Pattern and Process: A Whiteheadian Perspective on Linguistics (Human Cognitive Processing)

Pattern iind Process

eeltman ( ocfMiivE: proce sinc Ls li foniiii \or intordisdpliniiiy reiearch on the nature nd organization as are the data of any prehension, '

Truth' is a relationship of fit between nexus and the purely potential patterns predicated of them by a proposition. Whitehead s treatment of induction is in terms not of rational inference but of a kind of divination' of patterns [eternal objects) in communities of occasions. Whitehead s emphasis on relationships '

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rather than things (all properties of things being relationships within a system) should be familiar territory for structurally versed linguistSj as should his

insistence that words shaped into an utterance are not juat chained by associations and probabilistic weights, but permit the introduction of radical novelty. His recognition of the essential Kile of context of situation and intention-in-

con text in assigning meaning to words and utterances aligns him, on the other handh not only with the British functionalist tradition leading from birth (and

MaJiilowski) through Ha Hi day but also with the later Wittgenstein (cf. Wittgenstein 1974:2-J2).ly bor Whitehead meaning is always relative to actual '

world

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Observe his broad notion of functional ism as expressed in the following: tht1 coLieqnion oftht: world here ddupted is ihiil

...

this 1 mean that L-vcry Licuiti] ihin

funetiojid Jttivily. By

nuthing by r

on of its activity;

whereby its nature consists in its rdevjnce to other Ihings and Us individuality

consists in ils synthesis of other things iti so kir as they are relevant to it. [Whitehead 192 31}

This reflects the 'social immanence1 complementing the 'social transcendence1 of individuals as

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formal' existences, i.e. seen as the unity of their own experi-

ences. In the realm of language, '

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social

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social immanence would be a matter of its

as opposed to its 'psychological1 reality.

More importantly, every sentence displays for him a subjective form as well

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as a proportion cil con tent, i.e. an intentional attitude acting as psychological incitement1 (another species of eternal object). Kc argues specifically against simple assodationism when he discusses the passing on ol the suhieetive form ot intentions in the production ot utterances. These may be 'suspended'h but their ultimate outcome is the activation ofthe body (the speech organs) to react in a particular 'conformal1 manner (Whitehead I947:234f}. Language is organized hierarchically because human beings are teleologically orientated they have intentions, and intentions are intrinsically hierarchical, organized and deployed under the superordinate control ot persisting subjective aims. "

Intentions are embodied in actual occasions.

The diagram below sketches graphically some ofthe basic Whiteheadian abstractions relevant to language. They will be exemplified in a more concrete way as the book progresses. PS is the subject of the prehension itself, LS the logical subject(s) of a prehended proposition, and HO is 'eternal object' (the predicate ofthe prehended proposition). The vertical arrow through the causa.. efficacy pole of symbolic transfer indicates the temporal flow of causality (contrasted with the non-temporal, non-causal nature of presentational immediacy).

White heads essential view of language is that it 'systematizes expression1, shaping complex, largely indeterminate content into determinate, socially shareable form. This harks back to the Stoics (and Plato) rather than to

Aristotle, by relating truth, for example, to the 'hidden* sphere of thought (read Whiteheadian 'feelings1) rather than directly linking sentences to the real world. The approach contrasts with formal model-theoretic logic (represented by Russell) and harmonizes with more recent attempts to develop a cognitive

and/or discourse-based semantics. The following extracts from Whitehead (1968:31-41) sum up his position; Thf cwicntc ul'km Liagc ifi lhal it utili s Lhmc clLimrnls in L-jcptricnde moil easily abslutttxl lor tonsoous entertainrntnl, jnd mosl tasily reproduced in esipencnte. Uy I he long u age cil humjnily, the e elements art aajioeliated wilh their meaning which embrace a lar e variety of human experiences Each

language embalm* an histtirLt." tradition. l:ach language is the civilisation of expression in the social systems which use it. Language is the systematical ion of expression. Lau uj e hjs Livo [unctium. It k tnnveise wilh another, and it is converse with oneself. The lalter fnnetion is toti tiftcn c}verlciokedh so we will L{>nsider it firs I.

Language is expression from tine's past into ones present. It is the reproduc-

tion in the present ofsensa which have intimate association with the realities of

zo

P-aCCem bi]i<J Prot-esti

Types of prupojiiliohiil picheiuion

LS

PS

ptrctplive preht nsiion

iiiiEi injlivf: prchttiaion

mluilivt: juti mi.Til Symbulic Iran lLT

,

:

:::

cju.sjt efficflty Hit lire L

Why Wh itch cad?

the pusL

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I hLii

Lhf L pcricncu of ihu pj.il iii rondcrcJ distiiici in the proitnL with j distinctness bormutid I rom the well-dulined sensj. In this way, jq artieuljled memory Ls ihc itL tiJ lanj ua c, eonsidered as an expression I rum '

untsclfin I he pas I ro tmeiietfin the p res en I.

[91 Lhe prodlielion oI" sound, the lun s and ihrnal jre br[>ij hl into play. So that in speech, while a superlitial, mjna eahk- express it] n is LiiJlnseds yet I he sense

of the vague intimacies of organic existence is also excited Thus voice-prdJuecJ so Lin d is a miUirjl symbol for the deep experience of organic existence. Let it be admitted then that language is not the essence of thought, iiuc ihis conclusion must be carefully [imitetl. Apnrl from hin un d the ret en I ion of

1 ho ugh I, the easy ret: nil of thought, the interweaving of though I into higher complexity, the communicjlio]] of tliou ht. are all grjvcly limited. Ilutnjn eivili Jtion is an oLil niwlh of IjiiKua e, and lan ua e is the product of

advjntinj LLVilizalLtjn.

The following passage (Whitehead 197S;264) gives an idea of his view of the

specific function of propositional language {as well as his somewhat primitive grasp of phonetics[}; LanynagCs as usujIt k always amhiguous as to the exact proposition which it indicates. Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks. Its function iii (a) to arouse in the prehmdingsuhieut ionic physical leetLny indicative of the logical

subject!; of the proposition, [b) to arouse in the prehendin suhjeel some physical feeling, whith plays the part t>l the physitLil reeognilirin (c) to '

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promote the sublimation of the physiLLi] recognition into the eonceptuai predicative feeling (d) to promote the integration of the indicative feeling and the predicative feeling into the required propositional feeling Hut in this to the eLLVmuiimenl oJ the LompLw iuiLLi.iiM] there is .iKvlivs a d l 1 1

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occasion of utterance.

It is this aspect of his perspective on language, together with his conception of

the intentional nature of speech acts and the semantic underpinnings of linguistic forms and categories that I shall be focitsshtgupon in the following chapters.

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Complenfientarity research seems to approach the boundary between mind and matter ever

closer from both sides (with psycholinguists talking more forthrightly of neurons and neurolingtiists directing their investigations up to ever higher levels of nciiE'.d functiomn 'i, ii is kmptini; lo make speculative leaps Ixtck and

21

ii

Patrcm and Process

fnnh between the two sidesN on the assumption that the boundfijy will eventually vanish. More and more linguist;; today are beeoming affeL-ted by thi opti-

mism, Things look rather different from a Whiteheadian emergent perspective. h<swevierT where societies of neuron s have their own level of organization within the super-societies of persons (human bodies housing brains), Neural activity and mental processes are two aspects of the same reality, namely that of actual 1

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occasions each with their physical and mental poles, but the one is not reducible to the other. The relationship between the activation of particular neural aggregates and specific mental activity on the part of a super-society at the personal level could never be one-to-one from this perspective. It is of the essence that actual occasions concresce from radically indeterminate data (data that is distributed, weighted as to relevance( and available according to the 1

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occasion

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s total past, present sit nation and future possibilities) to determinate,

objectified output in the form of behavioural or mental responses. It is reasonable to suppose that the ob)ectitled knowledge1 which the individual possesses and deploys can vary from closely homologous conformity to incoming sensn '

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(quasi-spatial perceptual 'objects ) to complete arbitrariness (neural aggregatess if you wilh that just happen to have a particular 'feel1 to their subject and are active in certain types of responses). What neurolinguists are homing in on step by cautious step - is the underlying neural architecture which affords different kinds ot' mental activity. They have little to say (yet?) concerning the possible location of specific thought-chains or the involvement of particular neural aggregates - as opposed to broader zones - in particular processes. The Whiteheadian approach that I espouse is content to analyse the internal structure of specitic kinds of mental processes in terms that are conformal with what is known generally of neural underpinnings and leave aside the question of specific location. Nevei,theless3 it can be said that the logic' of individual neurons is ultimately the same as the 'logic' of thought, Le, the logic of con crescent actual occasions in general - notice that this is not a reductionist claim since the relationship between the two planes is complex and non-linear. They represent two different levels of societal organization, of which the higher displays emergent properties not assignable to individual neurons or their aggregates. Emergent properties in general can be said to arise from the re coding of relationships by higher-order learning processes. Vet there is something structurally in common between con crescent occasions at all societal levels: multiple input is integrated to produce unitary output as, for instance, when the individual neuron requires the simultaneous firing of several of its afferent dendrites for its single efferent axon to fire in turn, '

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Why Whitehead?

Something simiLir occui s at the level of the personally ordered societyN but at i far higher level of complexity. Now complcmemarity' can be observed at every level of societal organization- As Niels Bohr surmised, it pervades all levels of Nature, from elementary particles- of which quantum waves may be the inside1 view - to the human, where the Whiteheadian \jiwF?fn of actual occasions are the renfm of human experience seen from within (cf. Bohr I94fr 318)- Viewing an animate being as alive is thus complementary to viewing it as a physical congeries of atoms, etc. Bohr also speaks of the complementary relationship between feeling and thought. Consciousness (of the kind we know anything about} only adheres to ,

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the human level and then on Iv some of the time. The neural level is thus not '

simply the Vmtside view of the experiential level of individual 'personally ordered society the two are set at different levels altogether. Both have their inside and outside perspective - on the 'personal* level outward behaviour as opposed to inner experience, on the neural level concrescent activation within the individual neuron versus its objective participation in the outward-facing activities of whole neural aggregates. Kven if the relationship between the two levels is brought eventually into much finer focus, the 'boundary1 between the inside and outside perspective on the level of the individual human being can never just vanish, since there is no boundary, )ust two sides of the same surface, if you will N 03 is there a clear-cut boundary between societal levels in so far as a higher level of organisation emerges from a lower one. Complementarity (though this is not his own term for the relationship) is the way White head, like Bohr, avoids conflating and confusing these matters. '

But enough of abstractions and generalities. Let us see now how this all translates into the concrete world of speech behaviour with which functionally orientated linguistics is concerned.

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Chapter 2

A Whiteheadian approach to natural dialogue

No linguist has, to my knowledge, ever followed up the lead offered by Whitehead & work on symbolism to apply his general 'philosophy of organism' to

language behaviour's An excellent area to begin with in order to see its continuing relevance for contemporary linguistics is Speech Act theory. This can conveniently be illustrated with data from my 1978 PhD thesis based on the game Twenty Questions (and published in condensed form as Rjrtescue 1980). This investigated a clearly circumscribed arena of language production and comprehension, in the context of which certain questions; of a general nature concerning the cognitive underpinnings of language were addressed. More specifically, this game 'mimics1 a quintessential kind of cognitive behaviour, the attempt to understand 03- guess at something as yet hidden to ones knowledge but known to someone else. In doing so it exemplifies the 1

cardinal Whiteheadian process of step-wise concrescence guided by a determinate subjective aim that weighs at each stage the maximally differentiated relevant contrasts - and contrasts of contrasts - for its satisfaction, i.e. the '

most promising way forward towards its goaf The eternal object

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that consti-

tutes the set of game rules defines this goal and constrains the means of re aching it, thus acting as all eternal objects do when integrated into higher cognitive processes, namely heightening and clarifying the subjective aim in a state of balanced complexity. The subjective aim in turn selects those concepts for

prehension that are highlighted as maximally relevant to its fultrlment, as determined by the twin processes of conceptual valuation and reversion

elaborated in \.2:y. The game also highlights the continual monitoring and '

updating of discourse partners internal models of each others current state of knowledge, something essential to all communication. Two of the central concerns that inevitably enter into any discussion of speech acts arc, on the one hand, the nature of the inferential processes leading

up to - and resulting from - successive speech acts (particularly relevant to '

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guessing games such as Twenty Questions), a]idt on the other hand, the nature

26

Pattern and Prciccsii

of the intentions behind such chained speech acts. I shall start with a few remarks concerning the former.

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Speech acLs and intentions in a worid in process

I have argued elsewhere for a Whiteheadian 'calculus of feeling' approach to ULUural inference {Fortescue 1999], one which is both more complex and more flexible thiin context-free logical inference of the type dear to computer simulation designers- This is compatible with the mental space approach of '

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l:auconnior (1985), for which see further under 4.1. It is also akin to Poircean nhduULon :uf uIlUl in rc will he viid uiuSlt- 7.1jJ' lau 'hiLchctdiLUi '

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divination1 is considerably more fu zy and 'polyadic1: it allows multiple

premises as input and introduces the possibility of radical novelty through 1

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conceptual reversion guided to a determinate end by the overall 'feel1 of ,

matching prehensionsn Inference seen in this light is largely a matter of matching prop ositional for other) prehensions with nexus types ('frames1) with whkh they are compatible and from which further propositions can be read off Ladi '

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real-life inference involves the participants in a unique blend of genera] patterns of Viable

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linguistic behaviour and the application of short-cut heuristics

applicable to the type of situation concerned. I suspect that any computer

simulation of a real-life dialogue situation capable of generating the relevant inferences - and only them - would require such complex world knowledge (including personal background) that an exponential explosion would result. A majoJ pun of rational hLunan a niuon mny ;ie in hiei in ihe i oLrieiijui i:k>l:.lof logical pruning rather than in positive inferences according to general '

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logical templates.30 This, 1 have su gested: can only be done efficiently by selective (but largely unconscious) abstraction from the virtual cloud of potential inferences potentially gen era table by a given utterance of those '

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inferences that are relevant to the situation at hand. Note that Whitehcad '

lim self considered the negative variety of intuitive judgment1 (see 2.3 below), recognizing what a phenomenon is not, as the high-point of human mentality ( White he ad 1978:273). This would apply also to the propositional deductions 1

4 read off from a Johnson-La irdian "mental model" (John son-Laird 19 3): the

number of analogical relations which could in principle be applied to such experiential constructs to produce a set of natural inferences must surely

remain open-ended without the constraints of immediate relevance.21 Although the nuinher of distinct4feelings1 the mind/brain can distinguish

A W lii trh ca d um a ppiro ach to iwit u ral di a logue

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may well be in tin it e, the calculus of feeling is by no means necessarily vague.

The mental processes it carries out may act on rich, heterogenous mental '

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objects but this it does via the holistic feel of such objects to the experiencer font? can envisage them as being rekited by associative strengths rather than by labelled nodes and branchings). What 1 had in mind in my article was a highly ,

tlexible and effective capability that has evolved from pre-verbal roots into a formidable instrument of thought hand in hand with the development of languago. I is deployment should be taken to cover all the modes of rational

thought - deduction, induction and abduction - that logicians occupy themselves with, Even in the most abstract chain of reasoning affect is not entirely outside of the picture. The integration of any prehension has some affective colouration for the expenencer, in so far as it is of relevance to him or

!ier at all '["h is is not a surprising claim! given the roots of language and thought reflected in ontogeny - one need only think of the pleasure children derive from playing with newly learnt words and constructions and in unearthing new

patterns in their environment in general. Language for them is bathed in affective meaning long before the fine-tuning of referential meaning is mastered. The affective component is at the very least an 'extra dimension available to guide such central cognitive processes as lexical recall and natural inference. In the same article [ suggested a possible way in which one could start to formalize the kinds of operations I have been discussing. In the schema below PI and P2 represent respectively a speaker's prehension of his interlocutor's response to his own utterance plus his [subsequent) prehension of the relevant implications of that response; 1

a

a

P

i

....

t>...,

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a.bl lfii

Here V is the perceived linguistic signal fthe phonological form of the utterance )t y the set of possible literal meanings of that signal (its propositional content or referential potentials and V the set of possible reasons why the interlocutor might have uttered it fits 'subjective aim1 - or 'intentional form1). a and (i together represent the context of the utterance fas reflected in the 1

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i8

Pattern

Pi'ocess

speaker s own menial stile) and ovcr the immediate commimicfitive frame%vt>i-k (a) and general background knowledge (p) respectively. The effect oI this context on the hearer s comprehension of y and V is to inhibit all but sub-sets a and 'b' respectivelyf which are correspondingly reinforced or highlighted (this is the meaning of the lines from [a, p} to 'a c and gue

[;urthermore, the format can he adapted tf> more loojiely chained sequences of prehensions by alternating partners in an on-going discourse (so P2 could he the hearer s prehension of an intervening utterance expressing the speaker s reaction to his prehension of the preceding utterance, PI). In my thesis 1 discussed this in terms of'uptake1 moves associated with particular discourse '

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act demons1 fcf. Austin 1952, who under the former rubric stresses the fact that

usually more than one participant is needed for a speech act to l>e successfully

esecutedln Obviously this is knowledge shared by the two participants (and part of mutual knowledge (3 for them both}. This building up of probabilistically expected response sets associated with individual discourse acts is essentially a matter of the iul hoc tinkering together of more basic conventionalized response pairs to produce new skills - here communicatory skills, verbal strategies buiit up heuristically by hricolage in a world of continual tlux and novelty. JVly model allowed for discourse acts* that are blends/overlaps of 1

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simpler ones - also for the results of competition a la Bates & McWhinney

f 1982), whereby new act types can arise spontaneously The problem with this approach is the apparent profligation of discrete discourse acts -just how many such acts are needed to attain descriptive and explanatory adequacy? And how is illocution to be distinguished consistently from perlocution if 'discourse acts' are to cover a continuum from acts tightly associated with linguistic fillocutionary) choices to much more indirectly1

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expressed intentionsrihese are problems, of course, for all approaches to speech

act theory. Whereas Austin (1962) appears to have assumed - unlike Wittgenstein - that the number of illocutions was finite and determinate for a given language, dehnable in terms of hnite 4felicity conditions', Searle f I976) distinguishes a small set not of speech acts but of abstract speech act types, five in all

[directives, assertives. expressives. declaratives, and cominissives). One may regard these as default prototypeSj at tractors to which actual complex discourse acts may be drawn under interpretation and/or production - interference between default and n on-de fault acts maybe assumed to occur all the time, But if one dispenses with the rigid distinction between illocution and perlocution the lid of Pandora box seems, at first sight, to have been well and truly lifted. For Searleh the distinction hinges around his notion of the 'essential condition adhering to illocutionary speech acts - the other 'satisfaction conditions (sincerity and preparatory) being also relevant to less linguistically direct perlocutionary intentions {desired effects on the addressee). The Essential condition is simply a form/intention pairing associated with the speech act 1

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(such that a given linguistic expression founts as1 a token of that act), which

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Pattern im3 Process

reflects the conveTHionalised/grammaticLilized nature of illocutionary fas oppu cd Lo pcrlocutioiwy) force. Conventionalized i I locutions correspond to perlocutiojwy aims {thcii1 sQiirce). I simply assume that an illocutionary act links a peilocutionary aim with a detei minate, conventionalized linguistic tbrm for rcalmng it. What is important from a Whiteheadian perspective is the '

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subjective form associated with any sentence> the feel of the overall intention

behind its utterance. In real discourse there is always a fu zy middle area; my '

thesis specitied sixty different discourse acts represented each by a demon1 with input conditions (contained in and brgcly determined by an overall discourse frame in which Starleian sincerity/preparatory conditions adhere directly to roles) and output realization possibilities (usually a default construction, but with allowance for less direct overlapping realizations). Also indicated there

were typical preceding and following act types. The speech act

demons' could

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thus be defined in terms of four parameters, two of input and two of output: expected response pair settings plus realization rules for specific verbal intentions triggered by specific contextual conditions. Clearly an approach to the pragmatics/gram mar interface in terms of grammaticali zed femic) distinctions vs. multiple (etic) deployments in discourse of ihese distinct categories would not be out of place here, since languages typically only distinguish a handful of basic illocutions as discrete expression types. 4

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Itkonen (1983:177) undermines the whole Searlian approach to speech acts as defined in terms of rules by replacing the latter by rationality principles that '

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tie together intentions with sentence meanings to produce utterances deployed in specific situations. These are 'norms of rationality1 (rather than of'correctness ) 1 hey are 'objects of common knowledge', internalized as 'reasons1 for actions, and resemble sentences rather than rules, being indefinite in number '

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[op.dt.:74). They are generated from a potential stock of abstract valuations that may change over time, just like (perspectives on) Whiteheadian eternal objects. Such social norms do not derive from observation aloneN although they are leamt by observing human behaviour; once learnt they valuate observations. I'his is consonant with mv own view of these matters,

As regards all the less direct kinds of speech acts (on a continuum leading to peilocutions so remote from grammaticalization as to require complex heuristics to attain interpretation), one may link the most common possibilities of expression to sincerity and preparatory conditions in the manner of Sear I e [ 1969) or of illocutionary'conversions' in the manner of Dik (1997:2401 .), but this will only take one so far. Ultimately one reeds something like my 'discourse demons1, which can in principle inter quite indirect linkages between intention

A Whileheadian approjch Lo ]iaturiii dialogue

and CTtpreAsioii. In fact, the processes these reflect are re minis cent of Whitehcadian concrescences with multiple input conditions and they can he defined in terms of eternal objects that deline patterns of in put/output correlations guiding the specific on-line prehensions activated on the way towards their satisfaction. Conceptual reversion fcf. Section 1.2.5) must speciiicrtlly be involved in prehensions of meanings further removed than the direct 'surface1 one.1. The means required to crack indirect speech acts are multiple, including general conversational implicatures (cf. Grice 1975)t but it is also necessary to consider the broader context to interpret specific speech acts of any kind '

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(cf Goifman 1974 on social 'frames

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On my model this was done by associat-

ing certain chained discourse demons1 under the umbrella of the 'game trainer1 Both hottom-up (calculated/infer red) and top-down (frame expectation) approaches are needed - for instance in the form of different types of prehensions drawn into one and the same concrescence - in order to reflect the complex intentions behind speech acts. Moreover, short-cuts are always possible given a rich enough con text N so in reality Sea rles nine proposed steps for finding the ultimate illocution behind an indirect speech act can usually be curtailed {cf. Scarle 1979).

Types of discourse intentions fas subjective aims) and frames (relevant to

ihoif imerprouiioir: am he viewed as species of Whitd-ieadian eternal objects. Thus my discourse act 'request rephrase1 is an eternal object with prototypical input and output conditions, in turn put together from lhe combination of the more basic acts of

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asking (simple interrogatory illocution), requesting action

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(more specifically 'requesting information1) and 'objecting'. The (prototypical) input and output conditions of those in ore basic acts are generally compatible, so its verbal expression may often reflect an overlay of elements from expression

types associated with them {cf. Fortescue 1978; 89ff). One possibility is for the guesser to suggest a rephrase himself, introducing it by do you mean - V '

(which reflects the further involvement of the prototypical 'request confirmation

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acfh The conditions on 'request rephrase' become more fine-grained

when occurring within the frame of Twenty Questions - here it will largely be motivated by the (answerers recognition of the) questioner asking a question

that cannot be answered by a simple yes/no on the part of the answerer as required by the game rules. The prehensions involved in realizing this act type f apart from on-going entertainment of the game frame) will include recogniz-

ing the impossibility of a straight yes/no answer to the question. This involves '

anticipatory prehensions and the intuitive judgment1 of the implications that a positive or negative answer might evoke {their non-compatibility with the

31

3i

Pattern Lind Process

actual game object}. The details are undoubtedly com pi ex> individual and - by virtue of the degree of novelty introduced - indeterminate. Abo the roles invoiwd fTwenty Questions " gucsscr and 'answerer1), which may be assembled

through exposure to the game from more basic discourse roles, are species of '

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eternal objectn elements within the broader patterning of the game frame eternal object.

Such complex Whiteheadmn prehensions each have their own subjective form

contributing to the concrescence, which corresponds to a Searleian intentional 1

state

(Searle 1983}. These Scarle analvses in terms of combinations of more basic

beliefs and desires plus negative and possibility operators, just as Whiteheac. distinguishes between (complex) subjective forms of prehensions {which may include belief and desire} and the actual operations performed by prehensions*

such as performing positive, negative or suspended judgments. There is no prehension that does not have an accompanying subjective form, below we shall see how this works out in the analysis of a particular game episode.

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2 Twenty Questions revisited

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The following game token (from my thesis) can be used to illustrate the way in which Whiteheadian notions of concrescence, prehension, eternal objects, etc.. apply in a straightforward way to real-life diaiogue. It is one of the simpler games that I recorded, hut nevertheless it abounds with novel thoughts anc their expression. The game rules provide a clear-cut reference frame of question-answer sequences to which the analysis can easily relate the intentions behind the more complex individual utterances. I shall concentrate on the chaining of intentions and corresponding speech acts rather than on the form of utterances (a matter to be dealt with in somewhat greater detail in the next chapter)- Of particular interest is the unearthing of specific inferences anc, presuppositions and seeing how these manifest some of White he ad basic notions. The whole dialogue ill List rates (as any text does) the production of a novel - but determinate - linguistic event out of only partially determinate ingredients. The participants A and R are, in Whiteheadian terms, two Individual entities, or nexus of successive actual occasions (each causally cohesive and enduring in time) in mutual unison of becoming : much of their past is sharec owing to common inheritance and they are situated in spatio-temporal proximity to each other. Their aims or perspectives on this shared data are, however, unique to each of them. What I shall be looking at is what may be assumed 1

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A WJiitchcadian Lipproiich to itatiJirLiI dialogue

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as a minimum - to be going on 1n the heads of both of them as the game

unfoldJi. Such an analysis of natural dialogue was never undertaken by Whitehead himsselfin his writingsj it should be noted. A; O.K.s U's mineral. li: Minerhit melal?

A: For ihu ]n(>si par{.

Bj Du yuu use it? A: Is lhal jn impLTsonjl 'you*? lij Duts tint: luc it - is il Lin ob

l whic-h isi u cJ?

A; Yes.

[I; I >( it's on c use i t i ndof3 ca, ? A; No.

li; In lKl iireei, tis [ippo ed lo the oiiiiirysidt.1? In ihu street? A; Mo...

Nut in the street, in itu1 garden? A; No.

hUhe countryside? A; U i in the cti Lin tryside. EJ; ll in Lhe toutiLrynide. h it stdlie? A; Ves.

K: Us Atatit. U\ nnt something lila: an elettricity pylon? A; VVhiU do > >u mc n like an electricity pylon? l : K :l .in . k'l li u ily pylon? A; It isn'U no, "

Bj

... il does n' l tno ve... Li i l soin e fo r i n oJ

hcl icr? o r hull din

A; A Iniiidih certainly - in the sense of a sLmeUne.

Bj Yesij that's what 1 was trying lo cL ji with iht e3eelritity pylon. It's a St rue tun; but doesn

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t give any shelter.

A; Yes.

H;

I he l:0!lli I ilI

A; Which one?

B; Ok well, when I was a sehootbciy - the oni1 voll painL inees anlly... I suppose it s [he new tjni.1. '

A: No, its (he other one. t ; it's (he old onts is it?

The initial step in applying a Whiteheadian analysis to such a dialogue is to decide what span of speech to take as corresponding to a single 'actual occasion As a first approximation I shall simply equate utterance and occasion. Let 1

.

us proceed theti with an informal characterization of the genesis for concrescence) of successive utterances in the chosen dialogue, treating each one as the

a

Pattern bind Process

supcrjcct {or objectified product) of an individual actual occasion. Half of them are chained together along tho A nexus {or answerer/object-poier) route, halt" 1

L

along the

l

Bh

nexus (or quest ion er/guesser) route. I shall concentrate on the

initial exchange to illustrate the basic approach, then J shall jump to the final moves in the game. But first a further word about die just i tic atJon of creating '

each utterance as a distinct occasion '

Whitehead was rather vague about the

.

'

'

exact temporal duration of an actual occasion as it relates to the successive experiential tjunntti of a personal subject (or nexus). He suggested in one passage '

-

where he discusses human nexus - that it is 'somewhat less than a second but

in another he talks of the production of a two word phrase as being borne by several successive occasions of the same speaker (Whitehead 1 $M7:233f.). The duration of occasions at other societal levels {e.g. the atomic or the planetary] must of course be envisaged as correspondingiy much shorter or much longer.

It is interesting to compare McNeill's concept of the growth point1 in which a '

gestural image and a verbal category1 coincide as the germ of an individual unit

of thought! gesture and language being in a complementary relationship (whether or not they are manifest in outer speech)-"6 He estimates the average length of such a unit of self-organisation' as about one and a half seconds [McNeill 1992:242). Concrescent occasions can certainly take complex input (say gestures and speechn or icons and symbols) simultaneously, as long as they '

are bound1 hv a unitarv subjective aim. Note also Chafe's notion of'intonation

unit

1

corresponding to a single focus of consciousness and which he estimates as lasting between one and two seconds (Chafe 1994:66). My 'cognitive' interpretation of tite Whiteheadian 'occasion1 is that the span of one experiential occasion is indeed roughly the span of immediate conscious focus> more specifically that of a unitary perception plus interpretive integration {of an utterance) resulting in a unitary reaction - e.g, a single cllji LLi.l ydc correspond i ng to u Mnglc in Leo I ion imnicdiately acted upon. '

,

'

'

1

This may be smaller or larger than a grammatical sentence, but a single sentence is the usual default length - this reflects the functional underpinning of the ncniencL in the first place (cf Ochs et al. iy%j. Such an aci has both afferent and efferent aspects {involving comprehension and production in different -

.

'

proportions). According to White head s definition of an actual occasiom this unitary event must he closed off to further input from contemporary occasions until its satisfaction and consequent decision1. By the category of Objective '

identity one concrescent actual occasion can only refer to (or prehend) a given entity - actual occasion or eternal object - once [though many different

entities can be referred to in the same concrescence)/ tach such entity plays a

A Whileheadlan approach to natural dialogue

determinate mle in the overall concrescence.

Since the actual occasions constituting an enduring person' are embedded in a hierarchical structure of societies, the actual locus and duration of the total

ingredient activity in the production of an utterance may be indetcrminatej but it is only the level of the f potentially) conscioui personally ordered society that concerns us here. This should not be seen as denying that complex intentions can be broken up into sub-intentions, each met separately en route to the overall satisfaction of the occasion! nor that low-grade cognitive kicking over can till the gaps between high-grade (organized and conscious) intentional acts, but in so far as such sub-routines are summoned precisely as a means towards meeting the initial aim of the concrescence (and do not constitute further impinging daUi Trom without ) 1 feel justihed in my decision to equate utterance and actual occasion (at least as a norm), especially as the natural divisions are so clearly suggested by the linguistic data itself "y This is further equal able with JHymes conception of the verse in natural narrative, marked off by a combination of tntcination, pt ngmiitk .ind v.iruais ivpe. of sein.irLiii.indications of Jakob so nian 'equivalence1. He specifically points out that one turn in dialogue corresponds to one 'verse' in this sense (Hymes 1994:332). Later, when I discuss wriUen texts in Chapter bt where1 verse structure1 is largely replaced by paragraph structured we shall encounter limits to the plausibility 1

1

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'

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1

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"

1

'

of this procedure.

What are the principal data forming the 4input' to As formulation of his first statement? Obviously the combination of the rules of the game plus the knowledge that the object he is posing for B to guess is the forth Railway Bridge. The latter information he has been given in written form - as a proper name that he has probably stored in phonological form! although it is potential-

ly linked to various sensory and propositkmal forms of information. The output is a declarative statement (following a let's start1 marker) that qualifies the object-to-be-guessed ( it' - the tacitly agreed topic of the game) as belonging to the category mineral But how does A get from this multiple input to the linear output? The first step in a Whiteheadian concrescence is the abstraction from the initial data - the entire Input* inherited by 'objectification"' from the immediate past - of the objective data relevant for the actual occasion, This in turn is determined by the occasion's initial 'subjective aim1. One may characterize the latter as a hybrid prehension' linking an 'eternal object1, the "objective lure1 that corresponds to l he goal [or rather the potential attainment of the goal) for the occasion prehending it, with the immediate physical reality of that occasion. 1

'

'

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1

Pattern i;nd Prdttss

In other words, the in age of achievement1 of verbally characterising the game '

objecf according to the general tripartite division of animal, mineral or vegetiiblc a pR L-ribod by l\\c ganit1 rule!i.,,<J According to my c&gnitive 1

,

interpretation ot" White head! sketched in the preceding chapter an 'eternal 1

object is a concept, n potential for reaction embodied in a neural aggregate '

tuned by learning. Here it is part o a larger complex corresponding to the '

'

entire rule set both players have atqutied for this particular game (how rules mLiy he L-inhodicd vvill he Letumed lu in t uipicr :>,' . Ihis activated potential

then represses all of the initial input that does not mesh specifically with the attainment of the goal in question. This leaves (in j simplified world) just the

imperative to produce an utterance that will satisfy that initial lawful goalh plus 1

'

the knowledge of the specific object out there which is to be characterized in the inLinner prescribed. This initial subjective aim determines the 'subjective form' ot the actual occasion - here the intention to produce a declarative speech act, So far, so good. How does the actual occasion now go about realizing its 1

'

specified goal? This process can be broken down into several different kinds of 1

'

prehension, some referring to eternal objects some to physical elements in the ,

objective data - including earlier stages in the concrescence itself. Others are '

imaginative' prehensions. 'I'hese logically defined stages progress in a hierarchical but not necessarily chronological order f everything within a single concrescence functions as it were,

'

in parallel'), guided by the 'subjective form' of

striving for the satisfaction of the goal, i.e. the attainment of maximal integra1

tion and intensity of the concrescence, which will become 'objectified

d

-an

at the same time perish and transcend itself-- in the resulting output (verbal behaviour). Among the ingredients drawn into the concrescence in achieving

this goal are pure conceptual prehensions of the various experiential qualities embodied in As concept of the bridge in question - in particular its metallic

substance - and comparison of these with the requirement of choosing between a characterization of that object as 'animah mineral or vegetable1 (part of his physically prehended objective data ) This complex process is one of holistic 'matching" land the corresponding'feel1 of recognition) rather than of linearizable logical stages. Note that the three superordinate categories are '

.

themselves concepts tor A [obtainable via pure conceptual prehension). The difficulties players sometimes have in matching these categories to specific

objects (especially complex ones) is evidence enough that prototype eftects adhere to such abstractions derived from experience. The inal stage of the concrescence will be the 'decision to produce a f

3

communicatively well-formed utterance that satisfies the subjective aim. This

A Whiteheadian approach to natural dialogue

requires the prehension of relevant lexical items and grammatical rules to express the meLmin intended. How this informlUion may be stored and accused will be discussed further in Chapter 5h Kor now let it suffice to suggest that activity corresponding to the expansion of a topmost declarative sentence S node (with an NP node corresponding to the pro positional subject and a VP one corresponding to the eternal object predicated of it) is in conformity with die further expansion of the VP inio a eopula a [id Lin adjeetive eorres ponding to the quality chosen as characterizing the game object (the predication to be expressed) 1 Note that this syntactic information can be contained in predicate frames (or lemmas*) attached to the speciiic lexical items drawn into the concrescence. Redundancy is of little importance here - formulating phrase structure rule expansions simply generalizes over such constructions/patterns, The elaborated crystallization of the utterance is the result of the n on-linear interplay of semantic needs and syntactic constraints under a guiding i)locution ary aim. The word mineral associated with the concept it corresponds to willh in particular, have been potentially activated in ihe flogically) preceding stage of matching the concept of the Porth Railway Bridge to the (forced) trichotomy between animal, mineral and vegetable Other determinate '

1

1

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elements of this object ihcation will include the choice of pronoun it' to refer to the tacit topic of the game dialogue (as subject of the proposition); the attachment of the copuia as an enclitic C-s ) to that topic; the agreement of the verb '

"

with its 3rd person singular subject (the preh ended conformity of match between a particular form of the verb and its subject); and the prosodic packaging of the utterance (which can in turn embody very subtle nuances of meaning thrown up during the concrescence and not fully realisable by the proposition alone). This whole concrescence is represented highly schematically on the top left of the diagram below, which covers the tirst few exchanges of the game. Note that the game rules themselves, constituting a blueprint of a certain kind of dyadic behaviourh act for both A and B as a coanplex eternal object upon which

they each have their specific perspectives, in the role of object-poser and guesser respectively The search set is the accreting property list B builds up for the '

'

initially unknown game object - it corresponds to the box marked Vibj.' in the shared game space (which for A is of course filled by some representation - or

shifting representations - of the fully sped lied object)/ The game space itself "

L

1

should of course really be doubled, one accreting mentaJ model for each player regard this as shorthand for overlapping 'mutual knowledge' The thick vertical line simply represents the (causal) time axis.

-

yj

jrt

L lIULEIJ lLJIU J J

LL ft

GAML RULLS A M V tvcon.

gami-; 1

I

I

It j; inineral -

[5 it metal r

known

For the mil t pa it mincriil; L

md.u

Do you u.sc it?

o-

Is that an impersonal 'ynu -

:ttiiiii;j;L:

1 Do fl one use it?

tisane 2.

rt

lo figure 2

*

data concrc-ice]it occasion

subjective aim ingression

concr.'intennal prchcnsicLi

tttmaJ -object search set 1

A M V

decision

AnimaJh MineraL Vegetable

Let as now shift our attention to how B comprehends this utterance and reacts u> u accordingly. Baiiically, what li dot1*; is to fed for the compatibility of the objective data relevant to the game situation (As utterance as objectified tor him in the form of incoming acoustic information) with his expectations at that point. If A had said something unusual or inappropriate a search for the reason for this mismatch would have been initiated. There is presumably no reason for

B to abstract anything more from the initial data than the word 'minerali one 1

of the three he is set to expect. B s comprehension of As first utterance fas indkated by lX4 on die diagram) can be represented by a schema of the type introduced in 2.1, only here Pi is B's prehension of the phonological form of

As utterance V, plus its literal meaning 'a1 and assumed reason for uttering it '

b

1

These are narrowed down front wider potential sets V and V according to actual context aT and (tacitly) shared background f>\ Note that b (the intuited subjective form of the concrescence behind A's utterance) can! by default, be directly 'read1 from the shared game context since K expects this intention on the questioner's part to predominate in that context. But it does not have to be so - probability merely weights this interpretation most highly. .

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1

The subjective form couldn for example have been non-communicative musing on As part as he endeavoured to find a suitable description of the objects status

within the artificial anhnal-minerd-vegetable taxonomy, and thus not have been intended as marking the start of the game. Intonation and body signals may play an important role in the actual weighting. P2 represents [Vs prehension of the reading of A s utterance compatible with his own subjective aim [and not eliminated by negative prehension), i.e. the information abstracted; 1

from that utterance as relevant data for the concrescence as a whole which wil

40

I'atterrt ii]id Process

1

end in ihc decision for further action.

The next step is an integration of this information m to the highest qualitative category to which the game object has been aligned with Bs own goal at that point determined by the intei nalized game rules). In other words, B\

concrescence aims at satisfying bis goal of narrowing down the search set by asking an appropriate utterance, thus initiating the guessing process- This must

he done in two (temporally overlapping) stages before the 'decision' as to his reaction (the expression of the utterance produced) can be achieved, namely (]) finding a conceptual category contained or subsumed by the activated initia, '

eternal object minerar that maximally advances B towards the overall goal of the gameh e.g. by maximally reducing the search set; and (2) expressing this in

an appropriate interrogative utterance.-33 This will typically include some key '

word (a) standing in a hyponymic relationship to miner af - i.e. labelling the

conceptual category chosen under (I). The causal link between the two 'stages' is in conformity with the internalized game rules. In general the respective roles and goals defined by the rttles are '

'

inherited' from successive occasion to occasion within A's and Bs separate 1

(since the complex eternal object the rules represent functions as ongoing objective lure for their successive subjective aims, which conform to it)- Before b embarks on this process however, he gives himself some 'thinking room by echoing As initial utterance with a rhetorical request for confirmation I shall not analyse this any further here (it would presumably have to be treated as a separate actual occasion, since its subjective aim is not identical with routes

'

'

1

-

that of the main1 concrescence that follows). '

The satisfaction conditions (-maximally intense state of integration) of the whole concrescence at this point, combining both stages beyond the initial comprehension phase but before the terminal decision [i.e* V on the diagram), can be summarized as follows, where means cis compatible with1; '

1

1

-

SiHitfiicthH conditions -

-

mineral - best possible reduction of remaining search set > production of legitimate game question

This should tie interpreted as meaning that the concrescence will be satis!led by

the production of a legitimate game question (a yes/no question patently relevant to the goal of the game at hand and therefore counting as one of the LiUowed twenty) it and only it the properly Linked ahoul I here metar) i> compatible with the property list at that point (namely the property minerar( to which it indeed stands in a hyponymic relationship) and the resulting '

H

Fatten And TrtKCjis

'

end in xhc dot: is ion1 lor fun her action.

The next step is an integration of this information as to the highest qualitative category to which the game oh feet has been assigned with tTs own goal at that point (as determined by the internali/ed game rules). In other words, B s concrescence aims at satisfying his goal of narrowing down the search set by asking an appropriate utterance, thus initiating the guessing process. This must '

be done in two (temporally overlapping) stages before the 'decision' as to his reaction (the expression of the utterance produced) can be achieved, namely (]) finding a conceptual category contained or subsumed by the activated initial eternal ohiect mineraF that maximally advances B towards the overall goal of the gameh e.g. by maximally reducing the search set; and (2} expressing this in '

an appropriate interrogative utterance,- This will typically include some key '

'

word (a) standing in a hyponymic relationship to miner ul - i e labelling the conceptual category chosen under f I). The causal link between the two 'stages* is in conformity with the in tern a.ized game rules. In general the respective roles and goals defined by the rules are inherited1 from successive occasion to occasion within As and Us separate jvuIlV (since the cuinp]e\ etcuul object lhe tides represent functions .. ongoing objective lureh for their successive subjective aims, which conform to .

.

'

'

'

it). Before B embarks on this process, however, he gives himself some 'thinking 1

by echoing As initial utterance with a rhetorical request for confirmation I shall not analyse this any further here fit would presumably have to be treated as a separate actual occasion, since its subjective aim U not identical with room

-

that of the main1 concrescence that follows). '

"

'

he satisfaction conditions ( = maximally intense state of integration) of the whole concrescence at this pomt( combining both stages beyond the initial comprehension phase but before the terminal decision fi.e. 'Y1 on the diagram), can be summarized as follows, where means 1 is compatible with'; [

1

1

'

'-

Srttitffiction wtidititynt ~

mineral - best possible reduction of remaining search set > production of legitimate ame question

-

This should be interpreted as meaning that the concrescence will be satisfied by the production of a legitimate game question (a yes/no question patently relevant to the goal of the game at hand and therefore counting as one of the allowed twenty) if and only if the property asked about {here metal ) is compatible with the property list at that point (namely the property mineral to which it indeed stands in a hyponymk relationship) and the resulting 1

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,

42

Pattern and I'mcess

Elements that could hiive been drawn into the early jitage ot B1s concrescence include (besides the eternal objects already mentioned): knowledge of different strategies that are useful in connection with Twenty Questions; knowledge of when it is iippropnate to make a 'wild guess1 at some concrete esemphr rather thLtn continue to narrow the held of re levant abstract qualities; knowledge that in the given situation there are in fact still twenty guesses to go; knowledge of'prototypical' exemplars of the category 'mineral1 and of prototypical exemplars of sob-categories such as metal etc.; some kind of under1

'

,

Standing of a quasi-technical nature as to Vhat counts as mineral (this may include dictionary definitions, knowledge gleaned from school chemistry, etc.); and clues from the actual situation - e.g. A\ intonation and facial expression, coupled with B s general knowledge of As typical behaviour and attitudes (perhaps he is going to enjoy misleading him, perhaps he is a stickler for playing by the book1, perhaps he can be expected to bend over backwards being helpful, etc.), all of which may a fleet B's strategy. These disparate elements may be 'represented1 [Le. somehow internalized} for him in a rich variety of ways, accessible via prehensions of different sorts - including imaginative prehensions whereby novel combinations of concepts may be generated from already imernali eJ ones. What guides them all, suppressing what is not relevant, is the '

*

'

subjective aim, whose satisfaction, as we have seen, is a feeling of maxima.. integration and intensity - intense enough to trigger the decision" to respond in a certain determinate fashion.

This brings us to (2), the closing phase of the concrescence, after the concept metal has been highlighted as maximally 'relevant'. Now B must produce an interrogative utterance to achieve the satisfaction of his present subjective aimN as defined above. The syntactic frame for this is largely determined by As preceding utterance fand his own recap), but could be generated '

1

'

from scratch' in conformity with illocutionary intention and grammatical 4

1

possibility - this time around the content word metal an adjective fas well as a noun), it is unnecessary to envisage a declarative sentence being generated and then having its subject and verb inverted as in early generative models. The illocutionary intention will itself initiate a suitably inverted sentence template under a certain type of intonational contour - for further elaboration as the ,

-

'

1

content demands (there is no such need here). The causal potency of the

actual occasion will exactly lie expended (-perish) when the utterance Is

articulated and produced via the relevant efferent pathways of speech production. Only then, as product, is it fully determinate and unmodifiable,

A Wh itchcadian a ppiro a cli to nat u nil di a loguc

My analysis of the following exchanges can be cm1 tailed, since the basic nature of the alternating game moves involves conerescent processes similar to those already described for the first coupled exchange. In genera each succesaive question-ansu'LT pair k assimilated by B so as to revise his search set 1

optimally, sometimes to I lowing the same line of thought in order successively to narrow down the set. sometimes making an intuitive leap to ask another kind of question altogether - one that he may realize from experience represents a

fruit till game strategy/5 He is guided, much as a chess player is, by a continual assessment of the

'

feel1 of the projected decrease in search space and concomitant increase in intensity of integration of data and overall subjective aim that an answer to each new question -as opposed to any other he can imagine and test out at this point - would reap. At certain points, where for example disambiguation is required before the game can proceed! the players may interject other speech acts than simple yes/no questions and answers - this is the meaning of the loops marked request clarification and 4 re formulate1 on the diagram. A sub-goal must be satisfied here before the main goal can be returned to. At times li avails himself of clues of a non-linguistic nature, as for instance in his registration of amusement on the part of A when he asks whether the '

'

'

game objecL can he used indoors. The empathized subjective form of amusement [leached via a hybrid prehension) was presumably ingredient in B's 1

1(1

subsequent choice and formulation of question, finally B makes the daring intuitive leap to 'the l-orth bridge1 and virtually closes the game by doing so. l:rom mostly metal structure, useful and static. located in the countryside' (the integrated positive properties of the object at that point) to the Forth Bridge the way can not be purely deductive. Jt is an informed guess, judged by B to be worth taking at this point since if it were '

'

'

correct the game would be {as far as he knows} won. The concrescence of the occasion to this point of release must surely include the highlighting of one or more prominent objects that fit that description in b s memory during the 1

ongoing search process, combined with the suppression of all potential objects that don't. The objects thus highlighted must be so few by now that he can test them out individually for degree of Jit Perhaps he leaps at the first one that meshes perfectly with the known properties. In fact the game is not quite over. B does not realize - or has perhaps forgotten - that there are actually two forth bridges. This A now demands to know before granting B s success- b understandably supposes that it is the famous one, the one about which one hears in school that it is always being 1

.

43

44

Pattern ind IVcifessi

painted (because it ia so large, a new coat being already needed at the i f rst end by the time the other one is reached). Hi a jt tempt to make this dear is rather

disjointed - perhaps he is surprised to hear that there are two, He quickly drops his introductory'framing1 remark about when he was a schoolboy, and jumps to the main attribute oi the bridge he can recall then, realizing that a concrete choice is being forced on him (between a known bridge and a relatec but to him unknown one), he makes a wild guess at the 'new' one, assuming '

that the difference between the two is one of age. In itself this is not an unlikely assumption, since he recalls only one being in existence when he was young, so the Esther must be newer {and often a newer and an older bridge at the same 1

'

site do bear similar names}. 1 suppose (X) is the usual way of introducing an 1

'

overtly acknowledged supposition (setting up a mental space of this intentional type), and this is the frame he chooses for his utterance. Again h one could call this a distinct variety of speech act (it is in fact linked to a fairly conventional linguistic form), but it could also be said to represent an ordinary declarative illocution, one that moreover conceals the indirect act of asking another game question (a fact not deducible from its form but from its con tent-in-con text). Prom a Whiteheadian point of view it is once again the overall intentional complex that defines the subjective form of the utterance;

direct and indirect speech acts share the same initial aim, the latter being derived from that aim by 'conceptual reversion1, it is their iatkfactlon in the

ater phase of the concrescence that produces the formal linguistic differences, Ingredient in the choice of form is the assumption of a shared understanding of the linguistic code and of the ability of the listener to make the same inferences implied by the titteran ce produced as the speaker would himself make. Nothing precludes the possibility of satisfying two

'

discourse acts' at once, for instance '

asking a legitimate game question and expressing one s supposition of a fact, as long as the utterance concerned is compatible with both acts. [ Iil- liucv. proves lo he wRmy i ihc uhicci l> ihc vie. railway bridge), hut .

since the search is by now reduced to two and B still has a couple of questions

left, the game is truly over. His final request for confirmation fit's the old onet is it?') fully satisfies the game rules even though it is not a canonical Twenty Questions yes/no question {we are definitely in the realm of the fu y interpretation of rules as well as of fuzzy logic here!). This is because it cannot really be

conceived of as a true question anywayh the answer already being implied by As 1

preceding reply fno, its the other one ) If he were a stickler, A could demand the exact name of the bridge, as written on the piece of paper given him at the .

beginning of the game, but he tacitly concedes victory short of that- the object

A Whitchcadian approDcb to njitLiiTLiI dialogue

has been idemilieJ in sndi a way thai there Ls no un eruinty of reference remaining. The fact that the old bridge is (apparently) called the Forth Railway bridge is purely contingent. '

2

Inference as suspended judgment

There is a wide literature on discourse processing and inference, but my

purpose here is limited to illustrating how such matters may be handled within the less familiar Whiteheadian framework. Of particular relevance here is the concept of everyday pragmatic - as op posed to logical - inference {see Brown and Yule 1983:34 ), for it is this kind of context-dependent inference involving meshing with tacit background knowledge that the Whiteheadian approach '

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1

1

seems the best suited to elucidate.371 shall illustrate this and the more deductive *

variety of inference involved in making bridging links1 in a more concrete way

in 6.2. (abduction is further discussed in 7.1 in connection with language acquisition). Inference in general can be seen as the drawing of conclusions> n otic i ng similar it iesj analogies and connections on the basis of earlier experience, and in Whiteheadian terms all such forms of inferential activity reflect the

same basic striving of concrescences to match incoming patterns of data as nearly as possible with known or uncover able patterns (eternal objects) in the process of integrating them into their internal satisfaction.

Consider again the Whiteheadian 'intuitive judgment1, as described in 1.2.5. This, it may be recalled consists of an imaginative prehension (predicating an eternal object of an actual occasion from which it does not derive) integrated with an indicative prehension of the nexus from which it partially derives. The predicative pattern of that objectified nexus may be identical with that of the proposition contained in the judgment or not: positive, negative, and Suspended' forms of judgment are distinguished, assigning respectively a positive or '

'

negative truth value or merely entertained possibility to the proposition. The latter is especially relevant here: in a suspended judgment the so-called 'proposition a I imagination is derived by integration of an indicative prehension (of the nexus that is the logical subject) with the conceptual imagination which 1

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in turn derives from the 'physical recollection (or recognition)\ i.e. from memory. The suspended judgment is the domain of logical possibility and necessity, and of cpisiemic and d eon tic modality linguistically expressed by

choice of mood (e.g. the subjunctive) or other means of expressing subjective

attitude towards - as opposed to objective veriliability of- a proposition/

H

43

46

Part cm the propositions a judgment is a '

dLYi itm'' [o( ftvlingj and [[IlIilJl j LlllicL lL \. Unwi

iiuciuiono] sLuk . It

also requires knowledge of the actual entities (the logical subjects of the proposition) presupposed. The indicative prehension of the background nexus in which these are embedded is rarely completeh however - most iudgments are what W- hitehead '

calls 'derivative1 (White head 1H7& 192), largely ignoring or

taking for granted some aspect of the background embedding and thus prone to various kinds of error.

The kinds ofjudgment Wh it eh ead deals with aren incidentally, all 'categorial1 {or 'experiential1) as opposed to4 the tic1 (or'perceptual1 or'presentational1), i e the propositions they contain predicate an eternal object of a presupposed or pre-existing nexus (prehended via an indicative prehension1), as opposed to introducing a new nexus out of the blue as logical subject Shibatani {1990:267 ffj .

.

'

illustrates how one language - ) a panes c - distinguishes grammatically

between the two in terms of the choice between topic marker wa and subject marker £rth the former being typically used in categorial and the latter in thetic judgments. Categorial judgments directly reflect the subject -I- predicate form of propositional prehensions, whereas the proposition of thetic judgments is more holistic in the sense that a particular property of the logical subject - namely its newness or contrast in context - is focussed upon in the context of that proposition (judgments for Whitehead are a species of comparative feelings, recall). In Whiteheadian process terms, the latter could be said to combine an ordinary intuitive judgment with prehension of the contrast between the remoteness of relevance of the subject up to that point and the present context 1

establishing il as focal (as in the sentence type a lion sprang out ofthe shadows )

.

The 'history' of the logical subject in the given propositional context - how it arose into relevance - is highlighted in a way that that of a categorial judgment (typ ica I ly defi n i te or gener i c) i s not.' I 'h is diffe ren ce bein g essential ly linguis tic (a

matter of discourse management), it is not surprising that Whitehead did not '

'

specifically discuss this matter( but observe that the extra indicative layer (or historical depth1) of the intuitive judgment compared to the ordinary imaginative proposition is parallel to the 'extra layer of the thetic judgment, where contextual pragmatics has entered the picture. This could he said to reflect the '

1

cognitive substance prior to linguistic expression, Note that in general there is no reason why a single Whiteheadian proposition should not be expressed as two clauses according to the exigencies of on-line discourse management - for instance for highlighting focal material in cleft constructions. 1

A WJiitchcadian approLidi to Batumi dialogue

Whitchead eUboi'at

on the nature of the iUipended judgment as follows

(Whdtehead 197K:274): '

i hc '

SLis|.-K:ndL'J jud mcnl tku tt>nii ts tit' I he inlir rLilKJil t>l'lkc: i marina Live

fteEin wilh I he 1 nd it n live I eel i 11 , in ihe cuse where the imn mi'd pretiitJEe fjib 10 [ind i dent ill L-iUion in the ohjettifyiny prfditnttt or wri as we have seen, also of the essence in the interpretation of symbolically transferred information for Whit eh ead.,: Conformity of subjective form by ensuring that the subjective form of what an actual occa'

,

'

sion prebends from its initial input' must be in harmony with its own subjective aim (which in turn is defined by eternal objects accessible for all actual occasions4in unison of becoming ) lays the ground for understanding what is 1

relevant for another in terms of shared situation, shared goals and sharec knowledge, trom this point of view, Gricean maxims need only operate negatively, pruning anything from a concrescing message that does not fit with them (or with more culturally specific norms of politeness ) But the * maxim1 that was flouted causing 3 to make the inference we are concerned with was more specific than those named so far, namely the rule of Twenty Questions limiting answers strictly to 'yes1 or lno' It was the conflict of '

'

.

more general conversational conventions (all relatable to the basic one of relevance) with these more immediate constraints that triggered the search for an explanation on B s part. We must therefore consign general conversational '

maxims to the (tacit) Background, from which they emerge into consciousness and/or overt behaviour only when flouted or in conflict with more local '

4

expectations (e.g. those falling out from the Twenty Questions game frame )

.

In this kind of linguistic setting, in natural di3course> we witness some ot' the most sophisticated and specifically human modes of deployment of

50

PaCCem tiiid Prnccss

propositioua] behavioi In later chapters 1 shall enquire into the psychological stauiA and source in more basic forms of cognition of the underlying proportional imtinct that is manifest he re. But before doing this we need to look in '

1

greater detail at the systematic expression of this instinct namely the language system itself,

Summary

I have attempted to illustrate In dtis chapter die use fulness of the Whiteheadian notions concrescence actual occasion and 'subjective aim' in describing the processes involved in the attainment of specific communicative purposes within one particular type of discourse frame. These processes I have analysed in terms of sequences of discrete prehensions By taking the individual unit of Ehe analysis as the actual occasion, a self-organizing cycle of goal-cons trained concrescence similar in spirit to McNeill s growth point one has a basis for linking abstract input/output conditions to complex intentions) which can in turn be shown to guide the eon ere see nee towards maximal intensity of integra'

'

'

1

,

'

'

.

'

tion (or

'

'

satisfaction ) utilizing the means available {here linguistic). The '

'

basic

unit is thus teleologically organized, constraining the largely indeterminate input1 to what is relevant for the attainment of its purpose and resulting in a determinate, unitary output, which may uol salisfy the aim entirely but will objectify it maximally tor future occasions along the life line of the individua.. subject concerned by integrating it into their inherited aims. These units combine both afferent and efferent processes and may thus reflect psychological processing rather more realistically than models which divorce comprehension and production from each other and do not allow for their interlinked overlap '

in actual discourse. This is done in an inherentlv n on-linear wavthat allows for

parallel and/or distributed processing. The way the subject of an actual occasion (here a speaker at any one moment in time) sets about trying to attain the satisfaction of his or her aim is through combining relevant varieties of the basic experiential process of prehension which ranges from simple physical perteption up to highly abstract acts of judgment How particular aims trigger particular types of prehension to attain their ends has been illustrated through a constrained game situation in order to simplify the demon strati on, but the principles involved can be extended, it is relatively clear in such a framework what information the participants need to absorb in order to keep their respective mental models of '

'

'

1

,

'

1

.

the on-going situation updated from utterance to utterance. Two types of prehension, the intuitive judgment' trnd the 'hybrid prehension (of another's subjective aim) have been particuLirly useful in this analysis, Whiie die first provides 3 useful way in to natural {non-syllogistic) inference guided by feeling' or intuition, the latter reflects the ability to empathise with others (modelling their intentional behaviour) and to share mutual knowledge anc. presuppositions with them. Both reflect essential aspects of discourse behaviour and yet have proved difficult to com bine in the past. The same is true of the relationship between the rule- and condition-based approach to speech act theory {associated with Searle) and the more 'on-line inference-based approach to it typified by the work of Sperber and Wilson. The Whiteheadian perspective again combines both aspects by linking process (here inference in terms of'prehension ) and pattern (rule-I ike conventions - including Gricean conversational maxims - falling under his category of eternal objects } The former draws upon the latter in order to constrain what is relevant for achieving specihe rational purposes, e.g. to limit the potential inferences generated by a proposition or situation to those which are relevant for the on-going subjective aim. The felicity (and well-formedness) of utterances can then be described in terms of felt prehensional matches rather than o! rule-gen crated conformity. This is something not so easy to achieve following monoplanar approaches which do not regard social norms or conventions and the working out of individual on-line purposes as conceivable input to one and the same process. This perspective contains the further potential benefit to speech act theory of allowing the limited array of illocutionary acts available within a given language (as reflected in its systematic coding) to be placed within the broader field of intentional language use. where communicative purposes may be achieved by very indirect means, both heuristic and conventional. Indirect speech acts in context can be analysed in terms of hybrid prehensions' fbasec on shared norms and expectations as well as physical contiguity) plus specific conceptual reversions1 afforded by the given situation: what is called forth from a vague shared background' to solve isd hoc communicative needs is in most cases a blend of known patterns of behaviour and novel insight. In fact, this suggests that not only language-as-pat tern but also logic is emergent: what we see in the game token analysed in this chapter is an ongoing process whereby player B is learning from experience, abstracting useful strategy types from heuristic attempts to fuliil his game-defined purpose. The general approach could fruitfully be extended into other specific areas of discourse analysis and modelling. An investigation of a variety of different '

'

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1

,

'

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1

.

'

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'

$2

Pattern iiid l 'ocess

discourse types (in one language or across scvei al) could he undei-taken in order tn unearth the particitkr combinations of types of prehension that - to some dogrce - constrain them.. The chaining and ;iLi;i pens ion oftuinplox intemion;v. aims doubtless interacts with specific discourse-relevant frames1 (abstract '

nexus types), within which the limited il locution a a given language provides acquire more specific function alii y. Natural logic in action, rational algorithmic reflecting the type of inference and judgment that takes different situation a I frames, can be investigated from this angle witlmuL I he help of the kind of diagramming I have proposed in this

but not place in with or chapter.

What this should result in is a typology of prehension types in particular varieties of interactive communicative situations, Highei level patterns emerging would reflect the {pattern of) communicative competence that constrains the individual speaker s use of his or her language. It would also help counterbalance the tendency to over-aim pi ifv the logic of discourse, to see it in terms of monoplanar input/output links, a vieiv that still seems to be presupposed by many an artificial computer simulation of natural dialogue. 3 It may be time to bring the metatheory of such endeavours {not just the theoiy J abreast with the advances hi non-linear connectionist modelling of recent years. '

'

Chapter 3

The language system Language as systcmalizcd expression

Je is oftKc nature of symbols to associate fixed but moro or less arbitrary signs

(e.g. strings of syllables consisting of phonemes) with heterogeneous conceptua.. aggregates. Although theh' meanings may he highly context-dependent {and organized in soft prototype arrays), their forms are distinct enough to distin'

1

,

guish them from virtually all other symbols (at least in context) within a coherent system like a human language, This is what White head meant when he stated '

that language is the 'systojnati/LUion of expression. Symbols arc islands of relative certainty in a sea of meaning - although determinate in shape and "

1

extent themselves, their coastlines

are infinite (to invoke a Chaos Theory

image). They are the hard currency of thought. Above alh they are available for conscious singling out and attention by the mind/brain, and thus, in a sense,

represent the least mysterious aspect of the mind/brain to itself. Linguistic signs may not only activate various kinds of images and schemata, they may also be replaced by other words or paraphrases at various levels of abstraction or speeifieity. In the following sections 1 shall concentrate on the systematic relationship

between the levels and units of linguistic codes as such, and their relationship to the broader Whiteheadian world of nexus organized in societal levels.

3

.

1 The nature and depJoymenL of the linguistic sign

Systems of symbols form codes. In the case of linguistic symbols, the system consists of more or less arbitrary signs that stand in a determinate (if fuzzyedged) relationship to a broad array of meanings for which they may b«

substituted in mental processes. This is possible - and efficient - because of their digital relational nature (they consist of combinations of a limited set of contrasting units). The meanings' to which they refer are mental entities far more protean than themselves, standing in turn in an analogue relationship *

'

1

however tenuous - to perceived or conceived external reality, There is gooc reason to distinguish between real codes or languages - systems of signs

54

PaECem and Process

stun ding for conceptual rculities other than dicina elves, where hoth the signs and those realities ate expei ientially accessible to the user - and other uses of the word code or 'language1 where that is not the case, Thus the genetic code" (where DNA strands do not 'stand for1 any particular external reality hut issue rather very indirect instructions for its const ruction) and any purportedly universal brain code' inaccessible to its users fall outside this definition. Iking opaque, such a cbrain code could not consciously be used by its users at all, it would just operate at some inscrutable level: like genes. In an early article (Fgitescue 1979} I pointed out some of the reasons (referring to the well-known design features' listed by Hockett 1960) why such a 'language of thought1 '

1

'

'

1

'

'

then popular in the guise of 1-odor s Mentalese'- is not a real language. This '

'

may be somewhat of a dead horse these days, but infelicitous uses of the words code and "language1 still slip batk into use. especially among non-linguists, and 1 may cause confusion/ - Any such brain code1 would have to relate conscious experiences to states of neural activity! which is not a relationship of the one standing for the other, but of causally correlated processes on di(Cerent levels of societar organization. These Whitehead would never have conflated in terms 1

'

'

'

'

'

of symbol ism. Let me focus tor a while on the 'form' side ol the classical Saussurean '

structural notion of the dual coding of the linguistic sign - strings of phonemes corresponding to strings of meaning-bearing morphemes (composed of the formei-) on the content side. I shall endeavour to show how this slots into a

White headi an 'pattern and process1 view of language as regards phonology and then morphology. In 3.2.2 I shall turn to syntax separately. One important difference should be pointed out immediately however, and that is; whereas the Saussurean 'sign1 combines 'sigiufic and 's mfrm?1, both being static, formal or structural notions, the two involve quite different modes of perception in the Whiteheadian scheme of things, irnv both Saussure and Hjelmslev everything outside of this autonomous domain of the sign is amorphous substance but it is precisely the intrinsic structure of'substance1 that interests Whitehead the realist- language alone is not responsible for the cutting up of substance,4*' But nor does it simply copy the natural seams of reality; it builds on the latter; '

'

,

1

'

rendering them more precise and hue-grained and introducing its own conven1

tional overlays. He certainly viewed 'causal efficacy as more course-grained than presentational immediacy (the latter being an emergent prerequisite of symbolic behaviour), but course-grained is not equivaient to amorphous. The eclectic kind of functional linguistics practised in Denmark (dubbed Danish ITtnctional Grammar1 in Hngberg-Pedersen et ak I99t], which almost alone of '

'

'

The Ijingua i system

contemporary brands oflinguistics retains tlie iit met lira list expression/content dichotomy as central, is a cut ally rather close in spirit to the Whiteheadian perspective on language and meaning.471 shall have more to say on the semantics oft he content side (and on Hjelmslevian content form ) in Chapter 4. J '

'

should emphiuiize once again that in both chapters (but especially in the present one) I shall be presenting my own interpretation of Whiteheads basic ideas as applied to the arena of language: he did not spell very much of this out in detail himself, let alone relate it to contemporary linguistics as such. First I must jump the gun somewhat and state that in Chapter 9 I shall be '

claiming that the Saussurean dichotomy between hingue (linguistic system) and

*

parole (the deployment of that system in actual speech) finds its natural counterpart in Wh itch cad s philosophy. However, unlike for Sa us sure - and indeed for Chomsky, whoso original 'competunco1 concept is re la table to that of Ititigisc - the two aspects of language can for White head never be isolated one '

from the other4 The system is only 'real' in so far as it finds 'mgression* in actual instances of .speech (external or internal)h which is of course deeply enmeshed in impermanence and change. In this he is closer in spirit to Jakobsont for whom linguistic synchrony (reflected in hiugae) is not a static but a dynamic reality (one that contains a multiplicity of sub-codes or styles K and for whom the phoneme - by virtue of its meaning-distinguishing function within morphemes - is itself a functional dynamic unit, whose abstract invariance nnt st always be seen against a background of variation f jakobson 1985; 371 ff.). Also his objection to the Saussurean insistence on the linearity and arbitrariness of language and his wide semiotic/teleological concerns (taking parole in all its

varied aspects seriously) ring a Whiteheadean bell. Bear in mind> however, that VVhitehead was no linguist and did not talk about language in quite such terms. It can nevertheless be stated that language viewed as a system of structural oppositions or contrasts harmonizes well with Whitehead s view of how eternal objects relate to each other (another matter I shall return to in Chapter y). Their ingression in actual instances of use corresponds to the Jakobsonian view '

'

1

'

of the interdependence between laugue and parole. The question of immediate interest here is the status of phonological units and rules from an extrapolated VVhitehead ran perspective. Now, n> is well known, jakobson aimed at an acoustical-auditory analysis of the speech signal. as opposed to the prevailing articulatory approach to phonetics (and emerging phonology). This he did in terms of distinctive features' the Atoms' of which its more abstract phonemic molecules consist. From a Whiteheadian process viewpoint, both the acoustical-perceptual and the articulatory-motor aspects of '

5

56

Pattern and Processi

phonological coding are essential and complementary ( lust as speech production and comprehenMon in general) they are not just mirror images the one of

the other, as generalivists tend to view the relationship). They represent aspects of the input and output data of concrescent processes each of a spec ilkkind, In 'comprehension' mode> a concrescence aimed at integrating new linguUtic data involves the prehension of abstract Objects1 (read: jakobsonian phonemes) from the total speech signal analysed by the relevant sensory pathways. The context (as circumscribed by the subjective aim of the concrescence) will successively remove by negative prehensions all aspects of the signal that are not relevant to that abstraction process. One is reminded here of buhler's 'principle of abstractive relevance1 fBtihler 1934:40 ff.). In production

mode, the phonological representation of the utterance to be produced (using the same phonemic coding as lexical representations in memory) will activate

the relevant articulatory motor agendas for its production Irrespective of the acoustical nature of the signal (which the hearer must in turn analyse). The acoustical signal may in turn be monitored by the speaker as ongoing feed back fin order to fine time production). Spoken words - or rather the individual morphemes of which they consist may be regarded as societies ol phonemes, which can be defined in terms of distinctive features (a species of eternal objects that can hardly themselves be regarded as constituting a still lower form of society ) Bear in mind that ] am talking here of tokens rather than the corresponding types. Kor Whitehead fas for Jakob son) the role of context - the relational essence of linguistic form is critical If he had specific a My addressed the question of the speech signal, he would quite probably have talked in terms of vowel-plus-consonant combinations (i.e. syllables) as being the most central societies (or Enduring objects ) in speechh mutually effecting their lower level realization in articulatory chains of motor activity, and in turn entering into higher level societies of words and of sentences intonationally packaged/ 1" Phoneme types (as well as distinctive features) he would doubtless have considered to be eternal objects, co-present and ingressant in actual chains of speech fvia co-articulation). They are thus both abstract and psychologically real, which is just what the generativists would want - but this is also what Sapir already claimed for his general phonetic elements1 (Sapir 1921: 54 ff.). 1 do not wish to suggest that the notion of the phoneme has been resolved once and for all - on the contrary, it clearly interacts with other levels fnotably the morphological) in complex ways that are to some degree language-specific f not to mention sociolinguistic variation and diachronic changes in progress). More than one level of abstraction may be

-

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'

H

1

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'

psychologically relevant ioi hingijagei with highly complex phonologies (like

Danish), but speakers of all languages must surely abstract relevant phonetic contrasts-in-contexts across nil manner of variation on at least one approximately equivalent level of analysis.

Moving up a level in our brief purview of kinds of linguistic generalization! thenj we leave the societal level of phonemes and reach that of morphemes (or words), which linguists call morphology. Whether it makes sense to speak of a

distinct societal (sub-)level of morphemes which are organised into whole words at a still higher societal level depends on language type - obviously it is

not particubrly relevant for thorough-going isolating languages

'

At the

interface between this and the preceding phonological level there is a special type of generalization that can be made about relations between the two levels (levels, note, not autonomous modules), namely morphophonological ones. These state the alternation in phonemic form of the morphemes ingredient in the words of the higher level, according to context (phonological or otherwise). Also purely phonological rules may depend on lexical information from an entirely different level1, for example the stress-assignment rules for English distinguish between native Anglo-Saxon and borrowed 1 Latmate1 words. They may also be affected by discourse context (cf allegro style elisions of schwa in l:rench, etc.). The distribution of the hnglish plural marker /s/ or l7jt for example, is usually regularly determined by the preceding final phoneme of the 4

'

'

stem, except in some words ending in voiceless fricatives like

'

roof, which have

to be learnt as lexical exceptions (at least by those speakers who have the unexpected voiced allomorph /z/ here). The general rule can he abstracted from sufficient exposure to data by conceptual valuation and reversion {or abduction if you will) in the usual way, but the exceptions need to be marked in as social ion with the lexemes concerned. In fact it is not always such a clear either/or matter; morphophonologicaJ rules may be of any degree ot synchronic productivity and may be limited to a variety of types of context (semantic grammatical or pragmatic as well as phonological). They may al o he in a slate of diachronic flux, in which case there maybe widespread redundancy between abstracted generalizations and representations of individual lexical variation. Redundancy of this kind in any case no problem for a Whiteheadian approach since it does not seek to separate strictly the synch ionic from the diachronic; both kinds ofgeneralization ('rules' and historical processes leaving their residue in synchrony) can coexist within the same complex 'society-of-societies'. In the actual generation or comprehension of speechH however, it follows from the Whiteheadian framework that processes at the various stages of '

'

"

5

Partcm iiitd Pi'octss

produL-uon on analyiis of a speech signal cannot bo clearly isolated one from ttw other, although the difterent societal levels1 jnvoKred are distinct enough. This '

is because higher level context is almost always oing to be relevant to lower levels and we vcrw - and all levels ultimately leak1 and interact.51 The intermeshing of top-down (conceptual) and bottom-up f physical) processes simultaneously within a single concrescence is perfectly acceptable in the

Whiteheadian world. Processes leading to the recognition of chains of phonemes in a speech signal, for example, cannot he seen in isolation from processes leading to the recognition of meaningful units - morphemes - behind such chains, or indeed from still higher level processing. One can envisage following such chains of processes through the speech organs- the output ( decision') of a concrescence at one societal level being inherited by ( = objectified for) another at a higher level as part of its data. This can he reiterated at successively more abstract levels f from phoneme to syllable to word, etc.), each forming the context for that below. Thus at the level of the phoneme, variation of pitch anc. volume and speed in the overall packaging of the utterance has to be allowed tor in order for the crude signal to he "digitalized1 into phonemes and at the ensuing morphological level such higher level phenomena as the occurrence of a word boundary adjacent to the phoneme in question will effect the analysis and what is passed on to the next level of abstraction. In speech production, in turn, one can easily envisage forward planning at the highest level in the form, for example, of a rough sketching out of an overall syntactic template around a predicate frame (or lemma1), which is gradually rilled in and modi tied as the chain of speech is elaborated at lower levels. All sub-routines do not have to be completed before overall plans to produce an utterance can be sped he d: we typically start speaking before we have completely '

*

worked out what we are going to say. Continual monitoring to ensure thit what we say does indeed match our intentions {by subjective form) maybe assumec on the Whiteheadian model, At lower levels, approaching the actual activation of the speech organs, smooth transitions must be produced between vowels and consonants, liven though their phonemic realities are distinct their phonetic realities overlap - they must be de-digitalized1 in order to activate the syn'

chronized coordination of the numerous muscles involved (a matter of com-

plex parallel control). As for the meshing of Whitehead's system with an overall theory of semiotics, there are suitable places for Peircean indices and icons as well as for symbols in various blends in the complex semiotic web that is language from a

Whiteheadian viewpoint." This is because his conception of'symbol1 (broader

The lungLJjgc system

than Peirce's) involves varying reUtions to perception (see 1.2.6). Another important Peiicean notion that finds its natural counterpart in Whitehead's system is that of the Intej-pretant tlie conceptual meaning mediating between sign and referent (complementing the basic Saussurean dichotomy at signific and sigtufiatit). A iign stands foi something m a certain respect The interpretant represents the thought generated in the mind of the recipient of a signs and more generally concerns how signs give birth to further signs {for Peirce also thoughts are signs). This is particularly important in the case of symbols sin e they are dependent on social convention- Symbols may be interpretants of indices, which in turn may be interpretsnts of icons. For Whitehead, 'symbolism1 (in its broad semiotic sense} always involves reference to 'eternal objects1, forms ofdefiniteness that mediate the symbolic transfer concerned; they ensure that the same symbol type is recoilnized as having the same or analogous meaning (by social convention), for both sender and receiver. The transfer or replication of symbols from occasion to occasion [whether inherited by successive occasions in the same subjective time line or by other speaker/ hearers ) is one aspect of the general principle of'conformity of subjective form1. Both philosophers lay emphasis on the contextually determined interpretive processes involved (i.e. the dependence of the meaning of a sign on the recip1

,

l

1

.

1

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.

ient's reaction to it),

In particular, the iconic 'diagrams' (in the sense of Peirce ]9Rfi: 10) which language may present in the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes of its structur-

ing are readily interpietable in terms of the patter nings of eternal objects/"1 The stages in the emergence of symbols from indices and icons [into which they can be 'unpacked' or 'collapsed1) is parallelled in the emergence of Whiteheadian symbolic reference from more basic perceptual prehensions. The relationship between the expression and content planes of language in the structuralist

tradition (especially as elaborated by Hjelmslev), can be in various degrees arbitrary or iconic" (it is not just a matter of arbitrary signifie-signifiant linkag"

'

es), but there are at least two distinct senses of iconic' hereh namely the Umagis1

tic

and the 'analogy-based1 varieties of diagramming relationships, where only the latter involves metaphor-1 ike analogical extensions on the content plane which are then given isomorphic expression (sec Kngberg-Pedersen ] 99fi:4f))/ Both varieties may have paradigmatic and syntagmatic manifestations. A degree of imagistic' iconicity in language is to be expected if the same LpropositionaI instinct' lies behind the perception of images and the verbal expression of propositional relationships. Reading' propositions olf mental models {-prebend ing proposition a I relations in objectified nexus] should presumably reflect -

J

l

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59

60

Pattern and Process

something of the structure o\ the model itself, whatever its predominant modality. As regards \inalopy-based iconicit the processes whereby analogies between nexus are registered and objectified' in Whitehead s theory of symbolic transfer represent a natural way of looking at this (language being the systematic expression of prehended content). To summarise the three-way distinction in While he ad Kin terms: grasping an icon is a matter of recognizing a similarity to some pattern previously 1

experienced, as achieved by an imaginative prehension, say - essentially a negative matter of precluding other possible (but less salient) similarities but not resulting in any funher interpretation. The relationship to simple conceptual valuation is still rather close. Grasping a sign as an index, on the other handt involves the funher stop of recognizing that a token of a conceptual type [grasped as iconically similar to the type) is metonymically associated with some

other referent (type) - this builds on the repeated correlation of signs and corresponds to a Whiteheadian intuitive judgment, which involves the recognition of contiguity or a part/whole relation between signs (e.g. between tokens of '

1

smoke and

re').

Finally, grasping a sign as a symbol involves recognizing an arbitrary standing for relationship - essentially metaphorical - between the sign and the intended referent. Symbols fall into mutual patterns amongst themselves [their 'sense1 according to Krege Ifi92) largely independent of their referential potential for denotation )- As types ('species of sounds') they relate to Whiteheadian eternal objects, which can be directly prehended by conceptual prehensions or be read off nexus [e.g. events) in which they find ingress ion. Their stepwise origin in indexical-iconic perceptual reality is now 'shortcircuited as it were. Note that the existence of allomorphy requires the typetoken distinction also at this level; the 'same morpheme (or word) can be '

1

'

L

1

'

,

'

ivpiT-.-ior.u-d hv uUterent token .iliomoip]

iv,iri,ir;l Umnsj. .iccordin

to

context. Words as symbols have achieved a degree of conventionally sanctioned stability that transcends the great individual variety of specific indexical ossociLilions derived [mm pcE'c Hual cxpcricjiLL- iihc iiikl- uf' rcUnL-lv unambiguous communicability being a high level of abstractness and vagueness}. There is also psycholinguistic evidence for the centrality of the word: it represents the basic level1 of linguistic signs, reinforced again and again by constantly repeated useh whereas higher level units are much more extempore and creative and lower level ones arc not even necessarily activated in comprehension [MacKay 19fi7; I23f.). It is at the level of the word for lexical stem) that maximal interaction with n on-linguistic content (imagery) converges and '

'

The Lmgijagc system

'

1

H>

priming may occur from many different directions/

As sign units of'content form\ words also have an intioite combinatorial potential for matching an open-ended number of situational contextsh and this is the essence of syntax. Learning a language is learning the systematic relations between words, not just their individual reference (indexical bundle;! of '

'

similar

experiential patterns) - it involves higher-order reflexion {via concep-

tual reversion) on what has alreadvbecn learnt in the form of indexical relations. Reference in the narrow sense of denotation, on the other hand, is a matter of the

indicative prehension of logical subjects in higher propositional prehensions. Reference in the broader sense relevant to any kind of sign (icon, index or symbol) could be said to reflet 1 their genesis as specific products of transmutation i.e. the recognition of'thing' and 'situation types (forms of definiteness) from tokens to which they have been associated [in the case of symbol sn by social convention alone). This may be further projected onto analogous enduring objects {objectified nexus) presented by experiential data. Such referents may be *

'

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of any degree of absti actnessH from the physical to the social/ethical. Hut

sym-

bolic reference1 introduces a higher-order world-creating tool largely freed from external perception - in fact the multiple indexical associations leading to it must in a sense be forgotten' or repressed (cf. Deacon 1998; %f.). The diagram below sketches the most basic 'societal levels1 on which grammars of individual languages pattern. Each level is defined in terms of its 1

'

'

own formal units, and each has its own content as indicated within the

pyramid. This is distinct from the data1 to which each level is sensitive {in particular the content of the next level down objectified for it) - its own content is to be understood rather as the content-bearing units of which the level consists. This is in a sense the inverse of the Functional Grammar layered '

1

'

"

structure of the clause

model, which concentrates on levels of content built up

from basic predicates and in which form is consigned to a final level of'expres1

sion rules

(often taken for granted in actual analyses).>7 Note that 1 do not

adopt the jakobsonian conception of the meaning of the phoneme as being its denotation of 'otherness" within the system of phonological contrasts fcf. Andersen 1973:7 9). That is a matter of form and purpose, not content in the present sense. The level of texts refers of course to the products of discourse in all its modalities, including the spoken. The diagram as a whole represents pure potential pattern and should not be understood as saying anything directly about processes, either top-down' or 'bottom-up The '

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1

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hierarchical arrangement simply reflects the simultaneous organization of

61

*5i

Parrcm iind Process

different love Is ul" paitenung suck thai ike broader-scale onei are logiLMlly

dependent on the liner-grain ones lowei- down.

A

/ /

'

sodeLi! level ul :

plLl JlUtk [leaning tmisLruelionai

meaning lexical me tun

(ieo n ic Wiling*onomaiopoia, etc.)

sentences (clause* & phrases)

words {stems & iimjces)

phoseines (vowels ik tonsonanls)

Figure 3.

The apex, corresponding to I he overall conimnnicilional intention of a speaker/ hearer utilizing the gram mar, is represented with broken lines to reflect the indeterminacy of the link between individual contextually embedded intentions and their precise expression in language. It is here that - in terms of process -

the speech sigral is modulated for attitude and subtle perlocutionary ends (often by intonation and other prosodic means)- Strictly speaking, only the rule-1 ike, socially sanctioned aspect of pragmatics belong here (in the language system). The same indication of indeterminacy is shown at the base-line, where the involvement of specific neural populations in speech organ activation can likewise be taken as at least partially indeterminate. I have not marked intermediate levels of organisation that may or may not be relevant to the description

of specific language types - for example the distinction between *

'

word1 aod

morpheme1 levels touched on above h or the sub-levels of syllables and/or norae (units of syllable weight) between the levels of phonemes and words 1

(both are necessary for a satisfactory description of Japanese, for example).5*1 In general, the Whiteheadian framework is perfectly compatible with the si mult ai:cmis iii e iicc of patterning at dilTn-vm iittermedisUe or jvirallel levels assignable to a single stretch of speech, e.g. of Firthian sup rase gmental ros-

The knguagt system

*

otlies

or the autosegmental and metric 'tiers' of more recent times. I assume* by the way, a separate lexicon cross-referencing the (potential) contents of the various levels.

3

.

2

Embodied rules

But ivhat of synchronic rules operating on phonemes and morphemes- are they equally real in the sense that we have attributed 'reality' to the static units defining the linguistic sign? Like all regularities in Whitehead s world, these '

1

'

must also he species of eternal objects, forms of definiteness1 potentially abstractable by conceptual valuation and reversion from concrete data. I hey are '

'

"

1

not real in the sense of'actual1 here and now in the manner of actual occasions -

but nor are phonemes: they are only real in the sense that patterns that are '

manifest in and between actual occasions are real

1 .

Let us start with dynamic

regularities on the societal levels of the phoneme and the morpheme {or word),

3

.

2

1

.

Phono logical and morphosyn tactical regular ilies

Whitehead had nothing at all to say concerning specific linguistic rules - as regards phonology in particular he displayed a broad take care of the sense and '

1

the sounds will take care of themselves

attitude. One can nevertheless readily

imagine how he would have discussed such matters in terms of potentially meaningful patterns in the speech signal, Some such patterns are general across ail productions in a given language, namely absolute rules like final consonant devoicing in German or Russian, while others are limited by context, either purely phonologically determined (as with the lengthening of stressed vowels before voiced consonants in British English) or morphologic a My/lexically determined (as with the elision associated with clitic auxiliaries in English). There are also purely distributional regularities, but these too may have a certain synchronic dynamism1 in so far as they may need to be applied to new lexical items (like loan wrords). The question as to whether any such rule displays 'psychological reality1 must surely be answered in terms of specific concrete psychological processes in which they might or might not be directly ingredient - e.g. by {co-jdetcr mining the output of the concrescence at hand. The fact that linguists can draw such generalizations as those stated above has no direct bearing on this quest in 11: gene rali nations from without1 need not be ingredient in the phenomena seen 'from within1 {the 'rule1 that to stav alive '

'

63

64

PaCCem and Process

you hare to breathe does not require tlm the indrndrnJ human being has somehow to internalize that rule, as opposed to merely aa in the appropriate way, like any aniniLTl). Now, as it happens, the rules mentioned above do have a direct bearing on verbal productions in so far as Mure to act upon them would lead to ill-formed speech stringi. But their mode of involvement k not directly causal fin White-

heads sense of causal eficacy), it proceeds via 'ingressiom specifically by concrescent suhiects prehending diem as relevant for the maximal satisfaction

of their immediate communicative or cognitive aims. This is not necessarily '

or usually - .1 conscious matter, hut involves the Teel of conformity of the data with the relevant eternal objectfs). Such 'rules1 can vary in productivity, i.e.

generali ability, with the most gen era Unable being the least accessible to conscious manipuJation (i.e. being thoroughly automatic), and the least

generalizable having to he learnt in ajisociation with individual lexical iteniii. For White he ad, the chain of prehensions involved in recognizing and/or summon-

ing a symbol for production may he curtailed if it is completely automatized in context, as much speech production and comprehension evidently ish so in a given situation the relevant phonological {or other linguistic) generalization may or may not attain psychological reality - as opposed to mere latency for the concrescence concerned. Both from this perspective and from that of linguists of a lexicalist persuasion there i no reason why such generalizations fat least those of the no n-absolute kind) should not be redundantly distributed lJu\HL h [hi.- k-xicor. well in liio connectivity of the speech production regions of the mind/braim The fact that a speaker can apply a particular rule to brand new productions is irrelevant: the eternal object, the rulet is potentially there to be summoned whenever needed [automatically or otherwise). On my cognitive interpretation of eternal objects this means simply that the rule has somehow/somewhere become objectiiied in the connectivity ot the areafs) of '

1

the cortex involved in speech production and comprehension,1 There is no reason to believe tlun ih p>>vvlio3oL;LLid reality mu>A he nuuufcslcJ physically in

exactly the same way in every speaker of a language. The approach to linguistic rules sketched above is a n on-modular one

(although it is compatible with a modular approach it is also compatible with '

1

radical conneciionism)h and the Isolation of phonological and 'morphological'

rules should not be taken as suggesting corresponding autonomous modules [1

shall return to this matter in 3,3), It proposes rather a multi-level societywi thin-societies framework, as on the diagram above, where a considerable

degree of redundant distribution is not only possihle but organizationally

The lang ua e system ,

probably desirabk and where phonological Miles are relevant for (and partially ingredient in) morphology, moEphalagical ones for sentence syntax, and so on. E-Ach level1 operates with its own basic categories (vowek and consonants on

the phonological levelh stems and afiixes on the morphological level, phrases and clauses on the sentence level, etc.) and its own mode of conjoining elements in the lillCLll, chain, hut the actual patterning has much in common on all levels fas X-har theory recognises as regards syntax and morphology at leastThis

reflects the similar prehensional piocesses that integrate all such static patterns of eternal objects into the on-going activity of actual speaker/hearers. The question as to the nautiv of the relationship between static pattern and dynamic process will be a recurring theme in toll owing chapters.

It is important to recognize that particular phonological means, such as tonal distinctions, for example, do not necessarily adhere to the same societal level in all languages. Thus only in some languages do tones contribute to the distinctive shape of individual morphemes, as in Yoruba and Chinese, whereas

the use of intonational tone patterns over larger syntactic units to express

distinct illo cut ions is more universal. ' In tone languages the latter kind of patterning is superimposed upon morpheme-level tone shapes at a higher level of tonal modulation, so pitch and other prosodic parameters may be utilized

independently on more than one level. In Yoruba tone may also serve a grammatical {syntactic} purpose, for example in marking a subject noun before the verb - this it does by superimposing a high tone on the preceding syllable s own lexical tone, with which it combines. The tact that tone is inherently prosodic in so tar as it adheres to whole syllables for larger units), does not affect the fact that it may ingress at different levels by virtue of the ditferent kinds of meaning distinctions it can support - one must distinguish means of expression and societal level. The function performed by any particular means may be specific to a particular societal level but no such level can be isolated from the meaning of its ingredient units. Form and content are two sides of the same linguistic unit at any societal level The proof, by the way, that supra'

'

-

!

'

'

segmental features have psychological reality on their own independent level and may yet be meaning-distinguishing on the level below - can be seen in such phenomena as tone survival in languages like YorubaN where vowels may '

be elided when two words coalesce, but a trace of the tone of the elided vowel is

left in the following syllabled' lor languages like this one may posit a societal level of prosodic word-forms above - or parallel with - that of individual morphemes, but this is again not necessarily universal Prosodic packaging into clausal units is probably controlled by the non-dominant hemisphere of the

65

66

I'aCCem tind Prnc-ess

brain fbm correlated to the societal level ol-"sentences organised in the dominant hemisphere) and a,s such is doubtless universal whereas the ingress ion tonal phenomena may have within a particular grammar is not. Though mherently

more closely linked with causal efficacy and the direct modulation of feeling, prosodic phenomena may be grammaticalbed and thus drawn into the functional orb of the segment al gram mar system fas has happened in tone languages). When we move up from phonology to the level of rules restricting the '

ordering ot successive morphemes within wo Eds, these begin to resemble syntactic rules in their incipient {and for some polysynthetic languages highly developed) recursivity although typically they are more rigid and lexically bound than the latter A typical morphological rule is derivational in nature (in

functional Grammar terms, a matter of 'predicate/term formation1), tor example the kind of rule relevant for many languages that produces causative

derivatives of basic verbs by attaching to the stem a causative af¥ix/>:i in fact such rules cover both lexical (derivational) combinatoriality and the addition or

change of grammatical (inflectional) elements, or a combination of both thus causative formation rules often further require changing intransitive to transitive inflections on the derived verb (or at least increasing the obligatory valency of the verb). Whereas purely derivational rules are largely a matter of the societal level of morphemes (words), rules referring to inflections can be regarded as belonging to another interface, this time that between the level of morphological words and the level of sentences (which organizes clauses and pbiases and referential and/or agreement relations between them under a potential illocntion) More obviously belonging to this interface1 are morphosyntactic rules that cover for example the sentence-level scope of specific word-internal mor-

phemes (again most evident in highly synthetic languages), and those linking specific sen fence-level constructions to particular morphemes, whether

independent or bound/14 Another phenomenon that may require analysis in terms of an

'

1

extra

intermediate societal level concerns languages with pronomi-

nal and function-word clitics like French or Serbo-Croatian. In both cases this

is superordinate to the societal level of morphological words and subordinate to the sentence level articulation of phrases and clauses. However, there are differences: as regards Iron eh, the scope of the phenomenon is the verb phrase. as in i! y-en-a timj there are five of them1 (duinmy.s object tb ere-ofit-have five) or donne-ie-Iui give it to him fgive-it-him), since the successive enclitics are strictly ordered relative to the verb, regardless of other constituents. In SerboCroatian it is a matter of position within the whole sentence (typically following '

'

1

the first word in a fixed position relative to each ntherK as in dn-li-stc-inu M\i iwliv-pcrof have you given him the fountain pen? (with dummy clement dn fallowed respectively by interrogative, subieet and indirect object enclitics). The 1

result in both cases is a mismatch between morphological and syntactic units fwith word-level units corresponding to functional VPs in French hut not necesriarily - or usually - so in Serbo-Croatian). Such phenomena form the core ofantolexical syntax (Sadock 1991). In the above the reader may have noticed that I have not been entirely consistent in my application of the notion Wkny-of-M>cietics to language, sometimes using it to refer to the hierarchical levels of grammar, sometimes to 1

'

the organization and social embedding of individual speakers. Is the 'social' organization of grammar inherent in its own internal relationships feternal objects) or does it merely reflect that of its users? 'This is an important question, which I shall leave open until Chapter 9, where it will be a central concern (although ingredients in the answer will be discussed t'u route in Chapters 5 and 7). "

'

3i .

.

i The meaning uf synLax, the syntax of t eeling

In this sect ion 1 shall dwell further on the societal level of sentences - that of

syntactic rules dealing with clauses and phrasesh which in recent decades have been taken to be prototypical of all linguistic rules. We shall see that these represent from a Whiteheadian viewpoint merely a special case of the phenome-

non of the Ingression of eternai objects relevant to language. Note that in so far as linguistic rules - like any others - are obviously repeatable (this is their essence) they must indeed be aligned with eternal objects rather than with actual occasions (or even societies of actual occasions) within the Whiteheadian

scheme of things. What ia special about syntactic rules - their maximal recursivity and productivity - is sometimes erroneously taken (especially by

generativists) to characterize all levels of the society-of-societies which makes up the subject matter of grammar. Another mistake that is sometimes made fthis time by linguists of a functionalist inclination) is to include under the

rubric of syntax matters that do not belong to grammar at all but fall out rather from interaction between grammar and processing constraints (although the

latter may well have an indirect effect on the former historically). Linguistic rides are stable patterns to which actual speech more or less accurately conforms {attractors aimed at, so to speakn but often not quite reached). Syntactic onesn in particulan determine that only speech chains that are readily interpretable are produced, thus discouraging such con lign rat ions

6&

Pattern and Process

1

as internal embedding and the breaking of island constraints, etc. (which would over-burden the ability of the mind/brain to suspend high level processes while dealing with embedded sub-routines). The ingress ion of syntactic rules into an on-going process that is to result in a we 11-formed and successful

utterance requires (amongst other things) complementation by referring words suitable to the context and intention of the utterance plus a

H

tit1 with

world knowledge (including the social conventions of communication)- They are thus not isolatable from semantics and pragmatics. Such rules are probably embodied in frontal motor routines of the cortexf specifically in the dominant hemisphere, but it is unlikely that anyone would want to call them representations' in the same sense as the meanings of chains of symbols U shall return to this in Chapter 5). '

1

1

The categories that syntactic rules refer to are abstract! relatively few in number and common across languages (though not all present in all languages and not always serving exactly the same functions). Thus the category subject may vary in meaning from language to language.'l:,ri What is essential as regards tnglish, for instance, is that it has a particular 'feel1 to the user of that language. That isH it is defined by conditions whose sal is diction we can recognise when we fill a subject NP slot in an accreting syntactic template with an appropriate expression. The feel' of the match may be quite complex, involving different components> primarily semantic agentivity, but also structural lirstness' amongst the arguments of the verb, and pragmatic topichood, in differing degrees of prominence in differing contents even within the same language, but always distinct from the feel off sayf a direct object The reason we can recognize such abstract categories need not be anything to do with their inn a ton ess, but does undoubtedly have something to do with our perception of how the external world functions. This could be in the form of the general match between, say NIPs and 'things out there' (at whatever level of abstractnessK or between 'subjects1 and the referents of NTs standing in a certain relationship (e.g. of agentivity or control) to the action referred to by prototypical action verbst and so forth, fcxtensions by analogy are kept in check by the more arbitrary conventions of (adult) language. The notional source of basic syntactic categories - by extension from sensorimotor prototypes - is what is at issue here; how exactly these correlations are learned is still the subject of considerable debate. At all events! the prehension of an NP, for example, is the prehen1

'

'

'

'

'

'

1

.

sion of a purely linguistic entity, not of its potential referents (though of course r

recognising the pattern as an NP activates expectations of a referential fit1),

The Linguage system

How might Whnehead have dealt with linguistic categories, say that of noun ? In his terminology, wc recognize tokens of conceptual types via the processes of conceptual valuation and 'transmutation1, whereby the same ingredient eternal object (simple or complex) shared by discrete tokens is grasped by the same kind of conceptual prehension, whatever the token. For example, tokens of nouns are recognized as sharing the same particular eternal object (prototypical nouniness ) and what counts as a noun is whatever data produces that - or an analogous - feeling in the prehending subject, Note that such a transmuted feeling can have different subjects scattered throughout a single coherent nexus, e.g. the same person experiencing 1 noun in ess1 on distinct occasions in his/her historical roitte ihroagh time. Transmutation produces vagueness, since the necessary grounds for the prehension of a particular eternal object is the recognition of only an approximate tit, one better at least than the potential fit with any competing candidate. Therefore it results 1

'

1

'

'

1

,

'

in prototype effects, which is precisely what cognitively orientated grammarians would want to see for linguistic as well as general conceptual categories. Similar effects would be expected for other word-class categories, in so far as they reflect specific prehensional processes findicative and conceptual) ingredient in producing or understanding propositions. Let us turn to syntactic rules as suchH at the same time keeping our VVhiteheadiar spectacles on. As mentioned aboveh there is considerable variation '

amongst the world s language as to where exactly the cuts between morphology and syntax and between syntax and pragmatics should be made, especially in more exotic non-configurational languages, but also in ones like japanese where pragmatics determines numerous basic choices in clause structure (and where inference from context plays a much more central role than in English, say), l-or present purposes we can limit the discussion to phrase structure rules in Hnglish, as uncontroversial a species as one can Hnd within autonomous syntax {and one with which even cognitive linguists with a general aversion for rules as such should have no quarrel if understood as mere distributional pattern h specifically within bnglish}.ClH Consider the most general kind of phrase structure rule, as exempli he d in the sentence 1 suppose it s the new one1 from the game in 2.2. First, the sentence consists of a noun phrase fT) plus a verb phrase (the rest), con formal with the initial S - NP -I- VP rule for the expan'

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1

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'

'

sion

1

ol' a declarative sentence in English. The VP is in turn expanded by a

further rule whereby a noun phrase can be represented by a whole sentence

(here the object of the verb of the matrix sentence), 'I'he relevant phrase

69

jo

Pattern tind Process

'

structure rule (NP vS) is iirtrinsically recursive, The prehension ot tin NP will always contain the possibility of such a further unpackingh since thLs is part of the potentiality of what an NP Is1 to the language uier: the kind of linguistic unit which when activated may expand in this deteiminate way [amongst others), Choosing the appropriate sub-routine ( start a new sentence S } results in the embedding of one proposition within another. The expansion of die new lS1 ichema again produces the concatenation of an NP and a VP, to correspond to the felt1 content at an abstract ievelj and the VP can in turn be expanded/rep laced by the activation of the copula 'be1 plus another nominal phrase, etc. The copula (like any verb) must appear in the correct tensed form and in the correct form according to number agreement with the .subject (i.e. is), which may be phonologically reduced in actual production (to enclitic s ) These processes can be described either in terms of syntactic rules or of procedural sub-routines potentially activated every time a finite verb is processed in the production of an tnglish sentence (i.e. whenever a verb appeal's in an accreting syntactic template}. Hither way, they correspond to Whiteheadian prehensions of specific eternal objects (patterns) with which the output ofthe concrescence concerned must be conformal if the communicative intent ofthe subjective aim is to be satisfied. Now one of the hallmarks of syntactic rules is their close parallel to other hierarchically organized cognitive processes, whereby higher order * routines' maybe suspended while relevant sub-roiKines are carried out. This is seen every time discontinuous distribution of constituents within the same syntactic level occursn as with the French negative /it7,,, pas, or in English phrasal verb constructions, as in he heard his angry neighbour out1, where the VP contains a bipartite verb of which the adverbial element must be 'suspended1 until the ob|ocl XP l> ojab jLiled. J his suggests another good reason lo cqLiate as Mr as possible the sentence-length utterance with a single Whiteheadian concrescence: prehensions within a single concrescence arc only logically, not necessarily temporally ordered, and one of them can easily be 'suspended4 pending the '

1

'

1

'

-

.

'

result of another that it triggers, but this is not so between two or more successive concrescences each of which must result by definition in a complete. determinate output satisfying the initial subjective aim. Some approaches to syntax are less embarrassed by the notion of the

redundancy of distributed syntactic information than others, concentrating as '

they do on lexeme-specific constructions or lemmas1 (syntactic templates or predicate frames associated with individual verbs or verb types in the lexicon cf. Levelt 1989:11).

Pi Mm ore's construction grammar4 approach specifically

The language system

relates syntax to iemantics/pragmatics via conitmctions associated with individual lexical items or fane Lion words fef. l illmofe 19%). Note that for

generativists constructions are mere epiphenomena resulting from the interaction of the fixed principles of UG with parameters set one way or the other, A phenomenon such as eauiativization can lie examined in its morphosyntactic guise acrosi languages (as in (.iivcm ] 990; 5?ft, in the broader context of a "

typological overview of complementation types). At a still 'deeper '

level of

'

generalization, a physical causation construction type can he examined for English in terms oi its extension from concrete situations of physical causation to more and more abstract forms of causatJon (as in Grnsh & K4andelblidt

1997}. Such schemata are grounded in pre-linguistic experience, ontogenelically prior to learning about Constructions or * lemmas1. The correlation between linguistic constructions and categories and the cognitive realities beneath them - in particular Went frames - has been '

'

characterised by Croft fin a manner harmonious with the VVhiteheadian

perspective) as one of flexible interactionh the relationship being obscured by language-specific conventionalization of particular alternative construals of similar event types (Croft ]99!i)/(l 'The cognitive domains1 that typolo gists descry beneath linguistic expression often reflect universal types ot" process rather than static categories; the static patterns themselves (overlapping and multidimensional) are merely eternal object is abstractable from the symbol '

systems - e.g. words and constructions - used to refer to experiential nexus and their components- What appears to be universal across languages here is rather a matter of similarity than of identity - whether It be causative constructions or subjecthood, for example - for what is indeed common to af.

speakers is the cognitive (semantic) parameters themselvesh variously accessec by individual languages. This viewpoint underscores the necessity of taking indlviduLd lantuuges and theh consiruciium as th basis i\>\ \\ polo , noi die abstract formal categories of some Universal tnammar. What is universal behind such a fuzzy but widespread linguistic category as 'subject1, for example, must from a Whiteheadian perspective he related to the pre-linguistic process ofprehending the logical subject of a proposition (a nexus of actual occasions related by an eternal object). Construction types seem to form (for some languages) intermediate societa. levels between individual lexical items and sentence syntaxh in so far as they bear their own inherent array of thematic role types but are empty of specific lexical content/ l- or example in Semitic languages: where particular abstract vowe templates applicable to bate consonantal verb stems produce various derivec '

7]

7a

Pattern and Process

predicates, according to voice and tense, etc. (cf. junger 19 5 for Hebrew). These 'binyanim' may in theory be extended to new verbs. Their Content1 is the derivational or mflectional function they bring to beai1 on the neutral item (e.g. causativizationK Although English has covert classes of verbs according to voice T mid die' 'ergative' 'antipassive', ranticausative\ etc.) no 'extra' level of description is needed there ince the patterns are precisely not overtly ex-

pressed. Also gender classes of nouns in the lexicon appear to represent a '

potential societal level1 intermediate between the societal level of words and Lhat of sentences (cf. agreement phenomena). Even for the generativises such lexical matters can presumably be learnt from input. They are at all events simply patterns there to be recognized- Note that there is great variation amongst the world s languages as to the nature of the linkage between grammar

and lexicon; Wakashan languages such as Nootka are at the opposite extreme front Semitic languages, their non-configurational, pragmatically controlled syntax displaying a notoriously loose linkage with the lexicon, where most morphemes can occur as nouns or verbs or adjuncts in a variety of predicate frames', according to context. Let its pause now to look more closely at the type of syntactic rule (or principle) that generativist claim to be so deep and inaccessible to consciousness that they could not he iearnt at all from input. What can a Whiteheadian '

make of these? Bickerton (1990:72} discusses such a rule in terms of constraints

on the extraction of question-words from subordinate clauses. Here NT and VP

boundaries appear to act as barriers to extraction so that, for example> "'Where do we know the boy who comes fromT, which extracts the wh-wnrd from the embedded relative clause modifying the object argument, is ill-formed. The structural regularity concerned is the limitation on extractability of this kind to clauses immediately subcategori/ed by the matrix verb - which excludes the embedded relative clause (it may be dropped from the original sentence We know the boy who comes from {Texas}' without affecting its acceptability}. A Whiteheadian explanation for this constraint would involve the nature of intellectual prehensions {in particular intuitive judgments), which arct as we have seenH central to linguistic behaviour. They are also involved in categorization, for example highlighting meaningful contrasts in a two-tiered framework (e.g. hyponyms on the same level under a superordinate nominal concept). These complex prehensions can apparently only handle two levels of structure '

at oncet e.g. a superordinate one and a single subordinate one> since intellectual prehensions consist of a linkage between precisely two overlapping lower-level prehensions t a propositions I and an indicative one (compare figure I where the

Th« language system

propositions] one corresponds to the embedded ekiusc, the indicative one to the matrix clause). Moreovei; the link between the two prehensions must be one of at least partial derivation of the subordinate proposition from the nexus in which it is embedded [corresponding to the mat fix one), which is not the case

in the starred sentence above. Being !non-subcategorized' can be equated with not being derived from the matrix nexus {the subordinate clause is an 'extra1 '

1

'

proposition tacked on rather than deriving from the matrix). Trace1 relations that stretch over two propositions not so linked (or over more than two mutually embedded propositions) are thus likely to be much more difficult to

sort out and less natural to produce/" Similar explanations can probably be '

presented for all such eep structural regularities, Concerning another aspect of autonomous syntax taken by generativists to be universal, namely Binding Theory, Chomsky (1986:8) illustrates with the following two sentences his contention that our knowledge of the reference conditions of pronouns has nothing to do with extension (our knowledge of the outer world): i

.

The: men expected to see them

ii. 1 wonder who 1 ihc men cxpirttcJ to -hmj- them

.

His point is of course that no surfacy linguistic for ex tens ion al semantic) explanation can explain why the reference of the same pronoun is different in these two cases. From a Whiteheadian perspective the answer neverthless must lie {as always) in context, albeit local context, rather than in purported innate knowledge: unlike in the firsts independent sentence, the referents in the complex embedded clause of (ii) belong to a different in tension a I world (or menial space ) from that of the superordinate clause of the sentence (as reflected in the additional societal level the outermost matrix clause imposes on '

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1

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the embedded structure),' Pronouns are variables whose raison-d'etre is their 1

ability to adjust to contextuaTfit with the worlds in which they occur, but the default1 reference conditions of non-reflexive pronouns in simple main clauses namely that they should refer to objects in the same world as that of the subject but are not identical writh it - do not apply in the multiply embeddec. const]-net ion here, If they did there would be no potential referent in the superordinate clause structure with which the pronoun could hind at all - it can not refer to the object of the immediately superordinate verb expect '

-

'

(which is the innermost embedded clause,

1

see Y\ itself) and it can not refer

to the subject of its own clause since that is not supposed to be identical with a non-reflexive pronoun (and it could of course not bind with the subject of the

73

74

Parrcm ind Process

intransitive highest clause verb 'wonder1, already spoken for), The possibility that 'them

1

refers To some referent completely outside the sentence Ui discourse topk already set up, say) Js excluded - at least in my dialect. But this is not so much a ivkiiilt of binding condiuons uiI ium .is of the uso her-L" or the iunr.iii\v Tto1 complement) form of the innermost clause, which presupposes identity of subjects of the two clauses or (as here) identity of the embedded subject with the extracted relative pronoun, {Compare the situation when one replaces "to with will and binding with an external antecedent suddenly becomes possible.) '

1

1

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'

The blockage here leaves only one alternative interpretation for the hearer, '

'

namely the reflexive one, in which the antecedent of them is the subject of expect {i.e. The men1), which is possible precisely because it lies on a different 1

'

societal level from that of the innermost embedded clause and therefore is

exempt from the default conditions described above.

Societal levels in cognition are not hxed, limited to the levels of particular '

grammars, they arc negotiable/creatable at will in constructing Text This is what Mental Space4 theof y is all about. It is also ultimately the motivation for the recursivity of syntax. This is not to deny the reality of the knowledge of the underlying rcferential power of pronouns that Government and Binding .

'

Theory characterizes - there is a regularity involved in the above example, not just an tid inference. Chomsky is surely right in insisting that analogy from more basic (main) clauses to embedded ones is not enough to explain such 1

phenomena, My alternative proposal is simply an attempt to anchor that knowledge more deeply in general experience - and to suggest a reason why

the regularity concerned could have arisen and become absorbed so naturally into grammar in the first place, Now different types of rule may seem to overlap in scope as applied to a

given speech chainn e when a syntactic domain defined by a phi-ase structure rule appears to cut right across a unitary morphological sequence of stem plus afixes or clitics (as occurs with the French clitics and the Hskimo modi tied '

incorporating1 structures mentioned in the previous sect ion), In such cases we are simply seeing, as I have suggested, eternal objects as potential patterns

applying at different societal levels {that of words and that of sentences, say) juxtaposed on the only actual reality that is at hand: the linear chain of linguistic signs itself. Actual occasions - and it fortiori nexus - have internal structure, and that structure may be organised hierarchically without the boundaries of entities on lower levels necessarily falling neatly within those of higher level h

units. The 4oci

occupied by actual occasions may overlap though the occasions

themselves do not.

The liiiijiULagL1 system

As regardi regulariti i at the 'interface1 between iyjitax and pragmatici (i.e. between those two societal levels)h these can often best be described in terms of

the multiple 'etics of deployment of the 'emici1 of the gmmtmukal iystem/'1 1

The tormer are drawn from an assumed universal pool of such communicatory functions, while the latter is a language-spec ilk iniUer. An e imple {within the h unctionai Grammar frameworh) clui he found in my analysis of the way the grammaticized focus system of Yukagir works in actual discourse contexts '

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(Fortescue 1996a). It also illustrates the way in which grammars can 'capture' otherwise loosely articulated pragmatic functions. The actuiil focus system is a

matter of morphological choices, but the three construction types - subject, object and so-called verb focus- are expressed through whole constructions that mark both verbs and their nominal dependent*;. Moreover, word order is drawn into the broader system of 'pragmatic function' choices fa matter of pre posing and postposing of dependent NPs, Emphatic locus, for example,

being realized by postposingK Now it turns out that the bask 'emic' coding chokes of Yukagir in this area are. to use the labels employed within FG, New

Topicn Given Jbpich and hscus (in turn divided into Emphatic and Predicate locus] - also 'I Tame1, hach of these are expressed in just one for possibly two) distinct waysH hut the etic timetions they may serve in discourse context are multiple* thus New Topic marking {the Object or Subject focus construction) may be used to signal a braird new referent, completive focus contrastive focus. relative importance of a new referent for the situation or event described, or surprise associated with the introduction of that referent. In any one context one or more {even all) of these etic features maybe involved - but not all must

necessarily be present to trigger the construction concerned. This approach could call forth the objection that the 'emics1 chosen by the linguist to describe the grammar of a given language may be circular: he could

simply select them to (it any grouping of

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etic

functions he finds expedient,

However, such objections can be avoided if one strictly limits ones emic

categories to discrete coding choices and then seeks to see how these are deployed in actual discourse situations (it is in the description of the latter that

one may run up against more severe terminological problems). This is not to deny that a given means ffor instance gender distinctions) might be used for

other functions than its basic one (e.g. for reference tracking}. The

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regularities that can be descried here reflect strategies whereby speakers of

particular languages dispose of the limited morphosyntactic means available to them to perform a wide variety of pragmatic functions. Until or unless they

achieve emic status in the grammar, via full absorption, the etic functions

75

76

Pattern and Pi'octss

concerned are best regarded as potential triggers on a supeiordinate societal

level (no single one of them either necessary or sufficient on their own) which may accuniulate beyond some threshold point in a given discourse situation. Thus - as Whitehead would have foreseen - they may act as part of the complex simuitaneous da I a resulting in an actualized, determinate utterance. subtly articulated according to such contextual factors ai foregroundings backgroundiii£ and framing. From a Wliiteheadian perspective, then, syntax cannot be divorced from meaning and context (though the formal patterns can certainly he talked about in that manner in a metalanguage). In fact, despite residual aspects of arbitrari-

ness (reflecting earlier functionality), it is more iconic and rationally functional (reflecting the creativity of individual purposive behaviour) than most other

levels of language.7(1 It is a matter of semantic 'combinatorics, of syntagmatic as well a paradigmatic - choices guided by an overall aim and constrained by the more local requirements of lexical items as they are drawn into the concrescent elaboration of the production of an utterance con formal with that aim.

This is reminiscent of the way jespersen (!%5:45ff.} viewed syntax, namely as the study of how general meanings are Externalized in form, the common link being the 'functions1 of language-specitic categories of inflection or word orders etc. Thus although such a purely syntactic rule as dative raising in Hnglish, whereby a sentence like He gave him the money4 is produced/transformed from 'he gave the money to him' is for autonomous syntacticians simply a formal pattern fdescribable in terms of such categories as 'thematic roles' and '

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traces')H the construction nevertheless bears its own meaning in terms of

topical Nation, The most topical NP is namely treated as direct object (Givon 1990:762) - but this of course involves context, and autonomous syntax is not concerned with context, onlv with sentence structures. It determines what goes with what at some 'deeper' logical level of interpretation of sentences, and captures the scope relations between individual constituents. In fact, these relationships are to a large degree iconic {thus Behaghers law1, whereby entities that are closer together by meaning or function tend to be coded by elements in close proximity to each other), and the whole rahou-d ette of scope relation'

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ships is of course semantic in a broad sense

Syntactic 'rules1 are a variety of eternal object, and eternal objects have a definite relationship to the subjective form of prehensions accessing them. which they partially determine. Moreover, such prehensions always bring with

them a specific (contextual} perspective on that object. This suggests that we should not be surprised if syntactic abstractions can be

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felt1, i.e. add deter mi-

The language system

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nate meaning tf> a speaker/hearer s utterances. In fact, acceptability judgments

(which define what syntax is all about for generativists) are in Whiteheadian terms no more nor less than the feel of con formal meshing of general patterns of language behaviour (eternal objects) and the potential meanings intended [one or more propositions applicable to a particular state of affairs/nexus referred to)/a Concrescences can integrate all types of prehended input1 conceptual, physical and hybrid - on the way towards their satisfaction. In short, grammar from a Whiteheadian perspective must, in contrast to generative gram ma r be holistic and non-modular - akhough the individual mind/brain utilizing such a grammar is organized tn a modular fashion, and the grammars of individual languages do roughly follow th same Societal divisions into layers. It is more language-specific, less abstract than the genenttive conception of grammar (especially the latest formulations of UG in terms of principles and parameters), in this respect it ean be seen as more like a systemic grammar (e.g. of EnglishK a network of top-down choices linking subjective aims (illocutions or other functions) to their potential expression, h accepts that some languages (like Japanese) rely more on on-line inferences than others with more overt grammaticalized encoding {like EnglishK and that some languages (like Aleut, or - even more so- Nootka, with its notoriously '

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indirect relationship between grammatical word classes and lexical items) are more directly controlled by discourse-pragmatic factors than standard European languages, where lexemes are more rigidly linked to types of States of affairs, each with their typical sets of arguments. The common patterns that generativists see behind all grammars can - in so far as they hold at all - nevertheless in theory be 'read off1 or 'prehended1 from the intersection of individual grammars and the universal architecture ol the human mind/bra in capable of entertaining a grammar. As regards tormali/ation, this approach suggests that

one theoretical framework may fit some types of language better than others for example, dependency grammars of one sort or another may be better suited to capture relevant generalizations in non-conftgurational languages than an X-bar

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1

generative grammar/ Moreover, although its patterning qua eternal '

object is static and unchanging for any given actual occasion, a Whiteheadian grammar thus conceived (not as a single determinate metalanguage but as a multiple layering of potential pattern) should be convertible into procedural terms in so far as it does tind ingress ion in the minds/brains of individual ipeiikejx, who. in striving to conimnnicale, Lippjv iis Riles 10 tho constt uction and analysis of utterances. It should not be seen just as a set of abstract constraints but as the form of definiteness1 of the very vehicle of realization of -

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77

comamiiiiciitive and cognitive intentions. The vehicle and its contents are in a complementary relationship.

Summary In this chapter 1 have argued that the central stj ucturalist notion of the linguis-

tic sign should not he lost sight of in contemporary linguistics, in particular as regards the uses to which systems of signs are actually put in communicating symbolically both with others and with oneself Whitehead emphasized the systematic nature of linguistic codes as means of expression, and his distinction between pattern and process (or 'eternal objects' and 'prehensions ) corresponds in language to the distinction between emic coding choices and the etics of their deployment in the expression of complex communicative intentions. The two stand in a complementary relationship! the abstract patterning of grammar emerging from language use and in turn constraining rather than contributing directly to the teleological processes of communication, and thu suggests that attempts to integrate the one into the other on the same descriptive level may be misplaced. We have seen that Whitehead s conception of symbolism - and in particular the process of symbolic reference - is broader than linguistic symbolism alone and is related to the unsystematized world of perceptual events and things in a way that one does not find in Peirce, for example, whose universe is nothing but semiosis. It anchors language in bodily and social reality as well as in universal forms of definiteness1 (there Is nothing mysterious, note, ah out his "conceptual prehensions which are not necessarily any more abstract than perceptual ones). The Whitehead ian picture of actual occasions interrelated within 'nexus' at successively higher levels of organization fsocieties-within-societies-withinsocieties) suggests a useful way of looking at linguistic layering - both as regards why language should he layered at all, and why it should be layered only roughly the same way across languages (into societies of phonemesj words, sentences and textsL with considerable variation in detail. Thus the recurring '

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*

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problem for theory of linguistic levels that

leak1 from above finds a natural

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explanation within this framework, since the ordering of constituents at any one level is in part determined by the context at the next level up, That languages can vary on this parameter - some languages tolerating considerable overlap between for instance, the levels of the word (morphology) and the sentence

[syntax) - is not surprising from a perspective that sees higher level 'subjective

TtK LmguDgc system

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Aims

governing lower level realizations of ilieir expression according Eo available means. Discourse-pragmatk factors can thus be reflected deep inside sentence grammar

Meaning and (niorpho-)syntax cannot be divorced, since all linguistic rules arc Tclt eternal objects of a certain relational kind - as are the categories to which these patterns apply (subjects, nouns, etc.). This is compatible with the 1

view oflinguists like Langacker who regard syntactic roles as simply the most general patterns abstract able from specific constructions or con figurations that however indirectly - reflect underlying event structures. The Whiteheadian view of creativity provides a broader view of linguistic recursivity than that of most syntactic]ans, since what is produced by conceptual reversion is new content - e.g. the construction of novel propositions or whole mental worlds, in which the role of syntactic recurs ivity plays a rather small role. The emphasis in this chapter has been on individual grammars rather than the still more abstract generalisations of Universal tirammar; the relationship between the two las been left open for later chapters. Grammar from this point of view - as a system of relationships - is hardly modular, although the modularity of mental processing utilizing the template provided by a grammar is not precluded. Whitehead did not work out in any detail his theory of symbolism as -

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applied to specific languages. This leaves a rich field of investigation open for anyone who might wish to elaborate its application to the subject matter of core linguistics. This does not presuppose adherence to any particular school or theory - the endeavour is compatible with much work thai has been done within generativist as well as functionalist theoretical frameworks. The application of Whitehead s metatheoretical perspective to language in no way constitutes an attempt to set up yet another theoretical approach to linguistics. It canh on the contrary, contribute to enriching specihe theories by spelling out their broader ontological assumptions. As briefly illustrated, such an application is '

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nevertheless capable of providing specific explanations tor what have until now often been regarded as purely linguistic constraints. Itiese can be analysed in terms of prehensions and their combinatonality in higher cognitive processes (processes, note, that are experiendally accessible). This kind of procedure can no doubt be applied to a wide range of syntactic phenomena. Another area of potential application that suggests itself is in working out a typology of types and degrees of inter-level leaking in particular of the language-specific impingement of discourse-level factors on lower level linguistic coding. Implicational relationships cutting across levels of structure would no doubt emerge. 1

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79

Chapter 4

The content side of language

We have s cn how 'meaning1 pervades a\\ levels of Imguistic stmctui'e, from '

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societies

of phoneme strings, through 'societies1 of wo ids to those of syntactic

sentences and beyond. The notion content form - or better content structure - within Danish Kmctioiul Clmmnw fas inherited and reinterpreted from Hjelmslev} reflects the emphasis that this approach lays on the way in '

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which the formal cat ego lies and constructions of individual languages

caive

1

meaning space for 'substance1) and recombine the resultant elements to produce new meanings (cf. Hjelmslev 1963:52 and Lngboi -Pcdcrsen et a.. 19%; viifj. Content structure is the way meaning is organized at every level of express ion j from the morpheme to the complete utterance and beyond We have also seen how prototype affects fdue to the vaguet abstract, and highly context-dependent nature of words-as-symhok) are to be expected in the relationship between Whiteheadian eternal objects { types } and prehensions linking these with nexiis of actual occasions T tokens'): this reflects the essential analogical nature of the process of transmutation The main question 1 shall turn to in the latter part of the present chapter attempts to relate these two matters by asking how the lexical categories of a particular language reflect Whiteheadian 'eternal objects' their organization and manifestation. Much of what 1 shall have to say will be seen to apply also to the grammatical meanings out

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discussed in the previous chapter, What we will arrive at finally is a suggestion concerning the ultimate underpinnings of word meaning in the world of physical and mental reality as experienced through the lfelt' mode oPcausal '

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efficacyBefore proceeding however! we need to look somewhat more closely at the Whiteheadian proposition since this is the crucial means whereby linguistic meaning is articulated and understood in its natural context.

4

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Proposkiorus and presuppositions

As should be clear by now, the notion of the 'proposition" is central to a W'hiteheadian

approach to language - in fact this is the level at which White-

8a

Pattern ind l roc

s

head himself stopped short in his treatment of language; he never discussed

their concrete manifestation in individual grammars, although he illustrated them sometimes with English sentences. The proposition for Whitehead is not, however, to be conceived of as the usual cut-and-dry unit of traditional logic to

which binary truth values are assignedH nor does it have quite the same meaning as in functional Grammar (or in other linguistic

necessarily come in linguistic garb at all/11

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schools ), in fact it does not

Whiteheadian propositions are

structured according to subject-predicate relations between {nexCis of) actual occasions (including whole events} and eternal objects which only take on truth values when integrated into higher order judgments (where, as we have seen. the choice is not limited u> true or false but also includes suspended ) One may say that the basic propositional structure of language, expressed by verbs with valency slots to be filled by argument types, is natural precisely because it reflects the relational nature of eternal objects (concepts relating or qualifying nexus; types). Negative prehensions are also an essential ingredient of proposi'

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tion al feelings in so far as they are required to eliminate incompatibilities of '

both the indicative prehension (the irrelevant 'definiteness' of the logical subject) and the predicative pattern (its open-ended anyness ) If literally read from a sign, tor instance {say one verbally labelling a cage at a zoo in the mode of symbolic reference), the physical sign itself has to he eliminated to get at the proposition expressed. Propositions may be integrated into complex prehensions involving a variety of intentional states1 and various kinds of modal relations as well ipoKsibilitr. eiMoreover, they m:iy ih nselves be romplex (ninln-levell and maybe polyadic as regards internal valency, that is, their predicates need not be limited to single arguments - there could, for instancet be three in the case of events involving giving (see Whitehead 197 :194 on triple' as well as double1 relations between a predicate and its logical 'subjects1). The term '

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logical subject1 is in fact best envisaged as the congeries of referent entities (type or token, 'real* or merely imagined) potentially linked to a predicate as its

arguments). Cirammatical subjecthood is something that maybe assigned in many (but not necessarily all) languages to one particular argument at a higher levd of organization. Which of the set of logical subjects will normally be

treated as grammatical subject (as opposed, say to object) will depend primarily on the semantics of the predicate concerned, although this may be overridden by higher level syntactic and pragmatic modulation. A complex sentence uttered in a specific context will correspond to a layering of Whiteheadian propositions, each individual layer of which is organised according to the

logical subject-pre die ate dichotomy, and which may be further modulated l:br purposes of pragmatic highlighting. The surface clause structure may thus be compacted and linked imd rearranged in various ways (by ellipsis or word-order variation or clause intertwining, for example) to reflect this secondary structuring in terms of tt>pic-comment {or themt-rheme) articulation - in so far this has not already become obligatory as part of the conventionalized syntactic '

patterning required by the language

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However, this is not something that

VVhitehead, unconcerned with 'fine1 linguistic distinctions, went into in any detail with. With this cavern in mind, Whiteheadian propositions can be said to correspond rather well to Strawson s basic ubjtct-predicLUc comhiiutum {cf. Strawson 1974). In fact Strawson's 'perspicacious grammar approach to the step-wise building up of the underlying logical form of language (not intendec as a historical scenario, but suggestive of the evolution of real grammars) can be regarded as a possible missing link between Whitehead s propositions and real "

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grammars constraining their expression. Though I do not have the space to follow this suggestion up in detail I can at least sketch the general compatibility here (I shall return to the matter of the evolution of language in 8.3).

Strawson, representing Oxford 'Ordinary Language' philosophy, sees the basis of grammar in two linked processes which he calls Substantiation1 anc complementary predication Their source lies in the basic binary propositional form consisting of a primitive linkage between an individual spatio-temporal particular and a general concept indicating some property of that particular. 1

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This subject-predicate form happens to be particularly well adapted to ma Icing judgments (assigning predicates to particulars and judging the combination to correspond to what is so in the real world). Verbs fas predicates) are central in so far as they indicate the overall propositional assignment as well as specifying li'lkiI amnjpi:-, o - one tuijju add - it i:-. no wonder ikn Ltbs take

sentential mar leers (e.g. of argument cross-reference, negation, modality of illocution) in morphologically more synthetic languages. The basic distinction between general concepts (expressed by predicates) and particulars (expressec by noun phrases) is explained in terms of incompatibility and contrast between the two categories, which is strictly one way (concepts come in incompatibility and involvement groups vis-h-vi< particulars, but not the other way rounc. compare the collocation restrictions on verbs but not on basic NPs). Strawson 'basic combination1 is then extendable by abstraction to a higher level with non-particular subjects (where relations of time/space, etc., can occur). By gradually extending the model a more and more sophisticated perspicacious grammar begins to approach the real grammar of English. '

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The cnnte n t side of 1 a nguiijy

logical subject-pre die ate dichotomy! and which may be further modulated tor purposes of pragmatic highlighting, The surface clause structure may thus be compacted and linked and rearranged in various ways (by ellipsis or word-order variation or clause intcj twining, for example) to reflect this secondary structuring in terms of topic-commtm {or themo-rhemo) articulation - in so far as this lias not already become obligatory as part of the conventionalized syntactic 1

'

pattern!Jig required by th language" However, this is not something that .

VVhitehead, unconcerned with Lline1 linguistic distinctions, went into in any detail with. With this aivenl in mind, Whiteheadian propositions can be said to correspond rather well to Strawson s basic subject-predicate combination (cf, Jitrawson 1974) In fact Straws on s 'perspicacious grammar1 approach to the step-wise building up of the underlying logical form of language {not intended as a historical scenario, hut suggestive of the evolution of real grammars ) can be regarded as a possible missing link between Whitehead s propositions and real grammars constraining their expression.11,1 Though I do not have the space to follow this suggestion up in detaii I can at least sketch the general compatibility here [1 shall return to the matter of the evolution otTanguage in S.3). Strawson, representing Oxford 'Ordinary Language' philosophy, sees the basis of" grammar in two linked processes which he calls Substantiation1 and complementary predication I heir source lies in the basic binary propositional form consisting of a primitive linkage between an individual spatio-temporal particular and a general concept indicating some property of that particular. This subject-predicate form happens to be particularly well adapted to making judgments (assigning predicates to particulars and judging die combination to correspond to what is so in the real world). Verbs fas predicates) are central in so far as they indicate the overall propositional assignment as well as specifying general concepts! so - one might add - it is no wonder that verbs take sentential markers (e.g. of argument cross-reference, negation, modality or illocution) in morphologically more synthetic languages. The basic distinction between general concepts (expressed by predicates) and particulars (expressed by noun phrases) is explained in terms of incompatibility and contrast between ihe two c:.u oi ion. which is strictly oneway [concepts come at incompLUtbilih and involvement groups wWa-Wi particulars, but not the other way round compare the collocation restrictions on verbs but not on basic NPs). Strawsons 'basic combination1 is then extendable by abstraction to a higher level with n on-particular subjects (where relations of time/space, etc., can occur). By gradually extending the model a more and more sophisticated perspicacious grammar begins to approach the real grammar of Hnglish, 1

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that lack a unitary such presupposed information must itself be propositional in structure - the 'background knowledge1 shared by participants in Twenty Questions", as discussed in Chapter 2, is a case in point. "

In this highly verbal game 'propositional prehensions' abound (but as we saw, can hardly be the only kind involved). This does not necessarily mean that they are stored as such in memory - John son-Laird s mental models for example, '

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are structures from which propositions can be read oif but do not necessary consist of propositions themselves (their psychological status will be discussed ,

further in Chapter

where also Sea lies conception of'Background1 will be

compared). Of course, we need to be a bit more specific about what we mean by presupposition! We thus need to distinguish between presupposition proper '

and entailment or - more broadly - implicature (a matter of forwardprojec Lion of possible implications in contextt of the kind we saw in connection with the inferences and implications of wrhole utterances dealt with in Chapter 2). There is the type of information 'presupposed' by lexical items

S7

Sfi

Pattem and Process

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which are pan of their meaning - flomething like meaning postulates (if propo sit ionaHy expressed) or dastcrs of general perceptual properties (eternal objects) adhering to prototypical reieienti of the item. Certainly this kind of information can be 'propositionaT in structiiTe [with the potential tokeii as subject } but it is not a matter of1 presupposition proper1, belonging as it does in the static lexicon rather than deployed in discourse. What then of other kinds of presupposed information, such as the mere '

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existence of an entity referred to by a definite referring espression? This is a matter of the pinpointing or setting up hy discourse participants of referents in mutually understood worlds rather than of simply assigning a property (say of existence ) to subjects. {Recall the Whiteheadian 'indicative prehension' defined in 1.2.5.) Still other areas in which the concept of'presupposition has been used in slightly different ways include the 'presuppositions1 of quest ionword questions (which concern facts and states of affairs as well as the existence of referents), and the analysis of speech acts (and factive verb constructions) in 1

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terms of the 'felicity conditions that such acts 'presuppose1 for their successful '

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pi'csupposition are linked by what the speaker and hearer tacitly take for granted as 'being so1 in their shared world of discourse [cf the discussion in Lyons 1977:5 92 ft ) Fauconnier has proposed a procedural approach to presupposition in terms of space optimalization (cf. Fauconnier 1985 - also Fauconnier & Sweetser 1996). This is essentially a matter of the default downward spread of structure (in terms of referents and their relationships set up in mental spaces) from achievements as discussed in 2.1. All of these senses of

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base1 level space {that of the discourse participants )h and of 'presupposition

floating' upwards from sub-spaces towards base level (until overtly blocked). Blending of two spaces (and/or background knowledge) may occur to produce a new one. In tact the principal function of words and sentences can from this viewpoint be said to prompt us to evoke appropriate scenarios through blending their individual contributions. This whole approach is broadly compatible with Whitehead s own process treatment of such 'background' matters. '

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Recall that for Whitehead there are two types of proposition, namely perceptive and imaginative, and that both of these maybe ingredient in higher level 'intellectual prehensions1. Every proposition presupposes some general nexus within an indicative relational system, i.e. some entity to which it maybe

as signed. and that presupposition (concerning the logical subject and the pre bending subjects access to it) is pan of the proposition itself (Whitehead 197S; 195). A judgment (positive, negative or suspended} presupposes knowledge not only of the logical subject of its embedded proposition, but also of the '

1

The cnntc n c side of 1 a nguage

complex social nexus embiiicing both it and the actual occasion entertaining the udgj ent fits concrescent subject). This layered background of societieswith in-societies corresponds to embedded Fauconnien an spaces The basis of induction (i.e. probahiliiy judgments concerning societies of actual entities) is analogy between an environment presupposed and one directly experienced and assumed to he enduring. A judgment about the future, for instance, is hased on an analogy between a present society tor nexus) and some future society as projected hy a Whitohoadian imaginative prehension. We can thus see that presupposition for Whitehead subsumes 1 mental spaces1 between which mutually understood background information can he mapped and kept track of hy discourse partners, but it is of a more general nature, since the hierarchical ordering of fiiiccessivc worlds applies beyond any given discourse '

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situation, hack through successive sodeties-within-sockties/" This is the background without which actual occasions would have no reality at all: it reflects the historical embeddedness of conscious agents running on parallel paths through time and space- As background' in the broadest sense, it embraces both individual experience and physical ontogeny, Access to this information does not have to be via proposition a I prehensions - it can also be directly, intuitively felt. But it can only be entertained for higher forms of cognitive manipulation via proposition a I organization, and this is what language provides '

the quintessential means for

4

2 Cat egories, p rot oty p es a n d m et apho r

.

As a way into the subject of "embodied meaning1 I propose a brief dip into Chaos Theory' as applied to the organization of conceptual memory in the human mind/brain, 'l e relevance to Whitehead will emerge. According to this way of thinking, the neural aggregates corresponding to category types (concepts) maybe tuned in such a way as to act like multi-lobed strange at tractors displaying the kind of fuzziness associated with prototypes. 'Muh-types' of such conceptual types (even individual token experiences) could be containec. '

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within them in the form of individual lobes1 - thus a 'locomotion1 at tractor '

may contain separate lobes for walking, running, etc. (Calvin 199ft: 122). They may unfold in time as well as being reproducible { clonable ) in mental space. According to Calvin they may be built up by successive overlays of distributed feature patterns as these are copied back and forth across the mind/bra in. Useful - or otherwise stronglv weighted - new combinations persist, while al '

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others vuiiLsh again as the tide recedes. Multiple u(tractors - potential patterns of activation - may thus be captured and integrated into individual neural aggregates (especially at associative border zones). The meaning borne by such aggregates are emergent properties of patterns of neural connectivity and not necessarily in any determinate iconic relationship to primary sensory input. Concepts' are on this view not so much universal 'brain code' units as the results of the tuning, pruning and extending of neural aggregates in idiosyncratic ways by every individual according to their sensori-motor and secondary conceptual experience. The patterns stored are co-opted by the evolving individual as attractors for recognizing and responding to repeated experiential configurations. Only an approximate fit is required to activate them. '

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Regardless of the ultimate fate of this particular "cloning1 model, what this way of looking at neural activity provides over and above any code approach to concepts is the possibility of assigning meaning to largely arbitrary neural aggregates, meaning, that is, for the individual experiential subject, their p be no me no logical feel1, and this brings us close to the Whiteheadian universe of prehensions. Doubtless there is a broad isomorphy between the concepts entertained by individual subjects (especially within relatively homogenous societies) h but there is no guarantee of determinate, communicable meaning at least of the propositional sort- until language enters the pictureh that ish until such concepts are associated with phonological words, This is not because '

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that step ensures identical representation of meanings in the minds of the speakers of a given language, but because these meanings are embodied in a socially sanctioned code. How such code units come to be associated with just the 'right concepts for an individual speaker is a crucial matter I shall return to in Chapter 7.1 in terms of semantic bootstrapping and 'abduction by analogy from known patterns, as applied to the contextfs) of use to which the 1

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learner is exposed.1 Language opens conduits between individual monadic subjects, [t can only do so by virtue of belonging to a higher societal level than the individual speaker. There would hardly be any need for inheritance from individual to individual at all if its 'content structure1 were innate as opposed to socially transferred.

Howh then, are lexical meanings organized in the individual's menta lexicon? Much interest has been shown in recent decades in a 'prototype' approach to lexical categorization (cf. Rosch 1975), and this forms a centrepiece

of cognitive linguistic theory. Prototype concepts can be envisaged as clusters of potentially activated images/action schemata/frames, etc., to which various '

perceptual elements may fit" more or less centrally and with which word labels

Tht contcat side of]anguagc

an be iiisociated, alihougk the exact modality of the component elements and/or degree of abstractness remains somewhat indeterminate. Lakaff paints out the fallacy of seeing concepts simply as internal representations of external. reality (l.akoif 1987:370ff.)- [:or him, as for Whitehead, the creative imagination is a crucial ingredient in ino t thought processes. The basic conceptual unit he discusses is the "idualized cognitive model1, oI" which he distinguishes vanous '

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types, including the commonly encountered 1 radial category which is tbrmec around a prototypical instance,*9 One example he gives of the latter is that of ,

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"

1

iho concept mother where the central instance is a female {and has always been one), has given birth to a child, has supplied half iti genes nurtured it, is ,

married to the father, is one generation older than the child and is its lega., guardian (Lakoff 1987:83), Any of these features can in fact be overridden in less prototypical instances of motherhood, but the central instance has a special culturally sanctioned status. The actual representation in the individual mind/ brain of the information contained in the concept (propositional? imagistic?) is not discussed. Ail that clearly unifies it is the label mother attached to the category as a whole. Now the prototype' instance at the centre of radial categories can be replaced by a loose]- array of tokens linked by Wittgensteinian famiJy resemblance1 (Lakoffwould associate such tokens by 'instance of links to the word) u basic level1 words- those most directly related to sensor!-motor experience and most common in actual discourse - maybe associated with specific arrays of perceptual and functional features, weighted according to experientia '

1

,

H

*

frequency or salience. But much of the information relevant to the core '

1

me ailing of words referring to entities other than natural kinds is not of a perceptual kind, but involves all manner of abstract and prepositional information, concerning for example social relations (compare some of the features of mother above). The question then arises as to whether Whitehead - with his emphasis on propositional prehensions - would have attempted to describe lexical meaning (if he had discussed such matters) in terms of propositional meaning alone, for example in terms of meaning postulates? I believe the '

'

answer is a clear no.

A WhiteheLuiian propositional prehension is precisely not a static representation storable, say, at a lexical address It is a process of a kind also active in perception. Symbolic transfer1 can occur between percepts (transmuted nexus) or concepts [eternal objects) of any degree ot abstraction and in any modality. Thus 'cognitive models' (including radial categories} can perfectly well be convergent way-stations for processes linking phonological words as well as '

.

'

'

y]

oth lt percepiimlly bused symbols. Specifically prop ositional in formation could be encoded in the aisocLition of word symbols findividual 'labels1 or proposi-

tion al chains of more than one) pointing to other word-labelled cognitive models. The Whiteheadian and the Lakoffun vkws agree on the cssejuial role "

of analogy and context in determining the meaning ol lexical itemi. Contextual features must be built in to the core word meanings of' lexical 'representations' in order to ensure easy access directly from and to specific types of experience and this amounts to radial structures around prototypes {among other con(igurations, some fuzzier, some more clear-cut).9L This approach circum-

vents the

'

hypernym problem' facing any attempt to model lexical access (Levelt

1989:201 if.)f i.e. how to suppress the activation of hypernyms (such as animal ) when accessing a basic word (such as 'dog'). Tor if every word has a 1

'

distinct semantic 'core every word also has a distinct 'feeF binding that core; this is accessible to the speaker/hearer in the mode of causal efficacy, Lakoffs abstract 'instance of and 'similarity1 links in underlying lexical schemata (also his lhas a link for part-whole relationships) can be replaced in a dynamic view of lexical organization by imaginative prehensions linking labelled concepts to individual nexus. "Ilius 'instance of1 is the recognition of a [sufficient degree of felt) 'match' between a nexus and the overall 'am actor' pattern constituting the conceptt whereas similar to is the recognition of only a partial fit or overlap of features, perhaps amongst a number of competing attr actors and rhas a1 corresponds to the recognition of a coherent sub-pat tern within the overall pattern. Also the trajectors and landmarks of cognitive 4

'

'

1

'

inguists such as Langacker (1991) can be interpreted in these terms., specifically involving kin aesthetic bodily image schema types that match {and onto which can be mapped) incoming data in the form of token nexus (entities preh ended within their social framesKinaesthetic image schemata are presumably also

utilized in production to access a word one is struggling for (if the conceptual pattern associated with a basic verb is analogous to that of the more abstract event one is trying to describe). Clues as to the psychological reality of such entities are seen in the physical gesturing that accompanies verbal descriptions '

1

of events. The basic process of approximate analogical matching of new data with embodied patterns objectified in memory from past experience has a White he ad ian ring to it - it allows for the kind of'semantic emergence' which

Grush & Mandelblit (1997) describe in terms of 1 ending1, '

Space blending1 has in fact recently attracted much interest within mental space theory. While it is undoubtedly true that some such process is widely-

responsible for the flexibility and novelty of which the human mind is capable,

it ii kss clear that die nation can be tisetiilly constrained within a theory of language, even ono in which metaphor is central. Anything can be blended with just about anything else - what constrains such 'reversions' in Whiteheadian terms is relevance for the individual occasion, something in principle indeterminate. \Space blending is from this perspective part of the broader matter of the production of novel combinations of enduring objects (or nextis)! which, via transmutation are experienced as "realm (for however brief a duration}. Whitehead [ Jy78:317) discusses the link between transmutation and metaphor. The ground/figure diagrams of cognitive linguists (and Who rfbefore them) can in general be interpreted as representing internal gesturing. However, one must beware of misplaced concreteness" here: these schematic diagrams are all -

'

*

'

'

necessarily representations in the mode of presentational immediacy {sensor imotor images), whereas the reality they are meant to represent is surely only '

1

accessible in the Whiteheadian mode of '

under svmbolic reference '

'

l

causal efficacy (see 1.2.4), which

links the bodily sense of causal involvement with the

world to sensori-motor symbols such as phonological words [we L2.6). Such diagrams are not necessarily closer to underlying experiential reality than are generativist tree structures: they still require interpretation. Central to LakotTs view of categorization is the notion of metaphor, but the generalization ofthe term metaphor to cover all sorts ofanalogical relations may '

'

'

be unfortLmate '1 Metaphor is just one of the means available tor renewing and redefining the meaning of words already used in connection with some bask1 semantic domain - it applies words anchored in one domain {e.g. of perception) to the substance of a less accessible one (e.g. of internal mental activity). Metonymy, on the other hand, shifts the meaning of words already referring to one sub-section of a domain to other parts of that domain or its whole (by association rather than analogy). Sometimes it may extend beyond the boundaries of the domain, however, crossing into some contiguous domain, in which case it is difficult to distinguish from metaphor except by the historical gradualness of tire process that produced it, Taylor sees metaphor as largely grounded in metonymy { contiguity within a semantic field - Taylor 19S9:139f ) Traugott '

'

1

.

,

fforthcoming} further stresses the intimate role of metonymy in semantic

change - especially via constructional association and invited inference' in her view metaphor represents a general 'frame' limiting the directions in which metonymy is likely to proceed (one might ulso say that metaphors are more culturally specific than metonymy which reveals the natural seams in underlying conceptual 'substance1 more directly). tSut metaphor can itself be seen as '

'

1

having its source in 'frame1 metonymy Metonymic extension may proceed

94

Pattern and Process

fmm a 'cott1' meaning to an implication of that meaning (Taylor 1989:126 gives '

the example of the two principal senses of English leave ) It is at all events a central source of polysemy. The primacy of metonymy may well reflect the nature of perception and symbolism as such. As White he ad puts it, symbols .

'

'

arise by the linkage of percepts derived via presentational immediacy

to

experience in the mode ot causal efficacyn i.e. from indices and icons. They are

socially sanctioned and conventionalized abstractions from their original narrow context. Indices are the source of metonymy, while icons represent the principal source of metaphor. The basic relationship of standingfor) is common to both metonymy and metaphor- It is no wonder that Pehcean iconsj indices and symbols can not always he clearly distinguished, but may often overlap and combine in single signs, at ail societal levels of expression. Now Lakoff also discusses 'metonymic models1, for example ones where a place (say the White House) stands for some person or persons associated with that placL1 (e.g. the president of the USA). At the core of such models lie specific cultural stereotypes But in some domains where metonymy (as well as metaphor) abounds such cultural stereotypes are not easy to discern. That of mental activity verbs, for example, is characterized hy part/whole andH more
gn it ivt1 a ssn m pt ions

Some iippn idics to linguistics fit better with the 'new1 picture that is emerging from Cognitive Science than othersf but my purpose here is not to polemidze about which these might be. None of ihem, I would elaim, have yet come to terms with all of the consequences of the emerging paradigm Let me simply state the following assumptions (as previously presented in I ortescue m ) without arguing for them in detail and without attempting to cite the wide experimental literature that supports them individually. Ratherh 1 shall suggest how Whitehead dealt (or might have dealt) with each of these points, in preparation for the following sections There ] shall develop them in two crucial directions with the aim of gaining a dearer understanding of the procedural nature of linguistic content 1

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.

'

1

.

Mind is an emergent property of complex, self-regulating neural systems, i.e. embodied brains displaying operational closure (their output being simultaneously treated as new input - see Bateson 1973:380).] 10 The associated brain processes operate, it would seem, with (to some degj-fc) distributed iiuumuuinji their speed and parallel nature rather than any special type of coding is the principal factor responsible for their opaqueness to immediate introspection. Consciousness adheres to certain activities and states of such 'chaotic1 systems. 1

'

-

There is no mentality without process and process means feeling: the brain cannot directly feel itself, only the body housing it {via biochemical interfaces) and - in the widest sense of feel

"

- the patterns it entertains conceptually

.

For Whitehead, mind is the 'mental pole1 of an actual occasion, inextricably bound up with its physical pole1: it is the occasions 'window1 on relevant eternal objects {available to conceptual prehension) and hence to novelty. The borderline with organic physieal reality is not clear-cut, however - it depends on which emerging properties you define as criterial lor mind Not all actua. occasions display conscious mind, only those organized into personal nexus of 1

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.

'

4

a certain type of iniernal compJexiiy mLiy noleniialiy dispkty lhal Libieclive form, l ull human consciousness {as opposed to sheer bodily awareness) is a

propositional matter for Whitehead - this is not the same as equating mind

Language jM'cjc cssi g inJ [ he ]ni [id/\s i a ici

and language (as for example Bickerton 1990 218), since it presupposes a far

braader conception of' 'proposition* L'] b

All cognition is to some degiee abstract and hierarckically organized fas reflected in what we know of the transforms operating along specific sensory input channels to the cortex and ot'the hierarchical stratification of the latter}. '

.

Abstract' in this sense does not contrast with 'concrete1 but with Tully speci-

f ed so an abstract 'thought1 could well consist of no more than a vague i intentional gesture towards a very concrete object or (potential j image, as long as to the experiencer it is still distinct enough from any other possible thought that could have been entertained at that point as to be unambiguous in context.

Only at a high level of abstraction can two 'thoughts' be said to be logically identical (and therefore appropriately expressed in the same propositiona] fornij i.e. coded by an identical sequence of symbols), I or Whit eh cad, the rdata1 of an actual occasion, whether physical or conceptual, is always abstracted from its immediate past in accordance with the principle of conformity to the occasions subjective aim {which is towards its satisfaction ) In another sense of 'abstract eternal objects are patterns abstracted from nexus {if actual occasions (by conceptual valuation 1

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.

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c

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'

Be i ng opp ort u n ist ic [ a nd h avi ng limited ce n t ra I p roce ss ing space) h the m i nd/

brain functions in large measure by learned fogwttive sisort-cuts. These include the use of mnemonic tags (internal 'key words, etc.). Imagination is akin to abbreviated perception and may function at any level of abstraction, as defined under fb}. It can be viewed as the gestalt filling in1 of partial patterns by 'best fit' with relevant - and competing - eternal objects activated at least potentially in memory This replaces the patterns perceived in the outer world when the sense channels are fully openl1 Hmpathy {otherwise 'intuition1 or 'structural coupling1 with the outer world) - i.e. putting oneself into someone or something else s position by displacement and/or analogical embodiment - plays an important role in cognition and often provides an elfective short-cut tostepwise logical deduction. Successful communication in particular is largely a matter of combining '

'

'

empathy with ostensive behaviour, of feeling what it would be like to be on the '

receiving end of one s own utterances tind hence how ones interlocutor is likely to respond. The ability to empathise is probably innate and enables one to copy and model one social environment and to meet changes experienced within it with appropriate measures. ITom a Whiteheadean perspective,

toy

no

Pattern

l 'occss

'

empathy functions by way of hybrid prehensionji1 of an other's conceptual intentions [behind their expression) and is ensured by the 'social immanence' of monadic experiencing subjects as superiects ot causal efficacy - although their experiences are unique they partially overlap with those of others f involving the same eternal objectsK d

Human th oi igh T is typic a I ly in th e li ngu is t ic mode, a n abbreviated ve i s ion o f external speech, one that maximally civiuJi/c on context egocentrism and presupposition, but there are also other modes of thought specihe to sensorimotor channels and to internally registered body states, each with Lheir own .

'

logicVIJ It acts in conjunction with the manipulation of schemata and/or

'

mental models

1

(as under (1) below). There is rapid, largely automatic transla-

tion back and forth between sensori-motor modalities (in so for as the informa-

tion processed by them is compatible , and also between levels of abstraction in the same modality (e.g. between lexical words and their hyponyms)h according "

to task. Paivios 'dual coding approach to the relationship between propositional and sensory representations reflects this assumption rather directly [Paivio lyKft). Thought is multi-planar, involving complex associative ramiheations, only one (or a few) of which are followed up immediately according to

some on-going (and modulating) superordinate

'

theme 113 The stream of '

'

'

thought is an emergent property of brain state disequilibrium and self-regulation - it is the result of the perceptually or internally guided constraining of the infinitely bl anching associations of activated memory traces (including those for individual word svmbols).

Thoughts for Whitehead are types of'prehension1, including 'propositional prehensions and their integration into higher level 'intellectual prehensions' (see J .2.5), but these never occur in isolation. As with all prehensions, it i their feel' in relation to the whole experiencing organism that holds them together as unitary experiences (compare the role of limb ic structures in both dealing with emotional contents/responses and recognizing their situational context). In principle there are as many distinct prehensions available to the individual mind/brain as there are experientially distinguishable patterns of cortical connectivity. Thoughts are not limited to linguistically coded propositions: perceptual abstractions may also be pro posit ion ally prehended. The stream of thought may pass through various experiential modalities, successively or simultaneously, as actual occasions are objectihed passing on transforms of 1

'

1

'

'

'

,

their own internally manipulated data to their successors.1 Thought proceeds causally from physical feeling to physical feeling through the intermediary of

Language process]ng and the mind/brain

eternal objects, e.g. in the case of a pro positional thought from the physical feeling of the logical subjects) (the 'indicative feel ins1) to the 'physical recognition of the predicate (the eternal object it contains gives Vie lint ten ess' to that 1

feeling). So propositional thought can talce place by 'feeling alone, without necessarily involving any accompanying images or words. c

Long-tenfi ffiewwyh embodied in complex aggregates of neurons f"hyper-

.

1

neurons

) that are organized/inter-connected according to accreting personal

experience and defined by excitory/inhibitory properties such that classes of incoming signals (sensory transforms or internally stored patterns) will cause all or

part of the aggregate to initiate specific classes of responses.

"

The assumed locus

of most higher level LTM is in the secondary sensory areas of the cortex, crucial

in the recognition of complex objects, and in the tertiary areas inter-associating them. The vertical, columnar organization of the cortex, with horizontally extending association layers, forms the basic architecture."0 Actual memo retraces are probably fixed' in the synaptic connectivity of such columns, which remains modifiable throughout life (compare PribranVs hypothesis that memory is specifically embodied in the patterns of junctural micropotentials associated with neural aggregates - Pribram 1971: i Iff,). Perhaps the most basic principle of storage of any kind of information in the brain is 'Hebb's law1, '

whereby interconnected assemblages of neurons that are activated Simultaneously tend to reinforce their mutual synaptic connectivity (e.g. distributed visual, auditory or kinetic images* associated with the same perceived object), and this applies at various levels of hierarchical organizationh from the specific to the abstract.117 Memory traces luv way-stations for initiating particular kinds '

of activity, including imaging and exploring {cf. Bartlett ] 932 and more recent 1

'

correspondence models of memory based on his approach). Jvlemory (in a static, potential sense) is not directly addressed within Whiteheads pro cess-based system, but is implied in the inheritance of experiential d iLi by r.ULCe ivL- ACau)] oll,l>kh :j.l', n>ai kwA p.n ikilk in nii-formUy wilh their immediate predecessors), and in the unique perspective on eternal objects every actual occasion enjoys. It is only mental when involved in concrescent processes. An individual subject s memory consists largely of enduring objects Le. transmuted nexiis of actual occasions interrelated in time and space, that come into being and are inherited from state to state down the time-line of .

'

'

1

'

1

,

occasions of which that subject consists. In my cognitive interpretation of Whitehead, the (relative} permanence and commit nic ability of the contents of memory lies in the eternal objects potential in the merely enduring nexus of

in

Piilt rn iHd I'i'octss

experience objectified for the individual mind/biain. This may include knowledge of one or more languages, f

Input piebended as in (d) may arise, as it were, out of a vast pool of tacit

.

background knowledge and need not necessarily have 'got there1 via on-line processing of specific sensory input from the outer world. Kor does it have to be fully "unpacked1 [made fully manifest) in order to be activated and in turn influence the ongoing stream of thought. It may arise from any combination of genetically hard-wired' kni>iv-liowh personal or cultural experience, and the integrative control of goal-driven reflection and imagination, in fact it may not be stored at all, merely implicate1 in our imernalization of the outer world (in the sense of Bohm 1980); it may be present in a 'cloud of virtual meaning *

'

around some already manifest memory trace {as a potential for relevant activity). New data from without or within might summon it forth into

accessible manifestation (say during processes of seeking or mferencing). Helie knowledge, fear, wishing, hypothetical entertaining and other intentional states

[cf. Searle 19S3:3 t',) are possible reactions of the whole mind/brain to incomf

112

ing or recycled informationJtfi For Whiteheadh the environment of an actual occasion is double-layered first the immediate relevant background presupposed by all the pro positional prehensions of its subject, then the more remote background of only trivial

immediate relevance, ikrth layers come to bear in principle on any cognitive action or state f Searle speaks in rather similar terms). An animals body is just

the most organized part of the environment of its dominant actual occasion at anv one moment. r

g

.

What renders a proposition ally (or otherwise) encoded thought unique and

allows it to be accessed again with relative ease amidst a plethora of stored

informatiojin is its rekvaiicc to the experiencer with all his or her individual needs, plans, preferences, etc rather than its sub-pro positional semantic components.-1 MJ The experiencer acquires thereby a unique perspective on the

potential content of the thought. This may be related to the sub-cortical connectivity of the cortex, but is not limited to positive/negative emotional

responses {which may or may not be involvedh via limbic system interfacing with the bodily emotions). Relevance is relative to the on-going situation and is distinct from the permanent 'alfect tone1 associated with specific long term memories. K4y use of the term here is not quite the same as in the relevance theory of Sperber & Wilson (1986), though it subsumes the matters they '

1

LritngLLfigc

praratti n g and the m: nd /biain

disciiis. It is what constrains the thinker's unbounded associations fas in (d))

into goal-orientated thought, As commented upon in I.IK rc levant e {or 'importance1) is a key notion in VVhitehead's philosophy of organism, where it supplies the actual occasion's unique perspective on eternal objects (grading thenit as it were), This determines the subjective aim and consequent activity aimed at attaining its satisfaction- the subjective aim in turn determines what partfs) of the inherited data to

highlight for further elaboration and which to ignore, h

.

Phms of action are formulated and stored as the association of already

partially specified sub-routines (presumably in the frontal lobes, active in the

transfer of learning sets from one learning task to another). They may be '

organized as images of achievement' (cf, I'ribram I97l; 250ff.). These are not images in the traditional sen so rial sense, but can be regarded as feed-forward

loops to the satisfaction conditions (the goal) of any type of activity extending over tinie.L:tl They act thus as links between intentions and available means of

executing them. They do not consul of lists of concepts (though they may

contain reference to these via symbols and signs}, but essentially model the holistic4 feel1 of the satisfaction of their goal to the subject, which may berealizec in a variety of ways and modalities. A complex assemblage of routines and subroutines deployable sequentially in motor activity may be called a schema (compare the notion of kin aesthetic 'image schema' in John soil 1987:25). The '

*

1

notion of Schema in Neisser (1976:52 If.) also covers such entities, but is more

inclusive: his tei"mH like a Kantian schema, is to be understood as referring to the basic procedure for generating images and actions from a concept. Plans are best envisaged within the Whiteheadian framework in terms of eternal objects, though this may at first sight seem strange, since plans are so closely tied to the notion of an individual subject s active goals and their attainment. The key lies precisely in the Whiteheadian treatment of subjective aims: these are the dynamic lures that orientate actual occasions towards attaining their satisfaction through determinate decisions and they consist of lhei>ccLilion s llokillc perspeclivo on releviint/Livailable etern.il ohjecls. This can '

1

1

,

'

be 'translated' in cognitive terms into agendas/plans/scripts/rule-like behaviour, or any kind of goal-oriented activity stored, say, as a it ractor suites embodied in frontal lobe connectivity, that the decision1 concerned will trigger i

Central t'ognitivepracesses&ct, then, upon the output of neural aggregates as in (e) or their further transforms as in (d) and not upon modality-neutral .

113

Parrem and Process

encodings, which would not have any experiential mean in g/re leva nee for the '

organism employing them. This Is Jiot to deny that the tertiary

1

cortical zones

(those cntical tor specifically human abilities such as speech} are less dependent on sensory modality than the primary and secondary regions (cf. Luria 1973; 731'). These higher association ar as are simply more 'abstract' in the sense defined in (b) above, their principal function being to associate modally specific

signals/signs with others of JifVerent modality. There is a battery of basic cognitive operations (especially ones to do with spatial relations, movement and causality) that is widely deployable across sensorl-motor modalities, such as focussingh scanning, hgure-ground reversal, superimposition. sorting, comparing and the like. Tliere are also for Whitehead certain general cognitive activities that can be applied to a wide variety of data in different modalities, namely the various types of prehensions mentioned in L2h5. The eternal objects ingredient in mental activity cover a spectrum of perceptual modalities {including the kinaesthetic and bodily/emotional), but they also include the 'objective1 eternal objects of mathematics that do not depend on individual experiencing subjects at alL They may be situated at any level af abstraction from raw sensory data upwards. This is obviously not the same as claiming that the eternal objects the patterns recognized and manipulated by such prehensions - are necessarily at the same uniform level of abstraction. Although the relationship of any mental pole experience to the underlying neural activity leading up to it maybe largely 'arbitrary1 and individual, as argued above> this is another matter entirely, one of distinct societal levels '

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'

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j. Concepts (and the percepts that they associate and label with reference to a symbol) are not statically stored entities1 available to perusal by some equally distinct and enduring 'homonculus1, but aref rather, relatively .stable circuits of activation linking transforms of incoming signals from the senses (or fed back from memory/imagination) via sub-cortical way-stations to cortical association aggregates. An important ingredient in these conceptual aggregates is functional '

information on how 'entities1 (of any level of abstractness) may be used or manipulated in connection with plans fas under (h)), including social/cultural schemata. This reflects the established close connectivity between the body '

1

image and motor centres of the brain. Concepts may be laid out in various

kinds of arrays around {clusters of) prototypes and may be accessed in various '

'

ways, including via their most abstract general Type1 level or via any specific episodically stored token they are associated with. A useful contemporary way ,

'

'

L ngLLiiye proccssing and the mind/bi min

of viewing tluTii i*; in terms of Cliaoi Theory

'

attracEors

1

1 1 -

.

In Whiteheadian terms, concepts f'eternal objeets ) are pure potentiality; '

inside the head1 or Vmit there' in reality - including social reality embodied in other persons - to be read oft from {nexiis of) actual occasiosis by a suitably '

1

'

organized subject. As reflected within personally ordered societies (subjects), they are patterns of excitement that both determine what may be preh ended and the form and type of pre hens ions themselves, i hey are passively in ressant in the attainment of definite forms of'satisfaction1 of successive conceptual or hybrid prehensions, 'i'hey ensure continuity in wrhat is othc3r visc an endless flux of becoming, guiding - but not fully determining - the associative cascade of mental activity. The term eternai object emphasizes that concepts can only be accessed through prehensions! i.e. processes, not that they inhabit some '

'

'

'

disembodied realm.

The principal symboh which the mind/brain operates with and on are linguistic symbols (i.e. words standing for concepts)- Unlike pure signs and icons (classes of percepts), these consist of largely arbitrary couplings of concepts {in the sense defined in (j)) with phonological patterns (in tarn associated via motor cortex connections with patterns of activation of the vocal organs). The latter are probably organized by syllable (-like) units, and stored in the secondary temporal region of the left hemisphere). Symbols are a highly context-sensitive and specialized sub-class of signs (phonetic, written, etc.) here 1 follow Pr lb ram's terminological usage. Being by social convention of relatively fixed function in a given context (although vestigial ambiguity mayremain) and yet ranging across the full range of conceptual abstractness phonological words are ideally suited as symbolic tags, both in memory and in 1

'

"

active processing. They may readily summon fand be unpacked into) the concepts1 to which they apply, i'hey are organised amongst themselves by '

mutually reinforcing contrasts and associative redundancy (including shared covert semantic features) and may stand in a many-to-many relationship with the token experiences out of which they arise. Symbols are noth however, a '

1

prerequisite for drawing conclusions (most animals do that without them As discussed in 1,2.6, 'symbol' for Whitehead has a broader 'semiotic1 sense than linguistic symbols alone: a symbol links patterns in the perceptual mode of presentational immediacy (e.g. phonological representations) to embodied patterns experienced in the mode of causal eficacy Symbols - including '

1

'

'

words - have their own history of accreting affect superimposed upon their purely referential potency (this results in their unique complex feel' to the '

experiencing subjet t).

115

116

Pattern iiid Process

L The principal working memory 'screen1 oji which signs and symbols play is probably located in the tertiary parietal regions of tbe cortex, involved in spatial

(bodily) orientation and object-manipulation as well as fin the left hemisphere) in assessing and manipulating 'abstract' logical relations between entities ftbough still broader regions of tbe neo-cortex may be involved). This may function as a kind of mental 'note pad' for logical, quasi-spatial thinking

processes {cf. Luna 1977:151 (f.) and is presumably the locus of the conscious 1

'

manipulation of mental model analogues of the outer world by frontal lobe activity as under (d)> and of general Johnsonian image schemata', the source of metaphorical extensions in language. Mental imagery as .such, however, is '

probably tbcussed around the primary sensory projection regions (where sensory inputs are projected in more or less homologous form). Activity throughout the cortex is in constant flux, coordinated by attentional devices involving fronto-limbic circuits (cf. Luria 1973:189) that allow, for instance, a given cognitive content to echo {e.g. in a 'phonological loop') for some finite diirationh facilitating further processing, Whitehead has little to say on cerebral organization, but his theory of strains for example, does account for the projection of spatial coordinates by personally ordered societies, complex feelings presupposed by all perception (Whitehead 197 31 Off.}. The actual 'cresf of activity within a (thinking) nexus of successive occasions is presumably itself the locus of all high-grade1 mental activity. In other words, such activity, however distributed in terms of the i in mediately 'preceding1 societal level of neurons, is a super) ect of actual '

1

1

'

,

'

occasions, subjectively experienced by each successive spatio-temporal quantum of experience but objectively passed on to its successors, [n general it would not be incommensurable with Whitehcad s framework to regard memory as the (distributed) potential for projecting or registering experience of the overall connectivity of the cortex (tine-tuned by experience) - i.e. as the '

'

'

pattern

m

.

as opposed to the process' aspect of the cortexn'

Rules are plan types or schemata that have proved to be viable in fu I tilling

intended results. They are largely regulative/inhibitory in effect and can be defined in terms of 'satisfaction conditions1". These conditions are not them'

selves representations, however, but akin to images of achievement1 as under (h), which when appropriately selected according to the communicative context '

will cause the organism to feel a Tightness

of fit between intention and

execution. By being abstract and general they ensure massive redundancy and stability in social behaviour The distinction between regular behaviour as such

Langiiiiyc processing and the miiid/bfiin

and the in tern a libation of symbolically coded rules ii not always clear and

indeed the subject of much debate that centres around corniectioTiiflm. Rules maybe instantiated in the coupling ofspecijic input patterns to neural aggregates with specific output patterns of activity fas fine-tuned by experience), Syntactic rules are specific sorts of rnies related to speech production, possibly embodied in the connectivity of Broca s region of the dominant hemisphere. The crystallization of a full syntactic template and the rilling of its 'slots' or nodes by activated lexical items is assumed to take place through largely simultaneous interplay with semantic information activated (principally at least) '

'

'

in the vicinity of Wernicke s region in the dominant temporal hemisphere.I2J hi WhueheadiLUi iLTms. rules - including linguistic unes - luc h species of eternal object i.e. patterns of pure potentiality inhei ent in the interaction '

of the experiential environment and the (hierarchical) organisation of the mind/brain, patterns that can be felt, drawn out and highlighted, associated

with the satisfaction of a subjective aim, and reinforced and modulated through time according to contextuali/ed input. They are means available to plans. n

In the ] ight o f all th i s t a n 4 i ns t r u c t io nal1 o r p roccdi tm / sc f ? ?rt m ics wo uld sc e m

.

'

to be the most us etui way of looking at the mind/brain s handling of meaning, ie .

.

as a matter of process rather than of static configurations of ingredient

atoms of meaning that presuppose stable mental representations corresponding to them (cf. Winograd 1976 and Harder 1996; J07-118). Semantics can be

defined as that part of a broader pragmatics or semiotics that deals with the abstracted con text-free aspects of linguistic expressions, that is, the referential

potential of open class words and theii component morphemes (and the mtitual relationships they enter into), plus the functions associated with the

closed elements of the grammatical system (including syntactic structures, in so far as these are not functionally arbitrary). Semantic primitives are unnecessary from such a viewpoint, since words as such (alongside non-linguistic cognitive routines of an essentially sensori-motor, perceptual nature) are the essential

tools of thought' For White head, the 'meanings1 of symbols are our potential reactions to them and symbolic reference is 'what the world is for us, as that datum in our experience productive of feelings, emotions, satisfactions, actions.. / (Whitehead 1927:21)- It is a dynamic relationship between different modes of perception as under {kj above, so a procedurally-based approach to semantics is perfectly natural within this framework. There are no absolutely fixed meanings

in a world in flux; they attain a degree of (relative) permanence only through the ingression of relevant and re pea table eternal objects in them.

117

ntf

Part cm And ?r second'

'

arilyh was not used in the prototypical sense). His representation of the search set containing the object could from that point on have consisted of both a iviLher rapid lv Ending repte iULUum ot ihc actual phonolo icLil key -ord.-i of the utterance pins some feel' of the countryside outside Edinburgh - perhaps in the form of a mental map -which he needed to scan mentally for some f large and presumably well-known) metal object. The direction in which his ensuing '

questions actually led him was towards narrowing down the type of metal object in terms of function. The fading memory of the utterance in question (or its keywords) could presumabiy haw been reactivated during internal recap-

ping or when trying to assess new information received, but this is again indeterminate past hoc. The point ish this indeterminate conception of how the information may have actually been stored is sufficient to meet objections by lepre -iuauonali: thai sejUejKL> j:ui>1 be aboul soEnolhin lhat can be represented (i.e. its meaning) and that such representations must be determinate for inferences to be possible, based on its content. What repiesentationalists often forget is that logical operations on logical strings of symbols are not the only kind of inference humans go in for. In this concrete case %ve need only assume that enough was retained {the fading memory of the phonologica. '

'

form of at least some of the utterance) to reactivate the information derivable

from the utterance, given the overall contextThe specific inferences probably derived from it by the hearer could simply have perished once their 'result' the update of the 4 feel of the search-set and the consequent initiation of a search for a new question - had been effected. Logic on the fly does not need to leave traces other than its transformed results, txactly how context is stored, is a more interesting question, but this would take us back to experiential frames1 in general and the relationship between tokens and types within conceptual aggregates, matters already touched upon in the preceding section. The Whiteheadian 'process1 perspective on mental representation is actually quite compatible with that of connectionisnu which is often characterised as operating entirely without representations, only radically distributed information between input and output nodes. Specifically, it is a token-based approach 1

'

l

'

1

'

to language learning, and the emergence of types from tokens is of the essence in White he ad

world. However, the intermediate 'hidden nodes' of connec'

tionist networks do constitute a kind of re presentation f and simple recursive networks for example> contain a kind of inbuilt memory feedback loop connecting these to certain input (context) nodes. From an outside viewpoint '

1

lzz

PaCCem bind Pmctss

apparently not very relevant for the further progress of the game. At most it led the questioner to infer that the object was not located in s. town {and secondarily, was not tiscd in the prototypical sense). His representation of the search L

'

set containing the object could from that point on have consisted of both a rather rapidly fading representation of the actual phonological keywords of the utterance plus some TeeT of the countryside outside Hdinburgh - perhaps in

the fonn of a mental map - which he needed to scan mentally for some (lar e and presumably well-known) metal object. The direction in which his ensuing questions actually led him was towards narrowing down the type of metal

object in terms of function. The fading memory of the utterance in question (or its keywords) could presumably have been reactivated during internal recapping or when trying to assess new hi formation received, but this is again indeterminate past hoc. The point is, this indeterminate conception of how the information may have actually been stored is suficient to meet objections by representationalists that sentences must be bout something that can be 1

represented (i.e. its meaning) and that such representations must be determinate for inferences to be possible, based on its content, What representationalists often forger is that logical operations on logical strings of symbols arc not the only kind of inference humans go in for. Jn this concrete case we need only assume that enough was retained {the fading memory of the phonological form of at least some of the utterance) to reactivate the information derivable

from the utterance, given the overall context/i'he specific inferences probably derived from it by the hearer could simply have perished once their 'result' the update of the Teel1 of the search-set and the consequent initiation of a search for a new question - had been effected. Logic on the fly does not need to leave traces other than its transformed results, txactly how context is stored is a more interesting question, but this would take us back to experiential frames1 in general and the relationship between tokens and types within '

"

'

'

'

conceptual aggregates, matters already touched upon in the preceding section. The Whiteheadian process1 perspective on mental representation is actually quite compatible with that of con nee t ion is mh which is often characterized as operating entirely without representationsh only radically distributed information between input and output nodes. Specifically, it is a token-based approach to language learning, and the emergence of types from tokens is of the essence in White he ad's world. However; the intermediate 'hidden nodes1 of connec'

tionist networks do constitute a kind of representation, and simple recursive networks for example contain a kind of inbuilt memory feedback loop connecting these to certain input [context] nodes. From an outside viewpoint '

,

'

1

Ij n u li

pj ol u.ssi 11 y Li»d the mi nd/b ra in

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these are nevertheless arbitrary (indeterminate), deriving their meaning t rom their distributed mediation between input and output. On the Whitebeadian model, one can envisage processes whereby lexical words, in particular, are homed in on during both comprehension and production processes from various prehended meaning elenient progressing from the broad to the specific and gitided by the unifying subjective aim of the overall ctmcrescomie.

This would gain in intensity and richness of differentiation as more and more prehensions are integrated towards its satisfaction, Once the specific lexical item aimed at (its phonological representation) is activated, it will in turn be objectified for - i.e. trigger - further processes. The point to bear in mind is that what is experienced by the concrescent subject as distinct representations e.g. words -- is, at a lower societal level fthat of neurons), largely indeterminate, both within a Whiteheadian and a connectionist perspective on human '

'

-

cognition.

By contrast, models based on a unitary 'Mentalese1 language of thought

perpetuate the error of conflating the mo dally rich experiential viewpoint with the objective neural 'substratum1 one level downh where everything is experientially opaque (and arguably non-modal). This way the experiential level is reduced to inaccessibility to its own subjects and the neural substrate itself appears to communicate via digital encodingsh something proper only to actual interpersonal language (symbolic communication through a linear 1

'

1

channel )

.

Pinker is as specific as anyone as regards Mentaleseh which he sees as

being both simpler and more complex than surface language fwith no articles. no indication of pionunciationh but with additional differentiation of concepts

underlying ambiguous, polysemous words). He argues that it must be the same '

1

or very similai behind, say, English and Navajo in order for reasoning of the same kind to be carried out by speakers of those languages (Pinker J994 SI).

But this is premised on a preconceived -computer analogy-based - notion of what to

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1

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reasoning entails. As will be discussed in the next section, questions as where central coding/Mentalese begins and the auiomatk neural processing 1

of input systems end (as if contiguous on the same level) are doubly misconceived - on the one hand, these are phenomena belonging to two different societal levels and, on the other, coded information on any level could hardly be

divorced from some kind of neural vehicle (although some varieties of lower1

'

grade thought may not involve coding at all). Luckily there are alternatives to the computer-wired neural model {with its basic and or and 'not1 gates) as '

1

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1

,

the substratum of language, ones in which absurdities such as the 'one neuron 1

= one feature

assumption are avoided.

\ 13

5 3 Mo dul ar ity vers intent ional s\ates The iime arguments apply to the 'modular1 picture promoted by many

mainstream gene rat ivists today. Despite its priim /nffV psychological plausibility this viewpoint is really no better in this respcet than the monolithic syntactic one which it has replaced. Clearly the mind/brain is organized to some degree into broad (if overlapping) modules, but these may well be no more specific than the divisions into primary and secondary sensory and motor cortex, etc., already rather well known.t;<J Indeed the evidence from aphasia has king established at least half a do/.en distinct types of deficit associated with such regions and these can be quite specific as to linguistic level and al o langLia e (cf. Jakobson 1971; 124). The extension of this kind of division of labour, however, to a. separate semantic module, for instance, is of highly dubious validity, since semantics involves information distributed widely over the cortex and cuts right across grammatical levels {although the lexicon1 coordinating such infovination with phonemic representations is probably specifically located in the dominant temporal lobe). Non it seems to me, does sub-dividing speech production into, say, separate autonomous modules -as opposed to interrelated levels - for morphology and syntax, advance our understanding of the actual neura underpinnings of these aspects of language one iota, although they may have their own gram mar-internal justification. Recent Chomskyan generative grammar goes much further than this in its modularity in fact - each of its sub-theories such as bin ding N predicate argument structure, and bounding, constitutes a module with its own autonomous principlesJ10 That any of these has any psychological reality at all remains to be demonstrated. Some of the non-linguistic modules suggested by Pinker as working hand-in-hand with '

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linguistic ones such as 'instinctive mechanics' and 'instinctive biology, menta.. maps, etc. (Pinker 1994:420), are plausible enoughh but differ in nature from purported linguistic ones by being holistic, not having to work in tandem like

modules for, say, syntax and morphology in order to produce any experienceable or overtly detectable output at alh Fodor himself relates his 'cross-modal1 view of central thought processes to

Aristotle's notion of 'common sense' (which correlates the various sensory inputs). The central f'unencapsulatcd1} system can be viewed as Vorrecting' the representations received from specific (vertical, opaque and hard-wired) input modules to make them accessible to it (Todor ! 9R3h in2).] u But this presupposes that the central system does indeed recognize the codings of individual "

La ngai e prcic cssi li y and the mi nJ/b rj in

modules (sSO why doe* it need its own?). Moreover, such

'

"

correction must

logically result in clusters of Corrected representiiti<sns'J not just ono m0dally neutral oneh since the type of information from each module is by definition different and largely non-compatible. His central system 'fixes belief1 by mediating between input and memory, and this assumes that me mo lies are not stored in the same format as the in formation which the input systems yield, [ he latter will already have transformed raw sensory input into tor ins recognizable to themselves, note. But rendering modally specific input into a form recognizable by the central system is not the same as rendering it non-modaL tiven if the central system docs function on a more abstract plane (thus enabling it to recognize and work with analogy), this need only reflect partial de-modalization of in put r it may be simplified but still modally specific. More importantly, the input must include phonological words in order to introduce fin symbolic guise} the most abstract concepts ofalL Lumping language together with sensory perception as a natural class of input modules1 seems to me to be fundamentally misconceived. What is common for central processing is surely not the kind of representations involved but the common processes themselves - the various kinds of prehensions involved. I'odor is pessimistic about ever knowing anything about central processes (except by dubious analogy) because he cannot countenance seeing language itself as the (principal) language of thought,]JZ He does not approach cognition stratally. i.e. in terms of the complementarity of inner experience and externally observed neural activity - and it is only the latter that seems to interest him as being Vhat cognition is all about, Much of his argument hinges on the 'iso tropic1 nature of central processing, whereby any fact may be relevant for the conlirmation ot any other (Fodor 1983: ! 05). He contrasts the free1 isotropic nature of central thought processes (cutting across modality) with the modally specific, hard-wired nature I'mpui modules, citing as evidence the universal connectivity of association regions of the cortex. But richt multi-modal representations may also be isotropic, given the necessary processes for translating representations in different modalities back and forth, Such 'machinery1 is supplied by VVhiteheadian 'symbolic transfer which operates (as described in L2.6) between die two modes of "

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*

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perception, presentational immediacy and causal efiicacy. Only there are limits to such translatability - one cannot visualize a smell or such a social concept as relate dues s (although one can of course generate associative visual images). '

1

It is precisely for that reason that rich, non-reduced multiple coding has an '

advantage over any neutral Mcntalcse'. Common processes cutting 'horizontally' across modality of coding is another matter, one quite compatible with the

115

lz6

Pattern and IVcicfiss

rich modal view. What is fundamentally at odds with the Whiteheadian scheme

of things in l:odoi i notion ofmodularilyj howrver, is the picttnc it suggests of the separation of pattern and process as 'components at the same ontological level, hor Whitehead the two aspects aie complementary at all levels of functioning of self-regulating organisms. '

A more flexible - and to functionalists perhaps more palatable - variety of modularity is displayed by Levelt (1989 - sec especially the diagram on p. 9). This model of speech production divided into modular 'specialists' called by I eve It the Concept ualizer'n the 1 Kormulator', and the 'Artie ula tor1 (also a speech comprehension and an auditory component on the comprehension '

.

aide} is at all events tied ir more closely to empirical evidence and testing. Of particular interest from the present perspective is his account of what may go on at the lower end of the motor control hierarchy (within the

'

Articulator', which

is organized ivith the higher level of syllable structure situated above - and affecting - that of successive phonetic segments, the stream of vocalic syllable peaks upon which consonant articulation is superimposed). Here self-organmng context-adapted coordinative structures with their own inhei ent periodicity are seen as taking over from context-free executive control of articulation with the help of feedback from the vocal organs (Levelt op.cit.:447ft".). The relationship is anothe:' example of Bohrian complementarity, The first of his by and large autonomous components, the message planning unitH the locus of higher-order '

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1

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attention, corresponds to Fodor s central processing module. It is theonly non'

encapsulated component, with the possibility of conscious access to lower-level outputs. The model is in general not as literally autonomous and serial as Coder s '

'

conception allowing as it does for overlap pin gh parallel incremental processing

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1" "

.

Various 'buffers1 compensate for the temporal disjunction of simulta'

neous sub-routines { working memory is in fact the internal buffer of the '

Conceptual izer)* Moreover it allows for the reality ofconscious 'internal speech1 (for Levelt a matter of central monitoring ofthe phonetic plan1 - the output of the Formulator). There is still at least one major theoretical problem with this model, however, namely the transition from abstract intentions in the Conceptual uer - e.g. my discourse acts' - to syntactic structures corresponding to '

specific illocutionary choices available in the grammar [within the formulator). Thus he characterizes the link between the intention of speaker S to inform someone (H) of something (P) and the illocutionary form-type he deploys to realize that intention as follows {op.cit.: ] 25}: \V the goal stale is KNOW {H INTtKDS {S, BELIEVE {HTP)))n THHN tneude mt-ssagc nUCl. (F)

What exactly do the capitalized words here correspond to for the speaker?

Concepts? If so, how do they mediate between the intention and the action by association But all sorts of non-linguistic factors to do with the communicative setting and background may intervene between the intention and the expression, resulting in sub-goals that suspend or cancel any such automatic

association. This boils down once again to the problem of specifying the nature 1

of the internal Representations available to the higher-level cognitive processes responsible for the deployment of complex intentions for these are compatible with a wide range of sy mac tie expression. There can surely be no question of ever being able to unearth a grammar of weli-formed messages such as Levelt sets his (distant) sights on - as opposed to a largely unordered array of grammatical and lexical means which speakers during on-line message-formulation can utilize in conjunction with satisfying a Whiteheadian intention (a subjective aim ) A totally diherent approach to representation, one that focuses on the inside' experiential viewpoint, is tbund in Searle (1 3:1 Iff.). For him, representations of intentional states like belief consist of various types of conditions of satisfaction analogous to speech acts {whose sincerity conditions are intentional states, note). These are not to be equated with pictures, say, but they consist (usually) of propositions which must somehow be represented in 1

,

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the mind/bra in. In fact, for him an intentional state with a direction of fit (to or

from the world) is a representation of its satisfaction conditions: it consists of an item of piopositional content in a particular psychological mode. This is compatible with A Whiteheadian perspective, although 1 preter to regard intentional states as the 'feel* of that state to the subject (its Whiteheadian subjective form ) Its potential satisfaction can be stated in terms of the relevant eternal objects forming the objective lure that correspond to Searle 'conditions of satisfaction (and to an 'image of achievement' for Pribram). So an intentional state' can be equated with a (propositional j prehension having its 1

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particular subjective form. Kote that the object (as referred to) and the (propositional) content of, say, a belief are two different things for Searle, hir Whitell cad this is li distinction between the indicative feeling of an intellectual prehension (which may refer to a nexus of any ontoiogical status, i.e. imaginary as well as real ) and the eternal objectfs) predicated of that nexus; we are back at the fundamental propositionaF form. White head s conception of propos'

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ition' is simply broader than Searles (or most peoples). On the other hand, Searle s concept of'intention' is in turn much broader than WltiteheadY

lift

rnttem and Jtocc s

Another distinction made by Sea] le is that between an intention to represent and an intention to communicate - the latter presupposes the former (Seark 19 S3:160 If.). Hejc the para lie] with VVhitehead drifts fu]-theraparth since it is doubtful whether an Intention to tvprescm1 is a distinct type nf'subjective torm' in the Whiteheadian worid of prehensions, except perhaps in the case of voluntary attempts to memorize something, Nan-communicative intentional states like believing something or wanting something to happen do not have such a subjective form (as opposed to believing1 and "wanting' tout court). The proposition towards which the intentional state is directed is already represented for the subject of the prehension (in terms of potential reactions towards '

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1

the nexus concerned), and does nut need Lo be lre)c[-eateii

Searle has little to say about 'neural underpinnings1 or the like, sn his interest to hard-core cognitive scientists may be limited. He does see causality

as functioning on two parallel planes, however, the neural and the intentional (Searle 19 3:269}, and for him intentionality is ultimately a biological matter f 1983:230). One way or another, the two approaches represented by Searle and I odor {or rather his computationally-minded followers) need to be reconciled

if linguists are ever to attain a common understanding of the psychological '

reality of the contenf of language in both its static and its dynamic aspects, Modularity needs to be linked to intentionality. Let me conclude this section by suggesting at least one likely linguistic module (besides those handling auditory input and artidilatory output) for which there is actual empirical evidencej namely that controlling intonation '

1

[and other prosodic matters) J-1'1 The evidence shows that this is dealt with by a coiuralateral region of the brain distinct from those left-hemisphere centres associated with phonological, lexical and grammatical aspects of language, a region analogous to - and perhaps recruited from - that controlling innate vocalizations in primates (cf Deacon 1997:313 ,418). Its manner of manifestation - and probable neural basis - is also clearly of a different nature than that of the latter. Intonation operates in an essentially analog manner as

opposed to the digital nature of grammar with its largely binary contrasts and choices. This is important for its basic function of indicating (and integrating) multiple intentional nuances simultaneously, line-tuning the linear information package put together by the dominant hemisphere. This 'module' interacts with "

the 'grammar module1 in a flexible but predictable manner: the choice of syntactic template corresponding to a declarative or interrogative sentence type restricts the available range of appropriate intonational patterns, and the choice of an intonation pattern corresponding to a complex communicative intention

I iin;ipi .

ng and the mind/biain

will in turn limit the appropriate range of syntactic patterns to express the content. Only by default do intonational and syntactic clauses Co 1 respond. I he one can be said to mould to the other at their mutual interface - they are in a Bahrian relationship of complementarity. This is possible because the same illocutionary intention presumably initiate!; parallel but distinct processes in '

both. Neither fully determineji the other however! aji child language acquisition data further suggests; young children learn to copy and experiment with varying intonation patterns independently from (and starting well before} their acquisition of grammar and lexicon. Whether such functional distinctions are best treated in terms of'modules1 or of levels1 is a moot point

4 Them ind/ b rai n a s t h e o rgan of novelty One of the major barriers still preventing functionalists and generativista from agreeing upon the object of their respective fields of study is the question of the

relationship of linguistic abilities to cognitive abilities in general or, in evolutionary/developmental termst of the inn at en ess as opposed to the immanence of the language learning capacity. This in turn reflects wry different conceptions of the relationship between mind and the brain - understandably so, given the chasm between the empiricist and rationalist approaches to this central concern, which it reflects. The major insight of the generative approach was the recognition of the recurslvity and abstractness of gi ammai', whereas the

functionalist approach sets language within a wider setting of (potentially prelinguistic) goal-orientated behaviour and concomitant cognitive organization. Both insights are captured in the Whiteheadian notion of mentality' (read; the mind/brain) as the organ of novelty (Whitehead 1929:26h and compare also 1978:108}, It is what infuses an element of creative Chaos into the rigid functionality of bodily organization. '

'

Like the generativists of our day, Whitehead was well aware of the 'special5 status of the language faculty but would not have dreamed of calling it an organ in the manner of Chomsky.1- J;or him it is the mind/brain as a whole '

1

that is the relevant organ, i.e. a special type of personally ordered society.

Generativists - insisting as they do on a Cartesian-I ike dichotomy between competence and performance - are not greatly interested in the deployment of language in actual usage, as opposed to its formal nature and how that formal nature is learnt. Functionalists, on the other hand> are of course much more

interested in the first aspect and far less in the formal description of language

115

130

PaCCem and Process

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abstracted from use (the question of learning a language is i or many simply part of the broader field of learning in general). Whitehead has little to say that would satisfy linguists primarily interested in an autonomous description of the farina I nature of the 'language organ1 (whether in terms of formal rules or of abstract principles and parameters), despite beii as one of the founders of the modern philosophical treatment of mathematical logic, well versed in the handling of formal symbolic systems. He does an the other hand have much to

offer the linguist who is interested in haw language is deployed in a variety of tasks, both logical trnd communicative. But his focus on the question of novelty and its explanation in terms of'eternal objects' should ring a chord also amongst generativists. The generativists conceive of syntactic rules in a manner which reflects the infinite creativity (in the mathematical sense) of language. They operate with recursive speech-string-producing formulae of a general nature that can be isolated from any specific semantic content. One of the problems of harmonizing this aim with that of penetrating the actual workings of the mind/brain is that the patterning captured by syntactic rulei (whether expressed as recursive phrase structure rules or in any other format) may well be redundantly distributed across not only the syntactic production centres of the brain (including broca's area) but also specific lemmas' and/or general constructional configurations stared in close proximity to lexical semantic information (e.g. in the dominant temporal lobe) .The mind/brain simply does not work in the maximally efiicient way that Chomsky s minimalist program assumes (Chomsky L993) - it is a multi-purpose organ and narrow efficiency in one area (like language) could well interfere with its efficiency in others. One alternative way of regarding syntax that avoids the worst pitfalls of presupposing precise cerebral location and may well prove fruitful in the future is in terms of its fractal nature After alh the essence of syntax - simple principles that result in '

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infinite iterative variety - is in harmony with the emerging picture of neural '

1

activity in the chaotic mind/brain. The self-referring property of syntactic systemsh undermining the Law of lypes, is in fact the hallmark of higher-order systems with emergent properties (see Goert el 1995;! 46). Calvin (1996; I67ff.) speculates on the non-linear and chaotic 'strange attractors emerging from cortical connectivity as the source of menial novelty (stable 'point' and 'cycle limit1 at tractors are not sufficient on their awn). New attr actors may be created by combining old ones embodied in columnar structures with new ones spread by expansion. Syntactic lemmaassociated with lexical items [e.g. the three arguments associated with give') can specifically be '

1

ULigLLfige proc ssiag and the mind/bMm

described as multi-lobed [i.e. Strange1) attractors in or no r Wernicke i iirta. linked by coitico-cortical pathways to general phia.se structure generation '

routines in LI coca s

area. The latter correspond to the argument structure into '

'

which specific lexical lemniiis can be momentarily cloned to fit. When we turn to Whiteheads * propositions I prehensions (the fleeting meanings grasped '

behind declarative sentences, for instance), we find that these too can recur-

sively build up embedded output1 via higher level intellectual prehensions1. Cone res cent generation of complex utterances by successive integration of prehensions has been exemplified in Chapter 2. The generativist will nevertheless want to know what specific constraint!; curtail such open reeursivity. As far as the Whitehead approach is concerned, the answer must lie in the graded array of eternal objects potentially brought to bear on satisfying the subjective aim of the speaker at any given point, t his is determined by the conjunction of the complex of eternal objects thai defines interpret able utterances in the language concerned fin turn constrained by the general internal sirnctnrc of the mind/bra in) and the specific data brought to the illocution at hand by the actual occasion and its subjective aim. In cognitive terms: the set of stored procedures triggered must mesh with the specific (types of) meaning '

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elements activated as data for the utterance about to he svnthesjied. The r

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constraints

1

are thus situated at the interface between 'lawgue and 'paroie, a viewpoint not so distant from that of the generativials after all, A Whiteheadian would simply go further and state that what can be expressed and Vhat a speaker might want to express are mutually dependent; that is why language '

1

1

has to be creative, not just syntactically but in all other respects, reflecting the functional needs (both external and internal) that carved it out from a world of

changing environments and needs in the first place. It is worth dwelling for a moment on the notion of'organ' alluded to above t

since Whitehead characterizes his own philosophy as being one of organism

1 .

Another brief departure front my attempt to avoid polemicism is warrantee here, since the belief that Chomsky's use of the word Vn'gan1 reflects a fundamental biological interest in the nature of the language faculty on the part of

generativists is both widespread and questionable [largely thanks to Chomsky own tergiversations on this point). There is really nothing biological about Chomsky's analogy - how could an entity that is completely abstract and mental, cut off from all outward behavioural manifestation be biological'? What Chomsky must mean < in order to make sense) is that this abstract faculty is similar to an 'organ1 in so far as it develops v ithin an actual biological organ '

(the brain) h whose potential modes of activation it reflects,156 Jt is a bundle of

131

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Pattern and Pmccss

rationalist

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rules

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or pnnciples1 for describing and explaining the regular unfold!Jig of the faculty in the individual human speaker. Such analogies with biological organs can be appliedh note, to the regular manifestation of all manner of organized Societies not just language (e to the social entities with which history is concerned) l but unless one is a Hegelian one would hesitate to call those actual organs Regular behaviour may be the result of hidden internal 1

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factors on a quite different level of organisation than the regularities themselves. Thus walking behaviour is regular and learned, chough hardly a matter of1 rules1 or principles - it does not require postulating an internal 1 walking organ 1

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independent of the brain's coordination of the activities of the relevant limbs. One of the most influential popu la risers of the notion of the 'organ of grammar Steven F inker, suggests that this organ is located in Broca's pi its VVernicke's areas and perhaps other adjacent areas around the Sylvian Jissure (Pinker 1994:307), hut these are of course in a biological sense only parts of a largei; unitary organ, namely the brain (which in turn has extensions throughout the central nervous system). Chomsky s more Cartesian and abstract notion of organ is somewhat closer to Whiteheads view of the brain as the 'organ of novelty Deacon spec i fit ally ascribes the search for novelty and alternative solutions to the pre-frontal lobes of the brain, which are continually on the 1

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ook-out for new criteria for attention - damage to these areas result in '

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stereotyped repetitive behaviour and the inhibition of alloccntric thinking that

requires taking the perspective of another (Deacon 1997:263 ff.).,:57 As regards the part played by Broca's and VVernicke's regions. Deacon points out that this is more indirect than previously thought (it is rather the circuitry connecting them to each other and to other regions of the brain that

is crucial to speech). The distribution of grammatical patterns in the brain may to some degree be dependant on language type - thus speakers of hnglish are apparently more affected by damage to Brocas region than are speakers of more

synthetic or inflectional languages. The synchronization of parallel processing is probably necessary to keep decoupled sub-processes 'in touch' during the comprehension and production of speech. He suggests - based on the results of new bra in-scanning techniques - that linguistic processing is organized on a concentric, tier-Uke manner across the dominant hemisphere, with rapid, more or less automatic phonological processes near the core (close to broca region) and the slower, more complex processing of larger units - words and then sentences and finally whole texts - at successively more peripheral 'tiers '

(Deacon op.cit.:290ff.).l3d hach tier has both anterior (motor) and posterior [semantic) components. Connectivity between the relevant anterior and

Language prcicessing and the ]nind/brain

posici ior R Lun> i< siron sr on tliL1 wmv tilt, where the associated processes are synchronized (e.g. ft si-to-fast). The hierarchical structure of gramma]1 may help distribute linear signal!! over parallel levels to assist analysis, separating uut what needs most (conscious) attention from what is automatic. The relation'

ship to the Whiteheadian view of language as nested societies-wi thin-societies freflected in l igure 3 in 3.!) should he evident. It will become even more so if one imagines a vertical line through the diagram dividing encoding from 1

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decoding' functions on each level, for every Whiteheadian society consists of

occasions that combine afferent and efferent aspects. Let me tentatively propose now how the architecture of the brain might reflect its specialisation for some of the Whiteheadian processes the present

book is concerned with. Damasio & Damasio (1992) have suggested, tor instance, that the dominant temporal lobe association area may be divided into posterior, medial and frontal sub-regions for, respectively, perceptual features non-unique entities and unique entities. In Whiteheadian terms one couki

speak of a parallel gradient from eternal objects of the purely objective type towards aggregates of a more and more specific subjective type, on the way to [transmuted) individual 'enduring objects1 in memory. So this region uf the brain, specialized for object recognition mayh by virtue of its tine-grained

population of neurons and their mutual kinds of connectivity with other largescale functional regions (including the primary sensory regions), be particularly receptive to being tuned la react to these ordered types of patterned input. This, one could say, is where such concepts find ingression most naturally anc

usefully namely in certain kinds of objectifiedn enduring nexus - those to 1

which phonological labels can readily be associated thanks to the proximity of adjacent auditory processing pathways. Novelty enters the picture every time a selection is made among relevant conceptual labels (words stored in the vicinity of the dominant temporal lobe) by frontal1 planning processes in judging a 'nearest fit1 with a particular nexus being referred to during an actual occasion of the mi nd/b rains symbolic functioning. *

'

Consider also the 'dual motor route1 (between Wemicke's and Broca's

areas) involved in speech production and learning according to Uamasio & Damasio (1992:67). The sub cortical route (involving the left basal ganglia and corresponding forward regions of the thalamus) they associate with habit '

earning while the cortical one they see involved in more conscious

'

associative

earning i:S9 In Whiteheadian terms this could be discussed in terms of the distinction between processes of symbolic transfer that have become habitual and automatic (involving physical or hybrid prehensions, felt* rather than '

,

'

1 3

[3-1

Pattern An Pi'occss

consciously entertained) and those that still involve step by step conceptual peehensiojis. In both cases the transfer links symbolic patterns in the mode of preientatEoiiial immediacy (centring around Wernickes area?) with corresponding expression routines in the mode of causal efficacy [centring around broca's area, with its strong limbic connections?), [his may be part of a broader distinction between deep regions of the brain concerned with seqnentiality and the sense of time and the superficial cerebral regions concerned essentially with spatial or simultaneous patterning (Whitehead hinted as much when speaking of the evolution of presentational immediacy' from causal eficacy). However, I would not want to push this sort of localisation of the two modes too far; there may, for instancef also be a hemispheric preference as regards the predomi'

'

nance of the one or the other mode.

Finally, the controversial question of the Ventral1 monitoring of speech production (and more broadly, the separation of production and comprehension) can be related to the Ye el of prehensions {including linguistic ones) upon which Whitehead laid such emphasis. The two principal approaches to selfmonitoring discussed by Levelt (1989:460ff.) are the autonomous Editor and the integrated Vonnectionisf theory. The latter is exemplified by MacKay s nod a I structure' theory (MacKay 19 7, esp. 16 5 ft'.), which is implemented in a conneetionist network capable of both production and comprehension {its mental nodes all have afferent as well as eiferent properties). Self-monitoring during production is handled on this model by4backward priming4 that spreads up from level to level (as in perception), li instantiates layers of pro posit ion ah conceptual, lexical, syllabic, phonological, and (distinctive) feature nodes, similar to the levels I propose for the Whiteheadian model Levelt, who sees this kind of moniionng as rather too automatic {attention being selective and del ayable in human speakers), inclines towards the first theory himselfh which presupposes an editor distinct from the production components. In fact his sees that editor as equivalent to the speech comprehension component of his mode, (hence his 'perceptual loop1 theoryK although he admits that there is as yet little empirical evidence one way or the other. 1

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A third possibility suggests itself from the Whiteheadian perspective, one in

terms of successive societal levels monitoring the level immedialely below.

'"1

Since the contents of the lower level are 'objectified1 for the superordinate one

lis part of its own data> it has direct access to them. Thus the morphological word-level, for example could easily be envisaged as conlinuously monitoring the phonological one, being alerted at once to any mismatch between an intended word and a phonological form activated to express it - namely by the

La ugua

processitf g aiid the mi nd/b t a in

4

feel' of such a mismittth within its own data. That the highest level of menage organization (that of a speaker/hearer engaged in discourse) can nevertheless register mismatches at levels lower than the immediately adjacent one below (say a spoonensm on the level of phonemes') is no great embarrassment just as the data of one actual occasion is inherited not just from the immediately

preceding one, but from the data objectified in that from still more remote ones, all the way baek through the history of its nexus (and the nexus it in turn is embedded in), so a mismatch at a lower level could filter up to all higher ones. The likelihood of noticing a mismatch at a much lower level - pitched at

a much higher speed of succession - would simply be reduced, it being H

1

correspondingly less easy to capture on the fly than a more immediate one. If such upward hltering had to work in a strictly serial fashion there would indeed be more severe problems with the notion. What would such an organization mean for the separation of production and comprehension? It wo id d mean that a largo part -but not necessarily all of the internal structure of the mind/brain involved in producing and comprehending speech would overlap, with only the lowest level modules 1

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specialized for the one or for the other, namely the auditory and the articulatory ones

'

This picture combines certain virtues of both the other models: as in

the connectionist theory there is no need for reduplication of the same hierarchical structure of layers for both types of process, but as in the editor theory monitoring may he selective at any level, including the highest (according to the subjective aim). Such a system could be utilized to analyse the speech of others as well as to monitor one s own internal speech - the difference from the editor theory being simply that the same system can operate in either a production or a comprehension mode {or indeed in both together, at different levels, since monitoring is to be understood as partitioned out across all level bound'

'

aries). This would harmonize with Deacons view of Tiers discussed above.

whore every level links an etferent and an afferent region {anterior versus posterior).34- It is also consonant with the aphasic evidence referred to in 53, which shows that deticiencies can be found limited to either the efferent or the

afferent aspects of any of the parallel societal levels shown on Figure 3. After allh the function of a monitor is not just to register mismatches of input (intention) and output (expression) but to initiate corrective behaviour accordingly; so it seems to be an oddly inefficient arrangement to have an entirely afferent monitoring module of the type Levclt suggests. Ultimately, however, this is an empirical matter, for which evidence may eventually accrue.

135

136

Pattern i;nd Proems

As we shall see later, Whitehead was hesitant nat only about applying the word organ to the language facility fas opposed to the brain incorporating that facility) but also about applying the word 'organism1 to individual languages or 1

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even to historical iocietiea speaking them. What was central for him in this connection was the

'

personally ordered society the organic unity of the

individual speaking and thinking human being. But in order to try to resolve this interpretive issue we shall need to address certain important broader aspects of language, namely language acquisition and change: only from this historical1 perspective docs it begin to make sense to argue for or against the notion of language as organism Before doing so. 1 shall take up the processual '

1

.

tliEead developed in Chapter 2, for language as process is not only verbal

discourse and psychological activity, it is also the production of enduring objects

1

such as written documents.

Summary In this chapter I have attempted to spell out the non-reductionist, complementary relationship between mind and brain presupposed by a Whiteheadian approach to language-as-process. While taking both neural and experiential reality seriously this approach maintains a strict separation of their respective onto logical levels. The interplay between the two is what is of interest, lor it is here the Whiteheadian perspective can contribute to on-going attempts to 1

'

integrate psychology, neurology and linguistics - an endeavour that is both fascinating and full of episte mo logical pitfalls. Thinking, memory, concepts, symbols, mtentionsh rules and representations have all been considered from this perspective. I have argued that it is compatible with the emcrgentist assumptions of connectionist modelling of mental activity, although implementations of such models of course lack higher level Sear Man intentionahty- they are not embodied. On the other hand, I have argued that it is not compatible with I odor s conception of a central processing language nor with the associated notion of modularity (understood in odor s sense), so popular amongst geiierativists today. In the context of distinguishing between Whiteheadian immanence and Chomskyan innatcness, also the notion of an 'organ of grammar (as advocated by Pinker) has been rejected in favour of the Whiteheadian view of the b rain itself as the organ of noveltyl The language faculty is definitely not an organ from this point of view - pattern can simply not be process. '

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Language pracessJng and the mind/bfain

[ have advanced some tentative suggestions about localized links between the levels of (experienced} cognition and ncurul activity - which could presumably be taken a lot tui tbei by knowledgeable neurolinguists - but this

is not essential h>r applying White he ad's ideas here. It is nevertheless at the interface between neurology and cognition that Whitehead s process terminology and his liiycred society view of things really come into their own; he has much to say about the self-regulatory funeti oning of living h thinking organism!; 1

(including how they monitor their own inner workings). This is in general not an area where independent research in the Whiteheadian spirit can readily be undertaken although it can certainly be applied to interpfetijig the results of psycholinguistic investigations of various fiorts. Its

principal relevance here is in constraining speculations about the relationship between language and cognition to directions that make overall sense and can be related both to neurology and to individual experience.

137

Chapter 6

Understanding written texts Imaginary worlds

The hajiit; WhiteheadUn oppaailian afproL-ess ;uid pattern is not to be equated with the distinction that is sometimes made between language a£ process and language as product. Pattern is something more abstract: it is reflected both in the spoken made ot discourse and in the written mode, where the array ot linguistic forms is much richer and where we at first si ht would appear to be at a considerable remove from dynamic White head i an processes. We shall be concerned with determinate linguistic products rather than the production of speech on the fly Nevertheless, it will be seen that the approach to language unfolded in the previous chapters has its natural application here too. In particular, imaginative literature - through its general context of nuuiiiesiaiion inhibits the formation of afirmative judgments that propositions formed of words normally incite us to. No hearer/reader can understand a proposition unless the logical subject of the proposition is part of his or her actual world if it is no such a world must be created. So imaginative literature incites us to the construction of imaginary worlds, and here, as with the kind of inferences we examined in Chapter 2 (but for quite a different reason), suspended judgments are again the order of the day. Specifically, the writer is luring us, his readers, to build up a mental model more or less homologous to one he himself has imagined. This he achieves through the skilful alternation of elements of both surprise and expectation and the exploitation of the full potentiality of the language to induce in us rapid shifts of perspective on the way to resolving suspensions in the concrescent integration of the new information. If he achieves his endh we slid I - as willing subjects of a very literal procedural semantics - have experienced, from within a virtual world the author himself first created and expcriencedh by feeling our way into its characters and placest '

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-

*

1

its successive tensions and resolutions both in the basic causal flow of the

lurraUvc

in Jlvclmou:- kviding from and back to it.

14"

Pattern and Process

6

1 Information unit and topic;;

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The fiiAt prerequisite tov a Whiteheadian analysis of the readers comprehen1

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sion of written narrative is to establish once again the span of a single occasion What could this possibly mean in the context of the continuous process of .

building up a 'mental model1 of a story as the reading progresses from start to finish? More ao than in the case of the oral dialogue in 2,2) equating a single sentence with a single occasion would he somewhat arbitrary, in fact almost

certainly wrong in the sense of corresponding to psychological reality,143 Wh

ose

reality? The ideal readers? We cannot simply apply the criterion of

H

no further

input from without' to define the discrete concresccnt process of comprehending flet alone producing) successive sentences, since there is more or less continual absorption of new data from without1 {from the pages of the book) on the part of the leader. 1 suggest rather that we take the information unit' as the relevant span here, that stretch of text whose comprehension can be equated with a unitary procedural instruction to update a mental model in the sense of '

'

johnson-Laird (]9S3)h However, unlike the latter I shall not assume that the

result of this on-going processing is the construction of a determinate mental object in any particular modality of representation. The key notion will again '

'

be that of the Whitebeadian 'prehension and the substance of the 'mental model

1

corresponding to the reader s comprehension of the story will be an elaborate fbut simplified jnd abstracted) objec tillcation of successive prehensions in the form of a structured bundle of potential reactions -some in the form of mnemonic symbolsh including phonemic 'words1. These can be assumed to be reactivated as data for later reconstructive recall {but only rather approximately and with some creative effort), Let us define 'information unit1 a little more precisely in terms of the relevant cognitive processes, l-or Halliday {1985:275) the information unit is de lined as consisting of an obligatory new element plus an optional given one.

In English at least it is reflected in intonation patterns. But in so far as we are concentrating on written language here intonation units - outside of actual direct speech passages - are of little help, any more than the potential division into 'speech acts' (the whole text being arguably the result of one narrative

speech act on the part of the author). Moreover, we can reckon with deviations from simple linear reading from one determinate unit to the next, both as regards beginning to analyse a new item already before the previous one is

completely comprehended and as regards the occasional repeated reading of the same item, One must also alhjw for skimming (and in general guessing ahead),

6

.

1 Iniortn-Alum unit and Lopics;

The first prerequisite for a Whitdieadian analysis of the reader s comprehen'

1

sion of written narrative is to establish once again the span of a single occasion What couid this possibly mean in the context of the continuous process of building up a 'mental model1 of a story as the reading progresses from start to finish? More so than in the case of the oral dialogue in 22, equating a single sentence with a single occasion would Ke somewhat arbitrary, in fact almost .

certainly wrong in the sense of corresponding to psychological reality m Whose '

1

reality? The ideal reader s? We cannot simply apply the criterion of no further input from without' to define the discrete concrescent process of comprehend-

ing (let alone producing) successive sentencesh since there is more or less 1

continual absorption of now data from without (from the pages of the book) on the part of the reader. 1 suggest rather that we take the information unit' as '

the relevant span here> that stretch of text whose comprehension can be equatec with a unitary procedural instinct ion to update a mental model in the sense of Johnson-Laird (1933). However! unlike the latter, 1 shall not assume that the

result of this on-going processing is the construction of a determinate mental object in any particular modality of representation. The key notion will again be that of the Whiteheadian 'prehension and the substance of the 'mental model corresponding to the reader's comprehension of the story will be an elaborate fbut simplified and abstracted) object idea lion of successive prehensions in the form of a structuied bundle of potential reactions - some in the form of mnemonic symbolsh including phonemic "words1. These can be assumed to be reactivated as data for later reconstructive recall (but only rather approximately and with some creative effort). '

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1

Let us define information unit1 a little more precisely in terms of the relevant cognitive processes. R>r Halliday {1983:275} the information unit is delined as consisting of an obligatory new element plus an optional given one.

In English at least it is reflected in intonation patterns, But in so far as we are co it cent ra ting on written language here, intonation units - outside of actual direct speech passages - are o Hit tie help, any more than the potential division into Speech acts1 (the whole text being arguably the result of one narrative speech act on the part of the author). Moreover, wc can reckon with deviations from simple linear reading from one determinate unit to the next, both as ro Lird.-; he Lnmn to nnniysL-- a view- it m iiltoadv Ix orc ihe ptevums one is

completely comprehended and as regards the occasional repeated reading of the same item. One must also allow for skimming (and in general guessing ahead),

(Jnd erstand Ing wri ccer. texts

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and ff>r the fact that there are various degrees and types of textual newness So an analysis of a written text into discrete information units' is going to be somewhat of an idealization strongly biassed by its division into grammatical ,

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units.

As an approximate expedient, I shall nevertheless equate 'information unit' with Chafe s intonation unit which is deiined in terms of piosodic packaging and/or unitary foci of consciousness, and obeys the one new idea per unif constraint. As Chafe points out, id though direct indication of prosody is obviously lacking in a written text, punctuation often gives a clue, and at least '

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in certain types of narrative the writers articulation of successive clauses may '

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reflect the protagonist s point of view and thus indirectly obey the one new idea per unit constraint (Chafe J994:288l:f.)J I suggest that we treat as an informa'

tion unit a stretch of text containing a (single)

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1

new

element this 'newness'

being defined in terms of information that must have been incorporated into the accreting 'mental model for relevant inferences to have been available for '

on-line comprehension and for the rest of the surrounding text (that which is '

not essential

1

) to have been felt as uninterestingly compatible with the whole

and thereafter

'

forgettable'11'' 13y 'relevant1 I mean relevant to the current

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topic 1 Of courseh whether information was actually recognized at the time as

new and (potentially) relevant is another matter, one that is hardly determinate after the event.

But what do 1 mean by 'topic' exactly? For Chafe a 'topic1 can stretch over any length of discourse/text and may be embedded hierarchically within other topics, so sentence and topic arc not coterminous (although the former is properly contained in the latter). They are, moreover, not to be understood as equivalent to the units stored in memory, reflecting on-line decisions about units of closure The topic at any point in a narrative context is the information. that is most active and highlighted for conscious perusal by the reader '

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[Chafe 1994' \37ft

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]At should be seen against a background of'semi-activated1,

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latently relevant material,Mi This is a large subject beset with terminological problems. Let me just suggest that it is perhaps best not to regard this as a linguistic category at all: the relevant 'topicsT at any point in a text is a matter of the organization of the worlds and sub-worlds of the current state of the corresponding mental model It is this that determines the reader s perspective at that moment. As Lambrecht puts ith a high degree of activation is a necessarycondition for topics (in order to achieve interpretability at all) but not a '

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sufficient one - current relevance or interest is also essential fLambrecht

1994; I64ff.). He stresses that the pragmatic relation to the proposition is a

141

I'atCem and Process

sepflriitt factor, in fact his distinction between the designation of topical reference (establishing a topic) and 'role1 (saying something about that topic) exactly parallels the Whitcheadian distinction between the indicative and propositional prehensions ingredient in judgments. Individual langaages h ve 1

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available specific means of inducing the addressee tn search for relevant topics e.g. by the choice of definite versus indefinite (and other types of) referring expression in English.146 Given the finiteness of grammar and the infinitude of

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possible mental models it is not surprising that such means on their own are not enough wiijumi pedfiv conu i - ihev iitv not used solelv \or lub purposes but may be recruited into various other tasks. Let us see how all of this applies to a specific passage from a novel, and attempt to answer the question as to how precisely we can determine what is 1

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to the ideal reader at any point during their reading of it. Right from the start we shall be reminded howheterogenous and vague existing conceptions of new information actually are when written texts are looked at in detail. The kind of 'newness1 that we need to isolate includes material presented in all manner of intentional/illocutionary guises and the kinds of procedures they inilkilc mny j3mj Ik1 very heleroyenou Alierwards we Clio [cUilji lo the mattCE1 of inding a more precise definition of information unit' in VVhiteheadian terms. new

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142

6

2 Th e co heren ce o f pro ie

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The following passage is taken from Hann O'Briens masterpiece of black humour "TheThird Policeman11 (O'Brien 1974 73if.). It occurs at a point in the narrative where the narrator has just been introduced to a curious version of

Atomic Theory by Sergeant Pluk of the local police station. He is returning to the police barracks with the narrator after locating a missing bike belonging to a certain Michael Galhaney, who reported it as missing and accompanied them until it was found. Asked bv the narrator for an answer as to how on earth he

found the bicycle so easily the Sergeant has admitted that he himself stole a [id planted the bicycle. On being pressed for further explanation of his odd behaviour he grumbles about the County Council being to blame, then asks the narrator - out of the blue - whether he has heard about the Atomic Theory. He fiifther surprises jiim by giving as an example of the dLingers of this ihe-ory the 'fact that Michael Galhaney was 'half way to being a bicycle himself1 after riding his bicycle round the rocky roads of the parish so much. He adds that things would be worse if he didn t have his bicycle stolen every Monday (so we '

know at least that the theft nf the bicycle may have been Tor the owner's own good ) The Sergeant has just asked the nanator (who still hasn't figured out what the Sei'geant is getting at) U he knows what happens to the atoms in a bar 1

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of iron if you keep hitting it: "

rkal is a ktird ciLLcat Ask j hkcrkilnilh Jur I hi: i ru ll answ-er and he will ItU y{>u ihtil ih-L1 lur will '

dissipaU' ilsclJ'away by JtgrfL-s if you persevere wilh ihc: hjrd wjflops. Sci]nc tiJ" ihf attim* «f the h r will $u inlti tht bammcT and the utho- half in Uj I he tabkor the stone or the parkcuiar item thali i untkmealh (hi; hot torn (if I he bar. IhiU i.s well-known,11 Lijjreed. Ihe m and nei result ot il is Lhatpcoplt who sipt'nd [nosl of their nauti al 1

"

"

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livLis riding iron bkyek-s ovtT thu rocky roadsteads of ihis parish gtl their p Tsonalities mixed up with diu jiersonalides ol Lhek bieyele as a resuh of ilu1 inlerehangint; of tke alums cii'ea h [jflhem and you would be surprised at itu; number of people in tkese parts who nearly are hjlf people and hjli biLyeies.' 1 lei [j a j asp t>l astonish me nl I hat made a sound in the air like a bud "

puncLunc. '

And you would be flabbLT asted at the number of bicycles that are halfhuman almost h iif-man, ha If-partaking of humanity/ Alifwi'inly tftav i* tip limit, ]c>c remarked.Anything can he mid m ihis

plitccand it will be true and will have to &e h'iwvaL I would not mind heiny working this minute on 2. steamer in ihc: middk ol

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the sua, 1 said, eoilin ropes and doing ihe hard manual work. I would like lo he far away from here.

i lookud ea re fully around me. Urowh bogs and blaek brigs were arranged neatly on LJtk.sidc of ihf rt>ad with rcetangular brjxca earved oul [jftkcm hi-re and there, eaeh with a tilling til yellow-brown hrown-yelltiw water. Far away near the sky tiny people were stooped at their turf-work, cutting oul preeiselyshLiped sods with their pa ten I spades and building them into a tall memorial twite (he height of a horse and carl. Sounds came from them to che SergeLin( and myself, delivered to our ears without charge hy the west wind, sounds of

laughing and whistling and hits of verses from the old bog-son s. Nearer a house stood attended hy three trees and surrounded by the happiness of a eoterie of fowls, all of chum picking and rooting and disputating loudly in the unrelenting manufaeture of their eggs. The house was quiet in itself and silent

hula canopy oflaay smoke had been erected over the chimney to indieak thnt people were within engaged tin tasks. Ahead til us went tke road, running Swiftly across tke Hat land and pausing sli ktly lo climb slowly up a hill thul was waiting lor it in a place where there was tall grass, grey boulders and rank stunted trees. The whole overhead was occupied hy the .sky! serene, impenetrable, ineffable, and incompnrabk with li fme island of clouds anchored in the '

calm Iwo yurds lo (he right of Mr arvis s outhouse.

144

P-aECem a]id l 'ticcss

At the point where the passage starts, the reader has set up an overall 'mental si pace1 for the imaginary world of the book The Third PolicemanhH - let us call it WJH This includes specific background properties (or rather objectified traces of the feel of the prehension of these properties) such as the fact that it takes "

Mace in (an imaginary) Jrish village. These may be linked by the reader to actual background knowledge he or she has of such things in the 'real' world (this outermost level can be taken as equivalent to the blank surrounds of the

diagram below). Within Wj the reader is now acquainted with the main actors, including the first person narrator TN1), the Sergeant (V), and Michael Galhaney CMC1), and is familiar with certain characteristics, opinions, and

motivations of these actors, including their relationship to each other and to certain events forming the main narrative line of the earlier parts of the book. More specifically, the reader knows at this point in the narrative that a dialogue,

supposedly about a stolen bicycle (let us call [his Topic lh T,) is taking place between S and N - let us call this sub-worlds covering the whole scene in

which the two walk along a country road in conversation, Wr

Within this sub-

1

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world, S has just been holding forth on the atomics The reader - tike N expects that this must be leading up to some kind of explanation of the sergeant s strange claim that the County Council is responsible for the theft of *

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MCVs bicycle which has been proffered in reply to N's question a little before as to how he found the bicycle so easily (let ujs call that Q . This expectation

derives from our familiarity with normal conversational practice (the experienced reader will automatically assign the appropriate speech acts to the narrative dialogue within W?) How 'the atomics1 gets into the picture \s .

obscure, and if the reader is expecting their introduction to be leading up to a '

rational explanation of the Sergeant s remark about MC being almost half a bicycle' - as some kind of figure of speech, say - he or she is going to be as surprised as the narrator (though the reader should by now have realized that rational expectations are liable to be flummoxed in W !). i or the 'figure of speech js going to turn out to be meant - in a typical O'Brien ploy - quite literally. The connection of this in turn to the culpability of the County Council is never staled explicitly - the reader is left to make the necessary "-bridging ,

*

inference himself

So within sub-wo rid Wj we know there is a character S talking on the topic of Atomic Theory (and a sub-topic within it, atoms ) -let us call this T2 with the assumed intention of explaining his reason for mentioning a purported '

1

fact (let us call it about MG being * half bicycle which in turn is part of his reply to N js question as to how he found the stolen bicycle so easily {F2 is the '

Und crstand in g wri tLen lexts

purported fact thiit he did find it easily). The passage hegins, then, with the response by N to S s question, Q:h as to whether lie knows about what happens to the atoms of a bar one hits repeatedly fa question quite compatible with ongoing topic T;), Now N's response {within Wj) is an indirect statement of his inability to comply; what is new here (for the readerJ is precisely that speech act and is nothing much to do with piopositional contenth let alone the actual words used. It is their implication (found by trying to feel back to why N would have uttered them in that contest) that updates the 'mental mode] here by registering a negative answer on N s part, So his expression of ignorance can as a whole be regarded as the information unit in question(sparking off a specific update to the model. At the top of the diagram below, this first update of W is represented within W Note the immediate context of Ss queition (the topic: T,) and '

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L

N s continuing desire to uncover S's motive in stealing the bike {'Go' for 'goal1), in their respective solid (activated) boxes. Characters MG and | hover in VV but are not directly involved in W, except through reference to them by S and N respectively. Such Toei of information can be assumed to fade in and out of prominence according to the ongoing narration, but are not lost unless speciiically negated or changed later, further updates to Wj [one per 'actual occasion', as dedned) are indicated, expanded out of the initial situation and down to the bottom of the page> to cover the first seven paragraphs of the text What follows is more interesting, In his following response, which consists of two long sentences, S continues within the context of T: towards the fulfilment of his somewhat inscrutable purpose, but in two discrete stages with slightly different aims and results as regards updating the model, so we are justitied in analysing it in terms of two successive [but tightly bound) occasions, L

1

each bearing a kernel of new information. The first sentence { = information unit) gets N - and the reader - to set up a hypothetical world-withm-a-world (let us call it W ) in which a blacksmith (any token of this type - X,) answers the question for him.1111 What is new for N in Wp here {overlapping with what is new for the reader in Wj) is both the prompting to set up such a hypothetical sub-world and the information attributed to X| within it Together these stages

fill the waiting answer Lsloth still suspended from S s unanswered question. So we can regard i\v: whole of this fit i senionce as constituting a unitat y instructional information unit' aimed at causing N (and the reader) to update his model of the situation by setting up a sub-wo rid in which the required answer is supplied by a hypothetical authoritative answerer, namely the information that an iron bar will gradually dissipate if you keep on hitting it. So far this does

145

i

-

.

Parrem and Process

Wi

Wj

(Wj) Go: Vtht did S itval

bine Hir?

iHirf:i7

0-® ...

«k plain

elaborate

0

r - - '

i 77:

Figurt' 4.

0 ®

comment

Und cmand in g wri rrcn 1 cxts

not aiy anything ibont the p lfticlJl ll, wards chosen to bear this

1 informj-

L

new

tion- The contribution of the individual words varies in importance: some '

1

obviously trigger more significant results thim others. Some of them are given in the iense of corresponding to - or being more indirectly compatible with -

elements already in the updated mod eh and thereibre can be suppressed (by negative prehension) once they are felt to be coherent with the latter. l:or instance, 'the bar1 already mentioned by S is not new, and nor is the information conveyedj more indirectly, by the words 'hard walloping plus 'persevere' which correspond to keep on hitting1 in the preceding text The nuance in meaning is tin important except as a styiistic element affecting the subjective 1

'

form of its prehension, The second occasion fcorresponding to the second sentence) shares the frame already set up but adds new information of its own elaborating that of the preceding one The specific information that needs to he abstracted from the sentence in order to update the model can he summed up as; some of the atonvs will go into the hammer and some into the support beneath (this r

1

'

meshes

1

with the information absorbed in the preceding concrescence and

further satisfies the original question being responded to). The new information is distributed throughout the two sentences and their close inter relate dn ess is graphically reflected by their presentation as a single paragraph, but their function differs. The part of the new information concentrated in the hrst sentence sets the frame for understanding fully the second more detailed one. which specificaily links it to T, and the preceding in Ik of atomics There could have been a pause - or extraneous material - between the two, but they complement each other as individual procedures directed towards the same sub-part of the model, All comprehension involves abstraction according to '

1

.

Whitehead. What is essential is that the information abstiacted enables maximal '

fit' between the on-going text and the accreting model, thus satisfying the

fictional aims of the individual characters and in doing so satisfying at the highest level (above W ) also the reader's ongoing goal of comprehending and enjoying - what he or she is reading. Note that the characters within W j

,

form n social nexus, and that what the individual leader knows of such nexus in 1

general is compatible with NTs understanding of S s reply here as being relevant to his overall goal in the situation. N understands S s reply as (part of) his attempt to answer the question N was unable to answer himself - why else would he have offered this information at this point in the narrative? As to what readers may have 'stored1 in their model after leading these two sentences, the answer must remain indeterminate and individual depending on '

147

i S

Pattern and Proc-ess

how they read it. But an important ingredient for the averagef not too hasty reader, will doubtless he the feeling of expectation of an answer {to a question

posed by a specific character within W,) being eventually fulfilled, There will also be a reinforcement of

c

1

fS s atoniics ) as somehow still relevant for

another broader expectation not yet ful tilled, namely an explanation by S of the relevance of all this to MG being in some sense 4half bicycle These 'feelings1 1

.

and their dynamic interrelationship within the model of Wj may well he supplemented in the reader s long- (or medium-) term memory of the book s '

'

content by (association with) specific symbols or images that were positively activated during the comprehension process (e.g. key' words).149 '

What immediately follows {N s response 'that is well known1) is also 'new' '

as a whole to the reader, although some kind of back-channelling1 comment upon S s exposition on N s part is expected, so the illocutionary slot it fills is not '

'

new in

scn e of ivholly imc pecTc-d. Ono.1

im it is rho L-iinkmi (iho

ascription of a quality to the foregoing exposition) plus the indication of the speech act function in which it is embedded ( l agreed-') that constitutes a single information unit for the reader, However( the comment is hardly newsworthy1, and once comprehended (and enjoyed as slightly ofl-beat1. l

*

'

reflecting N s spineless acceptance of everything and anything) it may well he forgotten as not likely to have provided any useful implications for the further tin folding of the narrative. The continuation of >S's exposition that follows links the matter of what happens to atoms when iron is heaten to the still unclosed matter of the man who is almost a bicycle The reader fas well as N in Wj) knows it h a summingup from the introductory words Tthe gross and the net result of it is that.-, ) All of it is in a sense new to the reader (as well as to N). The question is whether '

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all of S s words here constitute one or more 1

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new

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information unit1. Is a unitarv

element extract able from them? 1 would suggest there are actually two

information units here: the essential new in form a Li on of the first is that human

beings riding bikes on the rocky roads of the parish exchange their atoms and therefore their

1

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personalities - with the bikes they ride on {like the atoms in the preceding analogy of the hammer and the heaten har). This information

is organized as a single proposition, with a 'new' subject (a certain class of '

1

people) set up in front of a new predicate ascribing a certain process to them (all embedded within the introduction of the 'result' oi his elaborate explana-

tion).150 Notice that this at once explains why MG could be referred to literally as

'

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almost a bicycle The fact that the explanation is pure nonsense in our 'real' world is quite irrelevant to the inner coherence of W Ol course individual .

C

fnd ertfaud in g wn t Lfn lex is

_

elements in this

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information are 'giver' in the immediately preceding context { the words 'bicycle and 'iron, and the whole matter of"-interchanging lioms ) but what i;; both new and newsworthy here is the integration of these elements - as part of plus the preceding matter ofMG - into an overall rational explanation (though poor N appears still hopelessly confused over what exactly S s topic is here). This cannot be further broken down into new

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coherent information units since it is the information as a whole that both fills

the expectation of an explanation still outstanding and provides the basis for further inferences relevant to attaining a cohesive grasp of the on-going story. Abstracting the essential information is a matter of suppressing the less relevant details (those that do not contribute to the satisfaction of the concrescence -

the maximal integration of its data). The rest ofS's explanation (following'and1) is of subordinate importance, it morelv embellishes the essential information just given, it further strengthens its coherence with the comment on MG being 'almost a bicycle1 by setting it in a wider context of bicycle-riding parishioners, Both the introductory conjunction and the framing clause ('you would be surprised at.,, } which sets up a new hypothetical sub-worlds suggest that there is some kind of break here. The unitaay purpose of this second information unit is the instruction1 to the reader 1

,

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(and N} to integrate the new 'fact1 - namely that the 'given1 phenomenon it refers to (people who are half bicycle) is surprisingly wide-spread in the local

population - to the on-going model. It is nevertheless marked syntactically and visually on the page - as highly coherent with the preceding part of S s '

utterance.

At this point let us dwell a little longer on the internal nature of a single concrescence as defined in terms of

'

information units', namely the last one

described above. We can do this by considering the reader's prehension of the actual sequence of words on their way towards their satisfaction of the concrescence in question (i.e. the object iiication of the preh ended in formation). This takes the form of a determinate action of updating the on-going model of the story in a certain way, The reader s continuing aim of understanding (anc. enjoying) successive chunks of the story, meshing with the actual w ords as analysed through the sensory channels and association pathways concerned, will abstract - by negative prehension - only the information that is congruent with that aim (the objective data ) This process of abstraction must involve a variety of specific prehensions, both physical (as in the initial analysis of the written word forms) and conceptual {in comprehending the syntactic pattern'

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ing and the semantic interrelationship of the words). These are probably only

14?

partially ordered sequentially, with complex self-monitoring and weightings of

d Lor natives [and possible interruptions or rest a its) en jrn f tothe'deciiion eo respond to the abstracted in formation in a certain way [updating the model). Amongst the ingredient prehensions must be a hybrid one of the meaning h hmd ijic [LiiiUL\hj.u'v pjLVLdiEi 1.01:1 cxi \'[ ac. oif ni kc iJlls J uIia-

bridging inference at this point. There is no indication as to whether N in W, made it or not (he is so confused it is unlikclyK although as we shall see in a likmucjU jk1 uudcLsUnH; llic paj Uni aHiclL io]! - Anna how y \pk Jike MCS t.lui

have become 'almost half bicycle1) well enough to be amazed at it Hut let us say the leader did make the inference at this point: how did he or she do so? Consider the way the premises and conclusion!; are logically linked. Premises a

,

b

.

S stole MG bike himself, but

(S claims) the County Council is to blame, {S claims j MG is 'almost hall bicycle1, and "

c

.

d

e

.

.

Tiding bicycles around the rocky roads of the parish leads to an exchange of atoms between bicycle and rider and there are many people in the parish who are half man, half bike.

Condiisiotis

f

MG is the way lie is because he rides his bike around the parish a lot, and

gL

many people of the parish arc part bicycle because they ride around over bumpy roads all the time like MG, and S must have stolen MG hike in order to retard this undesirable process, and finally the instance responsible for the poor state of the parish roads - he. the County Council - is ultimately to blame,

.

h

k

.

Now consider the way in which the relevant questions and (expected) answers are organized in the dialogue up to this point (as reflected on the model): N s [and the reader s) attempt to find out the reason for (a) is unanswered until (h)

is reached, whereas his attempt to fathom what (c) really means is satisfied by ff). The latter is encapsulated within the former, which cannot be solved ttntil (f) is reached. The narrative sequence thus derives {at least in part) the order of

logical conclusions from premises, Notice that it is not necessary for the reason for fh) to be elucidated at all for conclusions fg) and fh) to be reached. But it is

Und crstand in g wri tLen texts

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the latter that answers N s -

original question put to S> Q, ( Why did he do it?1)

let us call tliis conclusion (now assumed reached by Nr) Pj, Conclusion fi) is

a bonus spin-off tbi a little more cognitive work, tying up the1 loose end that (b) reprcsoiUs {and which was slipped in very casually). Recall that the purpose of any concrescence is to obtain maximal integiation of the input data consistent with satisfying the in ilia! aim. In so far as the irritating 'loose end' was registered and passed on, it would still be there after all other elements of the data of the final concrescence had been integrated into the objectified model. If (i) is indeed reached at this point by the reader I would

suggest that a separate occasion fwith its own concrescence) is involved one 1

that takes as its data the loose end

plus the updated model at this point, It is not necessary for the comprehension of the continuing story (apart from the ironing out of the 'glitch1 itself). It can he reached at some later time, and is not a direct consequence of reaching (h) - although the lattei; by solving the major

outstanding tens ion s> may well spark of the concrescence towards f i), since (b) is thereby revealed as (still) left unintegratec, [he curlier conchmui c;ui W ditvcih iiiu r.ued tun nf ihc premises and the present on-going case provided by the narrative. Thus (f) is the result of integrating (d) with the new information provided by the portion of the text '

1

just read that includes (c), updating the model so as toJeave only those interences that are in harmony with this integration and relevant to on-going intentions, but the leap between (g) and (i) involves an 'intuitive judgment' which, via conceptual reversion hlls in or 'bridges1 the missing link between (b) and S's motivation in uttering it {note that searching for answers to such why questions is a continuing attitude on the part of the attentive reader). In other words, it retrieves a potential proposition (from relevant eternal objects) that meshes with the on-going model but is not directly derived from the concrete data already integrated into the model itself. It matches a pure potentiality to one or more (linked) propositions - here (b) plus (gj as joint premises 1

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(the latter, note, is not a conclusion of the former, nor vice versti), that ish it

abstracts an imaginative proposition fa further conceptual pattern) from conceptual patterns already extracted from the actual situation. The judgment involved is of the 'suspended' variety since Ltruth' in the reader's actual world is irrelevant (and inhibited for the duration). We could perhaps nevertheless talk of relative truth - logical consistency of propositions within the model of W j Here it involves the reader's cumulative knowledge of the (fictional) logical subjects concerned and their inferred {or assumed) potential for action. '

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153

i;4

Pattcm iiitd l 'occss

Now that 1 have illustrated the basic kinds af pi-ocesses involved in compre-

hending the selected passage, 1 shall return to my earlier topic of justifying breaking it down into successive occasions (for the reader). The next two sentences present no difficulty The description of NTs reaction to S s concluded explanation clearly represents a single information unit', which attributes the '

reaction of surprise to N within Wr And S1s following statement is merely an elaboration or reformulation of his preceding utterance (focussing on the bikes rather than the people}, and represents again a single information unit. Its main

justitication appears to be the opportunity it allows the author tor adding a pun 1

on hajf ind pan '

1

in Mil- fonn ul piinir.anicau word 'half-paftaldng1, The remark that follows on the part of Joe (N's soul) is interesting as regards the wo rids-within-wo rids structure ot O Brien's narrative universe, but let us restrict ourselves to considering whether it represents a unitary informa.

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tion unit for the reader.1 &3 Since the fact that Joe uttered it is an essential new

part of the whole remark (broken into two sentences), it would be natural to

regard it as a single unit - something like Joe said X.\ where 'X' is his com'

ment on the present situation being experienced by N. ] prefci; howcvei; to analyze it as two (corresponding to the two sentences) since the function of the first is different from the second. It sets up the sub-world of NTs dialogue with

joe (let us call it W|) and provides some content for it> whereas the seconc. builds on this and introduces information that is partially independent of the content of the first, loe s mention of no apparent limit could be taken a referring to S s exaggerated repetition (from surprised to 'flabbergasted1), but is just as likely to refer in general to the lack of limit to 'what can happen1 in W The second sentence is harmonioLts with this reading - it shares as 'given1 the '

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reference to W overt in the second sentence but 'understood' in the first {'in Jh 1

this place ) All that needs to be 'stored1 of its contents by the reader - if anything - is a potential (objectified) prehension of the attribution of a wonderland quality to (this he or she will no doubt already have made!) plus the association of this sentiment to Joe1 within the model. Exactly the same reasoning can be applied to the following paragraph consisting of two sentences that represent NTs inner reply to Joe s remark (T would not mind... ) The first sentence (and information unit) sets up a frame with the words T said reminding us that he is engaged in dialogue with loe as if he were an independent, external being, and gives the frame some content. It meshes with Joe's preceding remark by setting up in contrast to lthis place1 .

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some other place/situation (working on a steamer) that he would quite like to be in, but it requires a further inference to establish the exact nature oMts

EJnd crstand in g wri rtcn icxts

relevance. The second Ls in Fact the esiential new information that can be

interred from the tirst sentence! namely that N would rather be in some other place. Depending 011 whether the reader makes the inference unaided during the first occasion or not. the consequences for his update of the model after the

second will difter (hlling the awaiting

'

response1 slot with N s intended mean-

'

ing> or just confirming that meaning), In the long descriptive passage that follows we have no speech act chaining at all, no dialogue, to help break up information units. We do, however, have '

the author s

punctuation and the specific linking of clauses as either coordinate

or subordinate. The function of such signals arc precisely to manipulate information units {i.e. help the reader Lu understand the text). A written sentence does not automatically correspond to one such unit, but this is very often the case (as discussed in 6,1 above)- Again the criterion of the unitary purpose each unit serves in terms of updating the model can he applied. Thus it can be claimed that the paragraph's eight sentences correspond to exactly

eight - or perhaps nine - information units. They are marked off as a unitary paragraph, as a higher unit of coherence that describes a unitary situation [sharing physical setting and time reference, expressed in the past tense) and

stands in contrast to the preceding commented dialogue, it is to be added to the model as a wholen charactemingthe highlighted part ofWj at that point One can abstract the essential information conveyed from each successive unit thus: the first sentence describes an action on NTs part (a new predicate is

applied to a given subject), which sets up an expectation in the reader of seeing through N s eyes some details of the surroundings. The second sentence fills in some of this detail (certain kinds of hogs). The third sentence introduces some

people in the distance and describes impressionistically what they appear to be doing. The fourth describes the sounds emanating from the now given people. The fifth {beginning 'nearer, a house...1) introduces a house surrounded by trees and chickens. The next sentence adds that the house {now given) was

silent but that people were within it, as signalled by the smoke from the chimney. This is a point where an analysis into two successive information units within one sentence is possible. The conjunction but1 clearly links two con'

trasting hut closely linked units of information, and though the first could in

theory stand alone the second only makes sense by following close upon it.-114 However, notice the words 'in itself - this phrase within the first half forestalls the following contrasting half, so it would alter ali have been odd not to have it followed by qualifying information of the kind the latter provides. The cohesion here is particularly strong and the interlocking new information is distributed

155

Piatteni iind IVokss

across both halvesh so one would be justified in analysing it as a single unit after jll: thi; IleM hLijfj [luieEUirelv indfjvndent of the second.

The nojet sentence of the paragraph dearly introdticei a unilied in formal ion unit concerning die road S and N are walking along, and the last one, although

rather longH likewise provides a single unit of internally-stmctiiTed new information to the mod eh namely a description of the sky with clouds floating in it, This summary has of course abstracted from many of the most interesting and enjoyable stylistic details provided by the words, but this is the point of abstraction. What doesn t immediately affect the updating of the model can be savoured on line hut may perish imstored. That is not to say that some readers will or can not store such detail - I am merely abstracting the mimmal information that needs to be kept track of for understanding the reference '

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siluaiion and the broad causal flow of the narrative.

At the point where the text cuts off the model will have been updated in

such a way that the three purported tacts> F]H FT and t\ have become reconciled; '

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the first two, respectively about Michael Gilhaney s being half bicycle1, and the Sergeant's having found the latter's missing bike easily have been integrated into W thanks to i , namely the explanation that the Sergeant stole the hike himself in order to retard MCTs rapid descent into bicycle hood. The dialogue about atomic theory (T2) - and indeed the whole of Wk (the world of the hypothetical blacksmith) - can he forgotten, its purpose as regards the forwarding of the plot having been exhausted {though the reader is likely to remember it anyway for its delightful zaniness[). It has been satisfactorily reconciled with Tp the original topic about the stolen bike. Ns question about how the bike was found so easilyH has now been answered, and Q , S s ,

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question about N s awareness of what happens to the atoms of a beaten bar (answered by himself), has long been absorbed into the elaborate answer of Qr so it is no longer relevant and likewise can readily be forgotten.

We are now ready to return to my earlier question as to how to define an information unit on the basis of unitary1 new content. Let us take the final

sentence in the large descriptive paragraph (The whole overhead../). What is '

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new in this sentence is the series of predicates ascribed to this given part of the model (the sky), and the introduction of a new sub-part of it, namely a group of clouds, but are these predicates { serene ineffable1, etc.) and the introduction of the clouds all part of a unitary "new* element, or are there in fact several? '

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What is 'new' seems to be distributed in a rather complex way throughout the sentence ll seems to me that much of the problem in dividing such a sentence up into a new part and \\ given part' (as one is tempted to do within the '

1

Und erstand in g wri rrcn (cxts

[Viluc S i K)! lUkI ] iallidayan fLUKiionLd Lippr id ;1 is luollIcJ 1>y oskiny whcthei1 the new in format ion - however distributed - corresponds to a unitary Whiteheadian decision' to update the accreting 'mental model'' in a determinate manner. The answer to my question in relation to this particular sentence, for example, miiit he ycst for this is a single information unit in so far as it highlights a particular part of the model (the sky in the scene being described) and initiates a single (though complex) procedure to be carried out upon it, namely the addition of a certain bundle of descriptive features.115 The syntax of the sentence as a whole helps underline the procedural integrity of the unit. Simple sentences or clauses - parallel roughly to propositions - may be well suited to descriptions ot settings and events precisely because they mirror percepts and actions iconically. The extension of descriptive narrative in the hands of skilled writers to encompass structures far more complex than simple '

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senleEices is another matter.

There is still one loose end: what of sentences whose content is entirely given [albeit with elements giver so far back that reactivation may be necessary)? Do these not break the one new item per unit constraint and, in procedural terms, suggest concrescences where nothing is changed on the ongoing model? R-om the Whiteheadian perspective argued for above, the '

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minimal procedure initiated by a single occasion in the reading of text must be '

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the simple registering of a conform a I mesh between a text sentence and the on-going model - also this is a determinate procedure requiring specific kinds of prehensions, although it does not result in any change on the model.

6

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& Ref ei eutlai co h esion and figurative la n g uage

We can further use the descriptive paragraph beginning 'I looked carefully "

around me

in the O brien passage to grasp the nature of some of our on-line prehensions of the finer details of texts a little better. Let us concentrate on referential coherence and the comprehension of figurative language. Hrst, a general point, however: notice how the narrator s previous words to himself l would like to be far away from here., , are echoed in the third sentence of the paragraph: the Tar away he is drawn towards is merely the enclosing periphery of the here-and-now world (W ) that he wishes to escape. Both irony and crossworld textual cohesion - heightening our own awareness of the higher' worlds in which W is embedded - is served by this device. j '

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15S

Pattern And Pratesa

In the second Aentenc

obsei ve the definite article in 'the road1: the reader

is being instructed to find the most prominent token of the concept 'road1 within W;. As is usiutl with sudi singular definite referring phrases, there is only one obvious candidate, here the road the protagonists are walking on. The indefinite referring expression further into the same sentence ('rectangular boxes.. /) requires more work - inference of the pragmatic kind - to underitand. To grasp that the reference is to the holes where blocks of peat have 1

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been removed requires integration of the preceding setting (the surrounding bogs) with the entire descriptive expression. The reader must find a match with his/her own knowledge of bogs and the activities likely to be associated with

them in Ireland. Once this amusing little exercise is carried out (and its recognition integrated into the ongoing concrescence) it can be assumed to be of no great importance any longer and dropped. Note that the distribiuive expression each finds its natural interpretation here as referring to the boxes individually '

1

[and not to the bogs) by a prehension of, on the one band, its nearest possible antecedent phrase (a process associated with such a word) and, on the other, of the greatei likelihood ol unken bo\-Jiapes having a TlIIljuV gathered liquid '

than an entire expanse of bog. This represents a more or less simultaneous integration of grammatical form and semantic interpretation with background information (something a Whiteheadian concrescence can easily handle). In fact, in the next sentence the sods removed from these holes are actuallymentioned (in an indefinite NP, since they are themselves new items here) and the exact complementary fit between the two can be preh ended by the reader in his or her continual attempt to mesh new data with the old. This allows th

sensible strategy of minimal effort to apply to updating the model. Once mentioned, the sods can be referred to a little further into the sentence by '

anaphoric pronoun them' - they are the nearest candidate antecedent (a plural NP) of compatible semantic content, given the context [people building

them up into piles)-i5& It could not thus refer to 'spades', for example> the i in mediately preceding NrR although the syntax alone does not preclude such a reading. This reading would not mesh smoothly with what the reader knows

for can imagine) of the activity of sod-cutting. The referent of 'them1 in the following sentence ('sounds came from thein... } is still more ambiguous syntactically. The correct assignment of them to the antecedent, 'the people' (now several phrases back), must be achieved by the reader (with minimal effort ) by purely semantic compatibility: only people, amongst the referents of the recently named referring expressions, could produce sounds. This is confirmed a moment later when the sounds 1

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become specified as hughtej- and song. We might say that the prehension of them1 in this sentence results in an initial, strongly Favoured or weighted hypothesis as to the referent, one thut could have been cancelled before the end '

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of the concrescence but was in fad confirmed rather. In the case of all of them

in the next sentence the antecedent could again syntactically have included both the three trees1 and the '

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coterie ot fowls* {as well as either of these finite

collectives), but the first possibility is immediately squashed by the words picking and rooting f...), which are only semantically compatible with the second NR Ascertaining this involves matching the concepts of picking and '

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rootingn etc,n against those for trees and chickens [the prototype of fowls') respectively; only the latter would produce a positive prehension of meshing. Once a deli] nte 4 ho use ha*; been set up in the model as the main part of the objectifi cation of this last sentence {introduced as new by an indefinite NP}, the sub-topic the chimney can be introduced in the following one by a definite NPh since the prototypical house (at least in the Irish countryside) has at least '

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one {and usually just one) chimneyJ

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Note also that the adverb 'within1 in the '

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same sentence can only be understood as within the (particular) house - the comprehending reader will continue to treat this sub-part of the ongoing model set up at the beginning of the sentence { the house ) as in some sense the 'topic' of the sentence. Also the whole overhead and lthe sky5 in the iinal sentence refer to sub-topics but this time not of'house' but of the still wider setting being described by the narrator, in other words the scene he sees when 'looking carefully round {cf. the first sentence of the paragraph). We expect this outdoor scene to include the sky above fin fact it was named already, not as independent topic but in a locative phrase, in the third sentence). What the use of the definite NPs does here is to minimize processing effort for the reader. He/she need do nothing besides registering the match between these phrases and the part of the model being concentrated on (unlike the case with indefinite phrases, which require an updating of the model). Having seen some of the means of marking textual cohesion at play here in terms of prehensions of matches (at both 'global and more local levels}, let us now look at a few examples of figurative language in the same paragraph. Whereas the former tends to compact and minimize the information expressed by the words of the text, the latter expands the readers experience beyond the literal meaning of the words. Much of the enjoyment of the book is gleaned at this level. As with the sudden incongruities and colourful, off-beat expressions of the dialogue passages, it is the contrast with expectations [kept within the limits of overall cohesiveness) that is the major source of this enjoyment.'1 1

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ifio

Part cm Time present and time pusl '

Ar-L1 l>olh pcrhtip;; prustrnL in limt.' I LLUirc:, And tiirn: JuIll] c tonlLiinird in UinL' pLi l. [f jll iime is elemnlly proenl AH lime is unredeemable.

WIkiI inighL hiiVL" bi n \s an ab trjctitni kcmjinin li pLTpunn] pi> !iibiLUy Only in li world oftipeculation.

Whit might have buen and whai has been PriinL lt> one i:ndh whi-Lh ]s jbvayi present. Footfalls etho in iht memory Down the passLi c whith we did nol lake Tuwards the door we never opened

Into ihc niae-garden. My wurds eeho Thus, in ytiur mind.

This is not the place for a detailed analysis of the structure and content of hliot's masterpieee - others have attempted that with greater or lesser success. All that I am comjerned with here is the question of what is 'determinate' from the experiencing reader s viewpoint and what isn t Obviously the pattern of words is itself completely determinate (the phonological structure of stressed and unstressed syllables in carefully balanced graphic lines), although the structure is stylistically very flexible and close in fact to certain registers of the spoken '

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language. The 'meaning however, consists in large part of a host of associations and resonances rather than representing a coherent propositionally structured whole: there is no single (for instance allegorical) meaning. The individual

sentences do have their own partially determinate meanings (limited by a certain deliberate referential vagueness) and one can follow the development of '

certain rational '

chains of thought, but much of the overall meaning can only be grasped in the context of the entire poem. This is particularly so as regards

the variation and development of certain recurring images and ideas.1(11 One can point out certain overriding themes relating to general human experience, e.g. the nature of memory and conscioitsncss, and one senses the contours of a particular place lk>eations in usage process ) towards 1

integration with the abstract system ('pattern1 K Moreover, it can be divided into phases of re ana lysis and extension, the former presupposing processes fon the '

part of speaker/hearers) of abduction or intuitive judgment1 - recall that the

latter ciucially involves context, the nexus in which the logical subject is embedded. At the initial stage of any eon ere sec nee, elements in the initial data irrelevant for the 'subjective ainV at hand (here read 'grammatical attractor) are

eliminated, At the later, more abstract phase it is maximal distinctiveness vh-ti1-7*

other

adjacent items and categories of the grammar system that it is essential to uphold (there is rapid loss of the morpheme concerned once that function disappears), The analogue of personal 'prehensions' can be seen in the way in which morphemes are subject to change according to their association with particularly frequent situation types (accessed via implications and inferences on the part of individual speaker/hearers), hvidently such quasi-teleological drift is only possible in a pieeeEnejl fashion within a multidimensional system ,

that has to operate through a linearized channel - the whole grammar is far too complex and multi-face ted to be channelled all at once. However, one should not push this claim of teleology too far: the drift concerned may only be

goal-orientated in an indirect wayH by reflecting the general communicative pressures brought to bear on individual acts of communication that cumulatively nudge diachronic development in certain universal directions. This is

precisely the view of Bybee et al. {1994:297fif,), who see the underlying mecha-

nisms as metaphor, generalization, harmony and absorption of context. Related to grammaticalization [or a subsequent itage of 'degrammaticaliat ion

'

) is lexical Nation, as in the combination of'child1 plus 'hood1 (originally meaning kind, quality1) to produce modern Lnglish 'childhood1 and in German '

i&8

Part cm iind Process

henre 'today1 from OHG Itin plus tagu. Here too one can enviijge a historka concrescence towards maximal unity and contraative apecihcity fuelled by the need to refer for example to a qualitative eternal objeet ingressiint in the nexus of all daildivn : This is accessible by individual p roe esses of coneeptual reversion and transmutation followed by socially reproduced symbolic transfei ral (of "

'

the lexical combination to the eternal object), in the usual Whitebeadian manner. The

4

new

'

lexical item will in turn stand in contrast to other related

items and draw its own contextual associations into further elaboration of its

meaning. The relationship between lexicalization and grammaticalization is one of

'

feeding1 from the latter to the former -- Le, as data inherited by new

historicai concrescences from ones that have reached their maximal 'satisfac-

tion in grammaticalization [and must perish, one way or another). The results

of relatively rapid lexicalization - essentially a matter of word-formation (not inflection, which generally goes on to zero, perhaps via paradigmatic reanalysis first) - go T>ack' to join the broader pool of lexicon and syn tag malic construc-

tions from which gradual grammaticalization processes proceed. The net result is maintenance of an approximate homeostasis between input and output to these processes. Hut what are the meanings that typically are subject to grammatical Nation proper? Obviously the meanings that do wind up as grammatical categories in the world s languages. That these should include tense and modality, for example, is what the Whitebeadian perspective predicts: as I have already '

mentioned in Chapter 5, these categories are quite central within the fundamental Whitebeadian scheme of higher prehension types and the contrasts they grasp. A deeper analysis would doubtless be able to show that all the meanings that tend to get grammaticalized in languages around the world correspond to a small kernel of such processes anchored in perceptual and motor experience. These processes represent the core of human teleology, so it is not surprising that it is precisely in this areo thai ihe most teleologicar aspect of language l

change is manifest -they represent some of the major

at tractors1

l

guiding such

cbange, Of course they are not the only attractors for change - the general tendency to maintain form-meaning parallelism, eliminating allomorphy and irregularity, is another well-known one affecting both language change and

language acquisition. Grammaticalization processes are natural pathways of concrescence involving whole languages - the categories concerned can at all events easily become incorporated into a grammar in terms of simple {e.g.

binary) choices of maximal generality. Further aspects of grammaticalization of interest here are its link to

'

metonymy and aubjectiticatian as discussed in Traugott (faithcoming). Although she recognizes both metaphorical and metonymical processes behind grammatic ali nation, unlike a n umber of others working in this field she stresses metonymy as the major factor at work. Slit1 means by this especially the absorp-

tion of contextual implications into more basic meanings of words (eventually even replacing themh which results in the continual differentiation of new contextual variants (e.g. constructions involving the words concerned in

particular contexts).IS1 This emphasis on the role of context in teleological "

processes has a very Whiteheadian ring to it, Sublectiiication1 refers to the drift towards more subject-orientated meaning, e.g- epistemic as opposed to root modality - a drift that is in evidence oven in a language like West Cireenlandic

with no complete grammaticalization chains discernible. This is again parallel with the teleological straining of a Whiteheadian concrescence towards its own maximal self-integral ion and satisfaction {i.e. state of dynamic balance). One could further add that whereas gram mat icalization starts with discourse-specific collocations (i.e in process ) it leads - via increasing abstract ion H as in the individual personal1 level concrescence - towards maximally contrastive integration in the grammatical system (i.e. in the 'pattern of the language). Nowgrammaticalization is just one aspect of semantic change, one particu'

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1

larly conducive to generalizations because of its 'one-wayh trajectories and openness to causal explanations in terms of metonymy, metaphor, and contextual inferences, etc. When we turn to the wider arena of semantic change things

seem for less orderly. This is due to the protean nature of word meaning and the multiple paths of development it can followt pulled constantly towards one neighbouring conceptual attr actor or another and a fleeted by one kind of '

1

diagrammic 'analogy1 or another when it is not 'channelled1 by grammaticalization towards more orderly ( closed class or paradigmatic) patterning.11'" Meanings can expand centrifugaily, contract centripetally, or make sudden 'sideways leaps' by metaphor or metonyniyH in tact these processes may combine simultaneously in such a way that the centre itself shifts and/or a loosely linked array of meimings related by family resemblance results, often with wider or narrower meanings persisting for a time alongside newer, shifted ones. Not only the denotation a I scope of a word s meaning may change, but also the extent of its fine-grained internal sense relations and implications - the composite process could be called conceptual elaboration reflecting as it does the extraction of fur the]- potential patterning from eternal objects (by conceptual reversion ) as the perspective upon them shifts on the part of evolving communities of speakers. Of course meanings arc also highly sensitive to changes in the .

1

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1

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,

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1

Pattern iin so the net effect is hard to foresee in detail Amongst large-scale drifts are those between

morphological types The concept of drift can be used to explain how unrelated languagesj far removed one from the other, may nevertheless share a common submerged -

form-feeling1 (Sapir 192I; H4). Sapir hints at the type of teleology he has in mind here when he talks of compensation1 and '

'

balance1 (e.g. (ixed word ol der

making up for loss of inflections). The well-known eases of parallel but independent drift1 within different languages of the same family - such as ( rassmanns law restricting successive syllables containing aspirated consonants '

independently in Sanskrit and Greek - as well as the whole phenomenon of grammaticalization are instances inierp ret able as obscure teleological manifestations. However, they are also analyaable in terms of impersonal attractors "

'

capturing parallel causal pathways from similar initial conditions. Ultimately such phenomena need to be explained in terms both of common functional factors and of the architecture of the mind/braim in so far as they do not just

reflect the chance results of random change. 1 shall return in the following section to the question as to whether it makes any sense to consider language in this sense [or in the sense of'populations of speakers) as subject to Darwinistic evolution - and to whether a language in its aspect pa rale (populations of '

utterances?) can really be separated from language as Vnn ucf [eternal object). 3 1

l:or the moment just bear in mind that eternal objects do not evolvet nor do

io

106

Part cm and Process

they hiivc purposes, they merely find ingrcssion in sueh times and places and combinations as actuality [nexus of occasions in the actual world) allows. Let me return to the question t>f typology and whether there can still be tenuous causal links between language type and the intentions of a user of that language, given the somewhat negative answer suggested above as regards the teleology of language change as a whole. 1 shall follow up the idea that common typological configurations may act as hidden attractor wells {e.g. SOV order and all that usually - Le, statistically - entails). In so far as such features hang together by universal implications that do not just reflect chance spreads due to founding effects or areal expansions, there must surely be processing and/or functional reasons fas reflected by 'performance frequency1) behind their common associariom as Hawkins claims, e.g. ease of production or maximalization of communicative clarity (cf. Hawkins 19 3 and 1994 on head-first/last and early immediate constituent placement principles for example). This need not be interpreted, however, as implying that the conscious purposes of individual speakers have actually shaped the typology of the languages concerned: constraints on how languages can change without overstepping the design limits of speakers1 mind/brains can also be seen as eternal objects, as can the'rules of grammar, "['hey are potential forms of accommodation immanent in the way speakers' mind/brains are actually organized - including their 1

internali ation of external social norms,

There is, in fact, nothing in the eternal object1 approach that goes counter to the view of languages as self-regulating, aemi-chaotic systems, only partly

pie die table as to direction of change (e.g. as regards tendencies towards iconicity and 'one-way1 paths of gram ma Realization - natural bifurcations' of such systems).That is, if the patternings of language are understood as being merely manifest in systems of this sort. Reorganization of complex systems

under constantly changing environmental and internal pressures is inevitable at certain points according to Chaos Theory {although relatively stable equilibrium may be maintained for a while). Once the pressure of flow continues beyond a certain point the system seeks a new bifurcation and more efficient equilibria urn, and this is, in a sense, a kind of teleology, albeit one that acts blindly1 (but not in the Neo-Grammarians sense of * blind necessity'). As typolo gists would rather say, change follows the easiest way forward as defined by implicational universals. The systems {or language s) overall complexity may remain roughlyconstant, just becoming redistributed somewhat differently among sub-sys'

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1

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1

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tems.'9' In the process, initial conditions are lost - the future is unpredictable but there is no going back. All of this can he described in terms of eternal objects,

they have purposes they jnerely lind ijigression i:i such times and places and combinations diaotiuility f nexus of occasions in the actual world) allows. Let me return to the question of typology and whether there can still be

tenuous causal links between language type and the intentions of a user of that language, given the iomewhat negative answer suggested above as regards the teleology of language change as a whole, 1 shall follow up the idea that common typological configurations may act as hidden attractor wells {e.g. SOV order and all that usually - i.e. statistically - entails). In so far as such features hang together by universal implications that do not just reflect chance spreads due to

founding effects or areal expansions, there must surely be processing and/or functional reasons (as reflected by 'performance frequency') behind their common association h as Hawkins claimsj e.g. ease of production or maximalization of communicative clarity fcf Hawkins 1983 and 1994 on head-first/last and early immediate constituent placement principles for example). This need not be interpreted, howevcij as implying that the conscious purposes of

individual speakers have actually shaped the typology of the languages concerned: constraints on how languages can change without overstepping the design limits of speakers1 mind/bra ins can also he seen as eternal objects, as can the 'rules

1

of grammar. They are potential forms of accommodation immanent

in the way speakers' mind/brains are actually organized - including their intern a I Nation of external social norms.

There IS) in fact, nothing in the 'eternal object' approach that goes counter to the view of languages as self-regulating, semi-chaotic systems, only partly

predictable as to direction of change (e.g. as regards tendencies towards iconicity and 'one-way1 paths nf grammatical Nation - natural 'bifurcations" of

such systems), That is, if the pat tern ings of language are understood as being merely manifest in systems of this sort. Reorganisation of complex systems under constantly changing environmental and internal pressures is inevitable at certain points according to Chaos Theory {although relatively stable equilibrium '

'

may be maintained for a while). Once the pressure of flow continues beyond a 1

certain point the system seeks a new bifurcation and more efficient equilibrium, and this is, in a sense, a kind of teleology albeit one that acts blindly' (but not in the Neo-Grammarians sense of'blind necessity')- As typologists woulc rather say, change follows the easiest way forward as defined by implicational univeisals. The systems {or language s} overall complexity may remain roughly constant, just becoming redistributed somewhat differently among sub-sys"

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tems.197 In the process, initial conditions are lost - the future k unpredictable but the re is no going back, All of this can be described in terms of eternal objects>

it a turn I po ten tiaii ties whose speeitic ordered ingress ion is eonst rained by

the

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1

way things ai e in the world at the moment, independently of the uses to which individual speiikei apply their knowledge of the language system. The main point here is this: different societal levels of nexus display

different degrees - or rather kinds - of teleology. Mostly it is iinconstiou and merely lawful', as when the firing of neural aggregates falls into well-worn '

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attr

tor wells

*

or when planetary systems follow the same cycles over vast stretches of timej undergoing only the slowest of changes. Thus von Wright allows for qiutsi-teleologicar and quasi-causaT explanations besides purely causal/nomic and teleological/intentional ones (von Wright 197i:84ff.), the '

'

former typically applying at the biological level (e.g. the involuntary feedback conditions whereby accelerated breathing accompanying exertion serves to maintain the chemical equilibrium of the blood), the latter typically on the level of social history (e.g. the non-nomk chain of events leading from the shots at Sarajevo to World War die). Personal nexus of embodied minds are presumably the one level of societal organization where conscious teleology dominates. This implies the possibility of applying the lessons of the past and projecting

novel solutions of functional goals into future activity. The consciousness emerges from the (type of) societal complexity, the LtnamsciuLts teleology (or rive } of lower levels of organisation being inherited by higher level nexus, which organize it in a new way, with emergent properties, as data in their own successive concrescences. Could one not say, then, that language systems as eternal objects display their own teleology by proxy, as it were? Recall from 1

1

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72 .

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1 how a complex process of conceptual elaboration' seems to work itself out

in long-term semantic changes, selectively highlighting potential contrasts of

contrasts in the service of specific needs and goals of speech communities, Perhaps it is only in so far as the functional needs of individuals passing on and

receiving language from one gene ratio]! to the next do affect in some way the direction a language system changes through time that we can retain the notion

of teleology at that level, but before adopting a tinal position on this matter we need to look more closely at the relationship between language and society on

the one hand and language and evolution on the other,

8

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1 Langu age as s oci al o bj ec t

Language - for the functionalist at least - is a social phenomenon. It is not

just a matter of individuals with grammars and intentions, but an essentially

zoS

PaCCem and I'rcicess

cultuml matter involving conventions of a symbolic sort thjt introduce and maintain meaning and facts that simply are not there without such public validation. l:or Whitcheud culture is a ci of lIlthliI objects {of which language is a crucial elemem) distinct Wom - 1 hough of course not fulIy detachable from the actual occasions partaking of it. It does not completely determine the actions of individuals in the community, and depends upon them for its ingress ion in the world (the relationship is one of mutual dependence, if you will). Every individual within the community has a slightly different perspoctive 1

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on the relevant eternal objectsh and this will affect his or her actionsh introduc-

ing the possibility of freedom and novelty at every step. As regards the part of culture we call language, this is reflected in the individual variation that sociolinguists are concerned with. Any one speaker has access to various

linguistic personae [induding choice of registers, jargons, etc.), and can produce his or her own unique blends of the means available to (ill their communicative goalsn1 Siich variation may be 'centripetal1 or 'centrifugal1 vis-a-vis one standard or another (these act as complex attractors ) It may also he 'exploited' v

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diachronically. becoming integrated into the grammatical system of the language - this is of course not the language as sLtch deciding anything but of

tacit agreement among its speakers that distinctions once purely indexical should henceforth bear a fixed symbolic value. But how are such agreements madeT Huw can communities of speakers rather than individuals make Agreements in the first place? Searle {1995} has much to say on this subject under the heading of'collective intentions, i.e. cooperation in the production of meaning (Searle 199 5:23 ft ) '

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This cannot be reduced to individual intentionality. 9 The capacity for collective behaviour is almost certainly biologically innate, bor Searle language (oi; rather, symbolism in general - something conventionally standing for something elsej is the source of all institutional facts. It is the original institutional fact itself (a sub-type of social fact), and unlike pre-linguistic behaviour it is aelf-identifyingly and unambiguously symbolic in nature, for this reason tr has a special status-assigning function essential for the creation of institutional/ cultural objects and facts: it is constitutive of them (they only exist within a system of constitutive - as opposed to merely regulatory- rules). Symbolism must enter the picture when some phenomenon gets special (conventional) 1

status of the form X counts as Y1. We cannot talk or even think about institu-

tional facts without language. Now for Searle functions are always observer-related {especially 'agentive' ones involving individual intentionality) "11 So it is problematical to speak of

i-Lmguage

as (irganLftm or eternal object iog

language change (including grammaticalization) a,s being fnnLTional apart from the purposes of its users. Neveriht s. collective iniemianaliiy can produce

agentive ilinctions (op.citJ:39X for they may be taken up by individuals for their own communicative purposes. Social objects such as languages arc the result of social acts and continue to exist only as potential for further acts (op.cit: 36) in other wordsh they are a species of Whiteheadian eternal object Knowledge that is 'public and yc: requires the individual mind to become manifest (e.g. In speech or written texts}, is precisely what eternal objects [at least those of the subjective variety) are all about. They are not only in themselves unchanging, they aie re pea table in a way that actual occasions are not. That is what renders 1

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them communicable.

Keller (1990) also stresses that'function' for a group is not necessarily the same as function1 for the individuals making up the group. For him language '

changers a social phenomenon, comprises a blend of final and efficient causes and can never be fully predtaable: social rules and conventions (including linguistic ones) fall somewhere between individual intentions {short term} anc. instincts {long-term)> being less risky than the former and less rigid than the latter. Language is neither natural phenomenon nor artifact - it is the result of intentional action but not directly intended per se and is subject to its own invisible hand' kind of evolutionary development, For Popper language belongs to a 'third vodd of cultural artifacts (albeit as '

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"

an unconsciously evolved tier of that world h along with, for example! myths) '

this he opposes to the 1firsf world of objects and the 'second of subjective experience. But the existence of such objects depends on being borne by physical World V objects {e.g. books), whose meaning they represent. They are potential in these widely distributed containers and depend on World 2 experience by human individuals for their interpretation. They are real anc. relatively autonomous - like Platonic ideas, but unlike the latter each has a history behind it. They thus (like Kellers 'phenomena of the third kind') form '

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a sub-type of eternal object these too being dependent on the World I objects '

1

or occasions

that bear them. They may be integrated into the internal world of the individual experience! (via Whiteheadian prehensions1), but (unlike Chomsky s hypothetical I-gram mar) may not emerge from that world - or its World 1 underpinnings - without the causal involvement of World 3: the full circle of interdependence of the worlds must be closed. Language, as Popper puts it, is a tool belonging to World 3 for changing World 1 by way of World 2 (Popper 1972:117f.).

zlo

Pattern and Pmccss

Let us consider now how communication between two nexus of actual '

'

occasions is possible at all in tho Whit eh cadi an world of socially transcendent monads. For White he ad communication presupposes that interlocutors have partially shared immediate pastsn including their perspectives on a common language (it also presupposes the ability to intuit or empathize with the intentions of others and to project their con seq nonces into the future). This rellects the counterbalancing social immanence of actual occasions which is anchored in their overlapping causal pasts (at their physical poles) and their shared perspectives on eternal objects (at their mental poles). Because of the social transcendence of the individual occasion the conceptual intentions of other occasions can only be grasped through hybrid prehensions of their symbolic 1

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productions, furthermore, the communication of rcicfence to the same institutional objects/facts can only be mediated by symbolsh of which language is the most elaborately developed and flexible system. As we saw in when considering the prehension of linguistically relevant categories, the ability to recognize the same eternal object is not an either/or matter of recognition of correspondence but only an approximate fit1 (as long as its Yeel1 to the subject is sufficiently distinct from all others to trigger its recognition)h hence the prototype effects displayed by words and other linguistic categories. Illis is true '

1

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not only of a single speaker recognizing the same word or regular linguistic pattern on separate occasions, but also of the recognition of the same word or regularity on the part of two different speakers. All that is necessary for mutual

comprehension is that the sameN rep eatable symbolic conventions are recognized as pertaining. The sameness is in fact reconfirmed every time a communication is exchanged that results in a meaning that is compatible with the overall situation.

One interesting theoretical question remains to touch upon here: the (indirect) relationship between genetic populations (of societies of actual

occasions bearing the language), languages as siichh and the cultural environment of their speakers- hor Whitehead the ultimate elements of reality are actual occasions organized into nexus at various societal levels of increasing complexity. If one takes the community of actual contemporary speakers ot a particular language in unison of becoming1 as the 'evolving' nexus concerned it should be reasonably clear that the relationship in which the language (and '

the general cultural environment which includes that language) stands to it is that of an eternal object to a nexus in which it is ingressant It is moreover a '

1

social fact with no existence outside of the communitv of actual occasions

bearing it. Recall Searle's argument concerning institutional facts and their

Lm uagc as organism or eternal object

dependence on language:, as discussed above. There is ro reason why a given historical nexus of actual occasions {i.e. a conmutnity of speakers of a given language) should stand in a permanent determinate relationship also to eternal objects of a cultural nature {which may of course change in time or vary from sulvcommunity to sub-community). Noi; crucially, is there any reason why the

physical bodies of in dividual speakers of that language* each with their own {in principle) determinate genetic history, should have anything specific in common. In other words, the speed at which languages change may vary, and Lhis may wl1!! uui he m lep wiih changes in the genelic niLike-up of the population speaking them or with the culture borne by them, [n reality there does indeed tend to be a rough overlap between these things of course, but this merely reflects the fact that languages are passed on from generation to generation within communities sharing some degree of overlapping past history,

although the edges of communities are always frayed, new inputs always undermining their homogeneity. In fact, there is hardly ever a one-to-one match between the linguistic, genetic and cultural basses of populations.

S h3 Th e evoJ u ti on o f la n g uage We are now ready to return to evolution itself The question of how like classical Darwinian evolution language change is (if it is like it at all} is still far from resolved, though supporters of a strong resemblance would seem to be on the retreat. As we have seen* it is certainly similar in some respects - language can, for instance, be seen in terms of linguistic lineages that endure through generation after generation of transmission with cumulating variation. However, there are grave problems with pinpointing analogies in language to some of ihL: central elenicnts of evnlutionarv iheory In pariicular concerning the selective pressures that might supply the teleological final causes' for change. The least problematical approach may well be to regard both language and evolution as special cases of a broader, more abstract field, that of the dynamics of self-reproducing systems (as suggested by Lass amongst others). '

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'

Now for Whitehead there is reproduction {with the intervention of varia-

tion/novelty) on all levels of actuality, from the most basic quanta of matter to

enduring objects like cells and personal societies organized out of them (e.g. luman speakers) and beyond that to language communities. Only eternal objects do not evolve and reproduce (although their ingression in actuality may appear to do so). Reproduction from occasion to occasion is ensured by the

in

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principle of conformity of subiective t orm (cf, \ .2A), And the evolutionary reproduction of species and linguistic re production - not to mention the neural Darwinism of competing iliougln trains - arc indeed just special eases in this radically quanticized process. But what is the relevant evolving unit at different levels? I'his is still a debated question within classical evolutionary theory - is it solely the genome, or the individual organism bearing the genome, or the species as a whole! This is closely tied up with the twin questions as to the level at which the crucial selectional pressures can be seen to apply and as to the role the environment plays in the overall process, l rom a White he ad ian perspective the answer will depend upon which level of society (which 'population1) it is that one is discussing, All levels have their own characteristic environments and teleology: in the case of neuronsj for instanceh the individual society that the individual neuron represents is aimed at firing' when it can, within an environment of other such cells> and in doing so passing on its own pattern of firing as objectified data for other concrescences, hi the case of the individual organism there are more complex aims of self-nourish1

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ment and self-assertion (also in the sexual arena)1 etc,n within a more fluid

environment of other organisms sharing a broader physical environment. As regards the genome contained in sets of chromosomes, the aim is self-replica-

tion when the conditions are right, namely in the environment of (sexual) mitosis. None of these involve consciousness of goal fas opposed to immediate feeling of purpose}. The principal selection pressures relevant at these three

levels could he said to be, respectively, competition from other neural liring patterns, competition for food and mates, and competition from the genetic material of other genomes. In all cases, however, the pressure is rather indirect '

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and/or delayed, looping through various levels of the environment in the course of self-regulation, so that, for instance, genomes don t themselves compete directly, only their bearers do. as they struggle for food and mates in niches of the broader environment/1

But what of language? Here too it is natural to speak of'populations' in an environment, namely language users in social interaction, but any selection pressures brought to bear on deciding which patterns win out are still more '

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tenuous. Darwin himself spoke of languages being like organic beings1 or species, which never return once extinct (Darwin 1874:106). Schleicher already in the ]#6(Vs spoke of the parallel between language change and evolution and

many other linguists of the time followed himh speaking blithely of Adaptive '

radiation ,

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1

extinction of species and 'competitive struggles1 between languages ,

:

.ill;'

OT;' ;

.. ,

,

ir.i-:n Presentational immediacy is in general phylogenetkally anterior to - and abstracted from - perception via causal efficacy it serves to enhance the prehension of relevant eternal objects. In the case of language this enhanced mode of perception combines with the feeling-laden

mode of causal efticacy in affording symbolic relerence> whereby a limited array of coding choices can refer to an infinite array of relevant experience. It is the iimplificatory, abstracting process of transmutation that affords the evolution of symbolic reference, and transmutation presupposes organised nexus - the pre-linguistic seams1 of nature. Transmuted prehensions, by their very repeti*

tive n ess and utility call out for symboli7ation by words, which can be integrated, into still more complex intellectual prehensions. In internal thought, where

causal efticacy prevails H simple un systematized gesture can attain far greater

co nit ie mileage, unhampered by tronvention, thaii in exteina] amiEnuinoUion because so much context can he taken for granted fas immediately felt) compare McNeills no don of gesture as n on-conventional] mi expression

mentioned in 2.2 and recall Whiteheads characterization of language as systematized expression fku as soon as that context needs to be specified for 1

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the benefit of others social convention*; are required - he. a code of sensori-

motor-based symbols in the mode of presentational immediacy, Gesture on its own does not become systematized just by being externalized; it has to attain

socially sanctioned recognition, which is something the vocal medium is more closely associated with in species related to ours. The two may have co-evolved thereafter until actual pro tolaJigu age emerged.

Progress was from the start along the 'border of chaos1h however, not from one hxed kind of order to another.""

The 'order1 of language integrates various

modalities, including spoken and signed [and now written) forms. In sum, language perpetuation and change displays the abstract patterning of all selfreplicating systems since it is borne - as a superject - by living organisms that

are indeed subject (or have been until recently) to the general teleology of the evolution of species. That is by no means the same as claiming that language itself, as an abstract set of potential activities, evolves in the usual sense. And yet, the actual first appearance of language was indeed something new and emergent in evolutionary terms, namely the novel 'mixture' in the quotation above.

There has been renewed discussion in recent years as to the original selection advantage of language, and - a directly related matter - as to whether full1 language as we know it today developed gradually or suddenly and in one place and time or in several One enthusiastic supporter of the Big Bang1 theory is Bickerton k who has argued repeatedly for the suddenness of the transition from protolanguage (no higher in sophistication than the speech of '

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pre-syntactic children) to full syntactic language (cf. Bickeiton 1990: Ifi4ff-).

2L:

There is, however, considerable difference of opinion aa to when and how esLictiy protolanguage shifted to full-blown language. Hid ith for example, go hand in hand with a transition from pine ostensive gestures to a symbolic. structured sign language system, or between such a system and spoken language, or did the two develop in parallel? Givon (Givon 1999:91 f,), closer to the gradualisl position. suygoU;* IjkiI I be essenlLil diMmLtion beUvecn full language h

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in the 'grammatical mode1 and protolanguage/pidgin in the cpre-grammatical mode

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is the relative automatization of the former and stresses that the adaptively beneficial interplay between this mode and the slow, detailed attended processing of the latter mode is a continuing matter with parallels in other, pre'

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1995:4351?. for A more detailed functional/cognitive account of the stages involved based on the hypothesis of the gestural-visual origin of language}. Of particular interest from a Whiteheadian viewpoint Ls the role inference may have played heren since it seems to replace grammar in the pre-grammatical mode, and indeed to represent its phylogenetic source - one can easily envisage a gradual process of automat icization or ritualization of the advanced forms of prehension used in suspended judgments and other forms of inference. Bicker ton. by contrast, has suggested that a crucial mutation1 fused thematic roles (Agent, etc.) and lexicon (both rooted in protolanguage) with X-bai hierarchical syntax (Bickerton 1990; \ Somehow this is to be correlat'

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ed with the quasi-simultaneous developments in the vocal tracts of early hominids that allowed speech as opposed to gesture in the first place. 1 cannot go further into the details of this controversy here, but observe that Bicker ton has recently proposed that specifically sexual cheating/deceit - both the perpetration and the detection of it - was the key sociological factor in the linguistic arms race' around the lime of the transition to full syntactic language '

(Bickerton 1998)-2IJ One can also approach this same question from an 'inside' viewpoint that of the architecture of the mind/brain itself, as Calvin does with his suggestion that the two-way cortico-cortico link between Wernickes area, where verbT

specifk argument structures (lemmas) may be concentrated, and Broca s areah where recursively embedding syntactic patterns may be found, represents the essential ingredient for full-blown language to have arisen out of pro tola ngu age fCalvin 1996: l%fj. The lateral asymmetry implied can be traced back to earliest Homo sapiens and probably much earlier. The interesting thing from a functionalist point of view is what earlier general functions may have been exaptated in reinforcing this particular cortical connectivity - analogous '

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(non-linguistic) functions residual in these areas (and the functions carried out by the cones ponding non-dominant temporal lobe legions} would appear to have some relevance for the answer. The mind/brain is structured so as to be

responsive only to certain types of input, i.e, to a certain range of variation, as the generativists remind us. 13ut the reason we entertain concepts to which language can refer at all is because the mind/brain is attuned to recognize percepts, i.e. patterns matching object-types [transmuted nexits) that it can recognize as recurring and thus act upon consistently The evolution of abstract thinking (in language} from imagistic thinking as proposed by Lakofif (1990) is compatible with this Whiteheadian perspective.

Language as tirgiinisrti or ecernil ubiect

Surely the selective advantages of language as such ai e reasonably clear {and

have been foi" a loiij; time). As disciissed in 8.2, language is situated within a soda! fi'amework where it functions for communicative purposes (as we]] as frir solitary thmking). It is easy enough to imagine its role in eonneetion with

cooperative hunting and the iike following the shift from a forest to a savannah environment at the dawn of human time, say with the appearance and spread '

ol

Homo erectus, as liickerton proposes for his 'piotolanguage 1'1 The advan-

tage of brains capable of projecting into the future and analysing the past skills if not associated solely with language at least vastly increased by il - is *

also obvious One may argue that full' human language also presupposes the basic design feature of (syntactic) recursivity, whereby the ability to model and manipit!ate the outer world is greatly expanded. However, there is no compelling reason to believe that this had to be 'wired in1 to the individual mind/brain beyond the protolanguage stage - it could lie just socially inherited, full ]anguage having emerged historically again and again from the pro to-stage, just as it still does ontogene tie ally. This is what biekerton himself suggests in lactt

only in connection with proto- rather than full language fop.ck.: I5l )Jt seems perfectly reasonable to me that natural selection should only have played a decisive role up to that stage, i.e. until a level of cerebral development sufti-

cient for conjectural reasoning and the planning of coordinated action was reached. This

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proio language stage, capable of signalling bask pro positional

relationships as well as il locutions, could -probably via gesture - have gone f literally!) hand in hand with the possibility of (metaphorically] indicating past and future and some crude degree of (evidential) modality, just as with pidgins and the language of children at the two-morpheme stage. It would also have hid ode d the ability to organise the world into eftieient labelled categories

(highly differentiated names of 'things* related hierarchicaHy as well as by horizontal' association). Thereafter cultura] learning of more sophisticated syntactic language would be necessary> repeated from generation to generation

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and always facing the possibility of reversion to protolanguage if the social framework were to fall away [ai with so-called feral or Vild1 children). Even

Pinker argues for the language faculty being only partially innate and hardwired, note, pointing out the advantage of tins arrangement in terms of increased flexibility and adaptability ( Pinker ] 994; 242 f.). [f protolanguage may be said to articulate thought (including images and feelings) into manageable concrescence-si ed units compatible with determinate goals within a contextual frame - i.e. propositions - the origin of full language may be traceable not to some physical mutation of the kind Bicker ton

ill

222

Pattern iind Process

suggests, but to the learning by a community of sufiliciently clever or Enotivated

individuals that this powerful innate capability could be used not just for cxprtsiiin and annprch ending single pro positional units fand .stringing them

loosely together). It could also be harnessed to their growing ability to utilize their highly developed forebrains for planning complex (recursive, hierarchically organized) action. The re stilt would have been complex sentences linking several propositions into organized wholes according to repeatable and expand-

able rules to reflect multi-level mental spaces.2'15 It may have taken numerous '

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generations before such smart individuals and communities came to prevail also physically, hut prevail they inevitably did, no doubt after many partial successes and many defeats (and even total reversion to the pro tola nguage stage). The development could nevertheless have been rather fast once the

linking of single propositions into complex syntactic structures (with conditional purpose and other subordinate clause types) became established. allowing logical thought and scheming to take off at post-evolutionary speed. '

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Such a scenario can surely hold its own as an alternative to the popular lHig bang1 theory of the genesis of language. Not only does it propose that die evolutionary transition from protolanguage to lull language could not have taken place suddenly it claims that it never did take place - except as an institutional, cultural fact, which is on a different ontological plane front physical evolution altogether. The fact that the human skull stopped expanding '

with earliest Homo sapiens (perhaps at the stage of protolanguage, which the Neanderthals might well have attained) suggests that developments after that stage were not evolutionary: man s physical vehicle was already prepared for the '

further cultural elaboration of full language. That individuals and small coin muni tics can be shown to have made the leap between protolanguage and full language in a short length of time (like the isolated Kicaraguan signers mentioned by Pinker 1994; 3 (if} is beside the point iftheleapis between innate communicative skills Tprotolanguage ) and the establishment of socially 1

Uviji l-tlU (.h- lkviLl-l: ji uULimjiar tKjrm.s. : I Iil- ciLlw jji ihe case I'inket

discusses was precisely the formation of a community that could agree on and '

share communal norms of natural

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signingJ Cultural/institutional objects do have their own typical form of self-reproduction analogous on certain dimen-

sions to those of classical evolution. Hrom the VVhiteheadian viewpoint full language can still be said to have 'evolved1 from (say) early sign behaviour as something emergent and novel - as long as it is understand that this is more accurately a matter of the relevant institutionalized' eternal objects being able '

1

to attain ingression only after the 'real evolution of the human body and mind/

brain had developed suficiently, guided by specific communicalive ant. cognitive goals. The eternal objects could then manifest themselves in behaviour of a specific kind. [n fact Darwin himself believed - in contrast to the view of linguists like Mas Muller - that language developed out of'germs1 already found in animal behaviour (Darwin 1874: 105). More recently, Gould, attempting to allow greater social input to evolutionary processes than Darwin, has introduced the concept of the spandrel into such discussions (Gould 1979). This is a more or less chance by-product of natural selection processes - like the n on-functional triangular gussets of that name that were there to he filled in one way or the other between the arches functionally supporting the domes of cathedrals, it may prove to have a certain advantage {at least aesthetically!} after the event, as if it were itself functionally ielected for fro an the start. Like Ghoiniky, Gould is '

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sceptical about natural selection being involved in the origin of language. In tact he specifically suggests that language is a kind of spandrel deriving from some 1

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more genera] computing device (this is also Deacons view - cf. Deacon 1997: 137). Notice how this still falls within the ccch

Kigurt 5.

Searle would put \xt the key to collective intentionality and iustitntioua] i cts ira]tending the individual mind/Uuim. Words the principal means of Whiteheadian symbolic reference bur in their very flexibility and contextsensitivity they are also prone to introduce error and deception. Without them

the majority of our concepts would not even be entertailiable - whether to use or to abuse. As types they rehte to (complex) eternal objects i.e. concepts, and are themselves re pea table forms of detiniteness of classes of perceptual tokens that count as that type. What is 'repeatable1 is actually the whole causal chain: token-type-eternal object. More accurately, one should perhaps say that the '

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eternal object is not the end-point of the symbolic reference chain here but merely mediates or shapes (by negative constraint, as it were) the specific shape or

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feel' of experience in the mode of causal efficacy that is the actual meaning

of the word: both the expression and the content of the symbol is defined In terms of (different) eternal objects. For example, when a hearer registers the

isolated word token 'bridge1, what is abstracted out of the raw speech signal is j sei.|uen eof plumcint-s ot ani/ed as a single syllable about ihoshoj t vowel /I/.

This palpably matches the word type of that form associated in memory with a complex concept. The eternal objects defining the phonological form are those

that specify the configuration of phonemes evoked, in turn detined within the phonological system of hnglish by relations between the vocal gestures concerned (themselves re pea table and shareable). The eternal objects defining the meaning of the word, on the other hand, are presumably ingressant in a highly malleable array of token images of bridges (and parts of bridges) actually

234

I'lHtLTll iinO J'],(KL>S

experienced by the hearer and out of which a general schema has to some degree been abstracted. The.se correspond to pimicnbr perceptual and functional feelings1 that are relevant to deciding whether the word 'bridge1 Hts a '

given object or nol?22 If a word refers to an event type, its me in a specific utterance relates the eternal object detining that type to the relevant event itself as its meaning. The token use of the word and its intended meaning together form a species of nexus, note, namely a linguistic act in a con formal context. The principal process whereby word types accrete in memory from tokens (e.g. concrete strings of phonemes in speech) is that of transmutation | he types are 'socially reproduced {and reinforced) by way of tokens and in turn mediate the symbol1

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ic transfer to the conceptual meanings involved. This recognition that both words and the concepts they stand for and also the contexts in which they acquire more determinate meaning and the intentions conventionally associat-

ed with their use (not to mention sped lie grammatical rules and universa., generalisations across grammatical patterns) are all definable in terms of '

combinations of forms of Jefiniteness1 of one sort or the other seems to me to

represent the essence of the special Whiteheadian perspective on language, which allows one to correlate substance fas process) and form (as pattern) on both the content and expression 'planes1 without reducing the one to the other. This may be what Hjelmslev was hinting at with his proposed cmetasemiological' analysis of both substance and form in terms of ultimate ' figurtic fas mentioned under 3.1), although he stopped short of describing substance as

process fa term that he reserved for the syntagmatic dimension of form). Figure 5 can he interpreted as showing how the Veal world" of societies of actual occasions imposes its dynamic organization upon the static templates of grammars (and, incidentally, allowrs us to translate1 them back into dynamic. generative rules). From this perspective one can understand iconic relationships between grammar {pluslexicon) and external 'reality1 as the fpartial) matching of certain eternal objects of the subjective and objective varieties, both of them genera of contrasts (cf. 1.23), in a manner that is in harmony with Whitehead's overall realism. Compare the relationship between the eternal objects of the subjective type defining the meaning of an individual word like 'bridge1, for examplej and those of the objective type that actually define 'bridges1 as spatial objects out there i it is one of internalized, simplified representation fvia transmutation) supplemented by functional associations (further subjective eternal objects) acquired through experience of the socially sanctioned use of the word in the context of such objects. A similar, but more abstract relation'

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l

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> > 1J I LC

EC ciU

LiJ lU

LJ [

LI L

L J L.

IJ

L-:L L I J CIJ L V

ship pertains between syntactic clauses and pmpositional potentials inherent in externaJ states of affairs! We can then say that a language represents a kind of complex eternal object of the subjective kind containing conventional symbolic relationships and also certain relevant types of communicative subjective forms1 {illocutions and/or perlocutions), Though it conforms to the objective muure of its vessel (the structure of the individual mind/hrain) it is essentially an internalized institutional object' derived from physical data (contactualized verbal input) provided by the relevant society- or community- of speakers The 'natural seams' in external spatio-temporal reality with which it roughly '

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correlates reflect eternal objects of the objective kind, defined in terms of form '

and location and further endowed - by transmutation - with qualia (themselves eternal objects of the subjective kind). In this way language can impose relations and qualities and taxonomies on 'outer reality' that are thoroughly dependent on human purposes and experience. Like all eternal objects, a language has a private and a public aspect There are more specific ways in which the 'societal1 organization of a ianguage parallels the Societal structure' of the individual speaker and his/her actual world even if the language itself is a complex eternal object and not a nexus of actual occasions. A socially organized nexus is characterized by (usuallyjust) one'regnant nexus1 and several 'subservient' nexus. The regnant nexus within a living society is the lite line1 of actual occasions which displays original reactions> Le, introduces novelty at their mental poles> and acts as the highest node of'control1 of the concrescences in which the nexus is involved. The hierarchical organization of language reflects the hierarchical organization of the mind/brain of the speaker, the illocution.iry apex of figure 5 thus corresponding to the regnant nexus of the speaker's intentions, to which all choices further down the hierarchy are subservient. Moreover, the regnant nexus of a living society {in particular of a personally ordered society) is not "

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strictly speaking itself a society {see 1.2.2) but depends tor its very existence on

the supporting environment of a socially organized body. It inherits its data from the body sustaining it. So just as the mind is not autonomous from the body, a language is not autonomous from its environment of use, The match between 'things1 and 'events1 and levels of organization in the external world and the things and 'events1 and levels of language is, however; very approximate and the layering of grammar can in any case (as we saw in 3.1) vary in detail of subdivision from language to language, it is approximate for good reasons; tirst because it is socially transmitted (and may thus contain the "

1

residue of historical accidents '

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and reorganizations), and secondly because

236

I'attem tind Process

constant creative adjustment by both speakers and hearers is required to meet constantly changing circumstances that call for verbalization for verbal response). The availability of multiple alternative ways of satisfying a complex

communicative goal - including shifts of level of abstraction or of hypothetical Vorld1 - has an obvious advantage over a rigid system of one-to-one mapping fif such a thing were even a theoretical possibility). The specific in tent ions and

general communicative maxims coming to bear on any given instance of speech activity may stand in various relations of conflict or competition amongst themselves. As the

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organ of novelty the mind/bra in is constantly producing new syntheses of known patterns, producing new tid tan; solutions to immediate communicative needs and. in the process, weaving experiential indices anc. icons into higher level symbolic groupings. Recall ffrom 5.4) Deacons description of the essentially centrifugal process '

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of language comprehension and the centripetal one of language production through successive 'tiers' of the dominant hemisphere of the brain- Bach such tier has its own characteristic speedy the phonetic level functioning at a faster rate than the syntactic one for ex3mple> just as lower societal levels in genera.. (for instance the society of neurons} function on a much faster time scale than higher level ones (for instance the society of individual human bodies), hvery level has its natural baseline periodicity, so just as the larynx has its own natural vibratory rhythm there may well be an equally natural pulsation to the successive production of syllables and, at a still slower rate, to communicative behaviour as such (and in a more diffuse way to verbal thought - compare what was said in 2.2 about the periodicity of utterance and growth point 1

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units). Thus there is an alternation between diffusion outwards from the

incoming speech signal towards 'representations' of wider and wider intentional context (eventually involving also the contralaterai hemisphere), and the

opposite movement, from tar-flung context to concrete realization in a suitable '

verbal response. One is back at White head s conception of the natural rhythm of successive cone res cent occasions operating at any societal level to maintain maximal contrasts, as sketched in L2.5.

If the 'tiers1 of outer reality - reflected in the organization of our concepts and the 'tiers1 of grammar corresponded exactly there would be no modal contrast between what is' and 'what might be', there would be no possibility of

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reformulating an utterance in such a way as to subtly influence a hearer s presuppositions, nor of cheating or pretending (or of recognizing it on others). And, however sophisticated our intentional life, we would not be able to learn

Whitehead and Linguis-tk metith-eory

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oli]- kliv out u] ijic illusion since the

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map

woulo

Jways cor respond in ,1

determinate way tf> the purported 'territory1. If they didn't correspond at all however, we would hardly be able to learn the necessary associations between words and thingi and between sentence types and slates of affairs in the first place. As it is, human cognition is capable of recursive extension of its layerec. nature it can create worlds as well as reflect them.

All societal levels in Whitehead's system are self-reproducing and thus have their own brand of teleology {although this is much more diffuse and statistical at lower levels and perhaps also higher ones than that of the personally '

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ordered society ). One may also say that each level of grammar reflects its own kind of teleology fas well as its own kinds ofelements, con tent/form relationsh rule types and logic) - there are, for instance, specific kinds of linguistic act adhering to each. However, all White he ad ian teleology lies squarely in the societies of actual entities thems-elves (here read speakers ) not in the eternal objects ingressant in them, so our conclusion must indeed be that language as '

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such is only teleologicalby proxy, Grammars (whether individual or

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universal )

Are not nexus of actual occasionsf so they must, by default, be eternal objects. Thus a Whiteheadian grammar is an eternal object, latent (socially immanent) but not innate or universal - it corresponds to a specific i-language, it is a set

of behavioural norms integrating phonological, morphosyntactic, semantic ant. pragmatic elements, aimed at but seldom exactly matched, This is not far from Itkonen s 'biperspectivist1 conception of'non-causal1, autonomous linguistics fas opposed to the 'causal1 nature of the intentional deployment of language). as discussed in 1.3 - a matter of potentiality as opposed to actuality. Grammar as pattern is autonomous in the sense that it defines socially sanctioned types of

expression completely general (Le, abstracted) across tokens of use.22 J Compare also Itkonen s claim that individual acts of behaviour (i.e. process) are merely observed whereas intentional pattern is understood fltkonen 1978: lOfif.). He sees the task of general linguistics as the integration of the norm and spacetime aspects of language (op.cit.: 300). Pattern is more than the sum of its parts and is not reducible to individual acts. I am thinking here not only of generative grammar but also of such essentially static functional and cognitive approaches to grammar as Construction Grammar, which are of course not 'autonomous in the sense of being isolated from types of pragmatic context or from cognition in general. One could say that lan uage-as-pattern guides language-as-process in actual thought and communication Just as eternal objects guide the maturation processes of germ cells at a lower societal level: in both cases they form a '

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237

23fl

Pattern inid Pi ctss

field of potentiality ordered with respect to each m dividual occasion within the relevant nexus. I:or a concrete exemplification - the generation of a single utterance in English - see Appendix 2. Can an individual language such as tnglish, undergoing contimial change, seriously be called an eternal object ? Certainly. It is a potential system of contrastive patterns in the behaviour of a sub-set of personally ordered societies/nexus of actual occasions (speakers which may or may not be perspectivized for a given human being hut is 'real1 in the only meaningful sense of that word: it is a system of patterns that is there to be prehended by new learners. Being an extremely complex object (although fractally organized in so far as rather simple recursive rules describe much of its potential expansion) it cannot be piehended all at once, and its objectification for successive generations of '

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learners is going to vary according to exposure (and to intervening changes in the communicative environment of adult users). Thus English appears to evolve, while in fact it is its users and the society in which they are embedded

that do so. Each new learner has a slightly different perspective on that complex potentiality that is English, as does each new generation if one makes a broader cut across successive states and abstracts across a wider nexns of speakers. That potentiality for change is open-ended, only constrained or guided by the graded likelihood of direction of change, as determined by the complex interaction of '

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pragmatic and cognitive factors and the overall coherence of the system (as a type if you will). 'Die 'eternal object1 we call English is what relates all the words recognized as belonging to that language together as a system, linking forms (conventionalized perceptual symbols) to meanings (other nexus experienced in the mode of causal efficacy) in all their combinatorial potency for expressing complex and novel communicative intentions. Perhaps the replacement of the word eternal by 'potential' will make this perspective more intuitively grasp able for empirically-minded functionalists. Note the difference between this position and that of the generativists: what remains in some sense eternal for them is abstract UGT whereas individual languages (like English) change, hor a Whiteheadian only speakers and societies change, while eternal objects - including individual grammars - do not and cannot, But here we meet a paradox; how can we reconcile Whitehead's view that eternal objects are intrinsically unordered (see 1.2.3) with the clearly ordered patterning of language if it consists itself of eternal objects? In fact Whitehead only claimed that eternal objects are unordered when abstracted from actual occasions prehending them (cf. the discussion in Christian 1959; 258 ft.) -the actual occasions particular perspective automatically orders them (i.e. grades '

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them for relevance to its subjective aim).1M Does it help then to distinguish '

sharply between Competence (the purely potential intrinsically unordered 1

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patterns of language as eternal objects) and performance (language ordered by ingress ion in actual usage by speakers), to use the terminology of the generativists? Tho trouble is that Competence1 on anyone's definition does have its own intrinsic ordering, even if consisting solely of innate constraints - individual grammars have mutually ordered rules and Uti principles apply in modular fashion, each module being related to the others in a determinate fashion. '

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Notice, however that the reality of'inhabiting1 a human body already narrows down the possible eternal objects that may come to bear on the language faculty1 in terms of their graded relevance for constraining such activity, htcrnal objects are never detachable1 from the actual occasions in which they find ingress ion, so there is always order (and ordering) imposed on eternal objects by the nexus of actual occasions in which they manifest. It is no contradiction tn state that the natural constraints on grammar (whether fully or only partially innate) are not ordered apart from their ingression in actual language behaviour. f :ull languages f on the other hand, are more than general const rain tsN they also display content form and content form fas reflected both in lexical and grammatical organization) is ordered. The lexicon of any language is ordered both by virtue of the natural 'seams' behind percept ion-based concepts and by "

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conventionalized relations of hyponomyh implicationt etc., that reflect the

universe organized according to purely human goals and values. Grammatical rules are by necessity ordered since they organize the transfer ral of hierarchical. multi-dimensional information through linear channels' they also reflect to some degree the historical order of their integration into the grammar con-

cerned They are inherited patterns regulating behaviour by coordinating multilevel intentions and linear expression in such a way that individual linguistic acts {processes) within a social nexus match conventional expectations as a means to achieving com muni cation a I ends. 7 his ordering is simply potential, emergent in actual occasions of use. For eternal objects themselves are emergent; they emerge from potentiality as conRgurations of actual occasions permit, but the potentiality has always been there. '

The Whiteheadian alternative to Pinker's 'language instinct' which I have '

1

proposedn the propositional instinct allows access to the eternal objects that UG also aims at uncovering, f rom both viewpoints the basic parameters of syntax arc only partially learnt, being based on certain innate predispositions, only in the case of the propositional instinct what is innate is not purely structural, language-specific constraints at ail, but a quite straightforward and '

1

Parrcm iind Process

general constraint on the expression of com mimic utivc nced one based on more primitive kinds of prehensions (both physical and conceptual) than those

involved crucially in linguistic behaviour. 'I he 'proposition a I instinct* de tines '

the basic design of protolanguagen upon which the superstructure of full1 language can be built by cultural learning, [t is responsible both for the subjecipredicate logical articulation of language- including sign language- and for the more context-dependent theme-rheme one, to which it may or may not correspond directly fas discussed in 3 2,2. and 4-1)- It U broader than just linguistic in its scope, however: the propositioiiiil 'template1 results from the coupling of any physical prehension with any conceptual prehension. Note that all higher organisms- not just man - recognize and react to patterns in their

environment, i.e. have simple conceptual prebensions, In the case of fproto-) language, the physical prehension corresponds to a subject referent in an

intellectual prehension (which links an Indicative feeling' to a 'propositional feeling'K and the conceptual prehension corresponds to a predicate. The quintessential kind of intellectuai prehension1 involved in the deployment of language is the 'intuitive judgment1 (which specifically contains a propositional imaginative prehension') - and this term nicely underscores the tacit side of the complex phenomenon of language that has so fascinated generativists; '

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language does indeed function largely at an intuitive level. Although the proposition provides the basis for conscious thought at the highest level h its roots lie deep in pre-linguistic behaviour then. As hinted at in 7 1 the holophrasis of early child language (and perhaps even the 'signing' of .

,

chimps} conceals a binary propositional template in which context contains {or

gesture indicates) the presupposed subject of some highlighted symbolic predicate. In the most primitive propositional prehensions of all ( perceptive prehensions cones ponding to the simple recognition of figuie/ground relationships)! the logical subject of the proposition is tightly bonnd to the '

1

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predicate in a unitary prehension, whereas by the time of children s

two-

morpheme stage of linguistic development we are already dealing with imaginative prehensions These provide the capability of transferring the same '

predication to different subjects, so that predicates and their subjects can be separately considered. This reflects in turn the growing awareness of the child of the difference of societal level between its own egocentric world and that in which it is but a part. With the dawning ability to make intellectual prehensions children wilJ be able to abstract still further from the here-and-now and

entertain and express propositions with a modal or tensed meaning contrasting with immediate appearances. They will at the same time he able to extend their

W h itchcid sind li ngu isri c nicuthco tr

natural ability to empathize {via hybrid prehensions) to Linderstanding the

intentions behind corresponding complex expressions on the part of others. I;nll communicative competence will have emerged. Naturally, the more primitive kinds of propositional prehonsion do not then disappear, but persist in all manner of linguistic as well as no n-linguistic activities.

This suggests that actual gram mars are not only ordered but - afl institutional objects - also individually learnt, one language at a time, from scratch in the case of ones lirst language. How could that be so, given the basic structural similarity of all known full1 languages? The answer must be: because of their common starring point in the innate propensity towards protolanguage. plus the basic similarity of human cultural environments and communicative needs. This applies a fot non to the structural similarity of all pidgins. That these can rapidly shift to institutionalised Creoles passed on to following generations is not surprising- in doing so they simply re enact the original emergence of full language, just as every ehild learning its irst Janguage does today via conceptual valuation and reversion. As opposed to the proclivity for pro tolanguage - which is probably innate and ordered solely by the inherent interaction of such simple principles as the 'propoiitional instinct1 and the capability for symbolic transfer with concrete communicative needs and goals l ull, syntacrically recnrsLve k-mgnages CLin hi/said lo cunsist of eternal objects hierarchically ordered by virtue of the shared mental pole perspective of their community of useri. This k because they are social objects and not just the sum f

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total of the grammars embodied in each speaker - individual variation and '

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usage must be seen against this background. Whereas the order of pro tolanguage is determined by the structure of the mind/brain alone, that of full language involves the further interaction of that fundamental organization with

purely institutionalized facts and goak These have emerged bom the natural '

world by individual flashes' of imagination meeting particular communicative challenges, extending the means already at hand to patterns of greater, synthetic complexity. Once they have caught on they are perpetuated from generation to generation in the manner of all cultural 1memea The phenomenon of language straddles both the abstract patterning of symbols (or the eternal objects de lining them) and actual occasions of their use, both psychological and social reality, it is a matter of human action and of human imagination, not of the immutable consequences of physical law, although physical law of course determines the preconditions for iti appeariir.ee. Language cannot just he Process, n v.-. not lust a ueascless struggle between competing functional force s it must also be rep eatable, relatively stable Pattern '

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241

i i

Parrem and Proms

[abstracted from Process)h in order tor it to be tranjiterred at liII from generation to generation. As eternal object, potential tbrrru langnagc docs not changes hut

in dividual languages encapsulate the history ni'the never-ceasing flux of actua.. occasions that produced them- In terms of the still on-going rule-versusanalogy debate adumbrated in 3.1, rules can be seen as a suitable way of looking at language-as-pat tern {like any other set of social conventions) as long as they are not mistaken for actual procedures: when one discusses the psychologiai.

processes behind language use one must shift perspective to the recognition of -

and extension by - analogy, the stuff of higher Whitcheadian prehensions.

Synchronically the one perspective does not take precedence over the other. Analogies, however, may get transferred and integrated into grammars and lexicons through gramma tic alization and other broad diachronic processes, acid thus achieve the status of rules. This is close to the spirit of Givon s recent plea for the 'both/and* nature of linguistic rules, in which a non-reductionistic

symhesis of the generativist (categonal, Platonic) and emergemist (indeterminate, purely functional) approaches is advocated ftlivon J999). But one should "

also recall vSapifs words long ago Wherever we go we are impressed by the fact 1

that pattern is one thing, the ultilization of pattern quite another {Sapir

l Jrfil). Rules are not inherent but inherited socially through successive generations of learners. Psychologically, the pattern aspect of language is something felt, it does not come with labels attached to its categories - the latter are there to be abstracted or inferentially 'read off actual experiences of language use stored in memory (in however abbreviated or filtered a form). [ his is perhaps the central point of the present book: linguists today woulc do well to Like Whiiehead s insistence on meaning-as-feeling seriously. Tor feeling is surely what 'really* lies behind the various metalanguages that linguists apply to breaking down meaning, to describing syntactic patterning, to analysing how language is used in social discourse, and so forth. It is the tee lings involved in symbolic reference, the prehensions involved in producing and understanding language and in using it to infer and project logical con sequences h that guides us in making rapid matches between complex communicative intentions and the symbolic means available to express them. It is the feeling of '

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words and constructions used in the contexts that sanction them. l:or every

word, every construction type has its specific feeling that allows us to access its

meaning far more rapidly than any digital sorting through of a tinite set of '

'

recognition features could ever manager the influence of context is critical If contexts are only approximately definable in terms of types their flexibility producing prototype effects at all levelsh then the holistic grasp of the approxi'

Whitehead and linguistic metath-eory

mate match of feeling between prehension of the word and prehension of relevant contexts is - given our nature as symbol-toting organisms - a far more likely psychological mechanism than the linear analysis of lists of com pone ntial traits or the like in the manner of digital computers. The process aspect of language niusL surely be based on something like the Whitelieadian prehension. The pattern aspect in terms of eternal objects is less problematical - the same data can be seen to support analysis into a variety of competing forms of definiteness including traditional grammatical descriptions. If we look inwards at out own trains of inner speech we can surely all sense directly the causal eficacy of language at work: the rapid alternation of embryonic propositions and gestures (set amidst a wealth of barely registered imagery) h held together by the feelings that they express and linked, as Whitehead would put it, by conformity of subjective ibrm as the one goal-guided aim merges into the next. '

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Thought is not either propositional {say verbal} or non-propositional (say imagistic), it is bothn with language - culturally transmitted - in a sense parasitic upon more primitive experience, rationally bridging' hicuunc in its causal flow, precisely as we would expect from a broader evolutionary perspec'

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tive. Need we somehow he ashamed of this as 'scientists ? '

It is always teEnpting to follow one simplistic extreme or the other and one

may choose to regard grammar as the only

real

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1

aspect of language and actual

language use as illusory and purely statistical - or the other way round. The

inevitable conclusion the Whiteheadian approach leads to is that hoth are equally real. The central problem for a linguistic mctatheory delimiting the Linilicd sLudy o( innyun e cntially [iw bkvuu. ujk1 KuAL-d l>v PLiiu jmJ taken up again by Whitehead: how to integrate permanence with non-permanence, Pattern (here read grammar ) with Process (here read 'language as becoming1), how to root the two perspectives mutually in each other without reducing the one to the other? This is why linguistics, unlike disciplines that fall more centrally within the natural sciences, appears so protean in its scope and allows for the co-existence of so many bewilderingly varied approaches. A satisfactory metatheory today must allow for emergence, a key notion in White he ad's process ual philosophy of organism, and not limit itself to a static conceptual framework. Hot language is simultaneously - and inextricably '

hoth Pattern and Process.

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243

Appendix 1 WhiteheacTs position within modern philosophy

This is not the place? to attempt to go in depth into Wh itch cad s position within the history of tumpean philosophy - nor am I qualiiied to do so. Never theless, a lew hriet' remiirta are in ordei-, since not many readers will be familiar

with the context and background of his work. In fact, he appears (or in any years to have been ignored by mainstream philosophy fat least in England), his speculative philosophy having since his death largely been handed over to the theologians-"3 This seems to me a shame since theology is only one aspect a relatively un elaborated and su spendable one at that - of his all-em bracing system, as presented in his major works Science and the Modern World" (1925), "Process and Reality" (1929) and "Adventures of Ideas" (1933). Anglo'

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Saxon philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century has retreated from

such ambitious metaphysical projects andn following the rising star of Wittgenstein, focussed on detailed investigations of safer, more restricted areas of language and log it, whether in the Speech act1 approach of Ordinary Language philosophers like Strawson and Austin, or in the lormalistic behaviourism of Onine. One might say that Whitehead dared to proceed in his endeavour to

integrate a holistic view of Nature with the upheavals science was undergoing in the early decades of this century while most of his contemporaries (including Russell) turned away from metaphysics altogether. Wh it eh ead's reputation has fared better in America, where a 'realist1 predisposition towards philosophy was more strongly anchored - Peirce, another mathemalician by training who had done important work in symbolic logic> and whose work Whitehead valuedH can

be seen within that context.' ' Whiteheadlast academic position, note, was as Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University - he never held such lt chair in Britain, Whitehead also influenced hangers feeling-based approach to symbolism (Langer 1967). Tor an excellent biography by a syin pathetic agnostic - one '

which also contains useful summaries of the contents of Whitehead s successive

philosophical works - see Lowe (1985/1990).

The drifting apart of Wrhitehead and kussell (Whitehead's ex-pupil and collaborator at Cambridge on the

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Principia Mathematical reflects this

i S

Appendix I

development well. The younger philosopher admitted after White head1* death UtiU metaphyskaJ sp ubtions werL1 'somewhat strange1 to him - one

senses in tact that he did not really understood what White he ad was getting at in his later work at all (Russell 1959*297), In turnh Whitehead consideiec

Russell later in life as 1the greatest logician since Aristotle but in matters ontologkal completely mistaken (Lowe ] 9 0; 205). Yet both Russell and 4

Whitehead represented in the early decades of this century the 'New Realism' that arose in Britain in reaction to the excesses of continental idealism. New

approaches to the object of science were essential if philosophy was to keep pace

with the rapid changes in world view that advances within science itself (notably relativity and quantum theory) were affecting, and in their cooperation on the Truiopia Innh men wore centrally concenicd with mteardun the universal logical basis behind mathematics! the principal theoretical tool of science! now "

being stretched far beyond the limits of direct conceptualization. But this same impulse was ultimately to lead Whitehead in a very different direction from

RusselL His interest in mathematics was always more on the process than the product. Russell remained closer to the basic analytical and scientific cast of British philosophy and the practical concerns of matching - if not equating the logical world of mathematics and science with everyday experience (hence

his association with Logical Positivism)- His logical atomism' was as is well known, influenced by Wittgenstein in the hitter's early phaset although he was to grow estranged from the later, iconoclastic Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations1' During his long career and numerous shifts of perspective "

Russell can be said to have moved across the spectrum from (qualified) rationalist to fqualihed) empiricist, but unlike Whitehead he never synthesized the two approaches, ending rather at a point where, pessimistic about the possibility of such a thing as complete, exact knowledge he continued to enquire into the minimal general principles necessary to extend pure empiricism into a satisfac-

tory philosophy of science. Again unlike Whitehead, lie was a reductionist who reduced both mental and material phenomena to sense data and physiology: there was for him no complementary Inner and 'outer' view of reality (hence his purely external, materialistic view of nature - a pure abstraction seen from Whitehead'a viewpoint), Russell's theory of types, whereby recognition of the logical type of a '

proposition [tirst or second orde etc.) can be utilized to avoid the logical absurdity of making propositions about propositions in general (which would then have to be a class including itself), led him to doubt that surface forms of sentences can directly reflect their underlying logical form, a point of view

Appendix ]

shared hy Whhehead, who repeatedly warned against equating propositions and their expieiiion. Uut whereas Russell, ever the a to mist, was led in the years

following his cooperation with White he ad towards Frege and his own truththeoretical perspective on denotation and linguistic ambiguity,1- Whitehead s '

initial concern with the foundations of mathematics and science led him to a '

polyad ic non-linear view of logic (not limited to two-termed relations

between substances or qualities} and a processual view of mathematics, His realism was also qualified: the philosophy of organism is in a sense an attempt to right the prohlem of vacuous actuality1 endemic to realism - this he did through his introduction of the 'actual occasion as the ultimate basis of reality. Of perhaps crucial importance for his later philosophy was his growing interest in hiology and psychology, as mediated by pragmatist (and arch1

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empiricist) William lames. Hspedaily the notion of the unitary experience

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as

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the basic unit of reality (as opposed to static 'substances } held by American pragmatists i;uch as Dewey must have been congenial to him. Other important

influences on his thought were Bergson's conception of a universe in continual Heraclitean flux experienced by free monadic occasions (though he rejected the Trench philosopher's streak of irrationality}. Like Husserl and the other

continental phenomenolo ists {but quite independently} Whitehead did not limit 'experience' to perception but sought to approach 'things in themselves' via intellectual intuition'."9 Closer to home, he greatly admired Samuel '

Alexandei; another New Realist systcm-lnLilderN whose ideas on emergent evolution

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and the complementarity of mind and matter (as foreshadowed by

Spinoza) he readily absorbed. He was also influenced by idealist Bradley in his emphasis on feeling as the basis of knowledge and experience. In his later work

(notably in "Adventures of Ideas'

general concerns with the social and

cultural history of mankind became more and more prominent. Ultimately, Whitehead saw the only 'proof1 of his whole system of thought as lying in its

general success in application to experience {Lowe 1990, vol.2: 267). He was the most broadly humane of twentieth century philosophers. If one were to suggest a parallel for his basic ideas concerning the nature of

language within modern Philosophy of Language reference could be made to Itkonem whose distinction between the 'causal' and 'non-cansal1 perspectives on language corresponds more precisely to Whitehead distinction between social nexus (e.g. oI speakers) and eternal objects (e.g. grammars) than other "

familiar dichotomies within linguistics such as 'paroW versus langue', 'performance versus 'competence, or 'diachrony1 versus 'synchrony' For both thinkers the two perspectives stand in a complementary relationship; language '

1 7

24 ft Apivtuik I

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as a set ot social

1

norms, and language as intentional behaviour exhibited by

individual speakers distributed through the spiitio-tempoial world---5" They both defend rationalism but oppose fneo-)Cartesian nativism with a kind of descriptive1 (Le. empirical) rational is mh in effect an attitude of well-balanced realism condoning a synthesis of intuition and observation of social causality as the correct methodology for the study of human rational behaviour fltkonen '

] 9 3: 51 .). The essence of rationalism thus conceived is a concern with human

ends and means (not always predictable! rather than with merely spatiotemporal causes, and speculations over innateness1 merely confuso the central '

issue. There is no conflict between the 'social1 and the 'psychological1 view of language from this position of Pipers pea ivis m1 {op.dt.:34 and 53), [tkonens insistence that language cannot be approached in the same way as the natural sciences needs to be set in the context of Chomsky and his reductionist followers, against whom he directs his attacks. For Whitehead, in the scientific climate pie vailing at the beginning of the century, it was more a matter of arguing

(against the Positivists) that natural science itself could not be pursued without finding a place within it for human rationality and purpose, hor both of them holistic causalitv1 is of the essence for the human sciences - the causal

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influence of whole social systems for nexus) on their individual membersh which cannot be reduced to intrinsic" causation of the type applicable to purely physicaJ systems. "

As regards Whitehead s position vis-a-vis the great philosophical figures of the past, I have mentioned already his acknowledged debt to Plato (only qualified by his insistence on avoiding misplaced cone idleness in the interpretation of forms/ideas/eternal objects). He was more reserved in his references to Aristotle, although he certainly shared the latter s central belief that forms or UL jckUm v'm ihc w rld Luu! wa.- a u iic Al LiunduiK re.ili i in [vfusm collapse the form/matter distinction (either in an empiricist or a rationalist manner). Also Aristotle s emphasis on the tchs residing in objects finds a parallel in the Whiteheadian relation between actual occasions (atomic siilv '

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if you will) and subjective aims. He pointed out, however, that the excessive concentration on final causes (as opposed to eficient ones) which stances

long dominated Luropean philosophy was due to Aristotle, who too was not innocent of 'misplaced concreteness1 (be upbraided 'modern1 Newtonian science in turn for excessive concern with efficient causes at the expense of final ones). In Whitehead * system the two major forms of causality are more evenly 1

balanced: there are two types of process, macrocosmic ones (involving efiicient causality) and microcosmic ones (involving final causality). He also argued

Appendix ]

249

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repeatedly against the tiad it tonal Aristotelian notion of Hxed substances (linking individuals to the unchanging 'essence' of their species) - for him '

time and change is central to actuality and it is

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form' rather than substance that

is enduring/33 Among later philosophers still obsessed with this notionh he took "

Descartes to task for his dualistk doctrine oi

distinct mental and physical substances. At the core of Cartesian dualism he saw ihc UUil LTror of associating menial activity solely with perception in die mode of presentational immediacy,

ignoring causal eficacy, which grounds mental activity in bodily reality and '

allows direct access to other entities fin the subject s immediate past). He also *

argued against his notion of representative perception1 (as regards perception !te was himself an anti-representationalistK Leibnitz he was more in harmony '

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with: he shared the latter s view of persons as 'colonies of monads1 fhis actual 1

occasions are Vindowless

too. but, unlike monads, they are extended in time

and space and perish). However, unlike his great mathematical predecessor he insisted right from the start of his career on distinguishing between thinking and using a calculus (cf. Lowe \9&SmA97}, His affinity with Spinoza 1 have already mentioned, but it should be borne in mind that, unlike Spinoza, he is an ontological pluralist. His position with regards to the British empiricist tradition was nuanced: it is notable that he often cited Locke in a positive manner, and approved in particular of his notion of power (corresponding to his own 'causal efficacy'). His 'eternal objects' are aiso reminiscent of Locke's 'ideas9 (abandoned by Hume). His attitude towards Hume was more complicated: though he agreed in the necessity of basing knowledge of causality on experience he repudiated Hume's actual theory of causation as giving tar too much emphasis (like Descartes) to perception in the mode of presentational immediacy to visual experience in particular. Like Hunte he saw the personal self as a sequence of perceptual experiences (taken in the broadest sense), but he disapproved of his thoroughgoing sensationalism - Whitehead was, 1 repeal, anything but a reductionist himself. The most important notion that he took over from the Huineian tradition was that of the emergent nature of thought, whereby he transcended Cartesian dualism. He argued extensively, on the other hands against the bifurcation of Nature1 in the empiricist tradition (which only sees quality-less scientific objects out there whereas all qualities are 'inside1 the observing subject). His thinking here has an almost Buddhistic flavour. One could say that he was u subjectivist (following Descartes) in so far as his doctrine of actual occasions takes personal experience as the basis of philosophy, but an objectivist in his doctrine of eternal objects, real patterns of 1

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ago Appendix I

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rekuioEiship out there Jn general his baUnired portion vh-A-vis such tradi-

tional dichotomies withtii philosophy prevented him from falling into extreme positions - e.g. of pushing his realism into full-blown idealism. He had, one might say, absorbed the Kantian critiques, but his final system is the inverse of

Kant s transcendental is mN taking as it does the causally transcendent 'Dif? ah sidt - his own actual occasion '

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in one of its aspects - as the starting point for his philosophy. However, his system is holistic and, as explained abovet although the actual occasion when seen from without - in the present instant -

is indeed socially transcendent, when experienced from within it is, as the

locus of all phenomenological experience, socially immanent in all other occasions immediately preceding it. Rsr White he ad tho subject is a superject L

emerging from the world (not the reverse as for Kant).

h

Appendix 2 The concrescence of an English utterance

The foliowing is a schematic fepresentntion of the production {'decision1) of the utterance

"

I wouldn't have thought it was possiNe", that assumes only that

chunks {or all} of it were not pre-fabricated - although the conceptual prehensions involved may well have been automatized. The initial state of the speaker is taken to be the activation of an undilferentiated potential response to a complex state of affairs prehended in the {holistic) mode of causal efficacy and experienced as appropriate for the immediate discourse situation. Subjective aim here covers spec ilk * sub-strategies1 summoned in the process of the satisfaction of the overali aim of vStage L The eternal objects drawn into the concrescence refer specifically to the internalized grammar and discourse '

*

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conventions of English. Hach stage is to be understood as involving the '

prehensions indicated: these integrate the data' more and more closely with the subjective aim in a manner con formal with the grammatical rules of English. The precise number of stages is of no great consequence and they can be assumed anyway to overlap in actual temporal realization. The progression is

from undifterentiated, intent ion-driven early stages to more and more differentiated, constraint-driven ones. One should envisage gradual lexicalization and linearization of the data, with indeterminate adiustments and suspensions tvJ route between intention and expression, rather than step-wise algorithmic expansion. Continual feedback' and 'feed forward" from la Lei1 to early stages '

and vice verw can be assumed for the on-going assessment {by conformal feeD of the results of successive prehensions and integrations. '

Note that if at Stage 2 the subjective form had been more emotionally charged this aspect of the discourse-embedded stale of affairs could have been judged worthy of special highlighting and an expressive iJ locution rather than '

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a declarative one would have been chosen> its propositional content moulded accordingly. This could in turn have been realized by a (positive) rhetorical question such as Who would have thought it was possible". The initial (focal) position of the Q-word would follow automaticallyh in conformity with the M

patterning of English. If, on the other hind, some temporal feature of the

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Appendix 2

holistic P had been felt as wo 1 thy of highlighting (iay by contrast with sonw

i in mediately previous proposition), the adverbial expression corresponding to this - for example five years ago - would have been assigned an appropriate initial Anchoring' position as soon as syntactic etonul objects began to be summoned at Stage 3 {S -» SAdv + NP -I- VP then being the relevant expanded version of the phrase structure rule),

153

Notes

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esscjice of en rjjejitisjin in relation to Itingijagi1 is the rcengnition that oit kith the outogenetie level of luj ungt acquisitio]i and the 'phylogenetLC1 level ofh iguajje change wholly new patterns imy ht abiitraeti J or extrapolated frojn (coitibinatioiis of) old, txisiting ones Uiot ne ssLu ily pmtly li[]guiilLe thtfjnselvt.s) us beij y R vant Ut eoci njiiitativtf in- L'ujjitatioiial nwds. The timdtlioiis ast thuruby nh-angud, pitparijij; tl e way linr tht lj iiL-i ein: of till furthe l1 new patterns to be recognized. Ai Polanyi puli it, opeti iyitems (lihe u llaioe) tend to itabilize any r

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l hc

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improhable evcj t tbal .server Lo elicit thejiu this LeadiJig by cumulative .steps towards Itigher levels of orjjatii/ation (t olanyi 19S&:3&4]. Hopper has pjiopoted an approauh to einergenl gi'anninar that jjoes further in its downplaying of the pattern aspect of grammar than many funttkmalist-s would care to proceed. Grammar in hu view Ls built up on the fly fduring actual discourse) out '

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of utterances already accumulated In memory, it is what results when formulas are re-arranged, or dismantled and re-assembled, iti dilferenl ways 'Hopper 1987:145} lirammar may well be Intrlnsieally unstable and indeterjnlnate', but syjicbronlcally this is a matter of degrees of aeceptable variation - there Ls iurely always a eore of prototypical normativlty that ensures a[ip]OxiirLate cotnpithensibility while at ihi' sajne time allowing for the express lot] of novtl "

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thoughts See MacWhinjiey

for a balanced H rervtew of what cat] 1>e expected of aji

emergent a ceo u tit of grammar. It is not by chance that philosophers adopting the rationalist position tend to be well versed in mathematics, while those of empiricist leanings are more likely to be at home in biology or psychology. This can be transferred to a certain degree to the generative vs. functionalist split In linguistics today too. The dichotomy goes back within the turopean tradition at least to the Milesians versus the Pythagoreans, but in the ancient world the contrast between Aristotle las empiricist) and Plato (as idealto) li often taken a its prototypical manifestation, although both le !.-lllai t LL JJes L.'.j Ll uLll iLL l l epJ lsL"JlI,1LiV(.s uL ':il:-;. U pes. Tjle Ilj I'l.M L j L IMf le moved away front the Soeratic eoneeplion of pure ideas' or 'fonn.s4 to j eloser lijtking of the latter to the predicates of human language and their role in iudgments, and in doing so helped lay the '

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basis for Aristotle's catejjorJes. 3.

Mote, as a cunoatttt, that Chomsky introduced his book with a quote from Whitehead's Science and the Modern World" which suggests that all modern Western thought lives on the intellectual capltol accumulated Irom the 17th century genius hu1 Chomsky this primarily meant the period of continental rationalism, to which he assigned Cartesian linguistics', but it should be borne in mind that the tbinkei\ of this period that Whitehead was thinking of included Spinoza, Leibnitz and empiricist Locke., as well as Uescartes. LibojiLsky poijits out that the ideas lie "

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ia> duv.Ji LMli: tills tc

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:l lol: d'v IlK t-ii.-. \oi

iilJlji ' I Vsc,lilL>' ( .vIl, ImL jiidudi eJeJOent-S oJ

a later, kismantic-idealist period I due t[5 !vLhlej;el and. etpeciaJly. Huji boldt - fo]" example the latter's fan ou;; pronouncemej ts concerning the 'aitistic creativity' of language!. Whitehead himself saw his cosmology as repladng both that of the ancient world (Plato 'fleshed out1 by Aristotle) and that of [7th century (post-Newtonian) 'subjective reductionism1.

4

Wh iteliead s rel uc taJice to s-pea k mtire fu lly about language was no tio u bt d ue to his Sceptic ism

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c ncoi-Jiing the directness- of the relationship between vei bal expiession and the propositions it appioKijiiately expresses. This arost- t rojn his recognition that linguistic meaning is thoroughly contest-dependent [a point heot ten repeated and that words and phrases... remain metaphors mutely appealing for an Imaginative leap1 (Whitehead I97fi:4). HLs ntathematical backgroutid miy also havre played a role here (the difficulty mathematicians have in expressing the imagery of their thinking in plain language hasollen been remarked upon), it may be said that this background saved him from being ensnared by current philosophical language iLowe lWi):267'\ - he started IS an Outside]- to professional philosophy. As a man he wis certainly less verbal than the loq uacio us Russell.' la king ord i nary language the starl i n g p oin t for philosophy - the d ireciion mainstream philosophy, t ollowing the later Wittgenstein, was to take in Britain after his time was at all events, a notion quite alien to hitn, despite his aflinity with the Wittgensteinian bind Buhlerian view of the soclal/actional basis of meaning. He would have thoroughly endorsed Polany is position as regards the indeterminacy of meaning of all descriptions, according to which we can never understand all the iLnplicalions of a statement nor say all we know about a state of atl airs iPolanyi ]95k95). '

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One should bear hi mind lus constant struggle to marshal old {philosophical) terjus into new meanings to reflect the rapidly changing view of the physical wo ltd presented by idence in the early decades of this century. The terminological dilillciilties one encounters with his work a a whole are due in large measure to the two different registers1 he employed: the stringent technical one that dominates in Process and Reality'1 h and the looser one he often reverted to in books aimed at a more general readership. Hor example, the technical expression conformity of subjective form in ''Process and Reality" {see 1.2.4 below; i.s referred to in Adventures of Ideas" as the doctrine of conlbrmation of feeling 5

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Whitehead chose the word 'prehension1 with Leibnitz's 'apprehension1 in mind fWhitehead 1947:300)h though he also mentions Descartes1 rather similar use of the term fWhitehead

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]975:411. It is preferable to 'perception* or 'apperception' since it covers both. Et does not '

presuppose consciousness, nor is it limited to emotional feeling1. It refers to 'the general way in which the occasion of experience can react to or include, as part of its essence, any other entity so each prehension is a concrete fact of relatedne.ss both private and public at once (as subjective '

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h

form and datum respectively). A prehension 'appropriates elements of the universe which in themselves are other than the subject, and absorb these elements into the real Internal constitution

of its subject by synthesiidng them in the unity of an emotional pattern expressive of its own subjectivity fWhitehead 197*1:275). Prehensions are the sole cojicrete facts in his system. Feelings for prehensions] are vectors wriLh in cone rescentprocessest not states. In his broad use of the term feeling' as equivalent to 'prehension' Whitehead was doubtless influenced by William James. '

This is in accordance wicb Vhitebead's 'epochal1 conception of time, whereby time is created thsiougb the successive coming into bethg *wd perishing of actual occasions into their successors, 7

.

The category of 'subjective unity1 ensures that the various prehensions entering into a single occasion are compatible for integration by virtue of the unity of tbeir subject (with its unitary subjective aim;, even before1 they are actually integrated. E-or Whitehead the common notion of '

time as mere succession (for which he upbraids both Hume and Kant) is an abstraction due to '

misplaced concreteness

' .

Note the Cartesian term borrowed for this relationship - here it refers to the 'reitkation1 of the satisfaction of an actual occasion u data for a subsequem one. Altbough causally indepen dent one from another, actual occasions share overlappinj; causal inheritances from the past. 8

.

Notes

Thii, iIk-l]- iOL'iil imniiiiotn;

is in tji'j gfihundud in Iht p]iiiCLpk' of'tonforjnity ofsjhjtL-tivc

fctfin1 [iee below). '

'

notion of'enduring objecf ihoutd be carefully diit3Jij;u3ihed from that of'eternal object*. There are four biiiic types ofobject of prehensiont in 'biteJie.id'N sv.-.iL'jo, namely eternal obfects, 9

.

[ hn

'

which neitl er be iu, cliati e or pasi awayh propositions fmatters of tact in tbeir potential determinatiotr of dieKiis), obitctifitd actual ocirasions, which be ijt and pa s (thty de\reiop i nter naljy b ut do not ch a nge Land nexus, whi ch heginn change and pas,*: aivayr' tnd uring ob;et t s' area variety of nexus with a certain internal complexity- they include on-going mental models "

'

'

'

of situations and general knowledge stfnctures in memory fin whicb various eternal objects find ingress km and defme the structural relations involved), Thuj: they may or may not be purely material bodies reflecting wbitehead s fundamental realism, they can both be objects out there and their reprejientation within the individual mind. The mind itself can be regarded as the (wandering) higbent 'node' ofa complex structure of many enduring objects. '

-

1

'

10. Only personally ordered nexiis/iiodetie.s display cotudnusneis of their own goals. ConscioiisileSS is for Whitchead an emergent quality ari>ini; frotn the Conjunction of fact (physical reality) atid supposidoni about facts (eternal objetls entertained conceptually by the mental pole of high-jjrade occasions}, a quality inherent in the contrast between the two elements ofa proposition (see 1.2.5 on Tntellectuai feelings'). It arises from linking the unconscious physical '

1

'

prehension ofa nexus with a propositional prehension - originating at the mental pole of the occasion con-cerned - about that Jiesus. it involves prebendinj; the contrast between what a nexus actually is and what it (negatively) might otherwise behand is the subjective forn of certain high-

grade mental activities for their prebend ing subject. It is a mode of attention (the extreme form of selective attention}. It ts not, however an eitber/or matter but can be of any degree of intensity within a given person s experience, from the merely Latent to the full intensity of self-reflecting mental clarity, and typically flickers1 between the,He (Whttehead was probably influenced here by James" rhythmic theory of consciousness). '

'

'

'

11. This should not be equated with the reduction title mind a .society view of ArtiCidal Intel licence theoreticians such as Minsky (l W}, which ii a matter ofa multiplicity of neural specialists all at the same 'modellable' level. A 'society' in Whitehead's sense is characterised by ihc coordination of all its elements into a whole according to a shared purpose that determines at least in part the subjective aim of successive actual occasions within it. Rather than divide up the '

1

mind/brain into a multiplicity of spatially unique ajjents1 under the hierarchical eontrol of other such agents (or conglomerate agencies l Whitehead breaks it up temporally into individual holistic occasions (each constituting its owrn 'subject1 but limited to only a fraction of the whole contents of the mind/brain, as highlighted by immediate relevance). These may indeed recruit "

'

*

"

'

4

'

'

more specific specialist information or sub-routines Uome quite automatic and not normally penetrable to consciousness) towards fulfilling their aims. The crucial difference lies in the concept of the unique subjective aim inherent in every occasion, thanks to whach recruited 'sub - agencies' are held synchroniy.ed In subjective harmony '

1

'

:

r

"

12, I nsttad of1 find

ingrts.sioj 1 in 1 shal I ot ca s io 1 lal ly us c t he titpression 'are iny reisant i n", w b id 1 docs not miilejdingly suggest entry Trorn somewhere else1, although this was not Whiltbead own usaye. *

13. Just as PolanyTs ai'ticulate thought presupposes pre-verbal 'tacit' thought. It juay well correspond to the role in perception of the neo-cortex vis-A-vii the causal efficacy1 of older or deeper levels of the mind/brain. Through it -and the relevant eternal objects inherited fa'om our '

"

157

agfl

Notes

pusr - we may fee] the votej tja] efficacy of otherji (i.e. Jiexus of contejiiporary occision ) by piiojeetihj; fivrni oii] y dtsolvijij; problen i ot' '

non-lilera]

nf liisiguaye in concrete iitutmons. It goes horn j.

reiiill'

(e.g. Mmc 'siii prLsiiig5 nbitrvtd phenomenonj ajid an ij voked. Lw icy;, a relevant Wltiteheadiiiii etet-] al ohj ct already prehei ded conceptually by the prehendingi subject) to arrive at a hypothesis (i,e. ait inference), '

Jiuluctkm and deduction arev 'ayfl oftesrmj; iind validating auch hypotheses, ic. -Conipai'e C rtUibafher 0997] for tht1 in portance af itpr sicm ij in rential protei-sev

KeuraLoyitally, tl e inKibitory eifeel of s-uh-cortita] it rue Lorei like [lie thal inu on the activities of the cortex may be involved Uee CulverJiiuiler &. Schumann 1 94:70). "

'

1

11. Note that Whiteheadian propositintis are sead oft physical/perceptual ex rienee particular nduiing objects, nhich include snental models ) liven the 'prodkatlve pattern1 of the prtipo&ition (the eternal object ualilyijij; tlae logical subjtcl) is i iLlied vij a physical prehension (by LCoiiceptual vaiualion'}. "

-

,

21. Normally there will only be one unambiguous Literal meaning

'

1

of an utterance in a given context, hut this is not i\way& so (real a imbifiuity persist in human speech, if only marginally}, a

13. ibkens ol relu 'atit 'Jjjmes1, once these hive beeji abstracted as types from the dila by '

conceptual valuation and Liajisnmlation, can berecogtiized ajid integrnled as relevant data wilhtJi successive occasions by further operations of transmutation. The latter process, recall, functions by analogy, so the 'fit' need only he approximate (cf, 1,2.4}, "

14. Their ciuE bn was apparently al&o finite for Jakobiun, whoie speech eveju wai the forerunner of Austins speech at t aJtlni'Ugb hii JesCriptioji rejiiained oji a very general level, in terms of addreasor/addressee roles, etc. (Jakobioii J frD . His refeie]iiiaI function (which encompasse-s also '

'

"

,

'

l

denotation) iscejitral, but note also tlte'eji otive' function (indicating the subjective attitude the speaker expresses), which linly speech act theory with the Whiteheadian notion of subjective aim

5

'

in its broadest sense. Jakobson's conception was tit turn probably derived from the 'nrganon model of Gestalt psychologist Karl BCihler, which placed the linguistic Jiign fas Gtstalt) in itj; ecological mntfltt of use fBtihler 1 34). Also Gardiner (1932) took the single ct of !ipeech the l>daii of his theory of lajiguajje. '

h

'

15. i remam sceptiual Lib ut at tempts to formalize lil ier Le 'ok of diacourie ilructure - these arc often all too rigid, with little or no room for the intervention of novelty and creativity. My demons-with in-frames approach reflecfci potential expectation Jiets, not rigid templates, and these are always negotiable. Discourse can bt viewed as interaction for the purpose of creating mutual iL-ieujnce inaluraL iodal and technical}, and involves highlighting the ,same parts of the shared background knowledge of both participants to forma frame for specific interpictatioii ofsuccessive utterances. What is shared is a conibinatioji of intrinsic and constructed realities (Searle 19951. 1

'

16. They cluster aroujid the highest point of communicative dynamism i.e. what is new and focal in the utterance + gesture in context, and correspond roughly to a single proposition. The loss .Hystematined gestural i-omponent retlectsitioretloiiely the persona! 'self1 of the conntiuitkaioj; 1I1 e vtrbal c< «npo n eiit j nore t he sue ial no rjii cons t raining t h e fo rj n ui th e coj ntn uiticative act. 'i'hc two elen ent.s are held together by an inherent principle of periodicity (reflecting a contmon ,

'

exp]es.sionive aim}, A growth point recruits' a linguistic category and generates a gesture around Tiie io klighted cojiceptual -geiiol Ky "bh uistic category McNeill is thinking in frame-sen antic -

'

'

termji of such a verb as English b uy', whic h comes w ith its owit pi ed ic ate fraioe of a rg uments a nd fills a slot in a broader sttuational frame of lcommeiic ial transactions1, A compatible me imghl he a movement towards the speakei (op.cjt. S). The cycle of self-organliation goes fron disi>]dcLvd, iitdeterminate input t ordereJ, detercnijuteoutput, leavicigaciy uciutiliied fragmtnLs

259

i6c)

Notes

iliK ti up - (rilhtjr L]tiiitiiitLi: of lijijjuiilk -lor further tfiiiuing cydes,

Minn WliiifliLMJ

27. Moreover, there may be acts embedded 1] higher order discourit acli note the. iit>t yet Jinished' Hitajiitioji on some .*;ejitejice5h wltich preauntibly ntarkithetn as,embedded within sojue l

higl ef Level act). The latter nmst l>e defied m tern of higher 0]dcr intetitJoni - iUL-h as the nverall goal of guessing the gaine uestiati oh (he part nf the gues ef in 'IWnty C iteslions, for '

'

example. The-se ntay be suspended more or lejis indefinitely (=inherited from occasion to '

oecaiiiojiK varying in intensity of relevance to successive decisions until their satisfaction k reached or re\rised (as described under i.2.l). Note that subjective aims aspire to achieve ii ajiiioal ititensit>r of feeling for the subject in thereievant future (Whitehead I97fr 277). Several fll>stacleji or stages may intervene before that relevajit future allowing full satisfaction is reached. It is a matter of inherited lures (or at tractors) for the satisfaction of further occasions remaining in the persisting situation. '

zH. This k itminiicent ol

tJiale's 'onu new idea per (intonationJ unit' coostrainl, wi ich 1 .shall return to in 6.1. Note also the parallel in Lbe purely sirUiilua a] assignment of sernatltk theta role-s (only one of eatli relevant category assigned to NPs in a given sentence ivitliiji Cloverjunejit and "

'

Binding theory. '

'

i9r An alternative would be to treat every such sub-routine as a distinct occasion within an overall personally ordered society, which parses on the causal object iti cat ion of Its own satisfaction to the ensuing occasion. The problem then is twofold - - as regards potential consciousness on the part of the experience] and as legardn iliu overall goal: the ensuing occasion will inherit the still unsatisfied initial aim, of which only a sub-part has been satijified (and i'.k'Imi.; m;.m k .mw. biL-ctdied roiui :ll;ii; tlx 'm i;olii jK ie.sLentL1. Minielluni; Whitchead tpti-i Lie ally disallows). El .so tins much better to avoid the mbtiny of levels iiid regard n 0 L'h>LVL' sub ro uli ties as ivprcsej ni ng phasts w iihin ill L1 .same h t al I l 01 it re l ej n e. [ his docs not pnei'ludo tht (.HJisib i lity iff a pe i s ona lly ifidered stu'iet y en Le r taiji i og v arii ms mw e 1< nig- terj n jjoals {presumably in a statt! of ompetiiion') at tht; same time as striving for llie attainment of an it] ]oediateonen e.g. trying in l\\v gaine tojilexl to tit]d a suitable next queition at the same time as ainiiiig for an overall solution of the game in progress - as lon as there ii eoinpatibility of subjeiitivc aim. llie 'overall' aim is inherited from ocua.sion to Oiicasion with a i,eleva]it eternal ob;ei:t aetijigas objective lure1 this eterjiaI object is ingredient in deterjninijig the immediate ain '

'

'

'

.

'

'

'

(towards fornung tht initial Ljueslioiii,. hut it does not constitute the initial aint of the occasion itself. The difference is that in this case there is not a singje determinate expression corresponding '

to the sutn of

sub-acts but several independent ones, while there is only one such expression

corresponding to the sat is faction ofau occasion containing several

'

sub-routhiey as defined above.

If this is circular, It is at least hermeneutically so! '

'

30. Note that this division is far from a natural one, since the way we divide up and classify the

animal and vegetable worlds whether in terms of hierarchical folk' or scienlitiL taxonomies) is Jnlertnt from thu way we categori/c man-made things which display various non-hierarchically organ iifJ functional para meters. The category minerafin particular neai'ly always n?fers to things iihapijd for a purpott; by jnan (but this is also trm1 of vegetable aitd aniitial produ Ls produced acid utiii/ed by man). Not only are human artifacts not i ategorizable in the same hierarchical fashion as living things' (though they may enter into various overlapping mini'hierarchies)h they typically involve more than oni? basic 'ingredient1 front the three possibilities. This artdiciality, far from undermining tKe relevance of the gime t or natural reasonings actually sei-ves to highlight the '

'

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Nates

muki-dimensHmiil i ture of mental catcjjoriKiUioiu It nilso adds to the intrinsic interest of the game, which is anything t>ut mechanical, 31. II iiuiuld riot ]>u jssunn'J ilul tht setting up dfj toptin i yt]tactic S noJe i> iicCL'iisarily lli-sl tliit g llul hj|.i[i(:t]s in iJiu gLinjiulion ol'an uUtr iiLU - in fid, wliIilii llu-duralioci dfa iicigli; cnncit ejice jnu-ch parallclistn juJ competing -fit iu.spLiiidiid pro«9Jes is to be expected. The inilLition of a imuti phtase conesptmJing to an aelivated lopk iiiighl for example have greater weight in the initial deployment of resources than the initiation of aaupeiordinate S Generally, "

'

1

.

the speaker must assess (through hypotheses mediated by hyh]id prehension the potential activation alatui of relevant referents in the addressee s mind in order even Lo decide on the topic '

of the sentence he or she U about to utter - conciescences leaduij; to utterances are complex and

may involve imultlple prehension ] strands Here the expectations and convent ions associated with the jarne content happens to render the hypothesis that the addressee will be able to find the intended referent of topic It' superfluous. ji. iShne ch ji the diagram i& an example ofwhat Itkonen describes (and advocates] as a &yjithetic model within his programme of'descripike rafioilalism' llkojiecl lS> 3:2!l6l'f.)j it coinbitiesaji JLll J L L JjiLkjsljodioe nl uiul i> --Ji; U'LtEl IdgLCal JlUkIlIIjIL li- it ( ji a mii::: Jt!.j 11I p]-ocesses that could have generated the observed behaviour. The logic' itself Ls far more itituitive h

'

'

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and e.vperiemial/holistic than the lijiear algorithms a Turing machine is capable ofn however. 33, llie straref>r applied to reduciiig the search set will depend in part on l s experience with the game, but creative imagination could also do most of the work

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1

on line

.

$4, (Jonsciousness is another matter - the Condi [ions for conscious subjective form would only have been present if discrete stages of the process could have been prehended in such a way as to link the initial physical conditions of the concrescence with eternal objects corresponding to those

stages. Most players of Twenty Questions presumably do not have (easy) access to such eternal objects [and the cost in terms of time and processing effort is likely to preclude thi. possibility in the heat of the moment). The overall goal of guessing the object would presumably swamp all other potential concerns. 35. Tkih acc rcli ng p ro per ty list ad her ing to the u nknown object may be assumtd to be represen t cd for S by a bundle of keyword possibly simplified or reformulated from the words actually produfed by A, but imagery and other potential reactions aroused by the interaction of the properties and objects cotiL-eiiied iJould equally well be iiU'otveLl. Whai is essential is tile leel' of the associated properties, th ir contiibution to the complex subjective form of prehensJoiu guidijig B s I urtber search. '

'

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''

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$6. At all events, it is by empathy that he is able to sense the reason why A might have answered the way he did: seaj ching for it why behind unexpected behaviour is a largely automatic respond in a dialogue situation and is part and parcel of the general on-going monitoring of the assumed rational coherence of the behaviourof a dialogue partner. '

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37. Compare Lyons < ] 77:5 1(.} on the distinction between the theological Gricean icnplicature' and stiict truth-functional implication, and von Wright < 1 71:%ff.) for a discussion of the practical syllogism The latterh lying at the core of human rational intentionality is perhaps the kind oi' ijiference closest in spirit to Whitehead. 'i'his takes the canojiical form; '

'

1

.

A intends to bring about p A considers that he cannot bring about p unless he does a Therefore A sets himself to do a

261

ifci

Notes

Thii irestuiatea strangly with ihe essejitial ingredient [if the Subjective aijin' in the ivorkingout nf the Bilisfactioji of any icittllentual pifhejision (ijicluJing intuidve iuJjjintaiti) in Wliitehead s LtiLJiiL1 di lhiiijji. Liln; tht snsptuJi.-J intuitivu judgmont ihi? pfi tkal iyllogisin inv ku timvJly find eniersenceh being heurutic and hemtneutic' rather than namic. kkonen (1978:49(f0 discusiet thii '.seeking ii d finding1 approach to logic fin particular the gante-theoreticil logic of Lorenzen and Lorenz with its "defend and iittack: sli ategy). As he puti iu logic is, like philcwophy, j hujitaii jicitj e prtu iiud mi Mttjal norms, it was itoi suth a Ijij; si up, aiW aJl lloiti Wl itehead the mathet atician who nought for the grojndtj g of n athfitiitjcji iti logit:, to the later, 'humani stic Whiteheadh who snuyht the .ftiutiding of Utgic in direct lunmn expeHenire. Note that hi;, '

'

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'

.

'

L

s

.

us.pej ded jLtdgn ent

-can

be -equated hroadly with the 'hypothetiiMl inleiej ce' or abductioji (as '

opposed to deduction, wlikli ii J inatlur oi positive or nuj tLve udgmunii). 3 ItiLjJejitally, tlw reaiitui why thu JiiiguistiL c piesiion of cpiiileinic modality, tens*1 and negation overlap and cohere aji a rather distinctive seowntk dojuatn could bejiatd to be becauK they all relate to the whiteheadiati iiUuitive judgments i,er the manner in which propoiitionsare '

1

prehended and assigned truth aiid/oi- credibility values. Deonrk aitd other kincLs of root anodaiity

is more closely related - Like aspect - to the predicate alone, and tnood a the 'proceis' aspect of modality inter faring with lite communicativt coittext, ii Jitore closely associated with illocutionary categories involving entire utterances. West Green la lulic happens to reflect these relationships in an iconkally tratisparejit loaniter, with sentential affixes {eiobracing episren k intidality. tense and negation) cmcurring after any root modal or aspectual affix and before obligatory mood inileetionii. In this languagv, cnorpliejiiui iL'lacing to the inodulatimi of judgnienis art thus positioned between the extended predicate Oitcm pluj; internal' aftixes) and the inflectional category expressing relevant illocution type. '

1

'

35. The link between the two Ls wrhatfihibatani is poijititigat when he claiiins that the predicate of a thetic sejitejice in Japanese can he analysed a a whole pro position fit was Xthal V where Y Ls the propoiilion), as opposed to the itmpltr eategoriai sentence Via for X, V, wltere V is sojne proposition relevant to Xl.Eltere is typologkah'ariatton in how strktly languages le u ire distinct constructions for rhetie sentences - English Whitehead s language happens to allow ordinary SV seitteitces introduced by indeiinnL XI k as iji a n an appeai Ld fas opposed lo- say, nanishh which requireji djinmy locative subject j/ltiji such se]itejicesj. Latnhrt'dit includes uitde]" his sentence focus' ty both thetic sentvitcesiitmtducin ]tew ] elei-etils; and the holistic) re wi'ting ofeveitts, in both of which Papanese is involved, aiid contrasts this with his 'predicate focus' type, '

k

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'

L

'

expressing topic-continent structure (Lantbrecht ]994:137f.) for him thetic sentences iticlude the '

case of pure existentialily, and he points out that this j urther presupposes a relevatit wtH'ld in current discourse {again with the world in general as the limiting case). One could say that the relevant background nexus is taken as the flpeaker/hearer s whole actual world (unless spatiotemporal ly more narrowly specified, e.g. in a locative sentence). Note that a proposition for Whltehead has a locus (that of the nexus of its logical subjects l - in copular sentences of location and existence that loiuscan it self be the predicate of the proposition, in identifying and calegoryassigning sentencej; (also typically copular in languages like Knglish) the predicate is respectively a description of a nexus (e.g. hy location or functlonl or a nexus type (i.e. an eternal object). None of these are necessarily thetic! A further distinction ci oss-cutting sentence types which Whitehead does discuss is that between 'singular' 'general' and " universar varieties of proposition (White'

l

heitd 197S:166). '

40. AJthoug this may sound like a thoroughly proposttionar riew of inference, it is not incompatible with Lakotif s suy estion that the basis of all abstract thinking may in fact be

Menc.i

jn lii iiL iljimgliL - cf. LaI (J f (! !>!>(f)hi]i wl'iich lie di>i:uist;3 the Simriaci e hypthtliL'sisi whoi cby melapl Qt-LiraLesLttftisiDJi pruitives itie oveiall typo l(]gy/st rupture of the itiurce dojnaiti so t hit also -

inlereiicea from tht latter tire iranst'erable, and typica] syllogiinis iuch as thai iionceriiiiig Socrates' mortality can he wcw as bas d the ontaiiier n etaphoi1. t oiopaie the baidc VVl Jteheadiaji insijjlit tltat t or actual entities all ahitract concepts {eternal ohjects] derive fron physical and '

-

-

i

.

'

hodily experience via conceptual valuation and reversjon. Metaphor is the result of various n

es

of thejie two piocessefl (plus transmutation, i,e. recognition of analogy). Specificallv, recognition '

1

of maLches

hctvi'cen patterns in different objectified nexus (for example in a 'source domain1 and a metiiphorh M donial] ) arc an essential funtrion of'intellectual prehensions' such as the intuitive judgment. '

-

41. t lo tnpa ru 11 rown and Vule (1 ;t3 257 lif. | js wgarda t he role of inference in tnainla ininj; te.vt ual cohesion (in terms of bridging aisumptjons that are Jiol purely autonnalic}. tknn pare also t ivoji ; I d: j. iljf. ! on the two types of inference involved in text/Jiscour-se coinpjeliej aioii, the rapid, autoioatixed grajionar-driven type ajid the more priinitive (fine-graijied ajid slowl vocabularydriven type, Hoth of these can be discussed in terms of Whiteheadian prehension types - and the maintenance of balanced complementarity between the two channels is precisely of the essence during the successive chaininj; of complex enncrescent occasions when linguistic behaviour U involved. Polanyi (iy5fl;S7 and 100) has a further take on this in terms of situations where the tacit and the articulate forms of thought fall apart owing to what he calls 'sophistication on the part of the speaker, and their relationship has to be u-adjuiied hy ihc tiddicssee in order to maku irense of what is hfing said. '

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42. 1 he oth e r par r, th e nexus to wh ich t he indka t ive feelijig l efers, may -- as here - he iden t ical '

'

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with the logiL-al subject of the embedded isoaginative propositioji. Note that a proposition may intensify, attenuate, inhibit or truncate its logical subject(s) for the prehendlng subject, acting a,s '

a lure for a concrescent decision1.

43. IJ() r ih sni it is the essential medtaiii sj n of ost ens ive- i nfeii ttial to ti iti unica t io [], and opera les hy Ijinit]tig the as>umptioni coci jiiuciicated by a speaker to those that the addressee can recogj e as fulfilltng the presuinptithti pliti aJ relevance and thui linkijig what was actually said to what was most likely to have been actually intended by the speaker. The ostensive stimulus is ' that part "

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of) the speakers utterance that would be irrelevant if it were not intended as part of the informative intention. During the comprehension process, the addressee extracts from the foim of the utterance irselfthe evidence for just what the optimally relevant assumptions conveyed by it are {and normally presumes that thus corresponds to the flpeaker's intentions). Uy concentrating exclusively on inferential communication' as opposed to rule-based language use they downplay that part ofcommunicative competence that is conventional rule-based (e.g. exchange formulae) and does not require on line inleruiaboth surely have their place in the broader 'process1 view of language, '

L

1

44. figure 1 is just an attempt to represent graphically how indeterminate cognitive input can

result - - through non-linear iutcgration - - in determinate behaviour under the guidance of structured intentions, it should most emphatically not be understood as some kind of primitive wiring instructions for a computer simulation. 1

45. Thus t alvin '

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"

tcrebral tode

is not a code in the sense that language ist it is a hypothesis (albeit a rathor convincing one) about how information is transferred around thf cortex in terms of neural underpinnings (Calvin 1 6;. He says virtual]y nothing about how a ipt?ciJk memory

itij,

264

Nt>lcs

46.

'

I

'

liis applies lo pho-nctk s.jh t;iiice as w ll as to . ejitantic substante: obviauily pho tink (orm

is constrained by the physical nature of .sound waves produced by the human vocal orgaiu. Although Hjelmslev's sharply Jistiitguished 'iubstanw' (otl emiw'purports l>anish m&img} from the,system of linguLstk fnno and content itself, he envisaged a higher-1*vel 'n etasentinlogy which doe indeed analyse thephysiolngyof speech and the external 'thtugs' -and socia] realities - to which language refers into ultimate figiimc' (Hjelioslev 1963; tl9ffj. 'Substance' here is not meant tn be taken iti its classical Aristotelian sense, which has nothing much to do with language, butenneenu rather the teleology of individuals (albeit language userji). From theWhitebeadian viewpoint, the study of phonemes- I.e. phonology- can be taken as the (non-causal) pattern aspect eorreiponding to the (causal) .subject matter of process phonetic '

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47. Akn Kybei? cLal. (L!

h fron within grjiutJiatiealizatio]! theoi yh etnphjsize [he inipDrlatinc of txpKKSlaii/eontfiil 4:iivarlatjoji from a diaeluojiii: vLewpoLiil. According to their paralld sedu-clion hypothesii elian es in forjii undei' grajiinialicalizadoii proceiseji Lconieally reflect '

'

changes in n eauing (e.g. as regards seinajitii: compaclneis and generality). '

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4Sr Of course there are differences between Itwgw and competence : whereas hittsuc is for Saussure a social matter, oitly partially instantiated in any one individuaVs head, Votupektu-e' i a psychological nntion for Chomsky, being innate in every individual (and containing the essential dynamic ingredient of syntax, which fifTwgwu, largely a matter of words, does not). Kote that the pattern aspect of language for Whitehead - - like ftir uf and unlike 'competence' - - is not precluded from direct access Lo consciousness. This view (shared by Gardiner in hngland at the time), has bten in edipse in mainstream generative linguistics since the advent of the all-powerful computer itietaphor of thou|Ju, '

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49. Although it Jiidkes .sonie t nse to Jetint j societii] Ic 'cl bckivv that of the phon-eme in t rjiu of articulatory featu]-esh since fhsy .art: the etttiiej ta! data' that concrtsce lo produce iibiuctLjlud '

action Lype.s {phontiO'es jji the speech chain). Hoivevej', tltey do not for10 InJependtnt ujiitJi loanifiesting as enduring objects, ai token phojiejnes can. Corresponding acoustic features are cues tn the recognition of intended action Lype.s, prehended by the hearer from the input signal, i .shall return in 3.3 tn the relationship between product inn andenn prebension. $0. Syllables may be the optimal units for the co-articulation of segments (vowels and consonants), by combining maximal perceptual distinct ken ess and minimal articulatory effort (and thus incidentally fatilitatin the pairing of aiticulalury and perceptual categories). Compare the WhJteheadtan satisfaction of the subjective aim of any actual occasion in the auainmtnt of maximal intensity of contrasts. 51. Bauer (59 ! also hints nhat thu concept1 morpheme1 if more obviously applicable to certain language types than to others. He discusses in thi.s context Hocketti i-sojiance* theory of ,

morphology (which would appear to harmonize well with the Whiteheadian approach to languageljn which analogy rather than rules for tn the basis. Hisown suggestion is that morphology is a special ca.se of resonance lor association), starting fi'om minimal fotio-meaning couplings and working outwards (Bauer 1999:241. '

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5i. Thus, for example, (sentential) negation in many languages acts as if it were on its own semiinteracting with ntorphology and/or sentence syntax it] a rather complex way, as can be seen by the tendency towards double negatives in colloquial hnglish or by discontinuous negative morphemes in Romance languages and colloquial Arable. The idiosyncratic scope autonomous tier '

1

,

Notes

relations resulting from the interact id o of otodal verbs and OL'giition in tuiopeao languages have often been commented upon. Elteeitact positioning of negative morphemei m the sentence may I waW.i Ij l-l' -ir :Il Mth-. e - : pi ;il'i:i;iI k il' ji jdly - hIl-.I [iy -Mi|v 1:1 "ri "-i 1 l;M-.i;iy JnU adverbtals and interjections in English), fhis is not surpri-sing from a Whiteheadian perspective, -

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.

.

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where a negative prebends ion j.s a distinct

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*

act

within a concrescence [e,s, oi e beii g '.satisfied' by

the production of a negative utterance). 53. Ci\ Peiiito ([ S6)talso Deacon (1997 69ffJ for in intcrcstingprcnentationof theke>rPeirceaj not ionJi within nn evolutionary fraititwork this will be returned to in Chapter ft. Note that lor Pciree the kon has an intimate link to the past (patterns of experience recognized in n emory) and with metaphor and indexes with the 1 deictic) present acid with metonymy, whuvas symbols poiht towardithc future (as pure potentiality, like Whitebeadian eternal objects). Readers familiar with Peirce lerjnij ology jnight want to note further the following approximate correapondenee.s ; t bough t be VVhi t ell ea J1 te rm s ifft?]- not j ust to st ns): Vheme' - p redk jt 1 ve pat I eici; 'die eiu s i tj projvositioj Argument's (intuiljye)}udgjiiejit; 'lugisigjV (symbol) type 'jiinisign'- (syn bol! token; ualisign eternal ol> i:i iif quality (featuo:/. Elu1 ma;or Jiflcruji e Wlweuji Whitebead antl Peirte Laii b*; summed up l>y sialinj; that whereas for PeircL: everythim; ihe buit m understanding is cJ.[ ablL, of jji a ping is MgJisf for WhilebeaJ ivb-it is basic is dyndinic pi ehensiorts, acid 1111:1 mayor Jiiay Hot expresiud with signs, feiiru tried to combijiu the process and thu pitterji aspects of lealtty icitoojie overall classiikatory systeiti - hente his .sotnewhat l>i/a]-re ontology. '

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5 . Enflectiojial paradigms - e.g. of verbs - may also be regarded as iconic Ld iagrants' in so J'ai .

as the categories inflected for fpersont tense, etc.) are isomorphic with '

L\pLi jlilLj

.Jh. j .'.. . UriL:il obiL'Lh ....

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natural

1

cleavages iji

'

\ -m: \ :\\

\\ refer, but this is usually a matter of simple paradigmatic isomorphism (the one form one meaning principle}. In internally inflecting languages there may be more contentive iconic is in, as in the case of Semitic languages, where the consonants define the .static conceptual framework and the vowels - extendable in time and, unlike con,sonantst forming independent syllabic nuclei indicate the temporal or distributional deployment of the concept <ergr the tense of verbs or the plural aspect of nouns jr Also Endo-European ablaut shares this iconic ism to some degree (e.g. the 0 -grade typical of th e Ma t ive pa st pa r t i c iple). Another clear case of iconicism - th is time of mo re general distribution - is found in the linear order thfit affixes and stems tend to obey within complex verb-forms, following a proximity principle whereby elements most 'relevant' to the verb stem stand closest to it fcf. hybee E9fl5:33f.K At the most general level one may state with Anttila (1989: E7) that whereas the lexicon is predominantly symbolic, the rules of grammar are in essence iconic (specifically diagrammatic). 1

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1

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55. This complex rdationshjp between icunidty acid aibitraricn'ss is particularly evident when one consider-s sign languages, which contain a higher degree of arbitrariness and convenlion than is ilku iLLili/ed jus1 spoken languages L iit.'.ios more ivumaly njius licigberg iVdu ji di.- L- s ill e blend of iconic ity and arbitrariness in referent-tracking in Danish Sign Language I. An example of a diagram based on analogy in Danish Sign Language is the use of a sign whose basic meaning is one of physical po-stui* to express the abstract meaning 'ethos' (the relationship is not directly between the abstract content and the signed expression). Diagramming 'importance* by Jirst position in the sentence is an example from spoken language. Temporal semantic priority expressed by syntactic priority in the expression chain is an example of a straightforward Nmagistic' diagram. '

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56, Words Uike individual morphemes) display varying degrees of lexical strength1 (connectedness), but also of autonomy according to iiyhee:s dynamic model of lexical representation fHybee '

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265

266

Nf>tf

19 5; 57Q> so that, for exampta (certniin) inflecttd forins of worcis in flcctional languages (but not

predictable derivationd extensions) may have i special status as anenwy tracer in terms of '

pjiychalogica] reality Hfw 'words1 manifest thcmself in memory as regardfl level of abstract ness and degree of autonomy will depend to some degree on overall language type. I'llL-k\L- IJI lllL'Rpmudd :l. J>ll-. J'' V 7! J J I 1 lI t l' n |.'lv i 11 . .k I m T.iU n l-. .-i'IlJ il. icj tht1 lutraicby affinity types frojn O (probities), through 1 [ipitial ejuities), 2 Uxmm of itfilrd)) 3 ptiiuibit facts), L« 4 (spetvh ii'ii). I his i on sponds to my '.societa3 levds1 only in a jLiilit-t ruLigJt wny second drdei cdtiiic in pji Lieultir, rtfti tu fvi-nis or peisLsiidg statosi ill wiucl firit order entttiet are involved {thLs in a matter of lies us nprtad through time, io is (irtJio ojinil in tliL limelwi pjUerjiini; of sflcitiai leveli repi stfiued hefej. Thi1 Uhwtr levels belaw nl lJll- Li: jpkui:L- .-.il- i:-:-: p.n I ul iLl- J ; i liiyei J nuidel m .!!. i-i i .'Ki-kjUs I'lIuil , i-ji iw. level ot'woids (or niDrphemesj, its 'eAiended preJjnates4 and 'propositions4 belong on the levul ul ientencea, and its claust's. - i e illocjtions - btlonii lo the levtfl of texts (discourse). VG haa inorf rucfnily iittoitiptcd kh draw s.til] bigh j- le\rels. of Coiitinunkative orgiiu/jiion of the clause ijito tl e purview of gjajTtiOar. 'i'lms Hengeveld liis proposed a level for the discour&e 4Move* whiclt contains utterances expressinj; various perlocutiojiaiy) speaker intentions that interface with jjramniar-coded Jllocutions (Henyeveld 1550). i ltis falls within my societal level td'-con JituV

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uitiei of ipeakera

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5*h Syllables n>ay perhapi he uiuversaL although the notion requires some stretching in the case

of languages like Hella-dola with its long sequences of consonant sand extreme paucity erfvowek Morae typically mediate the matching of words to the ,suprasegmental prosody Iwhose units are only roughly parallel, as It were, to segmental ones). Just as the syntactic clause Ls the usual default for interdlgitatton wit) utterance-level pro sod ic units, so the syllable appears to be tl e usual default at the level ofwords when morae are not relevanl. [he degree df isomorphy between word .nl.n;' \::\ iv - : miMdi-i nUly li-Hi I.vm-.i. y UlM ta e In pii.MAli-. -.yilJik- hiiLsl.--;'-! ilmu .1 i fact it is piiobably a mistake to regard prosodlcally determined 'levels' like that of the mora a being part of the same vertical hierarchy as jiegmental phonology and morphosyntax. hach of the basic liitguLstic levels has 11$ own parallel prosodk counterpart of patteriiiiig that is roughly - but not entirely - coextensive with it. Treating such matters as part of a monolithic layering of levels has caused much confusion in linguistic theory it] the past. That there should be a certain indirectness of correspondence between the levels and units of grammar and prosody is suggested by tbdr partial disassociation in both first and second language learning {mastery of prosody is .

first to come with ch i Id ren, often last to coj ne

i f a t all

j t li ad ul U ea r i n:r.s).

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Sg. Not that such a rule Ls much like a typical conscilutive lijiguistic rule. However certain types '

of linguistic rule with a very real role in speech production and comprehension aae of a decided] y probabilistic ]iature,. representing weighted expectations rather thaji obligatory patterns. 3 am not '

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thinking only of exchange-chaining in discourse and variaLion of a pragmatic kind, but also of such rule-like phenomena as the phonotactic structure of permitted syllables in bnglish.

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[ heseare "

extractable by normal Whiteheadian processes ofconceptual valuation, etc., from raw speech datLi which may produce both 'fuzzy' categories of a pragmatic kind and tjuite precise but multilevelled abstractions such a.s phonotactic syllable templates), '["bey can in turn be simulated by connectionist models that do not operate wnh rules as iuch Jtall.

6o, Tl is \s not Jiim ply to eq ua te - as some cogn Itlve and generativist 1 Ingu iJifci would - gi'a mma r and neural connectivity. Just as eternal objeefci aiie instantiated in (nexus of) actual occasions, so are grammatical regularities (of behaviour) resident in neural societies - but the relationship is very indirect and emergent much like that between genes and the bodies they produce ) '

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6i. Ont could say tlie hiime of sti'-ess: in hagua es lik-e ttigliih it has vario js fuiicttotis, ijicludLJtg the lexici! diifereuljitioji of woids and llie ass-igjimejit of focu.s with in sentenceit eiret-}f word can poteniiaUy be issigjied atresi 011 a certain syllable (or syJlablti). lliLs ii not £0 in other kinds of languaj where word stress playi no diiticictive role, and even the modulation of sentential emphasi.s may be jnajiaged by other faetoiii sucli ai varying piieh alotn1. [ti general, the play-off between prosody and syntax in orj ni injj inl'oi tnation tnay vary coniiderably fi tnn lat]guagt; to laitgoago. '

62. Thus itiid lat home

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iVoin tit "ia {with high tone) and j 'Jiouse' Iwilh tit id to tie oji the unitiai ked vowel), or /Jji/ yesterday (with riiijiy lojieon the second s.y]lable fioin n{i>l before vowel other thaji Hi] pluji jj]/(wil]i low tojie tm llie tn'st syllable whicl haibeen transfeiied to and modified - tht following syllable). '

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43. O t eo u rse sue h rules are not ust forma I iionslra1 n t s, t h ey a] e niift ivated by the meani ng to be

espaewed. This Ja true of all con.structiojial (a.s well a.s metaphorical) meaningL the further away from the simple core plmnemn' Siyit' One n'loves, the L'urther behijid imc leaves pure "arbilrariJ his ihouJd Jiot be lake]! as suggestitjg that nominal compounding, for e.vaJitple, is a iies;! itiLchticiical itsattci1 of building up larger blocks of meaning frons smalllt oJie.s; an at all levels. context tconstructionalor situational) is an essential ingredient in interpretinj; the results oTsueh procefwes (whkh can iiideed be synehronleally largely arbitrary -lesicalized aj dcojwentlonal in a given language). 1

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6 Thus ike rule associated with bound verbal moiphetnes like ijui- "Iwc in West Greenlandiiv which states that auy modifiei of the head noun Incorporated by this, morpheme should stand as an external coitalituent in the instrumental case, as In tingfiitu Hik qingti-qar-putii (big-iNSTR nojie-have-2spostfd to purpose clauies t o llowitig theiiih enrresponding t*> carli-cr or later phases iji concrescejil prnceiso.s within caudal nestis in general, kelative imports net. st res si tig fm groimdi l tlau ? tirst, frir '

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example, tan up,ser this natural tendency, however. ITie ordering of object atid relative claiwe

logicsliy neither prior nor subsequent to their beadss tends to be less iconic, and word order within the clause is considerably more conventional, reflecting the static argument frame of individual verb cores (even transitive ones, although here the natural flow from agent to recipient may well be [conically reflected). All of this represents the natural deployment of the-propositionaUnstincf in express!en; pre linguistk relations through lanyuaye. Note thai the function oi the various kinds of subordijuti1 -dause mentioofJ abovt aie ptirt and paicel of ihfir ut]je .tLVL form in actual insian eii of usayu and reflect ilit vai it us lyp s nf prehunsiojb involvud - tor instance negative one.s in co-nctsiive clauses, iinaginaLLve ones in conditional clausei, etc. Relative clauses specifically reject

indicative prehensions' {cf. 5.2.51 within higher-order propositionaI prehensions, whereas object clauses are a matter of predicative patterns within complex propositional prehensions that '

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(recursively) contain whole propositions transmuted as objects.

77. G ivon and others have d iscussed vat io us pr i nci pies of iconic ity d i scei n ib le b eh i nd s ynta \ ihese include pragtnatic pj inciplcs of lineai- order fe.y. less predictable Jitaterial plated fnst in a string), proiimity prij iples ;including hehighers law), and the principle of quantity (more infortnation coded by a laiger chunk of code, eic.|. H aim an {] rt5) in particular disnusiesa wide j ajige of syntactic phenomena that reflect iconic motivation. '

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7fi, Compare the point repeatedly made by Gardiner that ports of speech (including subject and pred icate) h ave a d 1st iitct feel1 to them - this applies also to the who le sen ten ce un its w i t h its feel of completeness linked to Intelligible purposes (Gardiner L93Z:fi6aiid 95), '

7p. This i.s in fatt implied by Nichols {] Wb: ]07lfJ. The multiplicity of patterns (eternal objects) that according to the Whiteheadian peripectn-e can be abstracted fiom the same objective datu sets ol utteraj ces prthduced by language communities) necessarily leads to an eclectic attitude '

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towards metalinguistic formalisms. Alternative formal descriptionsh all coherent within .selfproscribed limits, can coexist - the deciding factor will be the particular aspect of language one wishes to focus on or the particular level of generalisation being investigated. Descriptions of '

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specific languages claiming intuitive validity should stay as close as possible to the emic surface of the configurations and constructions concerned. As [tkonen puts it, language is a Jiet of normative rules embedded within general human intentional ity and is as such atheoreticaL nonempirkal and non-falsiflable, wheivas any linguistic theory concerned with generalisations across mcb psychologically real rules is falsiliable and like other empirical sciences never completely confirmable {Ltkonen 1970:205ff ). He accuses lite getierativists of confusing the two, treating their theoretical metarules as if they could be the object ol everyday intuitions like the former '

1

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op.cit.: 1\7\.

:

\: L\si\.n\>.>\

'

a s.- iIljs L'nfj';.

n!.jaii/aii tis . .'i -u .jlkl .ukI kilsin,'.: -:

,'.

high level of abitractioji. So. This is compatible with Peirces itotion of lfirstness' ad holistic feeling and with t olanyi's emergent. Gestalt view of meaning, as wrell as with the general embodiment approach of Cognitive Linguistics. For the direct association of (all) meaning with feeling see Gendlin [1962]* who mentions pragmatist Uewey and pbenomenologist Mer]eau-iJonty amongst his precursors, but also acknowledges Whiteheads signiikance iji this con nectioj (Gendlin 1%2:94). l-'or him, as for Whitehead, it'lt t]! ] ] 1 is built up by the continual interplay between existing symhols and (in-going contextual relevance, but what Ls universal/repeatable is (types of) experiential '

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Motes

pfiscedurej; rather than eternal ohiectsr Any experience (type) can in principle schoniatiw an aspect1

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of any other [i

beaflource for metaphorical or inferential construalK since esperienceK

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are by nature multiflchematic tZojnpare also Polanyi's layered conception of intensioital word meaning, de cendingi fran) the inost determinate and tiwd to the deepest layer consisting of an indeterminate range of anticipations evoked by the wofd (Polanyi 195$: M 6); this fades into the general Whiteheadlan backgrouud' behind all actual occasions. ,

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Hi. Con pare Searle s treatment of p P iitionil atlitjdeh as iJ tejUioiinil states that am 1>e e per kneed by animals as well as hnmans (Searlt iyy5:h2]. Also ftapir saw llie pro posit ion lis j psychologkal uoll (mu Jtticulatinj; tlu1 L,c]atiiniHhj[i Ucwcen subje Ls and predicates {Sapir iy2l;3 ). Tlu- in olwititntorpropositional prehtin&ionji ij percept] uj can be seen in tho Gostalt nature ofboth; givej a partial pattern etei-nal object] in its data, any concim-ent procesta will aim at dtusure { satisfacliDJi ; ulidlinjilhu whtilf pattern and linkicig it as predicate tu a subject (tht1 prerei jisite lur the L'lenta] ubjtct to b* txperiontially Entertained ) In itself a propoiiti n ii (like j;i lIlj iuI uii-iL-a. a ..i.wl- pc'ts.-ii jdijL;. A-. Imlk.iI >l:mlv1i si i> \ 1ilU links jI lu ..vUkL.ity. '

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ia. in such complex ilructures, what Is Interpretable as 'topic' at ant level (tay iji a subordijiate clause) may in facL fuiiction. as comment at another (in a superoidinale clause)h or vke versa. '

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Note that the synLacticization of multiple levels of pragmatic modulation alluded to here is a major cause of the apparent arbitrariness of muth iyntactk structure - it reflects the result of historical compromise between multiple competing communkativt needs fin the manner nf Hates & MacWhinney 1982)H3, It is not the only one, also Montague Gram 111 a r, t tegoi la I (irannuar and early Transformational Grammar could form such a 'missing link 1 shall return to the potential relationship wilh Functional Grammar below. In connection with TO- in particular, one thinks of Lbasic sentences' each an underlying proposition forming the interface between deep structure and a logical component or module (and compare the proposirlonal nature of what Chomsky sees as innatet as further discussed in Fodor ]9S3:6f.}. Relating such static metalanguages to the more dynamic world of Whlteheadian propositional procedures is problematic, however. Strawson s approach. being more act-orientated, is less problematical in this respect, but is also far more sketchy than the others. I should point out here the difference between Whitthead s essentially processual notion of the propositional prehension and Peirce's, since also for Pcirce the proposition for dkent sign1) is not necessarily a 'conventional symbol1 {Lc. expressed in language), although it usually Is. Whereas lor Whitehead propositions may be espK ed 1> syjnbihls {read SiyJis';, ol' which their l-j; pros ion contists (they st jjid fay individual referents or predicates) h for Peirce not o[]ly propositions thtni&elvei but also laigei-, more complex argujnej ts ;discourses) bull I up from them art' sigjis [do, as are the 1 thoughts1 behind them. He dejijud the valui1 of Jistinguishinjj sharply between terms, propositions and inferences and deliberatdy blurred over the disrinelioji betweeji the meaning of signs and their use. 1

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44. Verbs may refer to dynamic events as well as static relations of courses these (in the guise of actual occasions ofdiscourse) are central in die Whiteheadian scheme of things and are ultimately

a matter of causal efficacy from the immediate past into the immediate future at any level of societal organiiation. Recall my proposed criterion for defining a single actual occasion in

discourse in Chapter 1 - the occa-iion as the locus of a unitary change to a nexus {tor example to a mental map entertained by a speaker of the immediately relevant discourse context . It maybe prehended by a propositional prehension whose predicative patterji corresponds to the meaning of a verb. As always, the pattern reflects the process and viccveria. tvent types a re eternal objects, '

:

271

271

Notes

; use

as on t Lly types and t he qua lities lefened to by idj ec t ives are; tlie latter are spedtkally quaihi l

nf objects typically endui'inj; longei" in tijue thaji ewtits.

Of course this basic definition applies before language entendi the proposition to abstract jnon-Individual; jiubjectii In the fashion ofStrawson. But recall also that the process of'transmutation may present ab stiTic t c oncep t ual patterns to the siib}ec t of a cone rescence as if they were real physical entitles, *5

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Ulk's 'picture theory' of n ental representations allows for the blending of mnagistlc aj d proposltional information, which is compatible with the Whlteheadlan view of thought as combining both simple perceptual prehensions and higher proposltlonal ones that involve symbolic transfer through linguistic symbols, for example when we simultaneously Imagine3 people and settings and tell ourselves stories about them, in sn far as one accepts that inner thought may i cflect outer experience (which includes both perception and language) this Is hardly controversial. There is a dilference from i)Ik s conception, however, which equates propositional thought with underlying FG clause structures, and the Wbiteheadlan understanding of the proposition, which, as interpreted above, isprocessual and based on the prehension of particulars < nexus) rather than variables, in this vein I would say that feelings and words rather than images and abstract propositions form the basis of our internal on-line representations. Note that Wbltehead does not deny that some types of prehension (e.g. purely physical sensations) are not propositional. '

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ill;. As in Mental,Space thenry, apresupposition arising Inone space maybecancelled in another, embedding space. This may be triggered by Immediate lexical or morphosyntactic meant, by broader discourse conventions, or by general background knowledge. In Whiteheadian terms it specifically does not need propositional knowledge to cancel propositional presuppositions. Of course more ibstratt concepts are doubtkw learnt and formed with the hilp of other known lexical items such a* those used in dictionary defmitioiis ollhc It. mt um -i mxl. S?. Thii Category may retlect the most conunoti way wu leai ti things ahemt tht wnrld: what isjiew ib Icamt as a tJiitiiitial variajit of vhal we aJicady kjiow. Ljkoft" furtlier proposes tim1 the futjre) a theory of sycnb-oJit1 inodfls withiti which giajiintalical consuuctions aii1 Lijikcd to uliier KIWs lLakod iyj!7;467}. All of these are .supposedly pai l a( the InacceiiSLble Vogiiitive unconscidus' thfiuyh as isugyested in 1. .4, they may well bi? accessible x'ia Whitehtadiaii causal Jilicaey J e by their bodily "letT ratlier thati any kind of imagery. '

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90. He aJ o posits sijiiilarity lijiks which associate individual scheioala/cognitive inodeli to -

,

others that resemble it io some respect - a matter of metaphor. For Searle, however, metaphor is ajichored in Backgsojnd, in bodily know-hoiv like how to T alk or ski (which may be tacitly orj ou/cd in qaitc a dift erent \,iray t rojn an image schejna1 from which propositions may be i ead u atid is therefore Jiot based oji literal similarity {iearle 19S3j 149). '

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91. The built-in fuzzij ess of categories is due to the central role of analogy in higher mental processes which involve the recognition of eternal objects (patternsl ingressant in actual occasions,

as described by Wbltehead. It is not so much that words are inherently fuzzy, as that reality is tar more many-sided aud creatively protean than fixed one-to-one coding relations can handle. The underlying propositional relationships-as expressed In sometimes ambiguous surface sentences '

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may be perfectly precise In terms of truth conditional status vis-tl vis the relevant world. "

92. Compare also Jalmy's Torce Dynamics' which represents complex events and actions metaphorically in terms of basic space, motion and force categories {Talmy 19SS), Concepts of action types expressed by verbs, although prototyplcally associated with schematic images and '

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Notes

kinaesthctk jjeilunes o{a cei'tain type, ntiy thus be ext-eiided to desciibe Ljuite abs-trict eventi {e.g. the cftitiple.v verb Vlnse in on1 when Lused of a lutlOn rather than an ob ett). '

93, They iiaguc foj- tlte invr>lven nt of a semiiiuic convtrgtnce area of the brain In 'blending1 absl rac t {b ut embodied | c0511 i t ive toiutruc t ion tvpes witli spec ific seina nt ic detiil cor responding to the arguments slots of sutb constructions. This they do in terms of temporalLy-ordered binding of distributed information. '

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Ajia iuyy j nay ti ppiy wilJ« n lii u >j 1 ne dajnaitl. ftoe Ortt.s ue {] for (Jximpies of" llo n/.oi) li\ ejnheddtJ mtitaphof in tskimo mites talion iyittnii operatiiig hustw Lii uik! Jinii.iiji> (ihij interior ot' thi1 Iuhusc withici thu liiidscaik1 around it]. Mdny of Ldkotif's 'liiLlL iJi t.-.' - sutli bis LivJsriL E is location-\ AUiiiis are porce th* spec [Pic is the cekppal' - represent paLalleiisms with rilli-er ibiliact notiotis on l-ilJill sideoflhteLjuatioti. titJiei e J ol t ajnpJe really a domain* of ' tocation4 at opposed to a higher 'dojnain1 of le!:isreiiee'? 'i'he maiji problem is defuiinj; 'dojiiain4 - i have never seen anythijig approaching a natural laHhooniy of the discrete dojuains beiweeji which metaphor caji be said to operate. It it, safer to taOi instead of 'vertleal' Whileheadian societal levels, a much more limited and precise set. I'or present purposes I shall nevertheless continue to use the term loosely myself, but it should he home In mind that this ass-umes universal natural seajns beyond the hounds of language. 4

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9S- Ontogeneticallyit appears typically to develop from an undifferentiated domain [words like see coverings for example, both perception and mental activity], which adults subsequently learn to split into distinct domains, as defined in terms of relevant experiential frames. L

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96. Conoerninj; polystmy in general from a Whitehtadian ptrspecti t, iTcall that vords as symbols are in the mode of presentational immediacy and th js fullv Jttercninate and their form describtible in terms of the relevant eternal objects, whereas their meaning is in the mode of causal eficacyh which is indeterminate in the sense that multiple in put that i> mordy Mmiiar to thi inherited 'core' can li iyger ofl activatioj ofthf symbol. These expmejitiai triggers are thtrmsel doL'i ilKible in terios of (other) eternal obitfts. The relationiliip is, however, one of arbitrariness aisjocialjue ieelini; is wlial binds them. The eternal objects of the fust kind define the para me 1

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teriof thecode, those of the iecond kind are those jnultil ario us factors that are relevajit to human

aims and activity. At some point - via nielaphor oi' repeated loetcmyutic sl ilL (w example -the meaning Comple.\es to which sped lie words are associated may split beyond the point of lecoilstructable similarity Being determinate and taken from a far more limited array of items than the meanings they refer to, words thus Jiaturally tend to develop polysemy. '

97. Also Jakob son sees metaphor and metonymy in very bioad terms, relating the tbrmer to the "

paradigmatic axis ot language a i d the latter to the syntagma tic axis (and heuce to the very core of symholk expression). He further relates them to the evidence of sensory and motor aphasia

respectively (lakobson 1971tS2ft). The latter statement should not he taken as implying a clash with any non-truth-conditional meaning-as-use approach. Lexical meanings mediate between concepts (eternal objects} and things {nexus of actual occasions}, so they naturally display prototype ftminess when applied to shifting configurations of nexus the meaning of words is typically context-sensitive in Lipplieation lo the actual world although their intentional1 relationship amongst themselves may be structured in a neat (e.g. binary) way. Amongst such structured relationships is that of hyponynu to some hirperocdniaie ?erm, fo] which a Whiteheadian analysis would evoke the presets of conceptual rcversiocf, whereby a higher order patterning is recognised beyond the level of individual word meanings. 3tkonenhwbo champions a social approach to meaning whereby the 1

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273

Notes

mtatimg c*f a seiUejKe liea in its veiiJibibilLly (in prbiidple the jbilily to tell a cohnvmtt aji Acceptable Story abaut wltat tiiakea it true (Itkonen \9S3: 135), .speciJiCiilly argues agaitist ti uthconditbnai approaches, Forhiin bntli t]ie caus Und non-caudal perspectiveji on language tnvolve meuiing, and semantics (beSongUig to the latter) w a matter of socially circumscriJied meaninj '

*

potential. niH ely the study of what it means to understand Jientences correctly, as opposed to using ttjen rationally (a matter of the part of pragmatical Iwlonging to causal linguistics). '

9$. Actual jipaEta-tejiiporal ]-efer4?nce L]i the Whitelicaduui ichejne ni thiiigs is handled by iln1 thtory of slraini projecLed by tndividuii subjects. Stidin delijie iKf stuidpoijil of the s-uhjei;! atid '

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forjn the basis of the projection of WHiW, experienced as objects, "outside* the body. The notion of inental space in cognitive linguislici as well as the pi'ojected 'sigjiing space1 of sign-language users could be defined in terms of the theory of strain. In which deivis and the recognition of '

L

hontologies tind their basis, in the process of'traiumutatlnn" cmnpk.-i physical 'strain feeling ' become integrated with corresponding conceptual feelings and with data from various sensory channels (inherited fron the immediate past) to result in the diffuse feel ofexterlority of sensory objects. The category of causal eficacy is important heie, situatinj; ihe subject in a directly experienced caudal flow front the pist Lo the future fas objectified in the episodic aspect of memory}. This is tin.1 framework within which a WhitLlieadian iitalyiij of linguistic lense would need to be elaborated, in terms of prehensioiii relating the relevant jjraminaiical patterjiitigji {eteriial objects of a certain type) to the 'here-and-now' frame of reference shared bycontetnpoi ary, adjace]it occaslojit. '

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tpo. These do the

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sanctioning in that case. Similar distinctions as to societal le el can be made as regards Phasic) coittent eplstemic and speech-act senses of conditionals (cf. Sweeper 19 0:113f.). Kote that this all leads back to the nature of the 'suspended }ud n ent3, i.e. the pn>cejis of tibduclioj fwhat may he ) contrasting with'what {logically) must be1 (as predicted by deduLtioit) aj d 'wlut is' {a> testable by indjttion). .

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101.

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I hus

It is clearly a mistake to iioagine that semantic change always proceeds from the more concrete to the more abstract via metaphorical extension - one need only think of the history of a word like sentry in Hngli.sh, This has gone from an original abstract sense corresponding to "

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sanctuary which directly reflects itfl source in Latins to deflignation of a place (where soldier s

keepsentryh to a collective sense (the soldiers themselves), to the principal meaning today of an individual performing this function. This is a purely metonynucal chain, one that incidentally goes from abstract to concrete.

102. That is, those IE roots that have the most varied reilexes in HnglLsh vocabulary today, whatever the route by which the words concemeJ were borrowed from or influenced by other

related languages and however derived and abstract the relevant forms and meanings are In English today. They are the roou chosen for rather unorthodox treatment in Kortescue (t '

fic").

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103. The problem is still worse for such roots as ei- go and 1 1- 'come' as opposed to nf wander (how L-an one represent not only directionality but also pecifiL'ity/vayjeneSi of goal?). -

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104. Also directional roots like upo- up from under and one.s symboliilng number such as ilwoL

L

two

1

are easily mimed - but on the other hand they are not unambiguously abstractable from the '

object used to make the relevant gesture, e.g. the mimer s hand or fingers (something moving up

from under something else? two fingers? two long ob}ectsT). As regards terms expressing object types (even body parts) the potential ambiguity has been discussed esttensively in the philosophical literature (cf. Quine I960).

105. C iiipoiiitionialLiy i.s ti vei y itiil - iflijiiiteJ - ispect of Intcr-lexlcfll t-e]atioii!ih bat it is '

considt ably iftore iubjenl to culluriil relativity ihdn is ofteci thought. J hus in Papuaji lajijjuujjes like Kjobun, liiih i]i 'se] ial verb* conitructimis, what to Hnglish speakers seem like simple holistiu antions such as carrying {e.g. somcthinj; across cornet hiiig) art by necessity expitssect as a sequeni-e of more basic actions {e.g. hold-take-throw across1), and a se uencu ot'coordij ale '

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clauses suiih as

knock it down [e.g. a fruit), break it upon and give it to someone' is expressed by a single i-ontplex verb { strike-break-give-it } Such facts might seem to present a problem for the relating of word meaning to unitary propositional prehensions in the Whiteheadian spirith but -

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recall that the

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eternal object predicated of subjects in sueh a prehension can be of any degree of generality and/or internal complexity: either carrying or 'holding' 'taking 'throwing across' etc., can be predicated of the same subject acting out some action on an ob;ect within a given event frame. What is notable about serial verb languages is that the expression of certain types of complex predicate require the obligatory morphological expression of their internal structure, '

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106. This Ls rsmiJiLsctnt of the enuji' ntisi vim of embuditd tntaniog unpuust-d by psycholinguists suL-b as Mat Whin city, who dltifusses four differsnt ptrsptict Ivo-taking sytitttni In the human bi aio, namely that of perceptual 'alifordances' {in the posterior irortej , that I'or spatiolemporal orientation (jitainly parietal>, and those foi eau.sal action iVajnes and fui stteial fracnes iboth frontal), "i'heie aie all itivolveJ in I he integration of Lomplex jueittal models and form the basis i'or imagining performing actions and projecting oneself into objects and situations outside i his dy]iajiiich juulti-focal perspective approach to of oneself {MacWhlnney '

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meaning amountsh in elleet, lit a neural correlate of the fluctuating but causally coherent '

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perspective which the Whiteheadian actual occasion has on 'eternal objects'. Recall that it is

through this individual perspective that novelty can enter for the individual organism. '

:

107, The funtrion of expressions like all corresponding roughly to the universal uantitier is thus an Instruction to summate - via transmutation - every Instance of an entity type and treat it aji a single nexus, '

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ioS. i his '

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will be further touched upon under 'semantic change' and 'grammaticaliiation processes in 7.2.1; the distuiction between 'objective' and 'subjective* eternal objects is discussed in chapter y. the jmint is tlial both linguistic signs and their contexts of use can be analysed in terms of (diiferent types of) eteroal objects, and the contributions of ill u l vo major types of form of detiniteness should be distinguishable, conveotionalily and histtn ical accident characterizing the fbJTtlner otoie thaii the latter (which detine the natural seains in reality). 1

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109, t or a gjlmpse at how far neurolingulstics has advanced In the direction of being able to

specify particular routes whereby language maybe processed in the brain see Schuelle!] 997). The processing involved Is largely parallel and distributeds involving continuous transforms and looping rather than discrete digital stages and nodes. It Is described In terms of'lexical convergence units {which In the case of verbs, for example, could be further linked to kinfiesthetic action schemata). When activated In a production mode they may initiate spreading cascades of activity that result in the motor production of that word. Such convergence itone units, by coordinating information from various sources, can act as foci of association, i.e. as symbols of tht whole nggregale in which they arc embedded. '

no. MacWhin ney [1

*

:249) goes so far as to propose an eimergent frontal homunculus '

that

integrates the brain's multiple perspectives on reality with the help of language. '

Whitebead discusses the relation between mand and brain In the following terms. The reactivity of the relevant sub-parts of the personal nexus that is the mind/brain Is so extreme, '

1

27

Notts

enihling l] prul cijiioai of :uw specific kindfi of intentionality are dealt by WhiteheaJ in terms ol'Vubjective form1. -

119. According to the computer analogy it is supposedly stored like a coded string at a similarly coded address but no fact' can be stored in isolation from an Intentional perspectivet otherwise '

it would not be accessible to the organism.

110. t hese ran |ie from long-term goals - in constant tension of competition for central resources to recurrent behavioural scenarios that can be Immediately implemented in the right '

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conditions, but they are all characterised by association with a lajige of sub-routines available to attain them, in the case of linguistic behaviour this includes those for the linearized production of syntactically arranged patterm of speech organ gestures, hoi' the ubiquity of trompetition lji purposeful mental activity of this type ice liates MacWhinney (i JS ). '

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lii. These can be regarded as the result of Whiteheadian processes oft] ansmutat ion (cf. 1.2.4), whereby the prehension of any member of a nevus type associated with the same (complex) eternal object will produce analogous feelings in the subject. The end reiult ts an adversion/ '

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ijveriitjn, j iieiiinions.

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ctiti how a iubjtct will reiicl lo sh ilar tbti by hiiisitig the [it

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utid for futurt

The build-up ot'iiich 'jttraetors" ainiplifitii the physical piehejis-iot] of complex datLi

{but they are jI o subject tcidistorrian iaid eno]1). 122.

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latter would thej be n miittei- of more local functionality that reflects deeper, more localized fujKtLt>nal linkajjeji supporting specific routes of'causal efficacy1 that cros -cut and overlap with the layered cortical network. 123.

I he

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hi.s ii relatiible to Buhler's. notton of 'Lcenfetten'* slots fbr both semaniic a]id syntactic

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complinienrs of individual lexical itenu tbat require fUling 10 form cojnplete tiestalts Ibuhler 124. An BJHumption shared by a good many AI theoreticians Minsky (1966), for examples discusses the function of wordi as tiakij age]Us chaj e hnii other agents do' For him words (sls aldo syntactic veriul aiidnoun phra.se typts) art like peaepi lypi's ni havhi ihtirown fran e slots1 atid prtjtotypica! liller types, in lurti etlsitLv L lu higher tituatkuul franws id which ihtiy may be ujiibedded. They eiseutially ijiLtiate and mediate LJiterpretatio]Ul procedures. Also itkonen supjHi] t3 a prndedural approach to semantics - beet ed up with ejiplicit reference lo social norncs {Itkonen 1983:31 Iff,)'

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115, It should Ik- pointed out that fodor in himself critical these days of the validity of the digital computer analogy for Co [in itive Science and dubious afl to the whole Artificial Entelllgence venture (];odoi 1983: 121>/. Yft for him Cognitive Science can only make progress in terms of theob eetivc outer {[icural wiring) iewh while thu inner perspective oj the 'same' reality remains a> 'ghost in the ma hioe Wltat he does coj si tently ativLKjle - - by ujietithuiiastk default - is a nonmodular, [joji-itiodal ceotral cognitive system that Cthoidinates and utili L'S the t]iikdal]y specilliijipul from hard - wired io put modules (perceptual acid lijiguislic} fbi1 .such dungs as hJixiog belief '

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[in memoryJ aaid problent-solving '

116, Mote that there la evidence that content

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words are reprejiemed differently in LfM than function1 wordjis rhe former being a matter of rich long-distance connectkitys the latter one of local connectivity specifically within the language centres close to - or part of- firoca's regioiu where at least some syntax is embodied fPerlmOtter & Schumann ] 995 93). function words. 4Ui;h as Co no ec lives jud eonditiojials (purely pn*ceduial in essence) are unlikely candidates for cooipojients of ini ormatioo slijred hunemoi y, but are e>sejilial for guiding active logical thinking. '

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in syllogistic reasoning, forexamplt, 3 assume that real fuLi-etion words like'If' and'then' with all their quirks) do the actual work, not more abstract honed-down equivalents in some universal logical language'. Grammatical operators such as those of the Kuncfional Grammar model for

assigning tense, modality, or definiteness, etc., are also unlikely candid ales for storage in piopositionsh since they can, as we have seen in 3. L he envisaged in terms of procedioal prehensions in suspended intuitive iudumtntSs etc. This does not mean that they do not need to be stored somewhere fin jjo far aj; they have morphological manifestation in the grammar), only that they are superfluous In stored propositions thanks to the contextual embeddedness of the latter. '

12?. i assume that only what has been experienced/prebended (including abstract conceptual

1

propositions of a socialy moral natureh expresstble only in words} can be consciously recalled and manipulated in thought. So whatever a verbal utterance is analysed as meaning at the lime of *

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utterance is reconst rue table either from its own stored content words '

1

reflect! tig the procedures applied lo evtracting that meaning - or in terms of a generated 'mental m kT aLc ssibk' to quasi-perceptual exa mi nation In both ca esh background knowledge activated at the time as -

relevant to understanding the motivation behind the production of the utterance may be

2S0

Notes

reattivattd {tor tlm si]ne aeisan it was attivattd origijully). H at Lit attaintd iti itifituuy iti the forjn of i 'nienui] [i hJL-i" -will deptod im wlittl r iIil1 Ltifonmtion i;ofiL-oriiod In tudLibic at all ij torin.s of ptftoptuil Limgery (or it.s alxitrati L]itfi]ia] jojloyuo). "lypicilly, cinopltJi jimtnirics probably involve both types of encodiji . '

iiJ*. Thii may bo irut even ot imugeiy. Diitiasio ii Di[»j.sio speak iri tWn in ternm of records oi' the (hiyhly su eL-live/iuJiyiduaJ I Jieural Lurlivky tint takes place during interaction with a givoji object rather than of literal pictoiial repiesentations. of objectii ehiJ persojis. They also point out that the brain uses the tame machinery to represent language as it does to represent any other ,

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dnd 'M uiV.iiy ; J intiisiii lx Dajna m ]

l:t5';.

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12$, An overtly modular viewpoint Is also held by many neuroidentLst iuch as Gai/aniga, who pinpoints an Interpretct ]n[ d LlL ]L,sLdL-]"Lt in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere- 'I hi- he iees as respojiiihle foi1 lugh-level vonstlousnesi and belief fu net ions - it is supposed to keep track of the parallel activities of otherh sub-conscious modules, its purpose Is to "make sense' all the time of input from the environment or from within via other modules, on the basis of which '

it makes infei"encesh much as Fodor's central processing module does- Apparently even isolated right hemispheres capable of normal language skills are poor at performing inferences jGazjaniga 1992: 113 and 11] If. j. More empirically well-founded modules are found in the

{non-voluntary} voealiiatlon programs of mammals (cf Deacon 1997; 235f). In humans this '

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system (involving breathing and activation of the larynx) has been partially captured by voluntary control from the frontal cortex a necessary step in fhe i f ne-tuning of speech gestures into discrete articulatoiy phonemes. '

1

130. Thefie sub-theory tnoJules of Universal Grammar should not be confused with the basic representational architecture of the extemled HTiuniard generative model as in Chonuiky (I992h which \si also conceived in a modular manner. This is a matter of the basic levels of syntactic representation of concrete sentences, namely Surface .Structure, Deep Structure (consisting of pure S-role configurations) and the levels of iiogjcal Form and Phonological Form, structure la directly associated with the lexicons for instance, while lb' interfaces with the central conceptual system {and t witb the jnotor-perceptual systems). S-structure relates all the other levels to itself via iterated application of the one generalised transformation remaimng in the system, Move a' Note that Chomsky has himself expressed his doubts about language being an 'input module' in fodor's sense fChomsky ISfifi; 14, note 10). '

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131. This view is not to be isi04:iLitiid with Al and computer simulation as iucb. Thus for Minsky a word like appltf u associated to - and may again aiMivate - specialist agents that handle thi? iklour, shape, siie, etc., of the relevant type ofobjecti i.e. those prijnai'y sensihry legi h] aespo risible foi its perceptioji/re oynilioii (Miiitky 191S 19B)/Jlw peiceived object type they thus refer to are boucid together in J rame arrays Jbr example allowijig an tibjeei to be M en fro in various angles (ajjd tbi;* could be calet]Jed Ui acLion types;, ilc sees perception ajid tnemory atid language as lightly interwoven (is does Whitebead) - - they are not encapsulated in watertight modules I all bough individual agenti aie ussumcd Uh luve discrete bouudaiies largely ijn|>eiiet fable to higher level introspection '

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132. tJtmlrasl Itkoneiu who claims that we can know our own ijiterjial rationality principles -

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precisely because they are internalized rellections of social norms ot behaviour, being consonant with external observation (Itkonen I9

internal intuition

:29jf.).

133h Levelt does not commit himself as to the nature of the internal representations of his Conceptualizer - - but this includes abstract 'propositions' ami involves a certain amount of

Notes

[aLkuidurTiat] J ajtnpdsiljuiulity. Pan of its cm-Ji ititn tu] woi'kij s I'cnatio-pbj nitig1) b. lesiji autoimtit and Lnguj ptx'iik than tht ollwr Cjiucrc>-plaimLJig ) which tnikes it rather an cidd kidd of nodule1, t aitral for the mndtL lh Wjndi's piicidpL of inci ejiwiUaliiy. which Ll'vl'Il iumnufLitv* thjs; ch iKOi isiiij; componotu will bv Lriij fitJ iJUd activity by a miiiic al an ount tifitithaMCtcriitiL- inpuf Luvdt dp.ciL; }. The rclatidnihip bL-t eo his cndduLi idiicvcrthelcs!; cotifdwd serially acid ihji he does dol entirely usfapc iIil1 problcjiiof iiLdujiiing for ijUci iiiediaii? coded represcj atidnji with oarly ssjgcied features auih as word-dtrcsd fto itiark fen-ui) !iu[ipdscd]y being passed oa ffden the Q)iice[ituJiztfr to sucteedjcig module?, fdr further pnfcessin adiustnieot to the requirements df cootoxtuj]i/ed si ceh. What kind oft n nidi tit; o\ word stress ddL-s he edvisjye being pjiised on, other than the instruaioo to apply sitress to ihe wond ibelf? The latter could i-enainly he Suspended" duriog various production sub routines that owy modify itn but is dot it.self a sign in any i ode system a.s defused in 3.L One SdlutidJi (hinted at by Levelt hinuelf) is to allow the Cooeeptuali er aetess to the iiuerioi codes of a IE other Ldrnpdiseots of the model - but why shihuld it theel nued iliowit separate i oded ivpresecitmioits in Older to liok cociteptii with phonological strings? h

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154. Set L veh (L*?W : 265 ft

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His ''Prosody {generator1 component tiik s multiple input (surtbice

phraseitructure, intonadonal jutaniugand aegmejital and

mtthcaJ1

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sellouts and t unctiojis

tn

parallel with phonetic spellout in his phonological .sub-component < it allows the broader context of iionnecled speech Lo ad}u.sl the output of the latter, e.j;. by resy!lahilicati(i-n>. It uoL ojily produces ijilonational contours, bur aJso adjusts rhythm, speedh ptlch legisLer ajid various other prosodic parameters. This is not to suygest that the only invnlvement in lajiyuage of the right hemisphere is prosodic the aphasia literature suggests it tnay be involved in diverse kinds of linguistic processing of a pragmatic kLidsuch as forming bridging inferences, indirect .speech acts, joking , and the expression of affect]. 155. Chomsky sew the mind/brain as a collection of organs in fact, t-odor (]9R3r7J claims that Chomsky, as a Ortesian, does not really regard language as like a bodily organ at all but a.s can

implicational stiu ture ... of .sen ntically construed propositions1 (i.e. oiganij.ed in terms of '

innately specified proposttionai content), from a faculty psychology" viewpoint t-odor argues agaitist tlie sloppy use of the term organ for nativism ofpi opositionaE attitudes. According to rhe Oxford Advanced Learner's fiictionary an 'organ1 i,s lpart of an animal body or plant serving a particular purpose while the Chambers Twentieth Century dictionary gives la part of a body '

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fitted for carrying on a natural or vital operation', and Collin.s English Dictionary defines it as la fully differentiated alruetural and functional unit such as a kidney or a root in an animal or plant, None of these seems to correspond to usajjeon the part of generativists, '

136. Et would appear that Chomsky s use of the term haji more to do with the quasi-biological speailatiooji on innate organic for in'of the Germ an idealists and poets of the Romantic era, Jiuch aj! Schlegel, Goethe, and Humboldt 'ho JspeciJically saw language as being like an organism1) than with i>escarteji. The latter uses the term in the usual senseoforganj; of speech but speaks of human reason in general as a'universal instrument that can serve for all contingencies1 fQiomsky 1966:4"&). 'lids is not incompatible with Wbitehead's characterisation of the mind/brain as the organ of novelty and is not limited to the language facility of that 'organ'. '

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137. He also ascribes liymbolk learning to the sajne regions, as opposed lo indcjdcal learning thy sensiny association), which he ascribes to the posterior, mj enionic regions of the brain. How«verh he stresses that lingoiiitic fuj tidcis dtt jkh map Jirectly onto [it'ural functional areai - they recruit rather the best suited preexisting areas. Symbolic reference he sees a.s operating by virtual sets of associations behind tokens {.sensori-motor sigjis;, symbols as such being a matter of '

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2 1

i8i

Nt>tcs

ith!iiti(HiJi] ps bt;twt;thi] lukt is (whidi niay hfttisn ibutcJ) jjid tlms not really knJitabls'' in i uiJiL parti of the !>] ji[5 ,li all. Il ii Li do j to Whiltil ad'i uiuw of Vtfnia] objects' (whicli define (he nuuilnga symboli aim it) aw they Ldjiu to the ijiia-nal ciryntiL Ltiun of ilk' niinJ.'hLain. '

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13S. In Citt, In? suggtsti tltit ilio the rijjlil hemisphere ii involvsJ at tlie higlieiil [siow-est} levels of analysiiiof speech hi ihit ting alleiitiLUt frtu delbjiled word itid ienlejice semantics ta tlie implii-it logic behind ihem - back rouod as well is foreground int'orjiiLitioji certiijily lias to be kepi triiirk of in a holistic niajuier foi- the full uiiderstimding of texts, tior example. It may thus be crueially involved in the creation and maintenance of higher-level "mental modek:. Compare the generally '

more

holistic * -top-down' tntegrative functioning of the right hemisphere as opposed tn the

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more tine-yrained

hiJttom-up

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analytic fj]ictioning of the lefn hemisphere, crucial in the

production and analysis of speech. 133, tn th 1 s ton text they also po int out the involvemen t of the cerebellum in the fine eoorditiat jo n of speech production (including the Mpid prediction of syntactic stiuctures and word-associations that can be ntatched to novel thoughts-in-contexc)r It has strong links to the speech centres and to the basal ganglia (as well as to the motor cortex Jr The latter complex assembles the components

of complex motion into a smooth whole and may have an analogous function in connection with speech production. This is yet another f feedback) system mediating between the sensory and motor aieas of speech production, '

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Ho. Superficially this is reminiscent of Minsky i layered socjety, view . where successive layers of agents form societies down which control 'spirals1 from the ultimate overall mnnitfii,n the ti-b]ai[r, hypothesised as having access to the LA-brain' which in turn has access to the external world {Minsky l9M:92h The B-hrain may be unaware of how the lower level agents handle its requhementSs being only concerned that the results correspond to l<s intentions (it is not clear whether its coarse, holistic perspective is meant to suggest the mode of operation of the left hemisphere, or whether the whole frontal region of the cortex Is a candidate - hut it is also said to represent a kind of self-inhibiting critic ] The problem is that this could imply an infinite regress* since nothing in his model accounts for the H-hrain s own intentions - these are hi general explained in terms of'difference engines' (op.cit.L7Wf.)s which merely register discrepancies between on-going situations and goal-descriptions (the keyword here is descrtptions'ls and activate relevant agents accordingly in order to minim ijte the discrepancy. In AI simulations goals can indeed be described as lists ofsatisfaction conditions, but there is a long way between that and understanding the embodiment of such conditions in organic mind/brains. The idea of the difference engine' is in itself quite compatible with the Wtiiteheadean picture- of the subject of a high-grade concrescence preh ending 'discrepancies'1 and adjusting itself by summoning relevant sub-routines (eternal objects whose prehension may be Integrak-d into the satisfaction of the occasion). This is also true of the overall heterarehicaf nature of Minsky's model - which supposes self organl/Jtion without any single superordinate super-agent Only the subjective aim as such Is missing in his model of the mind/brain and this may require temporal, not spatial fragmentation, such ascharaeteri/es actual occasions (see 1.2.1). '

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141. This in turn w uld be dtvsely matched via something like Levelt s coordinative suueture mentioned above, just as, at the highest level, knowledge of how to realize ones own speech act inlentiuns forms the ba>ii of one's recognition of those of others (via empathy}. Note that ctni*ciuLisne.->s and *elt-monitoring are rein led nut ions hut by no means the same thing.

142. This does not conjbet with the evident partial independence of comprehension and pioduetion skills {and the more precocious development of the former in language acquisition!.

Hoth tan be mukmnod as havii j; attcsji to tltu si Tit ibsti-act patterns - the eternil objects fn r ming the gramni ar of th e langu age. ] liese do not cont rn 11 i nguistk behaviour bu t merely gu tde it aji a set of'ltd fans' iimed towajdj but not necessarily reached in spontaiieouji convtisatioit. Hotli kinds f>f pi'fKtfWiingtan presumably draw inalthts with this 'tempiate1 to the degree required by the Loii line' task at hand. Pre-fomed, lexically speeitied 'chunks1 and infonnation about lemmas' dislnbuted in the lexicon may in both cases, but to different degrees, render direct reference to the Lih.stract mastei template superfluous. '

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14$. Smuf wrillen sttilcjicts tire suilIv knigw lliaji a sintiie fucusi of coiucioui atttnticii. However, it i& not by thance that u iienttfiict typiiiilly referi to a jiingj twnt ill the wriuen as well is the (ipthkej [nedium ( f. uiidei- 3.2.2). An event a lie trim WhitelieaJ actually jittfJ eailier for an a iual ottasion } ti a nmijiiaHy cemtraativt unit within a wider tausal ne usi, Uil1 ifbje t ot'j unitaa y [inipusiciot]it! pi utiljn 1 ti. '

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144. it Jinay well be tlul tnueh of the eftbi t of itorijig what one readi jjoes itito 'forgetting [or l

lepreiiijig &u|.>er{]uous ijifnrjuatiojil ralher thaji metnorizing as suth, so the recognition of newswarthy informarion {by prehtniians of a certain type) is ol'tlie etsente heie. We miy deline newsworthy in relatioji to a written ttory as infbnmlion that is intportanL to the on-going unfolding of the plot and is not completely conforinj] with whit i.s known already or with ongoing '

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general espeaations. 145, Compa re al so l ol any1 (I Wfi; 91) on the relati onsb i p between foea I awa ren ess on wo rd s wh i le reading a test and subsidiary awareness of the test itself and of the entities referred to within it. 146. Also the division of tejJs into paragraph* linis some bearing on the setting up and shifting between discourse topics, but ad Chafe points out, this is a very jhiid matter and largely reflects manipulatiuns by the writer for spedfk effects rather than anything cognitively determined {Chafe 1 94:300). 147. Joe', whose Intersections appear in italk atript, is the j arratori,fi soul who whtsperi to hini '

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now and then, a seeptkal inner voice iounlerhalancing the naiiator s otherwist1 ludicrou.s gullibility. Joe s words here reflecL perfectly the suspension of belief we as ghustly readers must accept in order to tnake sense' of the narrative wtn kl bang spun before our eyes. '

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i4fi. I'or t-auconnier, setting up a hypothetical space is a unitary procedure in its own right, if I interpret hiin correctly, it remains to be seen how directly his view of networks of mutually accessible worlds through whicb focus shifts could be applied to whole literary works (but cf. Kauconnier Si .Swectser 1996: ] f. for mention of recent work on access and viewpoint in literary Sexts from this approach j. .Some of his basic processes, such as presupposition floating, spreading and optimipjtion etc., mentioned in 4.1 h could in theory be applied to passages such as the one here. Much less semantic 'frceltiading' from general experience is possible, however, in such purely '

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imaginary worlds {as opposed to the isolated sentences in context or brief dialogue exchanges, to which his approach is more immediately attuned). '

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prehensions rbey embody [and the sensori-motor world they reflect}. A mental model could well be }ust a complex nexus of obrectifud feelings in what 'from the outside' would look like air arbitrary neural pattern of interconnectivity, but from within1 [either 'oivline" or wben reactivatcd as data for recall, etc.} is experienced as a specific complex feeling of potential reenactment of words and images, etc. Such a complex is presumably bierarchically arranged, layer within layer or world with lit world [acid is probably much simplified when compared to the myriad processes of comprehension that led to its abstraction). '

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imwr tohertcitt1 (jl'ihj.s proi-Hisiljuii is >tt-ujii;(LiL'tiLiLl Ijyllu1 tinai-ihork ruliiiotiiof tlitUvo uiejiiplitis [Uhsscis-ive pioilcruJ tbfir rtftrn itig to tht group of ptdple il'I jp is. ijbjiLl IlujJ [][)t lo ihL'it- l5ii:yL-|L:i). NtHe thil llit: alternative ijiterpielb]ti-oji of tht anleceJenC of ille tirst tlteir a s bicycleji' iii blocked/re pressed hy the knowledge that it is people itid not hkydes th.il have '

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peL'Siniallties -J>j-default la default that is Lm tiled ialely overi'iddeai In the bizarre world ofWj by tKe conlijiuatioti of the senlejKe). Hurt her down, the tnlerpretation of "each of thenV ii immedi-

ately consonant with the contrast between the two type.s of personality that get mixed up. No other reading of this expression (e.g. as referring to each of the persons con i:eniedi would be con formal with the ongoing concrescence ot the data of this integrated comprehension process. 'I'he overall "

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semantic.s and textual coherence makes such interpretations effortless ducing the clouds is embedded in the bundle of features attributed to that pai l of the model. '

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156. Giv n irotionji of referential continuity and 'accessibility; maximal with pronouns (or 0-

anaphoj'a in languages where this ii possible), minimal with full Kft, is relevant here {Givon 1990:902if.}, it is unlikely, however that precise weightings of distance back to the targets of anaphoric expressions enter directly into the processes here envisnged. The limited emics available to mark Given and New Topics, etc., in a given language, plu general inferential procedures, niayr rather be supplemented by conwderation of the feel' of suth non-digital, 'etic1 parameters in reaching judgments of this nature. '

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157. This does not mean that rhe reader necessarily has a prototype representation with exactly one chimney* or rhat iiome proposittonal representation lists the properly of having at least onu chitnney associated with his/her house' concept. Et merely presupposes that the prehension of a '

chimney {associated or associateahle with the concept labelled by that wordj is objectified for the reader within his total conceptual aggregate labelled house1 {tokens that have left a trace and types abstracted from - and binding - them), [ his rich aggregate represents the sum total of his experience with houses and contains traces of myriad actual houses as well as dictionary and story d etini t i ons of su t h ob i ecu an d. above all, the feel ofseeing, entering and mov i n g about i n such fln entity (i.e. the totality of relevant esperiential responses to that label). Only a small part of It need be activated in any given context (just enough to give the feeling of'match1 or'non snatch') - in this case the parts that respond to the word 'chimney This i indeed a highlightable sub-part of the whole: the relevant functional and imagistic features with a unitary feel' to them {associated with the independent or overlapping conceptual aggregate chimney . '

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15 . Whirthetid hai Jiiuch to ay on the nature of aeslhelic en}ny3nenl, but it would lake me

btyojid mv presejit purpose to elaborate upon that as-pett of hi-s work. '

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159. ItecaEl that suh iff live frtrnf aJlicres to the rtliienive dilta ]i]j;hl]phted fron the initm] (input I

data accoiditu to the subjective ain of the actual occasion itielf, a]id tliat subjective aim is a matter of the ociraHioiVs pcripective cm particular l lTjkiI iih|ucth. Sii a Whiteheadian explanatio]! of tlte subjective form of ajimsejiieut could be with reference to hicongruitlei ij tlte Initial data je.g. a scjitence in a tesl Hj-fV v expectatitniis dei'lved frotn relevajit etei'nal objects [suclt ai tl ose that find ln|[re.sslon in the building up of a mental model from reading a test]. A }oke: typically functions by forcing a sudden reinterpretation tn one's mental model corresponding to the literal l

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Straight1 meaning 'm juxtaposed with a secondaiy "gardeji path' one. Deacon

suggests that seeing the point of a verbal joke involves both cerebral hemispheres, the left

hemisphere being crucial in understanding literal meaning and the right in keeping track of higher level narrative coherence Deacon 1997:312). Of course humour is more complex than this - the

type of reinterpretatlon has, for one thing., to be lelatlvely Innocuous for thu subject appreciating it! '

160. Bliot was apparently interested in Whitfhead s work (especially his farly collaboration with kurisel 11.' [ he ab stract ions c ons idered at the begi n n i n g of the poem seem to ha i monlze also with th e later Whitehead's key notioji of the "actual occasitin' at thecentieof a univei'se in endless process {the crest of the prL entj, cojitiastuig i ith the piehenslon ofeternal objects. Compare the tension in the poem between past and present and their future projection, between simultaneous stillness and movement, fipecilic links to Whiteheadian actuality versus 'reality1 cannot be assumed to be made by the average reader of the poem [or even -consciously - by tliot), although we can all of course relate to concepts such as time present and time past Whitehead, in turn, was always citing poetry - even In such unlikely contexts as discussions of the history of science. Thus he '

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quotes approvingly from Wordsworth and ihelley In Science and the Modern World" In order to illustrate the react Ioji of the English romanticists away from the nefarious 'bifurcation of Nature* that had increasingly alienated eighteenth century sciemre from human lvalues. t6L The development of the flymbolism of the rose-garden hinted at here in the first poem, for example, is only fully elucidated in the final movement of the whole series, i&i l or Whkeheid the univerjie is a plenum of actual occasioni, but this applies tnojit literilly only at the lowest, sub-atomic level. Above that* emergent higher-level occasion s may be more discrete, rising out of and retufiling to the lower-level plenum from which tht-y arose sui theii inner structure allows, '

163. firuner distinguishes between two dift t nt modes of thought, the narrative and the pufpoiilional or logical' which the child must learn to integrate, utilising the latter to explain uneipeaed Jevlations from caiianlcal itoi ies {Jiru[]f,r l Oi Oand Hi'tA. The lonucr, a matte 1 of the vicissitudes of hunun inlenlion ii a prime lorco helilnd the cliildV drive to acquire language aj d to fine tune their empathy with the motivations of others, it represents a kind of syntagmatic ixii (the temporal chaining ol evejits) as opposed to the paradigmatic logical one {socially/culturally determined l>aekgrou]td Tcas ns'L Without the framework provided by the on-going self-narrative the thinkfr i-* amslimLly engaged in, memory would be Iwrd to navigate through guided solely by afleci (whk-li ultijnately cnj sti-uetd it according to both Bartlett and Whitehead). 'Narrative thought1 maybe oj ly indirectly reflected in written narrative works, but it Ls the reader's familiarity with that mode of thought that can be said to facilitate empathy with the writer1;! narrative intent. 9lt257((.). '

For hint the verb with its individual valency is the core of the acquisition prcHieis - in fact he '

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reports the learning of precisely the word where hy his own daughter as starting in a sodation with individual verbs (correspondinj; to spci-ilic known action types) before the construction Is generaliied to all possible verb where it ii the predicate, the verb, that typically takes sentential mas kers, but we are dealing here with ves'bal '

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holophrasis and it is of course the whole verb-form, by default, that must take such markess, as he predicts, Since there is only one unasialysed word it obviously cannihi be attached to the stem alone.

iflo. Of these, tbty see metaphor as being only relevant at early {lexical) stages of grasnmaticalination and absurplinn ofc ntexUihein typical ofhile stayes, when thu meanings involved liuve a beady been cot] side rably genes ali/eJ. They argue that gsajnstsaiicLiliKatioii in getiesal acts so as to downplay - tlisough automatiitatiosi - excessive emphasis on commosi fusictional soeanlngs, thus allowisig gseater attetstiosi to be paid to propositiosial cositent. Notetliat thit is also a kind of

teleology, albeit osie that acts indepesidently of the cosiscious isitesitions of ijidividual speakers. '

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ifii. Of course not all processes of sub ectificatiosi result in changes to or additions to the grammatical codisig system as such, but may involve the pragjinatical Isiatloo of phrasal constituents that originally had purely propositioiul os spatio-tejuporaJ content {Ukt Vhile or 'actually1!, '

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161. This is paiticubrly obviojs with folk etycauik y'' mid L'ontitttinMkm wiih wui'Js ovwriapping li>rcii '.aid i]\ciii\my]..t'.£. -mYvj tiani pcmki: itmrn Ljtc Latin uppMniidittu appojniage vij i nrnth iiid notJ cig to Jo with 'house'). Si tiiiitii: cluui dfttti involves loss of Irjj [in rej y wo rd-interniJ mDrphcme bounda rkii aj id i-iisuij reinjlys is 1 h u> 'hiidal fro m bride-ale inlliienced hy hl>etfothaI,J ett K '£Oisip' from 'gmin!' 'Udoii eoitipicnon, aj J '{was irytirdcd js pluial fithtfi- than (original) iinyular iji iouJulil Ln liih. Thii is part of what Whituhcid meaj whuit talking of the loss of ijnerjncdiin: lints' hi.'iwt'tfn cjiisal offitai-y aj d preaeotationaL htnnedia y, hetwecn cneinij and form, lypical of iyenbolic L eleL ell .L . '

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1 3. A Jtlattwly sijuple example of how thijse facLoivs cttnibijie can he seen in the varioiis developmetiti of the Piolo-liikijiin wrhal root ips y--. recons-Lructabie as originally nnfiininj; iujup (is itill preserved in Alaskan Vupik). i]i Lhe two remainmj; varieties of Siberian Vupik reflexes occur meaniny respectively attack and alongside the origiiial jneaniiig) "endeavoLir to consummate mafi iage {of man claimmj; bride at her parent s house as preliminary to abdueting her)1, 'i'he latter meaning obviously presupposes a very spedfii; sodiil jiu.vus. hi iJu- ]jiuit l>t-a]-Lch of the familj,', the conlempoiary meanings (each attested in one dialect) cover; play gantes aiiiuseo]ieself witKathletics play cards play (of children) 'be jokyt giddy ajid ;in Greenland) Ldance[ fiiioultaiieous coiitiaction ajid expansion of meaning ws-ci-vfs the oi'iginal centre is discernible iji most of these developtnents (i.e. "conceptual elaboiatioji K with metonymic shift.s biit little sign of any 'domain shifting" metaphor, 'lite new meanings are at once narrower and '

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broader Lhan the original one (not all 'jumping* is 'playing for example, buL 'playing* also involves more than Ljunipi]igl). 'i'he thread that remains constant is the particularly human purpose of the jumping* activity involved - the playful and/or ritualked teleology of such physical action. The end result today then is an array of meanings in a typical Wittgensteinian '

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relationship of family resemblance'h ivhere the origmal -central* meaning- still a dim memory everywhere - is only preserved assueh in me) Vupik. Elsewhere the centre has shifted. '

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Think of the way such a cul t u ra lly h i &h ly specific word as' triigedy1 hafl i n recen t yea rs u uder the influence of the mass media taken on the meaning of any unfortunate accident involving lou of human life. The word has moved in the direction of mas Imip.ln (jits intensity of integration with l vi y.\.:\ : .\ p'. i K-1 l-l L'. i IIl .mw it nnihi :l[si los SLtdl JDiMid]!

and Minplj - o .

iul: o\\. :

1 5. Conversely, the reduction ofJiyntactic complexity may go hind in haj d with the building up of complex morphology whose source is often transparently syntactic in thejiensc ofrefleeting earlier sequences of mdepeudeot words. Thus the complex noun class agreement and thematic prefixes integrated into the Athabiskan verb complex doubtless reflect the incorporation of ear Her independent lexemes. The clausal syntax of polysynthetk languages tends to be rather simple. '

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1136. Kell er sees a n 0 ther such piocess in t be ub it uito us Cycle whei-eby phon ological attrilioji lead s to Words be4:ojni]ig shorter and shorter ujitilcompetisated t or by the additioji ifneiv e.g. material that fuies eve]itually into single larger unit.-, agaiji [op.cit.i 145ft ) E his Ls the indi]"eet result of the conflicting interplay between the niaslms of Jiiinit] al energy expendkure ajid ma i[]iL]ti co]0[]tunicalory clarity on the part id the individual speaker, but lhe resulting change in the language as a whole 11. of course not intended by the individual. He suggests that it is rather '

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the open-endt-J tower limit buL restricted upper limit to articutalory precision that biases the directioti of such changes.

187. 1 be piocess- like to rm at of early IG and, espec ially t he in put-out put condition s of generative phonology, made it a tempting step to interpret both language acquisition and language change in term s of the same pri>cesses of lule addition and restructuring. However, the plausibility of the

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i£& Cf. tbe essays in Whorf {]*74). I htrt ifi jIso a link through Hucnbuldt to Kam. .Sapii 's ricw was Jiiorc mitigated than either Whorfj or Humbdldt !! - for hijn it wa a matter sijnply of wellworn thojj;ht grooves in which Lnguii s ti'iid to run (cf. Sapir ]92L;2]7fJ. 1

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busaiicordijii; to McNeill (1 32; speakers o],lsatL:]lite-tVamed' languages like English which

pack motion itid injime]- itito sijigle lexical verbs tend to mimic such porttnbinieaLi itiiotisai they speak, while iptakers of Spanish will apparently lend to tnimic pLiin motion wkhouL the inanner coinponei l - although the latter may be iudepeudeiuly represented by gesture ]iot tightly linked '

to the verb. For an example of a deep" packaging dirference between lajiguages see Fortescue 9y5jh where 1 discuss syntactic versus morphological {Lnldlrect speech iji West tireeiilandic

compared with tinglish. Whether such iten s are packaged iji unitary word-tbrms or not niay well have some testable coniiequence.s t'or on-line .stary-tellijig or other pjiycholinguktic tiisks. "i'he same may be true of the distinction between holistic and compositjonnlly transparent treatments of event descriptions in

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languages mentioned in 4.3.

190. These two d i ffc re lit types of tett i ilogic al ch a uge alsi i spa t ad di lift] en i !y ada p t i ve ch a ugeji thwugh wave-like borrowiuy, evolutive ones rfj sisu-, but note that the latter may arise independently in scattered dialects of the same lauguage owing to similar starting points and languagemtemal tensions (plus universal laws of language1). '

191. Notably Schleicher, but alsi> Hujnbihldth who iaw individual languages a.s higher level organisms each embodying their own genius1 or inner organic form {tf. Humbuldt t aS). i'Or hijn, the "jr iLvr Sprachfann' of a lajiguage Was the pioduct oi'history, imly man's baiiic capacity for language as such being universal (i.e. the shaied articulalory and conceptual basis). Also Saussure tended Uy view "Iftugu?' as displaying an (organic 'supei pei sonal' nature. 192. One of the rare passages where he speaks directly of the individual language as such is in "

Process and Reality1: f l97N:rtyf.i, in the context of a discussion of the nature of'societies1 He

states that;

the lift of a man is a historic route of actual occasions whkb in a marked degree... inherit from each other. That set of occasiom, dating from his first acquirement of the Greek language and including all those occasions up to his loss of any adequate knowledge of that language constitutes a society in reference to knowledge of the Cheek language. Sui:h knowledge is a common diaiacteristic inherited from occasion to occasion along that historic route. ...

Observe that he is not stating that the tneek language constitutes a society, but rather that the society concerned is delined in terms of its members knowledge of Greek. What one ha.s knowledge of is eternal ubk-cu i pattei m, :i gressanl in nexus). '

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Another reason for preferring to regard a language as a graded array ofeternal objects js that

for tbe individual subject using the language it has tbe ontological status of 'felt' patterns embodied in a certain type of [personal) nexus constituting that subjeefs actual world. In other

words, althougb the patterning is determinate, its neural embodiment is to some degree arbitrary '

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objective perspective, as maybe the case for all other kinds of symbols and indeed for concepts themselves. The eternal object notion captures the subjective nature of cognition (as well as its creativity) - i.e. the patterning of indeterminate

nejralaggregarts experienced and deployed as delenniautte ideas, ffirms, lules, SL-enaria etc. It is (anchored in our cojnmon human heritage] with the category of ubjL'Clj t liaritiony ist-e i.2.\) th t ensures tluit ll L1 Jiit1 lin uiHtit: ciei-nal dbject itiipji onto virtually the same ty m ofiyn lKjlic behaviour in all its speakers. the crnHbiiutiou of Social imn anence

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1 4. Lexically, drift an ay manifest 131 a language like Kjiglish in the preference for having separate lexemes to expreus difTerent but related meanrng H so that tnglisb is particularly open to loanivordj: and maintains only lather restricted sets offonm related by jnorphological derivation I i '.vird iK .r.w. , ,:\:\\ HTIilT-l; LU'h hlJ I h.h p; i::ii ill ill -iu' suspects m ijidirect (Invisible hand ! causal link to a particular aspect of the history of Its speakers the multime and colonizing background of an Insular people. Once started such un overall process cjn develop Li* (iwji nioitnmtun as the imoiL-upjed ipa c heLweej phono lo ial for ins g]Ljw unite jjid ititut rtstrkled, unponiiij; sllll tnort loaji words was one way of eheckijij; thi' exeesiive hojiiojiymy wi Lh which the lajijjua e was becoming burdcjie-d (ditferent spellings of the ,

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flower' versus 'tlour' kind to distinguish potyseioous jneanlngs was a more limited possibility). Hiternal factoi's may nudge overall drift in one way or another structurally as well as lexically, as for example when the No mum conquest of tiugland {with ensuing billngualism amongst at least the upper classes} accelerated the trend towards Increasing analytically already discernible In Old Ln lish. iy5. I he . .ii ui'/p jrcr/edistLtn-liot], note, ii quite ioitipatible with Whltehead i sy.slem if the fointer '

term is tiken in the sense of pure constraints on emergence [i.e. eternal objects that concern

language!. 'Luti ae' should not be taken js "Tej]' in tbe sense of 'actual' however - actual occasions producing and comprehending utterances Is rather a matter of ptiToic Its essence is *

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rather that it constitutes an institutionalised, social object, '

1 6. En tatt the earliest relerena to the Edge of Chans'1 concept that [ k]iow of is precisely lj

Whltehead when he .states that the course af history from lower to higher types of order niuit vejiture alonyL tbe borders of chaos iWhitehead ly7rt liW jj Hi), ('ompareitkonen (1 3:204), "

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whose view on language change is that it is ejoplk-able (i.e. Vationaf) within the limits set by biology and society, but not predictable, tor him the main force behind linguistic change is the arising of djssonaiice between the busiL pj Li-.djik' ufisojooi phisin ii.nd sociiti chajiges, a 'problem' whose solution (through social, collective mechanisms) is a closer approximation to the former again. Whlteheadian concrescence also aims essentially at the redressing of dissonance through novelty. The near universal pathways of grammatical Izatlon reflect maximally useful ways of dividing up and articulating conceptual space, in turn enhancing Whlteheadian Vojitrast for speakers. '

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ms t mOLiiLL it;.- i.T kUv llIu.-.

sab

systems jnay be relatively stable for long periods if counterbalanced by sijnplieity elsewhere. See fortescue {iWl) for acquisition/pi-dce joj; ]ea.Mins whypolysynthetlc morphologies may persist for so long despite their apparent complexities, and compare tbe relative simplicity of English morphologys which is counterbalanced by a far larger stem lexicon than any polysynthetic language could bear. 19*1. t]f Clorthians notion of footing' - the position/persona/alignmenL of the speaker in '

uttering an expression. I or hint thii is |>arl of t]>e indesijiy4 function perfonned by speech '

fCioffman 1 741. '

'

1 9. One is reminded of Wittgenstein s famous pronouncements enncerning language games' In which he Insisted that the meanings of language lie not just in the Individual mind - a view LviUirl;. dn ied h iiii-t .Ljuim uii gj .i luiguL-iv (. jupaiv :.Ui SeLitk poMtmu thai no one '

.

theory of n ajt iti will ever be cfitnplete beta jse m-eaninp will always depej d to in me decree ofl coi text <w] i4:h is infinitely variablel. '

200. Non-agejuive fu net ions an he found in nature, like the pumping function1 of the humitn hear 11 b u t these ii re iteve rtheless dependan t for j n terp retation on wh at we as h u nun s regard as the goal of living, ete. '

201. Individual i;e]iei art n ittd aygieg ies (vli'uttured at cnult i|>hf Itvtls n l int ei rulaiio [Jihtp, so thi3 ]elatk)]i buiwftjji ge]U)Jiie and phe]iotypi;/vehic:](.L \* very indirect -las it isalin betweeti neuioiis and ]ne]Ua] attivityi. '

201. Even .4a >i], was not con pletely free of the Lanyuage-as-organisnt view, although his overall L

'

picture wafl of laj jjua e as the niasssve, aiiojivinous work of art of unoonsdous neratiojis the expression of alknmmunicable thought its form 'contin jally I'eshaping itself, like all art' {Sapil '

'

,

1921 220).

ici, A suednet discussion of Haldwinian evolution is found in beacon op.eit.!322tf.). In a DutaheUN this involvej; flexibility of behavioural responses to speeitie lasting changes in the environment biasing the context of evolution Jiuch that only individuals and groups choosing advantageous behaviour will survive. Such behaviours may eventually Ik assimilated into the genome by canalisation As Deatoj htL,L,s>e[i, this is not an alternative to Darwinian evolution, but ralhtr an addition, fequiring very S|K,cjal conditloju to apply fj ote that the link between the survivors yenes and the bebaviour Selected lor' is very indirect and uJipri'dictablu). Sycnbolic refui ence systems cannot, he ciaiins, be genetically assijnilated since language cbaitges loo rapidly for the iiec«ury con.standes ]equired for Baldwin eljccls to pL'rtain. "Il ough he sees the subject predicate {w operatif]- operand) modulation of uilerani'ei is the jniiiiatial cojiibitiaturial structuL'tf for the emergence ofany sy mbulk reference .sy.slejit, this is not enough on its own to allow genetic a ssJmi]atu>n, since ihtire is no nnstant link Ut surface distinctions atn s Jajiguages. He aryues that Chotnskyiui hdecp' structuru categories are for this luasou m fact th-e least likely to have attained neural fixation {op.cit.:334). 1

'

.

"

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204. Lf. Dawkins (1976). iVleioes are cultural entities that are reproduced, compete amongst

themselves and are passed on from generation to generation through purely instkutionally validated processes of transinission. They exist within their own cultural etosystem Note that socially transmitted behaviour as such is not liuiited to the human species - it L; in faet typilied by the transmission of spede-s-speeifk son between generation.s of song birds. Here only the roughest kind of proto-song capability Is genetically transmited - It must be tuned by exposure "

1

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to the lovaI adult

'

dlalect1 for fu 11 adult .song Competence1 to emerge. Like Keller (197 1S4) J am "

somewhat sceptical ot the degree of autonon ous activity l>awkins attiibutes to these entities -

surely I am the arbiter as to how fai a meme (such as meme

'

itself} is to be allowed to flourish in

im own mental ecosystem and its social productions. The concept is best understood stietaphorically, like words memes do not n eet Wlutehead s criteria for living' eitttties - for the same reason of lacking in t canal organisation coordinated so as to serve a common purpose '

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1

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,

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105. One may nevertheless speak of Select ion at the level of individual uttcraiKeproductjom in faa Keller Joes just tliat in his distinction between 'linguutic selection1 as suth and 'social selection The former is a nutter of personal choice of available means of expression to meet mdiviJuitl communicative ends, which is bused 011 - and coupled to - the anticipation oi resulting su cial selection. This in turn can contribute to at] overall invisible band type of change in a language, the indirect result - by feedback processes - of deviatinj; slightly irom established 1

.

"

"

communicative norms [Keller 1970: ISWJif.).

Not.es

20ft. As opjHJiuJ Lin other tutJiaJ pr nzuiSfs invihlvitij; girtiei'al physical liwi. Hl sues language a.s j byproduct orsukvlioji foi l>rjiij si/i:, lu nLspl rit ipeciilbtation foj- ulytii1 thought, k., so his vivw Ls iJi tfifuct more Jittigt iCiit than Pinkcr-ji 0W]i <si:t ihiiikcr 1 4;3(?2l. Ik today accepts evince for bis ] mgu lsc frosn n any different sources hestdes inuivc sp Likci iLidj;iite]tts perceptual, neucDlcgical, acquijiitiojial and from Creoles and langudge dianget ultimately he aeej iill vfxhhi a.fl I'tduceahle to a itiattei1 of h ram states (Chomsky t9S ;37), '

,

:

-

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107, I Tfu 11 langu age fwhtTher as U G or others1 Lse; were hard w ired/1 n nate 1 n its enti rety eh 1 Id re 11

would presumably he ahle to learn a first language at any age! despite the faet that other, uiu-ojitrovfjiibly enetitilly JeterJiuaied fai-ulritii ul-Ei si ht aha caunot he learnt after a certiiin age. (lil[nd-b[>rji childien given sight later in life apparently never really learn to .see a.s sighted adults, when at 1'ophy or alternative utilization of the relevant cerebral regions have intervened cf.tJa/ aniga ]! 2;37). rhe fu]n;tlo]i]ng of perceptual faiiulllei such a sight ish however, an entirely universal ntitter for all huiHan b ing«n thtfeiid-poim 1>umg uidependent ofs-ocial envir'ifnt]ient. It in not even Ij part an inititutiotia] I'act, '

-

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20S. The ejiipha.sis E aju layingoji Individual grammars should not be understood as undermining ilif imporian eofextractinghigherdcveJ gunurali aiioniacross langnagui-'thiscan (ajidshould] be done from both tlw static 'pattern' ajid the dynatnie 'process' pei,speetivest produeij g respectively fornwrexpression and fujKtjojwl/intentiojwl generalizations. 'The iniateke la to relate the tVrO directly. Ilie re]atio]tship is one of mutual reflect ion not of one-way causation. Actual causality must operate via individual speakers (nexufl) acquiring and usang individual grammar f socially validated patterns ofeternaI ob)ectfi) -causality in human behaviour and e periencu is geJierally of the orgajiii\ social kind. The various higher-order implicational patttins and 1

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hierarchies of markedness arrived at by typological ijuve.stigation [e.g. the way 'anijnacy1 or agency afl'tct expiession acioss lajiguages in a principled way) do indeed reflect universal ways '

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h

of dividing up cogjiltive spaci] - as natural 'seajmi deriving front the human condition - but thuir interaction with foicnalCoilstuints on linguistic pattei tiing (e.g. thu langt! chf possible pails of speech ) are complex ultimately mluc ling the ij te faction of theoi anization of the mlnd/hnln and the cojitmuiticatlve needs and puj'poses of the individual speaker [which can also \>v typo]ojji?.ed in terms of overt beh avion ] : . tjenuil obiecis of the one or the other kind, at any level of generality, are potential ringressanO in the linguistic knowledge and behaviour of successive generations of speakers and may mutually affect each other and hence the way they naanifest at anyone time, i.e. affect specific choices ofexpress Ion and (indirectly) language change L

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by derining competing channels/attractor surfaces to be followed. '

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20$, Widtehead s strategy was not to enquire how higher levels of functioning miraculously '

emerge from any particular arrangement of elements at the lower level. Hte kind of-Ljuestson he asked regarding the emergence of human consciousness, for example, was rather as to the type of objects to which the prehensions of the actual occasions of more complex nexus can potentially he directed. The development of perceptive systems in the mode of'presentational iinmediacy' vastly expanded tin: rcpci loire, at did the cerebral reorganisation that paved the way for the symbolic mapping of propositional relations tbrough language. Hut awareness as such is holistic {involving closed feedback loops within a sentient organisnu if you will) and presuppojies only certain basic types of prehension. It adheres to all living systems whatever the level of internal sophistication of the tiexus. There is emergence not iust once but all the way down C ompare Polanyi's conception of the inarticulate origins of speech* whereby the operations of language ultimately rely on tacit intellectual processes which arc continuous with those of the anijnals, '

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L

1

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including the active striving forgoali [Polanyi 195 95).

2y3

194

Notes

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no. This nay sti]] be reflected in ontogeny: ji dtHcnhed by Mt'NtLI] l]992:3]2fj, childrtn ji gesture jnd speech ure it first independent t>f each nther. but bttotne more iind mare closely synch rfmi/ed with aye. The latest Jitage oftbe mastery of gesturing involvej; acquiring the use of W \ :--: im..iXi:iv iM.n-.i.i iMiMtmi .Usin lIiji;,' Im Uifiii ni' -.w.A vMi n of i\:\o\ 1:1:1 tion. etc, {pualle] with the cor responding Ijnguijitk skills}. Another important dupect of this key even t as reflected in oiuoge ny i s t h e development i n children at a ro und ni ne mont hs of i&e of th e iibiLity to participate in joint attention towards objects that adult caretakers are attending to, in >

.

.

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other words when they learn to empathize with the adult intentions behind ostenstve - and later '

purely syn bnliL - activity rioinLis-ello ]992j fi7ff.i. This k ip fcuv-'Lird lo tnaJic jecognitiojiof inteJitionaljty {addingn as it were-, the 3-hel]"cean lintei pretant' to siniple lineal" signalling of refer-ents by way of signs) Ls apparently specific to our .species alone. '

m,

hor

Whitebcad there are no reglonji of absolute chaos, t>ut nor Is all reality charactered by

order. Koth for him And for Chaos Theory in ittat conditions a re ofcardinal importance, and small differences theie may Introduce types of novelty that exponentially accumulate in unpredictable way.s, What is particularly modern In Wbitehead in thte respect Is bis insistence that no two starling points of a process can bi1 identical i there Is no overlap of individual actual occislon.s alv ILmshoriK' & Peden ( Wl) for an exposition their vie of the iteheadian legacy. '

'

116. Whtthui Peirce

s notion of polyadic i' htioni {specifically triidicj was tlie source of WhiiL-hcid's ii n in- tin indepuitdfju duvckipmetit ! have not been able 10 asc min. 1±J. Whitohead wis, tis mentlotted in Clhjplti- 1, jctuilly itioit altunsJ tt) ihi? later WillgenstetJi, although he Jelt jnlipathy for Willgenstein as n nun (the latter being as jajiiLicil lel ajid l egarded the ijirtuence of his TriCtatus" oj Russell is Jiefi] ious. He aw that work as drivinj; a Jiiiguislii- wedge hetweeti t] ode] t] science aiid philosophy at large |ust a$ he hlmselt was stri ijig to uiterate theio. i his doubtless also widened the breach between die tivo previous colleagues in the years hnmediately followinj; ihe i'ii si World War. "

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aaJi. Russell sJtared Siege s abitriet view oi sense is somehow universal and Jixcd apii t from mere subjective psycholojjitaI eviiten-ce (is reflected in ordinary language), words beinj; able to pick out unk)ue leJ-ereiils iti the wtn ld hy virtue of their seilse (and their logic thus iiiirioring nature]. Uenotitig phrases do not name entities. I hLs 'theory of deseiiptions" i.s quite ctmtiary to Whitehead's view of the close association between word meaninj; and psychology (In paj'ticulajperception and feelinyj. l

.

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5

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129. Put of cour&e. unlike them, he did not ultimately turn his back on science. While Husserl a method attempted to approach tli essential core oi'experience via a process of'bracketing outh sueeessive iri,ele ra]ieJes, Whitehead s approach was in a tense the ironverse: a sueecssi e!tpan.sk)Ji of the iictual occasion froiti the mieioCosmic ivorld ol uujdern physics to the j'ull richness ol hutnaj experience. Whereas primitive 'awareness' enters the picture with living nexus prebendiny {reacting to) thi ir physical environment, the development of this into full human consciousness : lb rough intellectual prehensions eliciting the feeling ofcontrast between piopositionalpotentialin and jciili/ed tattl requiies the added complejiity of iuternal structure of the personally ordered society This greatly expands the raitge of prehensions (aitJ prehensions of prehensiojis) in relat io n to the ca usal sense it( self espec ially of fut u re and hypo thet ical coj icep t ual possibil itieji. It is mtereating to note that HusscrL like WTiitehead, started his career as a mathematidam '

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130. For Itkonen the former is the subject matter of Autonomous Linguistics1 in the sense of the study of Saussurian synchronic systems (as j oresliadowed in traditional grammars as early as Panlni), but further involves semantics and the more rule-like part of pragmatics as well as morphology, phonology and syntax. .Such code systems are socially transmitted and learnt {'internalized ). They represent potential patterns of'correct1 behaviour, ust like certain types of Whiteheadian 'eternal objects'. 'Causal1 linguistics on the other hand concerns the deployment of the code in actual occasions of (rational) use, and is thus a matter of individual psychology and '

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1

intentions {within a social context). *

1 1. tternal objects, recall, are fully determinate for[nsol'defmiteness1, whereas actual occasions are not, nil though their object illcation, at the moment of decision1 is determinate - and this reverses the Aristotelian equation of form-as-actuality1 versus 'ntatter-as-potentiality1, hor '

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ic>7

igfl

Notes

WhllehtiaJ ihn 'iubiiLincc' of ati actual ocL-aiion Li its 'forjml' rty 19831. In terms of the mind-body relationship and the third man problem of relating unlverials to particulars one might say that both the '

'

neural level nf the individual self-regulating mind/body and the mental experiences emerging from it at a highei1 level of organi?-ation aae defined by 'eternal objects' in - o far as they have definite form at all; but these forms do not esijit extept in ihe actual occasions (and nexus) in which they are ingress ant. f-vcrything in W'bitehead is both/and'. '

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Index

A

abduction

26. 172, J 77, 23S, 2S6

acLual occasion

ft, B, 33. 140, 162, J6[i,

210.271, 2 5

Aleut

77.191

Alexander

Aimilj

Austin

202,286 6,

ChifL.-uiiin

203,238

186

Clark & Clark 288

192,265

Ari.skilk'

227, 231. 248. 255, 268, 280, 281

Chukchi

247

Andersen

Chomsky 3,5,55, 73. 129-131. 171.213,

competence 55.107.264

complementarity 6.23, 107. 126. I2y

24H

29,245

Cooilie

20!

conceptual reversion 16, 25, 3 lh 44, 95, 172

B

conceptual valuation 16. 25, 9JI, 172

background 49, 89. U2. 278

concrescence 8,22, 36. 37> 149. 187, 188.

balanced contrast 47

277

Bates & MacWhinney 29.271 (27S

conncctionism

Bateson

conscious perception

Bauc]1

108 264

consdoumiL

Bella Cooh

content Ibrni

266

Bcrgson 247 Bickerton Bohm

Croft

4.52,122

14, 23, 108. 161, 257, 261

53, 6S

71.214,268

72, 219, 221. 227. 294, 295

112

Bowerman

D

2S7

1 Jama.sio & Damasio

Bradley 247 bridging inference 43, 152

Danish

262,269

Darwin

212.223

Brown

Dawkins 292

178

Brown and Yule Bruner

Biihler

13

43. 263

Deacon

168,285,296

56,256.259.279

Bybee 187,264,265

133, 280

61, 128, 132, 185.214.223,236,

265,280.285.292, 294 decision

Descartes

10,36,43.150

4, 248. 249. 256

Dewey 247,270 Dik 30, 85, 87.266. 268, 269, 272

C

Calvin

89. lift. 130,220,263,277

causal efficacy 13.54,93, 151,218,224, 233.274, 278

Chafe 34, 141,283

Chaos Theory 53. 89, I 14, 202. 206. 294

distinctive features Dressier

drift

202

187,190

55

y>8 Index

£

H

Edelraan

11S

Etmanetd.

Haiman

ll8,2Se

270

Halliday 18, 140. 174

embodied meaning 4.89, 118,275

Harder

emergenee 23, 110, 173,219,232.243,

Hawkins

255.293

117,287

Hebrew

emergent grammar 4,255 empathy 109, 175.261 enduring object 10, 61. 176, 257, 276 Kngberg-Pcdersen 54, ftl.265 eternal object 6, 11. 25, 32, 36. 37, 41. 59, 113.114, 117. 131, 172, 195.204,

Heine

206 71

187

Hengeveld 266 Hjelmslev 54,59,81.234.264 Hockfltt

54,264

Hopper 255

Hopper 8c Traugott 186

205.208.217, 224,230,233.234,

Humboldt

237.259, 271,273,290,293.2%

Hume

6, 249

Husscrl P

255,281,290

247,297

Hymes 35.212

FauLonnicr Fillmore Firth

26, M, 283

70.87

I

18.258

icon

17,58-60,265

Fodor 54, 1 IS, 124, 279. 2ftI framea 28,31,37.99

i mage of aehievement 35. 116, L 27

Fi'ege 60

i n k iv nee

Fi'cndi

ingression 6.12, 55, 64. 171. 204, 239,

66, 74

index 60,265 18.26,28,32.44,45,47. 263

257

C.

intentions

tiiiidincr

239,264.270

( .izzanijia U'lidlin

173, 280, 293

intonation unit

270,273.279.280, 286, 291,297 259

GilberserdeHoop 230

J

C.ivon

laekendoii

71,76, 184,201,202.219.229,

242.263, 270, 276,284

Qenberg 278

jakobson

31,291

2, 33, 55. 124. 166, 171, 202,

247,256,257

Japanese 46.77,267 Jespersen 76

Goldberg 97,287 Gould

107, 118, 268

23 ,273.286

James Cotimu-i

34, 141

llko ne n 30, 20 5, 230, 237.247.261,262,

270

Germbacher

19,26, 32.127.208, 260

223

graininaticiili/alion J8Cv, 194,205,206.

Johnson 28, 113. 118 Johnson-Laird 26, 118, 140,278

judgment 32.82,139,230 in tui live

Grecnberg 1\1 Giccnjicld & Smith Gri«

31.48,49

Giush & .Vtandelblit

Gupti

IH5

DdL 278

suspended 45-47, 139.262 thctic

71,92

15,26.31,133.183.2 40, 25 8

46

K

Newmevvr

296

j

Kjnl

113, 174,250

iiLXUi

10, 26, 32, 45, 60, 11 I, ISS, 210,

297

Rtiler 193, 209, 2&% 192 Kobun

275

personal 10,114,276 Nichols

270

Ncotka

72, 77, 84

L

Lakoff 37.91,94,97,263,272

O

Lakoft

o b ect ilitiitio n 10,14,22 object ive data 8,35,39,172,217

Tobnson ?

Lambrecht

141,204,262

Laiigjckci' 79 92, 26a Ljuger 245

0 rd ill li r y Lanj u jgc fi3, 2 45

longue 55, 131, 204,264

\'

Lass

i'uivici 87, 110, m

202,211,217

Leibnitz

236

parameters and prirmiples 5,200

LewJt 70, 92.. 126, 134, 26fi, 281, 2fi2 Lielicrnisn

2 4

parole 55 Peirce 53, 59, 165, 245, 265, 270, 271

lingumit: sign 4, 17, 53, 54. 259

JVi huiikT

Locke 47,249,255

pi;i sona 1 ly ordered society 10, 1 L 14, 22,

lure

12,35,113,260

Luria

. SLlumnr.n

I'ri

35,108,129, 136, 231, 235, 237, 238,

113,116

257, 258, 260,275, 276, 297

phonemni 56, 56, 63, 233, 2fi4

Lyons S&

physkjl pok 12,14 l iaget 16

MacKay 60, 134 MacWhinney 103,255,275 M aline wski

M cNeil I

Ifi

34,50.100,134.219, 25 9, 2*3.

290,294

menu I models 7, 26, 37, 59, 87, 1 IS, 140, 150,259, 27S, 2S3

mentaJ pole L), ll, 14,22, L14, 218, 232 metaphor 2fi, 9J, 96, 160, 256, 263N 2BS,

metonyrny 93. 94, 13 Minsky 257,279,280,282

misplaced ccj]i