv) and (v) are strictly binary; (iii) has an inbuilt ‘soft’ binarism, and (vi) rests on the dichotomy ‘whole’ vs ‘part’.
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(i) Sofa is something like a couch. (ii) Come is the opposite of go. (iii) Sour is far from sweet, but bitter is even further and salty the furthest. (iv) A cat is a kind of mammal which is a kind of animal. (v) There are many animals; some are mammals as, for example, a cat. (vi) A line is part of a stanza and that is part of a poem. Regularly occurring meaning extensions are metonymy, synecdoche, and metaphor. 22 All three of them, in particular metaphors, pervade the whole of language. Metonymy makes use of the potential of frames (Fillmore 2006), i.e. the contiguity of words in a given situation. Finish your plate means and exploits the contiguity of food which is served on a plate. It is a contiguity of referents. Synecdoche makes use of the potential of meronymy (partonymy), i.e. the representation of the whole by one of its parts. I am not going to sell my skin means and exploits the concept which makes the skin stand for all parts of a human being. This is a contiguity of categories rather than one of referents (Seto 2003). Metaphors make use of the meaning potential that has its source in the blending of frames. Metaphorization is different from metonymy and synecdoche in that it does not exploit contiguities but differences of referents as well as of categories. A ‘head of state’ is somebody who holds the top position in a society, a ‘summit’ is the top of a mountain. Although there is no contiguity between societal positions and mountains, a ‘summit meeting’ is an expression for <meeting of heads of states>. It makes use of the fact that most metaphors ‘bleach’ 23 in the course of time, i.e. that their metaphorical character fades out of the consciousness of speakers. The head of a river, the back of a book, the leg of a table, and the eye of a storm are hardly understood as metaphors any more. Metaphorization does not impair the principle of fixed 22 Nerlich (2003) shows that the early history of semantics is, in the framework of rhetoric and philosophy, dominated by the discussion of these three terms and their concomitant phenomena. For a description of extensions as a diachronic and a synchronic process, see Blank 2003. 23 —as the metaphor goes.
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representation. Metaphorical meanings can be present in the mind just like direct ones—if it is at all possible to distinguish the two in ordinary speech—be it as separate or as dependent representations. Literary metaphors are much more elaborate and depend more on stylistic choices than common ones, but there is no cognitive difference between them and the common ones. It is well known that an analysis of everyday metaphors gave rise to a new way of thinking in linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). In particular on the level of fixed representations, word meanings appear as delimited by semantic relations. This is why the various methods of explaining word meanings to be found in dictionaries include definitions by the semantic relations and extensions mentioned. 24 Metaphors are more important than generally assumed. They transpose a word from one semantic frame into another and are thus signs of creativity. Note the abundance of recent metaphors in the world of computers—‘mouse’, ‘store’, ‘window’, ‘menu’, ‘virus’, ‘hard’, ‘soft’, etc. Clues Clues towards the identification of meanings are, for example, word classes, morphology (i.e. special cases of word formation), etymology, and register (style in connection with the context). Word classes have obvious preferences for certain kinds of meanings such as nouns for objects or abstract ideas, verbs for movements and states, etc. Some bound morphemes in word formation indicate not only word classes but also semantically defined subclasses, as -er in nouns for agents or instruments, -ous in adjectives for derived (not bodily) qualities, etc. Etymology signals the domain of reality to which the meaning of a word belongs, and stylistic markers identify socially determined variants. None of these clues are, however, unambiguous. They can lose their indicative power in the course of history and because of massive unreflected practice. 24 It is a matter of debate whether semantic relations are universal, i.e. pertain to all languages. Formally, this can certainly be maintained, but semantically culture-specific properties will determine how the formal relations are to be understood in various languages. In the species ‘food’, potato, for example, is a hyponym of ‘vegetable’ in English, but not in German, where Kartoffel is not a hyponym of ‘Gemüse’ but a species of its own. This applies in particular to hyponymy/hyperonymy, and to meronymy (Murphy 2003, 26–42).
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10.2 Meaning as construal The fixed representation of word meanings in the mind is the one, their adaptation to the co-textual and contextual constraints of language-in-use is the other aspect of semantics. This adaptation consists of two processes working together: the accommodation of linguistic means to the pre-linguistic message, and the assimilation of this message to the linguistic means. 25 These twofold movements, which approach each other from opposite directions and yet work together, enable the speaker and listener to express and understand the infinite variety of messages with the finite number of signs and their concatenative rules. They imply that the meanings of words are adapted by the speaker to the message inasmuch as the message is adapted to the possibilities of the linguistic system. This is why the speaker’s finding of an adapted meaning is called a ‘construal’, i.e. a creative act of semantic interpretation in the framework of a given word (of a language). Construed meanings are the work of the native speaker but, in spite of all creativity, they are tied to the lexicalized units (lexemes) of a language. One and the same sound gestalt can signal various (shades of) meanings. It is this holistic character which makes word meanings ‘fixed’. Instead of word meanings we should, however, speak of ‘meaning potentials’ (Allwood 2003) or ‘meaning zones’ (Coene 2006, e.g. 72–3) as the origin of meaning construals. The ‘fixed representations’ of word meanings work like templates (see above). They are ‘prompts for the construction of meaning in systematic fashion’ (Fauconnier and Turner 2003, 89–90). 10.2.1 Componential aspects of meaning
Words configure a number of meaningful components, each of which represents a significant detail of its overall meaning. In structural semantics these components were called ‘semantic features’ 26 and were given semi-formalized names (like , 25 This pair of concepts is taken from Jean Piaget’s psychology of human development where it describes the development of the child’s mind. I think it is justifiable to give it a special linguistic meaning. See also Nerlich and Clarke (2003, 9). 26 The other term, frequently used, is ‘chunks (of meaning)’. In common language, a chunk is a large piece of something quite solid. I find therefore that this metaphor is illchosen. The term ‘feature’ is much more adequate, its only disadvantage being that it is associated with structuralist thinking.
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<spatial>, etc.). But in fact they are the traces of various kinds of experience on the level of mental representation. A word with the meaning of or
, for example, is understood and meant by language users together with the background of their own experiences with these objects in the real world. These experiences become inseparable parts, i.e. semantic features, of the meaning of the word. 27 They do not adopt any formal quality by being enclosed in square brackets and prefixed with +/−. This is why linguistic knowledge and objective (encyclopedic) knowledge cannot be separated in semantics. The former is the linguistic appearance of the latter. A word whose meaning would in no way correspond to the various experiences of a language user would remain unintelligible. As human experience consists of many – almost a conglomeration of – details, the meaning of a word consists of many semantic features, i.e. it is the semiotic unity of many components. The act of defining ‘componentiality’ presupposes the act of decomposing. It is an analytical process. Indeed, the practice of defining content words usually takes the form of a decomposing enumeration of their parts (features) (Pustejovsky 1996, 39–60). In this respect, even the common speaker does by intuition what the academic does by a formalized procedure. The search for simple semantic components as parts of a complex configuration is one of the oldest methods of scholarly (philosophical) thinking. Its purest instantiation is, of course, operating with numbers in mathematics. Looking for primes 28 in meanings (e.g. Wierzbicka 1996) is certainly a close parallel to mathematics in linguistics. The way in which features as components interrelate and interlock in a word meaning is variable. In structuralist feature theory (e.g. Katz and Fodor 1963, Kempson 1977 [1989]) which was made part, as semantic projection rules, of the early versions of transformational grammar, the most frequently constructed order of features was a logical hierarchy in binary branches. The top layers of feature configurations were inevitably occupied by highly abstract concepts which coincide, for example, with theta-roles or semantic cases (like , <patient>, , , etc.) or the sub-classifications of word classes (like , 27 With words whose meanings have no correlates in the objective world, things are quite similar. Their semantic features correspond to details of mental experience. 28 Synonymously called ‘universals’. For more literature see Pustejovsky (1996, 59–60).
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, , etc.). This means that the definition of componential word meaning inevitably leads into the highly abstract systems of the conceptual order with which the human mind surveys its experience of the reality of the world. But even so the feature <predatory> in the concept for the word ‘cat’, for example, could be given quite different places in this hierarchy, depending on the degree of attention and importance (see below) which the language user attributed to it. There is a difference of meaning (sense, see below) whether we speak of a pet cat or a tiger. This means that there is no general and natural logic determining feature arrangement. It depends, rather, on the specific construal created by the speaker in the act. The most important prerequisite for a component feature to function as a tool for semantic explanation is that it is itself expressible by a word. A feature not meeting this condition would be communicatively dead. We could not even state its existence. Unless we wish to go back to pointing gestures or pictures (indices and icons), there is no other way of explaining words as symbolic signs—but by words, i.e. features by features plus semantic relations and extensions. This is why language can be called an endless, self-referential and self-explaining system of meaningful signs which explain each other. The introduction to a language of absolutely new semantic features, which demand new words for their explanation, is therefore most difficult. It is often done with the help of new component configurations (not new components themselves) or with metaphors, i.e. with the extension of old word meanings to new areas of reality. A recent example is the creation of computer language almost completely with the help of new metaphors. The fact that lexicalization takes place in language on the level of feature configuration, but not on the level of individual features as meaning components, helps to diminish the number of words which a language needs in order to fulfil the communicative tasks of its users. This is so in particular because the number of components is actually infinite, depending on the properties of the denoted referent and/or concept which are part of the experience of language users. New contexts and situations make new components (features) or lead to new configurations. If it were otherwise, i.e. if every variant of a meaning had to be given its own lexeme, the number of words of a language would again become unmanageable. The
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componentiality of meaning is therefore highly economical. ‘The evolutionary solution of this problem is to have systems of forms prompt for the construction of meanings that go far beyond anything like the form itself (Fauconnier and Turner 2003, 92–3).’ This gives its users considerable freedom in using the words according to their own concepts and intentions and, together with this, a moral duty to explain by way of discourse in which way the words used are meant and have to be understood. 10.2.2 Semantic malleability
The principle of componentiality entails what might be called the ‘semantic malleability’ of words. Whoever uses a word in a syntagma does so by foregrounding certain features according to the communicative needs provided by the co-text and context and by ignoring and backgrounding others. The result is what can be called the ‘sense’ of the word as different from its ‘meaning’. When engaged in communicative acts, the speakers and listeners have to decide which feature(s) is/are the relevant one(s) in the special case according to their present attention. The definition of ‘cat’ in the COBUILD dictionary 29 can, for example, be broken down into the following statements: (3) A cat is a small animal. / A cat is a furry animal. / A cat is an animal with a tail. / A cat is an animal with whiskers. / A cat is an animal with sharp claws. / A cat kills smaller animals. / A cat is a pet. / A cat is a domestic animal. / A cat belongs to the family which includes lions and tigers. (etc.) All these one-component statements (and many more), if configured, constitute the concept . It is almost impossible to imagine a sentence which contains all these components, i.e. the whole meaning zone, of a lexeme (unless in a statement which expresses not natural language use but the reflection on it). But it is easy to imagine sentences which refer to only one of these and possess perfect semanticity. (4) A cat is ok with me, I hate big dogs. / Take the cat away, I am allergic to furry animals. / Never let cats come with their tails near 29 [A] small furry animal with a tail, whiskers, and sharp claws that kills smaller animals such as mice and birds.
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those Staffordshire figures. / Killing smaller animals is the law of nature, so a cat is a perfectly normal being. (etc.) Each of these contexts (sentences) foregrounds one particular feature and disregards the others. Following the same dictionary, the meaning of the word ‘freedom’ 30 can be explained by the following statements: (5) Freedom is the right to express political opinions. / Freedom is the right to act without the government interfering. / Freedom means being able to do what you want to do without being restricted. / Freedom is the state of not being a prisoner or slave. (etc.) Note the following corresponding sentences: (6) Journalists complain that there is no freedom in the country. / People have the right of freedom in this country. / The judge allowed them freedom of choice. / Many slaves bought their freedom with what they saved from farming. It is obvious that all content words of a language have an abundance and, if reflected upon, even an infinite number of such features as constitutive parts of their meaning(s) (Murphy 2003, 18). Some of these are more prototypical than others, so some will be focused on more frequently. 31 This determines the frequency with which words are used in ordinary speech. In non-technical language, 32 cats will, for example, be mentioned as pets and mice-catching animals much more often then as house-trained or amorous ones. So, in actual language use, the one word has many senses which exploit the richness of its meaning and some of these senses are used more often than others. They are the ‘construals’ already mentioned. Construing by component selection, component arrangement and the fore- or backgrounding of components, as shown in the example of ‘cat’, is a highly creative cognitive procedure by which the number of senses of words available in a language, as compared to the number of word meanings, is multiplied almost infinitely, although 30 [T]he right to express any political and religious opinion and live or act without the government or another country interfering. 31 Compare the concept of ‘qualia structure’ in Pustejovsky 1996. 32 Technical language is commonly defined as having precise word meanings, i.e. stable configurations of features. But even here a certain malleability of words is to be found. Doctors use the names of various kinds of sicknesses under different aspects, etc. This problem needs a special treatment. Admittedly, the possibilities of construals with technical terms are smaller than with words in everyday use.
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the number of signs (words) remains constant. This means making infinite use of a finite number of signs. The malleability of words explains the flexibility of any language to express all communicative tasks with a limited number of signs. Of course, various construals of one word usually have semantic affinities with each other, as experience shows. The various senses of ‘cat’ will in most cases pertain to our experience with these animals. (However, in a statement like ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ this is not the case, either for ‘cat’ or for ‘dog’.) But these can be highly idiosyncratic and metaphors (as in the example mentioned) often have very odd significations. As things are in this world, construals of word meanings with identical referents can even be flatly contradictory. It is possible to use the word ‘Venus’ (i.e. the name of the star) conceptually in the sense of <morning star> and also in the sense of <evening star>. It is also possible to use the word ‘Napoleon’ (i.e. the name of the historical person) conceptually in the sense of (of Austerlitz) and (of Waterloo). 33 So the two statements ‘Venus shines most brightly in the morning’ and ‘Venus shines most brightly in the evening’ are both correct. Compared to the meaning(s) of a word in isolation, its semantic construals in a text are subject to co-textual and contextual constraints. They are the same for ordinary speakers in ordinary circumstances, but words like ‘satisfaction’, ‘freedom’, or even ‘cat’ can, as construals, also be semantically filled with elements which come from just one speaker’s experience and therefore occupy the foreground of his or her attention. This happens much more frequently than people realize in common communication and can lead to severe and undetected misunderstandings. With reference to words, ‘meaning’ and ‘sense as construal’ appear now as terms on quite different levels of language. The meaning of a word is something hypothetical; a potential which belongs to the system of linguistic signs, providing producers and recipients of a language with the whole range of its components. The meaning construal of a word is something real in speech or script. It is constructed with the help of cognitive procedures, geared to the conditions of a communicative act. Meanings are 33 These are the famous examples given by the logician Gottlob Frege and the philosopher Edmund Husserl. For a discussion of intensionality and extensionality, see below.
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the sums or configurational abstractions of possible senses. As a rule, construed senses are narrower and more limited than word meanings, because they are selective. A selection, i.e. a reduction, of meaning has taken place in order to convey the intended information. Metaphorical use, however, almost regularly transcends the limits of original meanings. In this case it is an information addition which leads to the intended result. Calling the actuating tool for a computer ‘mouse’ cannot rely on any semantic feature of the word ‘mouse’, it is a metaphor stimulated (probably) by the shape of the animal and of the activating device. Except in such metaphors, there is nothing in the sense of a construal that is not in the meaning of a word, but there will always be many components in a meaning which do not appear in a construal. The existence of so far unexploited features can lead to a creative use of words provided a new co-text and context conforms with them. The cognitive processes in the human mind which turn meanings into construals have been called ‘the windowing of attention’ (Talmy 2000, chap. 4). It consists of foregrounding (‘windowing’) and backgrounding (‘gapping’ 34 ) certain semantic features relative to certain event frames. Correlations are assumed between the windowing techniques and comparable structures in perception. Distribution of attention, ‘along with other schematic systems such as configurational structure, location of perspective point, force dynamics and cognitive state’ is ‘the fundamental principle of structuring language’ (Talmy 2000, 258). Giving a word its special profile as a construal is not just a matter of feature selection and arrangement, it also coordinates words as parts of structural (phrasal) units. These units have a grammatical (structural) meaning of their own as subject, first object, second object, object complement, or adverbial. The idea of the semantic autonomy of syntactic units (Goldberg 1995) is prefigured in functional grammar. Without going into any detail, it is safe to say that the meanings of syntactical units are of an abstract nature (agentivity, cause, experience, movement, etc.) and that the semantic coordination, which ends in a construal, is also the result of a confrontation between the lexical meaning of words and the syntactic 34 Note that these are all metaphorical uses of words which add features to their meanings.
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meanings of phrases (Coene and Willems 2006). ‘Confrontation’ is to be understood as a logico-semantic, not as a psychic, process of accommodation. Note, for example, the coordination between subject noun and predicate verb: (7) The country developed [into a flourishing industry]. His body developed [violent allergic rashes]. The photographs developed [clearly]. Note the coordination between predicate verb and first object noun. (8) [The children] are eating their ice cream. [—]Eat your soup [while it is hot]. [Astronauts] eat steaks [before they start]. Sentences such as (9) He ran his business [with great success]. (10) She sneezed the napkin [off the table]. are particularly convincing because the prototypical grammatical nature of ‘run’ and ‘sneeze’ is that of objectless (intransitive) verbs. The coordination with a first object (in 9) turns ‘run’ into the construal <make run>, and together with ‘business’ into <make function>, where ‘run’ loses the feature of and adopts the metaphorical meaning of . If the object had been represented by a different noun as, for example, ‘diamond(s)’, the effect of coordination would have been quite different. ‘He ran his diamonds [with great success]’: In this case ‘run’ would have adopted the construal <smuggle> and also ‘success’ would have adopted a different meaning. The coordination with a first object ‘napkin’ (in 10) turns ‘sneeze’ into the meaning construal <make something move by the forceful expulsion of air through the nose> which could be derived logically in several stages. 35 A particularly lucid case of feature coordination between word classes is to be found between adjectives and nouns in a noun phrase. As such adjectives are syntactically subordinate to their noun heads, it is a selection by the noun rather than coordination. The adjective ‘long’, for example, which signals the meaning offers itself to component selection with an apparently inexhaustible 35
Example and explanation taken from Coene and Willems (2006).
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stock of possibilities. Each of them could be changed into a synonymous adjective or adjectival expression. (11) Long beach/hair/dress/paper/poem/journey/pause/day/drink/ memory/distance/jump/shot/tooth/division. The (varying) number of features is also the reason why words and their construals can be allocated to various semantic fields (see below). In the case of ‘cat’, for example, the word can be seen as a member of such semantic fields as <mammals>, <small animals>, , , <domestic animals>, <predatory animals>, , etc. In idiomatic phrases the possibilities are even more numerous. 36 Semantic fields are therefore not the result of any given meaning properties of a language but of language use. They are speaker-made. They depend on the native speaker’s personal experience. The concept of the general malleability of word meanings contradicts all semantic models which distinguish between clear dichotomies such as a ‘centre’ and a ‘periphery’, ‘main’ and ‘subsidiary areas’, ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’, and other similar ones. Instead we assume a constant flux of arrangement and rearrangement of features in language use which produces the senses of uttered words by windowing and gapping. Meanings (as, for example, defined in dictionaries) give a conspectus of potential construals as observed in as many cases of language use as are possible and feasible. There is no denying the fact that such meanings are of great daily influence. They are indispensable for establishing conventional traditions by saying what a certain word ‘ought to mean’, and are thus important for all kinds of learning. Moreover, they establish a hypothetical norm for the description and evaluation of word senses. There is hardly any possibility to teach words or discuss them in the various aspects of their being used (appropriateness, style, register, etc.) without going back to their hypothetical meanings. But they must not be mistaken for real-language occurrences (speech acts). The holistic and componential aspects of word meaning, the existence side by side of meanings and senses are obviously contradictory. But they mirror the nature of linguistic competence which consists of fixed representations (which are holistic) together with 36
Such as Let the cat out of the bag, There are more ways than one to skin a cat, etc.
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conceptual procedures (which are componential). People become aware of the former by intuition and of the latter by reflection. The formation of a construal out of the word’s meaning store presupposes its (the store’s) decomposition. Obviously, both aspects contribute to the successful working of the human cognitive apparatus. Decomposition gives the linguistic practice a chance to adapt to all communicative needs. Wholeness ensures that the handling of linguistic signals remains practical and economical. In consequence, it seems futile to argue whether words are stored in the human memory lexically and in modular fashion—the dictionary in our head—or conceptually and by definition together with other experience—the encyclopedia in our head (Murphy 2003, 16, 45). Both are true. The linguistic phenomena discussed so far are by no means new. On the contrary, they have been discussed, though fragmented and explained in different ways, in various systems of our academic knowledge about and on language. The relationship between word meaning and word sense as construal is, for example, an obvious parallel to the relationship between langue and parole in classical structuralism. It is also prefigured in structural–functional semantics as elaborated by Eugenio Coseriu (Coseriu 1975, Coene 2006). Moreover, the idea of the storage of words with their overarching meanings in the human mind together with the reification of their senses in actu guarantees what the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called the ‘family resemblance’ of words. The constant ‘game’ between word meanings and senses is a confirmation of the fact that language meaning is in its use, not in the so-called necessary and sufficient conditions. Use, however, rules itself by co-textual and contextual adequacy. ‘Family resemblance’ means that every word comes into its own in each case of occurrence, and yet has some similarity to other words because of the common meaning underlying them. Another pertinent model of explanation is provided by pragmatics and speech act theory, which both refer back to so-called contextualism, i.e. to the ‘meaning-is-context-of-situation theory’ developed by the British linguist J. R. Firth and the Polish anthropologist B. Malinowski. John Searle’s speech act theory points to the impact that illocution has on word and sentence meanings. But illocution is, of course, very much dependent on the context of situation outside language. ‘There is a draught in here’ with the
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sense <somebody should close the window> gains its meaning in toto and in the words used from the circumstances of ‘in here’. Of great importance are the rules of metaphorization and metonymy (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Many of the adjectival meanings are, for example, metaphors, as can be seen from (12) warm water/socks/colours/sound/person/welcome/greetings. Certainly ‘warm colours’ and ‘sounds’ can be given their meanings only by metaphorization just like ‘warm greetings’—though here the impression of a warm body in embrace may be thought of as a conceptual beginning. This may be similar in a sentence like ‘You’re warm’ as used in hide-and-seek. Finally, the concept of intensional and extensional meanings are pertinent to the cognitive view—even more so than the other concepts mentioned. They apply to words but also to predicates and longer expressions. The extension of a word is the sum of all objects and/or occurrences in the real or mental world which it indicates. The intension of a word is the sum of the semantic features which are foregrounded in the act of reference. The intensional features of a word meaning must therefore be made clear before the extensional meaning can be determined. So the latter is dependent on the former. Both are constituents of meaning, though in various ways. The wider the extension of a word is, the smaller are its intensional possibilities. Intensional features of one and the same extension can be contradictory, as the example sentence from Frege showed (see above). A lively discussion of a philosophical and logical (but not a linguistic) nature has been going on since the terms were introduced by Rudolf Carnap (1956). The question still remains unanswered whether at all and how far intensional features must (can) be replaced by extensional ones in order to be comprehended (Leonhard 1967). There is an obvious parallelism between extension and meaning on the one hand and intension and sense on the other. Its subtleties have to be explored. The closest parallel to meaning and sense in the cognitive position is probably that of Bedeutung and Sinn in Frege. But it must not be forgotten that philosophers (Frege, Carnap) have an interest in the problem which is different from that of linguists, even if they deal with related phenomena. The former are devoted to finding the conditions of
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truth (logic), the latter to finding the conditions of communication (expression). The most recent model of explanation is offered by Pustejovsky (1996). He speaks of semantic ‘coercion’, meaning that lexemes, syntactically concatenated, coerce each other to adopt certain senses. It seems doubtful whether this term is felicitously chosen. 37 The arguments used in this chapter are nevertheless heavily indebted to Pustejovsky’s work. 38 With respect to the existence of synonyms, the most important difference between word meanings and word senses is that the former represent possible language whereas the latter represent actualized language. Philosophers seem not to be aware of this fact. The meaning definitions of words which we read in dictionaries are no real language in actu, they are the result of looking at language in reflectione. This being the case, the question whether lexemes are stored in the mind as monosemes or as polysemes loses its pertinence. As they never occur as such in actual speech or writing, the relevant difficulties in ascertaining what they mean will never be encountered. It is the senses where such difficulties would have to be solved. But with the help of the various dependencies and constraints that rule these construals, monosemy seems to be guaranteed for the semantically reified word. Linguistic competence allows the storing of words with overarching meanings as objects of reflection as well as the reification of senses out of them.
10.3 On synonymy 10.3.1 Similarity and synonymy
The difference between ‘meaning’ and ‘sense’, ‘fixed representation’ and ‘construal’ is essential for our cognitive view of synonymy. 37 According to the COBUILD dictionary, ‘coercion’ is the act or process of persuading someone forcefully to do something that they did not want to do. I do not adopt this term because I think that almost all its semantic features are far removed from the nature of the logical process that ends in semantic coordination. For me, there is no acceptable construal of the term ‘coercion’ in the sense [coordination] to be found. 38 All this proves the concept of an ideal language with a strict one-to-one mapping of signs and meanings to be an illusion. This language would either be unwieldy, because its lexis would expand without limits, or it would be very poor in its expressive powers. It is a typically rational prejudice to believe that single-valued signs are easier to handle. It is only in some clear-cut domains of communication, as in some sciences, where this is the case. In spite of the high intellectual level of their statements, they are communicatively poor.
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The most obvious property of the meaning(s) and the senses of a word is that they do not coincide with the meaning(s) and senses of another word. This means that word meanings and senses are defined by the general criterion of ‘difference’ (Murphy 2003, 41). On the level of the lexical system, the extreme cases of total identity of features (which would be perfect synonymy) and total difference (which would be the status of a hapax legomenon) can be ruled out as possible but communicatively dead (see above). Rather, words have some features in common and others that differ; therefore, they stand in varying grades of similarity to each other. We can distinguish between words with a surplus of identical features, or with a surplus of diverging features. The words of both groups are similar to each other in their meanings, if in varying degrees. It is the former—the ones with a surplus of identical features—which offer themselves as ‘synonyms’ in the way the name is commonly used. If we take the partial overlap of semantic components of at least two words in the system to be the criterion of synonymy, we must say that it appears as a property possessed by every word of a language to a greater or lesser degree. The words ‘rain’ and ‘drizzle’ are more synonymous than, for example, the words ‘rain’ and ‘snow’, the words ‘charity’ and ‘love’ more than ‘charity’ and ‘generousness’. But ‘drizzle’ and ‘snow’ and ‘love’ and ‘generousness’ still share some synonymy, even if to a smaller degree than the others. Logically speaking, the most perfect synonyms would be words with only identical components except for one (Murphy 2003, 44), the most imperfect ones the words with only different components, again except for one. However, saying that all words are potential synonyms of all other words renders the term useless. It is also against intuition. If synonymy is a semantic relation between words, it certainly applies to some and not to others, just as the other semantic relations do. If somebody is asked ‘What do you mean by “terminate”?’ he or she will probably say ‘Well—end, finish, stop’—but not ‘Finish, stop, and also start, launch’, i.e. he or she will not use words which have in common with ‘terminate’ that they denote the end points of an action, but not its progress. This means the semantic relation of synonymy presupposes intuitively that there is a high degree of overlap, not overlap as such and in general. Although the idea of a scale of synonymy between full (minus one) and zero (plus one) overlap suggests itself (Cruse 1986, 266,
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268), it remains unclear where to draw the general dividing line between synonyms and non-synonyms (similar words). The only test we have is to make native speakers judge whether sentences with synonyms are ‘normal’ or ‘odd’. Both criteria are vague, and are, as experience shows, applied quite differently by various native speakers. They obviously know something intuitively which they cannot easily corroborate by reflection. They only know for sure that the two extreme cases, perfect synonymy and the hapax legomenon status, are no cases for discussion. Moreover, the definition of synonyms with notions like <more> and , and <small> assumes that features as meaning components can be counted and summed up or at least compared and measured. This appears to be inadequate for the simple reason that their number per lexeme varies and is, in principle, infinite depending on the co-text and context in which they are used. Therefore, we can never relate components of word meanings to each other properly. This is also the reason why a symmetrical arrangement on the scale of synonymy is erroneous. 39 We cannot fix the criterial middle point. On the level of the lexical system, the fixed representations in the mind, the definition of a synonym, therefore, runs into severe difficulties. A solution to the problem offers itself on the level of language use. As construals, words are not used in their meaning potentials but in their reified senses. They select and arrange some components which are semantically more relevant than others with reference to the co-text and context of the speech act. It is therefore— theoretically—possible and feasible to select and arrange (again: in a given co-text and context) construals from word meanings in such a way that their configured semantic features as components are perfectly equal in their senses, if this seems necessary with reference to their communicative relevance (salience). Therefore, as construals, words can indeed be perfect synonyms. It will have to be shown that this possibility of constructing perfect synonyms out of semantic construals is not something accidental (and perhaps unimportant) but a prerequisite for the functioning of language on the textual level. 40 The most important conclusion to be drawn from this insight is that synonyms 39
From ‘all minus one’ to half = synonyms, from half to ‘zero plus one’ non-synonyms. Note: ‘[. . . ] more than any other sense-relation, it [synonymy] is context-dependent and in a theoretically interesting way.’ (Lyons 1968, 452). In spite of this statement, Lyons 40
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are not to be found on the level of the linguistic system, but are made in language use. If we reserve the term ‘similarity’ for naming the general semantic affinity of words in isolation, we can reserve the term ‘synonymy’ for naming the identical sense of construals. Every word as a construal can be given a sense-in-co-text-andcontext which makes it a perfect synonym to some other word. ‘Synonymy occurs when two words have senses with identical feature specification’ (Murphy 2003, 86; also 134; my italics). The general malleability of words and their cognitive abilities allow humans to create this. Synonyms now appear as the product of our cognitive dealings with linguistic signs, not as a property of these signs themselves. This is so in language production, i.e. in giving sense, as well as in language reception, i.e. in understanding sense. We know words as fixed mental representations, but in concatenation we relate them dynamically to each other. Co-text and context are a powerful guide. It can be left to further debate whether fixed representations already carry the possibilities of relating and, above all, synonymizing with them, or whether these are only a matter of conceptual reflections a posteriori. Most probably, this depends on the frequency and stylistic precision with which synonyms are constructed. Common metaphors, for example, which are a frequently used source of synonymy (see below), may very well be already part of the fixed mental representation of a word, whereas choice metaphors 41 are certainly not. Note the following expressions which are so common that their metaphorical character is hardly felt any more: (13) The back of the book ; the back of the door < the inner side of the door>; the back of the knife < the blunt edge of the knife>; the back of the dog < the (upper) visible part of the dog>; the back of the house . The importance of co-text and context also appears in the fact that there are no prototypical (canonical) cases to be found in synonyms. Unlike antonyms with such clear pairs as ‘alive’ vs ‘dead’, ‘big’ vs arrives at the conviction that synonymy as a semantic relation is not really necessary for the functioning of language. 41 Besides, choice metaphors are hardly ever synonyms of other words but add something to their sense.
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‘small’, synonyms are always geared to their environment. There is hardly ever a ‘best’ synonym irrespective of its use. But there are such ‘best’ antonyms (see below). The synonymy of construals, as is now obvious, is not a quantifiable relation between words but one of communicative salience. Similarity on the level of meanings, however, is a matter of how many semantic components two (or more) words share and do not share with each other. This is, at least partly, a quantifiable principle. In spite of this difference between similarity and synonymy, it is intuitively obvious that it is easier for speakers to form synonymous construals among more similar words than among less similar ones if the conditions of language use are conducive to so doing. But in spite of this obvious truism, things are much more complex. ‘Flesh’ and ‘meat’, for example, are words which are highly similar because they share all their semantic features but one, namely . Following a quantifying definition, this would make them almost perfect synonyms, and, depending on the topic of a text dealing with sanguine matter, this may even often be the case. But in almost all other texts they may not be synonyms at all but as sharply contrasted as antonyms. This means that, although a quantifying comparison between the semantic components of a word is not without some importance for the construction of synonyms, it is not the necessary condition. It is also due to the specific conditions of language use whether the user gives communicative salience either to the overlapping or to the diverging components. In the first case, we usually speak of ‘cumulative’ synonyms, in the latter case of ‘differentiating’ ones. Again, this is not a property of the words themselves but of the ways they are used. Note, for example: (14) The historical records, memoirs, chronicles, annals, histories, and reports all tell us that traitors are never the winner of battles (after Roget 2002, no. 548). This phrase uses similar words (as co-hyponyms to ) because of their great proportion of identical components. Among them are the most salient ones which pertain to historicity. Here speakers lump them together into one class and listeners are persuaded to follow them in doing this. So the words are used as cumulative synonyms. In spite of the fact that they obviously have different meanings, they are used here in what they
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have semantically in common. But speakers can also use them as similar words denoting various, i.e. different, genres of such historical records (for example, after having discussed them). In this case they are differentiating synonyms. (15) Annals and histories are both historical records. Annals adhere strictly to the sequence of time, whereas histories follow a narrative principle. Cumulative synonyms in the strict sense can replace each other. This makes them construals which are perfect synonyms. Differentiating synonyms can explain, delimitate, illustrate, clarify (etc.) each other. 42 This makes them construals which are similar words. Both kinds of synonyms are an essential tool for any communication by words. Obviously, it depends on their being used clearly. Trying to do this counts as perhaps the most important postulate for language use. Speakers are eager to achieve this clarity by using differentiating or perfect synonyms to comment on their own words. In many cases of controversial discourse this is even a powerful incentive for the discourse itself. Note: (16) He was murdered, or rather executed.—He was cashiered, that is to say, dismissed (Cruse 1987, 267).—I wish to ask, or even entreat, you to drop this plan.—Speaking of etymology: lemonade is not necessarily made out of lemons, it is just a sweet drink. The synonyms used here are all of the differentiating type. Such self-reflexive sentences are part and parcel of common, and also of academic, discourse. There are also many formulaic expressions which serve the purpose of semantic clarity. Note, for example: (17) What do you mean by . . . ?—What I meant to say was [. . . ].— You misunderstand the word . . . I see what you mean.—I would call that . . . (etc.) Such expressions can introduce differentiating as well as cumulative synonyms. Which function words are used depends on the decision of the speaker. If we agree that communication includes in many cases the semanticization of hitherto unknown construals, we must also agree that synonymy is an indispensable property of natural languages. It is also the foundation of advanced teaching 42 ‘Illustrate’, ‘demonstrate’, ‘elucidate’, ‘exemplify’, ‘explain’, ‘instance’, ‘show’ (Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms 1999).
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procedures. After all, teaching depends to a great extent on the clarification of meanings. (For the use of perfect synonyms, see below.) 10.3.2 Fields and frames
Synonyms have been a topic of linguistic reflection (Hüllen 2004, 73–117), 43 since Prodikos of Keos, a contemporary of Socrates, turned his attention to them and discussed their importance according to the criteria of the sophists. Over the centuries, synonyms were collected in various ways. Either small clusters of words were listed with or without definitions and rules for use, or great numbers of words were collected as classified glossaries, nomenclatures, dictionaries or thesauri. The small clusters were arranged either alphabetically, or according to selected semantic affinities. Frequently, one of their member words functions as a keyword which can, but need not, then find its place in a collection by way of the alphabet. The author with the greatest impact on this type of synonym collection in Europe was the Abbé Gabriel Girard (?1677–1748). The classified glossaries (etc.) were arranged according to largescale plans which often aim at systematizing all of human knowledge by a system of words which function as names. They are therefore obviously influenced by either philosophy or encyclopedic conspectuses. Historically speaking, synonyms have indeed been treated mostly in groups which are frequently parts of larger groups. In present-day semantics these groups are modelled in various ways and given various names. The older one is ‘field’, the more recent one ‘frame’. Semantic fields are synonyms of one word class (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) whose identical features pertain to one outstanding component of great communicative saliency (like words for buildings [nouns], words for colours [adjectives], words for bodily movements [verbs], words for the temporal units of the day [adverbs], etc.). This component—and in consequence the topic of the field—can be conceived on various levels of abstraction (like words for (parts of) kitchen furniture [nouns], words for shades of 43 Synonymy has also been a means of language practice since then, often in very subtle ways. It is almost one of several defining criteria of certain text genres like forensic language and sermons that their style is dominated by the use of synonyms. A detailed history of this development is an urgent desideratum in linguistic historiography. Hüllen (2004, 73–117) gives only glimpses. See also Burnley 1992, 462–3.
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red [adjectives], words for ways of swimming [verbs], and words for the temporal division of ‘night’ [adverbs]). This makes the delimitation of semantic fields rather difficult. They frequently appear as large area fields filled with small area fields (and so on) rather than as homogeneous areas. The member words of semantic fields are selected and arranged according to the dominant components which appear in each of them. Houses, clothes, containers, drinking vessels (as nouns)— modes of walking, kinds of rain, ways of dying, of reflecting (as verbs)—colours, qualities of bravery, metrical sizes, linguistic styles (as adjectives)—these and infinitely more can be chosen as organizing principles of semantic fields. The order of word entries varies according to the topic. Names of houses, for example, can be arranged according to size (‘manor’, ‘hut’), to function (‘apartment house’, ‘shed’), to location (‘farm’, ‘terrace’), etc.; modes of walking according to the agent (‘walk’, ‘gallop’), to speed (‘jog’, ‘race’), to physiological normality (‘go’, ‘somersault’), etc. The possibilities are extremely numerous and sometimes idiosyncratic. Semantic frames are words which pertain to a fairly homogeneous section of reality or to a communicative situation and therefore occur together in ordinary language use. Unlike semantic fields, frames contain words of all grammatical classes. To them belong, for example, such as are used for monetary transactions, for eating in a restaurant, for booking a room in a hotel, for taking revenge on somebody, etc. They usually group their member words in some natural order, such as, for example, the temporal sequence of (parts of) actions (and are then called ‘scripts’). The term was originally at home in sociology. M. Minsky and E. Goffmann stressed that human behaviour in society was organized in such a way that typological situations, i.e. frames, with their own interior order came into being. Linguists like C. J. Fillmore developed the argument that the words of a language follow such situations in their meanings. This means that the single word evokes or projects such frames in the mind of the language user. ‘The frames of current frame semantics [. . . ] are described in terms of characteristics of the situation types themselves, including whatever could be said about the background and other associations of such situations’ (Fillmore 2006, 616). However, it depends on the foregrounding and backgrounding of features by the language user as to which frame certain words are allocated.
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Because of the homogeneous character of reality, it is always difficult to find a convincing delimitation of fields as well as of frames. Fields depend either on tradition (like the genera and species of animals and plants) or on the individual decisions of language users, among which culture-specific classifications play an important role. As the member words of frames often pertain to domains in time and space (in a restaurant, in a church, in the law courts, etc.), there are fewer difficulties in their delimitation. Very broadly speaking, fields are more inclined to accumulate words which have a potential to be read as perfect synonyms whereas frames prefer to list words which have a potential to be read as differentiating ones. 10.3.3 Antonyms
A frequently used technique to semanticize a word is the negation of an antonym: ‘dead’ means <not being alive>, a ‘dark’ room is a room <without light>. Linguistically, antonyms appear as two kinds. They are either lexemes prefixed or suffixed with negative morphemes (e.g. unfair, fameless), or they are words in their own semiotic gestalt which negate the meanings of other words. The first kind of antonym is morphologically different from synonyms, because there is no morpheme in word formation which signals synonymy. The second kind is not. Note the following antonyms 1–10, 13–14 from Roget’s Thesaurus: (18) ‘existence // non-existence’, ‘substantiality // insubstantiality’, ‘intrinsicality // extrinsicality’, ‘state // circumstance’, ‘relation // unrelatedness’, ‘identity // contrariety’. The first kind of antonym denies what the non-prefixed or differently-suffixed 44 word asserts; the language user must therefore know this word in order to understand its antonym. Insofar as the word without its negative prefix or suffix is a fixed representation, its antonym is one, too. This means that, contrary to synonyms, we have morphologically motivated antonyms on the level of the linguistic system. They form prototypical and canonical word pairs as an entailment of word formation. The second kind of antonym obviously also denies the meaning of the positive word it refers to. But it does so as an independent 44 Antonymous suffixes are, for example, -ee (‘payer // payee’) or -less (‘famous // fameless’).
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word. In this case, the negative word depends on conceptual knowledge and encyclopedic experience just as the positive and in fact every word does. It must be left open whether the antonymic relationship as such is a genuine (perhaps innate) property of the human mind or the abstract result of experience. Prototypical or canonical antonyms testify to the obvious strength of the concept ‘negation’ in the workings of cognition. ‘Life // death’, ‘light // dark’, ‘come // go’, or ‘before // after’ are all undeniably pairs, connected by opposition. Each of the two member words can be used by negation in order to define the other. In these cases, antonymy between words is a symmetrical relationship. The negative members share all the semantic features of the positive ones and vice versa, except one (Murphy 2003, 170). This one is the meaning ‘negation’ and ‘assertion’ respectively. Looking at it from this angle, antonymy is very similar to synonymy, which is also a symmetrical relation between words. However, the one differing component (negation) must be marked by a singular communicative salience which places it hierarchically higher than all the others. By this ploy, the positive and negative members deny each other in their semantic entirety whereas in the positive case the two members of a perfect synonymous pair confirm each other. As is the case with synonyms, the set of semantic components which are denied vary considerably in individual words. In ‘life // death’ they concern an all-embracing philosophical, rather abstract, concept, in ‘male // female’ an organic (biological) condition, in ‘bring // take’ opposite directions (locality), and in ‘before // after’ temporal sequence. But these pairs have many more features which do not stand in opposition to each other. In consequence, the nature of the opposition that binds words and their antonyms together is quite different. A division has, for example, been defined between complimentarity, converseness, and antonymy. Complementarity consists of a dependency of two words on each other in order to state their incompatibility, as in ‘male // female’ or ‘single // married’. This incompatibility depends on what can be called normal circumstances, which are either a fact of nature (‘male // female’) or a fact of culture (‘single // married’). The denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, a choice of the third possibility is not given. 45 45 These are linguistic, not real-life, facts. If the latter change, language must follow by creating new words in new relations. The fact of what might be called a homosexual
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Converseness pertains to words like ‘buy // sell’. It is a relation of mutual implication. If you buy something, the act implies that somebody else sells it. In this sense, a book ‘given’ is always also a book ‘received’, but a book ‘taken’ is not necessarily a book ‘given’, because it can have been taken by force. Being a ‘wife’ of somebody always implies that there is a ‘husband’, unless some metaphorical extension is implied as, for example, ‘Being married to Christ’. It is the same with ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, etc. Antonymy applies also to the complex relationship between grading adjectives. There are at least two variants. In polar antonyms the adjectives are both not true opponents, as is shown by so-called pseudo-comparisons. Note: (19) My car is fast. Your car is slow. My car is faster than your car, but nevertheless slow. / Your car is slower than mine but nevertheless fast. <My/your car is fast and slow>. Only equipollent adjectives (like ‘happy’ and ‘sad’, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’) are true antonyms in their simple and their compared forms. Other antonymic specifications are: directional opposition as in ‘north // south’, ‘forward // backward’, ‘come // go’, ‘rise // fall’, ‘zenith // nadir’, ‘cellar // attic’; privative opposition as in ‘clean // dirty’, ‘honest // dishonest’, ‘enter // leave’; reversive opposition as in ‘do // undo’, ‘build // demolish’, ‘memorize // forget’. It is possible that words are subsumed under several of such classes and subclasses. An exhaustive list of antonym types is hardly possible as it depends on the word senses. This is exactly the reason for the many attempts at systematizing antonyms which are available (Lyons 1977, I, 270–90; Cruse 1986, 197–264; Murphy 2003, 188–201). The really important phenomenon is that antonymizing is a co-text- and context-dependent cognitive procedure just as synonymizing is. The features that oppose each other are selected in the same way as they are in order to create synonyms. This also appears in the fact that synonyms can be turned into antonyms. The pair ‘meat’ and ‘flesh’, already mentioned, consists certainly of almost perfect synonyms, because they differ in just one feature. And yet, in most co-texts and depending on the context, they will be antonyms. Obviously the conflicting feature is of such communicative importance that it overrides all others. Colour adjectives marriage can (at least so far) not be expressed by the dichotomy ‘single // married’, but this may be the case in the future.
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are certainly synonyms in a field, but can be made antonyms in a sentence with the context like: (20) Red is not green or yellow. There are plenty of cases where the antonym does not pertain to the total meaning of its positive word but only to such parts of it as are marked by the salience of one or some of its features. This usually goes together with the fact that a word and its antonym are not arranged as a dichotomy, but that a series of synonyms can have just one antonym or that one word can be juxtaposed by several antonyms. Note, for example: (21) (Many) synonyms of ‘genuine’: ‘authentic’ (text), ‘legitimate’ (claim), ‘original’ (idea), ‘candid’ (feelings), ‘honest’ (behaviour), ‘unaffected’ (politeness) vs (one) antonym ‘false’. (One) word: ‘generous’ vs (many) antonyms: ‘selfish’ (character), ‘mean’ (attitude), ‘small’ (portion), ‘disinterested’ (mind), ‘beggarly’ (present), ‘poor’ (selection). Antonymy is a semantic relationship between words just like synonymy, only the existence of canonical antonyms seems abnormal. It is obvious that they are limited (i) to words which have morphological negations, and (ii) morphologically unrelated words for deeply ingrained polar conceptions and experiences of a logical or an objective nature. It is also obvious that canonical antonyms are particularly clear-cut and not ambiguous as far as the opposition to the word of reference goes. This is certainly an advantage for expressing messages. They are, however, also particularly rigid and not adaptable, taking the cognitive flexibility of the speakers away. This is one reason why canonical antonyms are despised in discussions with sophisticated intellectual arguments. Why this is so, why synonyms and antonyms behave so differently in this respect, must be left to speculation. Note: ‘We can leave to others to enquire whether the tendency to think in opposites, to categorize experience in terms of binary contrasts, is a universal human tendency which is but secondarily reflected in language, as cause producing effect, or whether it is the pre-existence of a large number of opposed pairs of lexemes in our native language which causes us to dichotomize, or polarize, our judgement and experiences.’ (Lyons 1977, I, 271). It could also be a heritage of European (western) thinking as it originated in Greek philosophy.
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10.4 Synonyms and antonyms in texts The natural unit of linguistic performance is the text. Concatenation rules guarantee that the sentences which are the building blocks of the text integrate into its higher-level order. Such rules work anaphorically and cataphorically (Halliday and Hasan 1976). It is their general function to coordinate the lower-level signs (words) into the higher-level signs of the text and yet to avoid excessive repetition. This can only be done by providing substitutes for words already used. Well-known substitution cases of a grammatical nature are pronouns and prop words (e.g. ‘one’, ‘the same’). But more interesting are the cases of a semantic nature (content words). They serve stylistic variation, but are nevertheless not of a purely embellishing but a structurally obligatory character. Note the following randomly chosen text: (22) [T]he future Charles II was a large sturdy child. At four months the heir to the thrones of England and Scotland could pass as a one-year-old. He apparently inherited his bulk from his Scandinavian ancestors on his father’s side. His swarthy complexion, on the other hand, supposedly came from his Italian, Medici, forbears on his mother’s. ‘He is so dark I am ashamed of him’, the Queen wrote shortly after he was born, and that colouring earned him the nickname ‘the black boy’. Still, by the time he was four months old she could write proudly, ‘his size and fatness supply the want of beauty. I wish you could see the gentleman, for he has no ordinary mien [. . . ]. (Jardine 2002, 4) Pronouns excepted, there are various chains of words with identical meanings in this section of a text. They are: (i) the future Charles II—child—heir to the throne—boy— gentleman; (ii) (large) sturdy—a one-year-old—bulk—size— fatness; (iii) ancestors—forbears; (iv) swarthy—dark—that colouring—black; (v) complexion—mien. This text would indeed be structurally unacceptable, if there was an exact repetition of words instead of the variation shown. Each of these words contributes to the text as a construal. This is why they are complete synonyms. They have fully identical meanings— not per se but within the sense of the text. Otherwise they would be
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unable to fulfil any text-integrating anaphoric function. The ones under (iii) and (v), for example, are the usual candidates for differentiating synonyms; but in this case they are certainly meant to be nothing else than perfect synonyms expressing their limited senses as a selection from the wider potential of their meanings. This is even more the case with the lexemes under (ii) where the words do not even qualify as synonyms. Sturdiness and fatness hardly have overlapping features 46 at all—except that they qualify as properties of humans—, but they are nevertheless semantically identical in the given context. In (iv) swarthy and dark are, systematically speaking, typical synonyms because they differ in just one feature: swarthy is said of the colour of the human complexion, dark and also black refer to everything which adopts this colour. And yet, the context shows that in the sense of the sentence dark and black mean ‘swarthy’ and nothing else. These and more possible explanations prove that synonyms can operate as full synonyms on the level of texts under the rules which integrate sentences by anaphorical and cataphorical relations between their words. These rules apply to every natural expression. It is the construal that renders this possible. Language users create such senses out of the meaning potential of words which are fully synonymous in a given co-text and context. They do this in order to give a text its coherence. This relation might be called ‘functional (or communicative) synonymy’. It is a phenomenon of language use created by speakers in texts. It depends on the basic cognitive faculty of speakers to handle the signs of language with their meanings. The test of exchangeability in all possible cases does not apply here (it would be nonsensical anyway) because the construed full synonym is meant for one text only. It goes without saying that such sentences also use synonyms in their distinguishing function where appropriate. The creation of ad hoc synonyms is a highly creative method of producing and receiving (understanding) linguistic messages. As such, it defies easy systematization. Besides the well-known techniques, the human mind will always find new and hitherto unknown ways of replacing and explaining words (as construals) by other words (as construals). Nevertheless, it is the task of the linguist 46 COBUILD: A person or animal that is fat has a lot of flesh on their body that they do not need.—Someone who is sturdy looks strong and is unlikely to be easily tired or injured.
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to find out whether some typical procedures of creating functional synonyms exist and what their interrelations are precisely. There is, for example, the difference between the argument structures of some verbs. The dichotomy of transitive vs intransitive, for example, indicates a kind of polysemy which determines the range of possible synonyms. The intransitive verb ‘sink’ denotes an event, including its result but without its cause, whereas the transitive verb ‘sink’ denotes an intentionally caused event and its result. This leads to different functional (communicative) synonyms, for example in the cases ‘sink’ and ‘disappear’, ‘sink’ and ‘act’. Note: (23) The ship sank near the coast. It simply disappeared. / The ship was sunk near the coast. The enemy acted viciously. In the case of transitive verbs, synonyms are also determined by their event structure, i.e. by the difference between a concrete accomplishment and a general achievement. They are expressed, above all, in the object-NP, and set their own conditions for possible synonyms. Note: (24) After the air raid, Picasso painted ‘Guernica’. He finished the picture in a few weeks. / Noam Chomsky revolutionalized linguistics. He introduced generativism. In these cases, the synonym verbs depend on the argument and event structure of the anaphoric predicates (Mourelatos 1981, Pustejovsky 1996, 62–75). They prolong, as it were, their character as verbs expressing events (not states), activities (not processes), accomplishments or achievements. ‘To paint a picture’ denotes an activity which leads to a certain result. ‘Finish’ is the verb which expresses this achievement in an abstract way. ‘To revolutionalize something’ is an activity with a precise beginning but a vague ending. ‘To introduce’ is the verb which expresses exactly this, again in a more abstract way. In a classification of verbs we might assume ‘event verbs’ as the most abstract hypernym with these hyponyms: states/activities ↓→ non-oriented/oriented ↓→start oriented/goal oriented ↓→ accomplishments/achievements.
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This means that the spontaneously-acting language user must have understood these general semantic categories, if not theoretically and consciously, as a condition for the finding of a functional synonym in context. Something very similar can be said of nouns. Here a frequent type of functional synonymy is obviously construed by the use of hyponyms. It follows the principle that the meaning of each hypernym is part of the meaning of its hyponym(s). The features of ‘mammal’, for example, are fully integrated into the potential word meaning of ‘cat’. Therefore, ‘mammal’ can be used as semantically identical to a certain construal of ‘cat’. In texts, hypernyms as alternatives for preceding words (hyponyms) can be chosen from very high levels of the hierarchy of semantic features. This is why the frequently used ones are sometimes grouped as ‘general nouns’. 47 When used under the principle of construal variation in a given context, hyponym und hypernym can be synonymous in the full (functional) sense. This applies, for example, to ‘son’ and ‘boy’, to ‘judge’ and ‘man’, to ‘town’ and ‘place’ in the following pairs of sentences: (25) I should have introduced myself to your son.—Oh, never mind, he’s just a boy. / I explained to the judge that my demand was only fair, but the man didn’t seem to notice. / The town is spoilt by all this traffic. It used to be such a lovely place. As all words of a concrete denotation qualify as hyponyms under more abstract notions and, therefore, words, because they are included in classes, sub-classes, species, genres, etc., the possibilities of synonymous lexeme variation are almost limitless here. This is particularly obvious with words denoting items in natural history (animals, plants, stones, etc.) where even the vocabulary of a natural language is permeated by classificatory thinking. But it also works with words from more general domains. Note: (26) Laying the by-pass was not easy. But the operation was a success. / Selling all his shares was risky, but the operation was a success. / Landing an army on Sicily was dangerous. But the operation was a success. 47 See Halliday and Hasan (1976, 274–6) where many of the techniques of textual cohesion mentioned here are discussed, but not under the aspect of synonymy.
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Further research will have to specify the sentence patterns where this happens most frequently. 48 A different case is coordination between adjective and noun which determines the construals of the former. It concerns cases like (27) ‘a good boy’ , ‘a good knife’ <sharp>, ‘a good play’<well-written>; ‘a long record’ <detailed>, ‘a long nose’ <protruding>, ‘a long play’ ; ‘a useful book’ , ‘a useful instrument’ <easy to handle>, ‘a useful remark’ <enlightening>. Etc. The underlying principle here is that of selective binding in context which is also called ‘coercion’ (see above, Pustejovsky 1996, 86). Only certain meaning components of the adjective are foregrounded, and it is precisely these that are expressed in the functional synonyms. The same can be observed with verbs and their objects. Note, for example: (28) ‘to use contact lenses’ <wear>, ‘to use the underground’ , ‘to use a fountain pen’ <write with>; 49 ‘to abandon a house’ , ‘to abandon a friend , ‘to abandon research’ <stop prematurely>; ‘to start a journey <embark on>, ‘to start a meeting’ <declare open>, ‘to start a plan’ . Another way of constructing functional synonyms is by metaphorization and metonymy. By definition, a metaphor is the extension of a word meaning into an area (frame) of reality where it does not apply in the literal sense. It is well known that our whole language is permeated by metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and that their stylistic use in poetry or elaborated prose is merely a variant of the general human ability to extend meanings in the metaphorical way. In the present context it appears as a special facet of creating construals out of potential meanings. It depends on the ability of the human mind to detect similarities between otherwise separate domains of reality or of concepts. This ability can exploit virtually unlimited possibilities of semanticization. As a rule, metaphors are not synonyms. On the contrary, they add certain semantic features to what could be called their normal 48 Defining sentences (like ‘The dog is a mammal which [. . . ]’) do not belong to them, because here the wider term ‘mammal’ is not reduced to the narrower one ‘dog’ but the other way round. 49 These examples from Pustejovsky 1996, 87.
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meanings. Actually, this is their raison d’être. Saying that somebody is ‘in the prime of his life’ does not just mean that he is forty, but that he feels strong and healthy at this age. Calling a dictionary of synonyms ‘thesaurus’, i.e. ‘treasury’, does not simply point to its character as a large collection of words but to the fact that it is very valuable, comparable to a collection of gold or jewellery or coins. However, if used regularly, metaphors change their way of designating additional meanings. ‘Prime’ simply becomes a name for the period of life between youth and age, and ‘thesaurus’ just means ‘non-alphabetical dictionary’. Calling a military vehicle a ‘tank’ was not a case of synonymy initially. On the contrary, it added the meaning component to and therefore had a semantic surplus. Frequent use, however, wore this additional meaning off and ‘tank’ became <military vehicle> in a given context. It lost its metaphorical overlay and is now ready for context-dependent full synonymy. A similar development can be found in the coinage ‘think tank’. At first, it was a metaphorical name for a group of people whose members pool their thinking as if a liquid had been poured from various bottles into one container. But this image disappeared and gave the word the potential of merely functioning as a full synonym for ‘team’. It is obvious that metaphorization enhances the possibilities of construing full synonyms again in an almost unlimited way. 50 It creates new fixed representations in the mind of the speaker. The question of whether this is an independent one or a derivation from the direct meaning of the word must remain a moote point. The case is different with metonymies. As is well known, they take a part of something as indicating the whole. The technique has a long tradition. It is obviously understood in its synonymous character by everybody. ‘Hand’ instead of ‘labourer’, ‘glass’ instead of ‘wine’, ‘drop’ instead of ‘liquid’, ‘cabinet (i.e. a room for meetings) instead of ‘government’ are capable of functioning as full synonyms. Different from metaphors, they do not at first sight add meanings and do not need time to wear off. Possibly they are marked stylistically until they become indistinguishable from fixed representations. 50 In this chapter, this applies to expressions like chain of thought, concatenation of signs, overlap of meanings, semantic field, malleability, window of attention, derailment (of the semiotic system), naked reference, profiled sense, and many others.
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10.5 Dictionaries and thesauri There are two main types of general purpose dictionary—topically arranged and alphabetically arranged. The former have been given various names, among them ‘thesauri’ since Roget’s most successful Thesaurus of 1852; the latter are, as a rule, simply called dictionaries. 51 They outnumber the former on the market by far, because the alphabetical arrangement is so much more user-friendly than the topical one. However, this advantage is possibly gained at the expense of linguistic insights which may be gleaned from the former. People have to decide between the swift but purely local gain of linguistic information and the slow but widespread acquisition of linguistic knowledge. The awareness of synonymy is at the centre of this choice. Today the two dictionary types present themselves as two possibilities of lexical stocktaking. Apart from the very early sources with few entries only (before 1000 AD), early glossaries, topical dictionaries, or nomenclators consisted of rather large and eventually even enormous numbers of words which were arranged under semantically defined headings. They had a tendency to become exhaustive, in particular since the period of humanism and at the present time since Roget’s famous work. The topical arrangement implied that culling the entries was linked to an organization of general knowledge and an encyclopedic interest. These are the two pillars of recent cognitive linguistics. Earlier works were bilingual, providing vocabulary for the production of Latin texts and, therefore, meant to support the teaching and learning of this foreign language. Later, they were put together as multilingual works, also for the purpose of learning other languages and of text production by this means. These translations provided the topically arranged entries with word equivalents which were in fact interlingual synonyms. The very successful book by Peter Mark Roget introduced the type of monolingual thesaurus without any meaning explanations. It addresses the native speaker and the foreign speaker with an advanced competence alike. A wide variety of words is offered for exact 51 Thesauri are also dictionaries and objects of lexicographical analysis. It is for the juxtaposition of the two that, in this context, the word pair ‘thesaurus’ vs ‘dictionary’ instead of ‘topical dictionary’ vs ‘alphabetical dictionary’ is used. Where no mistake is possible, the word ‘dictionary’ is also used in the generic sense. The juxtaposition of ‘thesaurus’ and ‘dictionary’ is a case of deliberately constructed antonymy.
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semanticization which is entrusted to the users’ command of their language. Alphabetical dictionaries also have their origin in Latin lexicography. Their purpose was to allow their users the translation of Latin texts and the teaching and learning of this foreign language. The sequence of entries was Latin–English at first, which then changed to English–Latin. The former was conducive to translation work, the latter to teaching and producing texts. These dictionaries were transformed into monolingual ones with the intention of explaining the many Latinate words of English vocabulary (socalled ‘hard words’) to people without any knowledge of Latin. They gave rise to more comprehensive monolingual dictionaries which generally explained their entries by synonyms, paraphrases, definitions, quotations, or otherwise (e.g. pictures) and which gradually became ambitious enough to do this for English in toto. They also addressed the native speaker and the foreign one with an advanced competence. However, they did not entrust the exact semanticization of words to their command of the language but delivered it to them (as it were) ready-made. This is the state of lexicography even today. The main difference between the two types lies in the function they give to synonymy. Synonyms have been collected at all times. As a rule, they were guidelines for precision and style in delivering messages, for example by sophist philosophers in ancient Greece or preachers in the Latin Middle Ages. As a modern type of dictionary they came into fashion after the Abbé Girard had collected and explained synonyms of the French language. What at first were essays in comparative word definition eventually became dictionaries of words with similar meanings and their relative explanations. They stand between the two types, alphabetical dictionaries and thesauri, as a hybrid. They overlap with thesauri in that the similarity of word meanings serves as the ordering principle. ‘Similarity’ here means that the identical features outnumber the different ones and give some words a certain cluster identity. The point of reference is one keyword of which the others are synonyms. They overlap with alphabetical dictionaries in that these keywords are commonly ordered according to the alphabet. Frequently, even the synonyms are ordered alphabetically, although they are in all cases selected according to semantic criteria. Entry-internal (i.e. in
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the microstructure) there is semantic selection and possibly order. Between entries (i.e. in the macrostructure) there is alphabetical order. Thus, these dictionaries combine the structure of the one with the structure of the other. Since Roget, they have often been combined with antonyms. Thesauri are much more ambitious than synonym dictionaries. They arrange semantic fields in larger semantic fields in still larger semantic fields (etc.) until the whole lexis of a language appears (ideally) as one meaningful and cohesive system. 52 This is why the older thesauri and, in parts, the synonym dictionaries of the 18th century are the forerunners of rather recent concepts in semantics by showing that the words of a language are not just a mass of signs, but that they allow themselves to be ordered by their users according to cognitive principles. Unlike those of thesauri, the entries of alphabetical dictionaries are not ordered at all. The alphabet is an empty rule without semiotic relevance. In alphabetical dictionaries words do not stand in any semantic relation to each other. Exceptions are so-called ‘nesting’ dictionaries in which the lexemes of one stem are grouped together with its derivations and compounds. In such cases there are semantic affinities of words, but only as a by-product of morphological rules. Typographically, the various words usually appear as one complex entry (‘nest’). The alphabet has the great advantage of universal applicability without any exceptions. There are further attempts at fusing the two ways of stockpiling the words of a language in a way which is useful for learners. Many recent dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms arrange their entries using the alphabet (e.g. Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms, 1999). They choose headwords and make them the point of reference of clusters of synonyms without any further explanations. Others (e.g. Longman Language Activator, 1993) also list words according to the alphabet. But the headwords are explained here as polysemous, and synonyms are added for each of the senses mentioned. In addition, absolutely all the words occurring are listed alphabetically and complemented by cross-references, so that the reader can find them at the places which were allocated to them as synonyms. The two principles are at work in the one alphabetical 52 Dictionaries which arrange frames in larger frames in larger frames (etc.) are of course lexicographically warranted, but they are not in existence yet. Note Fillmore’s report on the FrameNet Database in Fillmore (2006).
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list of the book. This allows every reader to construct his or her own non-alphabetical thesaurus around any word looked for. Moreover, explanations and quotations are given. Another permutation between the alphabetical and the topical type is to have an alphabetical dictionary with short explanations of its entries in the upper two thirds of each page and coordinated synonyms referring to a selection of these in the lower third (e.g. Compact Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordpower Guide, 2001). The explanations above are numbered and the synonyms below are arranged accordingly, but without any further comment. Finally, there is a thesaurus with all the properties of its type, but with added explanations and quotations (McArthur 1981). As with the pudding, the test of dictionaries and thesauri is in doing what they are meant to be used for. This is not a simple ‘either this way’ vs ‘or that way’—not in the extreme cases nor in the permutations. Apart from training, there may be personal habits in consulting a dictionary. Dictionaries treat every word in isolation. They rely on the fixed representations of meanings. They present it as an accumulation of the possible senses of words without any relations to each other. The meaningful linguistic sign is given in its isolated arbitrariness. Each meaning definition is self-contained, i.e. for the dictionary user it applies only to the one lexeme. The most frequently applied technique of semanticization is decomposition into semantic components. Meaning is understood to be a configuration of these. Definitions or paraphrases use such features and, in addition, often class inclusion (hyponyms, hypernyms). Depending on the intellectual standard of the dictionary, these features are either given more formally or in the way of generally-known experience. Whichever way is used, they are given out of context. It might be possible to connect many of these features into a system of ‘universals’, but this is an academic exercise. It is usually not done in a dictionary, and, indeed, it is not necessary for understanding. Alphabetical dictionaries concentrate on each word in the same way and presuppose nothing but common experience and elementary logicosemantical thinking. Dictionary users have no choice concerning word meaning; they are told what to accept. All this conforms to the principles of structuralist (and also formally generativist) linguistics with its overriding principle that language is a self-contained independent module following its own rules and not connected to
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general cognition. Obviously guided by what is thought to be common knowledge, the semanticization of words in such dictionaries has by now developed a tradition which is clearly discoverable even where the standards of dictionaries vary. Compare: (26) dog [. . . ] a common four-legged animal, esp. many of the varieties kept by humans as companions or for hunting, working, guarding, etc. A young dog is called a puppy [. . . ] a male dog or the male of certain animals like it, esp. the fox and the wolf [. . . ] see also bitch. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1987). dog [. . . ] A dog is [. . . ] a very common four-legged animal that is often kept by people as a pet or used to guard or hunt things. There are a lot of different breeds of dog [. . . ] a male dog, wolf, fox, or other animal that is related to dog. (COLLINS COBUILD 1988) dog [. . . ] a quadruped of the genus Canis, of which wild species or forms are found in various parts of the world, and numerous races or breeds, varying greatly in size, shape, and colour occur in a domesticated or semidomesticated state in almost all countries. These are referred by zoologists to a species C. familiaris; but whether they have a common origin is a disputed question. [. . . ] In distinguishing sex the male of this species; a male hound, opp. to Bitch. Also, a male fox, Dog-Fox. (OED 1971).
Common to the three dictionary entries quoted are the popular zoological classification, the mention of the animal’s function in a human society, and some information about sex insofar as there are linguistic consequences. Common are also remarks on differing referents. All this is popular knowledge. The OED outdoes the others in its intellectual demands on the dictionary users. As is apparent, there are no synonyms given, only scarce hints at antonyms. The following quotation from Johnson’s dictionary shows that co-hyponyms can enrich an entry without actually changing its nature. dog [. . . ] A domestick animal remarkably various in his species; comprising the mastiff, the spaniel, the buldog[!], the greyhound, the hound, the terrier, the cur, with many others. The larger sort are used as a guard; the less for sports. [. . . ] It is used as a term for the male of several species; as, the dog fox, the dog otter.
Unlike alphabetical dictionaries, thesauri treat every word in its manifold relations to other words. They do not present their senses directly as fixed representations but leave it to the readers to find them by comparison and make them parts of language use.
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Although the entire linguistic system is felt to be arbitrary, as in alphabetical dictionaries, the individual meaningful sign is given as embedded in clusters of many signs with contributory related senses and therefore, semantically speaking, not arbitrary at all but fitting into a semantic system (network) of words. The user is given abundant material to work with according to the rules of his and her linguistic competence. Meaning definitions do not start from the individual lexeme but from the cluster, if not from still higherranking categories, and then narrow down. There is no point zero, but a general, if vague, knowledge of overarching concepts. The use of a thesaurus stimulates all the cognitive activities which underlie the use of language in any case, in particular the recognition of the various degrees of synonymy. Cognitive processes which are usually at work under the cover of routinized language practice are elevated into conscious procedures. Looking up dog in Roget’s Thesaurus, for example, brings the language user into contact with the following semantic fields and their member words: (i) Animality, Animal (365) as headword under class III: ‘Matter’ and section 3: ‘Organic matter (vitality, special)’ with the subheadwords animality, animal, mammal, bird, table bird, poultry, cattle, sheep, pig, dog, cat, amphibian, reptile, marine life, fish, insect, creepy-crawly, mythical beast. In the context of these 17 groups with an estimate of 590 words, 53 the group ‘dog’ is embedded with 108 synonyms, mostly consisting of names of various kinds of dogs. (ii) Male (372) as headword under the same class and section with the sub-headwords male, male animal. In the context of these two groups with an estimate of 120 words the group ‘dog’ is embedded in about 70 words for the animals with the synonyms dog (coyote, dog, fox, otter, wolf), dog fox. (iii) Bad person (938) as headword under class VI: ‘Emotion, religion and morality’ and class IV: ‘Morality (conditions)’ with the sub-headwords bad person, knave, cad, monster. The word ‘dog’ is embedded in the context of these three groups of an estimate of 140 words. Furthermore, ‘dog’ can as a verb be looked up under the sub-headwords accompany (c.60 words), follow (c.50 words), and pursue (c.60 words). And there are the 53
About 140 words per column, excluding adjectives.
198
Networks and Knowledge in Roget’s Thesaurus
compounds dogcart, dog collar, dog days, dogfight, dogfish and the adjectives dog-eared and dogged. Of course, all these words can as such also appear in an alphabetical order; the special advantage of a thesaurus is that each opens up a new field of synonyms. Nobody expects all these synonyms to be considered by the person who looks up dog, but a large area of choice is nevertheless there and is enlightening at least for the attentive user. Working with a thesaurus relies much more on conceptual knowledge than on linguistic. Meaning as the reservoir of senses is felt to be the product of relations between words. Abstract categories are given in the various headings of the thesaurus. Depending on the intellectual standard of the dictionary, these categories are worded more or less formally. As a rule, they demand a greater intellectual ability and also a more finely grained life experience from their readers than is presupposed for work with alphabetical dictionaries—the really large ones, such as the OED, perhaps excepted. The comparison of many word meanings in order to find the construal being looked for leads from intuition to reflection. The thesaurus readers have a choice of selecting the semantic features which seem most appropriate to them. It is their native speaker competence which enables them to do this and a certain encyclopedic knowledge of the world is presupposed, so they also have the responsibility that their decision is the correct and adequate one. They cannot quote the dictionary as a dependable source, and thus as an excuse for their own words, because the thesaurus always offers them a choice of solutions. All this conforms to the principles of cognitive psychology and linguistics rather than to those of structuralism. Dealing with language is here part of a cognitive dealing with the world. Antonyms are part of this and testify to binarism as a deeply rooted habit of apprehension.
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Index 1852 edition of Roget’s Thesaurus, see editio princeps 1899 edition of Roget’s Thesaurus 42–3, 48, 56 1962 edition of Roget’s Thesaurus 22, 43–4, 48–51, 56–8 2002 edition of Roget’s Thesaurus, see Anniversary Edition Aarsleff, H. 17, 63 abstract processing structures 100–2 abstract terms, tolerance/toleration 53–8 accumulating synonyms 101, 127–8 adaptations of Roget’s Thesaurus: French Le Dictionnaire Idéologique 76–91 German Sprachschatz 60–75 additions and deletions of terms 23–4, see also new words ad-hoc synonyms 187–8 adjectives 72–3, 170–1, 173, 184, 190 aequivoca 9 affixes, antonymous 182 Aitchison, J. 36, 101, 108 n. 1, 117 n. 14, 118, 120–1, 128 Allwood, J. 149, 150 n. 8, 163 alphabetical arrangement: alphabetical dictionaries 122–6, 192–8 dictionaries mixing alphabetical arrangement with synonyms 65, 142–3, 193–5 first use in a dictionary of synonyms 11 having no mental/semantic validity 104 history of 14–17 and homographs 15 as path-finding tool 13, 81–2, 92–3, 103, 108, 124–5 of Roget’s Thesaurus, proposed German version 65 d’Amécourt, A. P. 81, 89–91 American dictionaries 82, 142–3 ampersand 61 ‘analogous’ dictionaries 81–2, 83 anaphora 186–7, 188 Anniversary Edition (2002) of Roget’s Thesaurus 22, 24, 25, 26, 129–43, 136 n. 28 contest 127 horse 31–3
innovation of ‘literary quotations and text boxes’ 28 lists in 138 negress/negro 44–5 photo 33–5 sex 51–3 and the Synopsis 61 n. 1 tolerance/toleration 58 antonymy 22, 24–6, 120, 133, 135, 160, 177–8, 182–5, 198 antonymous affixes 182 canonical (prototypical) antonyms 185 columnar layout 4, 133 in hybrid alphabetical-synonym dictionaries 194 as similar to feature discrimination 119–20 systematic juxtaposition 11 in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 100 Archambault, A. 127 n. 10 autonomous tradition 2, see also intuition background knowledge 108–11 backgrounding and foregrounding 166–8, 169, 173, 181 Baldinger, K. 60 Bauer, L. 154 de Beaugrande, R. 109 n. 4 Bentham, J. 35, 130 binarism 24–6, 100–1, 198 Blank, A. 157, 158, 161 n. 22 Blundeville, T. 111 Boissière, P. 81, 83 Booth, D. 111 borrowings and loan words 85, 156 Bostanjoglou, T. 125 n. 6 Brouwers, L. 125 n. 6 Bühler, K. 153 Burnley, D. 159, 180 n. 43 Bynon, T. 155 canonical meanings, see prototypes Carnap, R. 173 Carpenter, W. 14 Casares, J. 83, 91, 125 n. 6 cataphora 186–7 Chambers, E. 18 Cyclopedia 18 Christmann, H. H. 130 chunks, meaning 163 n. 26
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Clarke, D. D. 163 n. 25 clash of synonyms 159 classes, word 100, 131 n. 15, 156 n. 17, 162 classification systems, see also macrostructures logic driven and time/culture independent 101–2, 106 useability for other languages 36 clues, towards meaning 162 clusters, meaning 30, 32–3, 61, 105, 197 COBUILD 39–40, 45–6, 53–4, 58, 126, 166, 167 Coene, A. 163, 170, 170 n. 35, 172 coercion 174, 190 cognate verbs 101 cognitive linguistics 5–6, 36, 102, 121, 122–4, 142–3, 144–5, 198 coherence, text 187 cohesion and continuity 151 collocations 120 colour words 41, 73, 184–5 Comenius, J. A. 114, 127 n. 10 commas 66–7 common knowledge/experience 28, 111, 195, 196 common language 72 communicative competence, linguistic competence as 151–4 communicative salience 165, 168, 178, 180, 183 communicative synonymy 187–91 communio nominis 9 comparative dictionaries of synonyms 10 competence, linguistic 128, 145–54 competent/native speaker intuition 6, 14, 37, 59, 128, 136, 137, 150–1, 163, 172, 176, 198 complementarity 183–4 components of meaning 163–78 compounds 32, 71, 73, 74 conceptual frameworks 109–10, see also macrostructures concrete things subjugated under abstract ideas (horse under Motion) 32 connotations, negative vs positive 55, 58 construals, meaning 163–74, 176–7, 186–7 construals, sense 169 context and co-text 150–1, 154–5, 163, 168, 172, 176, 177, 184, 187 convention 153, 154 converseness 183–4 Corbeil, J.-C. 127 n. 10
Coseriu, E. 145 n. 1, 154, 172 Crabb, G. 10, 11, 117 Croft, W. 146 n. 3, 148 cross-references 26, 27–8, 34, 139–40, 194 Cruse, D. 158 n. 19, 179, 184 cultural dependency in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 101–2 cultural relativity 15 cumulative synonymy 71, 75, 178–9 history of cumulative dictionaries of synonyms 9–14 Cuvier, G. 130 Davidson, G. 25, 26, 27, 36, 133, 136 decoding/encoding, dictionaries aimed at 143 decomposition 172, 195 definitions, keywords combining to produce 136–7 deletions 23–4 derivations 71 Deutscher Sprachschatz (Sanders, 1873) 60–75, 88 diacritics 124 dichotomous arrangements 4, 22, 24, 25, 185, see also antonymy dictionaries 2–3 alphabetical/semasiological 122–6, 192–8 ‘analogous’ dictionaries 81–2, 83 definition in opposition to thesauri 126, 192–8 hybrid dictionaries 114, 128, 142–3, 193–5 ideological dictionaries 83–91 old, as tools for examining language of the past 6 of synonyms 9–14, 82–3, 142–3, 194–5 topical dictionaries, see topical dictionaries dictionnaire analogique 81–2 Le Dictionnaire Idéologique 76–91 didactic potential of thesauri 122–43 differentiae 9 differentiating synonyms 100–1, 127–8, 132, 137 n. 31, 178–9, 182 Dirven, R. 109 n. 4, 117 n. 14, 144, 146 n. 3 documentary value of Roget’s Thesaurus 37–59 dog, definitions across dictionaries and thesauri 196–8 Dolezal, F. 99 Dornseiff, F. 60, 125 n. 6 Dressler, W. 109 n. 4 Dutch, R. A. 22, 25–6, 27
Index Eberhard, J. A. 10, 64 editio princeps 1, 4, 192–3 definition of negress/negro 40–2 definition of sex 46–7 definition of tolerance/toleration 54–6 horse 28–31 lists in 138 editors of Roget’s Thesaurus 22–4 and the Introduction 35–6 Eggers, H. 60 electronic thesauri 143 encoding/decoding, dictionaries aimed at 143 Encyclopedia Britannica 18 encyclopedic functions 16, 71–2, 192 encyclopedic knowledge 109, 134, 137, 138, 140, 150–1, 164, 172, 183, 198 enumeration, as principle guiding Sanders’ Sprachschatz 75 equipollence 160, 184 errors 66 n. 9, 86 etymology 63, 158, 162 Eurocentricity of Roget’s Thesaurus 43 European lexicography, Roget’s Thesaurus’ influence on 89–91 explanations for users 128–9, 195 extensions of meaning 139–40, 149–50, 161–2, 173–4, 190–1 family resemblance 172 Fauconnier, G. 151 n. 10, 163, 166 features, semantic 5–6, 12, 137, 163–74 antonyms 184–5 feature distinction, seriality by 118–20 and fields/frames 180–2 scale of synonymy 175–8 in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 100 Fenby, T. 14 Fenner, D. 111 fields, semantic: colour 73–4 definition 116–17, 135 n. 27 early prefigurations of 75 fields in fields in fields (superstructure of fields) 117 horse 30, 32–3 negress/negro 39–45 photo 34–5 in Sanders’ Sprachschatz 71–2 in semantic theory 5, 19, 116–17, 126–8, 135 n. 27, 180–2 sex 45–53 tolerance/toleration 53–8
211
Fillmore, C. 117 n. 14, 161, 181, 194 n. 52 Firth, F. R. 172 fixed mental representations 147–51, 154–5, 162, 163, 177, 195–6 Fodor, J. 164 foregrounding and backgrounding 166–8, 169, 173, 181 Fowler, H. W. 9, 20–1 frames, semantic 5, 19, 101, 180–2 definition 117–18, 135 n. 27 dictionaries 194 n. 52 horse 28–33 metonymy 161 in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 100 France: French model of lexicography 9, 10 influence of Roget’s Thesaurus in 36, 79–83 Frege, G. 168 n. 33, 173 Frischlin, N. 109 functional synonymy 187–91 further reference articles 27–8 Gallo, E. 113 gapping 169, 171 Gauger, H. M. 10, 19 Germany, influence of Roget’s Thesaurus in 36, 60–75 Gesamtbedeutung 149 Girard, Abbé G. 2, 9, 19–20, 64, 180, 193 glossaries 2–3, 180, 192 Glynn, D. 102 Goffman, E. 181 Goldberg, A. 145, 169 gradation 160, 184 Graham, G. F. 11, 18 graphical devices, Roget’s Thesaurus 19, see also typography Greenwood, J. 125 n. 5 Grimm, J. and W. 63–4 Grundbedeutung 149 Haas, R. 110 Hahn, M. 10 Halliday, M. 109 n. 4, 186, 189 n. 47 Hallig, R. 60 hard-word dictionaries 12, 193 Hasan, R. 109 n. 4, 186, 189 n. 47 Haß-Zumkehr, U. 63, 64, 65, 65 n. 1, 67 Hausmann, F. -J. 64, 81 n. 9 headword index 132–5 headwords, nominal 26–8 Herbermann, C. -P. 117 n. 12
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historical record, dictionaries as 37–59, 92–107, 134 Hock, H. H. 155 Hogg, R. M. 12 homographs 15, 124 homonymy 155–8 horse, historical development of lexeme across editions 28–33 Howatt, A. 77 Howell, J. 113–14, 115, 118 Huber, A. 64 n. 7 Hüllen, W.: 1990: 60 1992: 110 1994: 113 1997: 62 1999: 1–2, 15, 16, 17, 94 n. 1, 95 n. 3, 96 n. 4, 98 n. 5, 99, 100, 110, 125 n. 4, 127 n. 10 2000a: 16 2000b: 17 2001: 61, 63, 67 n. 10 2002: 29 n. 2 2004: 1–2, 22 n. 2, 27 n. 1, 58–9, 84, 93, 116 n. 9, 127, 129 n. 12, 133 n. 19, 134, 135 n. 27, 180 2005: 95 in press 82 Huloet, R. 12 Husserl, E. 168 n. 33 hybrid dictionaries 114, 128, 142–3, 193–5 hyperbole 72–3 hyperonymy 127, 130–1, 160, 162 n. 24, 188, 189 hyponymy 100, 127, 130–1, 160, 162 n. 24, 188, 189, 196 hypothetical meanings 171 icons 152–3 ideational ordering, see topical dictionaries ideological dictionaries 83–91 idioms 10, 26, 32, 170–1 indexes (headword) 25, 132–5 indices (indexical words) 152–3 inkhorn controversy 12 inserted entry articles 81–2 intensional and extensional meanings 173–4 Introduction to Roget’s Thesaurus (Roget’s original) 35–6, 79, 84 intuition 6, 14, 37, 59, 128, 136, 137, 150–1, 163, 172, 176, 198 italics 26
Jackendoff, R. 151 Johnson, Dr S. 13, 196 Johnson, M. 151, 162, 173, 190 Jones, K. S. 158 Junius, A. 16, 110, 125 n. 5 Katz, J. 164 Kay, C. 132 n. 17, 134 Kempson, R. 164 Kersey, J. 13 keywords 26, 31, 35, 130, 136, 180 Kirkness, A. 64 Kirkpatrick, B. 22 Klippel, F. 77 Knappe, G. 40 n. 3 knowledge 16–17 background knowledge 108–11 common knowledge/experience 28, 111, 195, 196 encyclopedic knowledge 109, 134, 137, 138, 140, 150–1, 164, 172, 183, 198 linguistic knowledge 103, 133, 147 native speaker intuition/competence 6, 14, 37, 59, 128, 136, 137, 150–1, 163, 172, 176, 198 procedural knowledge 148 Konerding, K.-P. 134 Kühn, P. 65, 67 Lakoff, G. 151, 162, 173, 190 language acquisition 15, 148 n. 5, 152 languages, dictionaries as documentaries of 37–59, 92–107, 134 language-to-reality (form to meaning) approach 15, see also alphabetical arrangement Latin 12, 192, 193 Law, V. 154 Leonhard, H. S. 173 light, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and German Sprachschatz 67–75 linguistic competence 128, 145–54 linguistic knowledge 103, 133, 147 linguistic pragmatism 15 linguistics cognitive 5–6, 36, 102, 121, 122–4, 142–3, 144–5, 198 structural 5, 144–5, 195, 198 von Linné, C. 130 lists 28, 71, 137–8 literary quotations, introduction of 28 Lloyd, S. M. 22, 25 loan words and borrowings 85, 156
Index Locke, J. 4, 17, 36, 63, 115–16, 130 logical dependencies 6, 98–9, 100, 105 Longman Language Activator 82, 143, 194 Lyons, J. 133, 158 n. 19, 176 n. 40, 184, 185 Macht, K. 77 Mackenzie, D. L. 14 macrostructures 3–5, 109–11 Boissière’s 81–2 explanations for users 93, 128–9 German Sprachschatz 66, 68–9 Roget’s Thesaurus 18, 22–6, 61, 63, 66, 68–9, 93–4, 129–32 de Maimieux, J. 35, 84 Malinowski, B. 172 malleability, semantic 166–74, 177 March, F. A. 82, 83, 142–3 Marello, C. 79 McArthur, T. 195 meaning, see also antonymy; synonymy clusters 30, 32–3, 61, 105, 197 componential aspects of 163–78 construals 163–74, 176–7, 186–7, see also sense construals extensions of meaning 139–40, 149–50, 161–2, 173–4, 190–1 identification of 154–62 overlapping meanings 2, 14, 126–7, 139, 175, 178, 187 semiotics 145–51 meaning chunks 163 n. 26 memory load on users 25, 80, 109, 120–1, 135 mental lexicon 5–6, 36, 120–1, 128 mental representations, fixed 147–51, 154–5, 162, 163, 177, 195–6 mental word order 6, 26, 36 meronymy 160, 162 n. 24 metaphor 30, 67, 137 n. 30, 143, 149–50, 156, 161–2, 165, 168, 169, 173, 177, 190–1 metonymy 67, 149, 156, 157, 161, 173, 191 microstructures: German Sprachschatz 66–7 Roget’s Thesaurus 18–19, 26–8, 61, 66–7, 118 topical dictionaries in general 3–4, 109, 112, 117 n. 13, 194 Minsky, M. 181 modernizations 23, see also new words morality: moral and social phenomena under scientific categories 41 moral stance of editors 51 Morkovkin, V. 125 n. 6
213
morphology 154, 162, 182, 185, 194 Morris, C. 152 Mourelatos, A. 188 multilingual thesauri 36, 192 Murmellius, J. 116 Murphy, H. L. 147, 160, 162 n. 24, 167, 172, 175, 177, 183, 184 names, proper 137 native speaker intuition/competence 6, 14, 37, 59, 128, 136, 137, 150–1, 163, 172, 176, 198 natural history as ordering principle 84, 115–16, 130 natural morphology 154 natural seriality 113–15 naturalized borrowings 85 negress, negro, history of 39–45 Nerlich, B. 150, 161 n. 22, 163 n. 25 nesting dictionaries 194 network semantics 14, 27, 140, see also extensions of meaning; overlapping meanings; semantic frames new words 37–8, 85, 150, 165 inserting new vocabulary under old slots 4–5, 28, 33–5, 134 nomenclators 16, 110, 125, 192 notes, Roget’s 67 nouns 26–8, 38, 189 Noviliers, G. 114 Noyes, G. 12 obsolescence 37–8 offensive terms 39–40, 43, 52, 53 Old, L. J. 135, 139, 143 onomatopoetic words 152–3 ordering, see also alphabetical arrangement classification systems, see classification systems ideational order 80 imposing real world ordering on a text 3–6 mental word order 6, 26, 36 natural history as ordering principle 84, 115–16, 130 natural order 3, 4, 181 Roget’s system 18, see also macrostructures topical affinity 15–17 in topical dictionaries, arriving at 3, 15–17, 92–3 overlapping meanings 2, 14, 126–7, 139, 175, 178, 187 Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 39–40, 45, 46, 47, 53–4, 196, 198
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paragraphs, lettered 66 partial synonymy 27, see also overlapping meanings partonymy 160 path-finding analyses: negress, negro 39–45 sex 45–53 tolerance/toleration 53–8 path-finding devices background knowledge 108–11 pragmatic structures, see pragmatic structures Peirce, C. S. 152 Pelegromio, S. 12 perception, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and Sanders’ Sprachschatz 67–75 perfect synonymy 175, 176, 182, 187 Perry, W. 13–14, 27 n. 1 philosophy 3, 4, 15–16, 63, 94, 98, 110–11, 152, 161 n. 22, 173, 185, 193 phonetics 77 photo, historical development of lexeme across editions 33–5 phrasal units 169–70 phrase, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and Le Dictionnaire Idéologique 86–9 Piaget, J. 163 n. 25 Piotrowski, T. 22 n1 Piozzi, H. L. 10, 11 plans of classification 129, see also macrostructures Roget’s ‘Plan of classification’ 18, 22, 24–5, 35, 38, 61, 85, 129–32 Plato 9 plurivoca 9 polar meanings 22, 24–5, see also antonymy political correctness 40, 43, 45 polyonyma 9 polysemy 136, 157–8, 194 Potter, S. 9–10 practice-orientated dictionaries of synonyms 82–3, 142–3, 194–5 pragmatic structures: German Sprachschatz 69–75 indication with typography and punctuation 104 Roget’s Thesaurus 26–8, 62 topical dictionaries in general 3–4, 94–5, 111–21, 132–40 pragmatics 4, 172–3 Preface, Roget’s Thesaurus 16, 17–18, 63, 95
prefixes, antonymous 182 procedural knowledge 148 Prodikos of Keos 3, 9, 180 production/reception, dictionaries aimed at 15, 126 profession or vocation, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 96–103 proper names 137 prototypes: antonyms 183 colour 41 prototypical seriality 118–19 semantic theory 6, 148–9, 167, 177–8 sex 49 and synonymy 177–8 tolerance/toleration 54, 57 in topical dictionaries 135 psycholinguistics 5–6, see also cognitive linguistics punctuation 66–7, 104, 137–8 Pustejovsky, J. 149, 164, 164 n. 28, 167 n. 31, 174, 188, 190 Quemada, B. 79 quotations 28, 195 radical synonyms 27 n. 1, see also cross-references reality, reflecting 94, see also ordering; signifer-signified relationship reality-to-language (meaning to form) approach 15, see also topical dictionaries reception/production, dictionaries aimed at 15, 126 reciprocity, in dictionary definitions 13 register/style: and meaning 111, 122, 158 n. 19, 162, 171 rarity of markings in Roget’s Thesaurus 53 Reisig, K. C. 11 religion 56, 58 retrieval plans, see macrostructures retrieval techniques 122–9, 135, see also cross-references rhetoric 115 rhetorical figures 67 Roberts, J. 132 n. 17, 134 Robertson, T. 18, 76–9, 84–91 Roget, J. L. 22, 25–6 Roget, P. M. 17–19, 67, 95, 116, 116 n. 9, 119, 125 n. 5, 134, 192
Index Roget, S. R. 22 Roget’s Thesaurus, see also specific editions adaptations 60–91 compared to Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 92–107 defining dictionary type of 4–5, 8–36 and European lexicography 43, 89–91 historical development of 22–59 Rosch, E. 149 Salmon, P. 113 Sampson, G. 143 Sanders, D. 18, 60, 63–75 de Saussure, F. 154 Schäfer, J. 16 schematic seriality 115–16 Schlessing, A. 18, 60 Schmid, H. J. 29, 101, 115, 117 n. 14, 118, 135 n. 27 Schmitz, B. 10, 18, 64 n. 5 scientific background, Roget’s, effect on entries 18, 41, 69, 130 script seriality 115 Searle, J. 172 semantic affinity 126 semantic clusters 30, 32–3, 61, 105, 197 semantic features 5–6, 12, 137, 163–74 antonyms 184–5 feature distinction, seriality by 118–20 and fields/frames 180–2 scale of synonymy 175–8 in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 100 semantic fields: colour 73–4 definition 116–17, 135 n. 27 early prefigurations of 75 fields in fields in fields (superstructure of fields) 117 horse 30, 32–3 negress/negro 39–45 photo 34–5 in Sanders’ Sprachschatz 71–2 in semantic theory 5, 19, 116–17, 126–8, 135 n. 27, 180–2 sex 45–53 tolerance/toleration 53–8 semantic frames 5, 19, 101, 180–2 definition 117–18, 135 n. 27 dictionaries 194 n. 52 horse 28–33 metonymy 161 in Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 100 semantic malleability 166–74, 177
215
semantic relations 99–100, 160–1, see also antonymy; equipollence; hyperonymy; hyponymy; meronymy; synonymy ‘semantic slots’ 100 semantic web/network 14, 27, 140 semantics: cognitive definition of 144–5 discipline of 11–12, 19 structural semantics 5, 164–5, 172, see also semantic fields; semantic frames semicolons 66–7, 137–8 semiotic competence 145–51 ‘sense’ (as different to ‘meaning’) 166–8, 173, 174, 175 sense construals 169 seriality 111–21 Seto, K.-I. 149–50, 161 sex, history of lexeme across editions 45–53 signifer-signified relationship (signs and the reality they reflect) 5, 17, 82, 94, 126–7, 145–62, 173 n. 38 slang markers 52 Smith, C. J. 11 Smith, J. 114 social and moral phenomena under scientific categories 41 society, reflecting 37–59, 66 Soule, R. 11 Spanish dictionaries of synonyms 36, 83 speech acts 171, 172–3, 176–8 Sprachschatz (Sanders, 1873) 60–75, 88 Starnes, T. 12 Stein, G. 12, 125 n. 4 Stosch, S. 64 strict seriality 112–13 structural linguistics 5, 144–5, 195, 198 structural semantics 5, 164–5, 172, see also semantic fields; semantic frames style/register: and meaning 111, 122, 158 n. 19, 162, 171 rarity of markings in Roget’s Thesaurus 53 sub-headwords 31, see also keywords suffixes, antonymous 182 synecdoche 67, 149, 157, 161 synonym dictionaries: comparative dictionaries of synonyms 10 cumulative synonym dictionaries, history of 9–14, 180, 193–5 practice-orientated synonym dictionaries 82–3, 142–3, 194–5, see also Roget’s Thesaurus; topical dictionaries
216
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synonymy 174–6 accumulating synonyms 101, 127–8 ad-hoc synonyms 187–8 clash of synonyms 159 cognitive view of 144–98 communicative synonymy 187–91 cumulative synonymy 9–14, 71, 75, 178–9 Dr Johnson on 13 functional synonymy 187–91 general definition 2, 126–7 as part of linguistic performance 2, 9 partial, as linking principle in network semantics 27 perfect synonymy 175, 176, 182, 187 prototypes 177–8 radical synonyms 27 n. 1, see also cross-references scholarly discussions of 2–3, 8–21 semantic affinity 126 semiotic contrast 158–60 synonym discrimination 119–20 test for 71 Synopsis of categories (Roget’s Thesaurus) 22, 24–5, 35, 61, 85–6, 129–32, 133 syntax: of entries in topical dictionaries, see microstructures syntactic units 169–70 ‘Tables’ (Wilkins, 1668) 6, 16, 92–107 taboo 52 Tabular synopsis of categories (Roget’s Thesaurus) 22, 24–5, 35, 61, 85–6, 129–32, 133 Talmy, L. 169 Taylor, W. 11, 20, 64 n. 5, 146, 148, 150, 152 teaching, using topical dictionaries for 3, 122–43 technical innovations (e.g. photography), adding to Roget’s Thesaurus 33–5 technical terms 150 n. 8, 154 n. 14, 167 n. 31 temporal dependency of dictionaries (‘spirit of the time’) 4–5, 37–59, 92–107, 134 texts: synonyms and antonyms in 186–91 topical dictionaries as 3–4, 62 n. 3, 94–5, 109, 110–11, 114, 133 n. 19 thematic roles 101 thesauri, definition in opposition to dictionaries 126, 192–8 theta-roles 101
tolerance/toleration, history of 53–8 topical arrangements 92–3, 104 topical dictionaries 3–4, see also Roget’s Thesaurus; Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ European tradition 79–80 history of 14–17, 79–80, 125, 192–8 as reservoir of evidence for cognitive linguistics 121 as texts 3–4, 62 n. 3, 94–5, 109, 110–11, 114, 133 n. 19 transformational linguistics 144–5 translation 10, 86–9 transposition of entry articles 23 Trier, J. 117 n. 12, 159 n. 20 tropes 67 Trusler, J. 10, 11 Turner, M. 151 n. 10, 163, 166 typography: indication of pragmatic structures 104 layout of antonymous relationships 4, 24–5, 62 Roget’s Thesaurus 4, 24–5, 26, 62, 103 undergrowth 120–1 Ungerer, F. 29, 101, 115, 117 n. 14, 118, 135 n. 27 universals 4, 16, 84, 95 US-American dictionaries 82, 142–3 users of dictionaries and thesauri: aims/goals of 35, 122–4 alphabet as essential path-finding tool 13, 81–2, 92–3, 103, 108, 124–5 and cross references 27–8 explanations for users 128–9, 195 lack of research on 23 n. 3 linguistic competence, greater requirements of thesauri vs alphabetical dictionaries 103 memory load 25, 80, 109, 120–1, 135 retrieval techniques 122–4 verbs 72, 101, 117, 170, 188 Verspoor, M. 109 n. 4, 117 n. 14, 144, 146 n. 3 vocation or profession, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 96–103 vulgarity 51 Wagner, D. 64 n. 7 von Wartburg, W. 60 Wehrle, H. 60 Weigand, F. 64 n. 5 Whately, R. 11 Widdowson, H. 77
Index Wiegand, H. E. 64, 124, 129, 134 Wierzbicka, A. 164 Wilkins, J. 1, 6, 16, 35, 84, 95–107, 110, 115–16, 130 ‘Tables’ (Wilkins, 1668) 6, 16, 92–107 Willems, K. 170, 170 n. 35 windowing of attention 169, 171 Withals, J. 125 n. 5
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Wittgenstein, L. 172 word classes 100, 131 n. 15, 156 n. 17, 162 WordNet 143 workshop, comparison of Roget’s Thesaurus and Wilkins’ ‘Tables’ 103–7 Wurm, C. 64 n. 7 ynkhorne controvsery 12
