Studies in Descriptive and Historical Linguistics

DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE

E. F. K. KOERNER, General Editor

Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

Advisory Editorial Board Henning Andersen (Cophenhagen); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles) Tomaz V. Gamkrelidze (Tiflis); Klaus J. Kohier (Kiel) J. Peter Maher (Hamburg); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.) E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Honolulu)

Volume 4 Paul J. Hopper, ed. Studies in Descriptive and Historical Linguistics Festschrift for Winfred P. Lehmann

STUDIES IN DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS FESTSCHRIFT FOR WINFRED P. LEHMANN

edited by

PAUL J. HOPPER State University of New York Binghamton, N.Y. with the collaboration of HARRIET G. PENENSICK and JEROME BUNNAG

AMSTERDAM / JOHN BENJAMINS B.V. 1977

© Copyright 1977 - John Benjamins B.V. ISBN 90 272 0901 4 / 90 272 0905 7 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

FOREWORD This volume of articles is intended as a present to Professor Winfred P. Lehmann on the occasion of his 60th birthday. As it happens, the with­ drawal of the original publishers from their agreement has caused us to miss this target date by one year. The plan of the Festschrift, however, has not changed: to illustrate through the range and quality of these stu­ dies the enormous breadth of Professor Lehmann's scholarship and the im­ portance of his achievement over four decades - from the late 1930s to the present - in a brilliant career which shows no sign of diminishing. No biography, no long personal encomium will be found in this volume: the acknowledgement of the authors represented here and Professor Lehmann's own publications will speak for themselves. Nonetheless, we cannot re­ frain from mentioning the repeated expressions of praise in letters from the authors and from other scholars who, for a variety of reasons, were sadly unable to contribute. Nor can we forget the moving and witty speech of tribute made by Professor Ladislav Zgusta at the birthday celebration in honor of Professor Lehmann at the Linguistic Institute held at the State University of New York, Oswego, N.Y., in summer 1976. Numerous people have helped in the production of this volume. We must first thank the authors who, after the project had lain dormant for a con­ siderable time, responded so generously to our appeal for camera-ready copies of their manuscripts. The editorial advice of E. F. K. Koerner was most valuable during the later stages. We are grateful, too, for the help of Robin Barron, Pamela Cohen, and Stephanie Piester. To my assistant, Harriet G. Penensick, an undergraduate linguistics major

VII

PREFACE

at S.U.N.Y.-Binghamton, a great debt of thanks is due. Her extraordinary organizational talent and precocious control of linguistics saved us a number of editorial mistakes and have certainly accelerated the eventual appearance of this volume to a considerable degree. Last but not least, we want to thank the Publisher, Mr. John Benja­ mins, for having agreed to bring out this voluminous Festschrift. Binghamton, N.Y. May 1977

Paul

VIII

J

Hopper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VII

FOREWORD LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF WINFRED P. LEHMANN

1

Compiled by Helen-Jo Jakusz Hewitt

PART I: STUDIES IN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

19

1. DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL R. M. W. Dixon 2. MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES: CONTINUUMS Ralph M. Goodman 3. REMARKS ON THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS Maurice Gross

21

4.

'SEXISM' AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE Einar Haugen

5. MACHINE TRANSLATION AND ABSTRACT TERMINOLOGY David G. Hays 6.

LITERARY MEANINGS—COMPLEX OR SIMPLE? Archibald A. Hill

7.

SOME ASPECTS OF LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN CONTEMPORARY PERSIAN Mohammad Ali Jazayery

8.

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS E. F. K. Koerner

9.

ON THE INADEQUACY OF TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS FOR HUMAN LANGUAGES D. Terence Langendoen

10. 11. 12.

39

71 83 95 109

125 145

159

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH Don L. F. Nilsen SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR Arthur L. Palacas

173

LANGUAGE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY Sol Saporta

209

IX

188

13. 14.

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING: Sanford A. Schane LINGUISTICS AS A PRACTICAL SCIENCE

A STUDY OF FINAL E

217 235

Jacob Mey

PART II: STUDIES IN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 15. 16. 17.

18.

265

TYPOLOGICAL NOTES ON IRISH WORD-ORDER Anders Ahlqvist INDUCTIVE GENERALIZATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE Simon C. Dik THE URALO--YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM: A PROBLEM IN REMOTE GENETIC RELATIONSHIP Robert T. Harms 'SOMETHING STOLEN': A SEMITIC PARTICIPLE AND AN INDOEUROPEAN NEUTER SUBSTANTIVE Saul Levin

267 283

301

317

19.

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y? Yakov Malkiel

341

20.

BARTHOLOMAE'S LAW AND AN IE ROOT STRUCTURE CONSTRAINT D. Gary Miller

365

21.

SECONDARY STRESS IN GERMANIC ALLITERATIVE VERSE William G. Moulton

393

22.

APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF VEDIC RELIGION Edgar C. Polomé

405

23.

LEXICAL RESTRUCTURING VERSUS RULE ADDITION: IN DIALECT DIFFERENTIATION Gary D. Pridéaux

A CASE STUDY

24.

A NOTE ON HIPPOCRATES ' Luigi Romeo

25.

HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR LEXICAL VARIATION IN CYPRIOT AND STANDARD GREEK Maria Tsiapera

417 429

437

26.

THE SYNCHRONIC DESCRIPTION AND HISTORICAL CHANGE Krystyna Wachowicz

445

27.

AN IDENTIFICATION OF A LANGUAGE - A METHODOLOGY Mridula Adenwala Durbin HILDEBRANDSLIED 35b: DAT IH DIB IT NU BI HULDI GIBU Paul J. Hopper

457

28. 29.

ON THE NATIVIZATION OF MODERN HEBREW AND THE ROLE OF CHILDREN IN THIS PROCESS Aaron Bar-Adon

INDEX OF NAMES

481

487 499

X

WINFRED P. LEHMANN: LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

1938-1976

Compiled by HELEN-Jo JAKUSZ HEWITT

BOOKS 1938

A Word Index to Wolfram's Parzival [with Alfred Senn]. Univ. of Wisconsin, Dept. of German.

Madison:

SECOND EDITION— Pp. 1-178 in Collected Indexes to the Works of Wolfram von Eschenbach, ed.. by R-M.S. Heffner. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1961. 1940

A Word Index to the Poems of Walther von der Vogelweide [with R-M.S. Heffner]. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin, Dept. of German. [Reprinted by Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1950.]

1951

A Grammar of Formal Written Japanese [with Lloyd Faust]. HarvardYenching Institute Studies, 5. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press. x, 153PP.

1952

Proto-Indo-European Phonology. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press and Linguistic Society of America. xi, 129pp. [Reprinted numerous times.]

1953

The Alliteration of Old Saxon Poetry. Oslo: Aschehoug. 231pp. [Supplementary vol. III to Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap.]

1954

The Alliterations of the Edda [with J.L. Dillard]. Austin: The Univ. of Texas, Dept. of Germanic Languages. 168 pp.

1956

The Development of Germanic Verse Form. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press and Linguistic Society of America. xix, 217pp. [Reprint­ ed 1971 by Gordian Press, New York.]

2

1958

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

Active German: An Elementary Grammar [with Helmut Render and George Schulz-Behrend]. New York: Dryden Press. xxi, 238pp. SECOND EDITION— Active German, Revised. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1962. xvi, 228, xliv pp. The Alliterations of the Beowulf [with Takemitsu Tabusa]. Aus­ tin: The Univ. of Texas, Dept. of Germanic Languages. 134pp.

1959

Review and Progress in German [with Helmut Rehder, L. Shaw, and S.N. Werbow]. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. xiv, 265pp.

1960

The Alliterations of the Christ, Guthlac, Elene, Juliana, Fates of the Apostles, Dream of the Rood [with Virginia F. Dailey]. Austin: The Univ. of Texas, Dept. of Germanic Languages. 401pp

1962

Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. hart & Winston. xiii, 297pp. SECOND EDITION— 1973.

New York: Holt, Rine­

ix, 273pp.

Japanese edition— Rekishi gengo gaku josetsu. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1967. 295pp. German edition— Einftihrung in die historische Linguistik. Heidelberg: Winter, 1969. 230pp. Spanish edition— Introduccion a la lingüística historica. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1969. 354pp. 1964

Spectrum: Modern German Thought in Science, Literature, Philoso­ phy, and Art. [Compiled and edited with Helmut Rehder and Hans Beyer]. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. xi, 622pp.

1965

Selected Vowel Measurements in American English Speech.[with H-J.J. Hewitt]. Austin: The Univ. of Texas, Dept. of Germanic Languages. 175pp.

1967

A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguis­ tics. [Editor]. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. 266pp.

1968

Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium. [Editor, with Yakov Malkiel]. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. ix, 199pp.

3

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

1972

Descriptive Linguistics: An Introduction. x, 291pp.

New York: Random House.

SECOND EDITION— 1976. xi, 339pp. German: Language and Culture [with Thomas J. O'Hare and Christoph Cobet]. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. xii, 202pp. [Accompanied by student's Exercise Manual and Teacher's Manual.] 1974

Proto-Indo-European Syntax. 278pp.

Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. x,

1975

An Introduction to Old Irish [with R.P.M. Lehmann]. New York: Modern Language Association. xv, 201pp. Language and Linguistics in the People's Republic of China. tor]. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. ix, 168pp.

1976

[Edi­

Instructor's Manual for Descriptive Linguistics, 2nd edition. New York: Random House. 87pp. Workbook for Descriptive Linguistics, 2nd edition [with Solveig M.V. Pflueger]. New York: Random House. 188pp.

ESSAYS 1940

"Notes on the length of vowels (III)", [with R-M.S. Heffner]. American Speech 15:377-80.

1942

"The Indo-European dh-determinative in Germanic." 125-32.

1943

"The Germanic weak preterite endings."

Language 18:

Language 19:313-19.

"The Indo-European dh-determinative as Germanic preterite formant." Language 19:19-26.

4

WINFRED P. LEHMANN "Notes on the length of vowels (VI)", [with R-M.S. Heffner]. American Speech 18:208-15.

1947

"Notes on the Hildebrandslied."

Modern Language Notes 62:530-39.

1951

"The distribution of Proto-Indo-European /r/." Language 27:13-17.

1952

"A rare use of numerals in Chaucer." 317-21.

1953

"The conservatism of Germanic phonology." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 52:140-52. [Also pp. 119-30 in Readings for the History of the English Language, ed. by C.T. Scott and J.L. Erickson. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1968.]

Modern Language Notes 62:

"A note on the change of American English /t/." American Speech 28:271-75. [Also pp. 228-32 in Readings in Applied English Lin­ guistics, ed. by H.B. Allen. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1958.] 1954

"Old English and Old Norse secondary preterites in -r-." guage 30:202-10.

1955

"The Finnsburg Fragment 34a: hwearflacra hrær." lish 34:1-5. "Lín and laukr in the Edda."

Lan­

Studies in Eng­

Germanic Review 30:163-71.

"The Proto-Indo-European resonants in Germanic." 355-66.

Language 31:

1957

"A syntactic reflex of the Indo-European laryngeals." Pp. 145-47 in Studies Presented to Joshua Whatmough on his Sixtieth Birth­ day, ed. by E. Pulgram. The Hague: Mouton.

1958

"On earlier stages of the Indo-European nominal inflection." Language 34:179-202.

1959

"Beowulf 33, isig." Modern Language Notes 74:577-78.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

"Hildebrandslied 21a." Modern Language Notes 74:438-39. "Metrical evidence for Old English suprasegmentals." Literature and Language 1:66-72. 1961

Studies in

"A definition of Proto-Germanic: A study of the chronological de­ limitation of languages." Language 37:67-74. [Also pp. 66-74 in Readings for the History of the English Language, ed. by C.T. Scott and J.L. Erickson. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1968.] "Ob armjanskoy sisteme smycnyx i ee sootnosenii s protoindoevropeyskoy sistemoy." Voprosy Jazykoznanija 10,iv:56-59. "Vyvody o protoindoevropeyskoy glagol'noy sisteme, osnovannye na vnutrennem analize sanskrita." Voprosy Jazykoznanija 10,ii:2427. [Translated from the English by M.M. Makovskiy.]

1962

"Beowulf 2298." Pp. 107-10 in Festschrift für Ludwig Wolff zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by W. Schroder. Neumünster: Wachholtz. "Das Hildebrandslied: Ein Spâtzeitwerk." Philologie 81:24-29.

1963

Zeitschrift für deutsche

"Composition of Eddic verse." Pp. 6-14 in Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures, In Memory of Fred 0. Nolte, ed. by E. Hofacker and L. Dieckmann. St. Louis: Washington Univ. Press. "Inferences on the Proto-Indo-European verb system based on in­ ternal analysis of Sanskrit." Pp. 163-66 in vol. 4 of Trudy dvadcaty pjatogo mezdunarodnogo kongressa vostokovedov ... 1960 [Reports of the 25th International Congress of Orientalists] ed. by B.G. Gafurova. Moscow: Vostocnoj Literatury. "Some phonological observations based on examination of the Ger­ manic consonant shift." Monatshefte 55:229-35. [Issue dedica­ ted to R-M.S. Heffner.]

1964

"On the etymology of 'black'." Pp. 56-61 in Taylor Stark Fest­ schrift 1964, ed. by W Betz, et al. The Hague: Mouton.

6

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

"Types of sound change." Pp. 658-62 in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, ed. by H.G. Lunt. The Hague: Mouton. 1965

"Germanic evidence." Pp. 212-23 in Evidence for Laryngeals, ed. by W. Winter. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 11.) The Hague Mouton. "Die Kontinuität der Sprachwissenschaft." Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 39:16-33. [Also in Russian translation under the title "Preemstvenost' jazykoznanija", Voprosy Jazykoznanija 15,i(1966): 47-60.] "On the etymology of narwhal." Pp. 101-04 in Scandanavian Stud­ ies, ed. by C F . Beyerschraidt and E.J. Friis. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press for the American-Scandinavian Foundation. "The stony idiom of the brain: Symbolic manipulation of language in literature." Pp. 11-30 in Literary Symbolism, ed. by H. Ren­ der. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. "Towards experimentation with language." 1:237-48.

Foundations of Language

1966

"The grouping of the Germanic languages." Pp. 13-27 in Ancient Indo-European Dialects, Proceedings of the [1963] Conference on I-E Linguistics, ed. by H. Birnbaum and J. Puhvel. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

1967

"Atertanum fah." Pp. 221-32 in Studies in Historical Linguistics in Honor of George Sherman Lane, ed. by W.W. Arndt, et al. Chap­ el Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.

1968

"The Gothic genitive plural in -e: Focus of exercises in theory." Pp. 108-11 in Papers in Linguistics in Honor of Léon Dostert, ed. by W.M. Austin. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 25.) The Hague: Mouton. "On the reading of some ya-suffixes in the Rigveda." Pp. 39-45 in Pratidânam: Indian, Iranian and Indo-European Studies Presen­ ted to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on his Sixtieth Birth­ day, ed. by J.C. Heesterman, et al. (Janua linguarum, series

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

maior, 34.)

7

The Hague: Mouton.

"Post-consonantal 1 m n r and metrical practice in Beowulf." Pp. 148-67 in Nordica et Anglica: Studies in Honor of Stefán Einarsson, ed. by A.H. Orrick. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 22.) The Hague: Mouton.

"The Proto-Germanic words inherited from Proto-Indo-European which reflect the social and economic status of the speakers." Zeitschrift für Mundartforschung 35:1-25.

"Saussure's dichotomy between descriptive and historical linguis­ tics." Pp. 5-20 in Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium, ed. by W.P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

1969

"On posited omissions in the Beowulf." Pp. 220-29 in Studies in Language,, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. by E.B. Atwood and A.A. Hill. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

"On reflections of Germanic legal terminology and situations in the Edda." Pp. 227-43 in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Symposium, ed. by E.C. Polome. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. [Festschrift for L.M. Hollander.]

"Proto-Indo-European compounds in relation to other Proto-IndoEuropean syntactic patterns." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 12: 1-20.

"Skroggr: An exercise in etymology." Pp. 103-08 in Festschrift für Konstantin Reichardt, ed. by C. Gellinek. Bern & Munich: Francke.

1970

"Definite adjective declensions and syntactic types." Pp. 286-90 in Donum Balticum: To Professor Christian S. Stang on the Occas­ ion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. by V. Ruke-Dravina. Stock­ holm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

"Linguistic structure as diacritic evidence on proto-culture." Pp. 1-10 in Indo-European and Indo-Europeans: Papers Presented at the 3rd Indo-European Conference 1966, ed. by G. Cardona, et al. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.

8

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

"The Nordic languages: Lasting contributions of the past." Pp. 286-305 in The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics: Proceed­ ings of the [1969] International Congress of Nordic and General Linguistics, ed. by H. Benediktsson. Reykjavik: Visindafélag Islendinga.

"Phonological systems as units in change." Pp. 211-16 in vol. 4 of Actes du Xe Congres International des Linguistes, ed. by A. Grauer. Bucharest: Editions de l'Académie de la République Socialiste de Roumanie.

1971

"Generative Sprachwissenschaft und Literaturwissenschaft." Pp. 127-44 in Dichtung Sprache Gesellschaft: Akten des IV. Interna­ tionalen Germanisten Kongresses, ed. by V. Lange and H-G. Roloff. Frankfurt : Athenâum.

"Grammatischer Wechsel and current phonological discussion." Pp. 9-43 in Generative Studies in Historical Linguistics, ed. by M. Tsiapera. Edmonton: Linguistic Research.

"On the rise of SOV patterns in New High German." Pp. 19-24 in Grammatik Kybernetik Kommunikation: Festschrift für Alfred Hoppe, ed. by K.G. Schweisthal. Bonn: Dümmler.

1972

"Comparative constructions in Germanic of the OV type." Pp. 323336 in Studies for Einar Haugen, ed. by E.S. Firchow, et al. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 59.) The Hague: Mouton.

"The comparative method as applied to the syntactic component of language." Canadian Journal of Linguistics 17:167-74. [Issue dedicated to Martin Joos.]

"Contemporary linguistics and Indo-European studies." 976-93.

PMLA 87:

"Converging theories in linguistics." Language 48:266-75. [Pre­ liminary version, "On converging theories in linguistics", Lin­ guistic Communications (Monash) 5(1970:95-114.]

"Germanic prosody." Pp. 122-35 in Versification: Major Language Types, ed. by W.K. Wimsatt. New York: New York Univ. Press.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

9

"Proto-Germanic syntax." Pp. 239-68 in Toward a Grammar of Proto-Germanic, ed. by F. van Coetsem and H.L. Kufner. Tübingen:: Niemeyer. "Proto-Germanic syntax: Preliminaries to further study." Pp. 211-22 in Saga og sprak: Studies in Language and Literature, ed. by J.M. Weinstock. Austin: Jenkins. [Festschrift for L.M. Hollander.] 1973

"Explanation for some syntactic phenomena of PIE." Glossa 7:81 90. "Some prospects for syntactic study." 107.

Kritikon Litterarum 2:104-

"A structural principle of language and its implications." Lan­ guage 49:47-66. 1974

"Subjectivity."

Language 50:622-29.

"On some German and Germanic 0V compounds." Pp. 206-15 in Sprachsystem und Sprachgebrauch: Festschrift für Hugo Moser, ed. by U. Engel and P. Grebe. (Sprach der Gegenwart, 33.) Düsseldorf: Schwann. 1975

"The challenge of history." Pp. 41-58 in The Scope of American Linguistics: First Golden Anniversary Symposium of the L.S.A., ... 1974, ed. by R. Austerlitz. Lisse: de Ridder. "A discussion of compound and word order." Pp. 149-62 in Word Order and Word Order Change, ed. by C.N. Li. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. "Typological syntactic characteristics of the Satapathabrahmana", [with H. Ratanajoti]. Journal of Indo-European Studies 3:147-59 [with errata sheet containing bibliography].

1976

"From topic to subject in Indo-European." Pp. 447-56 in Subject and Topic, ed. by C.N. Li. New York: Academic Press.

10

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

"On complementation in the early Germanic languages." Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest 1,iii/iv:1-7.

"Diachronic semantics: 1976." Pp. 1-13 in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1976: Semantics— Theory and Application, ed. by C. Rameh. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.

"A preface to diachronic syntactic investigation." Pp. 169-78 in Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax ... 1976, ed. by S.B. Steever, et al. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

ARTICLES: APPLIED LINGUISTICS

1949

"[Annual review on] Indo-European linguistics." Pp. 719-21 in The American Year Book: ... 1948, ed. by W.M. Schuyler. New York: Nelson.

1950

"[Annual review on] Indo-European linguistics." Pp. 745-48 in The American Year Book: ... 1949, ed. by W.M. Schuyler. New York: Nelson.

1951

"[Annual review on] Indo-European linguistics." Pp. 746-50 in The American Year Book: ... 1950, ed. by S. Michaelis. New York: Nelson.

1957

"Structure of noun phrases in German." Pp. 125-33 in Report of the 8th Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study: Research in Machine Translation, ed. by L. Dostert. (Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, 10.) Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.

1958

"The foreign language teacher in the classroom." The Bulletin (Cairo, Egypt) 1:73-82. [Also pp. 111-18 in Teaching English, ed. by G.E. Wishon and T.J. O'Hare. New York: American, 1968.]

1959

"Approaches to syntax." Pp. 115-21 in Report of the 10th Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study, ed. by R.S. Harrell. (Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, 12.) Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

"A department of Germanic languages."

11

Graduate Journal 2:315-24.

"Linguistics and the study of language." 23-36.

Texas Quarterly 2,ii:

1960

"Diversity of problems and adaptability of method in foreign lan­ guage teaching." Modern Language Journal 44:222-24.

1961

"Machine translation: Agent of the humanities." erature and Language 3:163-70.

1963

"Structural models for linguistic automation," [with E. Pendergraft]. Pp. 78-91 in Vistas in Information Handling, I. The Aug­ mentation of Man's Intellect by Machine, ed. by P.W. Howerton. Washington, D.C.: Spartan.

1965

"Decoding of the Martian language." Graduate Journal 7:265-72. [Reprinted as an illustration of "good computer fiction writing", Data Processing Magazine April (1966):30-36.]

"An experiment in machine translation." 131.

Studies in Lit­

Graduate Journal 7:111-

1966

"Interfaces of language." Pp. 1/1-12 in Proceedings of the Con­ ference on Computer-Related Semantic Analysis, ed. by H. Josselson. Detroit: Wayne State Univ.

1968

"Computational linguistics." Pp. 10-18 in Seminar in Computa­ tional Linguistics, ed. by A.W. Pratt. (Public Health Service publication #1716.) Bethesda, MD: U.S. Dept. of H.E.W., Divi­ sion of Computer Research and Technology.

1969

"Machine translation." Pp. 188-97 in Linguistics Today, ed. by A.A. Hill. New York: Basic Books.

1971

"Indo-European languages." pedia Americana.

1972

"Machine translation in Western Europe" [with Rolf A. Stachowitz]. Pp. 688-701 in Current Trends in Linguistics, 9: Linguistics in

Pp., 72-76 in vol. 15 of the Encyclo­

12

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

Western Europe, ed. by E. Haugen and W. Winter. series ed. The Hague: Mouton.

1973

T.A. Sebeok,

"Historiolinguistik." Pp. 389-98 in Lexikon der germanistischen Linguistik, ed. by H.P. Althaus, et al. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

"Linguistic models and language instruction." Pp. 216-21 in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1973: Language and International Studies, ed. by K.R. Jankowsky. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.

"On the design of a central archive for lexicography in English." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 211:312-17.

"On the practical study of languages." Pp. 55-62 in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1973*. Lan­ guage and International Studies, ed. by K.R. Jankowsky. Wash­ ington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.

1974

"Grimm's law."

Pp. 496 in vol. 13 of the Encyclopedia Americana.

1976

"Diachronic semantics: 1976." Pp. 1-13 in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1976: Semantics— Theo­ ry and Application, ed. by C. Rameh. Washington, D.C.: George­ town Univ. Press.

REVIEWS

1949

"Geschichte und Kritik der Lehre von den Satzgliedern in der deutschen Grammatik. By HANS GLINZ. Bern: A. Franke, 1947." Modern Language Journal 33:76-77.

"Texte zur Geschichte des deutschen Tageliedes. Compiled by ERNST SCHEUNEMANN. Ed. by FRIEDRICH RANKE. (Altdeutsche Ubungstexte, 6.) Bern: A. Francke, 1947." Modern Language Journal 33:160.

1953

"Studier og tydninger. By JOHS. BR0NDUM-NIELSEN. J.H. Schultz, 1951." Language 29:541-42.

Copenhagen:

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

1954

13

"Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets. By WALTER PORZIG. (Indogermanische Bibliothek, 3.) Heidelberg: Winter, 1954." Language 30:461-67. "Studien zur indogermanischen Grundsprache. Ed. by WILHELM BRANDENSTEIN. (Arbeiten aus dem Institut für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, 4.) Vienna: Gerold, 1952." Language 30:99-104.

1955

"Handbuch des Sanskrit, II. Text und Glossar. By ALBERT THUMB. 2nd ed. Ed. by RICHARD HAUSCHILD. Heidelberg: Winter, 1953." Journal of the American Oriental Society 75:135-36. "An Introduction to Modern Faroese. By W.B. L0CKW00D. (Færoensia..., 4.) Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1955." Language 31:457-58. "Studier i Codex Regius av Aldre Eddan. By GUSTAV LINDBLAD. (Lundastudier i nordisk sprakvetenskap, 10.) Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1954." Language 31:456-57. "Studien zum bestimmten Artikel in den germanischen Sprachen. By HEINRICH MATTHIAS HEINRICHS. (Beitrage zur deutschen Philologie, 1.) Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz, 1954." Language 31:136-37.

1957

"Germanische Sprachwissenschaft, Vols. I, II. By HANS KRAHE. 3rd. ed. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1957." Language 33:606-13.

1958

"Essays in Linguistics. By JOSEPH H. GREENBERG. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1957." International Journal of American Lin­ guistics 24:142-45. "Handbuch des Sanskrit, I. Grammatik, 1. Einleitung und Lautlehre. By ALBERT THUMB. 3rd ed. Ed. by RICHARD HAUSCHILD. Heidelberg: Winter, 1958." Journal of the American Oriental Society 78:212-13. "Die Sprache der Guobrandsbiblia: Orthographie und Laute, Formen. By OSKAR BANDLE. (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, 17.) Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1956." Language 34:542-43.

14 1959

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

"Anredeformen. By J. SVENNUNG. (Acta Societatis Litterarum Humaniorum Regiae Upsaliensis, 42.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz; Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1958." Language 35:556-58.

"Etymology, with Especial Reference to English. By ALAN S.C. ROSS. Fair Lawn, NJ: Essential Books, 1958." Language 35:351353.

"Word-Index to Gottfried's Tristan. By MELVIN E. VALK. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1958." Monatshefte 51:81-82.

1960

"Handbuch des Sanskrit, I. Grammatik, 2. Formenlehre. By ALBERT THUMB. 3rd ed. Ed. by RICHARD HAUSCHILD. Heidelberg: Winter, 1958." Journal of the American Oriental Society 80:152-53.

"The Metre of Beowulf. By A.J. BLISS. Oxford: Blackwell, 1958." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 59:138-42.

"Om et norsk skriftlig grunnlag for Edda-diktningen eller deler av den. By DIDRIK ARUP SEIP. [Offprint of pp. 81-207 from Maal og Minne, 1957.] Oslo: Bymalslagets, 1958." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 59:509-11.

1962

"Estructuralismo e historia: Miscelánea homenaje a André Martinet, Vols. I, II. Ed. by DIEGO CATALAN [MENÉNDEZ-PIDAL]. Tenerife, Canarias: Biblioteca Filológica, Universidad de La Laguna, 19571958; distributed by Editorial Gredos, Madrid." Romance Phil­ ology 15:439-42.

1963

"Relativsatz, Attribut und Apposition, Vols. I, II. By HANSJAKOB SEILER. Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 1960." Language 39:281-86.

"Studia Gratulatoria Dedicated to Albert Willem de Groot in the Year of his Seventieth Birthday. [Special issue.] Lingua 11 (1962):1-487." Romance Philology 17:11.

"'A tentative typology of Romance historical grammar/ By YAKOV MALKIEL. Lingua 9(1960):321-416." Language 39:286-90.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

15

"A Word-Index to the Texts of Steinmeyer `Die kleineren althochdeutschen Sprachdenkmäler'. By R-M.S. HEFFNER. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1961." Monatshefte 55:343-44. 1964

"The Aspectual Function of the Rgvedic Present and Aorist. By J. GONDA. The Hague: Mouton, 1962." Journal of the American Oriental Society 84:457-59. "Zur Konstitution einer allgemeinen Grammatik. By PETER HARTMANN. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 3.2.) The Hague: Mouton, 1961." Language 40:381-89.

1965

"Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and An­ thropology. Ed. by DELL HYMES. New York: Harper & Row, 1964." Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 46:191-92. "Sravnitel'naja grammatika germanskix jazykov, Vols. I-III. M[oscow]: AN CCCR, 1962-63." Voprosy Jazykoznanija 14,vi:122-32. [Translated from the English by M.M. Makovskiy.]

1966

"Mediaeval German Studies: Presented to Frederick Norman.... London: Univ. of London Institute of Germanic Studies, 1965." German Life and Letters 19:292-96. "An Outline of a General Theory of Structural Relations. By AL­ PHONSE JUILLAND. The Hague: Mouton, 1961." Romance Philology 20:218-21.

1967

"Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects of Language: Selected Articles. By ALF SOMMERFELT. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 7.) The Hague: Mouton, 1962." Romance Philology 21:67-75. "A History of the German Language. By JOHN T. WATERMAN. Univ. of Washington Press, 1966." Glossa 1:75-82.

Seattle:

"The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Ed. by C.T. ONIONS, et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. [And] A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, I. A-K. By ERNEST KLEIN. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966." College English 28: 625-28.

16

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

"Stand und Aufgabe der allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft. By ERNST OTTO. 2nd ed. With supplements by ERNST OTTO and GERHARD HASELBACH. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965." Zeitschrift für Mundartforschung 34:75-77.

1968

"Estructuralismo e historia: Miscelánea homenaje a André Martinet. Vol. III. Ed. by DIEGO CATALAN [MENÉNDEZ-PIDAL]. Tenerife, Canarias: Biblioteca Filológica, Universidad de La Laguna, 1962; distributed by Editorial Gredos, Madrid." Romance Philology 21: 353-54.

"Handbuch der litauischen Sprache, I. Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter, 1966." Language 44:639-42.

By ALFRED SENN.

"Helhed og Struktur: Udvalgte Sprogvidenskabelige Afhandlinger. Selected Linguistic Papers with Detailed English Summaries. By PAUL DIDERICHSEN. Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gads, 1966." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 11:119-22.

"Problèmes de linguistique générale. By EMILE BENVENISTE. Gallimard, 1966." Language 44:91-96.

Paris:

"The System of Sonants and Ablaut in Kartvelian Languages: A Typology of Common Kartvelian Structure. [In Georgian.] By TH.V. GAMKRELIDZE and G.I. MACHAVARIANI. Tbilisi: Metsniyereba, 1965." Language 44:404-07.

1969

"The Comparative Method in Historical Linguistics. By ANTOINE MEILLET. Translated by Gordon B. Ford, Jr. Paris: Champion, 1967." Lingua 22:268-75.

"The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. By M.A.K. HALLIDAY, ANGUS MCINTOSH and PETER STREVENS. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1964." Computers and the Humanities 4:265-68.

1970

"Linguistica. By A. ROSETTI. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 16.) The Hague: Mouton, 1965." Romance Philology 23:130-31.

"Machine Translation. Ed. by A.D. BOOTH. Amsterdam: North-Hol­ land; New York: Wiley, 1967." Romance Philology 24:169-73.

17

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS, 1938-1976

"Parametric Linguistics. By LOUIS G. HELLER and JAMES MACRIS. The Hague: Mouton, 1967." Word 26:139-41.

1971

"`Relativism in language and culture/ By STANLEY NEWMAN. [Offprint from] New Mexico Quarterly 38(1967): 196-210." Romance Philology 24:510-11.

1972

"Essays on Linguistic Themes. By YAKOV MALKIEL. well, 1968." Foundations of Language 8:280-87.

Oxford: Black-

"General Characteristics of the Germanic Languages. By ANTOINE MEILLET. Translated by W.P. Dismukes. Coral Gables: Univ. of Miami Press, 1970." General Linguistics 12:38-42.

"The London School of Linguistics: A Study of the Linguistic Theories of B. Malinowski and J.R. Firth. By D. TERENCE LANGEN­ DOEN. (Research Monograph 46.) Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1968." Romance Philology 25: 421-27.

"Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft und Kulturkunde. Ed. by MANFRED MAYRHOFER. Innsbruck: Institut fur Vergleichende Sprachwissen­ schaft, 1968." Language 48:161-64.

1973

"Class, Codes and Control, I. Theoretical Studies toward a Soci­ ology of Language. By BASIL BERNSTEIN. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971." Social Science Quarterly 54:195-96.

"Studies in Formal Historical Linguistics.. By HENRY HOENIGSWALD. (Formal Linguistics, 3.) Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973." Foundations of Language 11:175-76.

"Studies in Honor of J. Alexander Kerns. Ed. by ROBERT C. LUGTON and MILTON G. SALTZER. (Janua linguarum, series maior, 44.) The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1970." Linguistics 117:112-14.

"Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar. By J.F. STAAL. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1967." Romance Philology 26:405-07.

18

WINFRED P. LEHMANN

1974

"Observations on Trubetzkoy's contributions to phonological stud­ ies. [Review article on Principles of Phonology. By N.S. TRU­ BETZKOY. Translated by Christiane A.M. Baltaxe. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1969.]" Romance Philology 29:40-57.

1975

"Grundzüge der vergleichenden Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen. By HANS KRAHE. Ed. by WOLFGANG MEID and HANS SCHMEJA. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, 1972." Language 51:465-66.

"Inside China. By PETER WORSLEY. Social Science Quarterly 57:489.

Baltimore: Penguin, 1975."

PART I:

STUDIES IN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL R. M. W. DIXON The Australian National University

In his classic study "Delocutive Verbs", Benveniste (1958, 1971) discusses a class of verbs t h a t are derived

from locutions, and are -

semantically, i f not always necessarily morphologically - to be d i s tinguished from verbs t h a t are derived from nouns and adjectives. examples given include Latin salutare, salus!

The

derived from the wish or greeting

(239); French (re)mercier, with the meaning 'dire

merci ' (242);

English ' t o welcome' (244); verbs derived from p a r t i c l e s such as Latin negare and autumare, ' t o say nec' and ' t o say autem' respectively (with the emphasis on to say) (241); and French tutoyer, s i g n i f y nothing other than' to say tu (vous)'

vouvoyer "since they

(242-3)."

D y i r b a l , a language spoken in the coastal rain forest of north-east A u s t r a l i a , has a well-defined class of delocutive verbs, semantically s i m i l a r to the verbs Benveniste deals with from Indo-European languages, and marked by a morphologically d i s t i n c t i v e derivational process. (Delocutive verbs are scarcely mentioned in the w r i t e r ' s grammar of Dyirbal (Dixon, 1972); the class had not been recognized, or the morphological ending i s o l a t e d , when t h i s grammar was w r i t t e n . ) Verbs in Dyirbal are s t r i c t l y c l a s s i f i e d as e i t h e r t r a n s i t i v e or i n t r a n s i t i v e - an i n t r a n s i t i v e stem can occur with j u s t a nominative NP ( i n t r a n s i t i v e s u b j e c t ) , and a t r a n s i t i v e stem with both a nominative NP ( f u l f i l l i n g t r a n s i t i v e object function) and an ergative NP ( t r a n s i t i v e *The research on which this paper is based was financed by grants from the Australian Research Grants Committee, and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

22

R.M.W. DIXON

subject). There are a number of derivational processes for forming transitive from intransitive verbal stems, and vice versa. Verbs fall into two conjugations, that can be marked by a suffixed -I or -y in the citation form of each stem - thus baga-l 'to pierce, spear', dyana-y 'to stand'. The -l or -y is frequently retained between stem and inflection, e.g. participles baga-l-muna, dyana-y-muna; but sometimes combines morphologically with a following desinence, e.g. past-present tense forms baga~n, dyana-nyu. There is a statistical correlation between conjugation and transitivity - thus about 80% of -y verbs are intransitive, and around 80% of verbs in the -l conjugation are transitive. Dyirbal has two derivational processes for forming denominal verbs from noun and adjective stems: (1) the addition of -bi-l derives an intransitive verb stem; (2) the addition of -ma~l (to a disyllabic stem), or -(m)ba-l (to a stem of more than two syllables) derives a transitive verb stem. Inchoative - b i - l involves a 'becoming'. Thus an autobiographical text (XXXVII.14) includes: (1)

d y andya now

Dadya

bulganbiyararru...

I-SUBJECT big-INCHOATIVE-BEGIN-PRES/PAST

Then I began to become (i.e. grow) big...

And an account of a cyclone (Text XXXV.32) states: (2)

bala

gulubu

garabarabin

baninyu...

MARKER-NOM wind-NOM cyclone-INCHOATIVE-PRES/PAST come-PRES/PAST The wind became a cyclone (and) came (towards here)...

(Each occurrence of a noun is, as a rule, accompanied by a 'noun marker', that agrees with the noun in case, and indicates its noun (gender) class, and the location/visibility of its referent; noun markers can also, effectively, function as third person pronouns - Dixon, 1972.44-9. Since the grammatical complications introduced by noun markers are not relevant to the theme of this paper, only their case will be indicated in interlinear glosses.)

23

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

The transitive verbaliser -ma-l~-(m)ba-l causative meaning: (3)

Dad y a

Dinuna

gurga

frequently has a

gulgirimbany

bangan

I-SUBJECT you-OBJECT neck-NOM pretty-CAUSATIVE-FUT paint-FUT I will paint your neck prettily(JLe. making it pretty). (Text XIV.8) (4)

nyalnga

bar)gun

gunduydyu

guyiman

child-NOM MARKER-ERG cassowary-ERG dead-CAUSATIVE-PRES/PAST The cassowary killed the children. (5)

balan

dyugumbil bangul

(Text XXI.8)

maguyd y u

bulgan u

MARKER-NOM woman-NOM MARKER-ERG snake-ERG swallow-PRES/PAST bulayimban two-CAUSATIVE-PRES/PAST The rainbow-snake (spirit) swallowed the two women (literally: swallowed twice).

(Text XVI.14)

Both transitive and intransitive verbalisers are fully productive; that i s , they can, potentially, be added to any adjective or noun. Thus, in addition to bulgan-bi-l in (1) we can have bulgan-ma-l 'make big'; in addition to guyi-ma-l in (4) we can have guyi-bi-l 'die'; and in addition to bulayi-mba-l we can have bulayi-bi-l 'become two' (e.g. when something splits or breaks). For a further example involving a noun, bayi dyigubinabin 'he became a shooting star' occurs in a myth (and see Dixon, 1972.86-7). (Both these verbalisers can be added to verb markers, locational nominals and time qualifiers - see Dixon, 1972.87-9; the transi­ tive verbaliser can also be added to some particles - see 6. below.) Now every verbal derivation affix follows the majority conjugation/ transitivity correlation. That i s , transitive stems (derived from intransitive roots) take -l conjugation inflections, and intransitive stems (derived from transitiye roots) take -y conjugation endings. It is surprising, in view of this, that intransitive - as well as transi­ tive - denominal stems should fall into the -l conjugation. There i s , however, a further (less frequently encountered) derivational process that can, on Benveniste's criteria, be said to form 'delocutive verbs'; this derives intransitive verb stems which do

24

R.M.W. DIXON

belong to the -y conjugation. It involves the addition of -(m)ba-y to certain types of non-verb root. (The -m- is usually included after a disyllabic root, but omitted when the root is reduplicated - see Dixon, 1972.285.) The delocutive affix occurs in the following circumstances: 1. Speakers of Dyirbal are accomplished mimics and attribute an insti­ tutionalised 'call' to each bird (excluding those birds that whistle, make a gutteral croak, or have no call at all). Thus: bird's name balan bubunba

institutionalised version of call 'pheasant'

[bu - bu - bu - bu ...] (a metronomic sequence of slightly aspirated monosyllables)

balan d y iwun y u 'pink-chested kingfisher' balan d y igird y igir 'willy wagtail1

balan biyilbiyil 'pee wee 1

[dyiu

dyiu

d y îu

d y íu ...]

(repetition of shrill, very breathy monosyllables) [dyigirdyigir

d y igird y igir ...]

(reduplicated disyllables, with a fair degree of paralinguistic fric­ tion overlaying the utterance) [bí:l-b£:l

b£:l-b£:l ...J

(sequence of pairs of rather shrill slightly aspirated monosyllables)• bayi wad y a 'crow'

{wa:g

wa:g

wa:g ...]

(slow repetition of long monosyl­ lables centered on an open vowel; the initial sound appears to have characteristics of both w and r, whilst the final stop seems some­ times to be g and other times simply a glottal stop). bayi gungaga 'kookaburra or laughing jackass'

[?a - ?a - ?a ... gúgugúgugúgu ...] (sequence of slightly constricted, glottally realized open vowels, followed by brisk repetitions of gugu, with no paralinguistic abnor­ malities.)

25

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

balan dyawudyala 'a black

[dyawudyàla wúraybudyala náygu wan y d y u yanum gugur búnydyan

bird'

d y awud y àla wuraybudy ala] (without any appreciable paralinguistic overtones) bayi gidila 'black

cockatoo'

[ni:n

ni:n

ni:n

...]

(repetitions of long, harsh monotonic monosyllables)

It should be noted that all the institutionalized cries, in the righthand column, are acceptable sequences of segments in terms of Dyirbal phonology. Dyirbal does not have sibilants, or other fricatives, and these do not occur in the calls; similarly, words cannot begin with l or the trilled r, and neither do calls commence with these segments. We have, effectively, normal phonological forms, albeit produced with various types of paralinguistic 'effects' (shrill or harsh voice quality; degrees of aspiration; falling-rising or quite level pitch; etc). It will be seen that, in the first seven of the eight examples quoted, the name of the bird appears to be onomatopoeic, being based wholly or partly on the call that is attributed to it. (In fact, about two-thirds of birds that could be onomatopoeically named are. For further discussion, and an explanation of the call of balan dy awudy ala, see Dixon 1972.328-9.) Now for each bird there is a verb that can be used to describe its calling out. There are two possibilities here - either a regular verb (that has other uses) may be appropriate; or else a verb is derived by the addition of the delocutive suffix -mba-y to the first two sylla­ bles of the institutionalized call of the bird. Thus the kookaburra's singing out can be described by the sentence bayi gungaga miyandanyu 'the kookaburra is laughing'. Since the verb miyanda-y, used to describe normal human laughter, is deemed appropriate here, there is no need for a delocutive verb,say *gugumba-y ; and this is, in fact, rejected by informants. There is a verb guma-y whose central reference is to the call of frogs. It can also be used to describe certain echoic, repetitive bird

26

R.M.W. DIXON

calls e.g. the cry of the curlew, of the mopoke owl, and óf the crow or peewee. So we must say bayi wadya gumanyu and balan biyitbiyil gumanyu,

rather than *wawambanyu or *biyilmbanyu (an informant stated that biyilmbanyu was 'possible', but gumanyu preferable here). However, there is no verb whose range of reference includes the cries of the pink-chested kingfisher, the pheasant or the willy-wagtail. Thus delocutive verbs are derived to describe the calling out of these birds: baton dyiwunyu dyiwumbanyu, balan dy igirdy igir dyigirmbanyu and balan bubunba bubumbanyu.

A number of birds play a role in Dyirbal mythology (cf. Dixon, 1972. 308); and there are beliefs that link other birds to the everyday routine of life. In such cases, a verb may be used to describe a bird's call, on the basis of what is believed to be the function of the call, rather than to the sound made. Thus, it is believed that when the black cockatoo sings out it is signalling that a grinding stone has been left somewhere in the bush. The verb yunga-y, used to describe a person shouting out some information to another person some distance away, is employed in this case: bayi gidita yunganyu. Similarly, it is said that when the black bird, dy awudy a l a , calls out he is complaining because he can't find any of his favorite food (the young loya-cane shoots, gugur).

This would be described by baton dyawudyala baynydyanyu, with

the verb baynydya-y, whose normal use is to describe a person's grumbling because he has not received something that he had a right to expect (e.g. he failed to get any meat from an animal that has been killed, or he wasn't taken on an expedition by his friends, or etc). Where verbs like yunga-y or baynydya-y are appropriate, delocutive verbs are not employed. We have thus seen that the formation of delocutive verbs from the institutionalized cries of birds is partially productive. If there is no verb that can be used to describe a cry - either through similarity of sound, or of believed function - then a delocutive verb can be derived by adding ~mba~y to the first two syllables of the call. And it is worth noting that these delocutive verbs are completely lacking the paralinguistic peculiarities that characterize the calls themselves;

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

27

they are pronounced like any other Dyirbal verb (see Dixon, 1972.329). 2. There are two verbs, referring to the calls of animals, that appear to be delocutive. The bark of a European-type dog, baton guda, is imitated by [báwu-báwu-bcïwu] and the verb 'to bark' is bawumba-y. A flying squirrel is said to call out [ruri] and his name is just bayi ruri. The verb rurimba-y is used to describe the squirrel's crying out: bayi ruri rurimbanyu. The call of the white-tail rat, bayi durgim, is imitated by [grr grr], a sequence of syllables begun by a velar stop with the peak consisting of a short light roll. This noise is said to be similar to [ruri] and the verb rurimba-y can apparently be used to describe it - bayi durgim rurimbaryu is a possible sentence. 3. There are delocutive verbs derived from two common nouns: (a) bala mulgu refers to the sound of talking when (say, because of distance) it is impossible to make out exactly what is being said; or to one of various human non-language noises - e.g. a drawn-out alveo­ lar nasal, emitted as a sound of satisfaction. In either case the delocutive verb mulgumba-y can be employed. In one text (Dixon, 1972. 382-7) the narrator first used mulgu-bi-l - involving the productive inchoative verbaliser - but six lines later preferred mulgu-mba-y (to describe a noise heard at night, said to be made by the Dambun spirit, but actually discovered to emanate from a mopoke owl). Another informant stated that whilst mulgubi-l was possible, mulgumba-y was certainly preferable (in the case of most delocutive verbs, the -bi-l form is judged quite unacceptable; the only meaning attached to a form such as dyiwubi-l would be 'become the cry of a dyiwunyu bird'!), (b) bala wadyar is used to refer to 'steam' (as, for instance, when steaming an eel within a bark framework), and also to the puffs of hot, humid breath that are expelled by a person when puffed-out, after exertion (and, in one instance, to the grog-laden breath of a drunk man). In the 'puffed-out' case, a delocutive verb has several times been encountered (always in reduplicated form) e.g. nadya wadyarwadyarbanyu 'I'm (too) breathless (to travel any further) 1 . This is the first delocutive verb we have described that does not have primary reference

28

R.M.W. DIXON

to a noise; but there is usually concomitant noise - a winded person will often expel breath audibly. There are a number of nouns, referring to noise, which might be expected to form the basis for delocutive verbs but do not in fact do so - for instance, bala gubil 'whistle'. In fact gubil appears to be treated in Dyirbal very much like a bodily characteristic (such as sweat, or tears) and is normally placed in apposition to a noun, the usual syntactic means of indicating inalienable possession (alienable possession is, in contrast, marked by genitive case). Thus : (6) bayi

yara

gubil

dyananyu

MARKER-NOM man-NOM whistle-NOM stand-PRES/PAST The man is standing whistling. (7) balan

dyugumbil gubil

nandanyu

MARKER-NOM woman-NOM whistle-NOM call out-PRES/PAST The woman is calling out (to someone) by means of a whistle.

It is possible (and quite usual) to form an inchoative from this noun: (8) bayi

yara

gubilbin

MARKER-NOM man-NOM whistle-INCHOATIVE-PRES/PAST The man has begun whistling (effectively :

has come into a

whistling state).

But a delocutive form, *gubilmba-y, is regarded as quite impossible. It appears to be impossible to derive delocutive verbs from any other nouns denoting types of noise. Thus -(m)ba-y derivatives are not acceptable from munga 'loud thumping noise', nyaygilan y 'sharp scream' or bunguray 'snore'.

4. Dyirbal has a special 'mother-in-law style' (called Dyalnuy) which is used in the presence of certain taboo relatives; this has a totally different lexicon from the unmarked 'everyday style' (Guwal), there being a many-to-one relation between everyday style and motherin-law style vocabulary items (for details, see Dixon 1972.32-4, 292-6, 304-6; and 1971). In the 'mother-in-law' style of the central Dyirbal dialect the

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

29

verb dyalguba-y 'to talk' looks as if it is in delocutive form (it is interesting to note that there is no intransitive verb 'to talk' in the Mamu dialect mother-in-law style, the reflexive form of transitive wuyuba-l 'tell' being employed in this function). Similarly, the intransitive item 'talk' in the everyday style for Wargamay (Dyirbal's southerly neighbour and close relation) is banmaba-y. However, in neither case is the root (dyalgu, banma) attested, and we can only guess that etymologically these roots may involve the delocutive suffix. (wurba-y 'talk' occurs in the everyday style of all Dyirbal dialects this could not be synchronically analysed as a delocutive since the root would be monosyllabic, and all Dyirbal roots must be disyllabic or longer; but it could conceivably be a contraction of an original form, say, wurVba-y, that did involve the delocutive affix.) There are three other intransitive trisyllabic verbs in the writer's Wargamay corpus that end in -(m)ba-y: gawamba-y and nugumba-y, which both mean 'to vomit' and na:ramba-y 'to try to do (but fail)'; the last item appears to be derived from the particle n a : r a 'try' - see 6 below. Dyirbal's northerly neighbour, Yidinj, differs markedly from it in both grammar and lexicon. The writer has worked intensively on Yidinj but has not yet discovered any morphological process for deriving delocutive verbs. But it is worth noting that the mother-in-law style verb 'to laugh' in one dialect of Yidinj (corresponding to the everyday style verb manga-y) is gagaba-y, and that [qá - qá - gá - gá... ] is the normal impersonation of laughter in this area. Paragraphs 1 and 2 dealt with verbs derived from sounds made by birds and animals. 3 referred to sounds, but not intelligible speech, connected with humans. 4 mentioned general verbs 'talk' and 'laugh* that may have a delocutive historical origin. The remaining examples concern verbs that are derived from human locutions - an exclamation, three particles, a deictic element and an interrogative. 5. There is an exclamation, yaburi, that indicates terror - it can be uttered by someone as they are being grabbed by an enemy, or in a variety of other frightening situations, e.g. when scared at being

30

R.M.W. DIXON

trapped in a dark gorge, or when afraid that something nearby might explode. The phonological form is /yaburi/ but it is frequently uttered as a drawn-out cry [yabúray]. It is said that when a victim is being chased he will continually shout yabu, yabu, yabu ...; and that when caught this gives way to yaburi. There is a well-attested delocutive verb yabuyabuba-y, referring to someone running away and calling yabu. (We have seen above that delocutive verbs tend to be based on the first two syllables of a locution and the verb here could, by this rule, have yaburi as its basis; indeed it may be that bayi yabuyabubanyu could refer to someone shouting yabu and/or to someone shouting yaburi.) It seems unlikely that there is any connection between the call yabu and the homophonous nouns yabu, meaning 'mother', 'thumb/big toe', 'large intestine' (but note Benveniste's (1971.241-2) discussion of Latin parentare). 6. Dyirbal has a class of about fifteen non-inflecting particles, that provide modal/logical-type modification of a sentence. They include (Dixon, 1972.116-22) gulu 'not1, yamba 'maybe', perhaps, nuri 'in return', and (a) mugu9 indicating that it was impossible to avoid doing something that is, in fact, quite unsatisfactory, e.g. (9) bayi

yuri

mugu

mundu

MARKER-NOM kangaroo-NOM PARTICLE unsatisfied-NOM nurbayaranyu

gaynydyan

break off-PRES/PAST return-BEGIN-PRES/PAST (In a myth concerning the origin of water, the kangaroo has been trailing the blue-tongued lizard, who has the water hidden some­ where.

The lizard catches sight of the kangaroo and tells him to

go home.)

The kangaroo, mission uncompleted, is forced to break

off (his journey) and start to return home.

(b) nara

(Text XXIII.13)

indicating that the actor couldn't do something, e.g.

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

nad y a

(10) gayunga

nara

31

budin

bark bag-LOC I-SUBJECT PARTICLE carry-PRES/PAST I couldn't carry (the honey) in a bark bag (because it had no handle, so I used a kerosene tin).

(Text XXXIX.28).

(c) yanda, indicating that the actor tried to do something but did not succeed (or that he intends to try, but is not too hopeful of succeeding), e.g. (11) yanda

nad y a

bayi

PARTICLE I-SUBJECT

bugal

dyinban

MARKER-NOM black bream-NOM spear-PRES/PAST

I tried to spear the black bream (but missed it).

The writer has not so far been able to pin down the difference (if indeed there is any) in meaning and function between nava and yanda. It appears that some particles can be verbalised by the regular transitiviser -mal~-(m)bal. Thus (compare with (5) above): (12) b a l a

bangul

mugumban

MARKER-NOM MARKER-ERG PARTICLE-CAUSATIVE-PRES/PAST bulganyu swallow-PRES/PAST He couldn't help but swallow it down (i.e. there was no time to chew it). (13) bala

bangul

naramban

yilmbun

MARKER-NOM MARKER-ERG PARTICLE--CAUSTIVE-PRES/PAST pull-PRES/PAST He couldnt pull it up (despite tries).

Note that some particles - including gulu and yamba - cannot occur in transitive verbal form. There are, in the writer's corpus, two examples of delocutive verbs derived from participles : naramba-y, and yandamba-y. Thus : (14) bayi

narambanyu

nurbanyu

MARKER-NOM PARTICLE-DELOCUTIVE-PRES/PAST return-PRES/PAST He tried to return (but wasn't able to).

It may be that nazramba-y is the preferred verb in the everyday style,

32

R.M.W. DIXON

and yandamba-y in the marked 'mother-in-law' style (the particles them­ selves occur in both styles - although no lexical item occurs in both styles, all grammatical words (pronouns, noun markers, particles, and so on) are identical in the two styles). The writer has never encountered a particle with the inchoative verbaliser, but one informant stated that n a r a b i - l was possible, although naramba-y would always be preferred. The delocutive sense of naramba~y and yandamba-y is quite plausible: if one has attempted, but not achieved, some task, others will be most likely to know of this if one tells them; thus 'to say nara' would in most cases be an appropriate gloss for naramba-y. It can easily be observed that someone has not done something, and there would be less need for the actor 'to say not'; it is thus quite natural that Dyirbal should have a verb navamba-y but not gulumba-y, as Latin has negare (Benveniste 1971.241). The sense 'to refuse' - covered by negave in Latin - is in Dyirbal rendered by the reflexive of dyabi~l 'to stop (someone doing something), to forbid (someone to do something)'; thus d y a b i ( y i ) r i ~ y 'to refuse' (literally 'to stop oneself). There is a further verb that could conceivably be analysed into a disyllabic root and the delocutive derivational affix: gadyilmba-y. This is an intransitive verb describing someone saying that he intends to do something, but in fact not wanting to do it, and procrastinating until it is too late to do it. The writer knows of no form gadyil, but there is a sentence-initial particle gadyi. It is effectively an invitation or exhortation to an addressee to do something - 'go on', or 'come on, let's do it' - or an expression by the speaker of intention and willingness to undertake something. It is likely that someone who is prevaricating, in a way that could be described by gady ilmba-y, would several times have said gadyi, to express his (false) intentions. Thus it is possible that gadyilmba-y may be etymologically related to gadyi. 7. There are in Dyirbal two interrogative verbs - transitive wiyaBa-l and intransitive wiyaB-y. When one of these forms is the sole verb in a sentence it means 'do what'; occurring with another

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

33

verb - with which it must agree in surface transitivity and final inflection - it means 'do how'. Thus: (15)

bayi yara wiyabanyu

What did the man do?

(16)

balan dyugumbil bangul yarangu wiyaban

What did the man do to the woman?

(17)

bayi yara wiyaban y u bilinyu

How did the man climb (the tree)?

(18)

bayi bugal bangul yarangu wiyaban dyinban

How did the man spear the black bream?

A reply to (18) could be 'with a many-pronged spear', or 'properly' or 'at night' etc. There are also deictic verbs - intransitive yalaBa-y and transitive yalaBa-l, 'do it like this'. These usually refer to a mime accompanying the speech, e.g. (19) nadya bilinyu yalabanyu

I climbed (the tree) like this (with accompanying mime).

or else they can introduce reported speech (Dixon, 1972.56). The segment we have written 'B' in these four words has variant realisations depending on dialect and style. It is : m in everyday style for the Dyirbal and Giramay dialects, and in mother-in-law style for the Mamu dialect; b in mother-in-law style for Dyirbal and Giramay, and everyday style for Mamu. Sentences (15-19) are in Mamu everyday style. There is in Dyirbal an extensive class of deictics ('this' , 'here', etc.) based on the root yala- (Dixon, 1972.45-7, 57, 254-6). There is no occurrence of wiya outside the interrogative verbs, but this form does show considerable formal similarity with interrogative roots such as wanya 'who', wunydya 'where', and minya 'what', and may be etymologically related to them. The forms yalama-l and wiyama-l could be regarded as (historically) involving the productive verbaliser -ma-l. The corresponding intran­ sitive forms might be expected to be *yalabi-l and *wiyabi-l; instead,

34

R.M.W. DIXON

we encounter forms that appear to involve the delocutive affix -(m)ba-y - it is normal to use a deictic to refer the listener to an explanatory mime, and a translation 'to say yala' would be appropriate here. (It could also be argued that where the deictic is used to refer to an action, it is naturally verbalised). wiyaBa-y could be assigned a similar etymology, in terms of some original interrogative *wiya 'what'. The variant third consonant, B, in interrogative and deictic verbs could be explained through analogy. We would expect transitive yalama-l but (on the present-day productive form of the delocutive It could be that the Dyirbal and Giramay affix) intransitive yalamba-y. dialects generalised the transitive consonant to apply to both forms, but that Mamu took the intransitive form, involving - b - , as basic. (It is possible that at an earlier stage of the language, the delocutive affix was simply -ba-y cf for instance dyalguba-y in 4. above.) It is likely (Dixon 1972.345-7) that the 'mother-in-law' styles of the various Dyirbal dialects were extended relatively recently to the point where every lexical item has a different form from the every­ day style. Grammatical items, and interrogatives corresponding to them (e.g. 'who', 'where') are the same in mother-in-law, but interrogatives corresponding to lexical classes ['what', and the interrogative verbs) demand a different mother-in-law form. It would thus have been quite natural for Mamu to adopt the everyday style interrogative and deictic forms from the Dyirbal and Giramay dialects for its own mother-in-law style, and vice versa (for other examples of this kind of 'borrowing' see Dixon, 1972.33, 320, 346).

verbalisers are The inchoative -bi,-l and causative -ma-l~-(m)ba-l productive, and frequently encountered. Every adjective and (where semantically plausible) noun can occur in inchoative or causative form. Delocutives, ending in -(m)ba-y, are much more restricted and in fact the full set of verbs known or suspected to be delocutive has been

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

35

listed above. As an indication of relative frequency, forty Dyirbal texts included 132 inchoative forms, 96 causative items, but only a single example (mulgumbanu) of a synchronically-analysable delocutive (as described in 1-3, 5-6 above). There were in addition twenty-two occurrences of yalaBa-y and fifteen of wiyaBa-y, forms that may historically be derived from delocutives. The types of delocutive verb in Dyirbal show similarities to varieties of delocutive described by Benveniste for Indo-European languages - derived from particles, an exclamation (yabumba-y can be compared with (re)mercier) and so on. Dyirbal lacks delocutive verbs of greeting, but this is because it lacks special terms for greeting (on meeting a friend, a speaker of Dyirbal might say wunydyanum ninda baninu 'where have you come from?', and on taking leave he could say dyanydya nadya yanuli

'I must go now', or else dyanydya yana 'go now!').

A major area of difference is that Dyirbal has a fair number of delocutive verbs derived from nouns referring to different kinds of noise and call (in 1-3 above). The only area in which the formation of delocutive verbs in Dyirbal is at all freely productive is the formation of verbs describing bird calls. If there is no regular verb that is appropriate - through similarity of sound or believed function - to describe a bird or animal cry, then a delocutive verb may be derived from the first two syllables of the institutionally-established version of the call. Benveniste suggests distinguishing 'carefully between delocutives and verbs derived from interjections: Fr. claquer, huer, chuchoter, Engl. to hush, to boo, etc. A delocutive always has as its root a signifier that can be interjected into discourse without ceasing to be a signifier, while verbs like claquer are constructed on simple onoma­ topoeias' (1971.245). He is here referring to a set of often-emotional­ ly-based interjections that seem functionally and formally to belong Following on from the only loosely to the normal system of language. discussion by Geschwind (1964) and Reynolds (1968) it is possible to argue that these cries are to be related to animal noises, rather than to normal human language. And we can note that every language appears to have a class of interjections that utilise sounds not occurring in

36

R.M.W. DIXON

the regular phonological system - for instance, the clicked tsk! tsk! and phew! (which beings with a bilabial fricative) in English. Dyirbal, which does not include sibilants or other fricatives in its normal phonological (or phonetic) inventory has interjections such as [/o:] 'phew!1, as well as [gayi] 'sssh!', [wuyi] 'hey!' etc. The actual calls of birds and so on are, of course, quite outside the phonological system of any language. But Dyirbal has institution­ alised versions of these calls, that do conform to the phonological pattern of the language, and from which delocutive verbs can be formed. They differ from paralinguistic-type interjections - such as [/o:] which do not conform to the regular phonological pattern, and which cannot be verbalised. It can thus be seen that Dyirbal - whose delocutives are clearly distinguished by their distinctive affix -(m)ba-y - provides support for Benveniste's distinction. In conclusion we can, with Benveniste (1971.245-6), emphasise that 'the essential and signal feature of a delocutive is that it is in the relationship of "to say ..." with its nominal base, and not in the relationship of "to do ...", which belongs to the denominative. It is not the least instructive characteristic of this class to show us a sign of language deriving from a locution of discourse and not from another sign of language; by this very fact, delocutives are, above all, from the moment at which they are created, verbs denoting activities of discourse. Their structure as well as the reasons that summon them into existence assign them a very particular position among the other classes of verbal derivatives.'

APPENDIX The literature on Australian languages contains several references to what are undoubtedly delocutive verbs, with some similarities to the phenomenon described in Dyirbal. Donaldson (1977.286) describes a class of delocutive verbs in Ngiyamba:, from western New South Wales 'verbs meaning "tell someone not to", "say no to someone" and so on... derived from free particles

37

DELOCUTIVE VERBS IN DYIRBAL

by the addition of -ba-y'. It is noteworthy that delocutive verbs in Ngiyamba: are transitive, the object NP referring to the person addressed. There is also a quite separate derivational affix -ba-l which derives intransitive verbs from onomatopoeias; thus Ngiyamba: provides further justification for Benveniste's distinction between delocutive verbs and verbs derived from onomatopoeic interjections. Crowley (forthcoming) describes a delocutive morpheme -ba- for the Waalubal dialect of Bandjalang, from north-east New South Wales. -ba- functions as a transitive verb (e.g. its subject is in ergative case), the object being the name of the kind of sound that is being referred to (e.g. 'whistling', 'barking'). Unusually, -ba- is phonologically attached to this object noun, as a suffix; it then takes the full range of verbal derivational and inflectional suffixes. For the Western Australian language Pitjantjatjara, Glass and Hackett (1970.6) describe delocutive suffixes -ma~~kara\ these again derive transitive verbal stems; they quote as examples yuwa-n~ma~ yvwa-n-kara-

'to say yes ' and mirka-n-ma-

'to say food'.

Hale (mimeo)

reports that for Walbiri 'a number of intransitive verbs having to do with the production of sound end in /ma-/... e.g. walkur-ma'to bark'; kilwir-ma'to produce a squeaking sound'; ta l-ma- 'to produce a sharp report or click'; muntur-ma'to roar (as of an engine)'. See also Sharpe's (1976) discussion of the verbal auxiliaries mba 'do, say' in Alawa and ma 'say' in Mara, from the Northern Territory. REFERENCES Benveniste, Emile. 1958. 'Delocutive verbs', pp 57-63 of Studia Vhilologica et Litteraria in Honorem L. Spitser (ed A.G.Hatcher and K. L. Selig), Bonn; English translation in Benveniste: 1971, pp.239-246. . 1971. Problems in General Linguistics (translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek). University of Florida Press. Crowley, Terry. forthcoming. The. Middle Clarence dialects of Bandjalang. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

38

R.M.W. DIXON

Dixon, R.M.W. 1971. 'A Method of Semantic Description', pp 436-71 of Semantics: an Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology, edited by D. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovits. Cambridge University Press. . 1972. The Dyirbal Language of North Cambridge University Press.

Queensland.

Donaldson, T.J. 1977. A description of Ngiyamba:, the language of the Wana:ybuwan people of Central Western New South Wales. Australian National University PhD thesis, Canberra. Geschwind, Norman. 1964. 'The Development of the Brain and the Evolution of Language' Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics 17.155-69. Glass, Amee and Hackett, Dorothy. 1970. Pitjantjatjara Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Grammar.

Hale, K. L. mimeo 1969. 'Walbiri Conjugations'. Reynolds, Peter Carlton. 1968. 'Evolution of Primate Vocal-Auditory Communication Systems' American Anthropologist 70.300-8. Sharpe, M.C. 1976. 'Simple and compound verbs: conjugation by auxiliaries in Australian verbal systems - Alawa, Mara and Warndarang' pp 708-29 of Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages, edited by R.M.W.Dixon. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES: CONTINUUMS RALPH M. GOODMAN University of Northern Iowa

Most — if not all — generative grammarians of recent years im­ plicitly assume that every unambiguous sentence has only one structural description. This assumption can be inferred from the explanations of structural ambiguity in the professional literature. Many of these linguists assert that a descriptive grammar must account for the ideal speaker-hearer's linguistic intuition, which in­ cludes a (subconscious) knowledge of the structural descriptions of the sentences he utters or hears. For example, Chomsky (1965 pp. 4,5) main­ tains that "A fully adequate grammar must assign to each of an infinite range of sentences a structural description indicating how this sentence is understood by the ideal speaker-hearer." With this concept as a ba­ sis, one can argue that if the ideal speaker-hearer recognizes more than one structural description for an unambiguous sentence, then a fully ade­ quate grammar must account for this fact. In this paper I shall argue that the ideal speaker-hearer intuitively recognizes for many SENTOIDS (defined as either unambiguous sentences or ambiguous sentences taken in only one of their meanings) or constituents of sentoids 1. more than one structural description and what I shall call 2.

DEGREES OF GRAMMATICAL DISTINCTNESS, DEGREES OF

DISTINCTNESS.

or, briefly,

40

RALPH M. GOODMAN

A sentoid, or, more usually, a grammatical constituent therein, will be said to be 100 percent distinct with respect to a particular structural description SD or its negative if it is a clear case of SD or non-SD re­ spectively. For example (within one formulation of Chomskian grammar), the word growl is 100% distinct with respect to the description intran­ sitive. It is also 100% distinct with respect to the description tran­ sitive or preposition in that these are clearly non-intransitive cate­ gories. In other words growl is distinctly an intransitive verb and just as distinctly not a transitive verb and not a preposition. I shall argue that in other cases a sentoid or constituent may have varying de­ grees of distinctness along a CONTINUUM with respect to each structural description. By the terms "percentage" and "degrees", I do not mean to suggest that the notion "degrees of distinctness" is a simple linear one; I use these terms only as a first approximation. Now sometimes what appears to be a continuum in one grammatical theory may not appear as such within a second theory. In cases like this, the second theory can be said to have RESOLVED the problem for this particular presumed continuum. But I shall maintain that not all presumed continuums can be resolved within any theory since degrees of distinctness are pervasive within human language and must be accounted for by a full theory of language. I present my thesis in two parts: In the first part I give one fairly thorough and several shorter syntactic arguments; in the second part, I give semantic arguments. 1. la.

SYNTACTIC ARGUMENTS VERB PLUS PARTICLE AREA

Fraser (1965, 1966) distinguished between particles and reduced adverbs. For example, he shows that up in 3. The man looked up the information. is a particle, that is, part of the verb (henceforth called a VERBPARTICLE), and that in in

4. The butler carried in the dinner. is a reduced adverb (henceforth called an ADVERB-PARTICLE). Both par­ ticles may occur on either side of the direct object {The man looked the information

up,

The butler

carried

the dinner

in),

but only a sentence

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

41

with the adverb-particle can be transformed by the action nominalization transformation with of (cf. Lees, 1960) when the particle follows the direct object. Thus we can say [Fraser's examples] 5. The butler's carrying of the dinner in (pleased our host). but not 6. *The man's looking of the information up (surprised his boss). To test my thesis I conducted an experiment in which eighteen in­ formants applied four tests to a set of twenty sentoids, called MAIN sentoids, each of which contained a particle. (Figure 1, column 1; the parenthetical information was added to assure that only one meaning was understood.) If a sentoid passed a particular test, this was one indi­ cation that the particle within it is an adverb-particle; if it failed this test, this was one indication that the particle is a verb-particle. The application of three of the tests to the twenty main sentoids resulted in sixty TEST sentoids, twenty for each test (columns 2,3,4). A main sentoid was said to pass one of these tests if the corresponding test sentoid sounded "normal" and retained the essential meaning of the main sentoid. The informants marked '+' for pass, '-' for failure and 'U' for uncertain. As can be noted in Figure 1, the plusses, minuses and U's of the eighteen informants are summed in columns 2,3,4,5. Columns 6, 7, and 9 are respectively the totals of the sums of the plusses, minuses, and U's of all four tests. Column 8 and also the subcolumns under "Sum" of columns 2,3,4,5 each contain the algebraic sums of the figures in the preceding two columns or subcolumns. In Figure 2, the twenty sentoids are ranked in terms of the total scores (taken from columns 6,7,8,9 of Figure 1). Figure 3, in which the numbers in Figure 1 are converted to percentages, assigns "rank numbers" to the main sentoids for each test and the total sum; the highest rank is 1; the lowest, 13, 16, or 18. Although the status of the adverbial is not clear (cf. Lakoff (1965, 1968)), we can still distinguish between a particle like up in (1) and one like in in (2); this difference is sufficient for the purposes of my argument.

RALPH M. GOODMAN

42

A brief description of each of the four tests follows: The deletion test, (Figure 1, column 2.) Informants v/ere instructed to add the expressions given in parentheses in column 2 to each of the main sentoids. These additions make the final prepositional phrase in each test sentoid APPEAR to be adverbial. For example, of the room was added to S1 and S19 and the bridge to S9 thus: Sla. John carried the tray out of the room. S19a. *John waited his time out of the room. S9a. ?John fought the men off the bridge. Statistically speaking, S1 passed (18 plusses), S19 failed (17 minuses, 1 U ) , and S9 was in-between (6 plusses, 8 minuses, 4 U's). (Recall that pass indicates adverb-particle and fail, verb-particle.) The modification test. (Column 3.) Informants were instructed to modify the particle in each main sentoid with at least one of these expressions: all

the way; completely, entirely;

S1b.

for example,

John carried the tray all the way (entirely or completely) out.

S19b. *John waited his time all the way or completely)

S9b.

(entirely

out.

?John fought the men all the way (entirely or completely) off.

S1 mostly passes (15 plusses, 2 minuses, 1 U ) ; S19 mostly fails (4 plusses, 13 minuses, 1 U ) ; S9 is in-between (8 plusses, 3 minuses, 7 U's). The nominalization test. (Column 4.) This is Fraser's test, explained earlier. Applying this test to S1, S19 and S9 we get: S1c. John's carrying of the tray out (pleased his mother). S19c. *John's waiting of his time out (pleased his mother). S9c. ?John's fighting of the men off (pleased his mother). Note that S1 mostly passes (15 plusses, 2 minuses, 1 U ) , S19 mostly fails (1 plus, 13 minuses, 4 U's), and S9 is in-between (7 plusses, 7 minuses, 4 U's).

MULTIPLE SB'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

43

COLUMN 2

COLUMN 1

I N C L U D E S T E S T DELETION TEST (Added expressions in parentheses) (Meaning hints in parentheses) + Sum SI. John carried the tray out (from 1 (of the an enclosure) room) 18 0 +18 (of the S2. John took the tray out (from an room) 16 1 +15 enclosure) S3. John rolled the rug out (from (of its roll) 11 4 +7 its store-packed roll) S4. John reeled the line out (he was (of its reel) 10 4 + 6 fishing) S5. John poured the tea out (from a (of the teapot) teapot) 18 0 +18 M A I N

S E N T Q I D S

S6. John brushed the dirt off (from a surface) S7. John frightened the men off (with his bellicose behavior) S8. John handed the papers out (He is a teacher; the papers are piled on his desk) S9. John fought the men off (he was using guns or fists) S10. John turned the light down (It was an electric variable intensity light) Sll. John ticked the names off (He had a list of names and a pencil) S12. John pasted the paper up (so the students could all see it) S13. Jane curled her hair up (She used a home permanent set or the equivalent) S14., John kept the food down (he did not regurgitate it) S15. John wrote the line down (on a sheet of paper) S16. John stopped the drain up (he threw something into the drain) S17. John clogged the drain up (He threw something into the drain) S18. John mixed the batter up (He was making pancakes) S19. John waited his time out (he was in the doctor's office waiting) S20. John looked the word up (in the dictionary)

(the table) (the bridge) (of the pile) (the bridge) (the wall OR the brightness) (the list) (the wall) (her neck OR head) (his stomach) (the sheet of paper) (the pipe) (the pipe) (the bowl) (of the room) (the dictionary)

17

0

+17

U 0 1 3 4 0

1

8

5 + 3

5

6

5 + 1

7

6

8 - 2

4

1

17

-16

0

14

1

+13

3

3

10

-7

5

2

13

-11

3

4

13

- 9

1

2

16

-14

0

0

18

-18

0

0

18

-18

0

0

17

-17

1

0

17

-17

1

0

18

-18

0

TESTS FOR VERB AND ADVERB PARTICLENESS FIGURE 1 (Part 1)

44

RALPH M. GOODMAN COLUMN 4

COLUMN 3 S E N T O I D S MODIFICATION TEST ( U s i n g aJLL t h e way, c o m p l e t e l y and/or e n t i r e l y ) + Sum U

NOMINALIZATION TEST ( S u b s t i t u t e h i s or the f o r John) + - Sum U

15

1

15

2

+13

1

13

2

0

12

1

2

13 18

+13 4

0

+

9

+18

COLUMN 5

COL 6

COL 7 T O T TO- " T O TAL TAL "+ --

DEFINITION TEST

+

-

Sum

U

1

18

0

+18

0

66

+11

3

15

2

+13

1

57

+11

5

13

3

+10

2

54

4

9 8

CoL COL 8 9 A L S TOTOTAL TAL SUM U

+62|

2

+48

6

+46

10

17 0 +17 1 9 7 5 + 2 6 [Note: t h e s e f i g u r e r e s u l t e d from 10 a misunderstanding]

4 + 5 5

16

1

+15

1

52

9

+43

11

6 + 4 2

15

3

+12

0

48

14

+34

10

16

5

+53

9

1

+15

1

9

2 + 7 7

16

2

+14

0

58

!

10

4

+

6

4

8

3 + 5 7

8

6

+ 2

4

34

18

+16

20

4

8

-

4

6

10

3 + 7 5

5

6

- 1

7

25

22 + 3

25

8

3

+

5

7

7

7

7

7

0

4

28

25

+ 3

19

+ 4

2

31

34

- 3

7

0

4

13

3

+10

2

7

8 - 1 3

10

6

4

13

- 9

1

6

9 - 3 3

2

10

-

8

6

26

33

- 7

13

5

6

-

1

7

22

29

- 7

21

-

4

4

25

33

- 8

14

0

6

23

35

-12

14

16

48

-32

8

7

6

+

1

5

7

7

9

5

+

4

4

9

6 + 3 3

5

9

7

8

-

1

3

6

8 - 2 4

6

6

1

4

9 - 5 5

5

11

-

6

2

5

12

- 7

0

4

!

7

8

-

1

3

5

10

- 5

3

2

13

-11

3

14

49

-35

9

7

8

-

1

3

4

9

- 5

5

1

14

-13

3

12

49

-37

11

9 - 6 6

3

14

-11

1

12

50

-38

10

0

17

-17

1

5

60

-55

7

0

17

-17

1

8

59 -51

5

6

10

- 4

2

3

4

13

- 9

1

1

2

15

- 9

1

6

13

-12

9 - 3 3

4

1 6 2 3 4 5 7 10 9 11 8 13 14 12 15 16 17 18 20 19

+66 +58 +57 +54 +52 +48 +34' +31 | +28 +26 +25 +25 +23 +22 +16 +14 +12 +12 +8 + 5

COLUMN 2

carry out brush off roll out take out reel out pour out frighten off hand out fight off paste up tick off curl up turn down keep down write down stop up clog up mix up look up wait out

- 4 - 5 - 8 - 9 - 9 -14 -18 -22 -25 -29 -33 -33 -34 -35 -48 -49 -49 -50 -59 -60

TOTAL "-" RANKINGS (From largest "-" to smallest "-" numbers)

S 1 S 6 S 3 S 2 S 4 S 5 S 7 S 8 S 9 S12 Sll S13 S10 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S20 S19

| COLUMN 3

write down stop up clog up mix up look up wait out

S15 S16 S17 S18 S20 S19

carry out brush off take out roll out reel out pour out frighten off hand out fight off turn down tick off paste up curl up keep down

1 6 2 3 4 5

TOTAL "SUM" RANKINGS (From largest "-" to largest "-" numbers)

S 7 S 8 S 9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14

S S S S S S

|

-32 -35 -37 -38 -51 -55

+16 +13 + 3 - 3 - 7 - 7 - 8 -12

+62 +53 +48 +46 +43 +34

COLUMN 4

carry out look up take out stop up turn down write down brush off stop up roll out pour out mix up reel out clog up tick off curl up keep down fight off frighten off paste up hand out

TOTAL "Ü" RANKINGS (From smallest "U" to largest n U" numbers)

S 1 S20 S 2 S 9 S10 S15 |S 6 S16 S 3 S 5 S18 S 4 S17 S11 S13 S14 S 9 S 7 S12 S 8

|

2 5 6 7 7 8 9 9 10 10 10 11 11 13 14 14 19 20 21 25

COLUMN 5

S 7 S 8 S 9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14

20 +16 25 +13 19 + 6 7-3 13-7 21-7 14-8 14 -12

34 25 28 31 26 22 25 23

18 22 25 34 33 29 33 35

SENTOIDS OF MIDDLE RANKS (S7-S14) WITH LARGE "U" NUMBERS (EXCEPT FOR S10) TO- TO- T0U TAL TAL TAL SUM +

RANKINGS MAIN SENTOIDS ARE LISTED BY NUMBER. VERB PLUS PARTICLE FROM EACH MAIN SENTOID GIVEN FIGURE 2

carry out brush off take out roll out reel out pour out frighten off turn down fight off tick off hand out curl up keep down paste up write down stop up clog up mix up look up wait out

TOTAL "+" RANKINGS (From largest "+" to smallest "+" numbers)

COLUMN i

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

45

46

RALPH M. GOODMAN

COLUMN 2

COLUMN 1 MAIN SENTOID NUMBER (listed sequentially)

DELETION RANK TEST % NO, FROM "SUM" [16 Ranks]

MODIFICATION TEST % FROM "SUM" [16 Ranks]

COLUMN 3 RANK NO.

NOMINALIZATION TEST % FROM "SUM" [13 Ranks]

(4)

+ 72%

+ 50

(6)

+ 61

(1)

+ 61

S 1. carry out

+100%

(1)

+ 72%

S 2. take out

+ 83

(3)

S 3. roll out

+ 40

(5)

+100

S 4. reel in

r 33

(6)

+ 95

(2)

+ 29

S 5. pour out

+100

(1)

+ 11

(10)

+ 22

[Note: See comment in Figure 1] (3)

+ 40

S 6. brush off

+ 95

(2)

+ 83

S 7. frighten off

+ 18

(7)

+ 33

(7)

+ 29

(13)

+ 40 0

S 8. hand out

+

7

(8)

- 22

S 9. fight off

- 11

(9)

+ 29

(8)

S10. turn down

- 89

(14)

+ 56

(5)

- 7

S 11. tick off

+ 72

(4)

- 50

(6)

- 18

S 12. paste up

- 40

(10)

+

7

(11)

0

(9)

+ 18

7

(12)

- 11

S 13. curl up

- 60

(12)

+ 22

S 14. keep down

- 50

(11)

-

S 15. write down

- 78

(13)

- 40

(14)

- 29

S 16. stop up

-100

(16)

-

7

(12)

- 29

S 17. clog up

-100

(16)

-

7

(12)

- 29

S 18. mix up

- 95

(15)

- 22

(13)

- 33

S 19. wait out

- 95

(15)

- 50

(15)

- 67

S 20. look up

-100

(16)

- 72

(16)

- 18

DEGREES OF DISTINCTNESS IN TERMS OF PERCENTAGES: RANK NUMBERS FIGURE 3 (part 1)

47

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

|

COLUMN 6

COLUMN 5

COLUMN 4

(1)

SUMMARY OF RANK NUMBERS TAKEN FROM COLUMNS 1-5 1 2 3 4 1 4 1 1

5 1

+ 66

(3)

3

6

2

4

3

(6)

+ 64

(4)

5

1

2

6

4

+ 83

(2)

+ 60

(5)

6

2

4

2

5

+ 67

(5)

+ 47

(6)

1

10

5

5

6

(3)

+ 78

(3)

+ 74

(2)

2

3

3

3

2

(4)

+ H

(8)

+ 22

(7)

7

7

4

8

7

(3)

-

(9)

+

4

(8)

8

13

3

9

8

TOTAL SUM %

DEFINITION TEST % FROM "SUM" 16 Ranks

RANK . NO.

(1)

+100%

(1)

+ 86%

(2)

+ 72

(4)

(2)

+ 56

(4) (5)

RANK NO.

7

RANK NO.

18 Ranks

'

(7)

0

(8)

+

4

(8)

9

8

7

8

8

(8)

+ 22

(7)

-

4

(9)

14

5

8

7

9

(10)

- 44

(12)

- 10

(10)

4

6

10

12

10

- 10

(10)

10

11

7

9

10

(11)

12

9

16

10

11

(12)

11

12

9

8

12

14

11

11

13

(7)

-

7

(9)

(6)

- 22

(10)

-

11

(9)

0

(8)

(11)

- 33

(11)

- 44

(13)

13

(11)

- 61

(13)

- 47

(14)

16

12

11

13

14

12

11

14

15

13

12

13

16

- 17

(ID

- 72

(14)

- 51

(15)

16

(12)

- 61

(13)

- 53

(16)

15

(15)

- 76

(18)

15

15

13

15

18

(17)

16

16

10

15

17

- 95

(13) (10)

- 95

(15)

- 71

DEGREES OF DISTINCTNESS IN TERMS OF PERCENTAGES: FIGURE 3 (part 2)

RANK NUMBERS

48

RALPH M. GOODMAN

The definition test. (Column 5.) Here the informants were asked to determine whether it is relatively easy or hard to define the par­ ticle -- taken as an independent unit -- of each main sentoid; they were not asked to define the particle. They found out of S1 easy to define (18 plusses), out of S19 hard to define (17 minuses, 1 U ) , and down of S9 of in-between difficulty (7 plusses, 7 minuses, and 4 U's). The conclusions to be drawn from the experiment are as follows: (i) There are sentoids that are clear cases of pass and clear cases of fail; such sentoids contain particles that are respectively distinctly adverb-particles (e.g. S1) and distinctly verb-particles (e.g. S19). (ii) There are sentoids that are not clear cases of pass or fail (e.g. S9); the particles within these sentoids have varying degrees of distinct­ ness along a continuum that ranges from clearly adverb-particle to clearly verb-particle. See especially columns 1 and 2 of Figure 2 which indicate a fairly smooth continuum from high plus or minus to low plus or minus. The "U's" support this conclusion since they tend to vary inversely with the magnitude of the positive or negative numbers; that is, as one would expect, indistinctness gives rise to uncertainty. (See Figure 2, Column 5.) (iii) Since the sentoids that pass one test are, in general, different or partially different from those that pass a second or third or fourth test, the degrees of distinctness along the particle continuum for any sentoid may vary with different contexts. (See especially Figure 3, Column 6.) (iv) Degrees of distinctness with respect to the particle is a syntactic reflection of the de­ grees of semantic "distance" between verb and

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

49

particle. The rule can be stated roughly as follows: (a) The closer the semantic union of verb and particle, the less likely it is that the particle will behave as an independent syntactic unit, that is, the more likely it is that the verb plus particle is a single part of speech and thus the more likely it is that the particle is a verb-particle; (b) con­ versely, the further the semantic distance be­ tween verb and particle, the more likely it is that the particle will behave as an independent syntactic unit; thus the more likely it is that the verb and particle each belongs to a different part of speech, and hence the more likely it is that the particle is an adverb-particle. This generalization is revealed directly by the defi­ nition test and indirectly by the other three tests. I have intentionally omitted from my description of the particle experiment a number of practical, psychological, sociological and lin­ guistic problems that affect neither the main outlines of the experi­ ment nor the conclusions. For a considerably more detailed description and analysis, see Goodman (1970). lb.

VERB PLUS PREPOSITION AREA

Analogous to the verb plus particle is the verb plus preposition. The question here is whether a verb plus preposition is a single verb (henceforth called a VERB-PREP) such as run into meaning 'met' as in 7. He ran into my friend. or whether the preposition belongs not to the verb but to the preposi­ tional phrase of which it is a part as, for example, into in 8. He ran into the car (and sat down quickly). (The verb and preposition in this case will be called VERB-AND-PREP). 2

The distinction between the verb-prep and the verb-and-prep must be made even in a case grammar. For example, see Stockwell, Schachter and Partee (1968).

RALPH M. GOODMAN

50

(Henceforth I refer to ran into (8) as ran i n t o 8 ; also into as

into8

of (7) as ran into

of (7) will be written into7,

, ran into into

of

of (8)

I follow this pattern in many subsequent examples.)

Prepositions like i n t o 8 within verb-and-prep sequences tend to have clearly distinguishable meanings, tend to co-occur freely with many verbs in a regular and systematic way, and tend to be capable of

modification (e.g. He ran RIGHT into tions like into

the oar).

By contrast, preposi­

of verb-prep complexes tend to be difficult to define

apart from the verb, tend to co-occur (with the same meaning) with few verbs and then in an idiosyncratic way, and tend not to be modifiable (not *He ran RIGHT into

my friend

where ran

into

means 'met').

Now consider the sentoid 9. Ran into

I ran into my friend (but didn't hurt him too badly).

frequently is considered a verb-prep.

on this analysis for these reasons:

Doubt ought be thrown

(i) Into9 has a relatively clear

meaning, which is, roughly, 'in the direction of and physically against (a usually solid object)'.

(ii) Into9 , while retaining this meaning,

freely co-occurs with many verbs of motion; this co-occurrence is sys­ tematic and regular.

stagger/walk/bump/rush/marCh/drive/

Thus we have

dart/dash/roll/drift/slide/glide

into

etc.

We also have, though pos­

sibly less frequently, limp into (He had a bad leg but was not when he limped right

into

the track

when he jogged

him right

into

the jutting

my friend),

rocks),

etc.

the wall), right

into

jog into the wall),

[He was jogging push into

sweep into (the stream

careful along

(They

pushed

swept him right

By contrast, in cases like scamper/duck

on into into,

into

has the same meaning as i n t o 8 namely, 'from outside to inside of 3 a three dimensional structure'. Why should into with this meaning be regarded as part of a verb-and-prep sequence and not also into 9 with the meaning 'physically against'?

One justification for classifying

into9 as a part of a verb-prep seems to be that it co-occurs with fewer verbs and/or is used less frequently (because the real life situations 3 The into of stagger/walk into etc. listed above could have this meaning as well, but this fact is irrelevant here since I am speci­ fying which meaning is intended.

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

51

calling for its use occur less frequently). (iii) I n t o 9 (or into 9 + NP) can be modified; for example, r i g h t can be used with all the italicized verbs in (ii) immediately above. If the above three conditions for ran i n t o 9 hold, why is it usually considered a verb-prep? One reason, given under (ii) above, is that it co-occurs with fewer verbs and is used less frequently. However, the core of the matter, as in the case of the verb and particle, is seman­ tic: The closer the semantic ties between the verb and the preposition, the more it is felt to be a verb-prep grammatically; the looser the se­ mantic ties, the more it is felt to be a verb-and-prep grammatically. I submit that ran i n t o 9 is frequently felt to be (in some degree) more a single semantic unit than ran i n t o 8 and less a single semantic unit than ran i n t o . By this reasoning ran i n t o is a clear case of neither verb-and-prep nor verb-prep; rather it is somewhere in-between. If the foregoing argument for ran i n t o 9 as an in-between case is not convincing, we need only look at other sentences to bolster our case; these, for example: 10. I went into the room. 11. (I couldn't stop my car fast enough and so) I simply went right into that tree (over there). 12. I went into a spin. 13. I went into a new dance routine. 14. I went into a coma. 15. I looked into the matter. 16. I looked into getting a job. Went i n t o 1 0 is clearly a verb-and-prep. Went i n t o 1 1 is analogous to ran i n t o 9 and would most likely be analyzed the same way, whatever way that should turn out to be; note, however, that the sentence I went i n t o the t r e e taken in isolation would simply reveal my druid propensities. The cases of went i n t o in (12), (13), (14) and looked i n t o in (15), (16) are not clear cases of either verb-and-prep or verb-prep; went i n t o 1 2 seems to align itself more with verb-and-prep; went i n t o 1 3 , went i n t o 1 4 seem to be less clearly verb-and-prep.

52

RALPH M. GOODMAN

Look i n t o - 1 5 and look into16 seem, on the surface, to be verb-preps. But these expressions are metaphorically related to look into of I looked into the room, which is a verb-and-prep. Such metaphoric relationships raise a question: When a verb plus preposition is metaphoric does this automatically mean that it is a verb-prep? Metaphoric meanings are of­ ten difficult to pin-point and are frequently restricted in co-occurrence for semantic reasons; but should this kind of semantic restriction auto­ matically relegate the verb plus preposition to a verb-prep? I do not think a clear "yes" can be given. For the verb plus preposition, we could devise an experiment like that for the verb plus particle to determine degrees of distinctness. Ban i n t o 7 would probably turn out to be distinctly a verb-prep and ran into 8 distinctly a verb-and-prep. Many of the other examples would be 4 verb-preps or verb-and-preps in varying degrees. 1c.

THE PARTICLE-PREPOSITION

CONTINUUM

I shall now briefly consider whether or not verb-particles can in all cases be clearly distinguished from prepositions. The most obvious distinction seems to be this: Verb-particles can occur on either side of the direct object (He looked

up the word,

He looked

the word

up)

whereas prepositions cannot (He ran into (= 'met') my friend but not *He ran my friend into). But this is a superficial criterion. For ex­ ample, it ignores those instances of intransitive verbs that can be followed by particles or prepositions (e.g. The two friends fell out, He ran in). In this section I examine only transitive verbs. Instead of using a clear-cut rigorous criterion, I shall define prepositions on this intuitive basis: A preposition in a simple active declarative sentence can be followed by what is intuitively felt to be an object of the preposition, an object that is not a direct object. 4 Some of the examples in this section are not unrelated to the indirect object problem as illustrated by these sentences: 17. He sent the goods to him. 18. He exported the goods to him. 19. He recommended the goods to him. 20. He suggested the lesson to him.

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

53

To illustrate, examine the following sentences (those numbered S are taken from Figure 1; the numerical values are from the "Sum" column of the deletion test): (S6) John brushed the dirt off (the table). +17 (Sll) John ticked the names off (the list). +13 (S14) John kept the food down (? h i s stomach). - 9 (S20) John looked the word up (*the dictionary). -18 (21) John brought the tray in (the room). (22) John lifted his buddy up (the shaft). (23) John lifted the shade up (the roller). (24) John smoked the room up (*the air). Certainly off 6 o f f 1 1 are prepositions; down14 is doubtful; up20 is not a preposition. These judgments are supported by the numerical values listed. Similarly, i n 2 1 is a preposition; up22 is probably a preposi­ tion; up23 is doubtful; up24 is not a preposition. If a descriptive grammar makes a distinction between a verb-particle and a preposition, where does it draw the line? The examples above strongly suggest that there is a continuum ranging from distinctly verb5 particle to distinctly preposition. 1d.

CLEAR CASE VERSUS GENERAL GRAMMAR

In determining degrees of distinctness with respect to the particle using behavioral tests, I relied, in part, on informant reaction to grammatical ness. The particles examined were within the main sentoids (S1-S20), all of which were perfectly grammatical. The deletion, modi­ fication and nominalization tests when applied to these sentoids resulted in test sentoids that ranged from fully grammatical to completely ungrammatical. If a test sentoid was fully grammatical, clearly ungrammatical, The distinction between adverb-particles and prepositions that are not adverb-particles may be more clear-cut. If we compare (21) with (25) John brought the tray into the room. we see that the grammatical and semantic function of in21 and into25. are essentially the same. The distinction is merely this: in 21 need not be followed by a prepositional object; furthermore, it can be placed before the direct object; i n t o 2 5 must be followed by a prepositional object in simple active declarative sentences; therefore, it cannot be placed be­ fore the direct object.

54

RALPH M. GOODMAN

or partially grammatical, this respectively indicated that the test sentoid was an adverb-particle, a verb-particle, or in some degree an adverb- or verb-particle, the particular degree being directly propor­ tional to the degree of grammatical ness or ungrammaticalness of the test sentoid. In general, degrees of distinctness are tied to degrees of grammatical ness, at least indirectly. I shall now expand on this point and suggest some implications. For purposes of the ensuing argument, I shall distinguish between two kinds of grammar in terms of their comprehensiveness. A descriptive grammar that generates only those sentences that are clearly grammatical will be called a CLEAR CASE grammar. A comprehensive grammar that gen­ erates sentences with varying degrees of grammatical ness (specifying the degree of grammatical ness for each sentence generated) will be called a GENERAL grammar. Linguists, out of practical necessity, are generally preoccupied with clear case grammar. Degrees of grammatical ness, though recognized as important (Goodman (1959), Chomsky (1961), Ziff (1964), Katz (1964)), are frequently regarded as phenomena that can ideally be dealt with af­ ter a clear case grammar has been detailed (though the linguist need not wait for the completion of a clear case grammar description to begin work on the theoretical underpinnings of degrees of grammatical ness). The underlying assumption here is that degrees of grammaticalness can, in principle, be dealt with outside a clear case grammar, that a clear case grammar is a properly delimited domain for theoretical investigation in that it can properly account for fundamental aspects of speaker-hearer intuition. I shall in the next few pages try to show that this position should be challenged, that only general grammar is a proper linguistic domain for theoretical investigation. My discussion involves the so-called ergative. (cf. Allen (1964), Anderson (1968), Fillmore (1966, 1968), Halliday (1967), Lyons (1968)). First consider the relationships among these pairs:

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

55

Column a_ Column b_ 26. He always opens the door. The door always opens. 27. He always raises the shade. The shade always raises. 28. He always raises the floor lamp. The floor lamp always raises. 29. He always pulls his muscle. His muscle always pulls. 30. He always pulls the rope. The rope always pulls. 31. He always repairs his car. His car always repairs. 32. He always fixes his car. His car always fixes. If a (b) sentence in (26-32) is grammatical, the corresponding (a-b) pair is said to exhibit ergativity, and the verb is assigned the feature [+ergative]. (I am assuming that the grammatical ness of a sentence de­ pends in part on context and that there is some hypothetical set of "nor­ mal" contexts for which my statements here are correct.) However, in a general grammar each (b) sentence would be assigned (for me) degrees of grammatical ness that would place (26b) highest, then (27b), (29b), (30b), (28b), (31b), (32b), in that order. As a consequence the ergativity of the verbs in each pair of sentences would (for me) be assigned corre­ sponding degrees of distinctness; open would be 100 percent distinctly ergative, raise27 perhaps something like 90 percent distinctly ergative, p u l l 2 9 perhaps 70 percent etc. Thus in a general grammar, not only par­ ticles would be assigned degrees of distinctness but also verbs with re­ spect to ergativity. In both cases the degrees of distinctness are tied to degrees of grammatical ness. Now let us assume that a clear case grammar of English has classi­ fications for adverb-particle, verb-particle and preposition; these classifications could either be introduced as features such as [+verbparticle], [+adverb-particle], [+preposition] and/or they could be in­ troduced in the non-feature part of the grammar. For our purposes, it does not matter how they are introduced. The problem that arises is this: What classification(s) should be assigned to a particular element? For example, should out of He handed the papers out (S8) be assigned [+verb-particle], or [+adverb-particle] and [+preposition] (or the equivalent)? Our experimental evidence shows that (S8) has a score of +3 under "Total Sum". This would seem to in­ dicate that none of these classifications apply since out of (S8) is

56

RALPH M. GOODMAN

nearly 0% distinctly a verb-particle. The linguist constructing a clear case grammar is in a quandary. He cannot just arbitrarily assign one of these features to out since this would not accurately account for speaker-hearer intuition. Nor can he fail to assign it to any one of these classifications since out falls within their domain; that is, not assigning one of these classifications to out would be an unjustified omission since out is parallel to other elements (e.g. out of (S1) or up of (S20)) that would be assigned such classifications. The point I am making here is this: Given the assumption that a clear case grammar must introduce classifications for verb-particle, adverb-particle and preposition, degrees of distinctness within this grammatical area cannot be avoided; thus since distinctness is tied to grammaticalness, a clear case grammar must, at least indirectly, account for degrees of grammaticalness, a contradiction in terms. The situation is different in the ergative area; the problem of de­ grees does not arise since it is only necessary to assign the verb to one classification (or its negative). If the (b) member of (26-32) is less than fully grammatical, the verb of the corresponding (a) member is simply [-ergative]. We are now faced with a skewed clear case grammar, one in which de­ grees of distinctness are not assigned to one grammatical area (the er­ gative) but are required for another area (the particle and preposition). By contrast, in a general grammar, both areas are parallel: both are assigned degrees of distinctness which in both cases are explicitly tied to degrees of grammaticalness. In general, an attempt to delimit grammatical description to clear case grammar tends to result in either too limited or too distorted a description, one in which many essential parallels are absent. Such an attempt is analogous to delimiting linguistic description within a clear One could assign out the classification [+verb-particle] AND [+adverbparticle] or, more likely, [-verb-particle] AND [-adverb-particle]. But this only puts off the day of reckoning. What about those particles in Figure 1 that are neither 100% verb-particle, 100% adverb-particle, nor 0% verb- or adverb-particle but somewhere between 0% and 100%? In other words, a set of discrete features cannot account for a continuum.

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

57

case grammar to the phrase structure (or base) rules alone, a descrip­ tion that does not take into account transformational rules, semantic rules or the lexicon. Such a description is possible within limits, but it does not accurately reflect speaker-hearer intuition; in this sense, it is not a properly delimited field for theoretical investiga­ tion. le.

OTHER GRAMMATICAL AREAS

Before turning to semantic arguments, I now briefly point out a few grammatical areas hitherto not mentioned in which degrees of dis­ tinctness are likely to appear. Transformational vs. lexical derivation. A very well known problem in distinctness involves the distinction between words, compounds and mor­ phemes. When is an expression two words, a double based word, a single based word, a single based word with an affix, a single base without affix? Related to this problem is the derivation of compounds (cf. Lees (1960); Schachter (1962)). Some compounds like flying machine are of such generality that transformational derivation is obvious; others like byways are obviously lexically derived; still others like blood donor appear to be in-between. A detailed investigation should reveal all de­ grees of in-betweenness. On a related topic, Chomsky (1968) argues that gerundive nominal s such as [Chomsky's examples follow] John's refusing the offer should be transformationally derived; that derived of the offer should be lexically de­ nominal s such as John's refusing rived, and that "mixed" forms such as John's refusal of the offer probably should be transformationally derived but that this is not One solution to a skewed clear case grammar is to eliminate degrees of distinctness from it by shifting them to degrees of grammaticalness and hence to general grammar. This can be done if one eliminates grammati­ cal classifications by a massive use of contextual features; e.g. out in S1 and up in S20 are not classified other than by environmental specifications and hence the features [verb-particle] and [adverb-par­ ticle] need not appear in the grammar. An unskewed clear case grammar would be defined as general grammar minus both degrees of grammatical­ ness and degrees of distinctness. I do not think this solution will work; if carried to its logical conclusion, it would eliminate all or almost all categories such as preposition, conjunction, determiner; but these are facts of language that ought to be represented as con­ stituents within a descriptive grammar.

58

RALPH M. GOODMAN

quite clear.

I submit that one solution need not exclude the other,

that there are expressions that are to a particular degree distinctly transformationally derived and to a particular degree distinctly lexi­ Chomsky is attempting to squeeze into two TYPES of

cally derived.

structural descriptions what correctly belongs on a continuum that has these two types as end points.

In other words, he is attempting to

work within an unskewed clear case grammar and to squeeze into it ma­ terial that can only properly be described within a general grammar. Verbs,

nouns,, adjectives.

The problem here is one of classification.

Should verbs, nouns, and adjectives be placed under one category, two categories, three categories? for example, hit, sitive verbs.

afraid

All three could be treated as verbs;

of, admiral of (like leader of) would be tran­

Or, as Lakoff (1965) has proposed, adjectives and verbs

can be placed under the category verb.

Lyons (1966) would introduce

the noun as the only part of speech; other elements are non-nouns. Traditionally, and in Chomsky (1968), all three are separate cate­ gories.

The fact that different linguists propose different insightful

solutions is owing to the fact that there are good arguments for all these positions; each linguist merely observes different parallels and partial parallels within language.

I would submit that all these lin­

guists are right -- or, at least, partly right -- that the facts fit each description with different degrees of distinctness. Possessives.

In a well known analysis of possessives (e.g. John's

book)

the underlying deep structure consists of a relative clause with have as main verb (e.g. The book [John has a book]). that expressions like John's

better

mousetrap

refusal

to

leave,

Chomsky (1968) points out John's

invention

of a

[Chomsky's examples] need a different analysis. Yet

does this mean that the earlier formulation is incorrect?

If we elimi­

nate it, are we not descriptively hiding an intuitively felt relation­ ship?

Again I submit that one solution need not exclude another.

The comparative.

Lees (1961) proposed, roughly speaking, to derive the

comparative from qualifiers like that that

tall

=> John is

as tall

as Jack).

(e.g. John is that

tall

+ Jack is

Carlotta Smith (1961, see esp.

p. 357) proposed that the comparative be derived utilizing nominalization, relative clause, comparative, deletion and order-change rules

59

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES (e.g. Bill has a car nominalization The cas Bill has... + The car is big relative The car Bill is big + The car is big Comparative The car is bigger than the one Bill has is big deletion The car is bigger

than the one Bill has is etc). Smith's solution may be more comprehen­ sive than Lees, but if it is considered as a substitute for Lees, is not Lees' intuitively satisfying insight lost? Again both solutions reveal different parallels within language. Complementation. Rosenbaum (1967) sets up two kinds of complementation (though in his introduction he indicates that his analysis is incorrect), noun complementation and verb complementation. Sentences with noun com­ plements can, for example, be pseudo-clefted; to illustrate: I denied that

I shot

him ⇒ What I denied

was that

I shot

him:

that

I shot

him

is a noun complement. Sentences with verb complements cannot be pseudoclefted; not I commissioned him to collect the taxes ⇒ *What I commissioned was for him to collect taxes; him to collect taxes is a verb com­ plement. Some (oblique) noun complements are analyzed as appearing af­ ter an underlying preposition which becomes apparent in constructions such as the pseudo-cleft sentence. For example, I -persuaded him to go is derived from, roughly, I persuaded him of it: he goes and can be pseudo-clefted thus: What I persuaded him of was to go. This latter sentence is of doubtful grammatical ness. Stockwell in Stockwell, Schachter, and Partee (1968) argues that almost all examples of verb complemen­ tation can be reduced either to a type resembling oblique noun complemen­ tation or to direct objects (actually he questions whether nominalization should not replace complementation altogether). Taking Rosenbaum's ex­ ample of verb complementation above, we can, according to Stockwell, pseudo-cleft it thus: What I commissioned

him for was to collect

taxes.

Stockwell argues that this pseudo-cleft sentence is at least no worse than the pseudo-cleft sentences belonging to the oblique type of noun complementation (e.g. the "persuade" example above). These arguments and others have persuaded Stockwell that all or almost all verb comple­ mentation can be eliminated. Stockwell has indeed thrown strong doubt on Rosenbaum's analyses. But he has not proved his own analysis to be correct since (i) he is working within clear case grammar and (ii) his

RALPH M. GOODMAN

60

analysis is based on numerous cases of either ungrammaticality or partial grammaticality. Does this not suggest that there are degrees of dis­ tinctness that must be accounted for within this grammatical area? In the preceding brief accounts, I implicitly assumed that at least some genuine insights revealed in one analysis were excluded in a second analysis. This need not be true. For example, suppose two transforma­ tions were proposed for the yes-no question, one to account for questions requiring the dummy element do and one for the other types. Chomsky's early formulation incorporates both types into a single transformation without loss of insight and, indeed, with gain of insight. Such gener­ alizations resolve proposed continuums. My arguments apply only to those cases in which a particular analysis excludes in whole or in part in­ sights revealed by other analyses. Good linguists, those with considerable insight, keep proposing new solutions to the same problems. In part, this may be a result of recog­ nizing that earlier formulations were incorrect or incomplete. But is it not also a result of the fact that each linguist during a particular period of time tends to focus on but one set of linguistic parallels and consequently to implicitly or explicitly assume that his solutions to a given problem exclude other solutions to the same problem (though he may be willing to overthrow his own solution when a "better" one is pre­ sented)? As long as linguists insist on solutions to grammatical problems that exclude other solutions; that is, so long as multiple analyses of and degrees of distinctness for sentoids are rejected, linguists will forever be proposing new solutions (or rediscovering old solutions) based on "new" insights. 2. 2a.

SEMANTIC ARGUMENTS VERB PLUS PARTICLE AREA

My arguments up to this point have been syntactic. I now present semantic -- or semi-semantic -- arguments which utilize some of the basic concepts of the predicate calculus. (Compare Reichenbach (1947), Weinreich (1963), Bendix (1966), Langendoen (1969, 1970) for use of logical structures within natural language.)

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

61

Relative to the particle area, the semantic question is whether or o

not the verb plus particle is a single two place predicate (for transi­ tive cases; intransitives are not treated) or whether the verb minus the particle is a two place predicate. Clearly those verb-plus-particle ex­ pressions with a large negative score in Figure 1 (e.g. look up (S20), wait out (S19)) would be regarded as single two place predicates relating subject and object. But can those verb plus particle sequences with a high positive score (e.g. carry out (S1), take out (S2)) also be con­ sidered two place predicates? From a purely logical point of view they certainly can; for example carry out of (S1) relates John and the tray. Notice, however, that carry alone can be considered a two place predicate relating John and the tray; out in this case might be considered a one place predicate of a complex argument meaning 'the action is in the di­ rection of out' as in this logical interpretation: argument predicate 33. The action of John's (this action) is in the carrying of the tray direction of "out" Interpreted as 33, (S1) is analogous to The movement is out in which {is) out is the predicate and the movement, the argument. The question that now arises is this: Is the logical point of view relevant to the description of a natural language? Does it correspond to something within native speaker-hearer intuition? Does the native speaker, for example, recognize that look up in (S20) is parallel to carry out in (S1) in their logical predication functions even though he may also recognize that they are not parallel in other functions? The question is empirical, but I suggest that a speaker who uses both He lifted

the shade up and He raised

tablecloth

off

(from

the table)

the shade and also both He took and He removed the tablecloth

{from

the the

table) will intuitively regard the two synonymous pairs lift up, raise and take off, remove as containing two place functions even though up in 8

A one place predicate takes one argument, a two place predicate, two ar­ guments etc. Thus vanish, hit and give in John vanished. Bill hit Jane, Ceorge gave Kathy the flowers are respectively one, two and three place predicates with respective arguments John; Bill, Jane; George, Kathy , the flowers.

62

RALPH M. GOODMAN

the one case and off in the other may also be regarded as adverbial. It is likely that, if this is true, the speaker will regard all verb plus particle expressions as two place functions. g If we were to construct a propositional deep structure, then both lift up and take off would be given two structural descriptions. In one description they are two place functions; in the second, the verb minus the particle is the two place function; the particle is the predicate of a complex argument (cf. 33). In these descriptions, degrees of distinct­ ness must be accounted for since only those particles that are distinctly adverb-particles can operate as predicates of complex arguments (e.g. out in (S1)). Particles like out in John handed the papers out (S8), with a "Total Sum" score of +3, meaning not distinct, can only doubtfully act as a predicate. 2b.

VERB PLUS PREPOSITION AREA

The verb plus preposition is not unrelated semantically to the verb plus particle. The relevant question here is this: Is the verb plus preposition a single two place predicate (for transitive cases only) or is the verb alone a two place predicate when it is transitive and a one place predicate when it is intransitive? For cases like ran into meaning 'met', the verb and preposition together certainly is a two place predi­ cate. But what about run into as in Re ran into the hall?. From a strictly logical point of view, ran into in this sentence can be inter­ preted as a two place predicate (compare carry out). On the other hand ran by itself can be considered a one place predicate (with he as argu­ ment); into the store might then be considered to be a one place predi­ cate with a complex argument as in this logical description: 9 The deep structure I have in mind is more or less related to the "for­ mation-rule component" suggested in McCawley (1968) and developed by Bach, Lakoff, Langendoen, Postal and others. However, there are crucial differences. For example, I hold to what I call "the principle of lexi­ cal integrity" which asserts (a) that the source of all semantic content is derived primarily from the cognitive content (as opposed, for ex­ ample, to the contextual content) of lexical items and (b) that the se­ mantic content of a lexical item is always kept intact. For some dis­ cussion see Chapter 4 of Goodman (1970).

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

34.

argument

predicate

His running

(is) into the store

63

Again, whether or not these different logical interpretations have linguistic significance is an empirical question.

A comparison of the

roughly synonymous pairs 35a.

He went towards the house.

b.

He approached the house.

36a.

He went into the room.

b.

He entered the room.

suggests that it is not unlikely that the native speaker would consider went towards and went into approached and entered.

as two place predicates in the same sense as

The case here is not intuitively as evident as

with particles but there is at least some degree in which it is true. In a second analysis went towards or went into

is a one place predicate

(with he as argument) and towards the house or into

the room a predicate

of a complex argument (cf. 34). Degrees of distinctness would play a part in those cases in which the preposition is not clearly a part of an adverbial (e.g.

into9).

Here now are a few synonymous or near synonymous pairs of a differ­ ent sort. 37a. b. 38a. b.

39a. b.

John got along in his studies. John progressed John drove John

in his studies.

fast.

speeded.

Fido backed into Fido entered

his doghouse.

his doghouse

backwards.

Each of the italicized expressions could be considered a single two place predicate.

Yet, in his studies

of 37b, fast

of 38a, and backwards of 39b

could also be considered predicates (with complex arguments) in their own right. 2c.

A VERBAL AREA

Now consider these sentences (regarded as sentoids here): 40.

We imagined it from the sewer.

41.

We eliminated it from the sewer.

64

RALPH M. GOODMAN

42. We lifted it from the sewer. The following are three theoretically possible grammatical analyses of 40-42 (VB = verbal). Analysis

A.

NP

Sentence 40 We Sentence 42 We Analysis

B.

NP

Sentence 40 We Sentence 41 We Sentence 42 We

NP Sentence 40 We Sentence 41 We

Analysis

C.

VB imagine lift

NP (that) it (be) from the sewer

it [from the sewer is adverbial] NP VB NP the sewer imagine from it the sewer eliminate from it the sewer lift from it NP VB it imagine (to be)from the sewer eliminate (to be) from the sewer

it [obligatory delegation of to be"]

Sentence 42 We

lift (to be) from the sewer

it [obligatory delegation of to be]

In Chomskian deep structure, the "normal" analyses would probably be as follows: Sentence (40) analyzed as A (or, in an early analysis, as C) Sentence (41) analyzed as B (though possibly as C) Sentence (42) analyzed as A If we adopt the "normal" Chomskian deep structure analysis for any of these sentoids, we automatically exclude the other possibilities un­ less we permit sentoids to have more than one structural description. We would, for example, exclude analysis C from applying to (41) and (42) even though the expression it from the sewer in these cases has the im­ plicit meaning 'it is from the sewer'. Now it could be argued that the "normal" analyses reflect the in­ tuition of the speaker-hearer, but can it be maintained that a person upon speaking or hearing these sentences does not intuitively understand the other analyses as well in at least some degree? In other words, are there not degrees of distinctness associated with each analysis of these sentoids? These degrees are dependent on what sets of parallels a

65

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

speaker intuitively feels a sentoid has and how general each set of parallels is. For example, (40) is parallel to a large number of ex­ pressions with the structure NP VB NP as in We imagine/know/think this, We imagine/know/think

that

it

is from the sewer etc.

But it also has

less extensive parallels with expressions with the structure NP VB NP NP as in We imagined

him from that

wanted an answer from him. this

about that;

We saved him from that

Also note We

We warned/rebuked/told

the book to him; We substituted

Jack.

place,

this

imagined!answered/thought/forgot

for

that;

We confused

imagined/answered/thought/forgot/warned/rebuked/told

recommended to;

substituted

for,

We

him about t h a t ; We recommended

(The VB's in these sentences are, respectively,

wanted from;

beast,

confused

with.)

John

with

imagined/saved/ about;

Is the speaker-hearer

intuitively restricted in his grammatical formulations to the "normal" or does his mind permit him to understand structural descriptions that dif­ fer from the "normal", at least in some degree? Thus (40) may be dis­ tinctly an A analysis, and less distinctly a B analysis for the speakerhearer (the degrees differing perhaps in different contexts and at dif­ ferent times). If we analyze (40), (41), (42) semantically in terms of logical predicates and arguments, we easily discover the following possibilities (among others). Predicates Arguments (each numerical listing indicates a separate argument) Analysis

A '.

Sentence 40

imagine

Sentence 42

lift

(1) We (2) (that) it (be) from the sewer (1) We (2) it {from the sewer is a predicate of a com­ plex argument, see 33-4]

imagine from eliminate from lift from

(T) We (2) it (3) the sewer (1) We (2) it (3) the sewer (1) We (2) it (3) the sewer

Analysis

B'.

Sentence 40 Sentence 41 Sentence 42

RALPH M. GOODMAN

66 Predicates

Analysis

Arguments (each numerical listing indicates a separate argument)

C',

Sentence 40

imagine (to be) from (1) We (2) it the sewer Sentence 41 eliminate from the sewer (1) We (2) it Sentence 42 lift from the sewer (1) We (2) it Semantic analyses A', B', C' correspond respectively to grammatical analyses A, B, C given above. Sentoid (40) is given three logical analyses; under A', imagine is a two place predicate and thus it has two arguments; under B', imagine from is a three place predicate; under C' imagine from the sewer is a two place predicate. Sentoids (41) and (42) can be analyzed from the above table in an analogous way. The comparison of analyses A', B', C' with analyses A, B, C reveals semantic supports for the argument that sentoids may have more than one structural analysis. Moreover if there should be semantic descriptions of sentences like (40), (41), (42) that are "normal", then we may need to specify degrees of distinctness for their semantic as well as their grammatical analyses. The various illustrations of semantic analysis in this section (particle, preposition, adverb, verbal) all reveal that there is fre­ quently more than one logical predicate-argument analysis of natural language sentoids. Logicians have long recognized this. Are logicians actually revealing something about natural language that linguists have implicitly and explicitly been rejecting? As indicated before, the question for the linguist is this: Are these various logical analyses a reflection of how the speaker-hearer understands sentences? In other words, do they have empirical roots or are they merely part of a con­ ceptual framework useful for logic and not for a description of natural language? A positive response to the first part of the last question would be difficult to deny without a great deal of investigation.

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES

67

FINAL REMARKS

If we could construct a grammar that would automatically specify all the end points of continuums along which degrees of distinctness would range by a type of rule that also specified multiple structural description of sentoids for which there is no continuum, this could be a first step in the construction of a general grammar. Furthermore, if the rules of this grammar account for how the speaker-hearer under­ stands multiple SD's and degrees of distinctness on the basis of the many possible parallels within language, a reasonable learning hypo­ thesis would be that he is able to understand the grammar of his lan­ guage in this way because he utilizes not only his language specific capabilities but also some aspects of his more "general intelligence". That is, his innate understanding of the nature of language (plus ex­ posure to language experiences) is by itself insufficient to master the grammatical structure of sentences; he must add to this a capacity to find parallels and analogies within language, a capacity not unrelated to his capacity to find metaphoric parallels and parallels in other as­ pects of thought. In general, language operates within a matrix of "general intelligence" in such a way that a full description of language will reveal a continuum ranging from clearly language to clearly nonlanguage.

The formulation of rules of this type are attempted in Goodman (1970, Chapter 4 ) .

68

RALPH M. GOODMAN

REFERENCES Allen, W. Sidney. 1964. "Transitivity and possession". Language 40:337-343. Anderson, John M. 1968. "Ergative and nominative in English". of Linguistics 4:1-32. Bach, Emmon and Robert T. Harms. (eds.) 1968. Universals Theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

in

Journal Linguistic

Bendix, Edward Herman. 1966. Componential Analysis of General Vocabulary: The Semantic Structure of a Set of Verbs in English, Hindi, and Japanese. International Journal of American Linguistics 32, No. 2. Chomsky, Noam. 1961. "Some methodological remarks on generative grammar". Word 17:219-239. Reprinted in part in Fodor and Katz. . 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. setts Institute of Technology Press.

Cambridge: Massachu­

. (1968). "Remarks on nominalization". In Roderick Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.) Readings in English Transformational Grammar, 184-221. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn & Co. Fillmore, Charles J. 1966. "A proposal concerning English prepositions". In Francis P. Dineen (ed.) Report of the Seventeenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies (identical with Georgetown University Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 19). Washington: Georgetown University Press. . 1968. "The case for case". In Bach and Harms. Fodor, J. A., and J. J. Katz. (eds.) 1964. The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Fraser, Bruce. 1965. An Examination of the Verb-Rarticle Construction in English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. . 1966. "Some remarks on the verb-particle construction in En­ glish". In Francis P. Dineen (ed.) Report of the Seventeenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies (identical with Georgetown University Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 19). Washington: Georgetown University Press. Goodman, Ralph M. 1959. "The degrees of grammaticalness". Presented at the Fourth Texas Conference on Problems of Linguistic Analysis in English, 1959. Austin, Texas. (Mimeographed).

69

MULTIPLE SD'S FOR UNAMBIGUOUS SENTENCES . 1970. A Generative

Propositional

Grammar. Unpublished doctoral

dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. Katz, Jerrold J. 1964. "Semi-sentences". In Fodor and Katz. Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. "Notes on transitivity and theme in English". Journal of Linguistics 3:37-81. Lakoff, George. 1965. On the Nature of Syntactic Irregularity. The Com­ putation Laboratory of Harvard University Mathematical Linguistics and Automatic Translation, Report No. NSF-16. Cambridge, Mass. . 1968. "Instrumental adverbs and the concept of deep struc­ ture". Journal of Linguistics 4:4-29. Langendoen, D. Terence. 1969. The Study hart and Winston, Inc. . 1970. Essentials Winston, Inc.

of English.

of Syntax.

New York: Holt, Rine-

New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Lees, Robert B. 1960. The Grammar of English Nominalizations. national Journal of American Linguistics, 26, No. 3.

Inter-

. 1961. "Grammatical analysis of the English comparative con­ struction." Word 17:171-185. Lyons, John. 1966. "Towards a 'notional1 theory of the 'parts of speech1". Journal of Linguistics 2:209-236. . 1968. Introduction to Theoretical England: Cambridge University Press.

Linguistics.

Cambridge,

McCawley, James D. 1968. "The role of semantics in a grammar". In Bach and Harms. Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements

of Symbolic

Logic.

New York: Macmillan.

Rosenbaum, Peter S. 1967. The Grammar of English Predicate Complement Constructions. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Schachter, Paul. 1962. Review: R. B. Lees, "Grammar of English nominali­ zations". International Journal of American Linguistics 28:134-145. Smith, Carlotta S. 1961. "A class of complex modifiers in English". Language 37:242-265. Stockwell, Robert P., Paul Schachter and Barbara Hall Partee. 1968. Integration of Transformational Theories on English Syntax, written under the auspices of the Command Systems Division, Electronic Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command, United States Air Force. Mimeo­ graphed at the University of California at Los Angeles.

70

RALPH M. GOODMAN

Weinreich, Uriel. 1963. "On the semantic structure of language". In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.) Universale of Language. Cambridge: Massa­ chusetts Institute of Technology Press. Ziff, Paul. 1964. "On understanding 'understanding utterances'". In Fodor and Katz.

REMARKS ON THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS MAURICE GROSS Universities of Paris 7 and of Paris 8

There have been many attempts to distinguish analysis such as syntax and semantics, the latter undefined, or equivalently, defined as the domain be explored when syntactic methods have exhausted sentences.

levels of being mostly that remains to the study of

In recent generative studies, the dividing line has been questioned in various ways. Chomsky (1972) has recently sharpened his position: Syntax must have a formal basis, namely rules of syntax should not be sensitive to semantic notions, that is essentially, to meaningful lexical items. On the other hand, McCawley, Postal, Ross and others are attempting to find for the current rules of syntax an extended range of application that will cover (part of) semantic analysis. It is important to realize that all these attempts have a theoretical basis, and no direct or explicit empirical basis. Thus, restrictions or extensions of syntax are based on the conditions in which certain rules apply. These rules are such that a consen-

72

MAURICE GROSS

sus among linguists of different tendencies has been obtained for them. From a more empirical point of view, the domains of syntax and of semantics are far from being easy to distinguish. The basic experiments in linguistics consist in checking the accepta­ bility of certain strings of words, but the intuition of accepta­ bility is a complex notion, poorly understood yet, that mixes intuitions of forms (i.e. syntactic intuitions), intuitions of meaning, and many other factors. Once a modicum of theory has been accepted, for example, the "naive" notion of transformation, there are a few phenomena that become clearly syntactic. For example, deformations of sentences such as passive, that do not change meaning, nor too much the lexical elements, are considered syntactic rules. On the other hand, traditional problems such as synonymy (or antonymy) of words have been and are still included in semantics, although some relations with syntax have been perceived (Chomsky 1965). In the same way, problems of derivational morphology (Lightner) have been treated from the phonological and semantic points of view, but not in syntax, although there are reasons to think that many of them should be treated within syntax (Giry, Gross 1974). There are also problems which are clearly semantic but which have been included in syntax and even formalized as such. This is the case for the rules of selectional restriction in the base component of a generative grammar. Consider the verb to eat, whose selectional restrictions are: "animate" subject nouns, and object nouns that refer to "solid" "edible" stuff. "Solid" is opposed to "liquid" since *Max ate his beer , notice however that Max ate his soup is acceptable. But it is hard to find a noun that could not be an object for to eat. Any "non-edible" "concrete" noun such as chair , mountain, or professor can always be made "edible" when it is adjoined a modifying clause such as made of chocolate. Many "abstract" nouns also turn out to be acceptable, if the string

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

Max a mange la liberté (Max ate freedom)

is hard to accept, the string Max a mange notre liberté (Max ate our freedom)

is probably easier, and Les lois de Max ont mange toute notre liberté' (Max'

rules ate all of our freedom)

is natural and can serve as a model for the interpretation of the two other strings. In such cases the subject does not have to be limited to "animate" nouns. The phenomena of selectional restric­ tions have thus appeared to be clearly semantic, even cultural, since for example the object nouns of to eat may cha|nge with the technology (e.g. steaks made from oil). However, they have never been clearly dissociated from the general formation rules of the basic structures, (i.e. the deep structures of Chomsky (1965)2, or the deeper structures of generative semantics). But the following is a clear-cut case of verb-noun combination where the situation is quite different from the preceding ones, though never discussed as to its consequences on the shape of the base component of a grammar. Consider for example the verbs to appreciate

and to perceive,

and the nouns idea and thought that can

occur as their direct objects, as in Max appreciated these ideas Max appreciates my thoughts about that Max clearly perceived your ideas Max perceived all kinds of thoughts Max perceived the same thought as mine

Since all these sentences are natural, we conclude that the rules of selectional restrictions should allow the combinations of these two verbs with the two nouns idea and thought. However, when certain modifiers are adjoined to these nouns, various restrictions appear:

73

74

MAURICE GROSS

*Max appreciated the thought that Eva would arrive soon

compared with the sentence Max grasped the thought that Eva would arrive soon

which shows that the modifier that S is allowed with thought, but not in combination with all verbs. Notice that the form that S has to be considered as part of the direct object NP = the thought that S; this is demonstrated by the application of pronominalization (i.e. NP → t h i s ) and of clefting, for example. Notice that it is not the case that to appreciate is incompatible with direct objects of the form NP = the N that S since we have for N = idea: Max appreciated the idea that Eva should work.

Thus it cannot be argued that these nouns are both compatible and not compatible with the verbs, namely that selectional restrictions both apply and do not apply to these nouns, which is the only possi­ bility provided within the framework of generative studies. This type of phenomena is quite general. On the one hand it involves other complementizers than that: I

*Max knows about the idea that he should do that

I

*Max knows about the idea of doing that

I

Max knows about your idea of doing that

I

Max knows about this idea

V—

Max accepts the idea that he should do that J

Max accepts the idea of doing that Max accepts your idea of doing that Max knows his rights *Max knows the right to do that

I

Max obtains the right to do that

On the other hand, these phenonema have an extension over the 3 lexicon much larger than what is commonly called Equi-NP deletion. We have observed that in a lexicon of 6,000 French verbs, about half of them have a subject or a complement that may undergo one form or the other of Equi-NP deletion. There are several thousand nouns that can be adjoined to sentential clauses. All these nouns can be com-

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

75

bined with the previous verbs and with others, sometimes together with their sentential modifier , sometimes not. An important feature of our preceding examples is that the intuitions about unacceptable strings are quite sharp. Also, when a string is not acceptable, one cannot imagine a special situation or a universe where by some change of interpretation of the noun the string would become acceptable, as it was the case with to eat and with all the constructions dealt with in generative grammars. The quality of the tests of acceptability may constitute in certain areas of study a basis for the separation between syntax and semantics. Thus, in the case of selectional restrictions, the selection of the complements of to eat would be semantic, the reason being that acceptability tests are never sharp and that they depend on more or less imaginative interpretation. The selection of "abstract" nouns with sentential modifier would be syntactic, since it corresponds to sharp intuitions, without any possibility of interpreting the unacceptable strings. The sharpness of acceptability intuitions has certainly led linguists to treat pronominal ization within syntax. But first of all it should be noticed that the domain of this phenomenon is far from being clearly delimited. Indeed, a survey of current studies on pronominalization indicates that the quasi-totality of them is defined by the two following criteria: (i) The studies deal with the semantio notion of coreference. The intuition of coreference appears in sentences such as Max bought a candy bar, Eva ate it Max bought candy bars, Eva ate them

when oandy bar(s) and it {them) are identified as being the same physical objects. Notice that the situation would be different in the sentences Max bought candy bars, Eva ate some Max likes candy bars as much as Eva likes them

76

MAURICE GROSS

where some and them are not coreferent with candy bars, although some kind of reference is involved but not in the same way . Notice also that in sentences such as Max liked it that Eva bought candy bars

it has no antecedent that is, no reference of any kind. (ii) They deal with the definite pronouns he, she, they, it, him, her, them, and with the possessive adjectives. Other pronouns (e.g. this one, that) and definite determiners (e.g. the, this) are in general excluded from the studies on coreference. Coreference is a semantic notion easy to observe in the sense that it leads to reproducible intuitions in many types of contexts, especially when it is associated with the pronouns of (i). This empirical observation is probably the main reason why most linguists have equated the semantic notion of coreference (i) with the morpho­ logical notion of pronoun (ii). The problem of coreference then consists in describing the relative syntactic positions of a pronoun and of its coreferent antecedent. However, this widely accepted definition of the problem appears to be quite artificial under closer examination. Thus, there are many examples where a clear intuition of coreference is involved, but none of the mentioned morphemes (i.e. definite pronouns) occur. There are first well-known cases with definite article and demonstrative adjectives, such as A student entered the office, (the + this) student asked for Max

But there are also examples that demonstrate the role of performative verbs in the establishment of a coreference relation. We have for example (1)

A student entered the office, the student that I just mentioned asked for Max

where the two occurrences of student the sentence

are coreferent.

Notice that in

A student entered the office, the tall student asked for Max

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

77

the two occurrences of student are not coreferent if tall is a restrictive adjective. The two preceding example thus show that the semantic source of coreference is located in a modifier of the con­ cerned noun. Let us slightly modify (1) as in A student entered the office, the student that you just mentioned asked for Max

The two occurrences of student are no longer coreferent (with restric­ tive relative clause). But it is not a simple change from I to you that induces this difference, since in the following example we do have coreference: You said that a student entered the room, the student that you just mentioned asked for Max

In all these examples, the intuitions of acceptability are quite sharp, and they appear to be of exactly the same nature as the ones dealt with in current work on coreference. Thus, it is hard to see what are the grounds on which the mentioned definition has been made. Moreover, the content of the modifiers that allow coreference can vary and it is quite clear that it cannot be defined on a purely syntactic basis; one must use among others the semantic relation of synonymy. There are other examples with similar porperties. Consider the sentence Max has the following habit:

he smokes twice a day

Clearly the same notion of coreference is involved: habit and the sentence that follows are coreferent . Coreference is made possible by the special modifier following (equivalently that follows), and non-referential modifiers such as amusing or horrible block the coreference: *Max has the (amusing + horrible) habit : he smokes twice a day

Thus, this situation has similarities with the one above, at least with respect to the location and the semantic nature of coreference.,

78

MAURICE GROSS

But there are here further complications that show the influence of the determiner on coreference. In the next example, we have the same coreference effect as in the preceding sentence: Max has a(n) (amusing + horrible) habit:

while with the modifier following,

he smokes twice a day

we observe

*Max has a following habit : he smokes twice a day

the conditions in which a modifier allows or block coreference have been reversed with the change from definite article to indefinite article. We now examine a kind of construction where the distribution of modifiers bears some similarity with the preceding case of combination between determiners and modifiers, referential or not. The following examples are quite natural fantastic Max drives at a(n)

incrediblespeed tranquilizing

while with other adjectives in the same modifying position of speed we have: legal *Max drives at a

l i m i t s p e e d maximum

In these examples we had the indefinite determiner a. a by the we obtain fantastic *Max drives at the

incredible

speed

tranquilizing

while legal Max drives at the

l i m i t s p e e d maximum

If we replace

79

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

Thus, the cooccurrence restrictions are reversed, very much in the habit.

same way as in the above example with

We have here a phenomenon of compatibility between modifier and noun which is not semantic in the sense that rules of selection will not account for it. From a purely formal point of view, in the cases of habit speed we have the following situation:

and

with each noun N is associa­

ted a set of semantically compatible adjectives Adj;

in certain

syntactic positions, the set Adj appears to be divided into comple­ mentary sets Adj1 and Adj?

and we have for the possible noun

phrases the following paradigm: a N Adj1 *the N Adj1 *a N Adj 2 the N Adj2 This phenomenon is quite general.

We have not presented here

examples of an isolated curiosity: several thousand nouns such as habit

and speed enter into the same type of paradigm, and those

paradigms occur in a large variety of prepositional positions, But the interpretation of the partition Adj = Adj1 J Adj2 seems to be of a different nature with speed than with habit.

speed,

With

we have on the one hand adjectives defined on a "legal" or a "technological" basis (i.e. legal,

maximum) and the rest of the

compatible adjectives on the other.

With habit,

we have on the one

hand "referential" adjectives, on the other the rest of the compati­ ble adjectives. A natural question to ask then is whether the non-syntactic notions associated with the syntactic partition of the adjectives are of the same nature, namely whether the notion "coreference" is of the same cultural nature as "legality" and "technology".

Although

this question may seem far-fetched, we recall in this respect a cultural situation that distinguishes English from French.

In

80

MAURICE GROSS

France, very early, children are insistently taught in school not to repeat any word over rather long stretches of texts when they write essays. This has presumably implications on the use of pronominalization (and of synonyms). In English and American schools the situation is different, and many repetitions of words occur in texts that would seem incongruous to the French literate reader. Our examples are intended to show that while many authors have attempted to separate syntax from semantics mostly on theoretical grounds, there are empirical facts that deserve study and that seem to be quite important in this respect. Indeed, it already appears that some of the distinctions which have been proposed are not justified, and that the separation cannot be approached yet, unless a number of phenomena are closely investigated. We mentioned two such areas, and we are persuaded that if there were serious attempts to incorporate them in the present theories of grammar, they would lead to important revisions of current models.

NOTES 1Notice, however, that Max could eat pieces of frozen beer. 2

The distinction made by Chomsky between subcategorization features and selectional features is by no means clear, and it is moreover obscured by the existence of redundancy rules that tend to confound both types.

3

This was checked only for French (Gross 1974), but there are many reasons to think that the situation is similar in English.

4Equi-NP deletion can be easily generalized to these constructions. In fact, we think that they constitute the natural domain for the study of this rule, and that its (artificial) limitation to sentential subjects and complements has obscured many facts. 5

Some can be analyzed as a reduction of some of these with them coreferent with candy bars. Them has here a different relation to the "lexical form" candy bar; we have called it "lexical" reference (Gross 1972).

6

In such sentences he must be coreferent with Max: *Max has the following habit: you smoke twice a day.

THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

81

7

Some of these strings can be interpreted with a meaning one among several for example, but not with the "ordinary" indefinite meaning.

REFERENCES Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects

of the theory

of syntax,

Cambridge, MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. 1972. "Conditions on transformations." MS, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. Giry, M. 1972. "On grammatical reference." In: M. Bierwisch, F. Kiefer, and N. Ruwet, eds., Generative grammar in Europe. Dordrecht: Reidel. Gross, M. 1974. Méthodes

en syntaxe.

Harris, Z. S. 1968. Mathematical

Hermann: Paris.

structures

of language.

New York: Wiley.

Lightner, T. M. 1975. "The role of derivational morphology in generative grammar." Language 51: 617-638. McCawley, J. 1968. "Lexical insertion in a transformational grammar without deep structure." Papers from the Fourth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Postal, P. 1970. "On the surface verb Remind." Linguistic

Inquiry

1,1.

Ross, J. R. 1971. "Act." In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum, eds., Readings English transformational grammar. Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell.

in

'SEXISM' AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE EINAR HAUGEN Harvard University

Costom drepr qvenna carla ofriki. (Bugge, Sœ mundar Ecïda, 304) Nora: Jeg tror at jeg er forst og fremst et menneske, jeg, ligesavel som du, -eller ialfald, at jeg skal fors0ge pa at bli'e det. (Ibsen, Samlede Vœ

rker,

1899, 6.333) A millenium or more separates the Gu run of Atlamál from the Nora of Ibsen's Et Dukkehjem,

hin

grønlenzku

yet they are both concerned with

women's lack of power in relation to men, or what is now known as the problem of the liberation of women. proverbial force:

Gu run's words ring out with

"Women's choice is choked by the power of men."

Gu run, the widow of Sigurd the Dragonslayer, was not exactly a clinging vine, and her words were the mock-submissive prelude to her mass revenge on husband Atli for the killing of her brothers.

She proceeded to serve

their children up to her husband as a festive meal, whereupon she murdered him in his bed. Nora behaves in a more civilized way when she declares:

"I believe that I am first and foremost a human being, just

as you, — or at least that I will try to become one." are classic.

Her words, too,

By declaring that she has not been a menneske, she admits

to a lower status than that of her husband.

(It is at least amusing,

if not significant, that the first translator, a Danish schoolteacher, rendered her words, "I think that I am first and foremost a man, like you.")

But when Nora separates herself, first from her children and

then from her husband, it is a rejection that is in modern terms a kind of psychic murder.

Both women are capable of dissembling in order to

84

EINAR HAUGEN

manipulate their men, but in the showdown they are also capable of coming out in the open and asserting their personalities. They typify what many have come to think of as the strong Scandinavian woman, who is believed to have greater social freedom and economic power than any other women of the west European world, on a par with and perhaps in advance of American women. It may therefore come as a surpise to some that the Norwegian press of today, and certain parts of the academic world, are ringing with renewed calls for the assertion of women's rights. This nyfeminisme, as it is often called, sounds like an echo of a battle that is being fought on many fronts in our own country as well. Norwegian women who have belonged to the old women's rights organizations are somewhat bewildered by the slogans of the new movement, uncertain whether it is indeed a continuation of the old kvinnesaksbevegelse or something entirely novel. A woman's magazine which sounds like a Norwegian version of Ms has begun appearing, under the ambitious name of Sirene. Like its English and French counterparts the word sirene has the dual and hence ambiguous meanings, as defined in Norsk Riksmalsordbok, of (1) "vakker, forførende, men falsk og farlig kvinne" and (2) "kraftig lydsignalapparat hvis tone fremkommer ved at damp el1er trykkluft strømmer imot en roterende skive med en rekke huiler." This very punnish title, which combines the glamorous and the ominous aspects of womanhood, may serve as my first example of how this new movement has begun to affect the Norwegian language. My interest in the topic and my reason for bringing it to the attention of Scandinavianists is that both in Scandinavia and the United States militant women (and their male supporters) have put the finger on language as a factor in male dominance. To the extent that this is true, it becomes a question of sociolinguistics, and involves sex as a factor in linguistic variation. To Norwegian linguists, or sociolinguists, there is of course nothing new in the idea that men and women

SEXISM AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE

85

speak differently. The most recent example is an article by the linguist Magne Oftedal, "Notes on Language and Sex," (1973). He not only cites instances from various parts of the world, but also summarizes briefly the differences observed in his own local dialect of Norwegian from the south coastal town of Sandnes. In addition to listing specific male/ female differences on each linguistic level, he sums up the more general difference as one of greater "carefulness" on the part of women. He attributes this to their being liable to more severe judgments especially on their "moral" behavior, but a number of his examples also point to women as spearheads of "refinement" who tend to adopt urban expressions in preference to rural ones. He finds them "usually about one generation ahead of men in linguistic development." Similar observations were made by another Norwegian dialectologist, Anders Steinsholt (1964), whose study and restudy of the rural dialect in an urbanizing neighborhood to Larvik is an outstanding sociolinguistic study. He writes: "I have spoken with several women in the transitional area (brytingsomradet) who use a more modern language [by which he means more urban] than their sons, and it is almost a rule that the members of a family divide into three groups linguistically: the father in one., the sons in one, and the mother and daughters in a third." (Steinsholt 1964: 31). He finds that men stop changing their language by age 30, while women are likely to go on adapting, and he attributes this to the greater demands made on proper female behavior. Another Norwegian dialectologist, Amund B. Larsen, made a similar observation as long ago as 1912 in reference to the 19th century urban dialect of Bergen: "Among the factors which now more than before con­ tributed to preserving a careful (ornhyggelig) language one must certainly mention the women of the cultivated classes." (Larsen and Stoltz 1912: 268). In 1935 Alf Sommerfelt discussed the differences of male and female language, using examples from the plays of Ibsen. But as the excellent sociolinguist he was, he rejected the biological explanation

86

EINAR HAUGEN

commonly assumed for these differences:

"It is a great question if

these peculiarities are not the result of social development.

Many

things suggest that men and women were far more similar in physique in earlier ages, and the feminine charm and gentleness is not especially noticeable among many primitive peoples.

It is thinkable that the

difference will again be erased as the two sexes become more and more equal in modern society.

Sports have already led many young girls of

our day to use words and expressions which have previously been regarded as male expressions and which their grandmothers would not have dreamt of using" (Sommerfelt 1935: 22). Outside Norway similar views are found in early studies from Denmark and France.

Anker Jensen reported in 1898 on linguistic innovations in

an urbanizing rural community near Arhus in Denmark: in advance of men.

the women were well

In French Switzerland Gauchat found the same in his

famous study of the "unité phonétique dans le patois d'une commune" at Charmey in 1905.

Otto Jespersen summed up the evidence from that time

in a classic study first published in 1906 entitled "Mands Sprog og Kvindes Tale", later revised into a chapter in his book Language 237-254).

(1922:

Jespersen's data were inadequate, and his views sound sexist

to today's feminists; but he caught one significant generalization:

that

many of the differences were due to the division of labor between men and women in most societies.

He wrote in 1906:

"Many fundamental changes

have occurred in our time with respect to the division of labor, and therefore also in education, so that one can predict that the relation­ ship of the two sexes to linguistic activity will undergo extensive changes."

(Jespersen 1906: 592).

Many of these old discoveries are being made anew, as usual in linguistics, and we find in a recent study of speech variation in the American Piedmont by Levine and Crockett (1966) that women are among those spearheading the "community's march toward the national norm" (1964: 97). William Labov has also commented on what he calls their

SEXISM AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE

87

"sensitivity to prestige forms": "The correct generalization then is not that women lead in linguistic change, but rather that the sexual differ­ entiation of speech often plays a major role in the mechanism of linguistic evolution. ...We are dealing with some positive factor here, operating upon a subtle set of conventional' social values." He specu­ lates that this factor is "an expressive posture which is socially more appropriate for one sex or the other." (Labov 1972: 304). While the linguists so far cited have limited themselves to observ­ ing the facts and cautiously interpreting them in terms of social roleplaying, a young Norwegian social psychologist, Rolf M. Blakar, at the University of Oslo, has taken up the cudgels in behalf of women, seeing their linguistic roles as one expression of the ways in which language determines and conserves the inequities of society. He has embodied his views in a small textbook, Sprak er makt ("Language is power") (1973a) and several articles, which have caused a bit of a stir. He finds that Norwegian is essentially sexist in the sense that it sees the entire world in male terms and assigns to women an inferior and dependent position. Not satisfied to accept this as the way things are, he en­ visages a revolution in the social conventions that regulate the relations of the sexes. In all fairness to Blakar I should note that he is not so naive as to think that social realities can be changed merely by relabel­ ing them (p.63). Sexism is only one of several causes he espouses through an analysis of the power relations expressed in language. He is aware of similar biases in the treatment of differences in class, age, and region; and he is particularly sensitive to the discrimination he finds in the treatment of Norway's national minority language, the Nynorsk in which he writes. The examples Blakar presents to bolster his claims are amusing enough to make his arguments at least readable, though their clear agitatorial purpose may turn some readers off. He offers evidence from (a) the use of titles of address, (b) the descriptors of occupation, (c) the

EINAR HAUGEN

88

synonyms for "man" and "woman", (d) word association tests, and (e) the listing of husbands and wives in official registers.

A professor's

wife will be introduced as "fru professor Hansen," but what if she is a professor in her own right?

And in that case, why should her husband

not be called "herr professor Hansen"?

What we in English call a

"working woman" is known in Norwegian as an yrkeskvinne', not a word for "yrkesmann"? not "career men"?

why is there

In English we have "career women"; why

He finds that the synonyms for "woman" are not only

more numerous, but also considerably less complimentary than those for "man".

An "intellectual woman", for example, is a "bluestocking"; an

"intellectual man" is apparently just intellectual.

In a sampling of

one thousand Norwegian men and women, responses to the stimulus word "man" included such words as "work", "worker", and "career", while "woman" elicited such words as "sex", "bed", and "mother". official register of marriages every

In the 1972

husband-to-be is listed by name

and title, while every wife-to-be is listed by name only.

Blakar con­

tends that these and other practices of a similar nature determine the views of the new generations as they learn the language and are gradu­ ally socialized.

These biases help to channel the activities of children

and determine the goals they set for themselves in growing up to adult­ hood. On the basis of this analysis Blakar proceeds to offer countermeasures to neutralize the discrimination revealed by these ways of speaking.

His first proposal is what has come to be called "conscious­

ness raising" in this country:

to make users of the language aware of

the ways in which their habits of speaking reveal traditional and mostly unconscious discrimination.

This is true not only of the obvious occu­

pational discriminations like stortingsmann

vs. vaskekone,

(cf. "con­

gressman" and "washerwoman"), but also of the more subtle ones which associate apparently neutral occupational terms like doctor, pastor

with the pronoun "he" and terms like nurse,

gossip,

judge, or

or

virgin

89

SEXISM AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE with the pronoun "she".

He proposes a technique of reversal by which

one will speak of a "male judge" or even "a male chairman" to emphasize the implicit discrimination of the usual terms.

In a series of prose

poems he exemplifies his technique (pp. 80-83); I include one example: FRIDAGEN: Han hadde fri i gâr --yrkesmannen. Derfor gjekk han som sladremann frâ hus til hus og hygga seg saman med alle dei andre skravlemennene og kaffemennene i bygda. DAY OFF: He had the day off yesterday --the career man. So he went around as a gossip man from house to house and had a cozy time with all the other chatterbox men and the coffee men in the community. While my translation is obviously inadequate because of the lack of certain expressions in English

(yrkesmann,

sladrekjerring,

kaffekjerring),

the idea will be clear, and anyone can supply examples from English. The concept underlying Blakar's argument, that "language is power", is of course not new; it was formulated by Lewis Carroll in Through Looking

Glass,

the

when Alice protested at Humpty-Dumpty's contention that

he could make a word mean just what he chose it to mean.

"The question

is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty-Dumpty, "which is to be master

-- that's all." In his book Black

Power (1967), Stokely Carmichael

quoted this passage and went on to apply it to black liberation: "We shall have to struggle for the right to create our own terms through which to define ourselves and our relationship to the society and to have these terms recognized."

"Those who have the right to define are

the masters of the situation."

(Carmichael and Hamilton 1967: 37).

The replacement in general usage of Negro by Black is of course a

90

EINAR HAUGEN

paradigmatic example of such a redefinition. But the slogan "Black is beautiful" would not have won such resonance if it had not been for the Supreme Court decision on desegregation in 1954 and the freedom marches led by Martin Luther King. Even the relabeling involved has not solved the race problem in our country; many have not accepted it, as Rafky found recently in studying "the semantics of negritude" at an integrated American university. The use of such terms as "black" or "Afro-American" reflected attitudes regarded as either liberal, alienated, or militant. (Rafky 1973). Stimulated by the advances of Black Power, the feminist movement in our country has also adopted the attack on sexist language as one of its strategies. In some cases they have gone deeper than the lexicon and attacked such basic parts of the language as the pronominal system, which in Indo-European languages forces us to mark sex in the third person. It is perhaps too facile to reply that women can hardly be said to have a higher position in society where languages are spoken like Japanese, Chinese, Eskimo, or Tamil, which do not make gender distinc­ tions. Linguists have offered a weightier objection, which turns on the concept of markedness, as proposed by Roman Jakobson and others of the Prague School. The noun "man" and the pronoun "he" are the unmarked members of an opposition man/woman, and can therefore.be used generi­ cally whenever the contrast is neutralized. I am not sure whether it is any comfort to women to know that they are the "marked" member of this pair, since it means quite simply that they are set off from men by virtue of a single feature, which we can only describe as [+sexuality]. Because this feature is ultimately biological in its base, it cannot be eliminated; but its effects need not spread through­ out our social life in the pervasive way that it does. One may say with the French, "Vive la différence," but only so long as the differ­ ence does not obscure the common humanity of men and women. My own comment on the arguments advanced by Blakar as well by many of those who write in the same vein in our own country is that even

91

SEXISM AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE

though some of them are one-sided, unreasonable, and unrealistic, they deal with a real and an important problem.

I have studied with some

care such well-written articles as Robin Lakoff's "Language and Woman's Place" (1973), which goes no farther than to urge teachers of language to be aware of the hidden discriminations of women in the language. Her article is also commendable because it represents one of the first realizations by the current generation of linguists that sentences may be "acceptable" or "unacceptable" for reasons that lie entirely outside linguistic theory as now being taught (Lakoff 1973: 77). I have also had the opportunity to go through a thoughtful survey of recent research presented by Virginia P. Clark (to appear), as well as an excellent annotated bibliography by Thorne and Henley (to appear), in which a flood of articles is summarized.

Much of it reminds me of the products

of the General Semanticists headed by Korzybski, Hayakawa, and Stuart Chase in the 1930's and 1940's. Their concern with "the tyranny of words" was not counterbalanced by a corresponding understanding of "the freedom of words."

Similarly there is much in this material that

reminds one of the doctrines of linguistic relativity, the HumboldtSapir-Whorf theory that our thinking is dominated by our language. Blakar's view that "the language reflects and conserves social realities" is right in line with this idea, which overlooks our vast potential for linguistic innovation and creativeness. Somehow I cannot but feel that Blakar's claim about language as a conserver of social realities is either a truism or a trick.

Most of

the discrimination of which women complain today involves that they are typed in certain occupations and virtually excluded from others. But women are not assigned the role of home-maker and men the role of careermaker because the language puts it that way.

The language expresses

faithfully, if a little conservatively, the realities as the vast number of men and women have seen it down to our day.

As long as this is true,

it is a good thing that the language tells us so. When it changes, as it should, the language will respond, as it already has.

Language as

92

EINAR HAUGEN

the preserver of tradition is not bad until we begin to discover that the tradition it preserves is bad. That this one is bad can hardly be denied, and I should be the last to do so. In a perceptive note to Lakoff's article Dell Hymes writes that the stereotypes of sex roles may have been as much of a detriment to men as to women:

"The association of male creativity in

the arts with effeminacy is a well-known instance" (Lakoff 1973: 79). To this I would like to add that teaching is not entirely free from the same problem.

Those males who like myself have come up through the

tough ranks of an American urban public school system can testify that to grow up with bookish interests is to qualify for such epithets as "sissy" and "teacher's pet." So it is true that language can reflect prejudice and contempt; but it can equally express admiration and support, not to speak of affection and human warmth. When Blakar and others therefore speak of language as an instrument of power, it seems to me they are thinking too exclusively of political and economic achievement, which no doubt says something about our western standards of success.

But the "power" that goes with being

"male" in the linguistic stereotypes brings anxieties and responsi­ bilities which many men would be glad to escape.

The "powerlessness"

that goes with being "female" in the same stereotypes has been turned to account by women since the dawn of time.

Perhaps there are some

advantages in being the "marked member" after all; I for one would be sorry to see the distinction disappear, and I prefer to think of it as complementary rather than contrastive. I began with a quotation from the Edda and A Doll's

House.

May I

conclude with one from that well-known lover and hater of women, August Strindberg (which only means that to him women were even more highly marked than to most men, being either angels or devils)? Julie

In Fröken

the strong-willed heroine tells her contemptible lover Jean about

her mother:

"She was brought up in the doctrines of her time about

equality, the liberation of women and all that sort of thing, and she

93

SEXISM AND THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE had a definite aversion to marriage. ... And on the estate men were ordered to do women's work, and the women to do men's work, —

with

the result that the property was about to go under, and we became the laughing stock of the community."

Miss Julie's mother was ahead

of her time; but will her time ever come?

REFERENCES Blakar, Rolf Mikkel.

Sprak er makt.

Oslo, 1973.

Blakar, Rolf Mlkkel. "Stakkars store, sterke mann." Aftenposten 10. November, 1973. Carmichael, Stokely and Charles V. Hamilton. Black Power, Random, 1967. Clark, Virginia P. (To appear).

(Oslo)

New York:

"Women and Language: Some current research."

Gauchat, L. "L'unité phonétique dans le patois d'une commune." Festschrift Heinrich Morf, Romanische Sprachen und Literaturen. (Halle: 1905), 175-232. Jensen, Anker. "Sproglige forhold i Aby sogn, Arhus amt." Dania 5 (1898), 213-238. Jespersen, Otto. "Maends Sprog og Kvindes Tale." Gads Magasin (19061907), 581-592. Jespersen, Otto. "The Woman," in Language: origin. London, 1922, pp. 237-254. Labov, William.

Sociolinguistic

Patterns.

its

nature,

development

and

Philadelphia, 1972.

Lakoff, Robin. "Language and woman's place." Language in Society, (1973), 45-79. Larsen, Amund B. and Gerhard Stoltz. Bergens

bymal.

2

Kra, 1912.

Levine, Lewis and Harr J. Crockett, Jr. "Speech variation in a Piedmont Community: Postvocalic r." Explorations in Sociolinguisticss ed.

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Oftedal, Magne. Linguistics,

Indiana, 1966, pp. 76-98. "Notes on Language and Sex." Norwegian Journal 27(1973), 67-75.

of

Rafky, David M. "The Semantics of Negritude." American Speech 45 (1970), 30-45. Sommerfelt, Alf. Sproget

som samfunds organ. Oslo, 1935.

Steinsholt, Anders. Malbryting

i Hedrum.

Oslo, 1964.

Thome, Barrie and Nancy Henley. "Sex Differences in Language, Speech, and Nonverbal Communication." (To appear. Revised, Feb. 1974: East Lansing, Mich./Somerville, Mass.)

MACHINE TRANSLATION AND ABSTRACT TERMINOLOGY DAVID G. HAYS State University of New York, Buffalo

If I were responsible for the development of a system for automatic translation from one natural language into another, I should know without consulting anyone what parts I wanted the system to have and how I wanted them to be connected. Free of the responsibility, 1 am also free of any obligation to say what those parts and connections would be. Professor Lehmann has held such responsibility and made such decisions; I do not here propose to offer him any suggestions» However, the characteristics of language that the design of the system must take into account constitute a different problem. Each of us has turned to the whole field of linguistics, past and present, with the hope of answering the question, "What is language that a machine might translate it?" None of us has found an answer that entirely satisfied him. With the purpose of improving a little on the existing situation, I begin by noting a few characteristics of language that are familiar to every linguist. Noting that one of them has paid less than its due in attention, L explore its significance for linguistics, thus familiarizing the reader with possibly new and at first sight strange topics. That prelude leads nat­ urally into the main theme: What the unrespected characteristic of

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language requires of the translator, and how a machine might satisfy the requirements. THE FOURFOLD FACULTY OF LANGUAGE

The design features that Hockett (1960) has enumerated number more than a dozen. The functions of language that Jacobson 0960) expounded are exactly six. Being more modest, I (1974) am prepared to stop at four, The rest can be accounted for in one of two ways. Some can be derived from the basic four. Some are true of human speech but only accidentally so; without them, we could still recognize an extraterrestrial communica­ tion system as language. Any characteristic of language that is not accounted for by these two rules must be added to my initial four. Duality of patterning is first. Phonologically, a language is an in­ ventory of units and a set of principles of arrangement. Grammatically, a language is also an inventory of units and a set of principles of ar­ rangement, but the two inventories have no common elements and the two lists of rules of arrangement have in common at most the appearance of units from one inventory as conditioning elements in a rule of the other sort. A plausible explanation for duality of patterning is that the two systems, layers, levels, strata, or components are in different parts of the brain (Whitaker 1970). Is it not then mere happenstance that human speech exhibits duality of patterning? Would we not recognize an alien system as language if it were without duality? Speculation about this question is wild, not plausible, but my guess is that no system without duality can exist in a biological substrate at a degree of complexity sufficient to carry advanced culture. In other words, duality is a pre­ condition of language in the true sense. Semanticality is the second characteristic of language that I count as elementary or primitive and also essential. We perceive and act upon the world; and we conceive and speak of the world.as we see it and act upon it. The highest level of coordination of perception and action links vision and proprioception to create space. Language links hearing, only

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incidental in the perception-action system, with articulation. The organs of articulation are not extensible, hence can contribute little or nothing to the appreciation of space. The link between language and perception-action is therefore a highest linkage between two systems; such a linkage is, I think, the biological characterization of semanticality. Association cortex serves the organization of perception-action space and, elsewhere, the language system as such. Secondary association cortex looks like the mediator between the two and the site of semanticality. Syntacticality is third. We perceive the world as composed of things bearing qualities and acting on one another; qualities or properties apply to entities and to actions, and entities participate in actions. Language must express these applications and these participations; to do so requires means of interconnection among units. The patterns of arrange­ ment of grammatical units--morphemes, we can say--serve this function. The biological substrate of syntax is unknown, at least to me; to identify it and describe its operation seems urgent business. Metalinguality is the fourth characteristic of language that I count as essential; it is the one that has been neglected. The elementary units of language can be identified with simple or composite units of perception and action. Every human language also contains noneleraentary units that cannot be identified in the same way; their presence is well known, but their inexplicability has aroused little concern. Such English words as sin,

Sunday,

pneumonia,

quark,

marriage,

obstreorousness,

syndicate,

conspiracy, profit, and morpheme are related to perception and action only in exceedingly complex ways. If it were not for the human ability to take patterns, including patterns composed of linguistic units and relations, as units themselves, these words could not exist. Humans do have such an ability; metalinguality is the name I. give to the characteristic of language and the ability on which it is founded. I expect to be accused of two errors. One is to admit duality of patterning only between phonology and morphology. My weak defense is to

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admit ignorance. Is there coqnition, conceptual organization of thought, outside of language? Is there not semology as well as morphology within language? I am inclined to believe in cognition, with units and patterns of arrangement all its own; and r am more than half inclined to believe in an independent semology. Each pair of levels with its own units and arrangements, lying adjacent in the system, forces upon us something akin to duality of patterning. Since the neuroanatomical basis of duality between phonology and morphology is apparent enough for at least plausible speculation, and since the basis of further dualities is not so apparent, I am reluctant to speculate very definitely about the others. The second expectable charge is that the metalingual capacity is not of its own kind, but derivable from the joint occurrence of the others. One version would be that metalinguality is only syntacticality in lexical disguise. Thus, the object of the verb know is sometimes a that-clause: you know that butterflies are free. The object clause is organized syn­ tactically as object of the verb. This situation is comparable to the syntactic formulation of a definition for conspiracy, let us say, and the linkage of the word and its definition is comparable to the linkage of the object clause into the matrix sentence. To the charge in this version, my defense is that syntax has been shown to contain metalinguality as a proper part, but the methods of syn­ tax have not been proved homogeneous. We have all learned by now, from Fillmore (1968), that the subjects of The door opened The key opened the door. The janitor opened the door with a key.

play different roles in the eyent. Each plays a role, howeyer, and we can decide whether one of the sentences is being used appropriately by perceptual devices. We employ perceptual schemata to check for the presence in the surrounding situation of a door, a key, or a person. We employ perceptual schemata, perceptual-relational schemata, or something of the

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kind, to check for the role the entity plays in the event. If the perceptual verification comes out right, we are satisfied. It is not easy to imagine a perceptual schema for know, but I grant one for the sake of argument. It is not easy to imagine a perceptual schema for Butterflies are f r e e , but I grant one for the sake of argument. It is far from easy to imagine a perceptual-relaional schema for the part­ icipation of an abstract entity in an informational event, but I grant even that for the sake of argument. What I cannot grant is the link between the perceptual schema, however complex, and the abstract entity. Said another way, if that is analyzed as an abstract pronominal, defined by the following clause, serving the object role relative to know, then I cannot grant that perception is responsible for the interpretation of the link between that and Butterflies are free. This one link must be characterized within the analysis of language, whether the items granted for the sake of argument be treated within or without. And I claim that it is the same kind of link as the one that attaches -pneumonia to the linguistic pattern that defines it. Another approach may clarify my views. To speak of semantics strikes me as obscure. The human language user has conceptual-linguistic capacities and perceptual-motoric capacities. Outside is a world to which he responds. We can locate a regularity in the world, in the perceptual system, or in linguistic system. I think that the link between an abstract term and its definition cannot be driven out into the world, or even into the perceptual-motoric domain. To try too hard to decide whether the capa­ city that gives us abstract terras and clauses embedded in sentences under informational verbs lies in the conceptual or the linguistic system would be an error, since at present we are in no position to sharpen that bound­ ary. The conceptual-linguistic distinction may even be a false dichotomy. Finally, I wish to display three contrasts in the hope of clarifying my point for those to whom it is still murky. The pairs are u n i v e r s a l particulary

general-special,

and

abstract-concrete.

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A universal term is a kind of variable for which substitution of a particular is admissible. Thus boy is a uniyersal, and Tom, Dick, or Harry is a particular. A general terra is a variable oyer a relatively unrestricted domain; a special term is a variable oyer a relatively restricted domain. Thus human being is more general and boy is more special. From the most gen­ eral to the most particular is often a scale of several steps. An abstract term is one for which only verbal definition is possible; it is the name of a pattern in which the elements are linguistic-conceptual elements and the relations are linguistic-conceptual relations. A concrete term is one for which direct perceptual or motoric definition is possible. I am unable to see how the capacity for abstract thought can be derived from the joint presence of duality of patterning, semanticality, and syn­ tacticality, unless one of them be understood in such a way as to include metalinguality specifically. Hence I take it that language is a fourfold faculty in the human species, which we correctly refuse to recognize else­ where unless all four characteristics are demonstrated. SEMANTIC TRANSLATION

In the two and a half decades since translation was first suggested on the basis of a cryptographic view of language (Weaver 1955), or if you prefer in the one and a half decades since MT banged its head against the stone wall of semantics (Don R. Swanson, at a 1960 conference in Los Angeles), a blow felt by some to have caused a concussion adequate to explain its general lethargy ever since [Professor Lehmann being among the few to remain alert), linguistics has progressed, revealing at each step solutions to old problems and the lack of solutions to previously undis­ covered difficulties. The cryptographic solution thought of each language as a code con­ cealing a message; and so it may be, but the code of natural language is of a depth, subtlety, and orderliness unknown to traditional cryptography.

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The syntactic solution to the machine-translation problem thought of each language as providing a unique means of expressing conceptual struc­ ture. The semantic solution thought of each language as having a unique con­ ceptual structure that would have to be decoded or translated into a canon­ ical form and thence into a target language. Translation is not a problem at all, and has no solution. Translation is a task. Linguistic theory can help in the formulation of the task, but to get the best translation by machine within limitations of understanding, of equipment, of setup costs, and of operating costs is design work for engineers. To say what characterizes good translations is the business of human engineering, not of linguistics. All I hope to do here is apply the undervalued theory of abstract definition--metalinguality--to the formula­ tion of the task of translation. Engineers in computational linguistics can consider how if at all their designs-~algorithms--can incorporate ele­ ments of the new formulation. Human engineers can test by experiment whether the altered designs produce better translations. The simplest point is that when an abstract term has to be translated, an equivalent must be found. The choice of target-language equivalents for source-language terms is fraught with difficulties; no term exists, or a comparable but crucially different term exists, or several crucially dif­ ferent terras exist among which a selection must be made. I can give you some examples to make the nature of the problem more gripping. In many cultures, the basis for capitalism does not exist, and no term for the concept can be found. Possession and exchange are under­ stood differently; transfer of possession may not occur, or if at all by schemes in which exchange does not figure. It is often said that Americans and Russians have crucially different conceptions of democracy. In American tax law, corporate reorganization is defined as subject to tax or free from tax in accordance with such involved analyses of the procedure followed that the statutes and prior decisions together leave room for doubt in certain cases (This from Thorne McCarty.)

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If the source-language text contains capitalism, the translator can transliterate, or create a polylexemic tenn ad hoc; in either case, the insertion of a footnote on first occurrence can help the reader. The system designer will choose one of these methods, with or without footnotes, according to cost allowances and human-engineering studies. If the source-language text contains democracy, and is Russian or English, the translator into the other language can use the ordinary translation, with or without a footnote. If the target language is English, an appropriate translation may be (Russian) democracy. What to do with tax-exempt reorganization, or any related expression, is more difficult. The target language may offer a number of terms for a pattern of legal manipulation as prescribed in the laws of one or another country in which the target language is spoken. The trained reader of English learns much more than that no tax was paid when he sees the ex­ pression tax-free; he learns, approximately, by what methods the reorgan­ ization was carried out. The author expected the reader to learn that much, and if the translation conveys less, it is incomplete. Another version arises if the source-language describes the reorganization with a term that fits into the legal description of a tax-free merger, so that the reader should infer that no tax is paid. To pretend that the translation of tax-free merger is adequate if it contains translations of merger, tax, and free, so chosen that free is understood to mean 'without liability for, unencumbered by, exempt from', and so connected syntactically that the reader knows the merger to be exempt from taxation, is easy enough; we have all mounted such pretenses and lived in their shelter. Theoretical and descriptive linguists thus lose the challenge of abstract definition and metalinguality. Linguist engineers, MT system designers, thus lose quality points for their product. Consumers lose a part of the understanding they pay for. To give up the pretense is difficult. If we do that we must begin collecting abstract definitions, specifying the modes by which they are constructed, and developing techniques for translation when source and

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target language have sets of terms with related, overlapping terms with intricate specifications for choice among them and perhaps no exact matches. The difficult route may nevertheless lead to rewards that the other way does not approach. What I know about modes of abstract definition is little more than this: that analysis by distinctive features is an oversimplification to the point of worthlessness, and that an abstract definition can contain any relation that might be found in a text of the same language. Two terms can therefore differ by the attribution of one or another quality to some participant in one of several events that are causally linked in the definition! One person is called charitable, the other patronizing, because the one acts without hope of reward and the other acts in order to obtain social deference. In some languages matching terms exist, but there are no doubt far more languages in which the translator, to be exact, must choose a less specific term and add a word of explanation. And how to translate from such a language into English? 'Look in the text for some indication whether the actor expects a reward'? That, I remind you, is the simplest point I have to make. All the rest seem so difficult that I can only take them up in arbitrary order and in the most general terms. An author can select one word in preference to another because it enters the abstract definition of a word that he wants to suggest but not to use. A physician speaking to a patient can hint at cancer without nam­ ing it. A linguist writing tendentiously can suppress the theoretical terminology of his opponent. A noyelist characterizing one of his drama­ tis personae can recite his generous contributions and speak either of the rewards that follow or of the person's avoidance of the channels that lead to reward, permitting the reader to recognize absence or presence of charity. In these cases, more or less likely to appear in the input for machine translation, the choice of a target-language equivalent should be made so as to call to the target-language reader's mind the definition, and so the term, that the source-language reader would think of. I note,

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without taking over the designer's job, that such selection can be made only with the help of storage in which definitions can be addressed both forward and in reyerse. From charity to its definition containing reward is forward; from reward to its use in a definition to the defined charity is reverse. The coherence of a text depends on the consistency of the entities, human or other, that appear in it from beginning to end; on the spatiotemporal, causal, or purposive linkage of the events recited; on figures of comparison and contrast that attach to the main thread all the little things that of their own nature do not belong; and on thematic coherence. The theme of a text is named by an abstract term and is expounded by the natch of the text as a whole to the abstract definition of the term. To maintain consistency of entity list, plot linkage, and figurative linkage through a text is automatic for the translator, whether human or machine. To maintain thematic consistency is, if I make no mistake, car­ ried out unconsciously or not at all. It is time to do better. The themes of science are called paradigms (Kuhn 1962). The writer and the reader he expects to confront have learned certain anecdotes about particles and forces, if they are physicists; about levels, units, and rules, if they are linguists; about subjects, experimenters, and apparatus, if they are psychologists; and so on. The name of an anecdote is something like particle accelerator (physics), contrast (linguistics), stimulusresponse (psychology), etc. In their anecdotes, they are accustomed to certain subplots and certain terminology. The translator of a paper in psychology does well to know that it employs the stimulus-response paradigm before beginning to translate, since that fact alone may determine many terminological choices. The same is true of every branch of science. The themes of fiction are generally concepts of folk psychology, or sociology, or of theology. They are defined by paradigms of common sense, or of religion. A story told without characters or plot is nonsense; but so is a story told with both, but lacking a moral. The daring author chooses a familiar paradigm and ends with an antimoral, but only a few

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despise order to the point of omitting moral and antimoral together. Scientific texts are reputedly easy to translate. What giyes this reputation is, I think, its status as an independent culture, trans­ mitted formally and uniformly everywhere. Its paradigms are known to its practitioners regardless of natiye language. The translation made with­ out reference to thematic structure has a good chance of being understood for that reason. Some paradigms appear in all sciences, but most are the property of a science or group of sciences, unknown elsewhere. Hence many terms are used without conflict for different concepts (i.e., with different abstract definitions) in different fields. To translate them, it is necessary to know what field the text comes from; but that is not literally sufficient, since the term belongs to a paradigm--a theme--and not to a field of science specially. The translator needs to be able to detect paradigms as they appear in the source-language text. Outside the hardest core of science, the translator has a further reason for knowing what paradigm he is translating; it may be unfamiliar to the intended reader of the translation. Once more, footnotes may be needed. The translation of a novel may be successful only if a preface or endnote is added, describing the theme for the reader in whose culture it is unknown. To understand a text is in part to recognize the manner in which it fits the definition of a thematic term; if the reader does not have the theme in his repertoire, he cannot recognize it and so cannot feel that he understands. Might a machine someday extract a theme from a text? I think so. The task seems to resemble the now familiar task of transformational parsing, or of theorem proving. Before seriously contemplating the task of theme extraction, we might work on the identification of character descriptions, plots, and figures of contrast and comparison. Portions of a text can be organized by minor themes. The whole of a text may be organized as the exemplification of a major theme, the exposition of a character, or the resolution of a plot, Very likely the best texts show these three modes of organization equally and completely.

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The technique--I violate my restriction slightly by mentioning it-is pattern recognition. Transformational grammar and theorem proving maintain elaborate data structures in which they repeatedly search for patterns. An abstract definition, even of a theme, is a pattern in roughly the same sense. The designer's problem is to devise a suitable data structure for texts in work, and economical procedures for seeking patterns of plot, of character development, of comparison or contrast, and of theme. The number of such patterns in a culture is large, but may not be excessive for the computers of the next generation. Economy may lie in systems that seek all patterns simultaneously, as the brain may do, or in systems that cleverly avoid looking for patterns that are not there (Hays 1973). REMARKS

My prescription for translators is, understand the input text, and say what it says in the output language. The four parts of the human faculty of language are all required. Duality of patterning forces the translator to use a dictionary; if duality of patterning is repeated, several dictionaries are needed. Syntacticality forces the translator to parse the input, and to go through a corresponding output stage, in order to verify the conceptual linkages intended by the author. Semanticality guides the translator, who strives to match input and output according to semantic values. Metalinguality forces the translator to deal vigorously with abstract terms and to look for the overall thematic structure of the input. Nothing forces the translator to build these four parts of his system separately, or to operate them sequentially. He can make his system guess the theme of the text and drive the syntactic portion with thematic predictions. He can generate syntactic structures and match them against input and thematic possibilities simultaneously. Or he can do dictionary lookup, syntax, semantics, and abstract patterns with indepen­ dent components in that order—but only if he thus obtains a better design.

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The faculty of language is enormously powerful; it is linked with, and evidently supplies the means for, culture, art, and science. The theories of language generally cited, capturing phonological and gramma­ tical patterns, with semantic sources of the complexity of the predicate calculus, give no better explication of culture and science than the pre­ dicate calculus gives, and it has no means by which to extend its reper­ toire with symbols standing for patterns of its own symbols. The first step toward a theory of abstraction is the recognition that, however difficult it be, it is needed. Machine translation, as I have remarked before, is interesting above all for the appetite with which it absorbs everything linguistics can provide. Professor Lehmann deserves credit for keeping this hungry monster in a zoo when other relegated it to a museum. We can estimate how far along we have gotten toward knowing how we understand language by inspecting the output of a contemporary and carefully engineered trans­ lation system. I submit the notion of abstract definition in the hope that it will eventually contribute to better translation and thereby prove itself a contribution to linguistics. NOTES "The dissertations of Mary White and Bryan Phillips have been accepted by SUNY Buffalo, and some papers by William Benzon have been accepted for publication, one in Modern Language Notes. Gerald Holton has published a book on themata in science. Marvin Minsky and Roger Schank have published on 'frames' and 'scripts'. Linguistics seems not yet to have arrived at a theory of abstract definition. REFERENCES Fillmore, Charles J» 1968. "The Case for Case". Universals in Linguistic Theory ed. by Eramon Bach and Robert T. Harms, 1-88. New: York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hays, David G. 1973. "Linguistics and the Future of Computation". AFIPS Conference Proceedings 42.1-7

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Hays, David G. 1974. "Linguistics as a focus for intellectual integration Georgetown University Round Table Conference on Languages and Linguistics, 1974, edited by Francis P. Dinneen, S.J., 165-178. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Hockett, Charles F. 1960. "The origin of speech" Scientific 203.3: 88-96.

American

Jakobson, Roman. 1960. "Linguistics and poetics" Style in Language edited by Thomas A. Sebeok, 350-377. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure University of Chicago Press.

of Scientific

Revolutions.

Weaver, Warren. 1955. "Translation." Machine Translation edited by Locke and Booth, 15-23. New York: Wiley.

of

Chicago: Languages

Whitaker, H. A. 1970. A Model for N e u r o l i n g u i s t i c s (= Occasional Papers, #10). Essex: University of Essex Language Centre.

LITERARY MEANINGS—COMPLEX OR SIMPLE?* ARCHIBALD A. HILL University of Texas, Austin

As students of linguistics, we are all quite familiar with the criteria by which explanatory hypotheses are judged. To state them once more, we believe that the explanation which most completely accounts for the data, which accounts for the data with the maximum of consistency, and which accounts for the data with the smallest number of hypotheses, is the best. Not, be it noted, that such an explanation is uniquely right; it is simply the best until another hypothesis replaces it and becomes a new best. I think it is safe to say that all responsible linguists accept these principles, and that our acceptance defines linguistics as a logically governed type of analysis, and a science. Literature, however, is an art, both in its production and its products. As an art, literature is concerned with emotions and values, and it would seem to be a truism that the richer the emotion aroused by a work, and the deeper the values, the more satisfactory the work is. But the analysis of literature is not literature--it is analysis. Any position that holds that analysis of literature is not subject to logical criteria is, I believe open to question. The belief that literary analysis is not governed by logic is probably as old as literary study, and has always been in accord with *This paper was originally delivered before the Linguistic Institute, 1976, at SUNY, Oswego, New York.

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the emotional desires of many readers. The belief in the illogicality of analysis of literature, as a consciously held and elaborated theory is, on the other hand, relatively new. I should describe it as having begun in 1930 with the publication of an enormously influential b o o k I cannot trace all the William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity. literary statements which have shown acceptance of Empson's theories and been influenced by them, but at least I can cite an important recent book which makes full and conscious use of them. The book is Graham Dunstan Martin's Language Truth and Poetry, 1975.1 It will be the purpose of this paper to examine what can be called the EmpsonMartin hypothesis of literary semantics. As is usual in an attack on theories of analysis which make use of the three logical criteria, the attack is mounted against the prin­ ciple of simplicity—parsimony of hypotheses, or Occam's razor. The reason, as is evident if we consider events in our ordinary lives, is that simplicity of hypotheses is not a measure of absolute truth, but simply of probability, greater or less. Belief in the validity of the principle would, then, not guarantee the truth of any conclusion, but would merely insure that the analyst would be right more often than he would be wrong. Such a position is one that linguists and other scien­ tists would accept, though it is unacceptable to those who cannot be satisfied with less than absolute truth. In the analysis of the semantic content of meaningful forms it seems to me that the principle of simplicity works out in a somewhat surprising way. Most of us would grant that the meaning of a single item in a linguistic act is given by the context. Since this is so, the possible meaning which is maximally supported by the context is the best one. The semantic relation of context and single item has been formulated by Martin Joos, as a first axiom in semantics, stating that that meaning which adds least to the total context, or which changes it least, is the best. I have used the axiom steadily and consciously for many years, though occasionally in ways which aroused violent opposition. The axiom can be called either the 'Joos law' or the law of 'least lexical contribution.' One of the ways, however, in which the validity

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of the law is often supported is that other applications of the principle of parsimony can coincide in their results with the Joos axiom. Accord­ ingly, in two of the discussions that follow, I use measurement of simplicity in other ways than reliance on least meaning. The discus­ sions in question are those of the Shakespearian "mammets," and the 2 Jonsonian "for" in "I would not change for thine." The Empson-Martin theory rejects the law completely, and substi­ tutes an exact reversal. In literature, they believe, the more meaning and the more meanings, the better. What seems to me the IOCUS classicus comes from Empson, in a discussion of a passage from Macbeth (III,ii, 50-51). I quote the passage in the spelling of the Folio. "Light thickens / And the crow makes wing toth' Rookie Wood:" Of this passage Empson says: It is with a pretty turn . . . of the negative, that the Arden editor insists on the variety of associations the word rooky had for an Elizabethan audience. This somewhat obscure epithet, however spelt (and it should be spelt rouky) , does NOT mean "murky" or "dusky" (Roderick, quoted by Edward's Canons of Criticism, 1765); NOR "damp," "misty," "steamy with exhalations" (Steevens, also Craig); NOR "misty", "gloomy" (Clar. Edd.); NOR "where its fellows are already assembled" (Mitford), and has NOTHING to do with the dialectic word "roke" meaning "mist", "stream", etc. . . . the meaning here . . . I THINK, is simply the "rouking" or perching wood, i.e. where the rook (or crow) perches for the night." Now, of course [Empson continues] the reason an honest editor puts down the other possibilities, as well as the one he is tenta­ tively in favour of himself, is simply that these meanings had seemed plausible to scholars before; might, for all we know, there­ fore, have seemed plausible to anybody in the firstnight audience; might have seemed plausible to Shakespeare himself, since he was no less sensitive to words than they. There is no doubt how such a note acts: it makes you bear in mind all the meanings it puts forward. I cannot now make the imaginative effort of separating the straightforward meaning of the line from this note; I feel as if one was told elsewhere in the text, perhaps by the word t h i c k e n s , or the queer hollow vowels of rooky wood, that the wood was dark and misty."

Martin quotes the Empson passage entire, and then adds: Empson concludes that we must either suppose the work of all these scholars to have been misguided, or assume that the poet's

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original meaning was complex enought to include all their interpretations. What, at any rate, seems evident in such a case as this is that we have no rational reason for rejecting any of the senses offered; and that, moreover, the semantic structure of the lan­ guage is such that, if any of the senses is suggested to us and it fits, we can hardly fail to bear it in mind."4

Before I attempt to discuss these passages in detail as a semantic theory, there are four observations about what the two critics say that are of some preliminary interest. First, Empson rather curiously ad­ mits that he is reacting to Shakespeare and the editors, not to Shakespeare alone. That is, he suggests that the meaning of the passage was not complete before the editors enlarged it. The attitude reminds me of one which has unfortunately often been true of English classesdon't read Shakespeare, read the notes on him. A second point is that both critics speak of "bearing the senses in mind." That is, whatever the reader can bear in mind about the meaning is right, though Martin warns that it must fit. Third, the Martin passage, in speaking of the "semantic structure of the language," is coming perilously close to suggesting that his statement of literary meaning applies to meaning in all types of language use. The fourth of these preliminary observa­ tions is that Empson's tentative statement that perhaps the "queer hollow vowels" of Rookie Wood tell him that the wood was dark and misty, is one of the more unfortunate examples of unsupported appeal to soundsymbolism. The vowels are not queer, since they are a commonly occur­ ring part of the English sound system, and I suppose "hollow" means "with lip rounding." If so, the round rhyme vowel in Lowell's "And what is so rare as a day in June?" somehow carries a very different message. 5 Martin goes on to say that "ambiguities . . . can be removed by accepting them. And this is now accepted modern practice."6 I can, then, begin by examining what editors of Macbeth who wrote after Empson's statement have done, to see whether Martin is right that accepting all possibilities is indeed u ual practice. Here is a representative sampling. G. L. Kittredge says: "There were ravens about Macbeth's castle . . . and doubtless also rooks. A less probable interpretation makes

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rooky equilavent to the old adjective roky, 'misty, gloomy"7 ' . . . Kenneth Muir writes "black and filled with rooks. There have, how­ ever, been many attempts to save Shakespeare from writing this excel­ lent line, which is regarded as tautological." Muir then lists most of the previous suggestions, and adds two others, namely "rouky" = chattering (from "rouk) talk privately), "rucky" (from "ruck) multi­ tudinous. With the last two suggestions, cf. Meredith Modern Love, "multidudinous chatterings"). Muir's position is not thoroughly clear, but it would seem to be that he believes the attempts to avoid tautology are unnecessary.8 R. A. Fowkes refuses to make any decision, and merely says, "There has been much discussion of the exact meaning of the line: see, for example, William Empson . . . "9 One editor, E. F. C. Ludowyck, is following Empson, though he does not say so. '"full of rooks"; "dark with the blackness of smoke"; "misty"'10 E. M. Waith, on the other hand, says simply, "filled with rooks."11 And a final editor is John Dover Wilson who says '"rooky wood." Disputed. Most interpret "rook­ ery"; others take as "roky (= dim, misty) wood", among them Dav [enant], which reads "the thick shady grove." After "light thickens" the second is apt, after "crow" the first seems tautological: . . . But "roky" is a northern or E. Anglian word, prob. unknown to Sh. Perhaps a misprint of "reeky" (= "steamy, rull of rank moisture" . . .).12 In addition to the editors, lexicographers have also spoken about the passage. Both the OED and Websters Third gloss Kooky as "full of rooks," and cite the Shakespeare line. Two things have been accomplished by this listing of editors and lexicographers. First, I think it is scarcely usual practice to accept all possible suggestions. A number of editors reject all meanings except "full of rooks," some refuse to make any decision, and some list all the possibilities, again without making a decision. And some also make still other suggestions. We can now list the suggestions, of which I count eleven. They are 1. murky, dusky 2. damp, misty

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3. steamy with exhalations 4. misty, gloomy 5. where the crow's fellows are already assembled 6. misty or steaming 7. perching 8. chattering 9. multitudinous 10. dark with the blackness of smoke 11. reeky, for which rookie, is a misprint. I do not believe that even this list exhausts all the possibilities, and as one who finds suggesting meanings an amusing game, I hereby suggest one more, namely 'having to do with a castle, from rook = castle in chess.' I can at least call on support from Kittredge, who points out that there were ravens about Macbeth's castle, thus implying that both ravens and woods belonged to the castle's surroundings. I wish also to answer a possible objection to this list of a round dozen of possible meanings. The list might be shortened if I eliminated such repetitions as 'misty,1 which occurs several times, though always in combination with a different word. I have left them in, since if I understand the Empson-Martin position, it is that meaning is always to be maximally differentiated, so that a combination of 'misty' with 'gloomy' represents a sum of meanings different from that in a combination of 'misty' with 'damp.' What is the result of such a list of different meanings? I think it is a patent reductio ad absurdum in that it would require a trans­ cription of the phrase 'Rookie Wood' in some such form as "wood that is murky and dusty, that is damp and misty, that is steamy with exhalations," and so on down to "that is in some way related to a castle." I spare you the full list of twelve relative clauses, since I think we can agree that this 'total reading' as Martin calls it, is an extremely heavy burden for one word, of no more than six letters, to bear. Such total meaning is curiously close to the medieval practice of deriving meaning from con­ flicting etymologies of proper names of Saints. The practice is imi­ tated, you will remember, by Chaucer in the 'Second Nun's Prologue,' where the Nun presents four different meanings for the name Cecilia

LITERARY MEANINGS

115

drawn from fanciful etymologies, though obviously if any one of the ety­ mologies should happen to be true, then the others would be false. How is it possible that responsible literary scholars can have proposed a theory of meaning which can lead to such an extreme conclu­ sion? I think that one of the main contributory causes is a failure to make use of a distinction between ambiguity and polysemy. In all of Empson's book as well as all of Martin's, the only term used is ambigu­ ity, and a statement like the following description of a passage in Finnegan's Wake, is typical . . . whether the interaction of these many portmanteau words in context fines down their senses to an acceptable degree of ambigu­ ity is doubtless a controversial question.13

I believe that a sharp distinction between ambiguity and polysemy is not only possible but necessary. Ambiguity exists where a text leaves us uncertain of the precise meaning of word, construction, or sentence, but where the contextual evidence leads us to the possibility of 'disam­ biguation,' that is, a reasonable conclusion as to what the actual, presumably single, meaning is. A passage can be ambiguous even though it is not possible to solve the question of its meaning. Such situations occur when one of the possible meanings is incompatible with the other, and it is my belief that ambiguity also exists when the two meanings are not necessarily incompatible, but when there is no contextual support for two rather than one. Often such ambiguity occurs simply because we are given too little context to solve the problem. For instance, without context a sentence like 'John put on another coat' is ambiguous, since we do not know if paint or clothing is being talked about. If the con­ text is extended to include a following sentence such as 'It was clear shellac,' the ambiguity is fully resolved. Such an ambiguity as that just quoted is certainly trivial, but more important examples can be the cause of considerable trouble. An example from the pages of the period­ ical Time is an instance of ambiguity which no reader can solve, since no decisive context exists. The subject under discussion was the decay of English style, in an editorial essay entitled 'Can't Anyone Here

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Speak English?' The ambiguous phrase was '. . . the Association of American Publishers' guide to reading textbooks. . .'14 Nothing in the context, or the spelling, indicates whether the stress was 'READing textbooks,' which would mean textbooks in the field of reading, or whether the stress was 'reading TEXTbooks,' which would mean 'the read­ ing of textbooks.' Yet the peak of stress could not be on both words at once, but would have to be on one or the other, either in reading aloud or silently. Consequently the phrase is not polysemous and cannot mean two things at once. It is genuinely ambiguous, and even though we cannot discover the true meaning, we can be sure that it was single. The ambi­ guity in this example does not exist in speech, and the difficulty comes solely from the inadequacies of the writing system. But lest you think that ambiguity is always no more than a fault of the way we write, I can point to the endless ambiguities in both speech and writing occasioned by pronoun reference. These, of course, are usually disambiguated, but occasionally are not so, and reader and hearer are both left to guess what was intended. With polysemy, on the other hand, there is support for more than one meaning, and hearers or readers must therefore accept both. Perhaps the best example of a clear and simple instance of polysemy is in a sentence I owe to Martin. The sentence is 'she came home in a sedan chair and a flood of tears.'15 The polysemy, of course, is in the word in, which carries both spatial reference and indication of an emotional state. As I shall show, this sentence was constructed with deletion of part of one of two differing sequences, one of the ways in which polysemy can be brought about. It hardly needs to be said that polysemy is an important literary device, which contributes greatly to the richness of literature. Ambiguity, on the other hand, is a fault in either speech or writing, and results in impaired communication. I believe, furthermore, that to lump both multiple meaning and uncertain meaning under the same term as Empson and Martin do, has the result of encouraging readers to accept many most uncertain and confusedly subjective interpretations. If we pass to ambiguity in literature, an excellent example is one introduced to the scholarly world by Empson. It is found in two

LITERARY MEANINGS

117

well-known lines from Ben Jonson's 'Song, to Celia.' "But might I of Jove's nectar sup / I would not change for thine." Empson says: The last two lines say the opposite of what is meant; . . . This is not to say that the last two lines are an accident, and should be altered; you may feel it gives a touching completeness to his fervour that he feels so sure no one will misunderstand him. And indeed, you may take the matter more seriously, so as to regard these lines as a true statement of two opposites.

The difficulty in interpretation does not seem to have attracted atten­ tion before Empson wrote, but since then has stirred up something like a minor furor. There have been letters in the Times Literary Supplement, an account in Essays in Criticism of an argument 'of several days dura­ tion' between members of the Stanford University English Department, and an appendix in a critical work on Jonson, devoted to 'A Jonsonian Crux.' Almost all of these writers have attempted to disambiguate the line in accord with the meaning Empson said was 'what is meant.' However, none of the attempts have been fully successful. One writer suggested that for. was a misprint for fro, only to be answered that the reading ion. was thoroughly established. Most of the rest have attempted to find it by searching out an unusual meaning for change, or change for.. Unfortunately, these attempts, (except for one) have been frustrated by the fact that the OED gave only two citations for change ion in the desired sense, i.e. 'exchange "with for. before the thing given."' One of the OED citations seems a dubious interpretation, and the other is the line from Jonson itself. The OED citations then accomplish no more than a demonstration that the OED editors thought the line meant 'would not exchange thine for Jove's.' J. G. Nichols follows the same interpre­ tation of change for, but advances a more satisfactory quotation for the desired meaning, from Paradise Lost, 1,244. None of the disputants seem to have thought to run down OED entries forfor,where we find ion. is 'misused for fro, FROM,' with four citations running from 1340 to 1540. To disambiguate by a supposition about ion. alone is clearly more econo­ mical than to make suppositions about both change and ion.. Also, it is possible to show that the well established confusion between for and in.o is in accord with normal linguistic processes. That is, I am arguing

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ARCHIBALD A. HILL

that the form is a genuine example of spoken usage, not a printer's error based on vision. Both for. andfroare unstressed and so would be reduced to an indeterminate vowel, though with retroflexion. They would thus fall together, in unstressed position, and the fusion of the two is a typical example of neutralization of opposition. If the line is thus disambiguated, the several days' dispute at Stanford is happily resolved, and the direction of disambiguation fol­ lows one of the corollaries of the Joos law, namely, that when a nar­ rower context and a wider one are in conflict, it is the wider one which prevails.16 We can pass then to polysemy, which is far more important than am­ biguity in the study of literature. First of all, I wish to emphasize once more that if a student accepts more than one meaning, he must have contextual support for more than one. I believe that contextual support comes about in several ways, some of which I will enumerate in what follows. The first is that seen in the sentence 'She came home in a sedan chair and a flood of tears.' In these days when transformational analysis has made us bold in interpreting sentences by pointing to hypotheses of derivation, it is possible to say that this particular sentence is derived from two underlying sentences, 'she came home in a sedan chair,' and 'she came home in a flood of tears.' These have been combined (or at least may be said to have been combined) in a two-stage process, first giving 'she came home in a sedan chair and in a flood of tears,' then undergoing haplogical loss of the second in. I do not take up the obvious humorous quality of the final sentence, since humorous quality is outside my subject, and since humor is by no means a neces­ sary quality of polysemy. A somewhat similar process is the modification of a recognizable sequence, usually by substitution of a word or construction for some­ thing within the underlying sequence. The process affects meaning, but the resultant meaning is inherent in the sequence and its modification, rather than in a single word. It is a process closely allied to allusion on the one hand, and to extension of meaning on the other. With exten­ sion of meaning, however, there is no polysemy, and there is no precise

LITERARY MEANINGS

119

underlying sequence, the underlying forms being a whole set of possible sequences. A good example of extension of meaning is Andrew Marvel's lines from The Garden (lines 47-48): "Annihilating all that's made / To a green thought in a green shade." Thoughts, of course, are not nor­ mally colored, but in an extended context of gardens, the collocation is apt enough. A less successful example of extension is Gertrude Stein's title Tender. Buttons. As Aristotle might have said, tenderness is not a category of buttons, and we cannot easily think of underlying sequences, as we can with 'green thought.' As an instance of the process of substitution in relatively commonplace sequences, but with increase of meaning, we can take two lines of Dylan Thomas' poem Out of the, Sighs. "For her soldier stained with spilt words / That spill such acrid blood."17 I believe that here there are two sequences, stained with. split blood since blood can stain, and that spills such acrid words, since words can be spilled and be acrid. It is interesting that the process of substitution is here a symmetrical exchange. More germane to our purpose, however, is the blending of two se­ quences with a meeting point in a single word. The example which seems to me most revealing is also from Thomas: "Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun, / With my red veins full of money This is a passage I have discussed before, and I quote from the earlier discussion. 'Dressed to die' seems like an obvious reworking of the proverbial 'dressed to kill,' meaning (particularly of a man) dressed in his best finery to make an impression on the opposite sex. 'The sen­ sual strut begun', would fit well enough with . . . the first half of the line. The last phrase, by the same process of replacing the surprising items by the most obvious ones, gives not one source, but two. If we substitute a blank for 'red veins', we have 'With my . . . full of money'. The most obvious way of filling the blank is with 'pockets' . . . If we . . . treat the second part of the line in the same way we have 'With my red veins full of . . .' and once again the blank-filler is obvious . . . The picture is that of a young man, proud of health and youth, ready to spend them on pleasure, as a man dressed in his best on holiday is ready to spend his money. '19'

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ARCHIBALD A. HILL

As a final example of the distinction between ambiguity and polysemy I can quote a speech from Shakespeare, which contains an example of each. The speech is by Hotspur, addressing his wife shortly before the rebels are to set out for battle. . . . this is no world To play with Maramets, and to tilt with lips. We must have bloodie Noses, and crack'd Crownes, And passe them currant too.20

The word which here seems to me an example of true, and ultimately solv­ able, ambiguity is Mammets. It is not without interest that the ambigu­ ity is one which was created by an editor. The notes of the American Arden edition are revealing: mammets. The usual meaning of this word is "puppets," "dolls," and Shakespeare uses it in this sense in Romeo and Julliet 111,5.185-187, applying the term to a woman, as he does here . . . Gifford, how­ ever, suggested that Hotspur's mammet was a different word, based upon the Latin mamma, and signifying "breasts." This would, of course, make the connection between this and the following phrase— "tilt with lips" = kiss—somewhat closer.'21

The Arden editors, it is clear, are taking the word as 'either/or' not 'both/and.' They have not, it is true, come to a decision, as others have not. A quick glance at the notes in theNewVariorum show that editors generally regard the passage as ambiguous, but that some follow Gifford, some the 'puppet' interpretation. The situation is peculiar in that the Joos law does not alone com­ pletely solve the semantic difficulty. The Joos law does, however, establish that the meaning is single, since to adopt both meanings at once would greatly change the total meaning, and, indeed, make it ludi­ crous, since men do not usually play with breasts and dolls at the same time. But to solve the problem completely, we must call upon the prin­ ciple of simplicity in a different form. Mammet, in the meaning 'puppet,' was known to Shakespeare, as the Romeo and Juliet quotation proves. Mammet, 'breast' is not found elsewhere in Elizabethan English. To sup­ pose its existence is thus an unnecessary hypothesis. But does taking the 'puppet' interpretation deny the principle of support from two sequences, since there is, as has been noted, some support for both? I

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think not, since the support for 'breasts' is the relatively narrow context of 'tilt with lips', whereas the larger context is the tone of the scene which presents Hotspur as totally rough and boisterous, not at all in an amorous mood. There is, however, one more observation to make about the meaning of the word. While the meaning is, in one sense, single, in another it is not, nor are words generally so. The meaning here can be divided into an immediate referent which is 'women,' and a figurative meaning withh is 'toys or dolls.' Thus, I would wish to emphasize, acceptance of the Joos law does not force acceptance of narrowly single meanings-it only rejects unnecessary meanings. It will be remembered that the second part of the speech was "We must haue bloodie Noses, and crack'd Crownes, / And passe them currant too." Here again the notes of the American Arden edition are typical:. . . the word crowns is used in a double sense: (1) the crown of the head: (2) a five-shilling piece. It is the latter meaning which is in the above phrase—"and circulate them too."22

The note is quite right, but not fully adequate. There is a first level of meaning which gives "We must have broken heads and pass them out freely," and a second "we must have bad coins and circulate them at full value" and finally a third, in which Hotspur is thinking of the title to the throne, which would become questionable in the three separate kings the rebels propose. This third level is then- "we must have faulty crowns [king's crowns] and make them accepted generally." It is, of course, a bit of dramatic irony that this last meaning reveals more of Hotspur's actual attitude than he perhaps would have wished. L a s t l y , before we leave t h i s passage, the ways in which the multiple meaning is created are of some i n t e r e s t .

The f i r s t pair is by successive

sequences, though with overlap rather than

deletion.

and

and pass them c u r r a n t "

crack'd

Crownes

. . /

crack'd

Crownes

"bloodie Noses, The

t h i r d meaning, however, is brought about by a sequential p a r a l l e l , a sort of analogy:

crack'd

king's crown is to

is to coins is to establish.

circulate

as faulty

title,

is to

There are c e r t a i n l y other methods of creat-

ing multiple meaning, but these three, modification of underlying sequence,

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ARCHIBALD A. HILL

successive sequences with deletion or without, and sequential paral­ lels, are among the most important. I am ready to conclude with some additional suggestions as to why literary students seem prone to accept multiple meaning without clear proof from context. It is, I think, normal to study a literary text in great detail, minutely scrutinizing each word. The result is to make it seem natural to believe that the meaning of a passage is derived by piling up individual items and individual meanings, in spite of the fact that such a picture of meaning is contrary to what we know of how language works in other situations. A further result is to make the student react to a sum total of text and editorial notes, as Empson pointed out that he had done in the Macbeth passage. I cannot deny anyone the pleasure of reading Shakespeare in a variorum edition, but at least I think it is proper to demand that a serious scholar be clear as to how he derives his pleasure. There is a final, and unfortunately very common way in which liter­ ary scholars often mislead themselves. This is the very natural unwill­ ingness to admit faults in a work whose total structure the student greatly, and rightly, admires. One need only to look at the labored explanations of Shakespeare's apparently mixed metaphor in 'to take arms against a sea of troubles,' or for that matter, Ruskin's also labored explanation of the 'blind mouths' passage in Lycidas. The unfortunate result of attempts to explain faults away, is to produce inconsistency, so that disorder is praised as highly as order. It is better to admit that Homer, Shakespeare and Milton all can nod on occasion. In the at­ tempt to find other than an obvious explanation for 'Rookie Wood,' critics and editors have committed just this fallacy, of failing to accept the fault of tautology. If, on the other hand, we as students of literature strive continu­ ously and conscientiously to analyze what we read with completeness, con­ sistency and parsimony of hypotheses, we will not only avoid needless and meaningless disputes, but also will enable ourselves to discover and describe the patterns and structures which give literature some of its deepest and most important aesthetic values.

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LITERARY MEANINGS NOTES

1Willaim Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, New York, Meridian Books, 1955. xix, 298 pages. Originally published in 1930. Graham Dunstan Martin, Language Truth and P o e t r y , Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1975. vii, 354 pages. 2The axiom is fully documented and ably explained in Martin Joos, 'Semantic Axiom Number One,' Language 48 (1972) pp. 257-265. It was first announced in an unpublished paper given before the Linguistic Society in 1953, which traced the process by which Joos had arrived at the meaning of a word, 'geloetet,' etymologically 'leadened,' but in the context of a Middle High German poem, used to mean 'lead colored.1 As an example of my own use of the axiom, and one of the many times I have expressed my debt to Joos, see 'Laymen, Lexicographers, and Linguists," Language 46 (1970), 254-255. 3

pp. 94-95.

4Martin, op.cit.

p. 266.

Empson, op.cit.

5In an earlier passage describing the same lines, Empson goes to far greater extremes in reliance on sound symbolism. ' . . . there is a sug­ gestion of witches' broth, or curdling blood, about thickens, which the vowel sound of Light, coming next to it, with the movement of stirring treacle, and the cluck of the k-sounds, intensify; a suggestion, too, of harsh, limped [sic] echo, and, under careful feet of poachers, an abrupt crackling of sticks. The vowel sounds at the end make an increasing darkness as the crow goes forward. ' This passage seems to me a remarkable example of criticism by exam­ ination of one's own idiosyncratic reactions. But in fairness to Empson, I must quote the next sentence: 'But, after all, one would be very surprised if two people got the same result from putting sound-effect into words in this way.' This last sentence indicates Empson's reservations, it is true, but it also seems to suggest that any reaction to sound effects is valid, no matter how individual. Empson, op.cit. pp. 23-24 6Martin, Op.cit. p. 267. It is interesting that in. these pages, Martin pays me the dubious compliment of ascribing to me a logical men­ tality that prevents my accepting variant interpretations at the same time. 7 The Tragedy of Macbeth, ed. by George Lyman Kittredge, Boston, Ginn and Co., 1939, p. 166. 8The Tragedy of Macbeth, ed. by Kenneth Muir, London, Methuen, 1952, p.. 89. 9The.Tagedy of Macbeth, ed. by R. A. Fowkes, Indianapolis and New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1968, p. 74. 10Macbeth, ed. by E. F. C. Ludowyk, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1964, p. 83.

11The. Yale. Shakespeat, Revised Edition.

The Tragedy of Macbeth, ed.

by Eugene M. Waith, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1954, p. 49.

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ARCHIBALD A. HILL

12Macbeth, ed. by John Dover Wilson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1960, p. 137. 13

Martin, op.cit.

p. 196.

14 Time, August 25, 1975, in Education Section. l5Martin, op.cit., 138-139. Martin ascribes the sentence to a charac­ ter from Pickwick Papers and says that a modern philosopher has called the statement meaningless. The 'modern philosopher' is Fred Sommers, in 'Predicability,' Philosophy in America, ed. by Max Black, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1965, p. 270. However, Sommers does not quite say what Martin says he says. Sommers' position is that if one should follow an extreme Aristotelian position, asserting that 'Smith' in 'Smith is fat,' and 'Smith thinks,' exhibit differing meanings, then one would also call the sentence about the young lady meaningless. 16

The Empson quotation is at p. 273 of Seven Types. The most useful discussion is John Gordon Nichols, 'A Jonsonian Crux,' in The Poetry of Ben Jonson, New York, Barnes and Noble, 1969, pp. 163-164, with full bibliography. The Stanford University discussion is reported fully by 1 (1957) pp. 95-103. To my Marshall Van Deusen in Essays in Criticism, mind, it is particularly interesting that one of the disputants, Vergil Whitaker, argued in the way that I think is quite proper, but apparently without convincing his hearers. Whitaker maintained that the larger structure of the poem suggested that the lady's kiss in the cup made the poet reject wine, so that the lady's nectar should make him reject that of Jove. Whitaker's argument was not backed by a theory of structural semantics and so fell among the interpretations that the disputants labelled 'romantic.' 17 Lines 15-16 from 'Out of the Sighs,' The. Collected Thomas, New York, New Directions, 1957, p. 56.

18Lines 6-7 from 'Twenty-Four Years,' Collected

Poems

0f

Dylan

Poems, p. 110.

19

In a review of Walter A. Koch, Recurrence and a three-modal approach. to Poetry, in Lingua, 22 (1969), pp. 247-248. I have allowed myself the liberty of correcting the mistake of began (which should have been begun) as quoted in the review. I should also note that I have been anticipated in my explication of 'Dressed to die,' in Derek Stanford, Dylan Thomas. A Literary Study, New York, Citadel Press, 1954, p. 88. 20 Henry folio.

IV, part

I, II, iii, 94-97. The spelling is that of the

21 The First Part of Henry the Fourth, The Arden Shakespeare, American Edition, ed. by Frederic W. Moorman and Morris P. Tilley, Boston, D. C. Heath and Co., 1917, p. 147. 22

Moorman and Tilley, op.cit.,

p. 147.

SOME ASPECTS OF LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN CONTEMPORARY PERSIAN MOHAMMAD ALI JAZAYERY The University of Texas at Austin

1.1 A notable feature of Contemporary Persian semantic structure is the abundance of lexical synonyms. It is the purpose of this paper to present, in sketchy outline, a description of the situation of synonymy in Persian. Little or no attempt will be made at a detailed interpretive analysis.* 1.2 The study of synonyms is of interest to the linguist as well as to the student of literary style, to name two groups in whose fields language figures prominently. We shall discuss the matter from the point of view of linguistics, and within that framework will be concerned primarily with formal features. 1.3 It is the view of many scholars that there are few, if any, 'real', 'total', 'perfect', or 'exact' synonyms (Lyons 1968: 447; Bloomfield 1933: 145; Stern 1931: 225; Ziff 1960: 172). Ullman states, 'Only those words can be described as synonymous which can replace each other in any given context without the slightest change either in cognitive or emotive import.' (Quoted in Lyons 1968: 447-8). Ziff

*This is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled 'Alternating and Conjoined Synonyms in Contemporary Persian' read at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 7, 1971.

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MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

(1960: 172) considers two words synonyms if and only if they are 'distinct words' and 'not in complementary distribution'. 1.4 While the existence of 'real' synonyms may be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove, it is just as impossible to deny that there are pairs or groups of words that are interchangeable in certain formal and/or situational-contexts, and that, whether or not actually interchangeable, impart the same general meaning. Synonymy, whatever its precise definition is, refers to a type of relationship between or among certain lexical items within a given language (for that matter, across languages). To ignore that decline and reject are related (semantically) is just as objectionable as to deny that [t] and [d], or for that matter [p b t d k g] are related (phonologically). Indeed, it is perhaps more objectionable, because [t] and [d] are not interchange­ able, while decline and reject are, at least in some instances. At the very least, it is undeniable that, however loose the connection between decline and reject is, these words stand closer together than either of them does to table, for example, or than table does to God. This is the same general type of reasoning that groups all the stops together, even though as we go from [p] backward through to [k], the similarity (and physical proximity) is reduced, or that distinguishes between voiced and voiceless speech sounds, between consonants and vowels, and so on. 1.5 For the moment, then, we consider as synonymous two (or more) words which are in some situations interchangeable, and/or, at least up to a point, 'mean the same', even if in a loose, imprecisely defined way. This could serve as a starting point in discussing the synonymic relationship. A more compact version of this working definition is provided by Lyons (1968: 428), who says: '... two (or more) items are synonymous if the sentences which result from the substitution of one for the other have the same meaning. This definition clearly rests upon a prior notion of "sameness of meaning" for sentences (or utterances). ... The point being made here is that the relation of synonymy is stated as holding between lexical items and not between their senses. The synonymy of lexical items is part of their sense. ..." 1.6 A full examination of synonymy in a given language requires

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LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

an examination of the history of the synonymous words, if for no other reason than to find their etymons, and the history of its speakers, especially if the emphasis is on the sociolinguistic aspects. In the present study our interest is in the synchronic state rather than the diachronic development. Even so, some reference to history is desirable, perhaps inevitable. We shall limit such references, however, to an indication of the source language for each word cited, where such indication is felt relevant or useful. 2.1 One of the two major varieties of synonyms in Persian may be called 'alternating synonyms'. These consist of a set of synonyms each of which occurs singly in a given sentence, with the others sometimes occuring in succeeding sentences.1 Thus 'begin', 'start', and 'commence' are alternating synonyms. Any of them can occur in the sentence 'I my career as a soldier', without changing its meaning. Or they may occur in a series of sentences such as 'I began my career as a teacher. He started his as a soldier. His sister commenced 2 hers as a nurse. 2.2 Two basic facts about Persian synonyms should be noted at the outset: (a) In a set of synonyms, one or more of the words may be of native Persian origin, and the rest borrowed. (b) Synonyms appear in all parts of speech, though they are more numerous in some than in others. The following examples illustrate these points:3 2.2.1

Nouns ecteraf(A):eqrav(A)

'confession':

'ancester':

niya

(P):jadd(A) heysiyyat{A):perestizh(F)

'prestige':

'advice': nasihat(A) 'institute': mo

:pand{P):andarz(P)

'assese(h)(A):bongah(P):anstitu(F)

'dictation': dikte(h)(F):emla

' (A)

'subject': mowzuc (A):matlab(A) :suzhe(h)

(F)

'variety' : nowc(A) :gune(h) (P) :qesm(A)

:jur(P)

'prophet' : peyghpmbar(P) :rasul(A) 'God':

:nabi{A) :barangikhte(h) (P)

Khpda(P):izad(P):yazdan{P):rabb(A)

'thesis, dissertation':

tez(F):reoale(h)(A)ipayanname(h)(P)

128

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

2.2.2

Adjectives Khub{P):nik{P):niku{P)

'good':

motakabber(A):khodpasand{P)

'conceited':

'modest': motavaze c (A)

:forutan{P)

ziba{P):qashang{Turkish?):jamil{k)

'pretty':

tahi{P):khali(k)

'empty':

'full ' : por(P) :mamlovv(k) 2.2.3.1

:mashhun(k)

Adverbs and Prepositions shayad(P):balke(h)(?)

'perhaps':

hatman(k):yaqinan(k)

'certainly':

fowran(A):bidarang{P)

'immediately' : 'to':

td(P)

iela(k) paylu-ye(P):janb-e(k)

'beside' : c

aqab-e{A)\posht-e(P)

'behind':

'in' : dâkhel-e(k) 2.2.3.2

suffix -an (the Arabic tanwïn) e.g., tabc-an:

tabicat-an c

'incessantly'; ta ammod-an: 2.2.3.3.

:tu-ye(P)^

In adverbs, synonyms may result from the addition of the to two (or more) related Arabic words;

'naturally'; ettesal-an: c

mota ammed-an:

c

amd-an

mottasel-an 'intentionally'.

Some times, a set of two or more synonymous adverbs may

result from the use of the Arabic suffix mentioned above and the use of a Persian affix with one of the Arabic bases involved; e.g. tadrij-an:

be-tadrij

tasadof-an:

tasadofi

2.2.4.1

'gradually'; fowr-an:

fowr-i

motadarrej-an:

'immediately';

'accidentally'.

Verbs 'to fear':

tavsidan(P):harasidan(P)

'to brag': nazidan(P)

\balidan(P)

'to drink': nushidan(P:) ashamidan 'to limp':

langidan(P):shalidan

'to be becoming': 2.2.4.2 onymous

zibidan(P):sezidan{P)

It will be noted that all the members of each set of syn­

verbs cited are words of Persian origin.

This is because they

were all chosen from simple verbs. The number of simple verbs in Contemporary Persian is small--the longest list compiled containing just

129

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

over 600, including the obsolete and archaic ones, and of these only five infinitives are based on Arabic loanwords. By far the largest number of verbal concepts are expressed by various types of combinations of simple verbs with members of other parts of speech (loosely called 'compound verbs'). (On these matters, see Jazayery 1969.) 2.2.4.3 When we consider all the verbs (rather than the simple ones only), we find a very large number of synonym sets. As for the simple verbs, there is scarcely one for which there is no synonym in a compound verb; often there are several. In the following examples, the abbreviations (A) and (P), when following compound verbs, refer to the non-verbal element: 'to ask': porsidan(P): s o ' a l kardan(A):porsesh 'to begin': aghazidan(P):shoru

c

'to try': kushidan(P):kushesh

kardan(P):sacy

kardan(A):aghaz

kardan(P)

kardan(A)

baz-gashtan(P):bar-gashtan(P):

'to return' (int.): morajecat

kardan(P)

kardan(A):baz-gasht

kardan(P).

2.3 The members of a set of synonyms may be unrelated etymologically and/or phonologically. However, in some cases, such relationships do exist. A few examples follow. 2.3.1 In the following sets, the synonyms in each case are derivationally related forms based on the same Arabic radical: jeld: mojallad

'volume'; safhe(h):

'relation'; ta'sir taraqqi:

c

adl:

c

'effect'; qodrat: erteqa'

eqtedar

'progress'; naqs:

'benefit'; calaj: mocaleje(h)

moqayese(h) hormat:

sahif(e)h

'page'; rabete(h):

edalat 'justice'; jamece:

ejtema c

'power'; ectedâl: naqise(h)

'cure'; sorur:

ertebat

'society'; asar: tacâdol

'defect'; nafc: massarrat

'joy';

'comparison'; qasd: maqsud 'intention'; fowt:

ehteram

'respect'; nefrat:

'insult'; cowdat: mocavedat

tanaffor

'moderation';

vafat

'hatred'; towhin:

'returning'; tabadol:

mobadele(h)

manfecat qiyas:

'death'; ehanat 'exchange'.

2.3.2 Misunderstanding of Arabic derivational patterns has led to such sets of synonyms as the following: zanin: maznun 'suspicious', where the second form actually means 'suspect' (noun); n a j i : monji 'saviour', where the first form actually means 'saved' (noun); câqel: macqul 'wise', where the second form actually means 'reasonable'.

130

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

2.3.3 The presence of a native Persian word and the reborrowed Arabicized form of the same word may yield synonyms: dar: darb 'door'; gowhar: jowhar 'essence'.

2.4 So far, we have been concerned with sets of synonyms representing individual cases, each of which has nothing in common with the other sets except for the fact of synonymy itself. There are, however, groups or sets of synonyms which fall within widely occuring patterns, some of which will be mentioned here. 2.4.1 A set of synonyms may result from variant phonological renditions of the same (Arabic loan) word. A fairly common group of these synonyms consists of pairs of words one of which ends in -at, the other in -e(h) (both from the Arabic -at): moshavere(h): moshāverat 'consultation'; moshāhede(h): moshāhedat 'observation'; e share(h): eshārat 'pointing'; maqale(h): maqālat 'article'. 2.4.2 In each of the following examples, an Arabic noun is used in Persian both as a noun and as an adjective. Another noun is then formed by suffixing -i to the Arabic form, resulting in a new noun synonymous with the original noun: rāhat 'comfort, comfortable'; rahat-i 'comfort'; salāmat 'health, healthy'; salāmat-i 'health'. 2.4.3 In another group, Persian uses an Arabic noun as well as the same noun plus the (Arabic) suffix -at (in its different allomorphs): qaza: qazā-vat 'judgment'; sakhâ: sakhā-vat 'generosity'; zakâ: zakā-vat 'intelligence'7. 2.4.4 One group of synonym sets results from forming a noun from an ajective which was derived from an Arabic noun in the first place. In one sub-group of these, the second noun is formed by the suffix -at: tavafoq 'agreeing': movafeq 'in agreement': movafeqat 'agreeing'; tashāboh 'similarity': moshabeh 'similar': moshābeh-at 'similarity'; tadāvom 'continuity': modāvem 'continuous': modāvem-at 'continuity'; tanāsob 'suitability': monāseb 'suitable': monāseb-at 'suitability'; safar 'journey': mosafer 'traveler': mosaferat 'journey'; towfiq 'success1: movaffaq 'successful': movafaqqiyat 'success'.

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

2.4.5.1

131

A number of patterns involve verbs.

item is a simple verb, the other a complex one.

In some cases, one

In one of the common

patterns, the complex verb is made up of a noun derived from the simple verb plus a verbalizer, most commonly the simple verb karden ; e.g. kushidan

'to try': kuahesh kardan; azmudan 'to examine': azmāyesh kardan;

khandidan 'to laugh': khande(h) kardan; andishidan

'to think': andishe(h)

kardan; dāshtan 'to have': darā budan; gandidan 'to putrefy': gand zadan; Q

lulidan

'to wiggle': lul

2.4.5.2

khordan.

The non-verbal element in the complex verb may be

derivationally unrelated to the simple verb, often being a loanword: jombidan 'to move': harakat kardan; ferestadan dāshtan; gorikhtan 2.4.5.3

'to f1ee': farār

'to send': ersal

Of two synonymous verbs one may consist of a noun plus

the simple verb dāshtan

'to have', and the other of the derivationally

related adjective plus budan 'to be': tavana budan: tavānâ'i 'to be able to'; niyaz

dashtan:

niyāzmand

budan 'to need'; nefrat/tanaffor

dashtan

budan 'to need'. This pattern

is especially common with Arabic loanwords: ehtiyāj hozur dāshtan:

kardan/

kardan.

dashtan:

mohtāj

dashtan: motanaf'fer budan 'to hate';

hdzer budan 'to be present'; meyl dāshtan: mayel budan

'to wish, to be willing'. 2.4.5.4

In other cases, two derivationally related (Arabic) words

are used with two different simple verbs; e.g. e t t e l ā c dadan: kardan 'to inform'; tasarrof possession'; zohur kardan:

kardan: motassaref zaher

shodan

mottalec

shodan 'to take

'to appear'.

In all of these

examples and similar cases, the non-verbal element is a noun in the first member of the pair, an adjective in the second. 2.4.5.5

The same simple verb may be used with two related non­

verbal forms, to result in synonyms: sharh dadan/kardan: 'to explain'; ekhrāj kardan: tafakkor

tashrih

khārej kardan 'to expel'; fekr

kardan 'to think'.

2.4.5.6

The same non-verbal element may be used with two

different simple verbs: estecfa dashtan/kardan

dadan/kardan

'to send'; taqdim dāshtan/kardan

'to resign'; ersal 'to submit'.

kardan

kardan:

132

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY 2.5

Up to t h i s p o i n t , we have been dealing with stems—for

most part single nouns and simple adjectives. beyond stems, to i n f l e c t e d forms.

the

Synonymy, however, may go

What are perhaps the two most common

groups of such forms are plurals of nouns, and the comparative and super­ l a t i v e forms of adjectives. 2.5.1.1

Almost a l l nouns in Persian can form t h e i r plurals with

the native Persian s u f f i x -hā.

Many nouns (mostly those denoting

animate beings) can also form plurals with the native Persian s u f f i x -ān.

Thus, in the case of the l a t t e r group of nouns, there are at

least two synonymous p l u r a l s ; e.g. pedar ' f a t h e r ' : pedav-āny darakht

'tree':

2.5.1.2

darakht-hā,

pedar-hā;

darakht-ān.

Nouns borrowed from Arabic often form t h e i r plurals with

one of the Arabic p l u r a l s u f f i x e s , most frequently, -at and -in.

These

p l u r a l s , then, added to those using the native Persian s u f f i x e s , form a set of synonyms; e.g. mocallem ' t e a c h e r ' : mocallem-in, mocallem~ān, mocallem-hā;

majalle(h)

2.5.1.3

' j o u r n a l ' : majall- āt, majalle-hā.

Plurals of other Arabic loanwords are formed through the

device known as broken-plural, which then form synonymous sets with the Persian p l u r a l s ; e.g. ketab colama,

c

ālem-ān,

2.5.1.4

'book': kotob,

ketab-hā;

calem

'learned':

calem-ha.

Some Arabic loanwords form two p l u r a l s , both using Arabic

devices; e.g. rasm 'custom': rosum, marāsem; bahs ' d i s p u t e ' : bohus, abhās; short mac ayeb;

c

' c o n d i t i o n ' : sharāyet,

alāmat ' s i g n ' :

c

alā'em,

shorut;9 c

alāmāt;

c

eyb

casr

'defect': 'era':

c

c

oyub,

osur,a c sār.

camel ' a g e n t ' : cā m e l - i n , commal. 2.5.1.5

Some Arabic loanwords form more than one p l u r a l , of which

one i s a double p l u r a l , i . e . , a plural formed from another p l u r a l , in most cases the second plural using the s u f f i x -at; hodud, hodud-at;

fath

necessity': lavāzem, lavazem-at c

c

foru , foru -at; 'branch':

' n e c e s s i t i e s ' : far

lāzem 'necessary, c

'derivative':

sharh ' e x p l a n a t i o n ' : shoruh shoruh-ât;

shocab,

2.5.1.6

e.g. hadd ' l i m i t ' :

'conquest': fotuh, fotuh-āt;

shocbe(h)

shocab-at.

In some nouns, several of the devices i l l u s t r a t e d are

applied to a single noun, r e s u l t i n g in the presence of several p l u r a l s ;

133

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

e.g. ceyb 'defect': mowzuc

c

eyb-hā, coyub, coyub-āt, macayeb, macāyeb-āt;

'subject': mowzuc'-hā, mavāzec mowzuc-āt; c

shovut, sharāyet, shart-ha; cāmel 'agent': c

āmel-hā.

shart 'condition':

āmelin,

c

c

ommāl,

amelān,

As is seen, the proliferation of the plural forms is due in

part to the suffix -hā, which can be used with almost all nouns and adjectives, and to a lesser extent, also to the suffix -ān, which is, however, more limited in its distribution. 2.5.2

Arabic elatives are responsible for one group of synonyms,

since ordinarily the simple borrowed Arabic adjective in each case can also take the Persian comparative and superlative suffixes: 'accurate': asahh

c

c

sahih-tarin azim~tar

'more/most accurate': sahih-tar

'most accurate'; azim 'huge': a zam

sahih

'more accurate', 'more/most huge':

'more huge', c a z i m - t a r i n 'most huge'; mohemm 'important':

ahamm 'more/most important': mohem-tar

'more important', mohem-tarin,

'most important'. 3.1

The second major variety of synonyms will here be called

'conjoined synonyms'.

In this variety, two (or more) synonyms occur

together, uninterrupted except by a conjunction, most often 'and', as in English 'kith and kin', 'law and order', 'fine and dandy'.10 Such synonyms are extremely common in Contemporary Persian. 3.2.1

A phrase consisting of conjoined synonyms may be made up

entirely of loanwords, of native Persian words, or of a combination of both.

In the last variety, either the borrowed or the native word may

come first. The commonest conjoined synonyms are those involving simple single nouns or simple single adjectives, as in the following: 3.2.1.1

Nouns A-P:

zolm-o-setam

' c r u e l t y ' ; celm-o-danes'h

c

sa y-o-kushesh P-P:

pand-o-andarz

P-A:

ja-vo-makān 'place' ; mehr-o-mohabbat

' a d v i c e ' ; rāh-o-vavesh

pishraft-o-taraqgi A-A:

qowl-o-cahd

'knowledge';

'effort' 'affection';

'progress'

"promise';

zarurat-o-lozum

'manner'

c

ezzat-o ehtevam ' r e s p e c t ' ;

' n e c e s s i t y ' ; hers-o-tama c 'greed'

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

134 3.2.1.2

3.2.2

Adjectives A-P: movaffaq-o-firuz 'successful'; lāyeg-o-shayeste(h) 'deserving'; hāzer-o-œnâde(h) 'ready' P-P: saxt-o-doshvāv 'difficult'; pichide(h)-o-boghranj 'complex'; hamsang-o-hāmpaye(h) 'equal' P-A: gunāgun-o-motanauvec ' v a r i e d ' ; tavānā-vo-moqtadev 'powerful'; sost-o zacif 'weak' A-A: lāzem-o-zaruri 'necessary'; vazeh-o-mobarhan 'evident'; kāfi-vo-vāfi 'sufficient' Both components of the synonym-phrase may be in the plural: A-P: amāl-o-āvezu-'hā 'wishes'; moshkelāt-o-doshvari-ha ' d i f f i c u l t i e s ' ; fozalā-vo-dāneshmand-ān 'learned people' P-P: kutahi-ha-vo-sosti-ha '(acts) of negligence' P-A: ziyān-ha-vo-khesārāt 'lossess' A-A:

c

elal-o-jahāt 'causes'; takālif-o-vazāyef 'duties'; majāles-o-mahāfel 'assemblies'; mabani-yo-osul ' p r i n c i p l e s ' ; c avātef-o-ehsāsāt 'emotions' 3.2.3 Occasionally, one component more probably the f i r s t , may be p l u r a l , the other, singular: A-P: c a c māl-o-ravesh 'deeds'; motalecat-o-bavvasi 'study' P-A: sostihā-vo-takahol 'laziness' 3.3 In the adjectives, in a few cases, the components may be in monāseb~tarin-o-shāyeste(h)-tarin the comparative or superlative degree: (A-P) 'most s u i t a b l e ' ; rasā-tar-o-baligh-tar (P-A) 'more eloquent'; kānel-tar-o-tamām-tar (A-A) 'more complete'; bārez-tar-o-nornudār-tar (A-P) 'more evident'. 3.4.1

While in the largest number of cases the components are

words, in a few cases one or both are larger grammatical u n i t s , such

as phrases; e.g. bedune tacammod va men gheyre erāde(h) 'unintentionally'; be-doribāl-e yekdigav va be-tartib 'one after another'; be-hich-vajh va az-hich-rāh 'by no means'; shakhsan va be-nafse(h) 'in person'. 3.4.2 Now and then, a conjoined synonym-phrase may consist of two

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

135

connective /-e/ phrases:māye(h)-ye masarvat va bāces-e khoshhāli 'source of joy'. 3.5 Occasionally, more than two synonyms may be conjoined: mashhun-o-labviz-o-mālānāl (A-P-A) 'full to the brim'; kohne(h)-vo-fāsedo-mondares (P-A-A) 'worn out'--all adjectives. Examples from nouns include: khoshi-yo-enbesāt-o-masarrat (P-A-A) 'joy'; shakk-o tardid-ododeli-yo-vasvās (A-A-P-A) 'hesitation'; faccaliyyat-o-kushesh-omojāhedat (A-P-A) 'effort'. In the following sets, all components are in the plural: ādāb-o-rosum-o-sonan (A--A-A) 'customs'; hodud-o-soghur-osarhadd-āt (A-A-A) 'boundaries'. 3.6 A word may occur only as part of a phrase made up of conjoined synonyms, but not in other contexts. This is true of the second components of shocār-o desār 'motto'; hodud-o soghur 'boundaries'. 3.7 In the examples cited so far, the conjunction joining the components of a conjoined-synonym phrase has been -o, or its fuller form va 'and'. However, in some cases the conjunction yā 'or' is used: enserāf yā khoddāri 'refusal'; tajaddodpaziri yā nowpaziri 'modernization'. 3.8 The order of some conjoined synonyms is fixed; e.g. mānec-oc rāde 'obstacle'; sahl-1-āsān 'easy'; mehr-o-mohabbat 'affection'. In others, the order is not fixed, though one alternate may be more common: sost-o-zacif ~ zacif-o-sost 'weak'; cadi-yo-mac muli ~ macmuli-yo-cādi 'common'; refāh-o-āsayesh ~ āsāyesh-o-refāh 'well being'; taghyir-otdhavvol ~ tahavvol-o-taghyir 'evolution'. 3.9 A conjoined-synonym phrase constitutes a single semantic unit. This is important to bear in mind, because, while in many cases the components of such a phrase are synonymous with each other even when each is used separately, in other cases they are not. Thus, acmāl-oravesh means 'deeds, actions', while c a c māl by itself means 'actions', and ravesh means 'method, manner'. Acdad~o-arqām means 'figures', while acdad means 'numbers', and avqām means 'figures, digits'. c e y b - o - c e l l a t means 'defect', while ceyb means 'shortcoming', and c e l l a t means 'cause'. 4.0 Analysis of so complex a phenomenon as the synonyms in Persian requires far more data, as well as more sophisticated analytical

136

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

techniques than are currently available. Our aim in this sketch is primarily to give an idea of the general situation. For that reason we shall confine ourselves to a few comments only. 4.1 It has been pointed out that a major criterion of synonymity is interchangeability. We start with this point, therefore. If the test of whether two (or more) words are synonymous is whether or not, or to what extent, they are interchangeable, we must find procedures to determine this question. Ullmann (1959: 109-10, 1964: 143-4) mentions three types of procedures (methods, techniques) for the delimitation of synonyms: (a) The substitution test. This test would show, for example, that broad and wide are synonyms in the broadest/ widest sense, but not in a broad accent, or a wide shirt, (b) The antonymy test. In he declined/rejected the offer, the words decline and reject are synonyms. In the opposite of this sentence, only accept, the antonym of reject, can be used, but not rise, which is the antonym of decline in the sentence the price of food rises every so often. This test is complementary to (a). (c) Another test he proposes is arranging a series of apparent synonyms in such a way as to show the subtle distinctions existing among them; he cites, as a case in point, the English adjectives quick, swift, fast, nimble, fleet, rapid, speedy. This seems to be the least precise of the three methods he suggests, for it presupposes that the words in the series are somehow synonymous, while the other two methods, especially substitution, which is used rather extensively in linguistic analysis in general, could be used to establish the presence (or absence) of synonymy in any give case. We may illustrate this from Persian. By the substitution test, we find that the words del and qalb are synonymous when used by themselves, meaning 'heart', and that shekam 'stomach' is not synonymous with them. On the other hand, in the compound shekam-dard 'stomachache', we can substitute del for shekam, with the resultant form also meaning 'stomachache.' The same is true of the sentence(s) shekamesh/delash dard mikonad 'his stomach is aching'. However, in 'his heart is aching' (in the physical sense), only qalb can be used. By the substitution and antonymy tests, we discover that sangin and geran are synonyms when used in the sense

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

137

of 'heavy'. However, as the opposite of avzan 'cheap', gevan is not synonymous with sangin. b a t i ' is synonymous with kond 'slow', but not with kond 'dull', the opposite of 'sharp'. Sakht can mean 'difficult' and 'hard' (opposite of 'soft'). In the first meaning its synonym is moshkel, and its antonym asan. In its second meaning, its synonym is seft, and its antonym narm. 4.2 Ullmann's third procedure, though not quite precise for the purpose he suggests it, does bring up certain other questions, including the distribution of synonyms. The distributional factors may be linguistic i.e. formal, or extra-linguistic, i.e., emotive and stylistic. We shall take up the latter first. 4.2.1.1 In a set of synonyms, the members may differ in emotive connotations. The three verbs neshastan, farmudan, tamargidan, all

signify 'to sit'. However, the first one is neutral; the second, polite; and the third, quite impolite. 4.2.1.2 An interesting example of emotive difference between two synonyms, with historical implications, is found in the two plural forms afaghene(h) and afghani-ha. Both designate 'people from Arghanistan'. However, in any reference to the present-day inhabitants of that country, the first variant is consistently avoided. It is used only with reference to the Afghan invasion of Iran in the sixteenth century. (Another interpretation may be that afaghene(h) refers to the tribe(s), before their establishment of an independent country. This interpretation, however, is in fact part of the first one.) 4.2.1.3 In somewhat the same way, a distinction is made in the case of the plurals for 'Turk': atrak, and torkān (or tork-hā). However, there is another element involved here. Atrâk, as does its singular tork, refers not just to the people of Turkey, but to all Turkish tribesmen, who are scattered throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, including Iran. This plural is in fact hardly ever used to refer to the non-nomadic people of present-day Turkey. 4.2.1.4 In each of the above examples, the plural with negative connotations is formed by the broken-plural procedure taken from

138

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

Arabic. tions.

This, however, does not seem to be the reason for such connota­ For not only are such plurals abundantly used in Persian, some

plurals of proper nouns using the pattern used in afaghene(h) atrāk,

are in fact more or less neutral.

'Armenians', and akrad

and

(Examples are aramene(h)

'Kurds', especially the latter of which could have

acquired such connotations.) 4.2.2

In a set of synonyms, one or more elements may be more

formal than the other(s). formal.

Khordan

'to eat' is neutral; sarf

kardan is

The formal variants often, though not always, have politeness

connotations.

The verb sarf

farmudan

is not only more formal than

khordan, but also more polite than sarf 4.2.3

kardan.

Many synonyms differ in the degree of respect they express

on the part of the speaker to the hearer, or to a third person (either present or absent).

Thus, for 'to say, to tell' there are at least

three words: goftan

is neutral.

c

arz kardan

is the humble form,

normally used by a speaker with reference to himself (in 'I said...'), or, to a somewhat lesser extent, to a third person lower on the social ladder than the addressee. farmudan,

on the other hand, is the

respectful form, referring to the addressee, or to a third person higher on the social ladder.

The verbs raftan

'to go' and amadan 'to come' are

nuetral; their corresponding humble and respectful forms are khedmat rasidan

and tashrif

4.2.4.1

bordon/āvordan

respectively.

In a description of Persian synonyms, farmudan

special attention.

needs

Originally meaning 'to order, to command', and still

sometimes used in that sense, its major function has come to be that of a polite and respectful substitute form. in two major ways.

In this function, it is used

First, it can be substituted for numerous verbs-

even entirely unrelated verbs, including verbs with opposite meanings. Thus, it could mean 'to come (in, out)' or 'to go (out, in)'; 'to sit down' or 'to get up'; etc. In this function, it is used almost exclusively in the imperative form, and the meaning, in each instance, is indicated by the extra-linguistic context (often also by gestures). 4.2.4.2

Secondly, it can be substituted for the verbalizer

kardan in compound verbs: tarjome(h)

kardan/farmudan

'to translate';

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

meyl kardan/farmudan 'to study'; sherkat

to eat, drink'; motale0e(h)

!

kardan/'farmudan

kar dan/farmudan

'to participate'.

In its imperative form, farmudan

4.2.4.3

139

has still another use.

This is when it precedes another imperative verb, in which case it in effect means 'please1; e.g. be-f arma'id emaza konid

be-farmā'id

be-neshinid

'please sign'.

'please sit down';

In the imperative, when used by

itself, it may also simply mean 'go ahead', 'after you'. The use of farmudan

as a polite substitute for goftan

4.3

has already been mentioned.

The second major type of factor in the distribution of

synonyms is linguistic (i.e. formal).

Two or three examples should

suffice to illustrate the point. 4.3.1

A number of Persian suffixes, when added to the same stem

result in forms that belong to the same part of speech, but that are, or may be, interchangeable in certain contexts, but not in others: -in

and -i

(in one of its many uses) yield adjectives when added to

nouns: mes 'copper': mesi/mesin

'made of copper'.

In some cases, however, the forms in -i e.g. shir zar

'milk': shiri

'gold': zari

and -in

'brocaded silk', zarin

'heavy', where the -in

examples, the forms in -in

'sweet';

'made of gold, golden (both

literally and figuratively)'; sang 'stone': sangi sangin

are not synonymous;

'the color of milk; milk-vendor', shirin

'made of stone',

form has a metaphorical meaning.

In these

are used metaphorically.

A third variety of situation is presented by the following examples: ahan 'iron': ahani will', where the -i

'made of iron', ahanin

'iron' (adj.) as in 'iron

form is also occasionally used metaphorically.

chub 'wood': chubi, chubin , is not unlike āhan: āhani, āhanin, except that chubin is not commonly used. 4.4

In the preceding examples, we have seen a combination of

formal and non-formal features at work.

There are situations, however,

where formal constraints are the only ones deferentiating synonyms. Many cases are found among the verbs--in general, among those synonym sets which consist of a simple verb and one or more compound verbs. In many such sets, the simple verb, if transitive, always requires an object, while its compound counterpart(s) cannot have objects. This is

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

140 the case with randan:

ranandegi

kardan

'to

drive'.

ranandegi

mikonad

is a complete sentence, meaning 'he drives (i.e. 'he can drive', or 'he is driving [as a job]'), and cannot take an object. By contrast, the simple verb must take an object, occuring in miranad, for example, as in otomobilashrā mirānad 'he is driving his car'. (Jazayery 1969: 116-18). 5. More examples and features of synonyms can be cited, and more patterns demonstrated. Enough has been shown, however, to give some idea of the extent of synonymy, and its complexity, in Persian: 1. Synonyms exist in all parts of speech, though most commonly in nouns, adjectives, and verbs. 2. Synonyms have been observed in certain grammatically complex forms. This is especially true of alternating synonyms, particularly in the case of certain patterns—most commonly noun plurals. 3. Synonyms occur, not only with reference to abstract concepts, but also, though less widely, as concrete nouns, e.g. qabz: resid

'receipt':

majalle(h):

mahnāme(h) 'periodical'; dastur:

gerāmer

'grammar'. This is, to a lesser extent, true of conjoined synonyms also: jā-vo-mâkan

'place'; gerāmer-o-dastur

ashkāl-o-tasavir

'grammar' ; samt-o-jahat

'pictures'; qown-o-jama

'direction';

at 'people'.

4. Synonyms appear, not only in the learned and more sophisticated semantic domains, but also in the basic vocabulary: pedar:

abavi

'father'; barâdar:

akhavi

'brother'; mādar-'

vālede(h)

'mother' ; farzand: owlād 'offspring' (where incidentally, the second word is an Arabic plural); posht: c aqab 'back'; del: qalb 'heart'; zendegi : zendegāni

: hayāt

'1ife'.

5. Synonyms exist even in some areas of vocabulary where precision might ordinarily be expected to exclude them. A good case in point is presented by the terms by which certain fields of science and scholarship are designated: 'geology'; giyāhshenāsi,

zaminshenāsi,

botānik,

zhe ' o l o z h i , ma

celmonnabāt

'botany'.

is seen in the words for 'psychology': ravânshenāsi, elmonnaf&,

elmorruh,

macrefatonnafs:

refat-ol~arz

An extreme case

pesikolozhi,

macrefatorruh.

6. In the majority of examples cited, each set of synonyms has

141

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

consisted of two or three members.

Larger sets, however, do exist;

e.g. sacy, kushesh, jahd, mojāhedat, mojāhede(h) gune(h), khatt,

qesm,

jur

'variety'; nāme(h), kāghaz,

voqce(h),marqume(h),

raqime(h)

'effort'; nowc maktub,

morāsele(h),

'letter (epistle)'.

7. Most lexical items in the sets of synonyms cited have been Arabic loanwords. This reflects the historical development of Persian, and the cultural history of its speakers. However, it should be noted that a number of Turkic and, since about 1800 A.D., a number of European borrowings have contributed to the increase in the number of synonyms. 8. That linguistic borrowing has been a major factor in the development of synonymy in Persian seems obvious enough. This is of special significance in the case of conjoined synonyms. The usual explanation, or assumption, is that conjoined-synonym sets originally consisted of an unknown, or lesser known, Arabic loanword followed by its more common Persian counterpart, in order to render the utterances understandable by those speakers (the bulk of the population in fact) who did not know Arabic, or did not know it well enough, While this more than likely explains the initial introduction of large numbers of Arabic synonyms for Persian words, it is not necessarily an adequate explanation for the current state of affairs. There are now many conjoined-synonym phrases which consist entirely of Arabic or Persian words all of which are equally common and intelligible, or equally uncommon and unintelligible to the lesser-educated, or in which the Persian word precedes the loanword, 9. Whatever the historical development has been, synonymy in Contemporary Persian is a phenomenon to be described in synchronic terms, especially in a sociolinguistic framework, and in terms of formal distribution. In fact, when synonyms are analyzed in these terms, the number of sets of 'perfect' synonyms even in Persian will turn out to be much smaller than one might suppose.

142

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY

NOTES

1. For the sake of convenience the word 'set' will be used to indicate two or more items. 2. Ullmann, in discussing 'Synonymy and Style' (1964: 151-5), mentions what are here called 'alternating synonyms' under the heading 'choice between synonyms', as one of the two broad categories into which the use of synonyms falls (Ullmann 1964: 151). He does not, however, designate such synonyms by a special term. 3. (A), (P), (F) are abbreviations of 'Arabic, "Persian' and 'French' respectively. Examples will be cited in transliteration (rather than transcription), primarily to facilitate, for those readers who know Arabic, recognition of the original Arabic spellings: s=

;

ch

s =

; z =

;h=

-

;t =

;

kh=

;z=

;z=

;

zh-

;c=

; gh =

; sh = ; ; q =

;

V =

The vowel symbols a, ā e, i, o, u represent the Persian phonems /as a e i o u/ and the Arabic letters and diacritics f a t h a , a l e f , kasva, yā damma, and wāw. ow represents /ow/, in the Arabic alphabet represented by the letter wow. In the case of Arabic loanwords, Persian pronunciations are given without regard for the original Arabic pronun­ ciations. Affixes are as a rule preceded, or followed, by a hyphen. 4. Note that prepositions proper are very few in Persian. Combi­ nations of certain nouns and adjectives with the connective /-e/ (the ezāfe(h)) are used as prepositionals, as in the last three examples given. 5. Such pairs are not always synonymous. Thus: resale(h) tation': vesalat 'message'; erade(h) 'will': eradat 'sincerity'; mosahebe(h) 'interview': mosahebat 'companionship'.

'disser­

6. In the case of the second example, the Arabic adjective salem 'healthy' is also used in Persian, providing a synonym for salāmat. 7. These second forms (i.e., those in -(v)at) are not used in Arabic itself, and are the products of false analogy, since many Arabic words of identical patterns and grammatical category do end in -at. Incidentally, misapplication of Arabic grammatical rules is a phenomenon of some frequency in Persian, in some cases responsible for introduction of synonyms. 8. Such pairs do not always have the kind of relationship illus­ trated above. Thus: khāstan 'to want': khahesh 'to request'; bakhtan

LEXICAL SYNONYMY IN PERSIAN

143

'to lose': bāzi kardan 'to play'; arzidan 'to cost': arzān budān 'to be cheap'. In the case of varzidan, the verb has become a verbalizer of limited use, having lost its original meaning, while varzesh kardan now means 'to exercise'. 9. When short means 'condition' in the sense of 'circumstance', the plural shorut is not used. 10. Jesperson (1968: §§ 98,135) discusses cases where two words (one native English, the other French) are used 'side by side'. His examples include 'cherite, det is luve1 ; 'pacience, cfet is bolemodnesse'; ' l e c h e r i e , det is golnesse' ; 'ignoraunce, cTet unwisdom and unwitenesse'

(all examples from Ancrene Riwle, circa 1225); 'faire and f e t i s l y ' , 'most eure and most hede' (all from Chaucer); 'of blind forget fulnesse and dark oblivion1 (from Shakespeare). In his index, Jesperson refers to these as 'collocated' synonyms, but the phrase does not appear in the text as a special term. Ullmann (1968: 152) talks of combinations of synonyms, where there are two possibilities: (a) Variation,, under which he includes synonyms appearing at intervals, as in 'The spirit, volatile and fiery, is the proper emblem of vivacity and wit; the acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pungency of raillery and acrimony of censure; sugar is the natural representation of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance; and water is the proper hieroglyphic of easy prattle, innocent and tasteless' (from Samuel Johnson's comparison between punch and conversation, quoted by Ullmann 1964: 152, who took the quotation from Jesperson 1905: § 135); (b) Collocation, under which he cites some of Jesperson's examples, as well as some 'tautological' compounds such as 'courtyard' and 'mansion-house' (1968: 153). What Jesperson and Ullmann discuss apparently include what we call "conjoined synonyms'. However, their examples, and Ullmann's classifica­ tion, seem to lack precision. For example, what Ullmann describes as "variation', appear to belong with alternating synonyms. Similarly, 'collocation' as used by him (as well as Jesperson) includes what might be called 'interpretive synonyms'--'X, that is Y'. 'Courtyard' and "mansion-house' are compounds consisting of synonyms. Ullmann's term "combinations of synonyms', however, seems to be appropriate as a cover term for the various cases where two or more synonyms appear juxtaposed. One major variety of such combinations is what we discuss in this paper as 'Conjoined Synonyms'. 11. Though we cannot go into the matter in detail here, it must be pointed out that the features of politeness and formal ness are two separate aspects of style in Persian, though, in any given context, the two may coincide.

144

MOHAMMED ALI JAZAYERY REFERENCES

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. Hockett, Charles F. 1958. A course The Macmillan Company.

New York: Henry Holt and Company. in modern linguistics.

New York:

Jazayery, Mohammad Ali. 1969. "Persian verbs derivable from other Middle West Branch, parts of speech. " American Oriental Society, Semi-centennial Volume, 111-126. Bloomington, Indiana. of the Jespersen, Otto. 1968 [1905]. Growth and structure language. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company. Lyons, John. 1968. Introduction to theoretical England: The University Press.

linguistics.

English Cambridge,

Stern, Gustav. 1946. Meaning and change of meaning, with special reference to the English language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ullman, Stephen. 1964. The principles Blackwell.

of semantics.

Oxford: Basil

Weinreich, Uriel. 1963. "On the semantic structure of language." Universals of language, ed. by Joseph H. Greenberg, 142-216. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Ziff, Paul. 1964. Semantic Press.

analysis.

Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS* E. F . K. KOERNER U n i v e r s i t y of

Ottawa

0.0 Largely as a result of Chomsky's idiosyncratic manner of rewrit­ ing the history of linguistics and the almost charismatic impact his argument has had on the minds of his emulators, a number of studies have appeared in recent years in which attempts were made to either substantiate Chomsky's claims (e.g., Lakoff 1969) or to 'discover' ad­ ditional 'forerunners' of transformational-generative theory (e.g., Blumenthal 1970). However, this practice of 'Ahnenforschung' (thus Gardner 1973:7-14) or "Discovering Respectable Ancestors" (MacNamara 1971) will, I think, easily be refuted by those acquainted with western linguistic thought, and I need not dwell on this issue any further in the present paper. (Cf. Koerner 1972b, for a criticism of such activi­ ty.) Instead, I would like to show that there has been a long-standing tradition of Humboldtian linguistic thinking, both in Europe and Amer­ ica, to the extent that it did not need the 'rediscovery' of the Chomskyan type to prove its existence. Curiously enough, this tradition is little recognized, even among those who ought to have known better, as I may illustrate by just one example (which could easily be multiplied). In his Main Trends in Modern Linguistics

Leroy (1967:29) states:

Humboldt was a strong personality whose teaching ... did a great deal for the development of comparative grammar, but in the most original part of his research — the study of the general condi­ tions of language — he had no followers and the work in general linguistics that he had outlined was not to be taken up again un­ til very much later.

146

E.

F.

K.

KOFRNER

Leroy did not elaborate what he meant by 'very much l a t e r ' , but i t appears from a footnote (35) on the same page that he was thinking of the Neo-Humboldtians in Germany ( T r i e r , Weisgerber, and o t h e r s ) .

He does

not seem aware of the f a c t that there was a t r a d i t i o n of Humboldtian l i n g u i s t i c ideas many decades before the 1930s in Germany; one looks in vain f o r 19th-century scholars such as Steinthal and Lazarus in his book, and the names of P o t t , Finck, Gabelentz, M i s t e l i , and others are mentioned at a l l even more obvious -

never connected with t h i s t r a d i t i o n . mostly by t h e i r conspicuous absence -

if

The same is of scholars

outside Germany who associated themselves with Humboldtian thinking in l i n g u i s t i c s , f o r example Lucien Adam and La Grasserie in France, Brinton in North America, James Byrne in B r i t a i n ( c f . Schulenburg 1895), A. A. Potebnja in Russia, to mention j u s t a few, none of whom is mentioned in Leroy's book or in most of the other standard h i s t o r i e s of l i n g u i s t i c s . Yet rather than engage in the f u t i l e exercise of pseudo-academic namedropping, I would l i k e to delineate one p a r t i c u l a r aspect of Humb o l d t ' s teaching and i t s evolution in 19th and 20th century American l i n g u i s t i c s and, furthermore, attempt to give a kind of inventory of the most c h a r a c t e r i s t i c components of what we may c a l l the 'Humboldtian t r e n d ' , indicating at the same time the most s i g n i f i c a n t lines of t h i s tradition. 1.0

In his Essai sur les langues du Nouveau Continent

of 1812, Humboldt

stated that "le monde dans lequel nous vivons est . . . exactement celui dans lequel nous transplante l'idiome que nous parlons." [Werke I I I , 332).

And in his paper, Uber den Dualis,

read before the Berlin Academy

in 1827, he put the same idea of language as the mirror of both the mind and the world-view of the speaker in the following terms: "Die Sprache i s t durchaus kein blosses Verständigungsmittel, sondern der Abdruck des Geistes und der Weltansicht des Redenden (werke V I , 23). tations may s u f f i c e to characterize Humboldt's

These two quo-

Weltanschauungstheorie,

his theory of the i n t e r r e l a t i o n s h i p of language and thought, which, as I shall indicate in what f o l l o w s , has been f a i r l y i n f l u e n t i a l , not only in 19th-century German thinking but also, for example, in l i n g u i s t i c debates among American anthropological l i n g u i s t s , philosophers and psycho-

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS

147

logists during the 1950s and 1960s (cf. Hymes 1966, Percival 1966; see Penn 1972:19-22, for further locations of relevant statements from the work of Humboldt). For several decades, it has been thought that the so-called SapirWhorf hypothesis was the resukt of field work done by anthropologists and linguists in North America among the various Indian tribes, and that it was an independent development of linguistic thinking which revealed striking parallels to Humboldtian ideas. It had been overlooked that Boas, a trained natural scientist and ethnographer, was about thirtyfive when he moved from Berlin to Canada and the United States in the mid-1880s in order to devote his full attention to the study of the lan­ guages and cultures of American Indians. In his famous Introduction to the Handbook of American

Indian

Languages

Boas (1911:72-73) said:

Inferences based on peculiar forms of classification of ideas, and due to the fact that a whole group of distinct ideas are expressed by a single term, occur commonly in the terms of relationship of various languages; as, for instance, in our term u n c l e , which means two distinct classes of father's brother and mother's brother. Here, also, it is commonly assumed that the linguistic expression is a secondary reflex of the customs of the people; but the question is quite open in how far the one phenomenon is the primary one and the other the secondary one, and whether the customs of the people have not rather developed from the unconsciously developed terminology ... . Finally, a few examples may be given of cases in which the use of descriptive terms of certain concepts, or the metaphorical use of these terms, has led to peculiar views or customs. ... the peculiar characteristics of language are clearly reflected in the views and customs of the peoples of the world.

Very similar, perhaps more expressly 'Humboldtian', views concerning the influence of (culturally motivated) mental conceptions of the world on linguistic expression were put forward by Edward Sapir, who since the completion of his Master's thesis at Columbia University in 1905 (Sapir 1907) had associated himself with Boas, in his 1921 book Language (cf. pp. 82, 118, 119, etc.) and in other publications. Compare the following statement in Sapir's 1929 programmatic article (pp. 209-10): Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression of their society. It is quite an illusion to

148

E. F. K. KOERNER

imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large ex­ tent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. ... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because of the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Benjamin Lee Whorf, with whose name the WeItanschauungs theorie is general­ ly associated, became a student of Sapir's at Yale University during the 1930s, and his research into the language and social behaviour of the Hopi Indians in Arizona, together with the teaching of Sapir and his own background as a natural scientist, led him to formulate his observations about the relationship between cognition and grammatical categories of a given language much more precisely than his predecessors, though perhaps also more vulnerable to empirical verification. Thus, in an article on "Science and Linguistics" published in 1940 in a non-linguistic journal, Whorf argued ...that the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instru­ ment for voicing ideas but rather is itself a shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his men­ tal stock in trade. (Quoted from Carroll 1956:212).

And further: The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phe­ nomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a ka­ leidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. (Carroll 1956:213).

As a result, Whorf argued that we are introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic back­ grounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated. (Ibid., p.214).

Recent years have seen several studies ( e . g . , Gipper 1972, Penn 1972, Rossi-Landi 1973) concerned with solving the various puzzling l i n g u i s t i c and

149

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS

philosophical questions surrounding this 'relativity principle', with no entirely satisfactory results.

In this paper, I do not intend to discuss

the validity of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, a subject still so complex and diffuse that Max Black (1969:30) asserted, perhaps somewhat ironically, that "an enterprising Ph.D. candidate would have no trouble in producing at least 108 versions of Whorfianism".

Instead I would like to suggest

that the ideas of Boas, Sapir, Whorf, and others (e.g., Lee 1938) can be linked with the Humboldtian tradition of linguistic thought, which in turn derived essential ingredients from Bacon, Locke, Herder, Kant, and others (cf. Weimann 1965; Viertel 1966:115; Slagle 1974). 1.1 As far as Boas is concerned, there are a number of (external) circum­ stances under which he could have become acquainted with Humboldt's lin­ guistic work.

During his student days and early academic career at Berlin

University, Steinthal, who edited Humboldt's "sprachphilosophische Schriften" in 1884, was a professor of linguistics there;1 moreover, Boas was well acquainted with the work of Alexander von Humboldt and might thus have been induced to read the work of his brother Wilhelm.

In addition,

Boas was personally acquainted with Wilhelm Wundt who, in his extensive writings in the area of social psychology, had absorbed Humboldtian ideas of 'inner form' together with the world-view hypothesis.

Finally, the

work of other 19th-century linguists could have served to introduce him to Humboldtian ideas, including Whitney's influential The Life of Language

and Growth

of 1875 in which the author maintained (pp.21-22):

Every single language has ... its own peculiar framework of estab­ lished distinctions, its shapes and forms of thought, into which, for the human being who learns that language as his "mother-tongue", is cast the content and product of the mind, his store of impres­ sions, however acquired, his experience and knowledge of the world. This is what is sometimes called the "inner form" of language, the shape and cast of thought, as fitted to a certain body of expression.

Perhaps the best explanation for Boas' interest in Humboldt may be found in the stimulation he might have received from Sapir, who had written his Master's thesis on Herder's Ursprung

der Sprache.

In it not only Whitney

and other well-known general linguists are referred to, but also a large portion of the concluding discussion (Sapir 1907:140-42) is devoted to

150

E. F. K. KOERNER

Herder's impact on Humboldt.

This fact alone may suffice to prove that

the Boas-Sapir-Whorf tradition of anthropological linguistics in North America, in which we may include Albert Louis Kroeber (1876-1960), Morris. Swadesh (1909-67), C. F. Voegelin, Mary R. Haas, Joseph H. Greenberg, Dell Hymes, and many others, has one of its major sources of linguistic inspi­ ration in Humboldt's linguistic ideas (cf. Christmann 1967; Mattoso Câmara 1970). Another line through which Boas might have become acquainted with Humbolt's concepts of language and mind is that represented by Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-99), who, among other works devoted to Amerindian languages, in 1885 published a book containing both a general theory of these languages and an English translation of an essay by Humboldt on the verb system of Amerindian languages. However, it is evident from Boas' writing (e.g., Boas 1911:5-14 passim)

that he did not agree with

Brinton on a number of points, including Brinton's views concerning the inferiority of the American Indian races (cf. Stocking 1974:476-78, for details). 2.0 It is well known that Humboldt's ideas of 'inner form' and the socalled Weltanschauungstheorie

have had a considerable number of follow­

ers in Germany since the 1930s (viz. the work of Trier, Weisgerber, Porzig, Ipsen, Güntert, Gipper, and others; cf. Basilius 1952:99-105); by contrast, the fact is often overlooked that there were several earlier generations of scholars who associated themselves with Humboldt's lin­ guistic teachings, beginning perhaps with August Friedrich Pott (1802-87) and Hans Conon von der Gabelentz (1807-74), and ending with the genera­ tion of Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Karl Vossler (1872-1949), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), and their pupils. Among those following Humboldtian ideas to a large extent - and I am referring particularly to 19th-century scholars - one may find general lin­ guists and philosophers of language as well as researchers specializing in languages and language families not related to Indo-European (e.g., Chamisso 1838, F. Müller 1867, Gatschet 1876).

As a result of Humboldt's preoccu­

pation with questions concerning the relationship between linguistic struc­ tures and mental conceptualization and development, we find a number of

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS

151

studies devoted to particular grammatical categories, usually exemplified with material from 'exotic' languages (which at times are contrasted with Indo-European languages), e.g., Humboldt's own studies on the infinitive (1826), on the dual (1827), and on the Amerindian verb cited above (see Brinton 1885). Compare the following (by no means exhaustive) list of studies: (a) on grammatical gender (Bindseil 1838, Pott 1856, Adam 1883, Wink­ ler 1889, La Grasserie 1906); (b) on quinary and vigesimal methods of counting (Pott 1847 and 1868); (c) on the relative (Steinthal 1847) or the demonstrative pronoun (La Grasserie 1907); (d) on the passive (H. C. von der Gabelentz 1860) and mood in general (La Grasserie 1891); (e) on intensives and iteratives (Gerland 1869); (f) on case (La Grasserie 1890). As far as general linguistic studies are concerned which are expressly de­ voted to Humboldtian ideas, I may simply refer - for the sake of brevity to the works of Schasler (1847), Steinthal (1848), Stecher (1851), Gesel­ schap (1853), to mention only those which appeared soon after Humboldt's death in 1835. Another preoccupation of linguists working within the Humboldtian framework concerns the classification of languages on morphological grounds, something we find in the writings of Boas (e.g., 1929), Sapir (e.g., 1921: 120-46), and many of their followers as well as, somewhat earlier, in the work of European linguists; see, for example, the studies by Pott (1849; 1851), Steinthal (1850; 1860), F. Max Müller (1854), Friedrich Müller (1876to 1888), Georg von der Gabelentz (1891:345-60), Franz Misteli (1890, re­ working Steinthal 1860), Franz Nikolaus Finck (1901; 1910), Wilhelm Schmidt (1926), Ernst Lewy (1942), and others (cf. H o m e 1966:43-66; Koerner 1972a: 220-313 passim, and Robins 1973:35-41, for full references). Indeed, it was Georg von der Gabelentz who introduced, in a programmatic article pub­ lished in 1894, the typology of languages as a particular task of lin­ guistics. In addition to studies devoted to linguistic categories and language

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classification and typology, whose beginnings are usually (though not correctly) associated with F. Schlegel (1808:44-59), A.W.Schlegel (1818: 14-21), and Humboldt himself (from 1822 onwards), there are other charac­ teristics of what I term the Humboldtian trend in linguistics, namely, the great interest in general linguistic problems - already evident in the other works mentioned above - and the amount of work done on non-IndoEuropean languages, including Humboldt's own investigations of Basque and Chinese (see the work of Pott, Steinthal, Bleek, H. C. and G. von der Gabelent2, Gatschet, Friedrich Müller, H. Winkler, A. C. von der Schulenburg, Misteli, Finck, and many others; cf. Koerner 1973, for details). 3.0 These special interests and preoccupations contrasted sharply with those of the neogrammarians and their immediate predecessors, not to men­ tion the work of the 'founding fathers' of comparative philology, in particular Bopp and Rask, with the result that - largely because of the success of the much more restricted work of those concentrating their efforts on the analysis of the Indo-European languages - the work of the Humboldtians was generally ignored by most of their contemporaries.2 To compound this neglect, the scholars who were engaged in writing the history of linguistics at the time, i.e., Delbrück (1880; 6th ed., 1919), Thomsen (1902; German version, 1927), Meillet (1912; 8th éd., 1937), and Pedersen (1916; 1924, English translation, 1931), belonged mutatis mutandis to the neogrammarian mould and did not pay much (if any) atten­ tion to work done outside the field of Indo-European. And to make things worse, scholars writing the history of linguistics after the Second World War (e.g., Arens 1955, Malmberg 1959, Ivic 1963, Leroy 1967, etc.) relied heavily on these earlier accounts. The impact of the neogrammarian doctrine on western linguistics and one may add that Saussure's non-Humboldtian views concerned with mak­ ing linguistics an autonomous science did not help to change this pattern to any momentous degree - was so strong that George Lane (1945:468) could argue as follows: The title of "founder" of this philosophical school of general linguistics is usually accorded to that versatile genius, Wil­ helm von Humboldt, but we can today ignore both of his two great

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS

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works in the field, Ueber die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaues (1827-9) and Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1836).

As everyone knows, this situation has changed considerably in recent years, at least as far as the revival of interest in the work of Hum­ boldt is concerned (cf. Hansen-Love 1972, Heeschen 1972, Ramat 1973, and many others). In 1973, some two hundred pages of the journal Lingua e Stile were devoted to the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and M.-E. Conte's (1973) bibliography of publications between 1960 and 1972 inspired by Humboldtian ideas of language and mind contained one hundred titles. Indeed, if Blumenthal's book of 1970 is a genuine indication of the re­ newed interest in the work of Wundt, Marty, Bühler, and others, one may only ask that a new history of 19th and early 20th century western lin­ guistic thinking be written in which the adherents of the Humboldtian trend may receive their due.

NOTES This article constitutes a revised version of a paper read on 27 Au­ gust 1974 at the 9. Linguistisches Kolloquium held in Bielefeld. As a matter of fact, a similar paper was presented on 3 August 1973 at the Thirty-Fifth Summer Meeting of the LSA held at the University of Mi­ chigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. (cf. the Meeting Handbook of 1973, pp. 67-68, for a summary). - The present paper can only be regarded as a highly preliminary and fairly superficial statement on the impact and impor­ tance of Humboldtian linking thinking; I do hope that I will be able to give a monograph treatment to this topic in two years from now. 1

In his letter of 30 September 1974, commenting upon an earlier draft of this paper, Dell Hymes pointed out several facts that had been ei­ ther overlooked or misrepresented in my account. Among other things, Hymes draws the attention to the existence of a letter from Steinthal to Boas (dated 15 Sept. 1888) in the archives of the American Philos­ ophical Society, although it appears that Boas had never taken any courses with Steinthal during his student years in Berlin (cf. the re­ ferences to Jakobson's and Harrington's obituaries of Boas cited in Stocking 1974:455). - These and other hints by Dell Hymes are grateful­ ly acknowledged and will hopefully be followed up soon (cf. note * ) .

2

Similarly, journals devoted to general linguistics (and inspired by Humboldtian ideas), including the study of non-Indo-European languages as well as other areas of interest, e.g., dialect study, folklore, etc.

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did not survive for long. Thus Albert Hoefer's (1812-83) Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft der Sprache (4 vols., Berlin, later on Greifswald, 1846-54) was soon eclipsed by Adalbert Kuhn's (1812-81) Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung (1852 ff.), which still ex­ ists today, and Friedrich Techmer's (1843-91) Internationale Zeitfür Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (5 vols. and 1 suppl., Leip­ schrift zig, later on Heilbronn, 1884-90) hardly fared better: there was no effort made by any of his many advisory board members to keep the journal alive. In our century, a quite similar fate was suffered by Johannes Lohmann's journal, Lexis: Studien zur Sprachphilosophie, Sprachgeschichte und Begriffsforschung (4 vols., Lahr in Baden, 1948to 1955).

REFERENCES Note: In order not to render the present bibliography a number of items mentioned in the paper are not listed they may conveniently be found in either Koerner 1972a literature) or 1974-75 (secondary sources).

too long, below; (primary

Adam, Lucien (1833-1918). 1883. Du genre dans les diverses langues. Pa­ ris: Maisonneuve & Cie. Basilius, Harold. 1952. "Neo-Humboldtian Ethnolinguistics". Word 8.95to 105. Bindseil, Heinrich Ernst (1803-76). 1838. "Ueber die verschiedenen Bezeichnungsweisen des Genus in den Sprachen". In: H. E. Bindseil, Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Sprachlehre, 493-660. Ham­ burg: F. Perthes. Black, Max. 1969. "Some Troubles with Whorfianism". Language and Philosophy ed. by Sidney Hook, 30-35. New York: New York Univ. Press. Blumenthal, Arthur L. 1970. Language and Psychology: Historical aspects of psycho Unguis tics. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. Boas, Franz (1858-1942). 1911. "Introduction". Handbook of American Indian Languages ed. by F. Boas, vol.1.1-83. Washington, D.C.: Govern­ ment Printing Office. (New ed., with a preface by Preston Holder, Lin­ coln, Nebr.: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1966.) ____. 1929. "Classification of American Indian Languages". Language 5.1-7. Brinton, Daniel Garrison (1837-99). 1885. The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as set forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt, with the translation of an, unpublished memoir by him on the American verb. Philadel­ phia: Press of McCalla & Stavely. Carroll, John B(issel), ed. & introd. 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press. Chamisso, Adelbert von (1781-1838). 1837. Ueber die Hawaiische Sprache. Leipzig: Weidmann. (Repr., with an introd. and a bib. by Samuel H. El­ bert, Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1969.)

THE HUMBOLDTIAN TREND IN LINGUISTICS

155

Christmann, Hans Helmut. 1967. Beiträge zur Geschichte der These vom Weltbild der Sprache. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner. Conte, Maria-Elisabeth. 1973. "Wilhelm von Humboldt nella Unguistica contemporanea: Bibliografia ragionata 1960-1972". Lingua e Stile 8:1. 127-65. Gardner, Thomas J. 1973. Eauptströmungen der modernen Linguistik: Chomsky und die generative Grammatik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gatschet, Albert Samuel (1832-1907). 1876. Zwölf Spraohen aus dem Südwesten Nordamerikas (Pueblos- und Apache-Mundarten: Tonto, Tonkawa, Digger, Utah). Wortverzeichnisse herausgegeben, erläutert und mit einer Einleitung Über Bau, Begriffsbildung und locale Gruppirung [sic] der amerikanischen Spraohen versehen. Weimar: H. Böhlau. Gerland, Georg (Karl Cornelius, 1833-1919). 1869. Intensiva und Iterativa und ihr Verhältnis zu einander: Eine sprachwissenschaftliche Untersuohung. Leipzig: F. Fleischer. Geselschap, Theodore. 1853. Essai sur l'étude des langues modernes d'après Wilhelm von Humboldt. Ghent: E. Vanderhaegen. Gipper, Helmut. 1972. Gibt es ein spraohwissensehaftliches Relativitätsprinzip? Untersuohungen zur S'apir-Whorf Hypothese. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Hansen-Love, Ole. 1972. La Révolution copernioienne du langage dans l'ouvrage de Wilhelm von Humboldt. Paris: J. Vrin. Heeschen, Volker. 1972. Die Spraohphilosophie Wilhelm von Humboldts. Inauguraldissertation ... , Abteilung für Philologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Bochum: no. pub. [Rich bib., viii-xxx.] Horne, Kibbey M(inton). 1966. Language Typology: 19th and 20th century views. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press. Humboldt, (Friedrich) Wilhelm (Christian Karl Ferdinand, Freiherr) von (1767-1835). 1826. "Ueber den Infinitiv". [A. Kuhn's!] Zeitschrift für vergleiohende Sprachforschung 2.242-51 (1853). . 1827-29. Ueber die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaues. (Published in Wilhelm von Humboldts Werke ed. by Albert Leitzmann, vol.6.111-303. Berlin: Behr, 1907 [see below].) . 1903-07. Werke. Ed. by Albert Leitzmann (1867-1950), 7 vols. "Berlin: B. Behr. (Repr., Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1967-68.) Hymes, Dell H(athaway). 1966. "Two Types of Linguistic Relativity (with ed. by Wil­ examples from Amerindian ethnography)". Sociolinguistics liam Bright, 114-67. The Hague: Mouton. Koerner, E(rnst) F(rideryk) K(onrad). 1972a. Bibliographia Saussureana, 1870-1970: An annotated, classified bibliography on the background, development and actual relevance of Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of language. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. [Consult esp. parts II and III.] . 1972b. "Towards a Historiography of Linguistics: 19th and 20th century paradigms". Anthropological Linguistics 14:7.255-80. (Rev. ed. in History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics ed. by Herman Parret, 685-718. Berlin & New York: W. de Gruyter.) . 1973. The Importance of Techmer's "Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft" in the Development of General L i n guistics. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. . 1974-75. "An Annotated Chronological Bibliography of Western

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Histories of Linguistic Thought, 1822-1972". Parts 1, II, III, and IV (Addenda). Historiographia Linguistica 1:1.81-94, 2.185-202, 3.351-84, and 2:2.207-222, respectively.' La Grasserie, Raoul (Robert Marie-Guérien) de (1839-1914). 1889-90. "De la classification des langues". (F. Techmer's) Internationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Spraehwissenschaft 4.374-87, 5.296-338. . 1890. Des Relations grammaticales ... ; ou, de la categorie des cas. Paris: J. Maisonneuve. . 1891. Etudes de la grammaire comparée: De la catégorie des modes. Louvain: J. B. Istas. . 1906. De la Catégorie du genre. Paris: E. Leroux. . 1907. De la Catégorie grammaticale de la distance ... ; ou, du démonstratif. Ibid. Lakoff, Robin. 1969. Review of Grammaire générale et raisonnée, crit. ed. by Herbert E. Brekle (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1966). Language 45:2.343-64. Lane, George S(herman). 1945. "Changes of Emphasis in Linguistics with particular Reference to Paul and Bloomfield". Studies in Philology 47. 465-83. Lee, D(orothy) Demetracopoulou. 1938. "Conceptual Implications of an In­ dian Language". Philosophy of Science 5:1.89-102. Leroy, Maurice. 1967. Main Trends in Linguistics. Transi. by Glanville Price. Oxford: B. Blackwell; Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of Califor­ nia Press. Lewy, Ernst (1881-1966). 1942. Der Bau der europäischen Sprachen. 2nd ed. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer. MacNamara, John. 19 71. "Discovering Respectable Ancestors". Contemporary Psychology 16:8.497-98. [= Review of Blumenthal 1970.] Mattoso-Câmara, Joaquim, Jr. 1970. "Edward Sapir and Wilhelm von Humboldt". Actes du Xe Congres international des Linguistes, vol.2.327-32. Bucha­ rest: Edit. de l'Acad. de la Rép. Soc. Roumaine. Millier, Friedrich (1834-98). 1867. "Der grammatische Bau der Algonkinsprachen: Ein Beitrag zur amerikanischen Linguistik". Sitzungsberichte der Oesterreichischen Akad. der Wissenschaften 56.132-54. Vienna. Millier, F(riedrich) Max(imilian, 1823-1900). 1854. "The Last Results of the Researches respecting the Non-Iranian and Non-Semitic Languages of Asia and Europe, or the Turanian Family of Language". Christianity and Mankind ed. by Christian Charles Josias Bunsen, vol.3.263-521. London: Longman, Brown, etc. Penn, Julia M(yrle). 1972. Linguistic Relativity versus Innate Ideas: The origins of the Sapir-Hypothesis in German thought. The Hague: Mouton. Percival, W(alter) Keith. 1966. "A Reconstruction of Whorf's Hypothesis". Anthropological Linguistics 8:8.1-12. [Rev. version available in mimeo, 1972.] Pott, August Friedrich (1802-87). 1847. Die quinäire und vigesimale Zählmethode bei den Völkern aller Weltteile. Nebst ausführlichen Bemerkungen über die Zahlwörter indogermanischen Stammes und einem Anhange über Fingernamen. Halle/S.: Schwetsche & Sohn. . 1849. "Die wissenschaftliche Gliederung der Sprachwissenschaft". Jahrbuch der Freien Deutschen Akademie 1:1.185-90. Frankfurt.

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Pott, August Friedrich. 1851. "Ueber die Klassifikation der Sprachen". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischert Gesellschaft 6.287-93. [= Review of Steinthal 1850.] . 1868. Die Sprachverschiedenheit in Europa an den Zahlwörtern nachgewiesen, sowie die quinäire und vigesimale Zählmethode. Halle/S.: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses. (Repr., Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1971.) . 1856. "Geschlecht, grammatisches". Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste ed. by J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber, I. Sektion, 62.Teil, 393-460. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. Ramat, Paolo. 1973. "Del problema della tipologia linguistica in Wilhelm von Humboldt e d'altro ancora". Lingua e Stile 8:1.37-59. Robins, R(obert) H(enry). 1973. "The History of Language Classification". Current Trends in Linguistics ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, vol.11.3-41. The Hague: Mouton. Rossi-Landi, Ferruccio. 1973. Ideologies of Linguistic Relativity. Ibid. Sapir, Edward (1884-1939). 1907. "Herder's 'Ursprung der Sprache'". Modern Philology 5.109-42. [= M.A. thesis in German, Columbia Univ., 1905.] . 1921. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. [References are to the Harvest paperback ed., c. 1949.] . 1929. "The Status of Linguistics as a Science". Language 5:4. 207-14. Schmidt, Pater Wilhelm (1868-1954). 1926. Die Sprachfamilien und Sprachenkreise der Erde. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Schulenburg, A(lbrecht) C(onon), Graf von der (1865-1902). 1894. Die Sprache der Zimshian-Indianer in Nordwest-America. Leipzig: W. Friedrich. . 1895. Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues: Eine Studie über.das Werk von James Byrne, "General Principles of the Structure of Language". Ibid. Slagle, Uhlan V(on). 1974. "The Kantian Influence on Humboldt's Linguis­ tic Thought". Historiographia Linguistica 1:3.341-50. Stecher, Jean (Auguste, 1820-1909). 1851. Analyse des doctrines linguistiques de Guillaume de Humboldt. Tournai: Ad. Delmée. Steinthal, Heymann (= Chajim, 1823-99). 1847. De pronomine relativo: Commentatio p h i l o s o p h i c o - p h i l o l o g i c a , cum excursu de nominativi particula. Berlin: F. Dümmler. . 1850. Die Classification der Sprachen, dargestellt als die Entwickelung der Sprachidee. Ibid. (2nd thoroughly rev. ed., 1860.) Stocking, George W., Jr. 1974. "The Boas Plan for the Study of American Indian Languages". Studies in the History of Linguistics ed. by Dell Hymes, 454-84. Bloomington & London: Indiana Univ. Press. Viertel, John. 1966. "Concepts of Language Underlying the 18th Century Controversy about the Origin of Language". Monograph Series on Languages and. Linguistics 19.109-32. . 1973. "The Concept of 'Diversity' in Humboldt's Thought". Lingua e Stile 8:1.83-105. Weimann, Karl-Heinz. 1965. "Vorstufen der Sprachphilosophie Humboldts bei Bacon und Locke". Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 84.498-508. Whitney, William Dwight (1827-94),. 1875. The Life and Growth of Language: An outline of linguistic science. New York: D. Appleton & Co.;

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London: H. S. King. (Repr., Hildesheim: G. 01ms, 1970.) Whorf, Benjamin Lee (1897-1941). 1940. "Science and Linguistics". Technological Review 42.229-31, 247-48. (Quoted from Carroll 1956.207-19.) Winkler, Heinrich (1848-1930). 1889. Weiteres- zur Sprachgeschichte: Das grammatische Geschlechts formlose Sprachen. Berlin: F. Dllmmler.

ON THE INADEQUACY OF TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS FOR HUMAN LANGUAGES* D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN City University of New York Graduate Center

Chomsky (1956; 1957, chapter 3) and Bar-Hill el and Shamir (1961) present arguments that no type-3 (equivalently, one-sided linear, regular, or finite-state) grammar can generate all and only all of the sentences of human languages, such as English. Bar-Hi 11 el and Shamir (1961) and Postal (1964) argue further that no type-2 (context-free phrase-structure) grammar can generate all and only all of the sentences of English and Mohawk, respectively. According to these arguments, the theory of type-3 grammar and the theory of type-2 grammar lack the weak generative capacity necessary for an adequate theory of human language. Critics of these classical arguments, for example Daly (1974) and Levelt (1974), focus on two points. First they claim that the argument forms are of questionable validity. Second they challenge the major premiss on which these arguments are based, namely that at least some human languages contain infinitely many grammatical sentences that are nevertheless entirely unacceptable to those that know those languages. We take up each aspect of these criticisms in turn. The invalidity (if that is what it is) of the classical arguments is easily corrected, as Levelt himself notes, by making use of the theorem that *An earlier version of this paper appeared under a slightly different title, in CUNY Forum 1.1-12, 1976. I thank C. Kaniklidis and H. Savin for helpful suggestions.

160

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN

if the intersection of a language H with a type-3 language R is a language of type-n, then H cannot be of type-m, where m is greater than n (Arbib 1969). If one takes examples like those used in the classical arguments, one finds that the results of intersecting H with R turn out to be languages of the following families.1 :

n ≧ O & u ≠

ɸ^&v≠ ɸ

(1)

Languages of the form L = {xu w v y

(2)

Languages of the form L = {xx : x e F, where F is a type-3

called n-dependency languages.

language & x is x backwards), called mirror-image languages. (3)

Languages of the form L = (xx : x e F, where F is a type-3 language}, called copying languages.

The linguistic interest of n~dependency and mirror-image languages is that they are generally of type-2, while copying languages are of interest because they are generally of type-1 (context-sensitive phrase-structure). However, not all members of these various families are of the requisite type. Consider the following examples. (4)

L a

= {ab 2m a : m > 0 } . —

Clearly, L is a type-3 language. Nevertheless, it is an n-dependency a language, since we can set x = a, u = b, w = ɸ, v = b, y = a, and n = m/2. Hence, not every n-dependency language is a type-2 language. (5) Lb - { ( a b b a ) 2 n + 1 : n > 0 } . b

—

Clearly also, L is a type-3 language. Nevertheless, it is a mirror-image language, since it is of the form {xx : x ε F }, where F. = {(abba)nab : n > 0}. Hence, not every mirror-image language is a type-2 language. (6)

L

= {anbanb : n > 0}.

L is a type-2 language; in fact, an n-dependency type-2 language. Nevertheless, it is a copying language, where x = anb. Hence, not every copying language is a type-1 language.2 Therefore, in order for the classical arguments that human languages are not of type-3 or of type-2 to go through, the languages that result upon intersection of the given human languages with the requisite type-3

161

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS

languages must not only be n-dependency, mirror-image, or copying languages, but must also be languages of these families of the appropriate type. It would be useful, therefore, to know the necessary and sufficient condi­ tions under which n-dependency and mirror-image languages are of type-2, and under which copying languages are of type-1. These conditions are set forth in the following theorem, the proof of which is given in the appendix. (7)

a.

An n-dependency language L = {xu w v y

: n > O ; u ≠ ɸ;

v ≠ ɸ} is a type-2 language, unless w ≠ ɸ and u = v. b.

A mirror-image language L = {xx : x e F} is a type-2 language, unless there is a finite string r and finitely many finite strings q and s, such that F = {qr s : n > 0; r = £ ; s = ɸ or ss = r}.

c.

A copying language L = {xx : x e F} is a type-1 language, unless there is a finite string r and finitely many finite strings q and s, such that F = {qrns ; n > O } .

The argument of Chomsky (1956, 1957) that English is not a type-3 language can now be stated as follows. Let H be English, and letR1be the type-3 language: (8) R1 = {(if)

it rains (then it pours)

: m, n > 0}.

The intersection of H with R1 is the n-dependency language L1 : (9) L1 = {(if) n it rains (them it pours) n : n > 0}.

Since L1 is an n-dependency language in which w ≠ ɸ and u ≠ v, it follows that L1 is a type-2 language and hence that English cannot be a type-3 language. Similarly, Bar-Hillel and Shamir's (1961) argument that English is not a type-3 language can be stated as follows. Again, let H be English, and let R 2 be the type-3 language: (10) R2 = { ( t h e woman, the mean)+ (watches, study) } .

3 Intersecting H with R 2 , one obtains the mirror-image language L2: (11) L2 = {xx' : x e F2 = {(the woman, the men) }; x' the corres­

ponding string with watches

for the woman and study

for the

men},

162

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN

Since L 2 is a mirror-image language in which F 2 ≠ {qrns : n > 0; r = r; s = ɸ or ss = r}, it follows that L 2 is a type-2 language and hence that English cannot be a type-3 language. Bar-Hi11el and Shamir's (1961) argument that English is not even a type-2 language can be stated as follows. Again, let H be English, and let R 3 be the type-3 language:4 (12) R3 = {(the woman, the men) and (smokes, + drink) and <smokes, drink> respectively}.

Intersecting R3 with H, one obtains the copying language L3:

5

(13) L3 = {xx' respectively : x e F3 = {(the woman, the men) and }; x ' the corresponding string with smokes for the woman and drink

for the

men}.

Since L3 is a copying language in which F 3 ≠ {qr ns : n > 0}, it follows that L 3 is a type-1 language and hence that English cannot be a type-2 language. Finally the argument of Postal (1964) that Mohawk is not a type-2 language can be stated as follows. Let H be Mohawk, and let R4 be the type-3 language: (14) R 4 = {a (e, f ) + d b c (e, f ) + d : a = the girl (in Mohawk); b = admires; c - this; d = house; e = the liking of; f = the praising of}.

The intersection of H with R4, is the copying language L4: (15) L

= {a x d b c x d : x ε F4, = {(e, f)+}}.

Since L4 is a copying language in which F4, ≠ {qrns : n > 0}, it follows that L4 is a type-1 language and hence that Mohawk cannot be a type-2 language. Thus, there is a valid argument form for the classical arguments that human languages like English and Mohawk are neither type-3 nor type-2 languages. Let us therefore now turn to the challenge to the assumption on which those arguments rest, that at least some human languages contain infinitely many grammatical sentences that are nevertheless unacceptable to

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS

163

anyone that knows any of those languages. That such an assumption is necessary to the arguments that the theories of type-3 and type-2 grammar are inadequate for human language can be seen upon examination of any of the examples used in those arguments. For example, consider the claim that English contains all of the sentences of L1 = {(if)n it rains (then it pours) n : n >0}, but none of the sentences of R1 = {(if) m it rains (then it pours) : m, n > 0}, in which m ≠ n. While, indeed, all of the latter sentences are unacceptable to those that know English, so are all but finitely many of the former sentences. In fact, only two, or at most three, of the sentences of L1, namely those for which n = 0, 1, and possibly 2, are readily accepted by those that know English. Thus, if English contains all of the sentences of L1,, then infinitely many of the grammatical sentences of English are unacceptable. The same is true for L2 L3, and L4 Clearly therefore the proponents of the classical arguments must provide justification for the claim that the infinitely many unacceptable sentences of languages like L1 through L4 are grammatical. For convenience, let us call the sentences of languages like L1 through L4 crucial sentences. Let us also call the premiss that all of the crucial sentences of at least some human languages are grammatical the crucial premiss. If only finitely many crucial sentences are grammatical, then the crucial premiss is false, the classical arguments fail, and it follows that the theory of type-3 grammar is the optimal theory of human language. If infinitely many crucial sentences are grammatical, but infinitely many others are not, then whether the classical arguments succeed depends on which crucial o

sentences are grammatical, arid which are not. Finally, if all but finitely many of the crucial sentences of a language are grammatical, then the classical arguments are successful. To simplify the following discussion, we assume that the only possible outcomes are either that all of the crucial sentences of some human languages are grammatical (i.e., that the crucial premiss is true), or that all but finitely many of them in all human languages are ungrammatical (i.e., that the crucial premiss is strictly false).

164

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN

Three lines of argument have been developed to justify the crucial premiss. First, and perhaps best known, is an argument based on considera­ tions of the simplicity of grammars. Second is an argument based on the observation that the number of acceptable crucial sentences increases, as one removes constraints on linguistic performance. Third is an argument based on the properties of the crucial sentences themselves. Let us consider each of these lines of argument in turn. The simplicity argument is due to Chomsky. He observes that in order to generate certain undisputedly grammatical sentences in certain human languages, certain rules of grammar appear to be justified. Those rules, if not modified so as to generate just the set of acceptable sentences, also generate certain unacceptable ones (and hence distinguish those unacceptable sentences from others, equally unacceptable; the former being designated grammatical and the latter ungrammatical). Since any modifica­ tion of the rules so as to limit what they generate to just the set of acceptable sentences is ad hoc in the sense that the modification would serve no other purpose than to effect this limitation, and since such a modification would also complicate the statement of the rules of grammar, it is concluded that no such modification should be made. As a case in point, consider the rules of English grammar that are required to generate the acceptable sentences of L1. Such rules achieve maximal simplicity and generality if any declarative English sentence is permitted to follow the word if and to precede the word then. But then, a grammar containing those rules also generates all of the unacceptable sentences of L1, while failing to generate any of the sentences of R1, in which m ≠ n. Since any modifica­ tion of the rules of English grammar that would serve to render ungrammatical the unacceptable sentences of L1 would have no independent motivation, and would also complicate the statement of those rules, it may be concluded that all of the sentences of L1 are grammatical, despite the unacceptabil ity of all but two or three of those sentences. The force of this illustration, with appropriate changes, extends to all of the other examples used in the classical arguments. However, the simplicity argument is easily rebutted. The fact that the 'simplest' formulation of the rules of grammar that generate the clearly acceptable sentences of a language also generate infinitely many unacceptable

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS

165

sentences can just as well be taken to mean that the rules are incorrectly formulated, and not that those unacceptable sentences are grammatical. That those rules happen to be simpler than any alternative set of rules that also generates the acceptable sentences but none of the unacceptable sentences is irrelevant, since appeal to simplicity considerations is appropriate only if there is agreement about how to interpret the relevant data, and about what theory of grammar and set of notational conventions to use. In this case, there is no such agreement, since it has yet to be decided both how to interpret the acceptability data and what theory of grammar and set of notational conventions are appropriate. Hence any appeal to simplicity considerations in defense of the crucial premiss may be dismissed as irrelevant. Consider next the argument based on the observation that the acceptability of crucial sentences increases as constraints are removed from linguistic performance. This argument is due to Miller and Chomsky (1963, p. 467), who point out that if a person is given time to reflect on the status of crucial sentences in a language, and if he is also given auxiliary unstructured computation space (for example, pencil and paper) to work out their properties, he finds more such sentences acceptable than he does under ordinary conditions of language use. Miller and Chomsky conjecture that as the availability of time and auxiliary computation space is increased without limit (i.e., as the conditions of idealized performance are approached), eventually all of the crucial sentences of any human language will become acceptable to any person who knows that language. Certainly, if Miller and Chomsky's conjecture is correct, this line of defense of the crucial premiss is successful. However, if it is incorrect, and only finitely many crucial sentences become acceptable as the conditions of idealized performance are reached, the crucial premiss is not supported. There is, unfortunately, no experimental evidence that either unequivocally supports or refutes Miller and Chomsky's conjecture. If natve subjects are given large amounts of time and unstructured auxiliary computation space to compute the grammaticality of crucial sentences, they do not generally do markedly better than they do under ordinary conditions. However this result is inconclusive, since it could be maintained that people do not know how to integrate external unstructured computation space with their internal

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN

166

computation space, and that if they did, they would be able to determine the grammaticality of crucial sentences. Hence all that we can say at the moment about the second line of argument in defense of the crucial premiss is that it is inconclusive. The third line of argument in support of the crucial premiss has not heretofore been fully presented, though traces of it can be found in Chomsky's writings. It is based on the observation that all of the crucial sentences of a human language possess all of the linguistic properties of grammatical sentences, whereas the ungrammatical sentences possess none of them (except, perhaps, by analogy, or by the conventions of metaphoric or poetic use of language). Thus, it may be argued, the unacceptable crucial sentences of a language should be distinguished from ungrammatical sentences by being generated by the grammar of that language and by having their linguistic properties assigned to them by the interpretive conventions of that grammar. The most important of these properties to be considered in an evaluation of this line of argument is that of logical form (or, semantic interpretation, in the narrow sense adopted by. Katz (1972)). Thus, consider the crucial sentences of English in L1. ', obtained from those of L1 by substitution of rains

for pours.

(16) L1 ' = {(if)

i t rains (then i t rains)

: n > 0}

From the logical form of the sentences of L1', it can be determined that if n is even, the sentences of L1' are synthetic, being true if the proposition expressed by it rains is true, and false if that proposition is false; and that if n is odd, the sentences of L1 ' are analytic, being true no matter what the truth value of the proposition expressed by it rains is. On the other hand, none of the sentences of R1 ' in which m ≠ n have logical forms in English, those sentences being ungrammatical: (17) R1' = {(if)

i t rains (then i t rains) 11 : m, n > 0}

Given that logical form is a property of English sentences by virtue of interpretive rules of the grammar of English, it follows that the grammar of English must generate all of the sentences of L1 ', and by parity of reasoning, all of the other crucial sentences of English, and none of the unacceptable sentences that lack logical forms. To refute this line of

167

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS

argument, the critic of the classical arguments would have to show either that the unacceptable crucial sentences of a language, somehow, lack logical forms, or that logical form is not one of the properties assigned by the grammar of a language to the sentences of that language. Since the first of these possible replies is patently false, and since if the second is true it raises the (I believe) unanswerable question of what the mechanisms for assigning logical forms to the sentences of a language are a part of, if they are not a part of the grammar of that language, the third line of argument in defense of the crucial premiss appears successful. If it is, then the crucial premiss is true, and the classical arguments that the theories of type-3 and type-2 grammars are inadequate for human language are indeed valid.

APPENDIX: Proof of the theorem in (7). a. If w = ɸ, and u = v, then L = {xu of type-3.

Suppose L is of type-3.

y : n > O ; u ≠ ɸ}, which is

Then by the pumping lemma for type-3

languages (Bar-Hillel, Perles, and Shamir 1961; Arbib 1969), there is a positive integer p such that for all sentences z e L of length p or greater, there are strings u', w' , v' such that z = u'w'v' = xupwvpy, and for all integers k > 0, z k = u'w'k V ' = xuqwvqy ε L.

Suppose w ≠ ɸ .

Since u, v ≠ ɸ w must be a substring of w'; i.e., that w' = rws. then, in z2 ε L, w occurs twice, contrary to assumption. Suppose u ≠ v. that w' = ruvs. sequence.

But

Hence w =

ɸ

Then the string uv must be a substring of w'; i.e., But then, in z2 ε L, the strings u, v appear out of

Hence u = v.

b. If F = {qr s : n > 0; r = r; s - ɸ or ss = r } , then L = { qrnsqrns : n> 0; r = r; s = ɸoe ss = r} = qenssrnq : n> 0; r = r; s = ɸor ss = r} = {qr

q

:

>0},

which is a type-3 language (recall

that q is any of a finite number of fixed finite strings). Suppose that L is a type-3 language.

Then by the pumping lemma for

type-3 languages, there is a positive integer p, such that for all sen­ tences z ε L of length p or greater, there are strings u, w, v, such that z = uwv = Lemma.

tt,

and for all integers k > 0, z

= uwkv = tktk ε L.

It is always possible, for all sentences z ε L of length p

168

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN Proof of lemma.

Suppose u ≠ v.

Then either (i) u =u1u2andu1=

u2v, or (ii) v = v1v2 and uv1 = v2. Consider case (i). We have: z = uwv = u1u2wv = u1u2w1u2v = u1u2w1u1. Pick new w' = u2w1, and set u1 = u' and u1 = v'.

Then z = u'w'v', where u' = v', and for all j > 0.

zj. = uwjv = U1U2(W1U2)JV = u1 u2(w1U2)j-1 w1u2v = u1 (u2wl)ju1 = u'w'jv', where u' = v'. Case (ii) is handled similarly. This completes the proof of the lemma. If u = v, then for all i > 0, z2i. = uw v = uw w v, where t2i. = uwi = w v = vw

= uw , and hence w = w.

Also, if u = v, then for all i > 0,z2i+1.=uw2i+1v = uwiw1w2wiv, where w1w2 = w, and where t2i+1 = uwiw1 = w?w1v.

Then uwiw1 =

vwiw2 = uw w2, and hence w = w and w1 = w2. Setting u = q; r = w; and s = w , the result follows for all sentences of L of length p or greater.

Since only finitely many sentences of L are shorter than

p, their first halves may all be represented by sentences of F, by means of appropriate choices of q and s. Hence the result follows for L as a whole. c. If F = {qrns : n > O } , then L = {qrnsqrns : n > 0}, which is a type-2 n-dependeney language. Suppose now that L is a type-2 language. By the pumping lemma for type-2 languages, there is a positive integer p such that for any sentence z e L of length p or greater, z = xuwvy = tt, where w is nonnull (and where neither u nor v are null, if L is not a type-3 k k language), and for all k > O , z, = xu wv y = tktk ε L. Suppose that neither u nor v are null. Then it must be the case that for all k >, 0, k k tk = xu w1 = w2v y, where w1w2 = w. Setting x = w2 = q;u = v = r; and w. = y = s, the result follows for this case. If v is null (the case where u is null is handled similarly), then it must be the case that for all k > 0, t2k = xuk = ukwy, and t2k+1 = xuku1 = u2ukwy, where u1u2 = u.

Setting x = q; u = r; and u1 =s, the result follows

for this case, and hence for all sentences of L of length p or greater. Since only a finite number of sentences of L are shorter than p, each of their first halves can also be represented by sentences of F, by appropriate choices of q and s. Hence the result follows for L as

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS

169

a whole. We note without proof that a copying language is a type-3 lan­ guage if and only if, furthermore, sq = r or sq = ɸ. NOTES 1. For notation, see Chomsky (1963) or Hopcroft and Ullman (1969). In particular, the expression (x,y,...z)

means any nonnull string

made up of any combination of the substrings x, y, ... z in any order. 2. Language L

is of interest, as Daly points out, because it is

a counterexample to Postal's claim that any language of the form L = {xx : x ε F, F an infinite type-3 language over a vocabulary of cardinality = 2 } is a type-1 language. 3. The notion of a mirror-image language is easily generalized to include languages inwhich the symbols of the second (backwards) substring correspond word-by-word to the symbols in the first (forwards) substring.

However all such languages are of type-2

if the vocabulary of the backwards string is distinct from that of the forwards string (this is a corollary to (7b)). 4. The notation <x, y> indicates a string consisting either of the string x or of the string y; angle brackets here thus stand for what curly braces ordinarily stand for in the statement of the rules of generative grammar. 5. The notion of a copying language is easily generalized to include languages in which finitely many extra words, such as respectively

in

L3, appear. 6. Rigorous arguments to the effect that type-2 grammars do not have sufficient weak generative capacity for human languages are rare. Besides the arguments of Bar-Hillel and Shamir and of Postal for Eng­ lish and Mohawk, discussed here, I know only of the argument of Huybregts (1976) for Dutch.

170

D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN

7. That is, it follows as far as weak generative capacity is con­ cerned.

Given that the sentences of a human language can be weakly

generated by a type-3 grammar, it does not follow that they can be strongly generated by such a grammar.

For example, it may be the

case that a type-3 grammar will not be able to assign all and only all of the structural descriptions of a particular sentence that it generates to that sentence.

As I have pointed out elsewhere (Lan-

gendoen 1975)), this situation arises for sentences whose structures manifest multiple right- or left-branching.

However, since in fact

the full phrase-markers for such sentences cannot be recovered by human beings under ordinary conditions of language use, it could be maintained that an optimal grammar should not assign full phrasemarkers in those cases. If this conclusion is reached, then the theory of type-3 grammar would be optimal also on grounds of strong generative capacity. 8.

For example, if in Mohawk only sentences of the language L4' of

those in L4 (and similarly for all of the other crucial sentences of Mohawk) are grammatical, then Mohawk could be generated by a type-2 grammar: (i) L4' = {axdbcxd : x e F4' = {(ef) n : n > 0}} 9. See, for an early version of that argument, Chomsky (1957, pp. 23-24). 10. We can assume that a linguist who claims that he would accept all of the crucial sentences of a language he knows under conditions of idealized performance has that impression as a result of having consciously formulated rules that generate those sentences in that language.

Hence his testimony would be irrelevant, since the con­

ditions under which he accepts those sentences would be richer than those of idealized performance. 11. As in his remark concerning the crucial sentences of English: "They can be understood, and we can even state quite simply the conditions under which they can be true." (Chomsky 1957, p. 23)

171

TYPE-3 AND TYPE-2 GRAMMARS REFERENCES Arbib, M. 1969. Theories N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

of Abstract

Automata.

Englewood Cliffs,

Bar-Hillel, Y.; M. Perles, and E. Shamir. 1961. "On Formal Proper­ ties of Simple Phrase Structure Grammars". Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 14. 143-72. and E. Shamir. 1960. "Finite State Languages: Formal Representation and Adequacy Problems". Bulletin of the Research Council of Israel 8F.155-66. Chomsky, N. 1956. "Three Models for the Description of Language". IRE Transactions on Information Theory IT-2.113-24. __

_. 1957. Syntactic

Structures,

The Hague: Mouton.

. 1963. "Formal Properties of Grammars". Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 2, ed. by R.D.Luce, R.R. Bush and E. Ga­ lanter, 323-418. New York: Wiley . Daly, R.T. 1974. Applications tics. The Hague: Mouton.

of the Mathematical

Theory of

Hopcroft, J.E. and J.D. Ullman. 1969. Formal Languages and Relations to Automata. Reading, Mass.; Addison-Wesley.

LinguisTheir

Huybregts, M.A.C. 1976. "Overlapping Dependencies in. Dutch", Working Papers in Linguistics 1.23-65. Katz, J.J. 1972. Semantic

Theory.

Utrecht

New York: Harper and Row.

Langendoen, D.T. 1975. "Finite-State Parsing of Phrase-Structure Languages and the Status of Readjustment Rules in Grammar". Linguistic Inquiry 6.533-54. Levelt, W.J.M. 1974. Formal Grammars in Linguistics and Psycholinguistics, vol. 2:.Applications in Linguistic Theory. The Hague: Mouton. Miller, G.A. and N. Chomsky. 1963. "Finitary Models of Language Users". Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 2, ed. by R.D. Luce, R.R. Bush and E. Galanter, 419-91. New York: Wiley. Postal, P.M. 1964. "Limitations of Phrase Structure Grammars". The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language, ed. by J.A. Fodor and J.J. Katz, 137-51. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH* DON L. F. NILSEN Arizona State University

Both cognates and false cognates are either the result of inheritance from mother to daughter languages, or else are the result of languages in contact during some common period of linguistic history. In the case of the English-Spanish relationship there are examples of both inherited and acquired cognates and false cognates. The Indo-European language has two daughters—Romance and Germanic; Spanish is the daughter of Romance, and English is the daughter of Germanic, so English and Spanish are therefore related to each other as cousines, having the same grandmother (Indo-European), but having different mothers (Germanic and Romance respectively). And there are many cognates and false cognates in English and Spanish which are inherited from their common grandmother (IE). And there are probably *I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Donald Hawley, Chairman of the Foreign Languages Department at the University of Northern Iowa, and to Kriss Humphrey, a member of that department. I would also like to express my appreciation for the help of Alleen Pace Nilsen, a member of the Education Department at Arizona State University, and to Roberta Furnish, a member of the Foreign Languages Department at ASU. My special appreciation goes to Paul Smith of ASU's Foreign Language Department for reading a final draft of the manuscript and making a number of important suggestions for its improvement, and to Walburga von Raff1er Engel, Director of the Program in Linguistics at Vanderbilt University, for listening to the paper and reacting critically to a number of the examples. For a more traditional treatment of this subject, please refer to the chapters on "Semantic Change" and "External Change Borrowing" in Raimo Anttila's Introduction to Comparative and Historical Linguistics (Macmillan, 1972).

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DON L.F.

NILSEN

even more that are acquired later because of the close geographical relationship between the United States and Latin American, and because of the vast amount of travel and immigration between the two countries. Since my goal is synchronic rather than diachronic, I do not intend to explore these historical considerations further—indeed I have already greatly oversimplified the historical situation. I am basically interested only in the resultant situation—1. that there is an extremely large number of English-Spanish cognates, and 2. that many of these cognates were either borrowed with different meanings, or else have acquired different meanings through their separate developments in English and Spanish. In a sense, all cognates are false cognates, for the same reason that there are no two exact synonyms in a language. Although two cognates (or two synonyms) may have the same designation, they will surely differ from each other in tone, archaicness, formality, etc. If no two synonyms in the same language have exactly the same implied meaning, then certainly two cognates from different languages could not have exactly the same implied meaning, for in addition to other considerations, they are parts of entirely different lexical networks. On the other hand, if I were to attempt to treat all cognates as false cognates, I might be embarking on a journey without end. Let me therefore exclude from consideration such pairs as student-estudiante; despite the fact that a student in the United States does not have the same experiences as does an estudiante in Latin America, these would be considered cognates rather than false cognates because they have the same designation. Let me also exclude such pairs as travail-trabajar 'work' on the same grounds even though the English word is a great deal more archaic or poetic than is the Spanish word. What I have excluded to this point are those pairs of expressions which are too semantically similar, on the grounds that they belong to a different class—Cognates. I would also like to exclude from consideration those pairs of expressions which are not semantically similar enough (although they may be phonologically the same except for the phonotactic and morphological adjustments in the two languages). Since such expressions

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

175

sometimes cause language interference in second-language learning, it may be necessary to have a name for this class, and perhaps the term 'Decep­ tive False Cognates' will do. This class would include such pairs as the following: ENGLISH carpet competence exit grocery number realize sensibility success tuna

SPANISH carpeta 'note-book' competencia 'competition1 éxito 'success' groseria 'vulgarism' nombre 'name' realizar 'to be held' sensibilidad 'sensitivity' suceso 'incident' tuna 'prickly pear'

These pairs of 'Deceptive False Cognates' have only a phonological relation­ ship to each other; it is irrelevant whether they are historically the same or not. The phonological relationship is not adequate for classing these pairs as cognates, either true or false ones. At the semantic level, the relationship between cognates and false cognates is very similar to the relationship between synonyms and antonyms. Both cognates and synonyms are words that have basically the same meanings (the difference being that cognates occur across language boundaries while synonyms do not). Anto­ nyms are like false cognates in the following way. A pair of antonyms can be considered antonyms only if their meanings are basically the same. Thus the two antonyms man and woman have the following features in common: + + + + + +

Noun Count Concrete Living Animate Human

and differ from each other only according to one feature--sex. In a similar way, English alumnus and Spanish alumno 'student' are very similar to each other. These two false cognates share the following semantic features:

176

DON L.F. NILSEN

+ + + + + + +

Noun Count Concrete Living Animate Human Student

and they differ from each other only according to the feature of time. The English alumnus carries the feature [+Past], while the Spanish alumno carries the feature [+Present]. It is not true that antonyms are pairs of words which are opposite in meaning, nor is it true that false cognates can be defined as words which appear the same in two languages but have different meanings. Certainly the antonyms man and woman have more semantic features in common than do the non-antonyms man and magazine. Similarly, the false cognates alumnus and alumno have more semantic features in common than do the deceptive false cognates tuna and tuna 'prickly pear'. With this in mind, let us turn now to the true English/Spanish false cognates. In diachronic linguistics, there are five major types of semantic change: 1. Generalization, 2. Specification1 3. Amelioration, 4. Pejoration, and 5. Specification2. Since false cognates are generally the end result of such semantic changes, it would be logical to look for these same five major types of semantic contrasts. The empirical evidence supports this hypothesis. Following is an outline of the major semantic categories of false cognates found for English-Spanish pairs: I. II. III. IV. V.

English: General; Spanish: Specific English: Specific; Spanish: General English: Bad; Spanish: Good English: Good; Spanish: Bad Specification 1. Difference of Passivity 2. Difference of Use 3. Difference of Space 4. Difference of Time 5. Difference of Importance

Because of an inadequate amount of empirical evidence, the specification2 category (Category V ) , with its five sub-categories, is not yet at all clearly defined. There is no reason to believe that the five sub-categories

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

177

listed above are the only, or even the most important sub-categories. They merely provide a means for classifying the English/Spanish cognate pairs which were obtained. Let us now consider each of the categories and sub-categories in the above outline in somewhat more detail, beginning with those false cognates which differ from each other mainly in that the English counterpart is more general than is the Spanish counterpart. Such pairs include the following: ENGLISH (GENERAL) agriculture attend boat card casserole manifestation mark note particular record security vapor verse violate

SPANISH (SPECIFIC) agricultor 'farmer' atender 'pay attention' bote 'small boat' carta 'letter' cacerola 'saucepan1 manifestación 'demonstration' marca 'trademark' nota 'grade' particular 'special' recordar 'to remember' seguridad 'safety' vapor 'steamship' verso 'line of poetry' violar 'to rape'

While all of these Spanish words are in some sense specific aspects of the more general English words, there are other feature differences as well. Agriculture is a general concept which has agricultor 'farmer' as one of its necessary parts. In order to atender 'pay attention' it is necessary to attend. Obviously a bote 'small boat' is a kind of boat, and in a sense carta'1etter' can be considered a kind of card. The English casserole refers either to the food or to the container it is cooked in, while the Spanish cacerola refers only to the container. A manifestación 'demonstration' is a particular kind of manifestation, as is marca 'trade mark' a particular kind of mark. There are many kinds of notes, and a nota 'grade' is one of them. A special meaning of English particular is Spanish particular 'private or special'; and in a sense, a person must record something in his mind-in order to recordar 'remember' it. Seguridad 'safety' is one kind of security, and English verse refers to a whole poem, while Spanish verso refers only to one line of a poem. The general concept of vapor can be more specifically manifested in vapor 'steamship', and finally

178

DON L.F. NILSEN

violar 'to rape' is just a specific kind of violation. So I hope that it has been adequately demonstrated that despite minor differences, the basic distinction between the words in the first column and those in the second is that the first ones (English) are general, while the second ones (Spanish) are specific. Let us now turn to the opposite category--where the English term is more specific than its Spanish counterpart. This situation can be seen in the following pairs: ENGLISH (SPECIFIC)

SPANISH (GENERAL)

assassinate barb baron camp canasta castigate chant cultivate dormitory douche experiment fabric figure idiom mesa molest much fathers parents pork rent reunion

asesinar 'murder' barba 'chin and beard' varón 'man' campo countryside' canasta 'basket' castigar 'punish verbally or physicall cantar 'chant or sing' cultivar 'to grow' dormitorio 'bedroom' duchar 'shower' experimentar 'to experience' fábrica 'factory' figurarse 'to imagine' idioma 'language' mesa 'table' molestar 'b other' mucho 'much or many' padres 'parents' parientes 'relatives' puerco 'animal or food' renta 'income' reunión 'meeting'

Here the English words are in some sense specific aspects of the Spanish concepts; and here again there are some feature differences other than just the specific general consideration. Asesinar refers to murder in general, while assassinate refers to that particular kind of murder where the person murdered is in some way famous. Part of a barba 'beard' is the sharp end of the hair (barbs). A varôn is a man, and a baron is a man with a particu­ lar social and/or political rank (although Spanish baron with the English sense still exists). You would usually find a camp in a campo (the country as opposed to the city). Part of the game of canasta is the basket (canasta) used for holding the cards. Castigar is verbal or physical

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AMD SPANISH

179

punishment, while castigate is only verbal punishment; similarly cantar can be musical or not, while for English chant there is definitely no singing involved. English cultivate (cutting weeds with a machine) is only one aspect of Spanish c u l t i v a r 'to grow'. The Spanish dormitorio refers to any place for sleeping, especially a bedroom, while the English dormitory is a particulr kind of building which is used for sleeping (among other things); and whereas duchar is showering in general, English to douche is "showering" of one part of the body only. Experiment is one kind of experience (experimental). One of the things manufactured in a fábrica 'factory' would be fabrics, and figuring is one kind of imagining (figurarse); idiomas 'languages' contain idioms. The Spanish mesa can refer to a table, or to a mountain, etc., shaped like a table, but the English mesa can be used only for the mountain. The Spanish expression molestar refers to any kind of bother or annoyance, but normally the English word molest refers to a sexual assault on a young child. English much can be used only with mass nouns (e.g. much water), but not with count nouns (e.g. *much men); whereas Spanish mucho can be used either with mass nouns (mucha agua) or with count nouns (e.g. muchos hombres), The next two pairs of examples are especially interesting since they illustrate the drag-chain or push-chain phenonmenon in false-cognate form­ ation. The Spanish word padres represents both fathers and mothers, and is therefore more general than English fathers. The Spanish parientes represents both close relatives (parents), and more distant relatives, and is therefore more general than English parents. But the important point here is that al­ though Spanish padres is not cognate with English parents, it nevertheless identifies the same semantic area. Since Spanish padres means the same as English parents, then Spanish cannot use the term parientes for this same semantic domain, and indeed, just as Spanish padres 'parents' is one level more general than is its English counterpart ( f a t h e r s ) , so parientes 'relatives' is one level more general than its English counterpart (parents). It is impossible for the cognate pair parents/parientes to have the same meaning, since there is already a word for parents in Spanish [padres). This is not an uncommon phenomenon in false-cognate development. Consider the following chart, in which the vertical pairs are similar

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DON L.F. NILSEN

phonetically (i.e. are false cognates) and the horizontal pairs are similar semantically (i.e. are synonyms): ENG: fathers [ SP: padres

ENG: parents SP: parientes |

ENG: relatives

|

ENG: success SP: suceso

ENG:

event

|

ENG: attend SP: atender

ENG:

pay attention

J

ENG: lecture SP: lectura

ENG:

reading

|

ENG: molest SP: molestar

ENG:

bother

|

ENG: grand SP: grande

ENG:

great

|

| ENG: exit

SP: exito i ENG: assist | SP: asistir

ENG: conference | SP: conferencia

ENG: violate SP: violar

j ENG: large j SP: largo

The next false-cognate pair--pork/puerco--îs also worth considering in some detail. The English word pork refers to the animal only when it has been killed and prepared for the table, while Spanish pueroo refers to the animal whether it is alive or prepared for serving. There seems to be a general tendency for human beings to perceive animals differently when they are running around in the wild than when they are prepared as food. Thus, in English we have the distinction between pork (food), and pig (animal); mutton (food), and sheep (animal), etc.; and in Spanish we have the distinction between polio (food), and gallina (animal); pescado (food), and pez (animal). It is therefore not at all surprizing to see the pork/puerco type of false cognate, and indeed, it may be surprizing that there are not more English-Spanish false cognates of this type. Finally, Spanish renta refers to income in general, while English rent refers to a particular kind of income; similarly, Spanish reunión refers to any kind of meeting, while English reunion refers only to a particular kind of meeting. Now let us consider pairs of false cognates where the meanings are

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

181

basically the same except that the English term is more negative in. weaning than is the Spanish term. The following are examples: ENGLISH (NEGATIVE)

SPANISH (POSITIVE)

scribble disgrace regress saloon

escribir 'to write' disgracia 'misfortune' regresar 'return' salon 'hall'

English scribble refers to that type of writing [escribir) which is bad, unreadable, un-useful,...negative. Although there is something unfortunate about disgracia there is no blame implied, nor is there an implication that the person who has disgracia will be looked down on by members of his/her community. Both regress and regresar mean to r e t u r n , but the English im­ plies that this return is to a more primitive and/or a less desirable state. And no one would question that a Spanish salon is more elegant than an American saloon. On the other side of the coin, there are those words which are more positive in English than in Spanish. Consider the following examples: ENGLISH (POSITIVE)

SPANISH (NEGATIVE)

brave pass (exam)

bravo 'fierce' pasar un examen 'take' (rare in this sense)

I can think of no negative connotations associated with the English word brave, but the Spanish word bravo extends the concept of bravery all the way to the point of rudeness, ferocity, or wildness. When an English speaker passes an examination, he has done something positive (made an acceptable grade), but the Spanish speaker has only taken an examination when he uses pasar.

Now let us turn to some of the more minor categories. The activepassive distinction can be seen in such expressions as the following: ENGLISH (ACTIVE)

SPANISH (PASSIVE)

ignore

ignorar 'not to know'

DON L.F, NILSEN

182

It takes absolutely no action to ignorar 'not know' something, but it takes a very conscious and purposeful action to ignore someone or something. Sometimes the controlling feature of false cognates is used. Consider the following pairs: ENGLISH (USE)

SPANISH (USE)

cup diary library

copa 'wine glass' diario 'daily newspaper' libreria 'book store'

A cup and a copa are both used as containers of liquid, and are both used to drink from; they differ basically in shape, size, and the particular liquid contained (coffee or tea in the case of the cup, and wine in the case of the copa). The diary and diario are both paper objects on which daily messages are written; they differ basically in that diary has a private use, while diario has a public use. Both library and libraria are places where books are stored and circulated; what differs is the method of circulation, the length of time books are kept, and perhaps the size. Space or location is also a consideration. Consider the following: ENGLISH (LOCATION)

SPANISH (LOCATION)

collar large

collar 'necklace' largo 'long'

Although there is a basic similarity between the shape of an English collar and a Spanish collar 'necklace', I think that it is not so much the shape as the location which is the most significant common feature for these two words. The thing that large and largo 'long' have in common is that they are both measurements of space. They differ in that large is a measurement of all dimensions, while largo is just a measurement of one dimensionlength. Time is another significant concept in false-cognate classification. Sometimes false cognates might be distinguished from each other in that although they both indicate the same concept, one is in time, the other in space. Consider, for example, the following pair:

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

ENGLISH (TIME)

SPANISH (SPACE)

immediate

inmediato 'adjoining'

183

Both of these words indicate a closeness; however, immediate usually indicates a closeness in time, while inmediato indicates a closeness in space. Or time can be contrasted with importance . Consider the following pair: ENGLISH (IMPORTANCE)

SPANISH (TIME)

principle

principio 'beginning'

Both of these words indicate first, or prime. Principle, however, refers to first in importance, while principio refers to first in time. Similar to this is the contrast between time and reality. Consider the following; ENGLISH (REALITY)

SPANISH (TIME)

actual

actual 'now'

Both of these words indicate a certain immediacy. English actual specifies this immediacy in terms of truth or reality, whereas Spanish actual does it in terms of time. Now consider two more false-cognate pairs which can be classified according to time: ENGLISH (TIME)

SPANISH (TIME)

alumnus

alumno 'student'

corpse

cuerpo 'body'

Both alumnus and alumno refer to students. However, whereas alumnus is a past-time student, alumno is a present-time student. Cuerpo and corpse are both animal bodies, but the Spanish term is more present in time than is the English term. A particularly confusing class of false cognates is the one where there is not only a difference of meaning, but also a difference of part of speech, such as the following:

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DON L.F. NILSEN

ENGLISH (PART OF SPEECH)

SPANISH (PART OF SPEECH)

combustible (Adjective) fault (Adjective) gracious (Adjective) have (Verb or Auxiliary) joint (Adjective) no (Interjection) ornament (Noun) pinto (Animate Noun)

combustible 'fuel' (Noun) faltar 'to lack' (Verb) gracias 'thanks' (Noun) haber (Auxiliary Verb) junta 'council' (Noun) no 'not' (Adverb) ornamentar 'to adorn' (Verb) pinta 'spot' (Inanimate Noun)

In addition to their part-of-speech difference, English combustible is more general than Spanish combustible 'fuel'; fault is more negative than f a l t e r 'to lack'; English pinto refers to a horse while Spanish pinta refers to one part of a horse 'spot'; and English smoking is more general and is more of an action than Spanish smoking 'dinner jacket'. Otherwise it is basically the part-of-speech difference which accounts for the different effects of these word pairs. In conclusion, let me disagree with the language teacher or language researcher who says that cognates are the easiest, and false cognates the most difficult word pairs to teach in a foreign language. I feel that if the materials are prepared in a way to show that false cognate pairs are extreme­ ly similar to one another—typically differing only in one or two semantic features—this will result in false cognates being second only to cognates in ease of teaching. A great deal more work still needs to be done in the classification of false cognates» The lists of examples in all of the categories I have mentioned need to be extended. New categories need to be added. Words which are cognates in one sense and false cognates in another, like the following: ENGLISH (ONE SENSE)

SPANISH (TWO SENSES)

administration

adrainistración 'administration 1 or 'administration building' cargo 'cargo' or 'charge' conferencia 'lecture1 or 'conference' direccion 'direction1 or 'address' embarazada 'embarrassed' or 'pregnant' forzar 'to force' or 'rape' papel 'paper' or 'role' periódico 'periodical' or 'newspaper' históVia 'history' or 'story' rata 'rat'; ratón 'mouse' rubio 'red' or 'blond'

cargo conference direction embarrassed force paper periodical history rat ruby

FALSE COGNATES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

seminary station suffer time tremendous

185

seminario 'seminary' or 'weekly newspaper' estación 'station1 or 'season' sufrir 'suffer' or 'have an exam' tiempo 'time' or 'weather' tremenda 'great' or 'horrible'

will have to be investigated in more detail. But whether for theoretical or for pedagogical purposes the important fact is that false cognates are semantically constrained and therefore form semantic sets. With this in mind, we need to label such pairs as grocery/groceria 'vulgarity' as nonfalse cognates because they are not semantically constrained; and for those pairs which are indeed genuine false cognates, we need to do a great deal of additional research into the nature and variability of the semantic con­ straints which are in operation.

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR ARTHUR L. PALACAS The University of Akron

1. Introduction. Linguists take scientific delight in factually arguable abstract ideas about language. This festchrift honors a historical linguist who is no exception; his contributions to ongoing empirical debate in his field are impressive and mature. In the spirit of empirical debate, I will be examining the relevance of certain facts about specificness in nouns to the current issue of the relationship of syntax and semantics. I will be offering a critique of recent investigation of specif­ icness as represented especially in Jackendoff's chapter, "Modal Structure" (henceforth MS) in his Semantic I n t e r p r e t a t i o n , perhaps the most detailed work on the subject to date. The main product of the paper is a definition of specificness that distinguishes it from questions of the existence or nonexistence of referents. The basic data is familiar. In(1)2the 2. Jackendoff's analysis. (1)

I want to catch a fish.

indefinite NP a fish is ambiguous between two paraphrases, some -par­ ticular fish and any f i s h . The former is the specific reading, the latter nonspecific. Not noted explicitly in MS, the term specific is given two dif­ ferent interpretations. First, a specific NP is one whose referent can

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be pointed to or identified; this usage is illustrated on p. 286: "In the specific reading of John wants to catch a fish,

the fish is identi­

fiable even if John never succeeds in catching it." Second, a specific NP is one for which the speaker or other person in the sentence has or should have a referent in mind; this usage is illustrated on p. 280, where the readings of the sentence Fred wants a man to ask him for a cigar

are discussed:

one to ask, will

" . . . in the second [reading] Fred wants some­

you give me that

cigar?

where the person asking has a

particular cigar in mind but Fred does not know which one it will be." Thus, in (1), if a fish

is specific, it is a fish that can be identi­

fied or pointed to, or, alternatively, a fish the speaker has in mind. As I will show later, these two renderings of the term specific

are not

always consistent with each other, leading to some problems in inter­ preting the data. The specific, nonspecific ambiguity is induced only in certain syntactically definable environments—modal contexts--governed by lexical items containing modal operators such as FUTURE, POSSIBLE, UNREALIZED, MULTIPLE, NEGATIVE.

An indefinite NP is ambiguous when

in the scope of a modal operator, or, more precisely, in the scope of an item containing an operator.

Thus, want contains the modal oper­

ator UNREALIZED, whose scope is defined as the object of the verb, in this case.

Since a fish

in (1) is in the scope of want, it is there­

fore ambiguous in specificness. Formally, the ambiguity is accounted for in semantic structure by assuming that modal verbs3 contain a modal structure of the form, VERB(

), (2)

to accept the output of the Modal Projection Rule, (2), Modal Projection Rule (MPR): Given a lexical item A whose semantic representation contains a modal operator M, if a NP is within the scope of A, it is optionally (with degree of preference dM) dependent on M in the modal structure, that is, subject to CM. If a NP is outside of the scope of M, it is not dependent on M. (MS, p. 293)

which interprets the specificness of indefinite NP's. The rule places an indefinite NP either inside or outside the modal structures of the

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

189

appropriate verbs in a sentence. The inside, or dependent, reading corresponds to nonspecificness, and the outside, or independent, reading corresponds to specificness. The fact that there are only two possible NP positions per verb corresponds exactly to the number of specificness readings a NP can get in a sentence like (1). The intuitive significance of the term dependent is that when an indefinite NP is dependent on a modal operator, its reference value is determined by the modal condition, CM associated with the operator. The NP is claimed to have a future referent, a possible referent, an unrealized referent, or whatever, according to the qualifications imposed by the C M involved. The reference value of a NP that is inde­ pendent of some modal operator is not affected by the C M associated with that operator. An indefinite NP that is totally independent of any modal verb will have an identifiable referent unqualifiedly. 3. The Predictive Power of the MPR. Perhaps the most important char­ acteristic of the MPR is its predictive power. Before Jackendoff's work it was sometimes assumed that the binary distinction + or specific, or some comparable binary function, was sufficient to char­ acterize specificness ambiguities. The MPR, however, is not a binary solution; it predicts an increasing number of readings with the number of modal verbs in a sentence. An indefinite NP can be within the scope of any number of modal verbs and so should be ambiguous with respect to each of them. The prediction seems to be borne out. Sentence (1) has the two readings already discussed. Sentence (3) is multiply ambiguous, with at least the three readings in (4). (3)

I want Mary to ask me for a cigar.

(4)

a. b. c.

I want I want of her I have to ask

Mary to ask me for a cigar, any cigar. Mary to ask me for a particular cigar choice. a particular cigar in mind I want Mary me for.

(4b) is an instance of a reading in which an indefinite NP, a cigar, is independent of one verb {ask for) but still dependent on another (want). Since it is not independent of both verbs its referent

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ARTHUR L. PALACAS

is not claimed to be unqualifiedly identifiable; rather, since the speaker intends

the referent to be identifiable by Mary under the

conditions governed by the modal verb want,

we will say that the

referent is modally identifiable, or modally

specific.

It should be noted, however, as indeed it is in MS, that only these three readings exist, not the four predicted by the MPR. The fourth logical possibility, where a cigar but dependent on ask for

would be independent of want

is apparently nonsensical.

How can Mary both

ask me for some particular cigar I want her to ask me for, for example that

green Havana, and simultaneously ask me for just any old cigar?

The conclusion appropriately drawn in MS is that the MPR is indeed borne out in that it predicts a sufficient number of readings, but that it must be limited by some formula to prevent an excessive number of readings. Another example will show that the number of readings increases again, as expected, when an indefinite NP is within the scope of yet another modal verb.

In (5), where a cigar

is in the scope of the

three modal verbs hope, want, and ask f o r , the four relevant readings listed in (6) exist, as far as I can determine.

However, it becomes

increasingly clear that a limiting principle will have a rather (5)

I hope Albert wants Mary to ask him for a cigar.

(6)

a. b. c. d.

I hope Albert wants Mary to ask him for a cigar, but not for a particular one. I hope Albert wants Mary to ask him for some particular cigar, whichever one she chooses. I hope Albert has some particular cigar in mind he wants Mary to ask him for. I have a particular cigar in mind and I hope Albert wants mary to ask him for it.

extensive job to do since given three modal verbs, eight readings are expected on the basis of the MPR's predictions. This raises the general question about the data not raised in MS: how many interpretations can an indefinite NP get in any sentence? Asked differently, to what extent must the MPR be constrained?

It

seems that, contrary to the prediction of the MPR, the increase in the number of readings does not rise exponentially relative to the number

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

191

of modal verbs in whose scope an indefinite NP lies. The increase appears to be linear. If we can assume that the few examples dis­ cussed are representative, they indicate that there is, at most, only one more reading than the number of modal verbs in a sentence. The contrast of my finding with the prediction of the MPR is summarized in (7). (7)

a. b.

The MPR predicts 2 readings for an indefinite NP in the scope of n modal verbs. There appear actually to be only n + 1 readings»

The reason for this discrepancy is that there is no case where a NP is dependent on a lower verb while being independent of a higher verb when it is in the scope of both. If this observation is correct, it points up a general flaw of overprediction in the MPR. 4.

The Proposed

Remedy for

Overprediction

in MS.

A remedy is

proposed in MS that can be used to appropriately limit the output of the MPR; but the remedy is of questionable explanatory value. The remedy follows as a consequence of an extension of the MPR to inter­ pret not only the referential character of indefinite NP's but also the modality of whole clauses. By this extension, a whole clause may be dependent on or independent of a modal operator in whose scope it lies. Under the extension, a modally dependent clause is one that is modally understood; that is, one that represents not a factual state or event but an unrealized state or event, a future one, one that is possibly true, or whatever, according to the qualification of the truth of the complement imposed by the modal operator involved. There is no implication or presupposition of the truth of a modally under­ stood clause. For example, since the clausal complement in It is possible that John has a bicycle is dependent on the modal operator POSSIBLE, contained in the lexical item possible, the speaker is claiming not that John has a bicycle but that he only possibly has one. Also, in I want to eatch a fish the speaker is not claiming to have caught or to be catching a fish but that his catching a fish is unrealized (UNREALIZED being the modal operator in want).

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A modal-independent clause represents a factual state or event. Presumably, a clause under a modal should ambiguously represent a factual state or event or a modally understood one. It is suggested in MS however, that in the case of some modal s such as want and pos­ sible there are no independent readings. Thus, since want and possible violate the general expectation of the MPR that there be two readings for modal governed clauses, MS implicitly concludes (section 7.5) that these items must be marked so that clauses in their scope are obliga­ torily rather than optionally dependent on them. This marking solves the problem of the restricted number of readings for clauses under such modal items as want and possible. Also solved is the problem of why an NP like a cigar in sentences like (3), repeated here as (8), has only three readings and not the expected four. This will now follow as an automatic consequence of the modal structure formalism proposed in MS and the marking conven­ tion. The four logically possible renderings of (8) are shown in (9), where main verbs of clauses represent whole clauses. But (9d) is (8) I want Mary to ask me for a cigar. (9) a. want (ask for (a cigar)). Cigar is dependent on both want and ask for. Ask for is dependent on want. b. want (a cigar, ask for ( )). Cigar is dependent on want but independent of ask for. Ask for is dependent on want. c. a cigar, want (ask for ( )). Cigar is independent of both want and ask for. Ask for is dependent on want. d. * a cigar, ask for ( ) , want ( ). Cigar is independent of both verbs. Ask for is independent of want.

excluded because it violates the requirement that clauses in the scope of the marked verb want are obligatorily dependent on it. However, although this marking device for limiting the power of the MPR works, it makes the inherent claim, falsely it seems to me, that it is normal for clauses to be ambiguously dependent or not on modal operators. In fact, no modal verbs come to mind whose sentential complements can be taken to be factual. In all cases, modal verbs of

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the sort listed in MS—such as want, ask for,

look for,

hope

for,

attempt, intend, and other items such as possible, negation, and the modal auxiliaries—are nonfactual in character. Contrary to the implicit claim of the marking convention, the sentential complement of a modal verb seems always to be dependent on the modal, and therefore nonfactual, never factual. If this is correct, then in the MS framework all modal verbs would have to be marked for the special property that clausal complements in their scope are obligatorily dependent on them, an obviously ad hoc measure. As things stand, the MPR and the marking process may adequately describe the facts, but the MPR is inherently too powerful and the marking convention makes an inherently false claim. The arbitrariness of this method can probably be handled within the MS framework by the adoption of a general redundancy rule that applies to all modals and would specify that as a group all modals require dependency of clausal complements. This move is appealing but still leaves open questions about the explanatory value of the redun­ dancy rule itself. In the next section I will discuss how a genera­ tive semantic description solves the problem in a natural way. Then I will return to the problem of the underprediction of the MPR. 5. On solving

the overprediction

problem.

The basic observation

needing explanation is that there is only one more reading for an indefinite NP than the number of modal verbs whose scope it lies in. This number of readings relates to the fact that there is only one totally nonspecific reading for any indefinite NP, the reading where it is dependent on all the modal verbs whose scope it lies in, and that there are as many specific (including modally specific) readings as there are modal verbs. The number of specific readings derives from the relative character of specificness; an indefinite NP may be consecutively independent of one modal verb at a time starting with the lowest one whose scope it lies in. Only in the case where the NP is independent of all the modal verbs in a sentence is the NP fully specific, implying that in this case a referent for the NP exists, without qualification, and can be pointed to or identified.

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There is a natural way of accounting for these facts involving two distinct parts. The first comes from the intuition, shared by Jackendoff and all other current investigators, that whether an NP is specific or not is correlated with whether the NP (or some related material) is inside or outside the scope of a modal verb in semantic structure. Jackendoff's terminology of dependence on and independence from is particularly apt for this semantic situation. In a generative semantic account, the above intuition would be formalized by having an NP originate outside the clause containing it in surface structure for the specific reading, or inside the clause for the nonspecific reading. The notions of dependence and independ­ ence gain some added significance in this version of the difference between specific and nonspecific. A specific NP, originating outside the sentential complement of a modal verb, will not be affected by, or will be independent of, the selectional relations governing the content of the complement. The content of a nonspecific NP, on the other hand, will be affected by the selectional requirements of the modal verb since the NP originates inside the complement clause; the content of the NP in this case is dependent on the nature of the selectional relations governing the clause. The fact that a modal verb causes a nonfactual reading of its complement should be suffi­ cient to account for the fact that an indefinite NP originating in the complement is also nonspecific, or nonfactual. (I will use the term factual NP to mean a NP that carries an implication or presup­ NP will position of the existence of a referent for the NP; nonfactual mean an NP that does not carry such an implication.) The second aspect of the generative semantic account involves the relation between the phrase structure of a sentence and the number of readings of an indefinite NP. There is a one to one relationship between the maximum number of readings and the number of inside or outside positions that a NP can fill in a tree. A NP can be inside or outside the scope of a modal verb by being inside or outside the complement of the verb. When it is outside the complement, it can still be inside the complement of the next higher verb.

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SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

There are only n + 1 such positions in a tree, for n number of verbs as shown in the sample schema in (10). A sequence of modal (10)

Vn

vn-1

...

V3

V2

V1.

verbs is given (each V represents a modal verb), to be though of as one subordinate to the other, the leftmost being the highest verb and the rightmost the lowest. The slot to the right of any verb represents membership in the complement of the verb, and the position to the left represents nonmembership in the complement. A given NP can occupy any one of these slots. It will be dependent on the verb to its left and independent of the verb to its right. Only a NP in the bottommost po­ sition is independent of no verb; this represents a fully nonspecific reading. Only a NP in the topmost position is dependent on no verb; this represents a fully specific reading. A NP in any other position will be dependent on one verb while being independent of another. The position below V1 represents the surface (or near surface) position of the NP. There is no doubt that an interpretive model could be developed that uses a form like that in (10) to solve the basic problem of overprediction by the MPR. But the point is that this extra structure would be unnecessary in addition to the syntactic structure. It is identical with the syntactic structure with respect to the relation of the verbs to each other and the positions a NP can possibly fill. The relationship of subordination between the verbs would be the same in either model, namely that given by the syntax. (A generative semantic solution in line with the framework just discussed is found in McCawley's "Syntactic and Logical Arguments.") 6. Problem of the Underprediction of the MPR. Having offered a di­ rection for solving the overprediction problem of the MPR, we can turn to the complementary problem of the underprediction of the rule. This particular problem arises from an oversight in the data. In MS a totally independent NP has an identifiable referent. It carries with it a presupposition or implication of the existence of a referent. If this existence claim were all there was to the notion,

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specificness would be binary, a NP would carry a presupposition or im­ plication of a referent, or it would not. However, as shown in MS, this binary distinction is not sufficient due to the presence of par­ tially independent, or modally specific, NP's. Thus, a NP may carry a claim of the unqualified identifiability of a referent (fully speci­ fic), a claim of modal identifiability (modally specific), or no claim of identifiability (nonspecific). There is another description of specificness in MS that adds to the notion of identifiability and appears to clarify it. Identifia­ bility is related to the notions of having in mind or knowing. For example, on p.280 in MS in the sentence given here as (11), the inter(11)

Fred wants a man to ask him for a cigar.

mediary reading of a cigar, where it is independent of ask for and de­ pendent on want, is described as follows: "Fred wants someone to ask, Will you give me that cigar? where THE PERSON ASKING HAS A PARTICULAR CIGAR IN MIND BUT FRED DOES NOT KNOW WHICH ONE IT WILL BE" (emphasis added). This description is at variance with the description of the fully specific reading of the same NP, which is described as follows: "THERE IS A PARTICULAR CIGAR that Fred wants someone (specific or nonspecific) to ask him for" (emphasis added). Here, the identification is not re­ lated to someone in the sentence's having the referent in mind or knowing what the referent is. This is problematic. The explication of modally identifiable intermediary readings relates the claim of identifiability to some person's potentially having the referent in mind, and on the other hand, the explication of the fully specific reading is given in terms of a claim of existence for a referent. These are different notions and, when not distinguished, obscure the data. Notice that the term identifiable is passive in structure suggest­ ing that we should ask who the agent of identifying is in each case. As long as this question is not asked, it will go unnoticed in (11) that even though there is some cigar that Fred wants to be asked for, the referent is not necessarily fully identifiable. Even if someone

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

197

asks Fred for the cigar Fred wants to be asked for and Fred gives it to him, there is still no guarantee that the cigar will be identifi­ able to the speaker of the sentence, the one who is making the claims of identifiability. The cigar may be identifiable to Fred but not to the speaker. The situation can be clarified by looking at pairs of simpler sentences, like (12) and (14), that differ only in that one has a 5 first person subject and the other has a nonfirst person subject. Each example is followed by the different paraphrases it has on the basis of the ambiguity of the indefinite NP in them. (12) I am looking for a book. (13) a. b.

I am looking for a book, any book. I am looking for a certain book.

(14) John is looking for a book. (15) a. b.

John is looking for a. book, any book. John has a certain book in mind and is looking for it. (Here, the speaker does not claim to know which book it is that John is looking for.) c. I have a certain book in mind that I know John is looking for.

In two readings of (14)--namely (15b and c)--a referent is claimed to be identifiable, in the sense of its existence being implied. But it is also clear that the speaker may or may not know which book John is looking for, even though the speaker knows that John is looking for a particular book. The reading in (15b) is il­ lustrated in the following dialogue between Speaker, Hearer, and John: (16) Speaker: Hey, John, what's puzzling you? John: I'm looking for a book and can't find it (*one) , Hearer: Speaker, what's puzzling John? Speaker to Bearer: He's looking for a book but can't find it (*one). Hearer to Speaker: Which book is he looking for? Speaker: I don't know.

It will generally be the case that indefinite NP's in sentences with nonfirst person subjects will have n + 2 readings, one more than expected by the number of modal verbs in the sentence. As things stand, there is no way to account for the extra reading. For, the MPR,

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appropriately modified to account for the facts of overprediction in the previous sections, gives a maximum of n + 1 readings for a NP in a sentence with n modals.

The sentence with nonfirst person subject

would need another modal verb in it to motivate the extra reading.

7. Performative solution for the third person data.

There is a sim­

ple solution to the problem, though it would seem to violate the framework the MPR was developed in. Having another verb, V, above look for

in the last example would solve the problem.

The readings

for (14) would then be accounted for in just the way earlier examples were, such as ( 8 ) , which had two modal verbs and a first person subject.

An obvious candidate for V is a performative verb of assertion

with first person subject.

The first person subject of the performa-

tive is just what is needed since, otherwise, additional readings would still be expected.

It is only in sentences such as (1), (3),

(5), and (12) with actual first person subjects that no additional reading is found. The syntactic character of the higher verb can be argued for even in the MS framework based on the requirements of the MPR. The MPR is a semantic interpretation rule that reads syntactic structures. The definitions of scope, mentioned in the MPR and discussed below in sec­ tion 8, are all given in terms of the syntactic notions of dominance and node labeling.

In order to keep the MPR and the definitions of

scope consistent, the performative verb will have to be viewed as part of the syntactic structure to be interpreted.

But, whether the struc­

ture containing the performative is called syntactic or semantic, it is clear that, if the generality of the observations relating number of verbs and number of readings of an indefinite NP is to be preserved, the structure must be syntactic in character. To conclude this section, an apparent problem with this solution itself has to be cleared up. By the logic of the MPR, the performa­ tive verb would have to be modal in order to get an ambiguous reading in its scope.

When a NP is dependent on the performative, the reading

would have to be (relatively) nonspecific and therefore nonfactual. In actuality, an indefinite NP dependent on a performative is factual

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

199

and therefore, in the MS sense of being identifiable, fully specific. This correctly implies that the performative is not modal. Indeed, an indefinite NP in a simple affirmative sentence with no observable modal always carries an implication of existence. For example, a dog in (17) and (18) necessarily implies that there is a dog, whereas in (19) this does not follow. (17) I see a dog. (18) A dog is barking. (19) I want a dog.

However, this is only an apparent problem. For Karttunen shows in "What do referential indices refer to?" that, by the having in mind criterion of specificness, an indefinite NP can be ambiguously speci­ fic or not in factual contexts as well as modal ones. Therefore, car­ rying a presupposition of existence is not the defining characteristic of a fully specific NP. In spite of the fact that an indefinite NP in a factual context carries an implication of existence (NP = nongeneric, understood), it can be specific or not. Thus, in Karttunen's example, "I talked with a logician," a logician was shown to mean either that the kind of person spoken with was a logician, or that the speaker talked with a certain person he now has in mind and that person was a logician. In the second meaning the speaker is actually making refer­ ence in his mind to the person he talked with, although no morphologi­ cal correlate to this reference shows up syntactically. Thus the sen­ tence becomes ambiguous, a point overlooked in MS. The basic differ­ ence between indefinite NP's in factual and modal contexts is not that they are ambiguous in terms of specificness in the one and unambiguous in the other, but that in factual contexts they unambiguously carry a presupposition or implication of existence, whereas, in modal contexts they only ambiguously do. This does not lead us to conclude, however, that MS is actually concerned with presupposition or implication of existence — these are binary notions. It is important to recall that none of the modally, or relatively, specific readings in a sentence with several modals

200

ARTHUR L. PALACAS

carries an implication of existence. They are distinguished by being modally in someone's mind, that is, by the speaker's intending that the NP's referent be in someone's mind under conditions related to the modal. Jackendoff's model and others' confuse specificness and exis­ tence claims; I am trying to show they are distinct. 8. Factive and Scope. Before leaving the MPR to discuss more pre­ cisely the general relationship between specificness, presupposition, and referentiality, it will be useful to parenthetically mention one more problem with the MS model, namely the failure of the definitions of scope. This will further clarify the nature of a modal context. In MS it is correctly assumed that all indefinite NP's in factual contexts carry an implication of the existence of a referent (and are in that sense specific). It is further assumed that this observation can be accounted for by a simple elsewhere statement in the MPR. Ac­ cording to the MPR, any indefinite NP outside the scope of all modals is fully specific. It is inside the scope of a modal that a NP is optionally specific or nonspecific with respect to the verb. However, this latter claim is incorrect with respect to the distribution of specific NP's in factive contexts. Any modal context can be interrup­ ted by a factive one, as any factive or other factual context can be interrupted by a modal one. There are three scope types described in MS on p.292 and given here in (20). (20)

a.

Scope Type I: The scope of a modal operator contained in a modal verb is the content of one of the NP's strictly subcategorized by the modal in Deep Structure (that is, one of the NP's immediately dominated by the same Deep Structure VP that dominates the modal verb).

b.

Scope Type II: The scope of a modal operator contained in lexical items of this class is everything commanded by the lexical item in question. (This class includes modal auxiliaries.)

c.

Scope Type III: The scope of modal operators in deter­ miners (including quantifiers) and not consists of everything commanded by and to the right of the item in question.

Each of these definitions fails as shown by examples like those in (21):

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

(21)

a. b. c.

201

Scope Type I: I want Fred to know that Mary caught a fish. Scope Type II: Mary may realize that she caught a fish. Scope Type III: It isn't odd at all that Mary caught a fish.

In each case Mary's catching a fish is a truth presupposed by the speaker. Also, the existence of a fish is presupposed. Thus, in Jackendoff's terms a fish would be specific. But, since the NP is in the scope of a modal item in each of the sample sentences, this con­ tradicts the claim that these NP's should have the possibility of a nonspecific reading. Factive and modal contexts can interrupt each other, reminiscent of Morgan's notion of "world creation" in a sen­ tence. A definition of specificness sugges­ 9. Specificness and reference. ted by the discussion is roughly captured in the following statement: specificness is the communication that a unique individual is of in­ terest, whether actual or potential. This property has been shown to hold for indefinite NP's in both modal and nonmodal contexts. Fur­ ther, it has been shown to be different from a claim of existence; this is particularly evident where a factual NP such as a logician has two readings, one specific and one not, both implying the existence of an individual. In this section specificness will be distinguished from the referring property of nouns. Also, the suggestion will be briefly explored that the specific, nonspecific ambiguity extends to definite NP's. Specificness is a necessary aspect of a referring NP, in the deictic sense of referring, but not a sufficient one. This is clear; there are many specific NP's that do not refer. A NP is a referring expression when the speaker is using the NP to communicate that he has a particular unique individual in mind; in a sense, he is pointing to the fact that he has such an individual in mind, without actually re­ vealing the identity of the individual. Thus, an indefinite NP used as a referring expression will be factual, and not simply specific but speaker specific. For example, in (14) repeated here as (22), a book has two factual readings and each is specific, as in (15b and c ) .

ARTHUR L. PALACAS

202

(22) John is looking for a book,

In the one case, the book is specific relative to John, and in the other to the speaker. In the latter, speaker specific case, the NP is a referring expression. The speaker is pointing to the fact that there is some individual that is of interest to him. The same goes for the specific sense of a logician in the Karttunen sentence and of a cigar in examples like the (4a) reading of (3). Speaker specific NP's are referring expressions; nonspecific NP's, modally specific NP's, and specific but not speaker specific NP's are all nonreferring. When, in the case of a factual indefinite NP like a logician, a NP has only one specific reading, a speaker specific one, the specific, nonspecific ambiguity in the NP exactly parallels the referring and nonreferring uses of the NP, The same specific, nonspecific distinc­ tion is apparently manifested in definite NP's. Donnellan, in his "Reference and Definite Descriptions," notes that the subject of the sentence given here in (23) is ambiguous. The speaker may be using (23) Smith's murderer is insane. the d e f i n i t e expression Smith ''s murderer (equivalent to the man who murdered Smith, in which the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e shows up) to actually refer to someone he has in mind, using the expression l i k e a proper noun; t h i s is the referential

use of the d e f i n i t e expression.

Or, the

speaker may only be using the expression a t t r i b u t i v e l y , not to refer but simply to describe; in t h i s , the attributive

use, the example ex-

pression would have the meaning, 1 assume, whoever murdered Smith. This d i s t i n c t i o n closely p a r a l l e l s the r e f e r r i n g and nonreferring uses of factual i n d e f i n i t e NP's.

I t would appear in f a c t , from my d e f i n i -

t i o n of specificness, that what d i f f e r e n t i a t e s Donnellan's r e f e r e n t i a l and a t t r i b u t i v e expressions is exactly that the r e f e r e n t i a l ones are s p e c i f i c and the a t t r i b u t i v e ones are not.

(Partee draws t h i s same

conclusion. ) Specificness is thus d i s t i n c t from claims of existence, r e f e r r i n g , definiteness, and indefiniteness.

I t is a separate assertion by the

speaker—an imparting of a new piece of information—that a certain

203

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

individuals either actual or potentials is in focus. A particularly interesting property of definite NP's in their referring usage, uncovered by Donnellan, is that the referring act is truth functionally independent of the descriptive content of the NP. The speaker may be wrong in his description of the referent, but he will still be referring to an individual he has in mind.

Whether the

hearer understands who is referred to in such a case will depend on how good he is at guessing who is meant by the faulty description.

This

observation of the distinction of the referring and descriptive functions of definite MP's implies that the referring function will be represented in semantic structure as an asserted proposition separate from the propositional content of the rest of the sentence.

In Donnellan's

example not only is the speaker asserting that someone is insane but he is also asserting that he has a certain person in mind who is the object of the former assertion, That specificness is associated with an assertion and nul a pre­ supposition depends, of course, on the definitions of these terms. I adopt Jackendoff's

usages.9

The information in any sentence is divided

into two parts, the presupposition and the assertion (old and new in­ formations roughly).

The presupposition is information the speaker as­

sumes the hearer shares with him; assertion is the new information im­ parted by the speaker.

Under this interpretation specificness is

certainly the result of an assertion.

The speaker is imparting the new

information that a particular individual is of interest (whose identity is not necessarily also revealed). The assertional character of specific NP's is indicated by the fact that NP's with specific readings are regularly strongly stressed 11 in a sentence, whatever else might be strongly stressed. For example, it is impossible, it seems, in I AM looking

for

a book,

with contrast-

ive stress on AM only, to get a specific reading for book.

This topic

goes beyond the scope of this paper, however, and I will not pursue it. A note on terminology is appropriate in conclusion of this section. Partee12

suggests using Donne1lan's termino1ogy ref e ren tia l, attribute

or the compatible r e f e r e n t i a l , nonreferential

ve

to replace earlier termi..

ARTHUR L. PALAGAS

204

nologies such as s p e c i f i c so that a single term will now represent the having

in mind component.

This would be suitable except for a pos­

sible confusion for some linguists.

My suggestion is that it is more

appropriate to retain the term specific

after all, to use referring

for

speaker specific assertions relating to having a referent in mind, and to reserve the term referential

for those factual NP's that form the 13 those NP's that become ante­ basis of permanent discourse referents, cedents for anaphoric reference. 10. Conclusion. The main purpose of this paper has been to sort out the basic data concerning specificness in NP's and to establish the in­ dependence of specificness from certain other notions.

This has been

done mainly by a critique of the model presented in MS which was shown to have problems of overprediction and underprediction for which there were natural solutions in a generative semantic framework.

In this

last section I will speak to the largely unsolved problem of the struc­ tural origins of specific NP's.

Does a specific NP originate in its

semantic position and get lowered by transformation, or does it get raised up into its semantic position by an interpretive rule?

Although

Ï have no clear support for either position, I will conclude with a few comments from a generative semantics standpoint. In a generative semantic solution a specific NP will originate outside the clause it ultimately gets lowered into by transformation, as is the case in McCawley's solution.

The following three reasons

make the outside origins of specific NP's appealing. First, the referential character of an indefinite NP is determined by its place of origin: if it originates in a factual clause it will be factual and referential; if it originates in a nonfactual clause it will be nonfactual and nonreferential.

The interpretive scheme in MS

misses the obvious symmetry here. The distinct origins of factual and nonfactual NP's are illustra­ ted by the two paraphrases of (24) in (25a) and (25b) which show two specific readings for a cigar, (24)

both related to Mary.

Mary wants to ask me for a cigar.

(Other possible

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

(25)

a. b.

I hereby mind and I hereby cigar in

inform you that wants to ask me inform you that mind and ask me

203

Mary has a certain cigar in for it. Mary wants to have a certain for it.

readings for a cigar are not relevant here.) In (25b) cigar originates below inform giving it a predictably factual character. In (25a) it originates below want giving it a predictably nonfactual character. In both cases the NP is specific. In the former case the world of Mary, the subject of want, is a factual world; in the latter case the world of (the deleted) Mary, subject of ask for, is a nonfactual world, namely the unrealized world governed by want. Second, the grammar must generate sentences like (25a) and (25b) quite apart from its generating sentences like (24). Thus, beyond a lowering transformation, no extra machinery will be required to account for the factual or nonfactual character of the NP for the different specific readings. Third, if the complexity of the underlying representations of spe­ cific and nonspecific NP's parallels in general the comparative com­ plexity of (25a and b) with (24), then the fact that nonspecific readings for indefinite NP's are usually preferred can be attributed to the extra complexity of the origins of specific NP's. Unfortunately, neither McCawley's description nor Karttunen's (1971b) underlying forms shows specific NP's to be any more complex in their origins than nonspecific NP's. I believe this is due to the fact that they have not explicitly attempted to build the having in mind compo­ nent of a specific NP as an assertion into semantic structure. McCawley has numerical indices that could be used in measuring complexity, but more explicitness is needed. One final note on McCawley's solution. It represents the differ­ ence between specific and nonspecific NP's twice. Once, they are rep­ resented by a difference in their inside or outside origins, as already noted. But they are also represented by a difference of variable types in the positions the NP's ultimately occupy; a variable with an index represents a specific NP, and a variable without an index represents a nonspecific NP. As long as this optionality of variable types can

206

ARTHUR L. PALACAS

occur in the holding positions, the need for different positions of origin in the tree for the two types of NP's is vitiated. In order to preserve the above mentioned benefits of the generative approach, it will be necessary to generalize the variable in the holding position to a single type that can be replaced by any type of NP. When the variable is not filled, no serious problem arises as to whether the variable becomes a definite or indefinite pronoun. Which­ ever it becomes is apparently determined by a rule of pronominalization. That there is such a rule is evidenced by the fact that sentences like (25a and b) tolerate only the definite pronoun it If the sense pro­ noun one is substituted forit,the sentence becomes ungrammatical in each case.14 In conclusion, although the model presented in MS poses a chal­ lenge to the generative semantic approach, it fails to describe the data adequately. I have not claimed to show that all attempts in the interpretive framework will fail. What I have shown is that the gener­ ative semantic approach is still viable and reasonable. NOTES 1. This paper includes material presented at the Linguistics Society of America Winter Meetings in Atlanta, 1972. I am thankful for the helpfulness of a number of people, including Jerome Bunnag, and especi­ ally Zev Bar-Lev, Philip Peterson, and William Ritchie, for useful com­ ments on earlier drafts of this paper. This work was submitted in Ap­ ril, 1974. 2. I will use examples as close to those in MS as are appropriate for my argument. Usually, I will substitute first person subjects in exam­ ples that originally had third person subjects. The reason for this will become obvious later in the paper. 3. Henceforth, a verb containing a modal operator will be referred to as a modal v e v b , to be distinguished from a modal auxiliary. 4. Actually, the limitation to modal verbs is too severe. In section 8 on Jackendoff's notion of scope, other items are mentioned. Also, the data in Partee's "Opacity, Coreference, and Pronouns," for example, imply that more than modal verbs are involved. 5. I first discussed this material in Palacas (1972). I will use only third person subjects because I have not looked at second person data in detail. The data should hold for all nonfirst person subjects.

207

SPECIFICNESS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

6. Karttunen in "Discourse Referents," pp. 8-9, and Heringer in "Inde­ finite Noun Phrases," also recognized that there can be readings of in­ definite NP's relative to the speaker that are distinct from readings relative to the subject of a sentence. 7.

Jerry Morgan, "Presupposition in a Transformational Grammar."

8. Partee, "Opacity," section 1, 9. See Jackendoff's Semantic I n t e r p r e t a t i o n , ch. 6. Also, see Bar-Lev's "Assertional Structure" and "Presupposition" and Hutchinson's "Presupposition" for discussion of assertion and presupposition. 10. This use of presupposition might be. termed discourse presupposition. It is to be distinguised from logical or private presupposition where the speaker holds certain information to be true independent of whether or not he assumes the hearer shares his beliefs. It is this latter sense of presupposition Heringer makes use of in "Indefinite Noun Phrases." 11. See Jackendoff's Semantic Interpretation, ch. 6, and Bar-Lev's "Assertional Structure" for discussion of the relation of stress and assertion. 12.

Partee, "Opacity," section 1.

13. For further discussion of longterm and shortterm discourse refer­ ents see Karttunen's "What do Referential Indices Refer to?" and "Discourse Referents." 14. These data will probably be disputed. Partee, in "Opacity," tends toward accepting such sentences with the sense pronoun one. To me, and others I have checked with, they are clearly ungrammatical, REFERENCES Bar-Lev, Zev. 1972. "Assertional. Structure" (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Mimeographed. . 1973. "Presupposition as a Semantic Constituent" (Beersheba: University of the Negev). Forthcoming. Donnellan, Keith. 1968. "Reference and Definite Descriptions," Philosophical Review 75, 281-304. Heringer, James T. 1969. "Indefinite Noun Phrases and Referential Opacity" in Papers from the Fifth Regional Meetings of the Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. by R. I. Binnick, G. Green, and J. Morgan (Chicago: University of Chicago), 87-97. Hutchinson, Larry G. 1971. "Presupposition and Belief Inferences" in Papers from the Seventh Regional Meetings of the Chicago Linguistic Society (Chicago: University of Chicago), 134-141. Jackendoff, Ray S. 1972. Semantic (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Interpretation

in Generative

Grammar

208

ARTHUR L. PALACAS

Karttunen, Lauri. 1968. "What do Referential Indices Refer to?" (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), P-3854. . 1971a. "Discourse Referents" (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Mimeographed. . 1971b. "The Logic of English Predicate Complement Con­ structions" (_Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Mimeographed. Kiparsky, Paul and C. Kiparsky. 1971. "Fact," in Danny D. Steinberg and Leon A. Jakobovits, eds., Semantics: an Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, L i n g u i s t i c s , and Psychology (New York: Cam­ bridge University Press), 345-369. McCawley, James D. 1972. "Syntactic and Logical Arguments for Semantic Structures" (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Mimeographed. Morgan, Jerry L. 1969. "On the Treatment of Presupposition in Trans­ formational Grammar" in Papers from the Fifth Regional Meetings of the Chicago Linguistic Society (Chicago: University of Chicago), 167-177. Palacas, Arthur L. 1972. "Specificness and First Person," paper read at the Winter Meetings of the Linguistic Society of America, Atlanta. Partee, Barbara H. 1970. "Opacity, Coreference, and Pronouns," Synthese 21, 339-385.

LANGUAGE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY* SOL SAPORTA University of Washington, Seattle

A linguist trying to discuss language and sexism is immediately con­ fronted with the absence of the relevant theory. First, we know very little of the relationship between language on the one hand and attitudes, beliefs and perception on the other hand. It is hard to demonstrate either that language determines or is determined by attitudes in spite of a tradition of heated discussion and exaggerated claims. For example, no one would seriously suggest that the substitution of Black for Negro either caused or resulted from the elimination or reduction of racism. Similarly, no conclusion can be drawn about sexist attitudes merely because chairperson increasingly replaces chairman. Rather it seems that language is to sexism as symptom is to disease. Fever doesn't cause flu, and flu doesn't cause fever; flu is presumably diagnosed on the basis of a set of symptoms of which fever is one; similarly with sexism and language. Second, we know virtually nothing about how linguistic competence, that is, what speakers know about their language, interacts with beliefs and attitudes to determine linguistic performance, that is, how speakers use their knowledge. Thus, for most people, the sentence My neighbor is a blond. is usually interpreted as referring to a woman although there

*A paper delivered at the December 1974 meeting in New York of the Modern Language Association.

210

SOL SAPORTA

is nothing in the semantics of words for hair color to suggest that, when nominalized, they ought to refer exclusively to females. other hand, the fact that we talk about unwed mothers, about unwed fathers,

On the

but not normally

is a linguistic observation that obviously is not

unrelated to how society views parenthood and marriage.

Neither language

nor logic can account for the currency of one and not the other, since presumably they come in pairs. In any case, the following facts of English and English usage pro­ vide data which presumably have to be accounted for by any general state­ ments regarding the nature and function of sexist language in this society. In English grammar, the masculine form is characterized as the un­ marked category and the feminine as the marked.

Thus, for example, there

are a number of suffixes which explicitly refer to, that is, "mark" the prince/princ-ess,

feminine:

comedi-enne.

wait-er/wait-r-ess,

hero/hero-ine,

eomedi-an/

Notice, however, that although She is a comedian, is

acceptable, He is a comedienne. is not. Similarly, the marked form is often indicated by a pattern of modification, for example, lady doctor woman athlete,

athlete.

opposed normally simply to doctor

not man

This often results in anaomalous constructions like lady

man or madame chairman.

mail­

Observe that in spite of the apparent contra­

diction an expression like bachelor bachelor

or athlete,

or

is semantic nonsense.

girl

is current, whereas

married

Related forms of modification are illus­

trated by expressions like career

woman on the one hand and family

man

on the other. Another use of the unmarked form is its use to cover both categories, referred to as neutralization, as in the generic use of man, mankind and numerous expressions like man-hours, man the boats,

even oh man!

But some­

times man is not used generically even though one might think it ought to be.

A man's

home is

his or her castle. brotherhood,

his

castle,

does not mean A man or woman's

home is

Man is not only form used in this way, consider

'fellowship,

masterpiece

and you guys.

Masculine pronouns are

often used to refer to people of unknown sex, which explains the recent declaration by a self-righteous chairman that "we will hire the most qualified person regardless of his sex." Other languages have systems

211

LANGUAGE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY

of grammatical gender which result in another form of neutralization. Spanish has hermano for 'brother' and hermana for 'sister' but John and Mary are brother

and sister,

is rendered by Juan y Maria

son

hermanos.

Perhaps just as revealing as the general case are the exceptions. English seems to have only one suffix marking the masculine, which occurs in the pair widow/widower.

Examples where the masculine is

expressed by a modifier include male nurse,

male model,

male

-prostitute,

which seem to provide a comment on the activities expected of women. Interestingly enough, male whore and male slut Whore and slut

in most dialects.

are a little incongruous

seem to have a moral connotation which

seems somehow less central in prostitute,

which seems to be primarily a

statement about a person's source of income.

There are cases where

people of unknown sex are designated by feminine pronouns.

Both pronouns

were illustrated in an elementary school staff notice requesting that "the supervisor will make sure each of his teachers will fill out her forms."

One area where the female is used to cover the entire species

is in the words for certain animals, for example, goose in spite of the presence of gander. Asymmetries are common in syntax; for example, one says Widow Brown but not Widower Brown.

Mary is John's

John is Mary's

sounds a little strange.

Smith

or Mr.

widower, and Mrs.

Mrs. Mary Smith.

John Smith,

widow is obviously well-formed, but One can say Mrs. John

but not Mr. Mary Smith,

or Mr.

and

The fact that Mr. and Mrs. are not equivalent is fur­

ther illustrated by their conjunction with titles like Dr. and Prof. Thus, one says Dr. and Mrs. Smith and Mr.

Smith

nor Mr.

and Dr.

Smith

if the doctor is male, but neither Dr. if the doctor is female.

Verbs for sexual intercourse are irregular in their syntax. like screw and fuck have intercourse

with.

intercourse

him. are grammatical but whereas He screws

fucks

clear.

with

Verbs

are asymmetrical compared to an expression like to Both He has intercourse

her are well-formed, She screws

with

her.

him and She fucks

and She has

him.

her and He are less

Indeed, the likely interpretation for the latter is metaphorical,

where the verbs involve deception not sex. Parenthetically, that sex

212

SOL SAPORTA

and deception should be semantically related is easier for women to explain than for linguists. The same process in reverse seems to be operating in expressions like to do someone and to be had, Conversely, an expression like to put out requires a feminine subject: He puts out, seems strange. Not native to my dialect is the verb to ball which apparently is symmetrical in its syntax, allowing both masculine and feminine subjects. Conceivably the change in language is accompanying the change in attitude, as sex stops being something men do to women and something women do for men. However, for most speakers, to ball is sexist in its lexical associations. I am usually laughed at when I suggest that it might be associated with to have a ball,

Just as there is asymmetry in syntax, so there is asymmetry in the lexicon. For example, although man and boy may correspond to woman and girl, there is, at least in my dialect, no equivalent for guy. The words for males seem to provide for a general ageless category not available for females. Conversely, male Mr, corresponds to both Mrs, and Miss; here the words for females are over-differentiated. It is worth observing that both under-differentiation and over-differentiation are merely opposite sides of the same sexist coin. Guy is neutral as to age; Mr, is neutral as to marital state. Elsewhere in the vocabulary there are references to women with no male equivalent; consider for example, a word like nymphomaniac; in my dialect there is no parallel to divorcée; there is housewife

but no househusband,

and expressions like old

wives'

1

tale, but no old husbands tale. Quite apart from what one thinks of the institution, it is revealing that the activity is referred to as wifeswapping,

not

husband-swapping,

Certain lexical fields have developed a proliferation of metaphorical terms, euphemisms and epithets. One such area is the words for women them­ selves. For example, they are referred to with words for food. Although sugar and honey are used to refer to both men and women, only a woman is normally referred to as a dish or a tomato. The word peach, incidentally, has become generalized so that it occurs in expressions like a peach of a day, a peach of a movie,

etc.

LANGUAGE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY

213

Animal names are used metaphorically to refer to humans, and it is simplistic to claim that all such metaphors are offensive. A reference to a brave person as lion-hearted is surely not derogatory. But chick, bunny, -pussycat, presumably refer to a soft, cuddly, pet-like quality, quail is something that one hunts, and I don't know what the use of barracuda is supposed to mean. An explicitly sexual and sexist perception of women is illustrated by the fact that they and not men can be referred to as a piece,

piece

of ass,

piece

of

tail.

The word lady

is more complex,

involving distinctions of class as well as sex. Exclusively female activities like pregnancy and menstruation have numerous euphemisms as well as epithets, to be expecting alongside of to be knocked

up,

to be unwell

alongside of to have the rag on.

On the

other hand, activities like masturbation and intercourse are referred to as though they were exclusively male. Expressions like to jerk off invariably imply a penis or an ejaculation. The words for intercourse seem to combine elements of violence and contempt with eroticism. Foot­ ball players anticipating sex report going home to punish the old lady and one novelist writing about a particular sub-culture uses the expres­ sion to do the job on someone both for sex and murder. Both the syntax of these words as well as their connotations suggest that sex is primarily a male-oriented activity. One cannot, for example, talk about a woman plowing a man. Not surprisingly, the euphemisms for sex, like to sleep with

someone and to go to bed with

someone are syntactically symmetrical.

That sex and violence are related is illustrated further by refer­ ences to the penis with terms for tools or weapons. A sterile man, for example, is said to be shooting blanks. In contrast, one of the striking things about words for women's sexual organs is the absence of words for clitoris on the one hand and the proliferation of words for breasts on the other. The unique perception of male sexuality is illustrated by current "hip" expressions like to get off with the meaning 'to enjoy' or to get it up for something with the meaning 'to be enthusiastic,' which presumably are semantic extensions of terms originally referring to male orgasm and to erection. And what can one make of the fact that fundamental ideas are referred to as seminal?

214

SOL SAPORTA Certain areas of the vocabulary show similarity in form, but quite

different meanings. A governor children. A mistress

governs a state, but a governess

is not a female mister.

not a woman major, nor is a starlet not a star at all. A laundryman

governs

Similarly a majorette

is

In fact a starlet

is

a woman star.

is usually someone who drives a truck

and works for an established firm. A laundrywoman works for herself and delivers laundry in a basket.

Some words apply to both men and women,

but with different meanings. He is a tramp. is a statement about finances; She is a tramp. is about morals. means 'He is innocent.' but Ella

es inocente.

In Spanish El es

inocente.

has the additional meaning

'She is a virgin. ' Linguistic usage, what is sometimes referred to as pragmatics as opposed to syntax and semantics, is an area where language and attitudes interact by definition. Thus, for example, words like promiscuous, tease

or

in the sexual sense, are normally used to apply to women. Verbs

like titter, word co-ed, has co-eds.

chatter,

cackle

usually refer to women and/or children. The

is used differently in The school

is co-ed.

and The

Conversely, although words like lawyer and doctor

linguistically just as neutral as friend

or cousin,

school are

they are perceived

as referring to males, so that a group may be referred to as lawyers their

wives,

their

wives.

and a caption in a history book can refer to pioneers

and

and

Similarly, a reference to a last name only is perceived as

referring to a male. A colleague reports writing an article with refer­ ences to Scott, Scott,

Thackeray

Thackeray and Jane

and Austen,

all of which were edited to read

Austen.

Sexuality is the basis of interpretation of a word like couple, is understood to be heterosexual, whereas a word like cocksucker understood to be homosexual.

which

is

It is surely not accidental that of the two,

only the latter is used as an insult. Finally, there are areas of the vocabulary which seem to be equivalent, but are ultimately asymmetrical. bitches,

Thus, one hears He bitches,

and she

with the meaning 'complain,' and He is an old maid. alongside

She is an old maid. but the former member of each pair is to be understood as applying to men an undesirable quality usually associated with women. Conversely, a recent magazine article referred to Germaine Greer as a

LANGUAGE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY

215

ballsy feminist. Thus, when men are cranky, they are behaving like women; when women are courageous, they are behaving like men. In this connection, to refer to, say, a difficult exam, as a ball-buster must be of limited significance to a woman. Bachelor and spinster are far from equivalent. One can talk of an attractive bachelor, but hardly of an attractive spinster. Bachelor father is a common expression usually referring, incidentally, to a divorced father, but bachelor mother is rare, and spinster mother is incongruous. The verbs to father and to mother have different meanings: to father a child is to be the biological father; to mother a child is to protect, perhaps over-protect it. Even bride and groom are not equivalent. One talks about his bride, but not of her groom. Indeed, a woman remains a bride for some undefined time, but a man stops being a groom the day after the wedding. Something about the relationship is reflected in the inclusion in the ceremony of the state­ ment You may kiss the bride. and not You may kiss the groom. Probably the two most emotionally charged words in English are cunt and prick, particularly when applied to people. Again the use of a word for a part to refer to the whole person is not automatically objectionable. To refer to a compassionate person as being all heart or to an intelligent person as a brain seems anything but pejorative. However, in the case of the epithet for male genitals, the word seems to have little sexual connotation, often being merely a comment on the man's intelligence, whereas, in the case of women, the reverse is the case; cunt seems to imply a judgment about sexuality and morality. One last, well-publ icized example may illustrate how additional meanings are assigned expressions when they are applied to women. Consider the airline company slogan We really move our tail for you. For men, the slogan is two-ways ambiguous, referring either to the tail of the plane, or to the figurative meaning 'to work hard.' For women, the slogan is three-ways ambiguous, where the additional reading is the one where move is to be interpreted literally. The preoccupation with this part of women's bodies is not unique; in Seattle, a new women's clothing store is called Bottom's; the sign announcing the opening read, Now, girls 'have Bottom 's.

216

SOL

SAPORTA

I have provided relatively little in the way of explanation, and, I have even less to say about the political and social implications, and the alternative strategies they suggest for change. Clearly, the examples are far from exhaustive, and they represent a wide range, not only in terms of the particular aspect of linguistic structure, but also in the extent to which the facts are at the level of awareness and hence acknow­ ledged by the average speaker. The more institutionalized a particular phenomenon becomes, the less visible, and, presumably, the more resistant it is to change. Thus, one might question the effectiveness of a sugges­ tion that we eliminate the word seminar because it shares the stem of the word semen, and undoubtedly was sexist in its origin. Given the data, then, one can ask, is language sexist or are people sexist or is society sexist? The probable answer, regrettably, is all three.

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING A STUDY OF FINAL E SANFORD A. SCHANE University of California, San Diego

"The exception proves the rule" even amongst the vagaries of English spelling. Yet in orthography the exceptions are not mere inexplicable, recalcitrant, isolated forms. Often there is good reason why a rule is not followed to the letter: Respecting a rule may destroy a form's identity; violating the rule will maintain the form's integrity. As a f i r s t example of t h i s type of systematic rule breaking, consider the well-known spelling rule (well-known even to elementary school children) which drops f i n a l

' s i l e n t ' e before vowel i n i t i a l

suffixes.

(1) change, changing blue, bluish shade, shady The following forms are exceptional in retaining the e. (2) singe, singeing dye, dyeing hole, holey 'full of holes' If the rule were to apply, a spelling would be created identical to that of some other word. For these examples, then, breaking the rule eliminates homographs.

SANFORD A. SCHANE

218

(3) singeing vs. singing (sing) dyeing vs. dying (die) holey vs. holy Two less common pairs are exactly analogous to singe

ing-singing.

(4) springeing (springe 'snare with a noose') vs. springing (spring) swingeing (swinge 'thrash') vs. swinging (swing) Other forms rhyming with singe

drop the e; no homograph results.

(5) cringe, cringing hinge, hinging tinge, tinging Some interesting examples involve suffixal y. (6) mangy vs. tangy spongy vs. dungy stingy vs. stringy These near minimal pairs illustrate that it is not possible on the basis of spelling alone to predict whether the g is hard or soft. But this is a separate problem. What is crucial here is that in each case the spelling is not identical to that of some other word: no homograph, no e. The reason for retaining 'silent' e is not always the avoid­ ance of homography. In the next set of examples e is kept before vowel initial suffixes; yet its function is not the differentiation of potential homographs. (7)

(a) notice, noticeable manage, manageable (b) acre, acreage mile, mileage (c) hoe, hoeing glue, gluey

The e is retained here for a different purpose: Without it inappropriate pronunciations would be suggested. In (7a) the e is needed to indicate the softening of c and g: noticeable

VS. applicable,

manageable

VS. indefatigable.

With a

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING suffix such as -ible

219 noticing,

the e becomes unnecessary (cf. also

managing). (8)

force, forcible reduce, reducible tinge, tingible

Spellings without e for the forms of (7b)--*acrage, *milage--

would

suggest dissyllabic (instead of trisyllabic) pronunication and possibly short (instead of long) root vowels since vowels are usually shortened before -age—-*[eykrej ] or [aekrej] instead of [eykәrәj], [maylәj] or [milej] instead of [mayәlәj].

The different

treatment is clearly exemplified with the following pairs. (9)

acreage vs. umbrage mileage vs. image

There are a few additional examples similar to acreage, involve the suffix (10)

which

-able.

handle, handleable (but cf. handling) settle, settleable wrinkle, wrinkleable

If the e were dropped in (7c)—*hoing 9 *gluy—not only would wrong pronunciation be suggested but incorrect morphemic division as well.

The sequences oi and uy most often are representations of

the diphthongs [oy] and [ay]—cf. boil,

buy.

The retention of e

signifies that the o and i and the u and y are not parts of diph­ thongs but belong to separate syllables, in fact to two separate morphemes. (11)

Here are some additional examples of this

t.ype.3

toe, toeing shoe, shoeing canoe, canoeing tissue, tissuey

Finally, there are quite a few words, of which the following are only a sample, having alternate spellings—with and without e. These all involve monosyllabic roots, frequently combined with the

220

SANFORD A. SCHANE

suffixes -able and -y. The order of the alternants is that found in 4 Webster's Third. (12) like, likable, likeable live, livable, liveable love, lovable, loveable move, movable, moveable size, sizable, sizeable cage, cagey, cagy phone, phony, phoney horse, horsey, horsy mouse, mousy, mousey stone, stony, stoney age, aging, ageing eye, eyeing, eying These alternate spellings capture two different principles in conflict: (1) e is deleted since neither homographs nor inappro­ priate pronunciations result, and (2) e is retained thereby guaranteeing unambiguous identification of the root morpheme. So far we have examined the effects of one spelling rule-the dropping of e before vowel initial suffixes. Where there are exceptions to the rule, maintaining the e is significant: homo­ graphs are eliminated, correct pronunciation is indicated, or proper morphemic analysis is suggested. These various types of exceptions have a unified explanation. By following the rule the identity of a form would be obscured, whereas by breaking the rule the form's integrity is insured. Let us turn now to a different, but closely allied, problem: the distributional constraints on final 'silent e' when preceded by consonants. The following quaint inscription, reserved for business establishments desirous of a pseudo-Elizabethan aura, admirably illustrates where final e does not occur in modern English. (13) Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe Such spellings were acceptable till the end of the seventeenth cen­ tury. Today, however, final e is found most frequently after a

221

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

single consonant preceded by a single vowel letter; its primary function here, of course, is to indicate that the preceding vowel is long. (14) mate mete bite note cute

vs. vs. vs. vs. vs.

mat met bit not cut

Normally e does not occur after two consonants, whether different or identical, nor after a single consonant preceded by a vowel digraph. (Geminate consonants too tend to be eliminated word finally.)' (15) old sweet shop In modern English one finds a multitude of apparent exceptions—that is occurrences of e after consonant clusters or with preceding vowel digraphs. Yet in nearly all such cases the retention of e performs one of the functions noted previously: the elimination of potential homographs, the suggesting of appropriate pronunciation, or an indication of morphemic analysis. Final e occurs regularly after c and g, preceded by a consonant o

or a vowel digraph, to show the soft values of c or g. (16) since vs. zinc singe vs. sing fleece siege After s, the e has a morphological function. g s is not inflectional. (17)

It signifies that the

lapse vs. laps tense vs. tens sparse vs. spars please vs. pleas

An e after st is a signal that the preceding vowel is long.

222

SANFORD A. SCHANE

(18) paste vs. past haste taste After the digraph th, the e indicates that th represents a voiced consonant. (19) teethe vs. teeth breathe vs. breath bathe vs. bath An e signifies that a preceding ch is to be pronounced [s] rather than [c]. (20) douche vs. touch cache creche gauche moustache (also mustache) cartouche pastiche Final e preceded by ch generally means that the word is a French loan. Consequently other aspects of pronunciation become predic­ table: ou will be pronounced as [uw]--douche; au as [ow]--gauche; i as [iy]--pastiche; stress will be on the final syllable-cartouche,

pastiche.

Finally, e occurs regularly when preceded by a cluster composed of a consonant plus I or r. The e marks the syllabic quality of the 13 liquid consonant. (21) raffle able acre ogre The preceding examples have all involved e not preceded by a single consonant. Yet the e is essential for it gives informa­ tion about the pronunciation or the morphology. We will consider now words of at least two syllables where the final e is preceded by identical consonants—usually 11, nn, ss, or tt, although more rarely other geminates do occur. Once again the e is functional;

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

it marks the word as French. One prediction, then, is that such words will bear stress on the final syllable. The lists are 15 fairly exhaustive. (22)

aquarelle bagatelle 'trifle' chanterelle 'edible fungus' fontanelle 'soft spot on baby's head' gazelle Moselle sarcelle 'wild duck' villanelle 'type of short poem' chenille quadrille cayenne comedienne julienne 'cut in strips' Parisienne sicilienne 'fine ribbed silk' tragidienne tyrolienne 'Tyrolese dance' varsovienne 'Polish dance' cretonne 'patterned cotton fabric' crevasse 'fissure in glacier' filasse 'prepared fiber' fougasse 'small enemy mine' impasse palliasse (also paillasse) 'straw mattress' finesse noblesse pelisse 'fur trimmed garment' princesse 'tight fitting'(cf. princess) coulisse 'sliding groove for theater scenes' lacrosse brunette cigarette coquette gazette layette oubliette 'dungeon' pirouette roulette serviette 'napkin' calotte 'small skull cap' cocotte 'courtesan' garotte 'type of execution' gavotte 'minuet-like dance'

224

SANFORD A .

agraffe giraffe

SCHANE

'hook'

genappe 'worsted yarn' bizarre parterre 'seats behind orchestra' Because e marks these words as French, we can deduce other facets of their pronunciation: stressed i will generally be pronounced as [ i y ] — c h e n i l l e , coulisse; chanterelle',

ch will be realized as

ou represents [ uw]--coulisse,

[s"]—chenille,

oubliette.

Finally there is a group of words where e follows st, m, or nt, but occasionally some other cluster. These also belong to the French category; hence stress will be on the final syllable, i will be pronounced as [îy], an and en as [an], etc.16 (23) artiste (cf. artist) batiste 'type of cotton fabric' modiste 'dressmaker' (cf. modest) reposte 'retort' caserne (also casern) 'barracks' lucarne 'dormer window' sauterne confidante 'female confidant' (cf. confident) clairvoyante 'female clairvoyant' debutante intrigante 'female intrigant' enceinte 'pregnant' détente entente demesne 'estate' gendarme In the case Of confidante,

clairvoyante,

debutante,

and

intrigante,

the e has retained its French morphological function of indicating the feminine (cf. fiance,

fiancée),

Next we turn to the one-syllable correlates of the words cited in (22) and in (23). Some of these forms are paired with a differ­ ent word without e.

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

(24)

belle (of the ball) vs. bell braille vs. brail 'rope fastened to a sail' crosse 'raquet in lacrosse' vs. cross frappe 'soda' vs. frap 'bind securely' grille 'iron lattice' vs. grill 'cook over fire' grippe 'flu' vs. grip matte vs. mat steppe 'vast plain' vs. step blende 'sulphide of lead' vs. blend blonde 'fair-haired woman' vs. blond 'light-colored' borne (past participle of bear) vs. born carte 'bill of fare' vs. cart childe 'youth of noble family' vs. child combe (also coombe, coomb, coom) 'valley' vs. comb forme 'assemblage of typeset' vs. form forte 'strong point' vs. fort torte 'pastry' vs. tort (legal term) lande 'heathy moor' vs. land quinte 'fifth thrust in fencing' (pronounced [kænt]) vs. quint terne 'inferior tin plate' vs. tern 'gull'

English orthography does not normally tolerate final e after these particular consonant clusters.

The exceptional appearance of e does

perform one of the functions noted previously--the reduction of homographs.

However, in all fairness it should be pointed out that

many of the forms with e are not exactly well-known, every-day words. Some monosyllables have two variants: (25)

with and without e.

cuisse, cuish 'armor for thighs' fesse, fess 'band across heraldic shield' fosse, foss 'moat' griffe, griff 'claw in stonework' rille, rill 'narrow valley on moon' ruffe, ruff 'perchlike fish' bourne, bourn 'boundary' merle, merl 'blackbird' poulpe, poulp 'octopus' erne, ern 'type of eagle'

Whenever there are alternate spellings, one of which is the expected one, I do not consider the word as exceptional, since the 'regu­ larized' variant is in accord with the rules of English and can be used exclusively by writers of the language.

225

226

SANFORD A. SCHANE

The following words then are truly exceptional:

there is no

variant without e and the presence of e often serves no apparent function. (26)

chasse 'licqueur after coffee' griffe 'mulatto woman' rasse 'small civet' salle 'large hall' trousse 'case' tulle 'fine silk open work' wrasse 'type of fish' burke gerbe horde mesne monde

'dispose of quietly' 'wheat sheaf'

'middle' 'high society' (note also demi-monde questionable society' orle 'heraldic bearing' sixte 'sixth thrust in fencing' svelte 'shapely'

With the exception of horde,

'of

the words of (26) may be of more

interest to linguists and crossword enthusiasts than to normal speakers of English. e in horde.

I have no explanation for the retention of

It should have dropped decades ago. As the forms

in (25) show, this is indeed the English tendency, even when the words are far from ordinary. For all practical purposes there are virtually few exceptions to the rules governing the distribution of final e after consonants. Whenever e follows two or more consonants its presence is purpose­ ful:

it provides necessary information about pronunciation,

morphology, or homography. In addition to consonant clusters, e does not generally occur after a single consonant preceded by a vowel digraph; where it does, the e most often provides information about the consonant. examples duch as peace,

siege,

tense.

Recall

With other consonants the e

may indicate instead that the two vowel letters are not to be interpreted as a digraph but as two vowels in hiatus.18

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

(27) create vs. treat inchoate vs. coat heroine vs. groin Another set of forms contains a vowel digraph where the second letter is i, followed by r or n. Here the final e is a reliable sign of a French loan—final stress for words of more than one syllable, oi pronounced as [wa], etc.19 (28) armoire 'cupboard' baignoire 'box seat in theater' escritoire 'writing desk' repertoire concessionaire doctrinaire laissez-faire millionaire questionnaire secretaire 'desk' solitaire

chatelaine cocaine

'mistress of castle'

delaine ' f a b r i c of wool and cotton' moraine 'debris carried by g l a c i e r ' quinzaine 'five-versed poem' caffeine vicereine

'wife of a viceroy'

There are a few monosyllabic words with a vowel digraph and a 20 final e. For four of these the e eliminates homographs. (29) aide 'assistant' vs. aid 'help' troupe (theatrical) vs. troop (military) coupe vs. coup route vs. rout As was the situation with consonant clusters, the unexpected appearance of e with preceding vowel digraphs can in most instances be shown to have functional value. Not all distributional constraints and spelling rules have exceptions. Some constraints and rules are rarely, if ever, violated. We can find examples of this phenomenon both in the

227

228

SANFORD A. SCHANE

distribution and the deletion of final e.

As a consequence the

system perpetuates a certain amount of ambiguity. English words do not normally terminate in v, but instead in ve.21 The e here is purely an orthographic convention having no functional value; the e occurs regardless of what precedes

v--be

it long vowel, short vowel, reduced vowel, digraph, or consonant. (30)

22

hive give passive leave twelve

Because words must end orthographically in ve, and not in v alone, the system fosters potential ambiguity for words where ve is preceded by a single vowel letter.

There is no way of predicting

whether the pronunciation'should be with a short or with a long vowel.23 (31)

have vs. behave live (verb) vs. live (adjective) glove vs. clove

We have noted examples such as singeing exceptions to the e-deletion rule.

or holey,

which are

However, should the suffix

itself begin with e, then deletion must apply, even where homography results.

Thus, whereas singing

kept apart, the agentives sing+er spelling:

singer.

and singeing

are orthographically

and singe+er

have an identical

The reason for obligatorily dropping e before

a second e has to do with pronunciation: reserved as a digraph.

The sequence ee is

A spelling such as *singeer

would deceptive-

ly suggest a pronunciation analogous to that of engineer.24 By retaining the e homography could be avoided, but only at the cost of indicating an incorrect pronunciation.

The relationship between

spelling and expected pronunciation appears then to take precedence. We have looked at two different aspects of 'silent' e: distribution and its deletion.

its

In particular we have concentrated

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

229

on its occurrence word finally where unexpected and its failure to undergo deletion where expected. The exceptional behavior, spanning items of various types, is not simple orthographical caprice. The exceptional comportment has functional significance: The e becomes a crucial source of information concerning pronun­ ciation, morphology, potential homography. For many words the e is a mark of French origin and thus provides clues for special features of pronunciation. Other words not in accord with the distributional constraints or the deletion rule have variant spellings conforming to the expected tendencies of the language. The instances where the occurrence of final e cannot be explained, either as functional or as alternate spelling, are amazingly few, and interestingly enough, most of these 'unexplained' exceptions happen to be not particularly well-known words. As for the rationale of final e, its occurrence and deletion may be complex but the complexity is a rational one.

NOTES The g of an ng sequence is (a) hard if there is a morpheme boundary between the g and following y: tang+y, string+y, dung+y; (b) soft if there is no morpheme boundary: stingy, dingy; (c) soft if there is a boundary but the root form has a final e: sponge+y, mange+y, the e of course dropping before the suffix. A curious pair is dingy shabby* vs. dinghy small boat'. The latter has as archaic spellings dingy and dingey, neither of which is as felicitous as the preferred present-day one. Here the y is not a suffix (there is no morpheme boundary); yet the g is hard. Only the spelling with h suggests the appropriate mor­ phemic analysis and pronunciation, as well as keeping the form distinct from dingy 'shabbyT. Also of interest is the slang word dingy (ding+y) 'scatter-brained', where the spelling is homographic with dingy 'shabby*. (A similar pair is stingy ' parsimonious' and stingy (sting+y) 'having a sting'.) These homographs result from cases (a) and (b) above. The present orthographic system allows no way of avoiding these particular homographs. (For example, neither member of a pair has a final e which could be retained.) If the orthography were to indicate morpheme boundaries (which happens only marginally, such as re-sign vs. resign) then the forms of course could be distin­ guished, or one could adopt other spelling conventions, such as

230

SANFORD A. SCHANE

a consistent replacement of y by ey wherever the g is soft. Interestingly enough, there is differentiation by the rules for syllable division or hyphenation: din-gy 'shabby'; ding-y 'scatter-brained'. Further on we will consider other examples where homography is unavoidable. All spellings cited are from Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged), 1964. Other dictionaries may sanction alternate spellings not noted in this paper. The major dictionaries by no means agree on which variant spellings are acceptable. A compilation of alternate spellings is to be found in Emery, Donald W., Variant Spellings in Modern American Dictionaries, National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois, 19 73. 'Disyllabic pronunciations—[eykraj] and [maylej]—are certainly possible, and even quite common. My point is that spellings without e do not hint at the trisyllabic ones. Within a morpheme the diphthong oi does not occur before ng, except for onomatopoeic bo ing. Two words of high frequency, going and doing, do not have e (nor do the root forms go, do), even though they are bimorphemic. Note that in colloquial style going may rhyme with boing. Because of their frequency of occurrence these words are easily recognized whereas it is not so evident that without the e one would readily perceive the morphemic components of hoeing, toeing, and shoeing. Long words are not apt to become obscure so that torpedoing (without e) is unlikely to go unrecognized. Some forms in -y have only the spelling without e: icy,

rosy,

shady,

spicy.

One word, slavey,

baby,

flaky,

occurs only with

e

but has the specialized meaning 'maid of all chores'. British English maintains (or tries to maintain) a distinction between story 'tale' and storey 'floor in a building' (although neither is derived from store). Some words without e in the root nonethe­ less insert e before -y: goo, gooey; mosquito, mosquitoey; clay, clayey. As for the first two examples, the insertion of e prevents the o and y from being interpreted as a diphthong. Clayey requires the e as the orthography does not allow two successive occurrences of y. Nor is the sequence ii generally permitted (skiing, taxiing, and alibiing are exceptional). For this reason the verb stymie retains its e in the present parti­ ciple: stymieing. Orthographical distributional constraints are analogous to the phonotactic (or morpheme structure) conditions within phonology— only certain occurrences and combinations of letters qualify as well-formed orthographic representations. The 'spelling' rules (such as the rule of e-deletion) have the same role in orthography that phonological rules play within phonology—the basic represen­ tation is modified in some way, usually because of the juxtaposition of morphemes.

RULE BREAKING IN ENGLISH SPELLING

231

6

Final e does not occur after x, which of course orthographically does not represent a single consonant but the cluster [ks]. An exception is axe, along side the regular variant ax. The form with e is probably due to a tendency in English for restricting two-letter words to function words—in, be, if, we—whereas content words must have at least three letters—inn, bee, egg, wee. A real exception is British English annexe, a variant of annex. 7'The geminates ff, 11, ss, zz, and ck (instead of cc or kk) are found regularly after a single stressed short vowel: cuff, cull, Words such as pal, bus, quiz, tic, trek are the cuss, buzz, luck. exceptional ones. Proper names do not necessarily respect the rules governing the distribution of geminate consonants and of final e: Webb, Scripps, Howe, Shakespeare, Stampe, Fanne Fox, Redd Foxx, Exxon. Such spellings frequently distinguish proper names from homophonous common words. 8When c or g is preceded by a single vowel, the e does double duty; it indicates both vowel length and consonant softening: dice vs. tic, rage vs. rag. 9 When s is preceded by a consonant, the e also indicates that the s is voiceless: tense vs. tens, sparse vs. spars, false vs. pals. Only two nonsonorant consonants [p] and [k], cluster with [s] finally in root words. We have noted that the orthography utilizes pse for the former: lapse vs. laps; kse does not occur, but instead is replaced by x: tax vs. tacks. Here too the spelling with s indicates that s is inflectional. Most of the time the s marks plurality or third person singular present tense, but occasionally something else, as in mathematics, physics, where it is a noun forming suffix (cf. mathematic+ian,

physic+al).

For some strange reason e signifies a long vowel only when a precedes st. Other vowels do not take final e — C h r i s t vs. list, post vs. cost, nor do other consonant clusters—pint vs. hint, wind (verb) vs. wind (noun), mild, bold, wont. Here the system fails to differentiate properly between long and short vowels. Although the number of examples of this type is not overwhelming, it would be an improvement in the orthography if final e were used after all consonant clusters whenever a preceding single vowel letter is supposed to stand for a long vowel. Most of the time, though, long vowels before consonant clusters are represented by fiend, vowel digraphs: waist, feast, heist, coast, roost, paint, field. 11:

When th is preceded by a single vowel, the e has double function; it signals both vowel length and voicing of the consonant: bathe vs. bath, lathe vs. lath, clothe vs. cloth.

232

SANFORD A. SCHANE

12 Niche has the pronunciation [nic] as well as [nis] and [niys]. Ache is the only word ending in 'silent' e where the ch represents [k]. Troche 'small pill' and psyche, of Greek origin, also have ch for [k] but the final e is not silent. Words ending in phe (actually ophe) are Greek and again the e is not silent—strophe, catastrophe, apostrophe, except for two not too common French adaptations (where the e is silent)—limitrophe 'on the border', philosophe 'pretender philosopher'; the latter has a regular variant philosoph. In addition to ph, th, and ch English has the consonant digraph sh. However, there are no English words terminating in she, except for the pronoun where the e is not silent. 13 Where the consonant-liquid cluster is preceded by a single vowel, the e also indicates that the vowel is long: acre, rifle, ogre, bugle. One of Noah Webster's orthographic reforms, which accounts for a prominent difference between American and British spelling, was the change of final re to er when preceded by a consonant: theatre, theater; centre, center. To preserve the hardness of c and g, final re is retained after these consonants: acre, ogre. In British English mm is found in gramme {kilogramme, etc.) and programme. American English has normalized these to gram and program. Any additional examples are likely to be obscure, foreign-like words. I have not listed all examples in ette, many of which are due to the diminutive suffix. Words of more than two syllables sometimes have alternate stress patterns: either main stress on the final syllable and secondary on the antepenult or else main stress on the antepenultimate syllable and secondary on the final. The words palette, omelette, etiquette, and charlotte 'molded dessert' are exceptional in having initial stress and reduced final vowels. The first two have acquired the regularized spellings pallet and omelet. Vaudeville _and place names ending in ville regularly have nonfinal stress. Clairvoyante (like clairvoyant) has penultimate, and not final, stress. Nocturne 'musical serenade' also has penultimate stress; the spelling with e differentiates it from the homophonous nocturn 'part of matins'. Absinthe, asphalte, and interne, with nonfinal stress, have normalized variants without e: absinth, asphalt, intern. Because these words are French in origin, for some of them the e may be a clue to other features of pronunciation—the ch of chasse, the on of monde, the u and ou of tulle and trousse, respectively. 18 'Silent' e performs a few other functions in addition to those already noted. (1) It indicates that a preceding vowel is not

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233

reduced: envelope vs. envelop, morale vs. moral, rationale vs. rational. (2) In combination with d it marks past tense: wiled vs. wild, charred vs. chard, cored vs. cord, wined vs. wind. (3) For content words, which require at least three letters, it is the necessary third letter of words whose second letter is a vowel or a semivowel: bee, lie, toe; eye, owe, ewe. In modern English spelling the 'silent' e performs over a dozen different functions. Advocates of spelling reform who might wish to do away with the 'superfluous e' are probably naively unaware of the high functional load of this innocent looking element. 19 Cocaine and caffeine have variant stress patterns—main stress may be on either syllable. Both words also have alternative spellings: cocain, caffein. Migraine has only initial stress but no variant spelling. 20 Three words are not paired with any potential homograph: seine 'large net', moire 'watered silk', and heaume 'heavy helmet'. For the last two at least, the e provides information concerning the pronunciation of the vowels. French troupe is the etymo­ logical source of English troupe and troop. The latter in its anglicization has not only lost the e but has also undergone modification of the vowel digraph from ou to oo. Various spellings are attested historically: The Oxford English Dictionary records troupe, troope, troup, and troop (not to According to that source Shakespeare mention trope and trop). has both troupe and troope where we would write troop. A consistent distinction between troupe and troop dates from the nineteenth century. T. Smith (personal communication) has informed me that troup is a common misspelling in the military. 21 Exceptions terminating in v are rev (originally a truncated form of revolution or of reverend), shiv 'to stab' (slang), Slav, and leitmotiv. Is the e absent in Slav to differentiate it from slave?. Apparently so. The Oxford English Dictionary lists Sclave and Slave as earlier forms. The latest entry for the latter is 1889; the first entry for Slav is 1866. Slav and slave 'permanently indentured servant' happen to be etymologically related, although of course today the relationship is not so apparent as their meanings, pronunciations, and. even their spellings are no longer the same, 22 Final e also occurs as a functionless orthographic convention after z preceded by a vowel digraph or a consonant: sneeze, bronze, (except when t precedes z: chintz, quartz, waltz). Only when z follows a long vowel which is represented orthographically by a single letter is the e functional as an indicator of vowel length: haze, size. When z is preceded by a short vowel no e is added: quiz, whiz, fez; for some words the z is doubled: jazz, buzz. 23 In reality the ambiguity is more latent than actual. There is not an overwhelming supply of words where a single vowel letter

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precedes final ve (excepting the suffix ive). When it does the vowel is almost invariably long. The only words where it is short are have, breve (for some speakers), give, live, above, dove,

glove,

love,

and shove,

Seive

is exceptional in having a

digraph represent a short vowel sound. Whenever o represents a short vowel (as in the last five words above) its value is identical to the vowel of cut. The letter u cannot be used here as the sequence uv is normally not permitted (except for French borrowed mauve, where the u is part of a vowel digraph, the Latinate uvula, and the hip luv, without final e). The absence of uv has an historical explanation: At one time u and v were not separate letters, but allographs; geminate occurrences of this letter were purposely avoided. Even today there are very revved, few words with doubled v or u: flivrer, skivvies, revving; vacuum, continuum, residuum, individuum, lituus. P. Salus (personal communication) informs me that the five words with uu constitute an exhaustive list. 24 The cluster ee may also represent two vowels in hiatus, in which case there is always a morpheme boundary: preempt, reexamine, freer, seer. The last two are derived from free+er and see+er, respectively. English words may never contain three identical letters in sequence (forms such as bell-like require an obligatory hyphen), so that in the actual spelling only ee occurs. When it means 'clairvoyant* seer has acquired a pro­ nunciation where ee is a true digraph. 25 Other potential homographs can be concocted. For example, lather becomes a homograph for three different words, each with a different pronunciation: (1) [læer] 'soap foam'; (2) [Iæ0әr] 'one who puts up lath' (from lath+er); and (3) [leyoәr] 'one who operates a lathe' (from lathe+er). I am not sure how much ambiguity of this type actually occurs, but it is interesting to see where the system is vulnerable.

LINGUISTICS AS A PRACTICAL SCIENCE JACOB MEY Odense University

Introduction. The problem I want to raise in this contribution has to do with the task and object of linguistics as a science. Linguistics has, in the past, been defined as a theoretical science, i.e. a science whose task it is to provide a description and explanation of certain pheno­ mena inside a theoretical framework. Exponents of such a definition are not necessarily found inside one particular school of linguistics: actual­ ly, there seems to be, in this respect, unanimity as to task and goal among widely divergent schools of linguistics, such as discourse analysis, glossematics, and transformational grammar. On the other hand, there have always been linguists who have stressed the practical nature of linguistic science, and who have dedicated a major part of their linguistic activities precisely to the promotion of practical goals within linguistics. Years ago, when I was still an undergraduate student of linguistics at Copenhagen University, I had a conversation with a well-known Swedish linguist on the goals of linguistics, in particular the tasks that linguists should consider appropriate and necessary. In the course of that conversation, my friend made a remark whose seminal importance struck me only much later. He said that, in his opinion, linguists ought to write grammars that people could use in learning languages. That is, linguists should concentrate on theory (writing grammars) in order to be able to promote practice (learning lan­ guages). Another way of saying this could be that linguistics is a practi­ cal science. Such a formulation seems particularly appropriate in the

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particular context of this contribution: namely, to honor a linguist who, in all his efforts to further the science of linguistics, always has en­ deavored to keep theory and practice united. Language as a human activity. I do not want to go into the by now age-old distinction between competence and performance, as first intro­ duced by Chomsky (e.g. 1965). The distinction illustrates the dichotomy between the theoretical and the practice-orientad aspects of linguistics as a science. The lack of a theory of performance can be taken as a lack of interest in the practice of language. This lack is prevalent in the theorizing and debating in linguistics for the past twenty years. In linguistic discussions, one has often concentrated on questions of correct­ ness. These questions are often resolved by introspective or intersubjec­ tive checks on what "could be said". The linguist who was able to think up the best examples quickly, and to defend his/her particular setting against possible counter-examples and counter-settings was sure to carry the day. As a final resort, the linguist could always appeal to "my dialect", meaning thereby some form of accepted language that he/she was able to say something definitive about as a "native speaker". However, any particular dialect is a phenomenon of society. As such, the phenomenon is part of human activity in a particular society, at a particular time and place, in a particular setting, etc. By contrast, the points ot theory that these "dialectal" or even "idiolectal" examples were supposed to illustrate (cf. Haj Ross' (1967) use of the mogen David for certain sub-dialects of New York Jewish English) were precisely theoretical points, i.e. abstracted from the particular setting that they were supposed to operate in. Theory is concerned with what a speaker "knows" about his language: what he actually does with this knowledge does not lend itself to a theoretical description. There is no room, in such a theoretical system, for a genuine theory of performance. In other words, if a theory of performance is to be developed, it will have to be developed inside a concrete setting. In the next section, I will outline certain aspects of such a setting, inasmuch as they are relevant to a theory of linguistics as a science of linguistic practice. Communication

and the sentence.

It is a commonly accepted viewpoint

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in modern linguistics that the central unit of linguistic description (its natural framework, so to speak) is the sentence. A language is viewed as a set of (correct) sentences that is generatable by means of a grammar. Even in modern, conversationally oriented efforts at speech description (See Sacks et al. (1973)), bigger units of linguistic inter­ action are considered as consisting of sentences that are passed back and forth between the participants in a conversational situation. Whatever one may think of the sentence as the necessary unit of description in linguistics, it certainly is not a sufficient one. By a necessary unit, I mean a unit that derives its necessity from some formu­ lated, meta-linguistic criteria such as the desire to establish a formal apparatus (a grammar) that will derive the sentence(s) in question. By non-sufficient I mean that there is, so far, no formal apparatus that will derive the sentences of a conversation in their proper contexts (despite efforts in this direction by people such as van Dijk (1972)). The reason for this insufficiency is to be found in the fact that communication is as all human activity - goal-oriented rather than form-oriented. The basic unit of communication is not the sentence or the word, but rather, the production of the linguistic unit in the total context of the communi­ cative process (Searle 1971:30). The communicative process, on the other hand, is characterized by its goal: communication between interactants. Therefore, the speech act is a goal-oriented activity, not a primarily formally describable unit such as the sentence. All efforts to extend the formal apparatus used in describing sentences to the paragraph, the chapter, the book, the conversation, or in general, the process in time of communicative activity, will be doomed to become nothing but at best a self-fulfilling prophecy about formal correctness. Such efforts will not be able to account for the factors that determine the essential character­ istics of human communication: that things are done with words, rather than to words. The notion that the communicative situation is the prime object of the linguist's interest rather than the sentence builds on two assump­ tions: (1) one theoretical, that linguistic activity is part of human activity

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as a whole, and as such, underlies the laws and rules that operate for the latter; (2) the other practical, that human activity,.including linguistic activity, happens in a concrete setting whose parameters are defined in terms that are not exclusively linguistic. Granted that linguistic activity is a goal-oriented activity, and that the goal of this activity is communication, we obtain a further con­ sequence, namely that communication only can be understood in a societal setting. Individuals define their goals on society's terms: self-reali­ zation, superficially speaking the most individualistic of all goals, can only take place inside a societal setting. Hence, it is a deeper truth than commonly realized that communication only can happen between indi­ viduals that have at least some of their "extralinguistic" parameters in common. A practical consequence of this view is that learning a foreign language is primarily a socializing process, one that cannot happen in vacuo (e.g. from a book) or in vitro (e.g. in the language lab). It is worthwhile noticing that these observations are by no means new or revo­ lutionary: Otto Jespersen, without knowing anything about the modern technology of the language lab or programmed teaching, warned against the teaching of foreign languages without having a well-defined goal in mind (1967). The pseudo-goals of many modern, "quickie" methods of foreign language instruction are deficient in precisely this respect: they do not endeavor to make explicit what it really means to use a foreign language, namely, to become part of a foreign society and enter its activity sphere. Superficial acquisition of sentences to be used on certain well-defined, so-called "cross-cultural" occasions should not be confused with incor­ poration into the communicative goals of that society. Seen in this light, the situation of the many millions of foreign workers in different Western European countries is symptomatic of a tragic necessity: their activities are limited by society to the lowliest tasks in the production process (unskilled labor, mostly at the assembly line). Any effort at letting these people identify with the communicative goals of the society will fail, as long as the setting in which they have to operate excludes a truly human communication in terms of common goals. One could express

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this in a cynical way by stating that these people really do not need to "know" the foreign language: their situational setting is such that they cannot construct any common goals with the people in whose society they live. As far as their primitive human needs are concerned, their survival is not a matter of grammar or even vocabulary. Sentences.,rules,and p r a c t i c e . Normal people do not use the sen­ tence (especially not the correct sentence) as their normal means of expression in normal conversational situations. If one has ever had the opportunity to listen to a tape of a relaxed communicative situation with two or more interactants, one will easily realize how far the actual utterances are from sentences in the sense of the grammar (considered as a device to generate all and only the correct sentences of a language). I want to stress the point that this is not just a matter of factual "in­ competence" (with a euphemistic expression called performance) on the part of the language users. Rather, the notion of the sentence itself as the central unit of linguistic description is at fault. The question has to be asked the other way 'round: If people do not use correct sentences in natural communication, then how come linguists keep referring to the sentence as the language unit par excellence (a language being "a set of correct sentences"), and why is a grammar defined as a device that generates precisely those sentences that, by definition, make up the language? From a generative point of view, a sentence is basically that which can be generated by some rule(s) of the grammar. In reality, the notion of sentence (more precisely, a correct sentence) and that of rule (or rather, the actualization of a rule or set of rules in a derivation) are interdependent: the correct sentence is that which can be described in terms of a completed derivation, and vice versa: a derivation produces as its result a correct sentence of some language. This rule-governed aspect of sentential priority in modern linguistics is extremely important, but hardly ever made explicit. The notion of a correct sentence as that which is derivable by a rule of the grammar, is thus complementary with the notion of the grammatical rule that derives a correct sentence. Together, these notions constitute

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the basis of Chomsky's attempt at a formal characterization of a natural language. It is the formal characterization that, in the end, determines the language as a set of sentences and the rules as the corresponding generative device. A formal characterization, however, cannot transcend its own limits: inside those, correctness reigns, outside incorrectness prevails. There is nothing astonishing in this, since the formal charac­ terization determines the form of both the language (the set of sentences) and the grammar (the set of rules). The concept of correctness is thus a natural consequence of the ideal of formalization. The "ideal speakerhearer" of generative grammar cannot be identified with a normal language user. This is indirectly confirmed by the characterization of human lin­ guistic performance (by a concrete speaker) compared to idealized compe­ tence (the true object of linguistic studies), given by Chomsky (e.g. 1965:4; 14). To sum up: the rules of the grammar are created to reflect the com­ petence of an abstract speaker-hearer, not to model his concrete situa­ tional behavior in a communicative situation. But if competence is that which I can explain by using the rules of the grammar, and if the rules of the grammar are devised to explain an abstract competence, then my testing of the rules against actual linguistic performance is doomed to be either self-fulfilling, and thus devoid of any theoretical importance, or practically impossible. It is true that one can try to circumvent the latter part of the alternative by introducing the concept of "acceptabili­ ty" (as distinct from "grammaticality", the self-fulfilling concept of correctness), but the theoretical foundations of such a concept are, at best, dubious, and at worst irrelevant to the concrete situational set­ tings in which language is performed. Formalization revisited. In an earlier paper (Mey 1972a), I have criticized the concept of "simulative formalization" as inferior to "abstract formalization" (à la generative grammar), on the grounds that only the latter provides fully operationizable test conditions for its derivations against the conditions of the describendum. As I see it now, the advantages of the "abstract model" are bought at the expense of emptying the model of its concrete content: one can test the model's

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predictions, but against what? Against a notion of correctness that is built into the model? Such a testing is clearly circular. Or against some outside criterion of "intuition", or "correctness", as accepted by the "native speaker"? But the model does not really accept the native speaker as its standard of reference:: competence has to do with the "idealized native speaker", and he, in turn, is removed from the real conditions of language production by the process of idealization. Let us see how the formal model operates. The first step is to define a formal system, and derive some string(s) inside it. Next, we show that the system generates, by means of its derivation, a corres­ ponding string in some natural language L (this is called: the generation of (a) correct sentence(s) in L ) . Now comes the counter-proof: we change some conditions inside the formal system, and derive (a) string(s) according to the changed system, and show that the string(s) thus gener­ ated correspond(s) to (an) incorrect sentence (s) (i.e. (a) sentence(s) outside L ) . Finally, we conclude that the formal system, as originally devised, was after all, a better grammar for L (subsidiarily, the best we have). The circularity of this reasoning is due to the fact that the conclusion is contained in the premises: what is correct is describable inside the system; what the system can describe is correct. Any other definition of correctness has to introduce "outside" information which can only be smuggled into the system by the back-door of the knowledge all (or at least some privileged) native speakers have about their lan­ guage, given certain, ideal conditions. In order to be able to operate with ideal conditions, the linguist has to idealize reality. That is, he abstracts from the concrete phenomena as they occur in order to be able to describe them in a system. Idealized conditions are well-known (but implicit) presuppositions for sciences such as physics, chemistry, etc. But what happens when we uncritically introduce the same methods in a science such as linguistics, that has to do with human, i.e. socially determined, phenomena? The answer to this question is found in the devel­ opment of linguistics as a science during the past decades: what we have obtained is a descriptional apparatus of some perfection, but one that has defined its describendum in terms of what can be described, rather than

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what should be described. Logically, what cannot be described inside the system has to be somehow excluded from the description: this is what such distinctions as competence vs. performance in reality purport to do. The perfection of the model (in terms of scientific exactness, capability of forming predictions, etc.) is purchased at the expense of reducing the model's real content (similar thoughts have been developed by the German linguist U. Maas (1973)). In the next section, I will discuss some of the presuppositions and consequences of this conception of science applied to linguistics. The end of syntax. The idealization I mentioned above is most clearly manifest in the Chomskyan model of generative grammar. Original­ ly, this model was developed explicitly to cope with syntactic struc­ tures; later refinements and modifications have not changed this funda­ mental characteristic (thus I agree with Seuren (1973), who contends that generative semantics really should be renamed "semantic syntax"). His­ torically, the formal methods whose precision Chomsky wanted to emulate were developed in terms of a device characterizing its own production in terms of "well-formedness". This criterion was transferred to produc­ tions by humans, and identified with the normative correctness ideal referred to above. Now, well-formedness is essentially a syntactic cri­ terion: it determines which elements can be put together ("concatenated") to make up well-formed strings. Syntax was formalized as the operation of concatenation, the well-formedness of successful concatenations being considered the formal counterpart of syntactic correctness in natural languages. The idealizations that have been performed here are obvious: first of all, linguistic syntax is not just the science of how to concatenate certain abstract elements to strings: it is the science of how people string together linguistic elements in order to express themselves, to make themselves understood in a concrete situation. The abstract cor­ rectness ideal has very little to do with actual speech production. The idealization that is manifest in abstract models of linguistic descrip­ tion such as generative grammars has been imposed from the "outside": it never was an intrinsic linguistic criterion. While linguists thus were

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able to obtain contact with a scientifically established method (albeit established in another context and for other sciences), and claim scien­ tific precision and scientific velue for linguistic idealizations, efforts to expand the idealized model (first by the introduction of a semantic component, and later by simply redefining syntax as semantics) resulted in the hollowing out of the concept of syntactic rule. From being the centerpiece of the generative grammar, the rules ended up being the least interesting and formally least definable part (cf. the unclear formal status of all kinds of transformational rules in the generative framework). The concept of a grammar as essentially consisting of a body of neutral, "context-free"'syntactic rules has another disadvantage. It rests on, and consequently furthers the idea of language being exercised in a homogene­ ous society under completely uniform conditions. Thus, the "neutral" rule suggests a "neutral" language: that which is not bound to any particular class in society. Actually, however, language is not neutral at all: it represents a particular realization of societal relationships: the rules of class language dominate, and are dominated by, the language of the ruling class. One sees the consequences of this idealization in social attitudes towards dialects and "sub-standard" speech, in the concept of language instruction for the "linguistically disadvantaged", and especial­ ly in formulations of the societal goals of linguistic activity such as the following: ... to avoid speech errors, and to replace the socially less acceptable forms with patterns that are socially acceptable and which can help lead the individual on the road to educa­ tional, economic and social success (from a recent proposal to a national funding organization).

Despite its obviously good intentions, the formulation chosen here recalls the ill effects of the theory and practice of so-called "compensatory education", as demonstrated in the controversies and misunderstandings around such projects especially in the U.S. and Western Germany (see, e.g. Gloy 1973). Thus we see that the idealizations embodied in linguistic "competence" are by no means neutral to the speaker/hearer: the "ideal" language user, as one who has correctness on his mind, embodies an ideal of linguistic

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practice, of language use, corresponding to the societal ideal of a "context-free" individual interacting with other, similarly "free", individuals. One is reminded of the idealized conditions characterizing the "economic man" of standard economics textbooks, in their description of "free enterprise" in a capitalist society. Looking for "linguistic man", one should not commit those same errors. In search of linguistic man. The currently accepted notion of the faculty of language being exercised in homogeneous, undisturbed situa­ tions of harmony is false. Understanding is not a heavenly bliss: rather, it is something one fights for. The fight is with language, and the fight is on all the time. Only in this sense can language be called an instrument of understanding. Homo linguisticus in a communicative situation evokes the notion of conflict rather than congruence. Stating this, I am in agreement with e.g. Habermas (1969; 1971; cf. also Bang (1974)) who has pointed out that the actual conditions for linguistic practice are far from ideal (i.e. "dominance-free"). Rather, the task of the linguist comprises a critique of the conditions for lin­ guistic production that, in the truest sense of the word, is transcen­ dental. The rules of such a "transcendental grammar" are very much unlike the rules of, say, generative grammar: es handelt sich nicht urn ein Regelsystem auf das sich ein idealer Sprecher in Einsamkeit versteht. Wenn die dialogkonstituierenden Universalien überhaupt als Regeln gefasst werden können, dann sind es Regeln zur Erzeugung nicht sowohl von linguistischen Ausdrücken, als vielmehr einer Struktur, die Verstandiging interagierender Sprecher ermöglicht: sie ermöglicht die Vereinigung von Sprache und Praxis auf dem Boden intersubjektiver Anerkennung handelnder Subjekte (Habermas 1969:4).

In this quote, several points deserve to be highlighted: the emphasis is on the dialogue (not the sentence); on the interaction of speaker and hearer (not on the individual activity and the language production of the single user); and finally, the universals that constitute the dialogue are questioned, not the rules themselves (the transcendental aspect of our search). Taking the notion of linguistic activity as part of total human

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activity seriously, one cannot raise any "transcendental" questions about communication without taking man's total situation into consideration. That is, we assume that the conditions for production of language are the same as the conditions for all human production, An idealization of these conditions can take two forms: we can either idealize the conditions for production in our modern industrial society by closing our eyes to the facts, and pretend that the conditions are better than they actually are (for example, if we pretend that we communicate in an harmonious, "domi­ nance-free" society). Or we can establish what conditions are ideal in the sense of "essential for communication". Here, the question is: What do people really do when they communicate? For example, an ideal of com­ munication would be for the interactants of the communicative situation to realize their goal: to understand each other, to communicate with each other. Clearly, in this sense "correctness" is no longer a question of merely observing certain syntactical rules: syntactic rules are only a part of the total practice of communication. They can be "over-ruled" by practice, and communication can still be successful. The ideal conditions for communication in the latter sense can be subsumed under the concept of the "dialectics of communication". As I have shown elsewhere (1973; 1976a), one of the constitutive conditions for language use is the existence of a language community. Use of language, with the intent to communicate, relies on a "quasi-external" condition: There must be somebody to communicate with, and this somebody has to agree on what I propose as the medium of communication: a common language. Strictly speaking, I am not using a language unless I use it together with somebody: speakers require hearers. However, the relation is not just one-sided: hearers require speakers, too, and in certain ways, they deter­ mine what the speaker is saying by giving meaning to his communication. This "quasi-external" condition of language use constitutes its dialectics. Consider the communication situation as a whole: among its constitu­ ent parts, we have language and language users. The context of this situ­ ation is decisive for the comprehension of the linguistic production in­ side the framework. Language users, that is, linguistic producers and consumers, bring into this context their particular presuppositions and

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MEY

beliefs, as well as their particular wishes. But none of these can by themselves explain what is going on, and account for the linguistic trans­ actions that take place. Again, this is where the dialectic aspect of language use comes in. What can be said in a given situation is a function of the situation itself. Linguists have often realized this, but their practice has not always followed this insight. As Ï said above, linguistic examples have often been subject to controversy because they could not be placed inside a concrete setting that would satisfy all theory producers. As Leont'iev remarks, "the concept of speech norm must by dynamic insofar as it depends on a number of variables (1973:51). Among these variables, one very im­ portant one is the social group to which the language users belong, and the "hierarchy of norms" that exist in different societies (ibid.). Nonobservance of the speech norm may result not only in faux pas, but in real "mis-understandings", no matter what "logical content" one may ascribe as purported linguistic invariable to the utterance in question. Thus we see that the quest for linguistic man, the producer and con­ sumer of language, transcends the one-dimensional world created by modern linguistics. A transcendental critique opens up at least two new dimen­ sions: one having to do with the process of linguistic production, the other with its product. With regard to the linguistic process of production and consumption, it has been rightly remarked (see Blakar (1976) with references) that traditional and modern linguistics, by focusing on the individual's cogni­ tive processes for the explanation of his linguistic behavior precludes any attempt at explaining linguistic activity as happening inside a situa­ tion. What I say is not what I could say, given such and such conditions (e.g. grammaticality). It is what I actually do say to somebody, with the result that somebody understands what I say. Not only the speaker, however, but all the interactants in the linguistic situation together make up the setting in which a particular utterance makes sense. Thus, understanding a situation precedes, logically and temporally, understanding an utterance: an utterance cannot be understood as long as the situation is not clear. To take a very simple example: questions are dependent on situational

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factors for their correct understanding. A question that is asked at a university exam is quite different from one that asks for simple informa­ tion such as the location of the nearest gas station. Informative ques­ tions and "interrogative" questions are thus widely divergent with regard to the reply they will permit: a correct reply to the "same" question in one situation will be a disaster in another. A truly practical linguis­ tics will have to take these differences into account, but it cannot stop here. The next step is to ask what these situations really mean: for it is only in a total framework that we can understand the full meaning of the utterance. Take again the exam situation: asking a question in an exam situation is the privilege of the examiner; the examinee has to answer Furthermore, the examinee (to understand the question successfully) has to second-guess the examiner's hidden intentions in asking precisely that question. This process is usually called, by a gross simplification, "understanding the question", but it really should be called, as we now see, "understanding the exam situation", that is, understanding how this particular question fits into, and is determined by, that situation. It serves no purpose to say at an exam that one did not understand a parti­ cular question, or that one thinks it is meaningless. Such replies may be all right in other situations, but at the exam table they are strictly out of order. The situation there is defined hierarchically, and interaction on a common level is not permitted. Ultimately, the situation has to be explained as part of society, in particular that sub-segment of society which is called the university. Understanding a question at an exam thus means: understanding a particular segment of society, and through that, society itself. The conditions for production and consumption that prevail in society at large define the conditions for any linguistic production and consumption; in short, for language use. The criterion of a "correct sen­ tence" has nothing to do with what actually is said in a situation, unless one understands "correctness" in a wholly novel way: namely, as conformity with the conditions for production of the utterance in question, as "trans­ cendental correctness". To understand a sentence is thus to understand the conditions under which language can be produced and consumed, which is really what is meant by the Wittgensteinian dictum that "to understand a

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sentence is to understand the language". But what about the product of linguistic activity? First of all, do we know what the product is? Given the fact that people do things with words, and that one impor­ tant aspect of these doings is the intention to understand and to be under­ stood, what linguistic man is trying for in the exercise of language, is understanding. From this point of view, the question "What is the logical content of a sentence?" (compared to, or even identified with, e.g. its deep structure) has only a limited interest. Limited, because the logical approach to semantics rests on the same meta-theoretical assumptions as the "correctness" approach to semantics: what is to be described is equa­ ted with what can be described inside the system. The limits of my logi­ cal system are, by definition, the limits of my description. If one allows the logical content of a sentence to determine its use, this implies that the semantic system is considered logically prior to the situational setting that defines the semantics of a concrete sentence. No wonder then, that for transformational grammar the use of language occupies a minor position compared to the abstract system, since, as Chomsky (1957) says, a sentence can be used in "any imaginable" way that its structure (the system) tells us nothing about. Keeping the "logical content" of a sentence constant while consider­ ing its use to be a variable reminds one of the process by which an object is considered possible if and only if it is thinkable. Such a philosophi­ cal attitude is usually called the positivist one; the movement from thinkability to possibility was first expounded by Hume in his Treatise. Thus, there is a parallel between the linguist who first "thinks up" a sentence, and then tries to place it within a "possible" context, and the positivist philosopher who first considers the "thinkability" of an object and then decides on its (possible) existence. Transformational grammar thus uses a positivist approach to the phenomena of language. Compare with this the "only scientific method", as defined by Marx: Es ist in der Tat viel leichter, durch Analyse den irdischen Kern der religiosen Nebelbildungen zu finden, als umgekehrt, aus den jedesmaligen wirklichen Lebensverhaltnissen ihre verhimmelte Formen zu entwickeln. Die. letztre ist die einzig

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materialistische und daher wissenschaftliche Methode (1969:393).

Linguistics, as does technology, "reveals man's active relationship to nature" (Marx, ibid.): it has to start with what is really happening, not with what linguists can imagine as possibly happening. This leads us to the rather pessimistic conclusion that, if we ever do find linguistic man, he will probably not make too much sense to most linguists.2 Common sense and practice. Our search for the "ideal" linguistic man has so far to a large extent been negative, in the double sense of: without results, and: with a negative result. That we did not actually unearth a linguistic man need not surprise us, inasmuch as such "men" are abstractions anyway. But what about the negative content of our conceptu­ alization (the "negative ideal")? We have mainly concentrated on what linguistic activity is not sup­ posed to consist of: one does not roll content into neat little sentence balls, toss them across for an imaginary interlocutor to swallow, all the time conforming to some idealized standards of correctness. Corresponding­ ly, the linguist's main task is not to try and model this idealized acti­ vity of non-existent "men" inside some formalized framework such as the rules of a transformational generative grammar. It is time now to ask our­ selves: What can be said positively, both about the activities of the language user and about those of the linguist? Language use represents a part of human activity as such. Hence linguistic activities (including the sentences described by grammarians) become meaningful only in the total context of human actions. This may sound like a truism: however, I take it in a non-trivial sense. Society as a whole determines what human activities are allowed, or even possible. It also gives rules for interpreting these activities in a certain ("correct") rather than another ("incorrect") sense. In the following, I will discuss two important factors that determine the use of language inside the concrete societal setting: the dual factors of power and change. These factors are connected with the "total human context" as follows: A situation is defined by a power structure. Whoever has the power deter­ mines the outcome of the situation; the powerless person can only wait for the persons in power to decide what is going to happen. Since use of

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language is part of the total human situation, the same conditions obtain here, although it may not always be evident who is in power: the persons who seemingly control the situation may themselves be under the domination or influence of some other societal powers. As an example, take the connection between the powers of society on the one hand, and the examiners vs. the examinee on the other at a university examination. On the surface, the examinee is powerless, the examiners omnipotent. In reality, they both underlie the conditions as defined by the structure of society and its controlling organs: just as the examinee only can give certain answers, the examiners are bound to ask only certain questions. Now what happens whenever the power structure in society changes, e.g. by means of a revolutionary process? Since the determining forces of the total human situation are changed, one expects a change in language use as we'll. This is where the other important factor comes in: change. Most people associate with language use an aspect of conservativeness: language lags behind the social evolution, and social revolutions do not entail the abolition of the existing language. To assume that revolution­ ary changes in society have as their natural sequel a change in language use may seem an error of the kind that was condemned by Stalin in his famous anti-Marr letters of 1950 (Stalin 1972). To illustrate this con­ servative aspect, Stalin points at certain, well-defined physical objects and their representation in language, and remarks that e.g. the word for 'table' in Russian was stol both before and after 1917, that the people of Russia still spoke the same language, and that the generations still com­ municated. However, this argument overlooks the fact that people do not communicate by exchanging linguistic equivalents for things such as 'tables'. As far as communication between the generations before and after the October revolution is concerned, one does not have to have much imagination to realize that there was little real communication, despite superficial identity in vocabulary and phraseology. To take another example: one is confronted daily, both in the national and in the inter­ national news media, with individuals and organizations professing the same aims and expressing these aims in the same language, yet being total­ ly unaware of the different practical consequences of their language, when

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used in their respective societal contexts. Since communication happens in concrete situations, language use cannot be separated from the conditions that determine these situations. And so, whenever those conditions change, the use of language will change, too. Thus, it is a real change not to be allowed to say certain things, or to have to use a certain vocabulary rather than another (cf. Orwell's (1965) "Newspeak"). Censorship changes the conditions for language pro­ duction and consumption. It represents a real change in the societal conditions that determines both the situation in which language can be used, and the language itself. What use is e.g. the "freedom" to produce correct English sentences, or to use the Russian word for 'table', if Ï cannot exercise my freedom because of some societal conditions? We do not even have to think of overt censorship in this connection: society has more effective ways and means of controlling situations. I may be a native speaker of English, but if my dialect is such that I cannot get a job, I am worse off than an immigrant with a heavy accent, but possessing a uni­ versity degree and the right connections. There is an exact parallel between this kind of "freedom" and the "freedom" that is usually asso­ ciated with the "free world", in which "freedom" often means the right to starve for the economically and socially deprived. From this point of view, the idealizing conditions of traditional linguistics have a doubly negative effect. First, they veil the actual conditions for language production and consumption by concentrating on the abstract utterance as the object of description, rather than on the situationally determined "speech act". Second, they have had, and still have, a devastating effect on all sorts of situations where linguistics is ap­ plied to everyday needs, e.g. the teaching and learning of foreign lan­ guages; the education of children in their own language; the introduction of "compensatory education" as a first-aid program for the "linguistically underdeveloped"; and so on. From what has been said so far, it has become clear that "linguistic man" is constantly manipulated by the powers that be: they define his "freedom" in using language to suit their own interests. To change his condition, if a change is at all possible, he will have to fight a double

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enemy: first, the immanent inertia of his existing conditions (the antirevolutionary character of all societal constructs), and second, the danger that his new condition could be worse. Oppressive conditions for language use may go "underground" in some Orwellian nightmare, where the "Ministry of Peace" is responsible for making wars, and so on. Let us consider some examples from practical situations where lan­ guage is used. Above, I mentioned the teaching of a language (mother tongue or other). There are some very interesting aspects to the philo­ sophy that determines what kind of language should be learned, and where the emphasis should be placed in language training programs. First, there seems to be no doubt that (although theoretically all languages are equal) some are more equal than others» A minority dialect is really not a language in many situations: rather, it is a handicap, more obvious and more intolerable than many a physical one. The teaching of, say, English in most schools in the U.S. tends to perpetuate this situation by putting emphasis on the "correct" use of language. But what is correctness? In most cases, the teachers try to encourage their pupils to avoid some of the most obvious characteristics of their dialects when speaking to persons that are "higher up". If Johnny wants a job, then he shouldn't say I ain't and things like that; he should remember to put in his r's (so he puts them in everywhere as a sign of his aspirations to higher social prestige (cf. Labov 1968)). In this connection, it is interesting to note that only those things are taught that can be taught inside the framework of the teaching situation, just as only what can be described inside the framework of the theory is worthy of description. Traditional­ ly, language teaching emphasizes the areas of phonology (incl. pronuncia­ tion: cf. the r's) and morphology-syntax (cf. I ain't). These two areas occupy the "lowest" (i.e. farthest away from content) placement in the grammar; in generative grammar, they represent the most "surfacy" levels. The teaching of languages (own and foreign) consumes much valuable energy and time by trying to have the students imitate some kind of standardized. supposedly prestigious pronunciation, such as the Received Pronunciation (RP) of English in Danish schools. In syntax, students are taught to imitate "good" authors, and so on. Unless one wants to instruct the

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students in what to write, and how» this seems to be the end of formal teaching. Teaching other subjects, such as semantics, raises'the question who is to decide what "correct semantics" is. Semantic rules such as have been suggested by generative grammar certainly do not represent any intel­ ligent level of semantic perception, and would exclude most of the inven­ tiveness that we associate with "good" writing. As examples, take the Katz-Fodor type discussions about what bachelor should be represented by in a single sentence context. I will not spend any time flogging this long dead horse. Two conclusions seem to emerge: One, that only certain things can be taught, and can be taught objectively, that is, without undue influence on the students' freedom of choice with regard to expressing themselves. Two, that the question of content is not a point that at present can be dis­ cussed under the heading of "teaching". I will maintain that both conclusions are, to a certain degree, false. In the first place, although we don't have a "Christian grammar" and although "die grammatischen Regeln ... sich nicht verandern, gleich, ob sie von einem religiösen Tory oder einem Freidenker erklart werden" (Marx, quoted by Erckenbrecht (1973:96)), it is still the case that the rule itself, by its mere formulation, lays down a code of behavior for the language user. The rule represents not only the grammar, but also the linguist who, by virtue of his position in society (especially an institu­ tionalized position, e.g. in a university), has the power to "lay down the rule" on the shoulders of the unruly. The only way such a subjugation can be avoided is by recognizing the potentially oppressive character of all rule-making. In the hands of the employer, for example, the rule for "good" pronunciation of a particular sound of English can, and at certain times (e.g. in hiring and firing) necessarily will, become an instrument of oppression of the employee. What is wrong with old fashioned methods of language teaching, such as drills and the like, however, is not only that they limit the learner to one particular way of speaking or writing; even more modern, "freer" ways can be oppressive. The real freedom of expression is not in the way we say things, but in the power we hold to determine how things are said. This holds for content, too: the content

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of our learning does not guarantee freedom, unless we possess the power to determine that content. This brings us to the second point: Although the freedom of expres­ sing one's thought in language may seem to be, if not a birth right, at least a very fundamental human freedom,the factual conditions of language use for most people contradict this freedom in many essential ways. I am not thinking now of extreme cases such as censorship,, but rather of the everyday tyranny that language exercises over us. Soren Kierkegaard expresses this to perfection when he characterizes the mother tongue as "fettering its children with a chain that is easy to carry, yes! but hard to break" (1963:512). The factual ability to express oneself, given a particular situation, can be considered as a concrete counterpart to Habermas' concept of "communicative competence" (1969). What I can say in a given situation depends mainly on two factors: one, what the situation is (the "content" of the situation, if one wishes); two, the way I perceive the content of the situation. The first factor includes the societal conditions embodied in my own as well as the other interactants' objective conditions of pro­ duction and consumption (cf. above). The second factor has to do with each individual's subjective perception of the situation. I will concen­ trate here on the second factor, since we already have dwelt upon the first at some length. On entering a situation, I will try to relate it to something I am familiar with. My perception of a particular situation has to do with earlier perceptions of situations. From society's viewpoint, such "con­ densed perceptions" represent some kind of "solidified labor" (Maas & Wunderlich 1972:192). From a traditional linguistic-semantic point of view, the perception is directly and uncritically related to the content, in particular to its lexical representations, the "words" of a language. Words are seen as representations for certain concepts: not all concepts have their own words, but in general, like tears, words are for things: sunt verba rerum.

Against this naive view, I want to maintain that words represent "things" (whatever they are) only mediately, the medium being the situation.

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A situation may be viewed as a concrete conceptualization: it is the con­ ceptual interrelationships that determine a situation's contents, not the words strung together in some kind of acceptable sequence. The important question here is how to represent the relationships between these concep­ tualizations, (Schank, in his conceptual dependency theory (1972), has indicated one possible model (1972)). Another question (naturally connected with the first one) is how these conceptualizations come about, and what they actually mean to their users. Concepts are not just abstractly dependent upon one another, according to some universaiistic representa­ tions but they relate in terms of "conceived" dependency. If I have a certain conception of a situation then I will only be able to see the conceptual dependencies that define the situation inasmuch as they coin­ cide with (or at least not contradict) my bias. Such a "pre-established" conceptualization may or may not be in harmony with the generally accepted one that defines a situation. If the latter is the case, either I am totally outside the situation ("out of it"), or the conditions for production and consumption that have defined situations for me i n earlier prac­ tice are such that they block my effective participation. A trivial exam­ ple may help to make my point clear. What do I do when I have lost my special screwdriver with a built-in indicator light for "hot" connections? I try to construct possible situations and places in which I may have used it, then go to these places and look for it there. I will not look for it in the barn, since I know I haven't been there, and why? Because there is no reason to use that screwdriver in the barn, where there is no electri­ cal outlet or any wiring whatsoever. What I am doing here is making a conceptualization of possible earlier situations in order to solve my present problem: how to find this screwdriver. Such conceptualizations contain two kinds of elements: firsts the "anamnesic" ones ("Where have I been?"), second, the "strategic" ones ("Why would I go such and such a place?"). Among those I have called "strategic", two kinds can be distinguished: the associative ones ("I always go to the barn first") and the specific conceptualizations that have to do with the situation at hand (a special kind of screwdriver has gotten lost). Similarly, upon entering a language use situation, I will try to

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conceptualize what is going on in order to be able to participate. In this connection, the strategic conceptualizations are by far the most interesting, because they directly reflect the individual's factual possibilities of joining the situation. Recall that conceptualizing has to do with both what has been conceptualized e a r l i e r , and with the "paths" that are likely to be constructed (because they either already exist, or can be constructed without too much effort). While these strategies have much to do with an individual's idiosyncracies, it remains true that the real basis of those idiosyncracies is the society in which the individual lives. It is possible for me to pursue an idiosyncratic goal only in the context of the common conditions under which we all live. Strategies for conceptualizations make sense for the individual because they represent some aim he wants to pursue; but the aims he is able to pursue are defined by the society he lives in, and is part of. An abstract network of con­ ceptual connections has thus to be supplemented in a double fashion: we have to ask first, what likely representations will occur in a particular societal setting; and second, what the specific conditions are for an individual to conceptualize a situation in his/her particular way. The strategies, general as well as specific, that an individual language user has at his/her disposition can only be understood and analyzed in the con­ text of the given societal consitions. Vice versa, the prevailing condi­ tions in any given society determine what one can understand, in the strict sense of the word, of a particular situation of language use. In the next section, I will note some of the consequences that derive from this view. Some practical consequences. (1) A criterion of well-formedness in terms of what the language user has in mind as his/her (ultimate or inter­ mediate) goal, such as suggested by Bogh-Andersen (1973; 1976), has to incorporate the situational aspects outlined here to be successful. It cannot be formulated purely as a matter of what I (the speaker) have in mind. The reason is that whatever I think of as my (private) goal with relation to e.g. a particular utterance in reality represents a goal that has been, and is, determined by the conditions under which I live, that is, by the society that I am part of. This becomes especially clear if

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one tries to establish "goal-trees" for actions that comprise more than just one component. Alternatively, one can undo the abstractions that are involved in formulating a goal for one "single" action (which is parallel to rejecting the single sentence as point of reference for linguistic analysis). While I agree that well-formed use of language, inasmuch as it is part of a situation, has to found itself upon the situation's wellformedness, which again depends on the correct hierarchy of the goals (goal-trees) in question, in order to obtain a correct hierarchy of goals, however I have to know what priorities are assigned by society to differ­ ent goals. If I want to get some place quick by car, I still have to respect societal restrictions such as red lights, speed limits, etc. Emergencies have to be defined and officially recognized in order to war­ rant exceptions to these conditions. Similarly, in understanding situa­ tions and outlining "correct" use of language in a particular situation, I have to know what "strategic" (in the sense defined above) limitations are put on my linguistic behavior. That is to say, a network of univer­ salistic dependencies will not be sufficient in itself: I also want to know how to find my way through it. Certain paths through the network will have a higher frequency of use than others; certain points in the network will have a higher "weight" than others, given certain initial points. A conceptual representation of e.g. a conversation will consist in a retracing of these paths and points. Simulative predictions of conversational conceptualizations on the computer will have to take the existing frequencies and weightings into account in order to determine possible or "appropriate" turns in the conversation ("turns" here taken in the sense of Sacks et al. (1973); I owe this reference to T. Andersen (1973)). (2) A model of language use that incorporates the features outlined here is essentially different from most currently available models in that it concentrates on understanding utterances in context rather than produ­ cing them in isolation. The aim of such a grammar is not to generate "all and only the correct sentences of language L" but rather, to tell us some­ thing about how a particular utterance is understood in the context of a situation. Given a sentence, the grammar will ask: "How can I make sense

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of this?", rather than assigning it a certain value on an imaginary correctness scale. The model will thus be closer to what humans actually do when using language, and less close to what linguists usually do when they talk about language. It is an interpretive, not a generative model; it is semantics-, rather than syntax-based. However, its semantics are not the kind that considers words and their break-down into semantic fea­ tures within an abstract correctness framework. Rather, I am talking about conceptualizations that happen in concrete situations: the individ­ ual concepts that make up situational conceptualization are dependent not only on each other, but also on the conditions that determine the situa­ tion as a whole. Finally, since concepts can be considered as "condensed" human actions, their connections represent human action, too. Language use is part of total human activity, and can only be understood as such. An exclusively semantics-based model of language use will be just as poorly equipped to do the job as a model that bases itself on syntax alone. Linguistics becomes thus the science of linguistic practice: its task is to explain what people do with their language. It is in this sense that I want to call linguistics a practical science: a science of practice. (3) As a last consequence, I would like to point to the possible impact that the views sketched here could have on certain activities inside "applied" linguistics, such as the teaching of foreign and mother tongues. What does it really mean to understand a Danish sentence? To be able to produce one? Or to recognize one? Superficially speaking, there seems to be no problem: the Danish child acquires command of its language without formal instruction, the American student in high school or university can be taught to understand and acceptably produce sentences in Danish with the help of the available teachers and lab equipment. Yet, there is an enormous difference in the capabilities acquired: the Danish child is fluent after 3, maybe 4, years while most American students probably never even will approach (near-) native command of Danish. Why? If we look at the kind of situations a language is used in, the answer is partly given. For the native speaker, language is a way of relating to the world. For the speaker of a second language, in many cases; there is

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no existential urge to use that language: given the choice, he will try to use his own because that is his normal way of relating to the world. How­ ever, suppose the foreign language is a matter of life and death; suppose the ability to survive is dependent on the acquisition of that language? Then there is no doubt that even adults could learn a foreign language to perfection, "blocking out" the native language, as has been seen in the case of many European immigrants to the U.S.A., or of German soldiers coming back from lengthy stays in Soviet prisons and concentration camps. What I have said here should not be understood as purporting that language learning is just a matter of being "motivated". Rather, what I want to underline is that the acquisition and exercise of language, as part of total human activity, depends on the conditions (objective as well as subjective) that control this activity. Grasping one's own existence as a language user may happen unconsciously, as in the case of the child; or it may happen more or less half-consciously, as in the case of the adult who is forced by circumstances. The question is: can we use this process of "consciousness-raising" in teaching foreign languages as a useful (or even necessary) step towards total acquisition of that language? Let's examine what it really means to be conscious of one's own exis­ tence in terms of language. It entails among other things that one ver­ balizes, "languefies" every action. For the foreign language acquisition process this means that a continuous stream of "foreign language-conscious­ ness" must accompany every action; that one's existential consciousness must be blocked out by a willed effort not to think "in one's own language"; all dependent on, and motivated by a desire to let the second language become what the first language has been all the time: a part of the action. 3 This is what it means to "go native". Of course, such conditions cannot be created outside of a very controlled environment: however, the few instances where this has been possible (e.g. U.S. Army personnel training for service in occupied territories during and after World War II) seem to confirm my hypothesis. When evaluating the usefulness and desirability of such "total teaching", or "living language programs", one should of course keep in mind the overall purpose of language instruction. If "total learning" is a matter of life and death, O.K., but if it really is not all

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that important, then why bother to teach students the intricacies of RP at the undergraduate university level, as is done in most continental universities? The usual answer is that one cannot but aim for the high­ est standards in future teachers: but this is really a circular answer, because it presupposes that the future teachers know what they want to do with their students when they start teaching, and that the students know what they want from their teachers. All this brings us back to where we started: what should the job of a linguist be? Write grammars, yes - but for who? For linguists only? For the people (including linguists)? If writing grammars and doing lin­ guistics are to be, if not equated, then at least put in close correlation together, I would postulate as a common goal for all practical and theo­ retical linguistic practitioners that their activities be directed towards a better understanding of "linguistic man", that is man understanding himself as a practical being in and through the practice of language, including grammars and their use. This is the only way of doing linguis­ tics as a science that founds its theory on practice, and not the other way 'round. Conclusion. In the beginning of this contribution, I suggested that linguistics, by moving away from its exclusive morphological and syntactic descriptional tasks towards the social and practical aspects of language use ("pragmalinguistics", if one wants to coin a term), will be better suited to meet the needs of our generation. It seems to me that these suggestions are consonant with what Winfred Lehmann wrote a few years ago: ... linguistics has arrived at an understanding of various components of language. The phonological and morphological components, which have been the focus of linguistic research during the first part of this century, still provide many problems. But linguists seeking explanations for linguistic phenomena no longer need to restrict themselves to the study of these relatively non-central components of language. The framework now available for understanding and explaining syntactic phenomena should encourage students of language to direct their efforts also at accounting for its central com­ ponents. (1972:274).

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NOTES 1

"By "context-free" I mean here: that which is not connected to any one particular societal set of conditions of production.

2 The quotations from Hume and Marx were borrowed from two unpublished papers by Torsten Erlandsen (1974). 3 There is an interesting discrepancy here in English: thinking native and going native have different references. I think this nicely illus­ trates my point about the situation being essential in language use. REFERENCES Andersen, Peter Bogh. 1973. Handlinger og symboler: lingens syntaks. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.

Elementer af hand-

. 1976. "The syntax of texts and the syntax of actions". In Mey 1976b. Andersen, Torben. 1973. Samtaleanalyse og sproghandlingsanalyse, University of Copenhagen (unpubl. diss.) Bang, Jorgen. 1974. Lingva, l i n g v i s t , lingvistik, (unpubl. thesis) Blakar, Rolv M. 1973. Human communication:

Odense University

an ever-changing contract

embedded in social contexts. University of Oslo (unpubl. manuscr.) . 1976. "Language as a means of social power". In Mey 1976. Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic

structures.

The Hague: Mouton & Co.

. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: The. MIT Press. . 1968. Language and mind. New York etc.: Harcourt, Brace & World. Dijk, Teun A. van & Co.

1972. Some aspects

of text

Erckenbrecht, Ulrich. 1973. Marx' materialistische Taunus: Skriptor.

grammars.

The Hague: Mouton

Sprachtheorie.

Kronberg,

Erlandsen, Torsten. 1974. "AEstetik". Odense University (unpubl. manuscr.) . 1974. "Den filosofiske common sense". Odense University (unpubl. manuscr.)

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Fishman, Joshua. 1968. Readings Mouton & Co.

in the socioloqy

of language.

The Hague:

Gloy, Klaus. 1973. "Bernstein und die Folgen". In Walter 1973. Habermas, Jürgen. 1968. "Thesen zur Theorie der Sozialisation" (mimeo­ graphed lecture notes). Also in: Habermas, J., A r b e i t , Erkenntnis3 Fortschritt. Amsterdam 1970:376-429. .

. 1.969. "Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz", in: Habermas, J. & N. Luhmann, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder S o z i a l t e c h n o l o g i e , Frankfurt a.M. 1971:101ff.

Hume, David. 1899. A Treatise Press.

of human nature,

Jespersen, Otto. 1967. How to teach Allen & Unwin.

a foreign

(repr.) Oxford: Clarendon language.

(repr.) London:

Kierkegaard, Soren. 1963. Samlede vaerker, vol.6. (repr.) Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Labov, William. 1968. "The reflections of social processes in linguistic structures". In Fishman 1968. Lehmann, Winfred P. 1972. "Converging theories in linguistics". Language 48:266-275. Leont'iev, A.A. 1973. "Speech norm as social norm". Linguistics Maas, Utz. 1973. Grundkurs Sprachwissensehaft München: List. Maas, Utz & Dieter Wunderlich. 1972. Pragmatik Frankfurt: Athenäum.

112:49-55.

I: Die herrschende Lehre. und sprachliches

Handeln.

Marx, Karl. 1969. Das K a p i t a l (MEW Vol.23). Berlin: Dietz. . 1973. (Speech IWA Gen. Council) (MEW Vol.16). Berlin: Dietz. Mey, Jacob L. 1972a. "A note on formalization in the sciences, with special reference to linguistics". Norw. Journ. Ling. 26:111-117. _. 1972b. "Wille zum Verstehen oder Verständnis als Wahl". Ling. Ber. 21:30-33. . 1973. "Performansens dialektik". Papir 2:1-17. . 1976a. "Vorbemerkungen zu einer kritischen Linguistik". In Studemund, M., Reader zur Psycholinguistik. München: Fink.

263

LINGUISTICS AS A PRACTICAL SCIENCE . 1976b. Pragmalinguistics Peter de Ridder Press. Orwell, George. 1965. Nineteen Warburg. Ross, John R. 1967. Constraints (unpubl. M.I.T. diss.)

: theory

eighty-four. on variables

and practice.

Lisse:

(repr.) London: Secker & in syntax.

Cambridge, MA

Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Gail Jefferson. 1973. "A simple semantics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation" (unpubl. manuscr.) Schank, Roger C. 1972. "Conceptual dependency: a theory of natural language understanding". Cogn. Psychol. 3:552-631. Searle, Ronald A. 1969. Speech acts. Seuren, Pieter A. 1973. Generative dorf: Schwann.

London: Cambridge University Press. Semantik:

semantische

Stalin, Joseph V. 1972. Marxismus und Fragen der (repr.) München: Rogner & Bernhard.

Syntax.

Düssel-

Sprachwissenschaft.

Walter, Heinz. 1973. (ed.) Sozialsationsforsehung I: Erwartungen, Probleme, Theorieschwerpunkte. Stuttgart: Fromman-Holzboog.

PART II:

STUDIES IN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

TYPOLOGICAL NOTES ON IRISH WORD-ORDER* ANDERS AHLQVIST

In discussions about language universals, especially word-order in relation to typology, Irish merits more consideration than it has re­ ceived so far. First of all, among Indo-European languages, it is one (cf. Schmidt 1969, 123) of the best examples of what Lehmann (1972, 267) has called a "consistent VO language". Secondly, the consensus of pre­ sent-day Irish scholarship holds that at some stage in its early history, or perhaps rather its prehistory, Irish changed from "a language with the verb normally in clause-final position to one with the verbal complex almost universally in clause-initial position." Now, in this quotation the word 'verb' is used, but, as I hope will become clear in what follows, 2 this may be taken rather more widely than in most existing handbooks on Irish, The main support for this way of looking at Irish derives from the fact that of the two ways of translating to be into Irish, I only take the 'substantive verb' to be a predicate as that term is understood in 3 this paper; the 'copula' must be regarded as a mere predicating particle. Consider sentences like P

S

Ad

1) radeimnigestar dia tressacetharde (Wb. 32 20) 'God has certified it by the four things'4 and *I am grateful to William Gillies, Anthony Rutherford and Dr. Elmar Ternes for reading a draft of this paper and making valuable comments and corrections. Remaining errors are of course my own responsibility.

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P

S

Ad

2) issumecen precept armetiuth (Wb. 10d 24) 'it is necessary for me to teach for my raiment'.

In 1) v a d e i m n i g e s t a r may be decomposed into vo 'perfective preverb' +a 'him' or 'it' + d e i m n i g e s t a v 'certified', whereas in 2) issumecen consists of is 'is' + m 'me' + eicen 'necessity'.5 It will be obvious that were one to analyse vadeimnigestav and is as verbs, the description of Irish word-order would be unnecessarily complicated, whereas the present analysis enables us to establish the same word-order for all Irish sentences, those with ordinary verbs as well as those with a non­ verbal predicate, especially in view of the fact that the copula is frequently omitted. At this point one qualification must be made: the order Predicate Subject Object, etc. applies only where pronouns are not involved. Con­ sider the objects in 1) and 2) again and compare with them S

P

3) nímcharatsa indfir (Wb. 5c6) 'the men love me not' and P

0

Ad

4) inget abullu arcrist (Wb. 9d4) 'shall I snatch his members from Christ'.

All these examples show an important principle of Old Irish wordorder, namely that subject and object pronouns are incorporated in the predicate, sometimes reinforced by an emphasizing particle (like -sa in nimchavatsa; subjects appear as synthetic verbal endings, often very much reduced as in inget and objects as infixed pronouns. The indepeno

dent form appears as predicate with the copula. In Middle Irish this changes and independent pronouns begin to appear as subjects and objects.9 There seems, however, to be a strong tendency for the independent pro­ nouns to follow different word-order rules from those that apply for nouns in similar positions. Consider p

Ad

s

5) do-raten ri Colum Cille si (Jackson, ed. 1972, 3 0 . § 'it pleased Columba'

I.5-6)

269

IRISH WORD-ORDER

P

S

Ad-

6) gur mharbh caor theintighe san leith thoir -Ad O don Fhraingc láimh le sliabh Alpa é (Keat. II, .990-1) 'so that lightning killed him (= e) in the east of France, besides the Alp mountains', c P

r+c P

Ad

S

7) ba bheag ab fhiu an uair sin iad (de Bhaldraithe, 1956, 105) 'it was little they (iad) at that time' and P

Ad-

-Ad 0

8) ní fhacthas ariamh amach as é (Mhac an Fhailigh, 1968, 85.315) 'he (e) was not seen ever from then on'.

The examples are from chronologically different stages of Irish: 5) is late Middle Irish, 6) late Classical Modern Irish and 7) and 8) Modern Connaught Irish, but they all show how pronouns follow different wordorder rules from those observed by nouns. After these preliminaries establishing the order of major constitu­ ents in Irish, we may turn to some other features. Firstly, consider 3) and 4) again. According to the principle established by Lehmann (1973, 47 ff.), we should expect that in a predicate-initial language like Irish, negatives, like ní in 3) and interrogatives like in in 4) might stand first and they do. Then we might consider the expectation (op. oit 48) that "In V0 languages, nominal modifiers such as relative, adjectival, and genitival expressions follow nouns;". In most stages of Irish this is rather con­ sistently so. Consider pp

n

n

a

v

r

n pp pn

n

14) fo besad fir trebuir arenas tíir diachlainnd (Wb. 29 d 23) 'after the manner (besad) of a prudent (tvebaiv) man (fir gen.) who buys land for his children.

This example also shows that Irish is a prepositional language, as Greenberg's Universal 3. (1963,62) would lead us to expect. To these rules, there is only one interesting exception, that still applies in Modern Irish. This concerns adjectives, a limited number of which may precede the noun, including numerals other than 'one'. Consider

270

ANDERS AHLQUIST en

v

nm

n

a +

n

15) Agus ataid cheithre cineil deagh-oibreach r + v

pp + pn pp

vn

dhleaghair dhuinn do dheanamh (T.Sh. 1811-2) 'And there are four kinds of good work it is incumbent on us to do'.

Note that, as the spelling suggests, it is perhaps best to analyse as a compound. In any case, this "exception" is found in deagh-... other languages as well, as Greenberg's Universal 19.(1963,68) would tell us. According to these criteria, it is easy to see that Irish be­ longs to the largest and most consistent class of "VSO" (op.cit. 87) languages. It remains to discuss Universal 6., according to which "All languages with dominant VSO order have SVO as an alternative order or as the only alternative order" {op.cit. ,63). Now, whereas one may find examples like S

Ad

ng

P

Ad

16) Madramhlacht mna go brath ni rachaidh ar gcul (Mhac an Fhailigh, 1968, 71.82) 'boldness of women for ever it won't recede'.

however, in spoken Modern Irish, this would probably be felt more like an anacolouthon than an alternative pattern of word-order. On the other hand, as Mac Cana has pointed out recently (1973,111) there are examples like s

v

o

17) Coro con-oi anmuin (Hull, ed. 1968,68.95) 'the body preserves the soul'

where it is clear that "this word-order does not appear to differ noticeably in its effect from the normal verb-initial sentence". Thus, it is possible, although few yet seem to have felt the need to postulate it for Irish, that there was an intermediate stage between early Irish predicate-final and Classical Old to Modern Irish predicate-initial position.12 At this point, we may turn to discuss the final position of the predicate, which may be verbal, as in c

pp

n

ng

n

a

pp

n

18) Is tre 'fir flathemon mortlaidi mora di doenib

271

IRISH WORD-ORDER

P v dingbatar (Thueneysen, ed. 1917., 81 106) 'it is through a ruler's justice great plagues are averted from people'.

or nominal, as in c pp

n

ng

a n

Pa

19) Is tre 'fír flathemon each tír toirthech (ibid. §14) 'it is through a ruler's justice that every land is fruitful.'13

Note that is tre fír flathemon in both these sentences is preposed for emphasis as may happen in any stage of Irish. Had there been no such emphasis, the equivalents in something more like Classical Old Irish might have been: pv

P v

n

a

pp

n

ng

18a) Do-ingbatar mortlaidi mora tre fír flaithemon14 and c

Pa

a

n

pp

n

ng

19a) (Is) toirthech cach tír tre fír flaithemon

Now, in establishing other typological criteria to enable us to determine what type of language this kind of Irish might have belonged to, Wagner's (1967,300) list of "fiinf Typen unregelmassiger Wortstellung" will provide a most useful starting point. Disregarding one of them we can divide them in two groups: occurrences of various kinds of predicates in final position on the one hand and of genitives preceding their head-nouns on the other, as in n g

pp

n

a

n

20) fairgge al druim danae fer (Kelly, ed. 1973,15 § 12d) 'a brave man over the ridge of the sea'.

This example also illustrates how any adjective may precede its noun, without a compound being formed. Lastly, we may note that prepositions may occur as postpositions in certain contexts, as in c

pp

n

n g

pv*

S n

n

pp

ng

21) Is tre fir flathemon ad. morchatha crícha cu namat P v curetar (Thurneysen, ed. 1917, 81 § 11) 'It is through a

272

ANDERS AHLQUIST ruler's justice great battles are repulsed to (cu) the areas (crícha) of the enemies'.

All these criteria, i.e. final predicates, preposed nominal modi­ fiers and the occurrence of postpositions, are characteristics of what Greenberg (1963,61) would call an "SOV" or "type III" language and Lehmann (1972,267; 1973,47) an "OV language". There are, however, other criteria for such languages which cannot be established from v/hat we know about this kind of Irish, so perhaps it did not fulfill all the require­ ments of a "consistent OV language" (Lehmann, loo.cit.). First of all, there seem to be no examples where interrogatives and negatives follow after the predicate, Secondly, there is no relative expression (with a participle or otherwise) that precedes the noun. In the third place, the standard marker in comparison always follows the compared adjective (Thurneysen, 1946, 160; 232). These are what we might call negative criteria, in so far as it is obviously impossible to state categorically that the language never had them. It is important to note that all these criteria are found in poetry and rhythmical prose only. This has led Wagner (1967, 313) to reject the possibility of an archaic linguistic feature underlying the final position of finite verbs, on the grounds that it is connected with other types of irregular word-order. On the other hand, it seems to me that the argument could be turned the other way round: final position of finite verbs is a linguistic archaism precisely because it has a typological connection with other types of irregular word-order. By the time Irish was beginning to be written down, the language having changed18 a very great deal over the preceding centuries, it was natural enough that these archaisms should have sur­ vived as poetic features only or as Watkins puts it (1963,34): they "are preserved only by virtue of having themselves become features of poetic language, rather than examples of ordinary language". He referred only to cases of final verbs, but his argument applies equally well to the other criteria noted. It is in similar terms that I believe one ought to describe the occurrence of a "meaningless" form of the copula at the head of some sentences with a final verb. Wagner objects (1967,302-3) strongly that

IRISH WORD-ORDER

273

the copula cannot here be "meaningless", and probably rightly so . On the other hand, the very petrified nature of this construction makes the introduction of the copula, with whatever "meaning" it may be deemed to have, not difficult to understand: namely, through analogy with sentences where the main verb is not in initial position, and the copula marks the emphatic preposing that is such an important feature of the language to the present day. This construction20 may be exemplified by 18), 19) and 21) and (for Classical Old Irish) by c

n

v

r

24) iscrist pridchimme (Wb. 14d 40) 'it is Christ that we preach'

and from Modem I r i s h i n c

n

a

r

v

pp+pn

25) ba saoghal dona a bhí ann (de Bhaldraithe, 1953,97) 'it was a bad time that there was'.

To varying degrees, this kind of expression is used in Western European languages, but in none of them is it attested as early as in Irish. Therefore, it has been conjectured that it has spread to these languages as a result of a Celtic substratum influence.21 On the other hand, this is not unparallelled elsewhere: There are other languages which, where emphasis is shown by preposing part of the sentence, use similar particles 22 to mark the emphasis. Although calling the copula a particle or a prefix, as has been implicit throughout this paper, is descriptively suitable as regards most stages of Irish, it is of course not historically correct. In origin it is of course a full verb, stressed like any other major con­ stituent of a sentence, as in other languages. Traces of this may actually be found in Irish, namely in the archaic poem known as the Amra Choluim Cille , where, inter v

a

alia,

one finds

n

28) Bai seim sath (LU .655) ' (his) sufficiency was slender'.

This may be an instance that shows that the author of the poem "had still

274

ANDERS AHLQUIST

the tradition of a time when the unstressed copula had not become reduced".23 " Indeed, even without any actual instances of a stressed full verb copula, comparison with other Indo-European languages would most certainly tell us that the unstressed copula is an innovation. At this stage we may note the various means used for showing em­ phasis in languages: some of them, like Irish, use almost exclusively syntactic means to show which element is emphasized; others, like English, also use intonational means for this purpose. Now, once the 24 consistent predicate-initial type of word-order had imposed itself in Irish, one concomitant would be that an emphasized element moved to the front of the main predicate must in its turn also be marked as having the status of one, and so, the copula came to be used for the purpose of marking this. Note that as the use of the copula was extended to predicate more categories it seems quite likely that adverbials were first made into copula predicates in emphatic position and then, on this 25 model, in simple copula sentences. In any case the emergence of em­ phatic preposing in Irish must have links both with the change in wordorder on the one hand, and the change in the nature of the copula on the other26 . The latter, however, reflects the profound changes in the phonological structure of the language, changes which might, on typo27 back to the change in word-order. logical grounds, be linked However, to conclude, it must be stressed that it is not, as yet at any rate, really practical to try to establish chains of cause and effect to explain these changes. What can be done, on the other hand, is to describe the changes together and use evidence from other languages to discover which kinds of change may be expected to be linked in ways that suggest something more than a random connection. NOTES 1 Meid 1972,1196. For a more detailed discussion of Bergin 1938; Meid 1963 and Watkins 1963. 2 It is rather unfortunate that, on the whole, linguistic terminology in English makes no distinction between verbs as syntactic major consti­ tuents and verbs as a morphological class. The use of terms like sub­ ject, object and adverbial as against noun and adverb makes this clear for the other major constituents. Therefore "verb" in this paper will refer

IRISH WORD-ORDER

275

to the morphological class and "predicate" to the syntactic consti­ tuent, following the usage of my Swedish school-grammar (Beckman, 1959, 244f.). This will enable me to have a common term for verbal and nominal predicates, which in Irish syntax have much in common, so much so that it seems useful to depart from usual terminology (Cf. Lyons' 1969,334), which uses the term "predicate" to cover everything in the sentence nucleus that is not part of the subject; just like Chomsky's "verb phrase" (1957,26 and passim; 1965,65 and passim), it includes the object of a sentence. Beckman here makes the useful distinction between "predikat" and "predikatsdel" (1959,227). Apart from the usual abbrevi­ ations S for subject and 0 for Object, P stands for predicate, Ad for adverbial or adjunct (whichever term the reader prefers), a for adjective, c for copula, on for connective, g for genitive, n for noun, nm for numeral, pp for preposition, pr for pronoun, pv for preverb, r for rela­ tive marker, v for verb and vn for verbal noun. 3 I have dealt with this elsewhere (1972) in regard to Modern Irish; how­ ever, I believe the proposals to hold good for Old Irish too, or, as Pokorny (1969,93) put it, the copula is not an "echtes Verb, sondern nur Pradikationszeichen". 4 I.e. 'signs, wonders, powers, gifts of the Holy Spirit1. Thes. 1,706. 5 The examples are given as in the editions used, whereas single words are given in the more normalized spelling of DRIA and Thurneysen 1946. Cf. Vendryes 1908,320-2 and Thurneysen 1946,444. Note also that the pronoun in cases like issumecen is infixed (Thurneysen 1946,269-70). Pedersen (1913,145 Aran,) makes it clear that "die zwischen Kopula und Prädikatsnomen stehenden Formen. .. für das irische Sprachbewusstein als infigiert, nicht als suffigiert gelten." 7 Mostly direct ones, but also indirect (dative) objects, as in 2) above. 8

As Thurneysen (1946,254) puts it, independent pronouns "are most commonly used as predicative nominatives after the copula, which is thus always in the third person." 9 For details of how their use spread, cf. Strachan 1904. This irregularity has been noted before (Sommerfeit 1965,258). In Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic, it is confined to object pronouns, but in Middle Irish one fairly regularly finds examples involving subject pronouns as in 5) above and 8) TO ban, immuigh hi 'she' {hi) was away' (Dillon, ed. 1932,46.20; cf. the note in p. 64). As Professor John Lyons suggests to me, the explanation may well be that the independent pronoun was originally used to reinforce the infixed pronoun as in 9) do-s-ber diabul fo smacht iat (PH 2355-6) 'the devil gets them (-s-, iat) under his power1. Thus it would naturally stand outside the sentence, just as it still does in French: consider 10) Je le connais bien, moi and 11) je le connais b i e n , lui where moi and lui are used for "reinforcement" or

276

ANDERS AHLQUIST

"pleonasme" (Grevisse 1964,409 n. 1; 414 476). It is not unreasonable to assume that when the infixed pronouns disappeared so would the pause between the rest of the sentence and the independent pronoun which would, however, retain its original position. Later this position became identi­ fied with the object pronoun whereas the subject pronoun may have been assimilated into the system of synthetic verbal endings (Greene 1973). As 12) chuir se le sgoil é (Mhac an Fhailigh 1968, 85.310) 'he (se) sent him (é) to school' exemplifies, subject pronouns (Greene's (1973,123) "con­ junctive" pronouns) in Modern Irish occur only directly after analytic forms of finite, active, verbs, and object ("disjunctive") pronouns in other positions in other positions, including, as in 13) dubhairt siadsan nardh iad (de Bhaldraithe, 1953, 139) 'they (siadsan) said that it wasn't them', that of predication with the copula or, as in 6) above, of subject in such a sentence. 11

Cf. Wigger 1970,45; de Bhaldraithe 1953,240-4 for Modern Irish and Thurneysen 1946, 228-31 for Old Irish. Irish shares this feature with French (Lehmann 1972,272-3). 12 The possibility is mentioned by Dressier (1969,19). Note, however, that Vennemann (forthcoming) explains that this is a necessary stage in linguis­ tic evolution along the path "SOV" into "TVX (topic-finite verb-remainder of the sentence)" as in Old English and Modern German, and "TVX" to "SVO" (as in Modern English) "which may or may not change further to the VSO type." The main point of interest to us is that, according to this theory, "SOV" cannot change directly into "VSO". Perhaps this hinges on whether sentences like 24) and 25) should be interpreted as some sort of "SVO" or, in my notation, as PrP (cf. n.2 for the symbols used). 13 Referring inter alia to these passages Henry (1966,109) remarks: "Note that the position of the verb in these cases agrees with that of the predi­ cative adjective." Referring to some passages in BDD 1010-45 Wagner ob­ serves (1967,299): "Zweifellos lehrt dieser Passus, dass verbale Tmesis und Tmesis von Copula und nominalem Praedikat zusammengehen." Cf. Thurneysen 1946,327-8 as regards the verbal forms: "Simple and com­ pound verbs may be placed at the end of their clauses; the former then have conjunct flexion, the latter prototonic forms." This construction is known as "Bergin's Law". Cf. Bergin 1938; Meid 1963 and Watkins 1963 for the morphology of the verb in such sentences. 15 Had the emphatic preposing been preserved, we might have had sentences

like 18b Is tre 'fír flaithemon do-ingbatar... is toirtheeh caoh tír.

and 19b Is tre'fir

flaithemon

16 His type "e) Tmesis von finitem Verbum und nominalem Subjekt" gives us sentences which occur in very few languages, according to Greenberg's "Universal 1. In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes the object." Although it has been challenged (Ross 1970,250) this perhaps provides support uncontradicted on typological grounds for the idea that

IRISH WORD-ORDER

277

all these types of irregular word-order represent a "stilistische Angelegenheit" (Wagner 1967,301). J7 -" Note the tmesis of ad and curetar which is parallel to that of nibu and suanaeh in 22) nibu sanctBvigit suanach (Thes.11,332.21) 'Saint Brigit was not drowsy'. 18 One of the most impressive changes Irish went through during this period was one of very strong reduction of interior vowels and final syllables (Thurneysen, 1946,59ff.; 67 ff.). This was as a result of the introduction of a very strong stress accent (op.cit.27) which, according to Lehmann (19 73,62) may be characteristic of a "VO structure" 61) a lack of consonant clusters whereas a pitch accent and (op.cit. are typical of "OV languages". Now it is certainly not possible to know what sort of accent "Ogamic" Irish had, except that if it was a stress one, it must have been rather less strong than it was later. As for con­ sonant clusters, they were not very heavy; as most of the examples quoted here show, in Old Irish they are. It might be tempting to speculate on these phonological changes being somehow connected with the change in word-order. 19 Cf. Mac Eoin (1969,190) who agrees that this is "to some extent, justified". 20 Some modern linguists call the corresponding phenomenon in English, as in the translations of 24) and 25) below a "cleft sentence". Cf. e.g. Schachter 1970,20. 21 Beckman, 1934, 42 who also points out that "Forhâllandena i iriskan äro ocksa sardeles gynnsamma for utbrytningen. Relativsatserna ha diverse kannetecken, men de ha intet kongruensbojt inledningsord, icke heller kongruens mellan bisatsens verb och korrelatet." To this, one might add that a predicate-initial language like Irish, unlike an "SVO" one like English, would not require for an awkward "antecedent" pronoun to precede the copula. (in English i t cf. Fowler 1931,112). 22 Thus, in Maori (which needless to say hardly has any connection with the Celtic languages), the same particle (ko) is found introducing nominal (i.e. copula) sentences like 26) ko te hooro teenei 'this (teenei) is the hall' (Biggs, 1973,25) and verbal sentences with "the

subject in focus" like 27) Ko Wahieroa kua moe i a Kura 'Wahieroa has married Kura.' (op.cit. 101). 23 Dillon 1928,337 who gives a collection of these forms. 24 i.e. when there no longer was any possibility of applying what Ross (1970,251-2) calls "scrambling rules"' to change the word-order of a sentence with no other morphological and syntactic alteration ensuing, such as those that make the main verb relative and impose a copula in absolute sentence-initial position in most Irish sentences with emphatic preposing.

278

ANDERS AHLQUIST

25 Greene 1967, 173 advances the hypothesis that this happened "by the suppression of the verb a-ta in sentences such as is di chorp a-ta in ball 'it is from the body the member is, comes', thus giving is di chorp in ball, where the apparent predicate of is is the adverbial phrase di ohorp.

26 I.e. from verb to particle. Note the parallel between predicate-final sentences like 22) above and 29) nomohoimmdiu oovna (Thes. 11,290.11) 'the Lord cherishes (coima) me (-772-) ' on the one hand and predicateinitial ones like 1) and 2) on the other. In all of these, prestress elements, i.e. copula or preverb with infixed pronouns come before the rest of the sentence, regardless of where the predicate stands. Cf. also note 17 above. 27 Cf. note 18 above. 28

Abbreviations that conform to those used in the International Linguistic Bibliography are given no further cross-references in this bibliography, unlike those from DRIA; these will, however, be familiar to Celticist readers. REFERENCES Ahlqvist, Anders. 1972. "Some Aspects of the Copula in Irish." Eigse 14: 269-274. Atkinson, Robert, Ed. 1887. Passions and Homilies from the Leabhar Breao.

Todd Lecture Series 2. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.

(=PH)

BDD2 = Knott, Ed. 1936. Beckman, Natanael. 1934. "Vasteuropeisk syntax." GHA 40:1-44. . 1959. Svensk spraklara for den högre elementarundervisningen. Stockholm: Svenska Bokförlaget. Bergin, Osborn. 1938. "On the Syntax of the Verb in Old Irish." Eriu 12: 197-214. Bergin, Osborn, Ed. 1931. The Three Shafts of Death, by Geoffrey Keating. 2 Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. (=TSh.) Best, Richard Irvine and Osborn, Bergin, Edd. 1929. Lebor na hUidre. Book of the Dun Cow. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. (=LU) de Bhaldraithe, Tomas. 1953. Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge. An Deilbhíocht. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies. Bierwisch, Manfred and Karl Erich Heidolph. Edd. 1970. Progress in Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton.

IRISH WORD-ORDER Biggs, Bruce. 1973. Let's Chomsky, Noam. _

1957.

Learn Maori."

Syntactic

. 19'65. Aspects M.I.T. Press.

279

Wellingtons

Structures.

Reed.

The Hague: Mouton.

of the Theory of Syntax.

Cambridge, Mass.:

Comyn, David and Patrick S. Dinneen, Edd. 1902-14. Foras Feasa ar Eirinn. Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland. I-IV. London: Irish Texts Society. (=Keat.) Dillon, Myles. 1927-8. "Nominal Predicates in Irish." ZCPh 16: 313-56; 17: 307-46; Corrigenda 19(1932): 152-3. Dillon, Myles, Ed. 1932. Stories from the Law-Tracts, Eriu 11,42-65» Dressier, Wolfgang. Wortstellung."

1969. "Eine textsyntaktische Regel der idg. KZ 83: 1-25.

DRIA = Marstrander and others, Edd. (19.13-). Fowler, H. W.

1931. The King's

English.

Oxford:

Clarendon Press.

Greenberg, Joseph. "Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements." Greenberg, Ed. 1963:58-90. Greenberg, Joseph, Ed. 1966. Universals M.I.T. Press. Greene, David. 171-173.

1967. "Old Irish is...dom

of Language. 'I am'."

Cambridge, Mass.: Meid, Ed. 1967,

. 1973. "Synthetic and Analytic: a Reconsideration." 24: 121-33. Grevisse, Maurice. 1964. Le Bon Usage82 .

Gembloux: Duculot.

Henry, Patrick L. 1966. The Early Allen and Unwin.

and Celtic

English

Hall, Vernam, Ed. 1968. "Apgitir Chrabaid: Celtica 8: 44-89. Jackson, Kenneth H., Ed, 1972. The Gaelic Cambridge: University Press.

Lyric.

London:

The Alphabet of Piety."

Botes

in the Book of

Deer.

Keat, = Comyn and Dinneen, Edd. 1902-14. Kelly, Pergus, Ed. 24, 1-34.

Eriu

1973. "A Poem in Praise of Columb Cille."

Eriu

280

ANDERS AHLQUIST

Knott, Eleanor, Ed. 1936. Togail Bruidne Da Derga, The Destruction Da Derga's Hostel. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies. Lehmann, Winifred P. 48: 266-275.

of

1972. "Converging Theories in Linguistics." Lg

. 1973. "A Structural Principle of Language and its Implica­ tions." Lg 49: 47-66. LU = Best and Bergin, Edd. 1929. Lyons, John. 1969. An Introduction Cambridge: University Press.

to Theoretical

Linguistics,

Mac Cana, Proinsias. 1973. "On Celtic Word-Order and the Welsh 'Abnormal* Sentence." Eriu 24: 90-120. Mac Eoin, Gearoid S. 1969. "Review of Meid, Ed. 1967." SHib 9: 188-191. Marstrander and others, Edd. 1911-. Dictionary of the Irish Language, Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials, (Also: Contributions to a Dictionary of,,.), Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. (=DRIA) Meid, Wolfgang. 1963. Die indogermanischen Grundlagen der altirischen absoluten und konjunkten Verbalflexion. Weisbaden: Otto Harassowitz. Meid, Wolfgang, Ed. 1967. Beiträge zur Indogermanistik und Julius Pokorny zum 80, Geburtsag gewidmet, (IBK 13).

Keltologie

, 1972. "Old Celtic languages." CTL 9**: 1190-1201. Mhac an Fhailigh, Eamonn. 1968. The Irish Institute for Advanced Studies.

of E r r i s , Co, Mayo,

Dublin:

Pedersen, Holger. 1909-13. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen I-II. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. PH = Atkinson, Ed. 1887. Pokorny, Julius. 1969. Altirische Gruyter (Goschen).

2 Grammatik ,

Berlin: Walter de

Ross, John Robert. 1970. "Gapping and the Order of Constituents." Bierwisch and Heidolph 1970: 249-259. Schachter, Paul. 1973. "Focus and Relativization." Lg 49: 19-46. Schmidt, Karl Horst. 1969. "Die Stellung des Keltischen, innerhalb der indogermanischen Sprachfamilie, historisch-vergleichend und typologisch gesehen." KZ 83: 108-123.

281

IRISH WORD-ORDER

Sommerfelt, Alf. 1965. "Sentence Patterns in the Dialect of Torr." Lochlann 3: 255-277. Stokes, Whitley and John Strachan, Eds. 1901-3. Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus I-II, Cambridge: University Press.

(=Thes.)

Strachan, John. 1904. "The Infixed Pronoun in Middle Irish." 1, 153-179.

Eriu

Thes. = Stokes and Strachan, Eds. 1901-3. TSh. - Bergin, Ed. 1931. Thurneysen, Rudolf, Ed. 1917. "Morands Furstenspiegel." ZCPh 11: 56-106. .

1946. A Grammar of Old Irish.

Dublin:

Institute for

Advanced Studies. Vendryes, Joseph. 1908. Grammaire du Vieil-irlandais.

Paris: Guilmoto.

Vennemann, Theo. Topics, Subjects and Word-Order: from SOV to SVO via TVX. Paper given at the First International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Edinburgh 2-7 September 1973. Wagner, Heinrich. 1967. "Zur unregelmassigen Wortstellung in der altirischen Alliterationsdichtung." Meid, Ed. 1967: 289-314. Watkins, Calvert. 1963. "Prelvciminaries to a Historical and Comparative Analysis of the Old Irish Verb." Celtica 6: 1-69. Wb. = Würzburg Glosses,

in Stokes and Strachan Edd. 1901-03.

Wigger, Arndt. 1970. Nominalformen im Conamara-Irischen. Hamburg: Harmut Lüdke.

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE SIMON C. DIK Institute for General Linguistics University of Amsterdam 0

INTRODUCTION

Processes of semantic change are notoriously diverse and difficult to classify. Equally difficult to detect and systematise are the various factors that may be presumed to play a role in the initiation and the spread of semantic innovations. In this paper I will not be concerned with the general properties of the phenomenon of semantic change. Rather, I will define and give examples of a specific kind of development underlying certain types of semantic change. The process that I have in mind does not seem to have found explicit recognition in the rather voluminous literature on the subject , at least not in the form in which I will present it. I will first give an example of the kind of process I mean; then, I will introduce some basic notions in terms of which it may be explained; and finally, I will discuss some further examples of varying complexity which, I believe, reveal the same process at work. This process can be generally described as the incorporation into the meaning of a lexical item of elements which, before the incorporation in question, were associated with that meaning through inductive generalisation. More briefly, we could speak of the semantici zation 1

of extra-semantic

A SIMPLE EXAMPLE

information.

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SIMON C. DIK

The French adjective chétif weak', poor', 'miserable developed from Latin captivus 'captiye', 'prisoner'2 . The original meaning was in principle a neutral or objective characterization of a certain legally defined state a person could be in, whatever his individual properties were. The resulting meaning is a characterization of individuals in terms of inferior personal or social properties. There is no logical relation­ ship between the original and the resulting meaning. The legal state of captivity does not entail personal or social inferiority of the captive. Nevertheless, it may be presumed that at some point in the semantic development from captivus to chetif some rule such as the following has been at work: (1)

If someone is in the state of captivity, then there is a big chance that he is weak, poor, and/or miserable

This rule is not a logical, but a statistical implication or, as I will call it here, an inductive generalisation. I wi11 generally formulate these inductive generalisations according to the schema: (2)

f(x) → g(x)

where the symbol → should be interpreted in the statistical sense ('then there is a big chance that'). Rule (1) can, according to this schema, be reformulated as: (3)

c a p t i v e ( x ) → weak(x)

y

poor(x)

v

miserable(x)

and the semantic development which took place from Latin captivus to French chítif can be described as a shift from the antecedent of (3) to the consequent of (3). If such a description is correct, then we may further distinguish the following steps in such a development (formulated in terms of the general rule (2)): (i)

the meaning of a certain form a_ only involves the property f; it is compatible with the negation of g.

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

285

(ii)

the meaning of a only involves f, but is strongly associated with g in the actual interpretation of a.

(iii)

the meaning of a in most uses only involves f, but in other uses incorporates g; in the latter uses it is compatible with the negation of g.

(iv)

the meaning of a_ always involves the properties of f and g.

(v)

the meaning of a_ in most uses only or primarily involves g; only in some uses does it incorporate f.

(vi)

the meaning of a only involves g; it is compatible with the negation of f.

1 do not claim that developments of this kind should always run through stages (i) - (vi) in the same way. It may well be that certain stages could be skipped or that certain variant intermediate stages should be recognised. What I claim is that certain types of semantic change require for their explanation the opera­ tion of inductive generalisations like (1) - (3), and that the actual way in which these changes take place could be modeled along the lines of (i) - (vi). 2

SOME BACKGROUND NOTIONS

I have generally characterized the type of semantic change we are dealing with here as the 'semanticization of extra-semantic information'. I have also said that a predicate which is not part of the meaning of a given term may be strongly associated with i t in the actual interpreta­ tion of that term. These statements presuppose a certain view of the role of semantic and extra-semantic information in verbal communication, and a basic distinction between the meaning and the interpretation of a given form. 3 I will now make some brief remarks about this underlying theory . In order to understand the difference between the meaning and the interpretation of a linguistic expression, it is first of all essential to realize that linguistic expressions are typically used as communica­ tive instruments in concrete pragmatic situations defined by a

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particular speaker, particular addressee, a particular time and a particular place. Through the use of a linguistic expression in a specific situation the speaker causes it to happen that the addressee(s) arrive(s) at a certain amount of information. This amount of information arrived at by the addressee on the basis of the use of a linguistic expression in a particular pragmatic setting I call the interpretation of the linguistic expression involved. And the crucial point is, that such an interpretation is not solely a function of the semantic infor­ mation contained in the expression as such, but also of the further (extra-semantic) information which the addressee, in that setting, brings to bear on the interpretation of the linguistic expression. This extrasemantic information relevant for the interpretation of the linguistic expression in most cases far exceeds the semantic information contained in the expression as such. It derives from the context in which the linguistic expression is used, from the pragmatic situation in which it is used, and from the addressee's general, long-term knowledge (including his beliefs, preconceptions, etc.) with respect to any facts relevant for the interpretation of the expressions involved. The role of this extra-semantic information is both selective and complementary. If the linguistic expression is ambiguous in one way or another, the extra-semantic information serves to isolate the reading relevant to the setting in question. This explains why ambiguity is almost never felt as such in the actual use of language, and mostly requires reflection on the linguistic expression as used in different settings to be detected at all. The extra-semantic information is complementary in the sense that once the correct leading of an expression has been singled out, the semantic information of that reading is supplemented and specified by means of the extra-semantic information available to the addressee. The final interpretation arrived at by the addressee thus contains in one respect less information than the semantic information potentially

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

287

presented by the linguistic expressions as such (certain semantic possibilities of the expression being cancelled as non-relevant in the setting in question). In another respect the interpretation contains more information than the semantic information contained in the linguistic expression: the semantic information contained in the particular reading which is singled out as relevant to the setting in question is supplemented and specified in terms of extra-semantic information available to the addressee. Consider, by way of example,, the situation in which Charles and Peter are both staying at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. Charles is sitting in the lounge when Peter comes in. (4)

Charles:

Where have you been all this time?

Peter

I was at the bar.

:

In interpreting Peter's answer, the extra-semantic information available to Charles helps him first to single out the relevant meaning of bar from among the many semantic possibilities this word has; then, it helps him to supplement and specify the information 'counter at which drinks are served' in terms of the setting involved, so as to arrive at a specific idea about Peter's whereabouts during the time before meeting him: most probably the bar (or one of the bars) of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, unless Charles' and Peter's common knowledge authorises them to use the definite description the bar for referring to some other specific place. In this particular case, the relation between the bar and 'Amsterdam Hilton Hotel' is fully incidental: it is completely dependent upon the specific situation Charles and Peter find themselves in. In other cases, however, the information with which the addressee can complement the linguistic expression is less incidental. Karttunen 0 9 6 8 ) has pointed to the relevance of inductive generalisations in the interpreta-

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SIMON C. DIK

tion of definite noun phrases. (5)

Consider his example:

Every time Bill crossed the Atlantic by ship, he became good friends with the. c a p t a i n .

The use of the definite description the captain is accompanied by a presupposition that the referent in question is identifiable for the addressee, although it has not been explicitly introduced in the pre­ ceding context. Nor is it logically implied in the preceding context. Still, in the interpretation this will provide no special problem, since an inductive generalisation such as (6) is apparently involved here: (6)

Someone makes a journey by ship

→

that ship has a captain

It seems quite evident that the stronger the association is between an element of semantic information and an element of non-semantic infor­ mation related to it by inductive generalisation, the bigger the chance that the non-semantic information will be incorporated into the semantic information. It may also be presumed that a narrowing of the class of contexts within which a certain lexical item is used, or the restriction of the lexical item to a specific social group may have the effect of strength­ ening an inductive relation of this kind, and may thus enhance the chances for a semantic change along the lines suggested here4. Two well-known examples of 'narrowing of meaning' may serve to illustrate this. In the change of OE mete 'food' to ME meat 'edible flesh' there raust have been a stage when 'meat' (in the modern sense of the terra) was the main component of any dish, such that a strong association of type (7) was established: (7)

food(x)

→

meat(x)

And in the change from OFrench saoul

'seized', 'possessed' to

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

289

MFrench saoul (soûl) 'intoxicated by liquor'5 , the inductive generalisa­ tion (8) must have been involved: (8)

seized(x) → intoxicated by liquor(x)

I hope that the general considerations given above have sufficient­ ly clarified what I mean by the 'semanticization of non-semantic infor­ mation'. In the following sections, I will discuss some further cases where this same process seems to be operative. 3

VERBS OF MOVEMENT

Verbs of movement like walk, run, swim, cycle, fly can be componentially analysed in terms of a limited number of dimensions, the most important of which are: the MEDIUM over or through which the movement takes place, the INSTRUMENT by means of which one moves (if there is any), the MANNER of movement, the DIRECTION, and the SPEED at which one moves. It is about this latter dimension that I would like to make some remarks. In a verb like run an element such as 'at high speed' is semantically incorporated: (9)

John ran slowly to the door

This element of speed is what primarily distinguishes run from walk'. (10)

John walked slowly to the door

Of course, run also implies a different manner of movement than walk, but it seems correct to say that this difference in manner is subordinate to the difference in speed. More interesting with respect to the category of SPEED is a verb like fly, which exemplifies a phenomenon relevant to our present dis­ cussion. In tKe basic meaning of fly the MEDIUM (air) and the INSTRUMENT (wings of aircraft) are essential: 'move through air with wings or in aircraft' (COD), 'move through the air as a bird does, or in an aircraft' (ALD). There is no semantically distinctive feature of speed, witness:

290

SIMON C. DIK

(11)

a.

The hawk flew slowly over the mountains

b.

The helicopter flew slowly over the battlefield

In those uses, however, where the normal MEDIUM and/or INSTRUMENT are cancelled, we see an element of SPEED coming in: (12)

a.

The storm made the tiles fly through the air

b. *The storm made the tiles fly slowly through the air (13)

a.

When the bell rang, Mary flew to the door

b.

When the bell rang, Mary flew slowly to the door

In these uses of fly, then, an element such as 'quickly', 'at high speed' has been incorporated into its meaning, while at the same time other originally distinctive features are cancelled. I suggest that the incorporation of the element of SPEED was occasioned through the inductive generalisation: (14)

fly(x)

→

move relatively quickly(x)

The meanings exemplified in (12) and (13), of course, can be seen as metaphorical extensions of fly, giving rise to polysemy to the extent that the meraphorical process is not active any more. It seems justified to regard these meanings as historically derivative on the 'original' meaning of fly. A similar development may be presumed in the case of Dutch kruipen. This verb is similar to English creep, except in that it does not incor­ porate a semantically distinctive feature of SPEED in its basic meaning, in which the MANNER of movement is central: 'move with the body close to the ground'. It is thus possible in Dutch to say: (15)

De baby kroop snel door de kamer 'The baby crept quickly around the room'

where English would prefer to use a verb like crawl. However, in those uses of kruipen where the MANNER of movement is not relevant, an element of 'low speed' comes in:

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

(16)

a.

291

Het verkeer kroop over de weg 'The traffic crept along the road'

b.

Het verkeer kroop snel over de weg 'The traffic crept quickly along the road'

Again, so it seems, an inductive generalisation has been at work: (17)

kruipen(x)

→

move relatively slowly(x)

In this case the association has no doubt been strengthened by the fact that people and animals when they 'kruipen' usually move more slowly than when they proceed normally, and by the fact that those creatures which 'kruipen' habitually are on the whole slower than those which do not. If it is true that English creep in all its uses involves a semantically distinctive feature 'at low speed', this could mean that English has proceeded one step further in the process of semantic change. In terms of the stages distinguished in section 1 above, Dutch would be in stage (iii) with respect to the meaning of kruipen, whereas English creep would be in stage (iv). 4

THE RELEVANCE OF THE ADDRESSEE IN DEMONSTRATIVE SYSTEMS6

Systems of demonstrative pronouns vary rather strongly from language to language. Here I want to concentrate on two rather common systems, each containing three different terms. In the first system, the only relevant parameter is 'relative distance from the Speaker', and the three demonstrative pronouns can be given the values: +Near Speaker, -Near -Far Speaker, +Far Speaker. Such a ternary one-dimensional system is found in many different languages, e.g. Spanish, where the forms are este, ese, and aquel, respectively, Basque, Czech, Apache, Papiamentu, Weri (a New Guinea language), etc. In the other ternary system relevant here it is not only relative distance from the Speaker which counts, but also 'relative distance from Addressee'. In this case the three demonstratives can be characterized

SIMON C. DIK

292

as: +Near Speaker, +Near Addressee, and -Near Speaker and Addressee. A clear example of this is Japanese, where we find the following forms: (18)

attributive

substantive

(a)

kono

kore

'this near m e '

(b)

sono

sore

'that near you'

(c)

ano

are

'that there'

Such a ternary Speaker and Addressee-oriented system is also found in languages like Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Turkish, Chinook, etc. In certain cases, however, it is not so clear whether a system of three demonstratives does or does not involve the parameter 'relative distance from Addressee'. In Spanish, for instance, the mid-term ese is often glossed as 'that near Addressee'. That this is not correct in general appears from such facts as the following: when a Speaker and his Addressee are sitting in the corner of a room and some other man enters that room at the far end, the Speaker can ask: (19) ¿Quien es ese señor? 'Who is that man?'

where the man in question is not in any way closer to the Addressee than to the Speaker. Also, when a Speaker of Spanish has to indicate a certain number of objects in a non-remote environment (e.g., children in a class-room, trees in a park), he will indicate them all in the same way with e s e , unless an explicit partitioning of some kind occasions him to use este for those closer to him, and aquel for those farthest removed. There is a number of uses, however, in which ese seems to be speci­ fically related to the Addressee. Consider: (20)

Dame esa mano 'Give me your hand'

(21) ¿Como va esa salud? 'How is your health?

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

293

It seems clear that these latter uses should be regarded as deriva­ tive upon the normal, neutral value of ese, and that the specific rela­ tion to the Addressee is established in the interpretation rather than incorporated in the meaning of ese. It may well be that again there is some kind of inductive generalisation involved, this time a bit more complex in nature: (22)

The typical position of the Addressee is neither very near to, nor very far from the Speaker.

Therefore: -Near -Far (x, Speaker)

→

+Near (x, Addressee)

That is, if an object x is indicated as being neither near to, nor far from the Speaker, there is a good chance that it is near the Addressee. There are other examples of languages in which the value 'near the Addressee' appears to be derivative with respect to a value 'neither near to, nor far from the Speaker'. Thus, in Gaelic there are three forms s ( e ) o , s i n , siod, and the mid term sin is glossed as expressing 'close distance and often refer­ ring to the hearer'. And in Javanese which (among other forms) has i k i , i k u , kae, the mid term iku is described as 'that which is not directly connected with the speaker, or related to the hearer'. From such data it might be presumed that an inductive generalisa­ tion such as (22) is a factor in a possible shift from a ternary Speaker-oriented demonstrative system to a ternary Speaker and Addresseeoriented one. 5

VISIBILITY AS A RELEVANT FEATURE IN DEMONSTRATIVE SYSTEMS

Another example from the area of demonstrative pronoun systems concerna the appearance of a distinctive reature of (in)visibility in such systems. In many languages the feature 'invisible' appears as a derived value of that demonstrative signalling distance from Speaker and/or Addressee. Typical examples are: Polish, which has a ternary system ten 'this', tomten 'that', ów 'that far away', 'invisible,

294

SIMON C. DIK

unknown'; Tlingit, with a four-way distinction: he 'very near', ya 'less near', yu 'further removed', we 'very far removed and mostly invisible'; Marshallese, with a complex Speaker and Addressee-oriented system where the form signalling greatest distance, yew, is given the value: 'very far from Speaker and Addressee and invisible or existing in the past'. It seems plausible that the value 'invisible' is associated with the form signalling greatest distance via an inductive generalisation like: (23) far away from Speaker(x)

→

invisible(x)

Typological data suggest that this visibility feature may be gradually semanticized in varying degrees. A first step would be that the form which basically means 'very far away' can only be used for invisible entities. This step may have been set in some of the languages mentioned above. The details about whether a form can only be used for invisible objects or is normally or incidentally used so are often not clear from the descriptions. A second step would be the appearance of a form which exclusively means 'invisible', no matter at what distance the object in question is located. This may be the case in Ponca, which has a form ga 'invisible' corresponding with a form ka 'very far removed' in the related Teton Sioux. This might suggest that a form originally having the meaning of the antecedent of (23) has completely shifted to the meaning of its conse­ quent. Another possibility is that the 'far-away'-form is split in two, according to (in)visibility. This appears to be the case in Heroro, 'near Speaker', in...o 'not near Speaker, nor far where we have in...i removed', in...ini 'far away from Speaker, but visible', and in...ina 'far away from Speaker and inyisible'. Although there are no historical data to support this, it seems quite plausible to say that in this way a piece of extra-semantic information strongly associated with the 'far-away'-form, has been incorporated in the form of a regular oppo­ sition within the system. In Heroro, this opposition is restricted to

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

295

its most natural 'locus 1 . Further semanticization of the opposition is found in Kwakiutl, which has a ternary Speaker and Addressee-oriented system with a visible/ non-visible contrast for all three forms. In Chinook a similar situation obtains with this difference that the visibility contrast is not made in the forms meaning 'near the Speaker'. This may be further evidence for a gradual infiltration of such demonstrative systems, starting at the 'far-away'-end, for, as Bloomfield (1933: 470) observes, it is not improbable that the visibility contrast in Chinook was borrowed from the unrelated Kwakiutl, along with a number of other lexical and grammatical peculiarities (Chinook was spoken in an area bordering on the Kwakiutl territory). This would explain why languages like Wishram and Kathlamet, related to Chinook but located farther away from the Kwakiutl area, do not have the visi­ bility contrast. It could then be said that the borrowing language went less far in the semanticization of the visibility contrast than its model, Kwakiutl. 6

COMPASS ORIENTATION IN DEMONSTRATIVE SYSTEMS

Bloomfield (1933: 259) reports that Eskimo has a quite differen­ tiated system of demonstratives, including the following: anna 'that one in the north', qanna 'that one in the south', panna 'that one in the east'. This would suggest that in the Eskimo system, compass orientation is a distinctive parameter. This is indeed the impression one gets from various descriptions of Eskimo dialects. Thus, Thalbitzer (1911: 1050) gives the following forms involving compass.orientation: awnna 'he in the north', qawnna 'he in the south, he in there, he out there', pawnna 'he up there in the east', kinna 'he there in the south', pinna 'he up there in the east'. Some of the glosses suggest that the compass orientation is not the only value of the forms involved. And in this respect a comparison of the demonstrative system of different Eskimo dialects each having its own geographical location leads to interesting results. These dialects are the following: (1) Caplino Eskimo, spoken in

296

SIMON C. DIK

Eastern Siberia, (2) Alaska Eskimo, (3) Labrador Eskimo, and (4) Eskimo spoken on Western Greenland. Now if one compares the demonstrative systems in these dialects, one finds the following correspondences as far as compass orientation is concerned: (2) kána 'that down there, in the West' = (3) kanna 'that down there, in the East' (3) pingna 'that up there, in the West' = (4) pinga 'that up there, in

the East' (1) samna 'that down there, in the South' = (4) savna 'that down there, in the West' (1) pamna 'that up there, in the North' = (4) pavna 'that up there, in the East'

From these correspondences it appears that the compass orientations vary from dialect to dialect, whereas the values 'up there' and 'down there' are invariant. This can be explained if one assumes that the latter values are the basic ones for these demonstratives, that 'up' and 'down' are interpreted as 'inland' and 'seawards', respectively, and that the compass orientations are associated with these latter values through inductive generalisation dependent on the particular geographical location. Inspection of the geographical positions of these dialects indeed confirms that the differences between the corresponding forms can in all cases be understood in this way. To the extent that the compass orientations are really part of the meanings of these demonstratives, then, this can again be regarded as due to the semanticization of orig­ inally non-semantic information. It may also be, however, that those who described these dialects have fallen victim to the mistake of the pro­ verbial field-worker who jotted down the meanings 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', and 'Thursday' for words meaning 'yesterday', 'today', and 'tomorrow', simply because he was doing his work on Wednesday. 7

DUAL AND TRIAL IN PERSONAL PRONOUN SYSTEMS

From our research on personal pronoun systems certain interesting

INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

297

facts appear concerning the occurence of dual and trial pronouns in relation to the category of Person and to the Inclusive/Exclusive distinction. I believe that these facts, though perhaps in a less direct way than the preceding examples, can be understood in the light of the principle of inductive generalisation. Let us first have a look at the facts. The following statements are based on a survey of 128 languages having dual pronouns, and 20 languages having trial pronouns. Only the first statement is an un­ restricted universal, the others are statistical universals of greater or less significance: (I)

if a language has trial pronouns, it has dual pronouns (cf. Greenberg 19662:94)

(ii)

if a language has dual pronouns in the third person, it has dual pronouns in the second person (true for 57 languages, 3 exceptions)

(iii)

if a language has dual pronouns in the second person, it has dual pronouns in the first person (true for 60 languages, 1 exception)

(iv)

if a language has dual pronouns in the third person, it has dual pronouns in the first person (true for 59 languages, 2 exceptions)

(v)

if a language has dual pronouns, it has a dual inclusive first person (I + you) (true for 96 languages, 32 exceptions)

(vi)

if a language has trial pronouns in the third person, it has trial pronouns in the second person (true for 11 languages, 3 exceptions)

(vii)

if a language has trial pronouns in the second person, it has trial pronouns in the first person Ctrue for 11 languages, 1 exception)

(yiii)

if a language has trial pronouns in the third person, it has trial pronouns in the first person Ctrue for 11 languages, 3 exceptions)

(ix)

if a language has trial pronouns, it has a trial inclusive first person pronoun (I + you + x) (true for 10 languages, 10 exceptions)

From these statements, the last of which has of course no signifi­ cance as a universal, it appears that there is a strong affinity between

298

SIMON C. DIK

dual/trial and first person, and a rather strong affinity between dual and Inclusiveness. In fact, of the total number of 128 languages, 59 haye only the first person inclusive dual. Even though tnis number is not quite representative for natural languages in general, since the majority of these 59 languages are related to Philippine languages, the fact itself can hardly be accidental. It may well be then, that the genesis of the dual and perhaps the trial could be explained in terms of the pragmatic 'triangle', consis­ ting of Speaker, Addressee(s), and Other(s). In this triangle, Speaker and Addressee, as participants in the speech act, are most important and very often, though not necessarily, they form a 'natural twosome' for which it is quite practical to have a special term. It is conceivable that with the 'I and you'-form, indicating Speaker and Addressee(s), the number two would be strongly associated through inductive generalisation, and a regular semanticized dual would spread from this first person inclusive through the pronoun system, first to the first person exclusive, then to the second person, and finally to the third person pronouns. In a similar way, the trial might be based on the 'natural trio' of Speaker, Addressee, and Other, although admittedly the evidence for a special relation between trial and first person inclusive is not as strong as in the case of the dual. On the other hand, the theory that the emergence of a real dual and trial number is based on the extra-linguistic properties of the pragmatic triangle would immediately explain why languages with a Quadra!is in the pronoun system are extremely uncommon. In fact, our material contains only one example of such a language. 8

CONCLUSION

The evidence adduced here for the effect of inductive generalisa­ tions on semantic change is rather heterogeneous and not based on solid historical linguistic research.

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INDUCTIVE GENERALISATIONS IN SEMANTIC CHANGE

I hope that I have been able to show, however, that the phenomenon of inductive generalisation may suggest fruitful lines of investigation in the area of the processes underlying semantic change. NOTES 1. See, e.g., Meillet (1921), Ullmann (1951), Lehmann (1962), Ullmann (19662), Arlotto (1972). 2. Cf. Meillet (1921: 237). According to Meillet the change may have been stimulated by the fact that the strong relation which existed in Latin between captivus and the verb capere 'to catch1 was lost when this verb was replaced by developments of Latin prehendere in the Romance languages (cf. French prendre). Italian cattivo 'bad, dangerous' developed along the same lines as c h e t i f . In many French dialects c h e t i means 'bad'. 3. Cf. Reichling (1963), Dik (1968: chapter 12). 4. Cf. Meillet (1921: 244ff), Ullmann (1951: 185), Lehmann (1962: 201202). 5. Meillet (1921: 236) explains this development as due to an originally euphemistic usage of adults, then taken over as the normal meaning by their children. This explanation is not incompatible with my suggestion that an inductive generalisation has been at work here. 6. The data on pronoun systems discussed in this and the following sections are drawn from the results of typological research on pronominal phenomena, carried out by a work group of the Institute of General Linguistics in the University of Amsterdam. I am grateful to the members of this work group, especially to Norval Smith, H.A. Combé and Hein Steinhauer for their contribution in gathering and interpreting these data. The full results will be given in a forth­ coming monograph. REFERENCES Arlotto, Anthony, 1972. Introduotion

to historical

Bloomfield, Leonard, 1933. Language.

New York.

Dik, Simon C , 1968. Coordination: its general linguistics. Amsterdam.

implications

linguistics.

for

Boston etc.

the theory

of

Greenberg, Joseph H., 1966 2. 'Some universals of grammar with special reference to the order of meaningful elements'. In: Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass.

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Karttunen, Lauri, 1968. 'What makes definite noun phrases definite?'. Unpublished paper, Rand Corporation. Lehmann, Winfred P., 1962. Kistorioal New York.

linguistics:

an

introduction,

Meillet, Antoine, 1921. 'Comment les mots changent de sens'. In: Linguistique historique et linguistique générale, 230-271. Paris. Reichling, Anton, 1963. 'Das Problem der Bedeutung in der Sprachwissenschaft'. Innsbrucker Bei trage zur Kulturwissenschaft, Sonderheft 19. Innsbruck. Thalbitzer, William, 1911. 'Eskimo'. In: Franz Boas, Handbook of American Indian Languages, Part I, 971-1069. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Bulletin. 40. Ullmann, Stephen, 1951. The principles of semantics. Oxford. 2 , 1966 . 'Semantic universals'. In: Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language, 217-262. Cambridge, Mass.

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM: A PROBLEM IN REMOTE GENETIC RELATIONSHIP1 ROBERT T. HARMS The University of Texas, Austin

The possibility of a genetic relationship between Uralic and Yukaghir was considered already at; the turn of this century. W. Jochelson, the first serious investigator of Yukaghir, argued against this relationship, primarily on typological grounds. Björn Collinder in 1940 first developed a scholarly claim in support of the UraloYukaghir hypothesis. Since then, Collinder, J. Angere and 0. G. Tailleur have added lexical and morphological etymologies in an attempt to strengthen this claim. Nonetheless, the Uralo-Yukaghir hypothesis has been net with under­ standable scepticism among other scholars. Ye. A. Krejnovic, in his grammar of Tundra Yukaghir, suggests that the similarities between Uralic and Yukaghir are the result of contact between languages of the two groups. To give some idea of the scope of the problem, Proto-Uralic, the precursor of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyed groups must extend back roughly seven millennium.The estimate is based on our knowledge of early IndoEuropean loans into Proto-Finno-Ugric -- i.e., after the splitting up of 2 Proto-Uralic -- and from lexicostatistic studies. Proto-Uralo-Yukaghir would presumably antedate Proto-Uralic and the quantity of shared archaic

302

ROBERT T. HARMS

features available for comparison is necessarily very small. Even so, in my opinion a stronger argument can be made for relating Yukaghir to Uralic than for the so-called Ural-Altaic hypothesis. The difficulty in any such claims is compounded by the fact that our knowledge of Proto-Uralic is scant. The consonant system has been more or less roughed out. The vowel system of Proto-Finno-Ugric, not to mention Proto-Uralic, is still largely a mystery. The lists of forms presented thus far in support of the UraloYukaghir hypothesis are only weakly suggestive of genetic relationship. Lists of forms which bear some degree of semantic-formal similarity can­ not in themselves constitute a strong argument for genetic relationship. Formal resemblances must be controlled by phonological correspondences, but only superficial similarities of form have been presented. The great distance in time involved here -- since we are dealing with a preUralic period — means that the quantity of shared archaic features available for comparison is necessarily small. The likelihood of areal contact is correspondingly large — even after the breakup of a supposed Uralo-Yukaghir common language. If the Uralo-Yukaghir hypothesis is to be considered seriously at present, it must rest upon arguments from morpho-syntactic similarities. Two problems are involved in weighing such similarities: (1) to deter­ mine the grammatical function of the traits under consideration in order to rule out the possibility of language universals and of diffusion -either by direct borrowing or through areal influence; (2) to decide at what point one can claim that the number of shared features remaining -after diffusion and universal tendencies are discounted -- is sufficient­ ly great to rule out the possibility of chance. Unfortunately, neither of these general problems has been adequately solved, and, consequently, claims of more distant relationship must re­ main largely impressionistic. I shall first examine several aspects of the Uralo-Yukaghir hypothesis in view of these limitations and in conclu­ sion I shall argue that only in the area of morpho-syntax do we find the far-reaching, formal-semantic similarities which justify a claim of ge­ netic relationship.

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM

303

1. Until the historical development of each language group is work­ ed out in greater detail the possibility of basing claims on chance re­ semblance remains great. Thus far, many of the similarities presented as evidence have involved unconvincing phonetic and semantic features. The use of derivational suffixes in such comparisons is question­ able. Consider, for example, the Finnish consonant system p, t, k, s, h, m, n, r, l, v, j (excluding ƒ, o d which are secondary or limited to recent loans). All of the original Finnish consonants are used for de­ rivational suffixes, and, for the most part, these suffixes have fairly abstract semantic functions, often designated as "diminutive," etc., where "diminutive" has little to do with size or affection. It appears unlikely that a given derivational suffix in Yukaghir (or any other lang­ uage), could not be paired with some Finnish suffix. On the inflectional level, the Finnish cases with n point up a slightly different problem. These are:

-n

'genitive'

* -n 'genitive' * -m 'accusative' * -ny'lative'

-n 'instructive' -na 'essive' -ine 'comitative' Some consider the four n cases to result from a single case form (ex­ cluding the accusative and lative). Others posit six separate etyma. Allowing for the accusative and dative functions of the modern Finnish n cases, how could any language with a case ending in -n fail to find a. semantic match from the Finnish list. If we use function rather than form as the basis for our comparison, the lative case (indicating motion to or toward) points up the difficulty here since four different ProtoFinno-Ugric lative forms are generally recognized: *ny, *-k, *s(y) ., * - j . Allowing for subsequent phonetic developments in the daughter languages, the chances for accidental similarity are again great. 2. On the Yukaghir side, similar inadequacies confront us. For instance, consider the pair of construction types:

304

ROBERT T. HARMS

tudel metyamony 'he is large' enyienyen 'with mother' Krejnovic identifies -ny in metyamony 'is large' with the -nye 'comitative' of enyienyen). The meaning of the former is suggested to be 'with large3 ness'. A comparison of the other persons and tenses of the'large' para­ digm, however, reveals an underlying form tyamol 'large', which combines with the intransitive marker -j to give ~ny by a morphophonemic rule. Note the following forms and their suggested underlying morphemic re­ presentations: metyamodyer) 'I am large' <me + ramol + j + Ŋ (l + j > d y in env. V) metyamolŋi 'they are large' < me + ramol + nu + j (u + j > i) meramotej 'he will be large' < me + tyamol + t + j (1 + t > t) tyamol el 'he is large' < tyamol + l metyamony 'he is large' < me + tyamol + j (1 + j > n y in env. #) The ny in the adjective predicates is best analyzed as a complex morph (portmanteau) consisting of -l, a predicate formative used with adjectives and verbs, plus -j 'intransitive'. The nasalization in word-final pos­ ition is undoubtedly related to the fact that [ŋ] in Yukaghir appears to function as a word boundary signal with word-final vowels. Note also the n~d alternation with the genitive case ending. By contrast, the comitative marker is always nye. I thus reject the attempt to identify the comitative with the predicate marker on the basis of a single shared phonetic ny and the possibility of a vague semantic link. In this regard the similarity between the Yukaghir comitative -nye and modern Finnish comitative -ine is most striking. But this case is of very recent origin within Finnish and the resemblance must be con­ sidered fortuitous. 3. On the other hand, a comparison of the Yukaghir and Nenets (Samoyed) case systems reveals a degree of similarity which could not be the result of chance.

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM

nominative accusative genitive dative locative separative

Yukaghir - 0 ~ l e ( ŋ ) -k

305

Nenets -0 -m -? (< *n) -n ~-xV? -xVna -xVd -m(a)na~vna

-n ~ -d -ŋin y ~ -n y -ha ~ -hane -hat prolative -han The Nenets paradigm for ŋano 'boat': sg. pl. dual n o m . - 0 ŋano ? a c c . - m o a n u — g e n . - ? n a n u 7 — dat. o a n o - n oanoxo7 oano-xo?# n y a ? l o c . - x o n a Q a n o x o ? n a n etna s e p . - x o d r j a n o x o t n y a d prol. -vna oanumana Vamna Especially significant are the locative and separative case, which are nearly identical segment by segment. Perhaps the Yukaghir prolative -han is to be compared with the Nenets dative -xV?. Upon closer examination, however, the Nenets paradigm reveals the folloiwng: (1) ~xV- is separated from the morph -na by the plural marker -?

(-xo-?-na).

(2) -xV- also occurs with the dative in the plural, the? reflecting an earlier n. (3) -xV- occurs throughout in the dual. (4) Except for the nominative, accusative and genitive, the case functions in the dual are indicated by the postpositional nya-. That -xV- represents a separate formative is clear. Both language groups use postpositions which are inflected for case, as may be seen in the following Nenets, Finnish and Yukaghir examples:

306

ROBERT T. HARMS

Nenets:

pu?

'to behind'

puna

'(at) behind'

pud

'from behind'

pumna

'along behind'

Proto-Balti c-Finnic:

Fi nni sh:

*takak

>

taa

'to behind'

*takana

>

takana

'(at) behind'

*takata

>

takaa

'from behind'

(i) met meraiŋ 'I shot ' (< me + ai + m + o; -Ŋ = 1 sg.) kadeŋ meraim 'the man shot' kadeŋ meraitem 'the man will

shoot1

(< me + ai + t + m; -t= future)

tyiŋ meraiŋutem 'the people will -QU

shoot'

(< me + ai + QU + m;

'3 pl.')

(ii) met merujeŋ'I went' 'one deer went'

ileŋ meruj

ileŋ merutej 'the deer

(sg.) will

go'

ilepeŋ) meruŋutej 'the deer (pl.)will 'I didn't

iii) met elyaijeo

'the man didn't

kadeo elyai

go'

shoot' shoot'

met elyaitejeŋ 'I will not shoot' tyiŋ elyaiŋut

'the people will not shoot'

met elyujeŋ 'I didn't

go'

ileŋ elyu 'the deer (sg.) didn't

go'

ilepeŋ elyuŋut 'the deer (pl.) will not go' (iv) metek ul 'I went' ileleŋ ul

'the

deer went'

ilepeleŋ ïïoutel 'the

deer

(pl.) will go'

(v) met ileleo aimeŋ 'I shot at the

deev'

kadeo ileleo aimele 'the man shot at the y

t iŋ ileleo aiŋumle tyiŋ ileleŋ aiŋutemle

deev'

'the people shot at the

deer'

'the people will shoot at the

(vi) met amatyedilek aimeŋ 'I shot at the good

deer'(amaj

deev' + je + d

+ile + k) kadeo amatyedilek aimele

'the men shot at the good

deer'

307

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM

(vii) met ai

'T shot'

kede ai 'the man shot' tyi aiŋut

'the people

will shoot'

Three basic patterns emerge from the above sets of sentences, where S = subject, 0 = object, V = verb, F = focus element, and D = transitivity marker {-m 'transitive' and -j 'intransitive/negative): A.

S (0) F + V + D

B.

S/0 + F V + (D) + F

(i - iii)

C.

S * V

(iv-vi)

(vii)

Type A includes focus on the verb (F = me- prefix, with -r-

epen-

thetically before a vowel-initial root) and negated verbs (F = ely-, negative prefix). intransitive -j

Transitivity is neutralized with negative verbs; the

being used with the first and second persons; no marker

with third person.

Third person subject agreement is marked immediately

following the verb root;

the other persons follow the transitivity

marker. With type B, the preverbal noun --- i.e., the subject of an intran­ sitive verb or the object of a transitive verb -- is under focus, an ergative type system (F = -l(e), noun-phrase constructs).

or -k

with certain pronouns and bound

The focus marker

-l

is reduplicated at the

end of the verb; e.g., kade + l + ŋ u + t + l> kedeleŋ ïïtel 'the man will go'.

Intransitive verbs have no transitivity marker and no subject

agreement beyond the reduplicated l focus element. Type C is restricted to focus on the subject of a transitive verb when no formal object is expressed.

Additionally all markers between

the subject noun root and the verb appear to be excluded, even the noun ending - Ŋ , the function of which remains unclear.

Transitivity is not

expressed and subject agreement is limited to third person. Common to all three types is the preverbal position of focus marking: (1) as a prefix on the verb, (2) as a suffix on the preverbal noun sub­ ject or object, and (3) by deletion of all formal markers between the subject and the verb (as in C ) . Closely bound to focus is the marking of transitivity and subject agreement.

Neither category is overtly

expressed with focus on the subject, and the transitive formative -m is

308

ROBERT T. HARMS

limited to unnegated verbs. A single structure is suggested: S (0) F V in which F may contain one of the formatives: ely negation me verb focus -1 pre-verbal noun focus From a historical point of view these three markers would appear to be independent, although a possible relationship between the transitive -m and the focus me- must be considered. Note that m normally occurs only with focus on direct objects or with transitive verbs prefixed by me-, An agreement reduplication of an earlier m object focus marker, similar to the current I- reduplication (cf. type B ) , would explain the absence of -m with negation and with subject focus as well as its re­ striction to transitive verbs. 5. Although Uralic is not generally considered to possess a 'focus' system of the Yukaghir type, there are numerous phenomena in various Uralic languages which show a remarkable resemblance to the Yukaghir fo­ cus elements. This is especially true with regard to the formal con­ structions of the subject, object and main verb relationships in Finnish. The object in modern Finnish is realized as various case suffixes in accord with rules of the following type: (a) A partitive object -ta is obligatory with the negative aux­ iliary and with certain special verbs (such as rakasta'love'). (b) The partitive may be used to indicate an indefinite object or in various aspectual functions. (c) The object is nominative (unmarked) with the imperative, cer­ tain auxiliaries and the impersonal (or 'passive') voice. Voice, it should be noted, is essentially a focus device. (d) A plural object elsewhere takes the nominative -t. (I wish to note here that I consider the -t plural in Finnish to be historically derived from the partitive (ablative) -ta in its function as a general class marker.) (e) A singular object elsewhere takes the genitive -n, the reflex of anearlier *-m, the so-called Urlaic accusative.

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM

309

For example: (a) ala osta lammas-ta 'don't buy a sheep' (ala 'neg. auxiliary', osta 'buy') rakasta-n lammas-ta 'I love the sheep' (b) mass nouns: osta-n maa-ta 'I buy some land' pl. count nouns: osta-n lampa-i-ta 'I buy some sheep' imperfective: lue-n kirja-a (< -ta) 'I am reading a book' incompletive: ammu-i-n lammas-ta 'I shot (but did not kill) the sheep' (c) osta lammas 'buy a sheep' ostetaan lammas 'one buys a sheep' pitaa ostaa lammas 'it is necessary to buy a sheep' 'I shall buy the sheep (pl.)' (d) osta-n lampaat (e) osta-n lampaan 'I shall buy a sheep' luen kirjan 'I shall read a book' ammu-i-n lampaan 'I shot (and killed) a sheep' Very similar constraints are found with certain adverbial specifi­ cations of both transitive and intransitive verbs: en ollut siella tuntia (< tunti+ ta) 'I was not there an hour' (cf. a) ole siella tunti 'be there an hour' (cf. c) olin siella tunni-n 'I was there an hour' (cf. e) luin kirja-a tunni-n 'I read the book for an hour' (cf. b, e) With this type of adverbial specification of transitive verbs the object must be in the partitive -- which suggests a focus heirarchy of the com­ ponents of the verb phrase. Subject specification with intransitive verbs in Finnish is either nominative or partitive, a contrast stemming in large part from a defin­ ite: indéfini te as well as a focus distinction: vesi juoksee 'the water is running' vet-ta juoksee 'there is water running' lampaat juoksevat 'the sheep are running' lampai-ta juoksee 'there are sheep running' Allowing for the earlier Finnic basic SOV sentence structure and

310

ROBERT T. HARMS

its original accusative *-m form,

we can now characterize the Finnish

subject/object phenonena as follows: S

(0)

m

V

ta where m is restricted to the object, but ta occurs with either the ob­ ject of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive verb. The two Finnish infinitive endings used with verb complement constructions, -ma and -ta , also appear to fit into the above schema; e.g., alan 'I begin to run', rupean juokse-ma-an

juos-ta

' I begin to run' — although-ta is

arbitrarily followed by an adverbial marker ~k (lost in final position); and -ma, by the illative case.

Thus the above optional "0" should per­

haps be generalized to include other verb complements (VC). 6. striking.

The similarity between the Finnic and Yukaghir structures is The following comparisons of function can be made:

Yukaghir

Baltic-Finnic

-m; me-

-m; -ma

Restricted to accusative/verb complement/transitive function

-1

-ta

Mark subject of intransitive verb; object of transitive verb or verb complement

Support for an l:t correspondence may be seen in other forms as well. Yukaghir

Baltic-Finnic

-1

*-ta(-k)

infinitive

-1

*-ta

adjective formant

-pul, -pe

*-t ( Of course, even in Hungarian traces of the older system remain in the treatment of the first and second person objects as indefinite and in proverbs. With regard to the special treatment of the first person, it is tempting to relate this to its homophony with the m focus marker (and likewise the second person with the t focus marker). This may well have played a role in the Komi second past tense, where the first person forms generally do not exist. The Ob-Ugric passive (Mansi -we-, Khanty -uj-, i-), etymologically related to the passive in Lapp (juvvu), has been shown to have a clear focus function, as has been shown by Lavotha. I see no formal or seman­ tic grounds against relating this Finno-Ugric passive focus marker to the Yukaghir intransitive element j discussed earlier. If so, it turns out that all of the major Yukaghir focus elements find cognates in FinnoUgric. Additional evidence for the Uralo-Yukaghir focus system can be found in all Uralic languages. Further investigation in view of this hypothe­ sis will no doubt shed new light on morphosyntactic peculiarities of the Uralic languages.

314

ROBERT T. HARMS

NOTES 1.

This article is a revised and expanded version of an earlier paper (Harms 1967) published in Hungarian.

2.

Cf. Raun 1956.

3.

Krejnovic 1958, p. 178. In another context (p. 233), however, he acknowledges the change dy to ny in word final position to be the result of a regular phonetic constraint.

4.

Jochelson 1905, p. 138.

5.

By 'focus' here is meant the morpho-syntactic marking of certain major elements of the sentence for special attention. Consider, for example, the following English sentences: John took the book. The book was taken by John. It was the BOOK John took. John took the BOOK. In a very loose sense, these sentences may be said to differ primari­ ly in focus type; that is, the same basic proposition is viewed with differing perspectives. To account for the individual differences, this broader focus notion must be specified more precisely for each type (such as topic, emphasis and contrast), but existing studies of the languages involved here do not permit more than the recognition of general focus elements.

6.

Based on the data given in Krejnovic 1968.

7.

My original analysis was presented with the transformational model of Chomsky 1957 and presented a set of syntactic and morphophonemic rules. It was this framework which led me to seek a unifying ab­ stract underlying sentence structure, in contrast with the more traditional catalogue of diverse morpheme-sequence patterns. Only then was I able to sense the similarity of the basic Yukaghir sen­ tence type with that of Baltic-Finnic.

8.

Data from Tereskin 1961, pp. 104-107. REFERENCES

Angere, J. 1956

Die uralo-jukagirische

Chomsky, N. 1957 Syntactic

Structures

Frage

(Stolkholm:

(The Hague:

Almquist and Wiksell)

Mouton & C o . ) .

Collinder, B. 1940 Jukagirisch und Uralisch (Uppsala: Uppsala Univeristets Arsskrift). 1957 "Uralo-jukagirische Nachlese", (= Uppsala Universitets

Arsskrift 1957: 12) Sprakvetenskapliga Uppsala Förhandlingar , 105-30.

Sàllskapets

i

315

THE URALO-YUKAGHIR FOCUS SYSTEM

1958

"Der Akkusativ im Wogulischen", Nyelvtudomanyi 17-21.

közlemények

60,

Harms, R. T. 1964 "Huomioita suomen numeruksesta", Virittajä, 289-92. 1964 Review of The Structure and Development of the Finnish Language by L. Hakulinen, Word 20, 105-114. 1967 "Az urali-jukagir fokuszrendszer megfeleloi" (Ugric reflexes of the Uralo-Yukaghir focus system), in  magyar nyetv es rendszere (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó), 94-103. története Jochelson, W. 1905 "Essay on the Grammar of the Yukaghir Language", Annals the New York Academy of Sciences XVI, pp. 97-154. Kalman, B. 1963

Chrestomathia

Vogulica

of

(Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó).

Karjalainen, K. F. 1964 Grammatikalische Aufzeiohnungen aus ostjakischen Mundarten, {-Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne 128) ed. by E. Vertes (Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilanen Seura). Klemm, A. 1928

"A vogul es az osztjak targyas igeragozas", közlemények 47, 65-112.

Krejnovic, Je. A. 1958 Jukagirskij

jazyk

(Moscow:

Nyelvtudomânyi

Akademija Nauk SSSR).

Lavotha, 0. 1960 "Das Passiv in der wogulischen Sprache" , Journal Société Finno-ougrienne 62: 4.

de

la

Liimola, M. 1953-4 "Zur wogulischen Etymologie und Formenlehre", Journal 57: 1. la Société Finno-ougrienne Minn, E. K. 1960 "The So-called Past Tenses in Cheremis", American Series Uralic Linguistics 1, (=Uralic and Altaic Raun, Alo. 1956

Rédei, K. 1965

de

Studies in T) , 93-120.

"Uber die sogenannte lexikostatistische Methode oder Glottochronologie und ihre Anwendung auf das Finnisch-Ugrische und Türkische", Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 28, 151-154. Northern

Serebrennikov, B. A. .1960 Kategorii i Volzskoj

Ostyak

Chrestomathy,

(=Uralic

and Altaic

vremeni i vida v finno-ugorskix jazykax grupp (Moscow: Akademija Nauk SSSR).

Series

47).

permskoj

Tailleru, O. B. 1959 "Plaidoyer pour le youkaghir, branche orientale de la fammille ouralienne", Lingua 8, 403-23.

316

ROBERT T. HARMS

Tereskin, N. I. 1961 Ocevki dialektov xantyjskogo Akademija Nauk SSSR). Vertes, E. 1959

jazyka^

C. 1, (Moscow-Leningrad:

"Zur Frage des bezeichneten Akkusativobjektes im aussersten Osten des ostjakischen Sprachgebietes", Ural-Altaische Jahvbücher 31, 486-90.

'SOMETHING STOLEN': A SEMITIC PARTICIPLE AND AN INDO-EUROPEAN NEUTER SUBSTANTIVE Saul Levin State University of New York at Binghamton

0.1. In honor of Professor Lehmann I offer a study of the archaic Greek word

and the Hebrew

struct" form that i s attested in

or more precisely i t s "con­ } '(for [literally, in]

his) stolen thing' (Exodus 22:2-3).1 More than any other etymology that goes across the Semitic and IE language-groups, this one gives us important inform­ ation about social life in prehistoric times. Furthermore it affords unique in­ sight into morphology. 0.2. My present purpose i s not to repeat what I have set forth at length about Languages

and i t s Hebrew counterpart in The Indo-European

and

Semitic

(Levin 1971:241-261), nor even to summarize that section of the

book except insofar as necessary to make my new argument comprehensible. 1. The grammatical term " c o n s t r u c t , " in opposition to " a b s o l u t e , " means that form of a noun which s t a n d s in Semitic languages for ' S O M E O N E ' S so-and-so' and is fol­ lowed immediately by a word or morpheme expressing WHOSE. Thus , right after — i i n d i c a t e s ' h i s . ' The " a b s o l u t e " form, ending in is used when WHOSE is not going to be indicated. B r a c e s { \ set off any transliteration from a script other than the Latin alpha­ bet. For the convenience of readers of this volume, my transliterations of Hebrew are a little l e s s rigidly graphemic than I have made them before (see Levin 1971:xxxviiixxxiv,42). E.g., I simplify A vertical line | in the transliteration is a morpheme-boundary, not indicated in the original.

318

SAUL LEVIN

For I am prepared to go beyond the method used by me then and the under­ standing which I had of developments in the prehistoric forerunners of IE and Semitic languages. It now appears possible to demonstrate that the Greek structure {CCéC|os}-- which i s typical of neuter substantives and h a s clear cognates in Sanskrit and some other IE languages — was derived from a Semitic structure, or at any rate that the attested Semitic counterpart of this Greek and IE structure p r e s e r v e s a more primeval relation to the triconsonantal verb-root. I can even suggest how the meaning of the prehistoric Semitic structure in Hebrew) as a participle— a p a s s i v e or rather a stative participle, in opposition to an active one— was approximated by the prehistoric Indo-Europeans through a different participial structure of their own,

e.g., in the Greek

which

v/as a synonym of

became the ordinary word for 'a stolen thing.'

and

Thus the comparison with Sem­

itic will redound doubly to the clarification of IE morphology. 1. The Root, the Affix,

and the Accented

Vowel

1.1. That the triconsonantal root {G—N—BJ i s cognate to

and i t s

IE relatives, was pointed out by Möller (1911:134). He did not, however, cite the p a s s i v e verbal noun, whose suffix and internal vowel {e} do so much to enhance the correspondence. If limited to the three bare consonants of the root, the etymology would hold up as p o s s i b l e , though far short of being con­ clusive. The matching of the two voiced p l o s i v e s \G\ and \B\ with the two unvoiced p l o s i v e s {K} and {p} i s at l e a s t consistent; and the Semitic {n} be­ longs to the series of liquid consonants like the IE / (Greenberg 1950:171173). But Möller envisaged so many and such varied divergences between Semitic and IE consonants that the range of p o s s i b i l i t i e s entails too much im­ precision. 2

This particular etymology of Möller' s, linking the IE root for

' s t e a l ' to the Semitic {G-N—B}, gains some support from a biconsonantal cor­ respondence that i s semantically related though distinct: the root {K—L}, which appears for instance in the Latin oc\cul\e

'cover up' (Vergil,

Georgics

2.347), evinces a general meaning 'hide, store away,' comparable to the Sem­ itic {G—N~Z} as in

' t r e a s u r e s , funds' (Ezra 7:20, Aramaic;

Esther 3:9, 4:7, Hebrew). So the resemblance of { K L - P Î to { G - N - B } i s not 2. Levin 1971:25-27, and Ernout-Meillet 1932:vi,304, on the ambiguous correspond­ e n c e s of the Latin ƒ—.

319

'SOMETHING STOLEN' isolated.

The very fact that not one of the three consonants i s identical in

the IE and the Semitic root may even argue for an extremely early origin of the etymon, so that it had time to take phonetically opposite directions in the two language-groups. 1.2. While going as far as this to uphold Möiler's etymology of the root, I would still not rest anything upon it in abstraction from the actual Greek word and the Hebrew

The whole structure p r e s e n t s a far

more impressive similarity than the root by itself. The one detail of noncorrespondence—i.e., the accent—can be neatly dispelled. Under certain conditions the Hebrew pattern is

instead of the unaccented

thus

or

'my re­

quest' (I Samuel 1:27, Esther 5:7,8, 7:3). The environments that regularly pro­ duce two a c c e n t s in the same word are somewhat infrequent in the text of the Bible (Wickes 1887:80-83,113); and

which turns up only once,

happens to be in an environment unfavorable to an accent other than the oblig­ atory one on the p o s s e s s i v e suffix {-ów} ' h i s . ' ^ The \e\

in words that

mean 'that which i s stolen,' 'that which i s requested (asked),' etc., i s accentable, although more often than not the potential accent there i s forgone. 2. The Law of Stolen Goods in Prehistoric 2.1.

Times

as well a s i t s Hebrew counterpart i s rare in the ancient cor­

pus and not known to have been in use during the historical period apart from law-codes. Since legal texts were one genre that the literary public in Greece did not cherish, we have only a couple of chance citations— the grammarian Pollux (8.34): "Solon in h i s laws called the stolen thing 4 scholium on the word

in Aeschylus (Prometheus

" and a

400): "A stream. ^

3. Wickes 1887:67. Ancient Hebrew, like Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric Greek, is pre­ served in chanted t e x t s . So the accentuation of the language cannot be separated from the elaborate cantillation, which is guided by twenty or more different marks— each above or below a certain syllable of the word. The full notation is found in manu­ scripts as early as the ninth century of the Christian era, but the tonal movements that go with each mark in the text are known only from the traditions of the modern Jewish communities, which vary greatly among t h e m s e l v e s . Most if not all of them actualize a raised pitch on the { é l of like the acute accent on the first syllable of in ancient Greek. 4. .. On the relation of ' to see below, §§5-1-2. 5. .

.

which i s to

as

to

SAUL LEVIN

320 alongside

('I flow') as

having the stolen thing

alongside

('I s t e a l ' ) : He goes off

himself." T h i s example of

IN A

CONTEXT i s adduced by the scholiast because the word was of infrequent cur­ rency, and seems based upon the text of a law, if not quoted verbatim. 2.2. In the Bible, which i s of course much shorter than the corpus of Greek literature from the same age, the word occurs in a single p a s s a g e , part of the first series of s t a t u t e s in the book of Exodus (21:37-22:3) after the Ten Commandments: "If a man s t e a l s

an ox or a sheep or goat

and slaughters it or sells it, he shall compensate five cattle in p l a c e of the ox and four sheep or goats goat. If the thief

instead of the sheep or i s found in the burglary and i s

struck and dies, there is no blood-guilt for him. If the sun h a s risen upon him, there i s blood-guilt for him [i.e., for killing him]; he must compensate — if he h a s nothing, he i s to be sold for his theft thing

If the stolen

should be found alive in h i s hand, whether an

ox or an a s s or a sheep or goat, he shall compensate two [for one]." 2.3. A legal word, used seldom or never in the language as a whole, i s likely to be an archaism; for such vocabulary i s normally, indeed universally, conservative. In ordinary Greek usage ripides, Hecuba

was superseded by

(Eu­

618, etc.). We cannot prove whether it was already so in So­

lon's time, about 600 B.C., as we are short of Attic literature and inscriptions until the fifth century.

Anyhow the presence of

in the text of the law

did not avail to keep it in the active vocabulary during the period of ample documentation. 2.4.

probably goes far back into the pre-history of

the Greek and Hebrew languages, because it i s a legal term and because the divergence of the radical consonants argues against any hypothesis of recent borrowing. It must have been used in legal pronouncements before the Solonian and Mosaic codifications, and these historical documents may well have taken many whole p h r a s e s or s e n t e n c e s over from their antecedents, which are unknown to u s . This takes p l a c e on a large s c a l e when laws are recodified. 6. See also Schrader 1917:193. 7. Literally, 'the stealer.' 8. Literally, 'his stolen thing, that which is stolen by him.'

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

321

But it would be both unsafe and unnecessary to posit that either the substance or the precise wording of the laws about 'something stolen' had been immutable before the great codifiers came along. It is enough to realize that there had been laws, at least incipient laws, referring to 2.5. So the etymology t e a c h e s us something more about the p r e d e c e s s o r s of this IE and this Semitic people than simply that they had experience with thieves and found words to talk about it. We might have guessed as much, even without any specific evidence, just from general knowledge of human be­ havior. Actually I know of no material evidence of thievery that goes back as far as the remote time that we can reasonably posit for the origin of the ety­ mon underlying the Greek and the Hebrew word for 'something stolen.'

Ar­

chaeological remains, such as burglars' tools or buildings damaged by them, are scarcely to be expected from before the age of civilization. 9 2.6. Theft, if viewed broadly, i s an activity not only of men but of many kinds of predatory or foraging b e a s t s , whenever they snatch something edible that one of the same or a different s p e c i e s h a s taken for itself. It i s distin­ guished from scavenging insofar as the thief takes advantage of the inatten­ tion rather than the satiety of the owner, and insofar as the latter, upon becom­ ing aware of the theft, struggles to regain p o s s e s s i o n . We sometimes observe that an animal, almost like a man, seems to fight harder for something it has already held; but if the emotional reaction i s common to man and b e a s t , only a man can verbalize it accordingly: "This i s mine; you have no right to it." Whenever it is anything that he was not ready to abandon, he r e s e n t s the theft; he does not p a s s it off lightly. And having the facility of a language, which by its nature i s shared with a community, he voices a MORAL claim upon third p a r t i e s . The words for stealing and the like do not aim so much at stating an objective fact as at enlisting the support of others. 2.7. The speaker calling the thing

(or i t s primeval antecedent)

may be pictured putting his hand on it or at least pointing to it. He was not primarily addressing the thief but men of the neighborhood, who he expected 9. E.g., Clark (1952) nowhere d i s t i n g u i s h e s which goods in primeval times may have p a s s e d from one individual to another by s t e a l i n g , nor does Gabel (1967) detect any signs of it. Thurnwald (1925) d i s c u s s e s only primitive s o c i e t i e s of the present, plus early Greek civilization; he may be implying tacitly that prehistoric thievery was similar.

322

SAUL LEVIN

would recognise that he was in the right and would take his side. The very employment of the word indicates that someone was appealing for justice, and that there was not only (to use the Latin terms) an accusator

or petitor

and a

reus but one or more others on whose fairness the speaker relied, rather than on his own bodily strength. So there were already the elements of a judicial process. 2.8. This Sitz im Leben

for the etymon behind

i s a reconstruction, and as such i s valid only exempli gratia— according to the principles which I take for axiomatic in historical research. It does not follow that there must be other available reconstructions just as appropriate to the data. 3. From Participle

to

3.1. Besides

Substantive Greek h a s several more neuter nouns that fit the

pattern {CCéCos}. One of t h e s e ,

'fame' (Iliad

2.325, etc.; literally

'what i s reported or heard'), h a s clear IE cognates: Sanskrit Irish

clu,

also Church Slavic

{slovo}

in the sense of ' w o r d . ' 1 0

Se-

mantically these {CCéCos} nouns could well be interpreted as p a s s i v e parti­ ciples of {CC—C} v e r b - r o o t s ; 1 1 but syntactically and morphologically this i s unsatisfactory, because

e t c . , do not function as modifiers of

other nouns, nor are participles (as the term i s understood otherwise in IE grammar) restricted to the neuter gender, to the exclusion of masculine and feminine forms. The anomaly can be cleared up by looking at the Semitic structure, which i s participial in i t s formation as well as i t s function or mean­ ing. 3.2. The { C C e C c t — } or {CCéCoti—} type i s well represented in He­ brew and h a s cognates in the other Semitic l a n g u a g e s . 1 2 As a participle 10. The Greek verb-root is cf. the imperative plural 'hear' (Iliad 2.56, etc.) and the indicative 'they report' (Odyssey 1.338; the digraph —ε1— stands for a long vowel [ e : ] here, not a diphthong — see below, note 35). 11. L i k e w i s e the l e s s numerous Î C é C C o s j nouns such as 'appearance* (Iliac 3.39, e t c . ; literally 'what i s s e e n ' ) from the root and the many 'child' (1.202, e t c . ; 'what i s born') from a biconson{ C é C o s î nouns such as antal root; B u c k - P e t e r s e n [l939]:693-696. However, the Semitic parallels to {céCCos} are l e s s clear, and there may be none at all to {CeCos} 12. No Semitic c o g n a t e s to the particular word

are found, nor IE

323

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

formed from a verb-root, it can have either a p a s s i v e or a stative s e n s e , more often the latter— although the Hebrew language does not sharply separate these two categories. The feminine of this participle i s always marked by a suffix,

in the "construct,"

in the

"absolute."13 The

masculine, lacking the suffix, h a s the structure { C o C é C } ; e.g., 'boiled'

, Exodus 12:9, describing

m a s c ) , but

'the meat,'

{hazzróao

'the shoulder, boiled'

(fern.; Numbers 6:19). However, only a verb form of the derived or secondary conjugation, { b a s s é l } with the middle consonant strengthened, means 'boil' in the active s e n s e

II Kings 4:38). In general an active verb of the

simple conjugation, such as . ._ .

'write' (Exodus 17:14, etc.),

'he has written' (II Kings 18:37, etc.), forms a p a s s i v e participle of

the pattern { C c C ú w C } with a feminine { C C u w C c h } : 'written' (Psalm 149:9, Jeremiah 17:1, etc.).

Likewise

'it (masc.) [is] stolen' (Genesis 30:33). One probable c a s e to the contrary i s

{qzóruw}

'cut' (pl. imperative; II

Kings 3:26) with no such p a s s i v e participle recorded but instead 'a land cut off' (fern.; L e v i t i c u s 16:22). Otherwise the { C C e C c h } participle of an intrinsically active verb-root survived only as a substantive —or at l e a s t that i s what shows up in the t e x t s . 3-3- The basic s e n s e of i C c C é C } and i t s feminine { C C e C c h , C C e C c t - } i s 'being in such-and-such a s t a t e , ' without the definitely p a s s i v e nuance 'having been MADE so-and-so.' It i s unnecessary and probably illog­ ical to posit that any active u s e , whether imperative or indicative, of such verb-roots had to come earlier than the stative formation. Moreover, many He­ brew verb-roots of inherently stative meaning are vocalized

, blur­

ring any difference between verb and participle (or adjective); e.g., functions as a verb 'he i s p l e a s e d ' in Psalm 109:17, as a mere par­ ticiple or adjective 'pleased' in I Kings 21:6, but much oftener it can be con­ strued either way just as well. The feminine suffix, however, entails a discognates to although the triconsonantal root is not restricted to Hebrew and Greek r e s p e c t i v e l y . 13. For a Greek feminine parallel with the suffix - w , see below, §§4.2-3- The Sem­ itic languages have no neuter category.

324

SAUL LEVIN

tinction in accent between verb and participle, and consequently a difference in vowels too: 'their soul (fem.) i s p l e a s e d ' (Isaiah 66:3), 'and with p l e a s e d soul' (I Chronicles 2 2 : 9 ) 1 4 . The masculine stative verb and participle {CoCéC}, the feminine verb { C c C é C c h } , and the feminine participle {CCeCch} are all well integrated in Hebrew and Semitic morphology, but only the feminine participle h a s IE con­ n e c t i o n s . This is a momentous limitation, a s I will soon explain. 3.4. It i s precisely the feminine participle that h a s no vowel {c} between the first and the second consonant. The presence or absence of the vowel, conditioned by the accent, i s especially characteristic of Hebrew among the Semitic languages. The following table exhibits how they differ from He­ brew: 15

Arabic

Arabic Akkadian p a u s a l pro­ nunciation 1 6

Aramaic

Hebrew

masc. stative verb" {CaCiCa} [CaCiC] {CaCiC} {CCéC} {CcCéC} masc. participle {CaCiCun} " {CaCCu(m)} " " fem. stat- {CaCiCat} unaffected {CaCCat} {CiCCât! ÎCoCéCoKl ive verb ^tTcAT ÎCaCiCatunS [CaCiCah] {CaCiCtu(m)! SCaCCÓ?} 1 7 {CCeCÓÏï!

14. The minimal vowel {&S between the first two consonants is due to the guttural quality of {x}. Otherwise it would be {CC—} as in 'whole, complete' (Amos 1:6, etc.). 15. For examples, see Wright 1896-8:1,30,55,134,183,298; von Soden 1952:59,100-101, 8*; Bauer-Leander 1927:173,186. 16. At the end of a verse or s e n t e n c e in Arabic— i . e . , C l a s s i c a l Arabic — certain suf­ fixes get dropped or reduced, making the words more like Hebrew; Wright 1896-8:11, 368-373- This is part of the oral tradition of the language and is fully confirmed by the grammarians. But the scribal tradition of the Qur?ân, the only text regularly marked with supra- and sub-linear signs for vowels (including the suffix { - n } ) , does not reflect the p a u s a l pronunciation. 1 7 . E . g . , the Targum of Amos 1:6,9 has for the Hebrew 'whole.' But the Aramaic d i a l e c t s fluctuate somewhat incoherently; Malone 1972:157-163. The Biblical Aramaic of Daniel h a s several fem. s u b s t a n t i v e s

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

325

It i s immediately clear that the Greek neuter substantive {CCéCos} bears the c l o s e s t resemblance to the Hebrew, especially to the Hebrew "construct" form { C C é C c t - } . Yet the gap between the Greek and the Arabic {CaCiCatun} i s narrower than it seems: Arabic h a s no opposition between / i / and / e / , nor be­ tween / a / and / o / , nor can an Arabic word begin with two consonants. So the Arabic {CaCiCa-î i s not PHONEMICALLY at odds with either the Greek [CCéCo-1 or the Hebrew [ C C e C c - ] . 3.5. So far we see no reason why the suffixed feminine form of the stative participle, rather than the shorter masculine form, should have been treated as a substantive, when it refers neither to a female nor to a noun of established feminine gender—the neuter category as such being absent from Semitic lan­ guages. To be sure, feminine pronouns and adjectives in general are often used under those circumstances in Hebrew (Joiion 1947:412,464-465); but so are the masculine, which are preferred in some constructions. The substantiv­ ized stative participle i s a special c a s e , in that the masculine form of it, while not altogether excluded, is relatively little used. An interesting instance of the masculine i s

'the liver' (literally 'the heavy

[thing]'; Exodus 29:13, e t c . ) . 1 8 From one root we find both

and

in the sense of 'something plundered' (e.g., Isaiah 61:8, Ezekiel 33:15).19 They even occur interchangeably (so it would appear) in one legal p a s s a g e : "Whoever . . . c h e a t s h i s fellow man . . . in something plun­ dered

. . . , and he i s to restore the plundered thing that he h a s plundered" (Leviticus 51/221-23). An­

other root gives both

and

'something blocking'

— i.e., 'a fence' (Numbers 22:24, Ezekiel 13:5, e t c . ; I Chronicles 4: 23). The unsuffixed form is more frequent but not clearly masculine; for it h a s masculine agreement in Ezekiel 42:7 but feminine agreement 'the pushed-in fence' in Psalm 62:4. 20 closer to the Hebrew pattern thus ' your e a s e ' (4:24; no i n s t a n c e s in Ezra). 18. The gender is confirmed by the agreement of a m a s c . verb in Lamentations 2:11. In many other p a s s a g e s functions as an ordinary s t a t i v e verb 'he (it) is heavy' or adjective (Exodus 18:18, 19:16, I Samuel 4:18, I Kings 3:9, e t c . ) . 19. The fricative at the beginning of i s due to phrasal sandhi. 20. Comparable phenomena are fairly common in Hebrew. The plural of this noun is

326

SAUL LEVIN 3.6. Many more roots have a substantivized participle with the feminine

suffix, while they have

only as a verb or dependent participle, or not

at all; e.g., '(he

is) full' (Jeremiah 4:12, Psalm 10:7, etc.), 'full/ or ' a fill' (Numbers 7:14, 18:27, Exodus 22:28, etc.), '(something) gloomy; gloom' (Genesis 15:12, etc.).

In the foregoing i n s t a n c e s I cannot discern what influence favored the feminine over the unsuffixed masculine for substantivization; but in others it i s clear enough.

'the lowland,'

'and his lowland' (Joshua 11:16, etc.) shares the feminine gender of the words for 'land,'

—which occurs in an earlier phrase of the same

verse—and

(Joel 1:10, etc.). Both

9

l é r S C mlexÓKS 'salty land' and { m l e x c h } alone in the same s e n s e are attested (Jeremiah 17:6, Job 39:6), as well as the intermediate '[he changed] crop-land to salty [sc. land]' (Psalm 107:34). Further, in view of S ° s r s c ( s e e above, §3.2) and ground' (Amos 7:17),

qzeróS} 'sullied, unfit 'and fat (fer­

tile) ground' (Nehemiah 9:25; cf. 9:35 and Numbers 13:20), I infer that adjec­ tives or stative participles of the pattern {CCeCch} were habitual with these two substantives, enough so that given a suitable {CCeCoh} the feminine thing could readily be understood in context as 'such-and-such [ l a n d ] . ' 2 1 3.7. Still more pertinent to IE neuter substantives such as the Greek i s a set of { C C e C c h } terms that refer primarily, if not exclusively, to b e a s t s in certain conditions. B e s i d e s '(something) stolen,' which the context shows to be an animal ( s e e above, §2.2), there are two that are either

of the fem. type Numbers 32:24) or 'your f e n c e s ' of the m a s c . type (Micah 7:11). Once ( E z e k i e l 42:12)

there occurs a form with a different fem. singular suffix 'the fence' or 'the w a l l ' ; the structure i s next to ity to the Greek {CCéCos} — see below, §4.5. 2 1 . 'Low' in reference to things other than land is

{CCéCct-}

for similar­ (Ezekiel

17:14, e t c . ; m a s c . L e v i t i c u s 14:37, II Samuel 6:22, e t c . ) , a forma­ tion common to many adjectives and s u b s t a n t i v e s .

327

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

'(something) dead often coupled, (usually from d i s e a s e ) and (something) mangled by predators' ( L e v i t i c u s 22:8, e t c . ) ; 2 2 also

'(something) a s t r a y ' 2 3 (coupled with

'plundered' in L e v i t i c u s 5:22-23).24 The word for ' b e a s t ' or col­ lectively ' b e a s t s , ' and especially the tame ones, i s odus 13:15, etc.). Often it stands in contrast to

(Ex­ 'man' or

'mankind'; and as the latter i s naturally masculine in the language of a malecentered society, ' b e a s t ( s ) ' i s put into the other or feminine category. 2 5 In a flock or herd, to be sure, most of the adults were female, the young males hav­ ing been regularly removed. Within Hebrew there i s no known verb-root {B--H—M}, of which {bhemóR} could be a substantivized participle. But Ethiopic (Geez) h a s a stative verb inine

'he i s dumb,' whose fem­

— if it occurs —is very c l o s e to the Hebrew "construct" form '(someone's) b e a s t ( s ) ' (Numbers 3:41, etc.; L e s l a u 1958:

12). Whether or not

was originally participial— 'unspeaking,

dumb'—its existence as a substantive served a s a model, either attracting a modifier, a s in

'a sullied or

22. The former sometimes t a k e s in human c o r p s e s too, but only in the abnormal situ­ ation when they have suffered neglect (e.g., I s a i a h .5:25). It extends to a man killed by a lion but not eaten (I Kings 13:28). 23. The English prefix a— often corresponds semantically to stative vocalization in Hebrew: asleep, ashamed, alive, afraid (formerly afeared), athirst, etc. 24..

(Jeremiah 12:3) is generally taken to mean the A C T of

' k i l l i n g ' ; but in 7:32 with the prefixed article was trans­ lated as a c o l l e c t i v e participle 'the ones killed' by the Targum and Septuagint (also in 19:6 according to the Targum). So it may also be functioning as a participle in (Zechariah 11:47) — i . e . , 'the flock being killed' (without proper slaughter or s a c r i f i c e ; cf. 11:5). The verb-root {H—R—G} i s rarely used of killing an animal ( L e v i t i c u s 20:15, Numbers 22:29, Isaiah 27:1), and only once of slaughtering for meat (Isaiah 22:13; here too the action is abnormal: ing at that). The s e n s e of

'kill c a t t l e , ' not just one ox, and for r e c k l e s s feast­ would then be 'something killed wantonly.'

or i t s absolute 'something asked for' ( J u d g e s 8:24, e t c . ; above, §1.2) ought to have referred at times to an animal (cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.616), but it does not in any P i b l i c a l p a s s a g e . 25. 'God' ( G e n e s i s 1:27, e t c . ) , which c o n t r a s t s with 'man' in a different way, is marked by a P L U R A L suffix.

328

SAUL LEVIN

unfit beast' (Leviticus 27:11, etc.), or e l s e favoring the substantivization of t h e feminine form of stative participles such as 3.8. While the gender of appears to have been the strongest influence, other influences must have seconded it. In the c a s e of which like

occurs only in the text of laws dealing

with restitution, the play of gender i s most revealing: "Upon any matter of transgression, upon an ox, upon an a s s , upon a sheep or goat, upon a garment, upon anything astray that he s a y s , 'This is i t ' " (Exodus 22:8). The first and second terms for an individual animal,

and

are of masculine gender— a fact that emerges elsewhere in the Bible (Genesis 32:6, Exodus 21:28, 23:5, Nehemiah 5:18, etc.).

'a sheep or goat'

i s variable in gender: masculine in G e n e s i s 30:32, Exodus 12:5 (expressly a male), Psalm 119:176, 2 6 but feminine in Jeremiah 50:17, Ezekiel 34:20, 45:15. Then comes

'a garment,' which i s n e c e s s a r i l y feminine

(cf. I Kings 11:29-30, Joshua 9:5), and right after that the generalizing term 'anything astray.'

The gender of

in

such a meticulous legal formulation may be the crucial factor determining rather than the masculine turns up n o w h e r e .

27

but at any rate

*{?cbéd}

The next law in Exodus (22:9 ff-)? after the one about

things gone astray, concerns things given for safekeeping. Here the enumera­ tion i s quite reminiscent: "an a s s or an ox or a sheep or goat, and any b e a s t The generalizing term, to express a whole c l a s s of things, has the structure

of a feminine participle.

The

sense may be, more precisely, 'anything dumb, any brute.' 3-9- I lack the detailed knowledge of the other Semitic languages to trace the extent of comparable phenomena in them. But in Akkadian, at least, von 26. Not counting L e v i t i c u s 22:23,28, 27:26, Deuteronomy 17:1, where it is coupled with 'ox' and the shared modifier is m a s c . 27. Finally, following the fern. the pronouns 'this [is] it' are m a s c , since the plaintiff's exact words are quoted, and he h a s not of course heard the l e g i s l a t o r ' s shift into the feminine. A law in Deuteronomy 22:1-3 gives nearly the same sequence of items, with 'his garment' right before 'anything a s t r a y ' ; but the ensuing agreements are fern. in straightforward fashion.

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

329

Soclen (1952:59,74) h a s observed the tendency to s u b s t a n t i v i z e feminine parti­ c i p l e s such as { d a m I q t u m } ' G u t e s ' (examples in von Soden 1965:157). 4.

Feminine

and Neuter

Gender

4 . 1 . Both the " a b s o l u t e "

and the "construct"

have IE p a r a l l e l s , but the former only in Greek and very few at that.

The

"construct" form in Hebrew i s common when functioning as a s u b s t a n t i v e , a s in our examples of ' h i s stolen [thing],' 'my r e q u e s t , ' 'your fill,' ' h i s low [land],' but rare in a strictly participial or adjectival function.

For it cannot

then be followed by a p o s s e s s i v e pronoun suffix but only by a s u b s t a n t i v e specifying in what r e s p e c t : name or reputation' (Ezekiel 22:5; cf. 22:10).

' s u l l i e d in The IE counterpart to

or to the type in general i s a substantive of neuter gender, such as 4.2.

'the stolen thing.'28 But to the limited extent that Greek also s h a r e s an " a b s o l u t e " in

28. However, an alternative "construct" form of Hebrew, very sparsely a t t e s t e d , is ex­ emplified in the fern, stative participle + substantive only by 'full of j u s t i c e ' (Isaiah 1:21; cf. the fern. p a s s i v e participle

'stolen by day and stolen by night,' G e n e s i s 31:39). Not only the suffix but the b a s e { m l e ? — I (with just a transition from the guttural consonant {? } to the next consonant) i s handsomely matched by ' t h e moon full of light' (Philo, De congre ssu eruditionis gratia I9[l55] = 3.93.20-21 Cohn; De specialibus legibus 2.19[l55] = 5.123.7 Cohn; e t c . ) . i s fern.; but Greek compound adjectives with —a— after the verbal part (corresponding to the Hebrew participle) are not limited to the fern, as in Hebrew h a s to refer to a fern, substantive ' c i t y . ' Yet I have detected a tendency of the adjectives to describe women, countries, or something e l s e fem. (Levin 1971: 732). The m a s c . counterpart of also occurs just once: 'full of d a y s ' (Jeremiah 6:11). For from this particular root the "absolute" forms (masc.) and (fem.) are employed not only to express 'full' but 'full of so-and-so.' The Greek TTÀT|CTI— h a s no counterpart *7TÀr|—; but from other verb-roots we find 'Enduring-of-war' (Iliad 2.653, e t c . ; H e r a c l e s ' son), 'enduring of heart' (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 430; with the fem. noun 'grief'); 'delighting in thunder' (Iliad 8.2, e t c . ; epithet of Z e u s ) , 'Delighting-in-dance' (Hesiod, Theogony 78, e t c . ; the Muse). Masc. [ t e r p i - ] , fem. [terpsi—] — for Greek this i s an amazing alternation.

330

SAUL LEVIN it i s feminine. There i s no

but

common in Homer along with the neuter 2

13.746, etc.), 9 and of

'need, duty' i s

'need, debt' (Iliad

10.142,172,

one of the Muses, a sort of divine personification

'fame' (see above, §3.1), i s cited by other early p o e t s (Hesiod,

The-

ogony 77; etc.). The semantic differentiation between the feminine in and the neuter in

i s somewhat intangible;

but it resembles the Hebrew Hebrew "construct," d e b t / and

at l e a s t to this extent: Like the often e x p r e s s e s 'SOMEONE'S need, SOMEONE'S

over and over 'SOMEONE'S fame,' with a p o s s e s s i v e adjec­

tive or a noun or pronoun in the genitive or dative c a s e (e.g., Iliad 4.197,207, 6A46,

7.91, 11.687; Odyssey

2.325,

1.283,409, 2.45, 3.367).

and

on the contrary, are like the Hebrew "absolute" in that they do not en­ tail any such specification of 'whose.' 4.3. As the feminine

TYPE

lacks IE cognates ( s e e Gusmani 1962:

399-412), we might never have guessed from the IE side that i t s formation was originally related to the neuter {CCéCos}. On the Semitic side the linguists (e.g., Brockelmann 1908:83,408-409) have generally taken the

of He­

brew and Aramaic and the p a u s a l [—ah] of Arabic as a mere phonetic reflex of *— at.

I have many reasons for doubting this (Levin 1971:249-252), which I

need not repeat now. I will only add that no such phonetic weakening of a [T] takes place in the unmistakable situation where it i s the l a s t consonant of a root. Thus in Arabic the masculine substantive

{oanatim}

'hardship, d i s t r e s s ' (Lane 1874:2168) gets a pausal pronunciation [ ε a n a t ] , whereas the feminine participle or adjective

{farihatun}

'joyful'

becomes [ f a r i h a h ] in the pausal position (cf. Schaade 1911:55). 4.4. At any rate the [T] suffix was SEMANTICALLY associated with the [H] suffix in several Semitic languages, even if unrelated phonetically.

The

two are hardly ever interchangeable, but i n s t e a d suppletive. No further suffix i s ever placed after the [H]; pluralization i s based upon the [T] form; e.g., (Joshua 8:31, etc.) serves a s the plural of 'whole' (above, note 17). A fairly similar distribution prevails in Greek: nouns are never pluralized, and even the singular c a s e suffixes are rarely ap29.

once has a clearly neuter agreement (Odyssey

4.312-314).

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

331

plied, at l e a s t by the earliest p o e t s Homer and Hesiod; 3 0 but

or rather

i t s Ablaut alternant

can readily take the appropriate suffixes for c a s e

or

'reports or glories of men' (Iliad

number.31

9.189,520, etc.)

i s not a very clear illustration; for we might have expected sion,

- from

or, by eli-

(Chantraine 1958:7,74). We must turn either to

iCCéCosl nouns not necessarily formed from a verb-root, such as 'strength' with i t s dative

and its genitive

(Iliad 5.783,

32

8.337, 15.359, etc.), or to {CéCCos} nouns such as 'grief —i.e., something suffered' (contrasted with in 4.197,207; also 1.254, 9.3, 11.658, etc.), or e l s e to {CéCos} nouns such as 'something thrown, a m i s s i l e ' and i t s plural (1.51,382, 4.99, 8.159, 13.251,555, 14.130, etc.). 4.5. However, the stative formation of the Semitic languages corresponds to {CCéCos}, not to {CéCos}; and as for {CéCCosi, a few Hebrew "con­ structs" whose "absolute" i s ÎCiCCct-}

fluctuate between

and

or—if the second consonant is guttural — 'something dead, a corpse' ( s e e above, §3.7), 'my corpse' (Isaiah 26:19),33 'his corpse' (I Kings 13:30, etc.); 'something asked, a request' (Judges 8:24, etc.), 'my request' (see above, §1.2),

(Job 6:8). 3 4 30. Only the dative

xpεioi

single p a s s a g e (Iliad

8.57).

31. For a p o s s i b l e Hebrew parallel to {CCéCe(s)—(, one "construct" form has the structure

'a lump [literally,

something p r e s s e d ] of figs' (II Kings 20:7, Isaiah 38:21); the " a b s o l u t e " is (I Samuel 30:12). The root {D—B—L} does not function in Hebrew as a verb, so far as our data go, but it does in Arabic (Lane 1867:1,840-841). See also 'fence' (above, note 20), which in its one occurrence functions as an " a b s o l u t e " rather than a "construct" noun. 32. The verb 'he (she, it) is strong' appears from Aeschylus on (Agamemnon 938, e t c . ) . 33- The prophet, God's spokesman, means 'the dead among my p e o p l e , ' as a herdsman might speak of the dead in his flock. 34. The first syllable has a quasi-accent on the described by the medieval HeDrew grammarians as a 'hold' or a 'lowing sound.' Cf. in Greek the circumflex accent

332

SAUL LEVIN

The Semitic formation exemplified by could be genetically related to the

in Hebrew type,

nearly as

4.6. The fact that there i s no Hebrew or Semitic

; of stative

meaning from biconsonantal roots to match the Greek and IE {CéCos} might, in isolation, suggest that the type of substantive originated among IndoEuropeans or their forerunners in all three varieties {CéCos, CCéCos, CéCCos} and spread to Semitic languages within the restriction of their triconsonantal root pattern. But everything e l s e points to a movement in the op­ posite direction: a feminine participle becoming a substantive within the Sem­ itic area and penetrating into IE not as a participle but as a substantive, chiefly in i t s Semitic "construct" form but marginally in the "absolute" as manifested in Greek by 4.7.

is peculiarly enigmatic because it belongs to the same root

a s the anomalous quasi-verb

of inherently stative meaning.35 Out of 55

occurrences in Homer, fully 25 are in the collocation must,' and 4 more are

'I need, I must' (Iliad

'you need, you 7.109, 19.67, etc.), both

p h r a s e s being excluded from any initial position. This bears the c l o s e s t re­ semblance to the Semitic and especially the Hebrew stative imperfect, as in 'you do (will) not lack or need' (Deuteronomy 8:9; Levin 1971:516 ff.; 1967:199-203). The pronouns

are labelled "ac­

c u s a t i v e , " while the Semitic verb h a s a "subject" prefix; but a crucial mor­ pheme—unaccented [E] —is shared: it marks an INACTIVE ASPECT of the personal pronoun.36 No IE or other connections have been reasonably estab-

on the long vowel [SI J in 'worry, grief' (Iliad 13.464, e t c . ; nearly a synonym of the root appears to be triconsonantal, *k—Hd. 35. The digraph —ε1— in and many other words does not stand for a diphthong but merely for [e:] the length of the vowel being due to ab­ sorption of a former consonant, not but in (see above, note 10) and a laryngeal in (Levin 1971:255). with short [ e ] , also occur (Iliad 10.85, Odyssey 11.479, etc.), being always treated metrically a s a one-syllable word; also the genitive (Pindar, Nemean 3.86). 36. In Hebrew it is [e] in some environments, or the neighboring front-vowels J s ! or i i i in others. In some old Arabic d i a l e c t s , but not C l a s s i c a l Arabic, it was {i}; cf. above, note 16.

333

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

lished for the root of

(Frisk 1960-72:11,1117-1119). But the

structure {Ce CCVCi looks Semitic; and this argues that the structure of the feminine derivative the root

i s also akin to the Hebrew

Wherever

came from, it was COMPATIBLE with Greek structures that

correspond neatly to the Semitic. 4.8. As I envisage the pre-history of t h e s e particular correspondences, the source was rather Semitic (or proto-Semitic) than IE (or proto-IE). Or at any rate the Semitic languages have preserved the system of the morphemes, where­ as in Greek— and still more in other IE languages —it h a s disintegrated. How the feminine

and the neuter

each other and to such as

stand morphologically in relation to

i s opaque, until we compare a Hebrew stative set 'the low[land]' ( s e e above, §3.6), 'his Iow[land].' 'she [the city] will sink' 3 7 (Isaiah 32:19).

4.9. What the Semitic comparison does not account for is the neuter gender of

and the whole lot of {CCéCos, CéCCos, CéCos} substantives. How­

ever, the feminine gender of the stative "construct" form in Hebrew is seldom EVINCED by agreements in the sentence. 3 8 So while we do not doubt but that '(someone's) stolen t h i n g / and any

'(someone's) request,'

would prove feminine whenever put to the test, yet I can

readily conceive of the gender being little noted in the diffusion beyond Semitic territory. The meaning 'SOMETHING in such-and-such s t a t e ' could have been enough to throw {CCéCos} into the neuter category available in IE — especially if in the early period of diffusion, adoption, establishment of the {CCéCos} 37. Throughout Semitic, except the Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, the prefix {T—} stands for 'you' or ' s h e ' without distinction. However, to express 'you' (fern.) a suffix is needed b e s i d e s . 38. The i n s t a n c e s of such agreement are in Deuteronomy 22:3 ' s t r a y ' ; see above, §3.7), Job 6:8 'request' ( s e e above, §4.5), and sev­ eral involving ' c o r p s e ' : Deuteronomy 21:23, 28:26, I Kings 13:14,28, Isaiah 5:25, Jeremiah 7:33, 9:21, 16:4, 34:20, 36:30. Of course there is no instance to the contrary — i . e . , m a s c . agreement; and many non-stative "construct" forms of analo­ gous morphology show fern, agreements, such as ing' (Genesis 33:11; " a b s o l u t e "

'my b l e s s ­ Deuteronomy 11:26, e t c . ) ,

'and my sigh(ing)' (Psalm 38:10).

334

SAUL LEVIN

form it was still understood as a participle, however vestigially.

For in Greek,

and most other IE languages, any s u b s t a n t i v i z e d adjective or participle refer­ ring to a thing rather than a person i s likely to be neuter, u n l e s s in the back­ ground some noun was understood that imposed i t s gender. 4.10. In view of what was said about

' b e a s t ' in Hebrew favor­

ing feminine gender for a whole lot of substantivized participles ( s e e above, §3.7), we may ask whether there was an IE substantive of similar meaning but of neuter gender to draw words like

into the same category. The ques­

tion i s not n e c e s s a r i l y pertinent, since we cannot point to a set of other ÎCCéCosi nouns b e s i d e s

which might well stand for an ANIMAL in a

certain state39 — nor to such a set of {CCáCah} nouns in Sanskrit, CCeCus in Latin, etc. The term for 'livestock' or 'movable, disposable property,' so fa­ miliar to Indo-Europeanists — Latin pecu,

Sanskrit

(Rigveda 3.53.

23), Old High German fihu, etc. — is indeed neuter. It i s not found in Greek, but this fact is not decisive: for all we know, it could have been replaced in prehistoric Greek, or some other neuter substantive could have had the same effect upon the gender of Bacchides

etc. In Latin the IE neuter pecu

(Plautus,

1123, 1138a, etc.) i s l e s s frequent than a related neuter pecus,

CeCus with the same s e n s e (Cato, De agri cultura

a

2.7; Varro, De re rustica

2.1.13, e t c . ) . 4 0 4.11. Most challenging i s the fact that in Old High German (and to some extent in Old English) the core of the neuter c l a s s which reflects an IE stem in *— es— or *— os— c o n s i s t s of species of TAME ANIMALS:41 kalb, chalp, pl kelbir,

chalpir

(OE. cealf,

genitive calfur, pl. cealfru, calfur); lamb, lamp, pl. lembir (OE. lamb, pl. lambru, lombur, lombar); huon 'chicken,' pl. honir, huanir (not in OE.); 39. 'nurseling' refers to a human child (Sophocles, fr. 154 Pearson = Athenaeus 401d), but it lends itself to the interpretation that it could have readily meant a baby animal. 40. T h i s does have a formal Greek cognate 'fleece' ( Artecdo ta Oxoniensia 3.358), from which I infer—thanks to the arguments of Benveniste 1970:320 —that the main form of d i s p o s a b l e property in very early times was probably a fleece. 4 L Braune-Mitzka 1953:185; Graff 1834-46:1,59;II,213-214;III,681;IV,391,958,1171; Campbell 1959:258-259- Numerous other s p e l l i n g s , some of them indicating differ­ ences of pronunciation, turn up in the m s s .

'SOMETHING STOLEN' hrind 'ox,' pl. hrindir (OE.

335

pl. —eru);

farh 'pig,' pl. farhir (OE. fearh, masc. with pl. also ei 'egg,' pl. eigir, eier (OE. pl.

fearas);

None of t h e s e approximates the Hebrew structure

in the colloca­

tion of root-consonants; for several of them

would be closer ( s e e

above, §§4.4-5)- The semantic connection with stolen ( b e a s t ) , '

'(someone's)

'(someone's) dead ( b e a s t ) , ' e t c . , i s 'a beast,

FROM THE OWNER'S POINT OF VIEW.' This qualification i s in accord with the morphological circumstance that the Germanic neuters, as well as the Lat­ in pecus,

do not at all resemble the Hebrew "absolute" in

the "construct" in

but instead

The neuter gender for b e a s t s in certain IE lan-

guates is semantically appropriate insofar as their sex is disregarded. 4 2

The

meaning of this neuter formation in Germanic is not EQUIVALENT to that of the substantivized feminine participle in Semitic, but it i s COMPATIBLE. 5. The Relation

of

5.1. The Greek glossators treated

: as synonyms,

likewise ( s e e above, §2.1), and (Hesychius)43 'something afire; flame' (cf. Iliad 21.337, etc.). In all three pairs the word i s the one glossed, being l e s s well known. Many other pairs can be cited; on the whole the word means the same or nearly the same as the but occurs either earlier or l e s s often; e.g., ( s e e above, §4.2) : etc.; never in the Iliad);

'need,' p . 'goods' (Odyssey

'something said aloud, a prayer or boast' (Iliad (pl., Odyssey 22.249, etc.);

42. So I do not s e e how the structure of kalb, genetically related to the Hebrew

kelhir

2.78,

5.285, e t c ) =

and lamb,

lembir can be '(someone's) heifer'

I J u d g e s 14:18) or the of '(someone's) ewe-lamb' (II Samuel 12:4). The root pattern C—CC matches, to be sure, although the particular roots are dissimilar.

Above all, the two Hebrew sub­

s t a n t i v e s are strictly fern. derivatives from the unsuffixed m a s c . 'calf' (Isaiah 27:10, etc.), 'lamb' (Leviticus 14:21, e t c . ) . The mo­ tive for adding the suffix must be precisely to express female sex. 4 3 . In turn he g l o s s e s commonest word for 'flame.'

is the

336

SAUL LEVIN [ t r é p h - ] (see above, note 39) = [ t h r é m - ] 4 4 'nurseling' (Arion 1.9 Bergk = Aelian, H.A. 12.45, and often in prose); 'something twined, wicker-work' (Aristophanes, Peace 528, Acharnians 454; both lines paratragic) = (Euripides, Ion 1393; Plato, Laws 5.734e, an.d often in prose); 'something yoked, a team of animals' (pl. Iliad 'a chain of b o a t s ' (Thucydides 7.69.4, etc.);

18.543, etc.) :

'something flayed, a hide' (Euripides, Ion 995, e t c . ; only in poetry) =(Iliad 6.117, etc.; frequent in poetry and prose; the root is The

type

was thus relatively archaic. There i s no pair of examples to

the contrary, in which the ates. The

type

is

form comes on the scene later but then predom-

well represented in the oldest texts and remains pro­

ductive thereafter (Buck-Petersen [1939]:221-222). 5.2. The IE connections of both

and

< *-mn are common

knowledge among comparative linguists; but the semantic relation between the two emerges only in light of the Semitic stative participle. Several IndoEuropeanists have linked *-mn (or *-men) in Greek has the suffix

to the "middle" participle, which

Benveniste (1962:1,120) remarks: "les mots

qui en sont pourvus [with the suffix *-men-]

r e s s o r t i s s e n t à la sphère du su­

jet et dénotent une activité où participe la personnalité, un état qu'elle subit, un procès où elle est engagée; i l s montrent une aptitude spéciale à traduire des notions de caractère 'moyen.'

Ce n ' e s t p a s sans raison que la thématisa-

tion de *—men— adjectival a produit le suffixe *—mno — des participes desti­ n é s à devenir médio-passifs."45 Evidently the participle i s a thematic alter­ nant to the *-mn suffix, or a derivative from it. Now the "middle" voice in Greek, along with i t s counterparts in other IE languages, covers much of the same semantic field as the stative in Semitic. So it is no wonder that the Greek {CCéCma} < *CCéCmn overlaps {CCéCos}, which I have diagnosed as a very early borrowing or adaptation of a Semitic stative participle. 5.3- I venture to go a little further by theorizing that Indo-Europeans or 44. The root * [ t h r - p h ]

adjusted to G r a s s m a n n ' s rule.

45. Also Benveniste 1933:15-17, and earlier Hirt 1927:204, "Zweifellos hangt das Suffix \ * - m e n o s ] weiter mit den Nomina auf —men zusammen, aber ob in alien F a l l e n , ist zweifelhaft." More recently Haudry (1971:109 ff.) has argued, in an im­ portant but difficult a n a l y s i s , that the meaning of — uα and its IE cognates is IN­ S T R U M E N T A L , though it does not quite constitute a nomen instrumenti (nor an out-and-out p a s s i v e noun).

'SOMETHING STOLEN'

337

their forerunners recognised the semantic equivalence, and that while accept­ ing the substantivized participle that was originally Semitic, they gave prefer­ ence in t h e long run to a purely IE formation.

Thus they borrowed and

calqued, but they calqued more. This has been the way with many bilingual contacts in historical times. The c a s e which we have been examining i s - - s o far as I can judge —the oldest that it i s p o s s i b l e to trace of such morphological diffusion.

Not only did a certain formation spread so that it became IE; it also

evoked an IE reaction in favor of *CCéCmn. 5.4. Limitations of space keep me from pursuing the same morphological overlap into the infinitives, such as the Sanskrit

and

'to bear, to support' (Rigveda 5.13.4, 10.88.1), of which the former type is well represented in Latin and the latter in Homeric Greek. {CaCas—} also matches quite well a Hebrew infinitive

The

such as

'to sit' (Genesis 13:6, etc.; Levin 1971:207 ff.). One pattern is strictly IE, whether in infinitives or in substantives akin to parti­ ciples; the other pattern, with { — as— \ in Sanskrit, is both IE and Semitic IN BOTH FUNCTIONS. This argues strongly for a genetic connection between these IE and Semitic phenomena of similar sound and meaning. However, a qualification needs to be added: the Hebrew infinitive has no clear Semitic cognates, and it i s limited to biconsonantal roots: no

but only

(cf. above, §4.5). Thus it seems hardly Semitic in origin, whereas the stative participle

from a triconsonantal root gives every sign

of being Semitic first and IE secondarily.46 46. Arabic too, while lacking infinitives, h a s nouns of action of the pattern iCiCatun}, from biconsonantal roots; e.g.,

{lidatun}

1896-8:1, 118-119; p a u s a l pronunciation [ l i d a h . ] ) .

child-bearing, childbirth' (Wright The Hebrew counterpart is

(Jeremiah 13:21), which functions as an infinitive in 'to give birth' (II Kings 19:3 = Isaiah 37:3). But the usual infinitive is ( G e n e s i s 25:24, e t c . ) . is to as t o s and —from triconsonantal roots — are above, notes 20, 3 1 .

e

e

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Oxford, 1887. 2 vols.

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y? YAKOV MALKIEL University of California, Berkeley

1. The derivational apparatus of Modern English provides for two major series of adjectives extracted from designations of animals: (a) apish (ape), bearish (bear), boarish (boar), bullish (bull), coltish (colt), goatish (goat), hoggish (hog), kittenish (kitten), mulish (mule), owlish (owl), peacockish (peacock), piggish (pig), puppyish (puppy), rammish (ram), sheepish (sheep), swinish (swine), tigerish (tiger), waspish (wasp); (b) batty (bat), beefy (beef 'an adult cow, steer, or bull for use as meat'), bitchy (bitch), cocky (cock), foxy (fox), lousy (louse), mous(e)y (mouse), snaky (snake), waspy (wasp, wormy (worm).

Both series seem to be productive, as was most dramatically demon­ strated, at least for the former, by the coinage of hawkish and the revival of (long-forgotten) dovish as well as by the humorous re-interpre­ tation of waspish during the stormy sixties. They are not free from a certain overlap, since such pairs as catty and c a t t i s h , crabby and crabbish,

doggy and doggish, waspy and waspish, with only partial semantic

differentiation, are definitely on record. Nevertheless, with the vast majority of words the speech community seems long ago to have decided whether it prefers an adjectiye in -ish or one in -y. Eyen given the exceptionally wide dialectal and stylistic range of English, it is diffi­ cult to conceive of such "counterintuitive" formations as *apy, from ape; *colty,

from colt;

or, conversely, * l o u s i s h , from louse,

and *wormish,

from worm.

2. Before expatiating on the relation between -ish and -y within the families of zoonyms, we shall be well-advised to remember that

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English places at the disposal of its speakers yet other devices for the achievement of, basically, the same goal. One may want to write off as purely learned and grammatically irrelevant such borrowings from Latin as the words in -ine: aquiline, bovine, canine, cervine, corbine* feline* lupine* taurine* ursine* vulpine* since the respective primitives, as once used in Latin (aquila 'eagle', bos bovis 'ox', can-es or -is 'dog, hound', feles 'cat'), are no longer normally used in English outside scientific nomenclature. But the relationship varies considerably in cases like elephantine, falconine, hy(a)enine* pantherine, serpentine, vulturine* where primitive and derivative have both been borrowed within the same lexical stratum, either from Latin or from Graeco-Latin. The cases of asinine beside ass and of leonine beside lion are not identical, on account of the divergence in the channel of transmission between primitive and derivative, but neither are they altogether different. Finally, there exist a few exotic (neo-Latin?) derivatives in -ine* cf. such rare tidbits as gorilline and z e b r i n e . If English, unlike certain Romance languages (especially Italian), has made very sparing use of ~ine* other learned suffixes have been pressed into service even more economically «- and only in unusual con­ texts. For the sake of completeness one may mention in passing -ian (antelopian, crocodilian* gorillian* simian)'* -ic (chameleonic, elephant-ic — but not -iac* a suffix of pathological connotation [cf. insomniac] which calls to mind the lymphatic disease elephantiasis --, hy(a)enic* mastodonic* zebraic [in playful imitation of Hebraic?]); -oid ( g o r i l l o i d * hy(a)enoid, and the bizarre oceloid* allegedly flanking ocelot)'* -ous (vulturous). 3. Far more important as rivals of the adjectives in -ish and -y than these isolated formations at the very periphery of the standard lexicon have been two series of thoroughly vernacular words, which are at present at the peak of their productivity. To begin with a particularly handy device, dictionaries specifically record such compounds as ass-like, bird-like, eel-like, fawn-like, goose-like, gorilla-like,

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

343

lamb-like, leech-like, ostrich-like, parrot-like, puppy—like, seal-like, swallow-like, swan—like, zebra—like,

but the series is entirely open and I am unaware of any limitation on it. So we are free to say and to write: cassowary-like, in reference to the large, flightless bird from Australia and New Guinea (from Malay kasuari), or che ( e ) t a h - l i k e , in reference to the cat from SW Asia and Africa that has certain dog-like characteristics (from Hindi cita). The second mechanism that we may resort to is more sophisticated. Built into it is the evocation not of the animal as a whole, but of a specific feature, which may be expressed by a genuine adjective (batblind, canary-yellow, cock-sure); by an authentic past participle (fleabitten, from to bite, a primary verb); or by a participle -- even a mock-participle — accompanying a denominative verb, the ultimate purpose of the operation being to cast a direct bridge from the underlying noun — typically, an anatomical term -- to the zoonym at issue: bat-eyed

(-minded), beetle-browed, canary-colored, chicken-hearted

(-livered), cock-eyed, eagle-eyed (-sighted, -winged), fawn-colored, hawk-eyed, pheasant-eyed, pigeon-hearted (-livered), pig-headed, swallow-tailed, weasel-worded, zebra-striped.

Cf. Homer's ox-eyed

Juno.

German uses the second device almost exactly like English, the slight difference consisting in a higher percentage of expressions refer­ ring to the character, disposition, mood, or habits of the animals involved: (a) fuchsteufelswild, hundemüde, hundsgemein, -miserabel, katzenfreundlich beside (b) fuchshaarig, katzenaugig, schafledern, wurmstichig, and ziegenfùssig. As regards the German equivalent of -like, the surprising fact is that one finds a whole spectrum of counterparts -to be explicit, five competing varieties: (a) wurmahnlich; (b) affenartig, fuchsartig, katzenartig, schafartig, schlangenartig; (c) schlangenformig, wurmförmig', (d) eselhaft, kälberhaft; (e) hundsmässig. 4. Another formidable rival of suffixal derivation in the Germanic languages is, of course, composition. As long as one can call an 'avocado' an alligator pear, or attach the label bird's foot to several plants, one

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will not sorely miss a direct adjectival derivative from alligator or bird. Modern English has eyolved an exceedingly intricate system of composition and of -- slightly less tight -- juxtaposition, which are distinguished both prosodically, in speech, and orthographically, in writing. As if to complicate matters eyen further, the language wavers, grammatically, between the competing types bird's-nest and bird-nest, so that, all in all, one can set off three fully-developed series of such dyadic lexical clusters in which the opening segment is a zoonym: (a) anteater,

bearbaiting,

bearberry,

bearcat,

bee-eater,

beehive,

beekeeper,

beeline,

bird-bath,

birdhouse,

birdlime,

birdseed,

bullhorn

(~ bull

bearskin,

beebread,

birdbrain,

birdcage,

horn),

ramrod, etc.;

(b) with further subdivision according to whether the possessor is in the singular or in the plural: (i) bear's deer's

tongue

ear,

(c) alligator bird

bird's

(beside deer tongue),

(ii) beeswax tation: bee's-wax vs. bearhug,

birdrs-eye,

clip,

ram's

(beside

birdfood),

horn.

beeswing (speakers are divided in their interpre­ bees'-wax); ant bear,

ant hill,

bee fly, bee gum, bee plant,

grass,

foot

bear garden,

bee tree,

bird

bear

call,

bird

grass, dog,

etc.

German, as one would expect, has its enormous share of compounds: Affenkomodie,

Affenliebe,

Wolfshunger,

etc., but its corpus seems less

finely graded, on the prosodic side, than the English corpus. On the other hand, German goes very far in the boldness of the compositional and verbs, particularly design, as regards both nouns: Ochsenschwanzsuppe, those with humorous overtones: fuchsschwänzeln, katzbuckeln (beside the less complexly structured büffeln,

kälbern

~ kalbe(r)n,

ochsen,

sohlängeln,

some of them also facetious). 5. Under these circumstances it becomes understandable that not every English animal name should be flanked by a relational adjective -either in -ish, or in -y, or in one of the rarer or less characteristic suffixes already mentioned. As a matter of fact, only a minority of zoonyms -- indeed, a small minority -- boasts such satellite adjectives.

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

345

Is it possible to reverse the perspective, in an effort to identify the gaps, by starting out from a brief inventory of animal names and by focusing next on the numerous items deprived of any adjectiyal companion? In the course of this operation, one particular hazard must be. avoided at any cost. The temptation is strong to argue that the controlling factor in the coinage of such an adjective is the relative impor­ tance of the given animal in human life. There may not have branched off such words as either *deevish or *deery (from deer) and either *sealish or *sealy (from seal) for the simple reason that deer and seals, unlike (say) bears and sheep, do not now, or did not at the critical juncture, play a vital role in the daily life of the speech community. This argument is dangerous because it is not entirely wrong and because it can be pressed far too easily in any facile analysis. Both the real-life conditions and the make-believe world of tales and legends are undoubtedly apt to co-determine the need for the minting of relation­ al adjectives based on zoonyms; but the fabric and "cut" of the given language is a factor at least as important, and must at no time be neglected. The Slavic and the Romance evidence, as a foil to Germanic, is very eloquent in this respect. One is free to argue that the fox and the wolf and the bear form part of the Russian landscape, as it were, while the squirrel and the sable traditionally represent the staple of the Russian fur trade, so that derivatives like lisij (from lis Im.], lisa [f.]), v o l c i j (from volk), medvezij (from medved') or, for that matter, like belicij (from belka) and s o b o l i j = obsol. and fig. sobolinyj (from sobol') are self-explanatory; not implausibly, barsucij = barsukovyj (from barsuk 'badger') lends itself to the same interpretation. But the Russian lexicon displays many other similar formations which either refuse to blend so smoothly with the Russian landscape, e.g., l'vinyj (from lev 'lion'), slonovyj (from slon 'elephant'), or that are in no way uniquely characteristic of that country, e.g. cerepasij (from cerepaxa 'turtle'), golubinyj (from golub' Move',

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YAKOV MALKIEL

besides goluboj 'light blue'), gusenicnyj (from gusenica 'caterpiller'), gusinyj (from gus' 'goose'), komarinyj (from komar 'gnat'), krysinyj (from krysa 'rat'), obs. kurij ~ kurinyj (from obs. kur 'rooster' alongside kur-a, -ica 'hen'), lebedinyj (from lebed' 'swan'), ljagusecij, -inyj (from ljaguska 'frog'), morzovyj (from morz 'sealion'), murav'inyj (from muravej 'ant'), musinyj (from muxa 'fly'), mysinyj (from mys' 'mouse'), osinyj (from osa 'wasp'), petus-ij, -inyj (from petux 'rooster'), pcelinyj (from pcela 'bee'), pticij (from ptica 'bird'), strekozij (from strekoza 'cricket'), teljacij (from teljata [collect., pl.] 'calves') , tjulenij (from tjulen' 'seal'), ulit-ocnyj, -kovyj (from ulit-a, -ka 'snail'), vorob'inyj (from vorobej 'sparrow' -- cf. muravej, above), voronij (from voron [m.], -na [f.] 'raven'), zmeinyj (from zmej [m.], zmeja [f.] 'snake'), zabij (from zaba 'toad').

Most of these words are widely used -- in proverbial sayings, similes, congealed metaphors, and comparable phraseological units, whence they later penetrated into fables (including those, immensely popular, by Krylov) and into other literary genres. On the other hand, precisely among the tags for fur-bearing animals a few happen to lack an adjectival correlate, e.g., kunica 'marten' and xorëk 'polecat', conceivably on account of, or at least in conjunction with, certain suffixal complications that the final segments -ica and -ëk might have produced (note the absence of a relational adjective from the family of motylëk 'small butterfly', a diminutive of the less common motyl'). In any event, it certainly would be indefensible to surmise that the 'bee' or the 'fly' or the 'seal' or the 'calf' or the 'snake' carry heayier weight in the context of early Russian than of early English (and North American) life and culture. Something conspicuously similar happens in the more conservative Romance languages. Spanish, for instance, has over the centuries developed a suffix (-uno) used at present predominantly and in the Middle Ages exclusively in alliance with zoonymic primitives. 2 Once more, the record of -uno (which overshadows all rival suffixes) seems to dwarf that of E. -ish and -y combined:

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

347

abejuno (from abeja 'bee'), asnuno (from asno 'donkey'), becerruno (from becerro, orig. bezerro, 'young bull, c a l f ) , borreguno (from borrego 'lamb 7 ), borruno (from borro 'lamb', facetiously applied to Borra, the name of a celebrated buffoon), boyuno, var. bueyuno (from buey 'ox'; cf. anquiboyuno 'with protruding hip-bones'), caballuno (from caballo, orig. cavallo, 'horse'), cabretuno (from cabreta 'kid') beside cabrituno (from cabrit-o, -a 'id.'), etc.

Granted the importance of cattleraising, sheepherding, agriculture in the lifestyle of Spain's and Spanish America's traditional rural society — and with due allowance for the advantage of the availability of a very sharply silhouetted suffix -•-, it is still problematic why comparatively so few English names of animals should be accompanied by adjectives. The reasons for this scarcity are in part functional, in part formal. On the functional side, English, unlike a Slavic or a Romance language, is hardly in need of strictly relational adjectives, because this service is provided in a typical Germanic language by all sorts of compositional and juxtapositional devices. Ap-ish, bull-ish, etc. suggest, fundamen­ tally, not a relation (for which one may, in extremis, have recourse to erudite borrowings, such as simian and taurine), but a resemblance. On the other hand, -y is essentially an abundantial suffix: at bottom, lousy means 'full of lice' and wormy 'full of worms', then 'damaged by worms'. Now, there exist countless living beings with which a speech community, such as the Anglophones, may establish some rapport, or even a network of rapport, without there being any reference to a striking shape or bizarre behavior (which alone would justify the coinage of an adjective in - i s h ) , still less to appearance in large numbers (which would lend support to the minting of a satellite in - y ) . In addition to this functional or semantic factor, to which we shall yet reyert, there exist seyeral formal constraints. Such restrictions must not be understood as being absolute (in most instances isolated exceptions can be produced); but they sharply reduce the likelihood of

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the use of a word containing -ish and -y welded to a zoonym. Such probabilistic confinement prevails when: (a) The animal name itself is a compound -- transparent or opaque: butter-,

dragon-,

nightingale,

gad-fly,

reindeer,

goshawk,

sloth

bear,

guinea

fowl

(-pig),

stag beetle,

tomcat

hedgehog,

magpie,

(exception:

peacockish);

(b) The animal name already involves a derivational suffix -- e.g., a diminutive element in reference to the young: gos-ling (beside goose), 1 cockerel (beside cook), eaglet and piglet , or an ingredient suggestive of provenience: Pekin(g)ese (but note that Canarese is unrelated to the Canary Islands); or a suffixoid (what Bloomfield, in the wake of Sanskrit grammarians, infelicitously called "primary suffix"), such as -er: beaver, gander, -en:

gopher, marten,

otter, -ot:

wether

parrot,

(the exception being spider), and -el:

squirrel.

perhaps also

(Eventually, all longer

words — starting with heavily architectured bisyllables — followed suit: mammoth, mastiff,

penguin",

chimpanzee,

opossum, pelican*,

orangu-

tang.)

(c) The animal name ends, or at the decisive juncture ended, in a vowel, especially a front vowel: bee, quito,

osprey,

roe,

zebra

buffalo,

(exceptions: monkeyish,

donkey,

flea,

fly,

mos-

puppyish);

(d) The animal name was locked in rivalry for lexical space with a well-entrenched near-homonym. The preëxistence of monkish, from monk, may have placed an embargo on the spread, if not the coinage, of monkeyish. The generous use speakers made of the verb swallow 'take into the stomach by drawing through the throat' may have mildly discouraged them from experimenting with deriyatiyes from the ornithonym swallow. The classic illustration of homonymy heayily mortgaged with taboo is, of course, ass — as against completely innocuous G. Esel, Fr. âne, R. osël, etc.. Turtle and turtle-dove may haye been in each other's way. Similar and turkey. arguments seem to apply to seal, sloth, Ce) In certain situations either the -ish series or the -y series could have been disfavored for "euphonic" reasons. An infelicity would have been involved in any such derivation as *fishish or *ostrichish or

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

349

* t h r u s h i s h ; rivalry with the informal (in fact, intimate) diminutive suf­ fix -y, often spelled -ie, as in auntie, birdie, doggy, froggy, kiddy, kitty, piggy., puppy, could very well — all other inducements being equal -- have tipped the scales in favor of - i s h over -y {doggy did arise: a doggy smell, but seems to have attained lesser importance than dogged and doggish, with which it practically never overlaps). (One escape route from ambiguity has been the use of the plural form of the primitive: antsy 'full of ants', vs. antie and auntie, cf. tricksy beside tricky, also gutsy.) (f) Only at the tail end of this list is it advisable to invoke the exoticism -- geographic and etymological -- of certain primitives. Some of them remained at the periphery of an English-speaker's daily experience and failed to stir his imagination; others arrived on the horizon prohibitively late (even very recently), when the suffixes -ish and -y were past their peak of productivity; then again, the configura­ tion of these outlandish words -- in terms of sound sequences, accentual structure, syllabic make-up -- may have been so unprecedented as to have hampered any impulse to create "hybrid" derivatives in -ish or -y. Untold examples come readily to mind: caiman (from Carib via Spanish); chamois, also chammy, shamoy, etc. (from French); chimp(anzee) (from Bantu); coug(u)ar (from Guarani); gazelle (from Arabic via French); gibbon (from a dialect of India 3 via French); giraffe (of disputed ancestry); jaguar (from Tupi); etc.

Obviously, two and more discrete causes can harmoniously work together, as in the case of monkey, where everything seems to militate against any wide-scale acceptance of a derivative in -ish or -y: the aforementioned proximity of the family of monk, plus, as in the case of donkey, the word's vocalic final segment and the coincidence with hypocoristic-familiar -ie, -y. 6. We have so far been operating with the suffixes -ish and -y as though they were the exclusive property of zoonyms. Such i s , of course,

YAKOV MALKIEL

350

not the case.

In a search for the semantic

center

of gravity

of

-ish

and -y, two suffixes of Germanic provenience, we must at this point attempt to widen our horizon. The suffix -ish

is used:4

(a) in ethnonyms -- primarily those associated with the older Ger­ manic tribes and their neighbors: British, Danish, English, Flemish, Frankish, Irish, Jewish, Moorish, Polish, Scottish, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish (Shakespeare still favored Greekish); cf. G. griechisch, preussisch, romisch, russisch, sächsisch (obviously, more productive); (b) in derivatives from common nouns designating persons -- typical­ ly, if the primitive is tarnished by an intrinsically negative connota­ tion: boorish (boor 'yokel'), brutish (brute 'savage animal, crude person'), churlish (churl 'peasant, rustic, surly person, niggard'), clownish (clown 'prankster, joker, boor, comic performer, juggler, tumbler'), knavish (knave 'unprincipled or dishonest person', orig. 'male servant, man of humble position'), loutish (lout 'awkward person, ill-mannered boor'), roguish (rogue 'scoundrel, scamp, tramp'), slavish (slave 'bond servant'), thievish (thief 'person given to larceny, stealthy person'), cf. G. bäu(e)risch, bübisch, diebisch, knechtisch, läppisch (beside Laffe), närrisch, schelmisch, schurkisch 'vile' (from Schurke), tierisch 'beastly'(from Tier). (c) i n derivatives from common nouns semantically n e u t r a l , i f a b i z a r r e , comic, i r r i t a t i n g , unnatural ingredient of the t o t a l is to be magnified and dramatized.

Thus, boyish

situation

r e f l e c t s on a boy's

immaturity of judgement or carelessness of appearance; donnish is more ' s t u f f i l y academic' than j u s t

'resembling a u n i v e r s i t y d o n ' ;

girlish

may stress the unrepressed buoyancy, or casual dress, of a very young woman; mannish refers to the - - t r a d i t i o n a l l y condemned and r i d i c u l e d — behavior and a t t r i b u t e s of a woman who resembles a man, as against manly ' v i r i l e ' ; tomboyish i s an appropriate q u a l i f i e r of a romping,

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WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

boisterous girl; womanish either implies a man's unfortunate resem­ blance to a woman ('effeminate') or emphasizes features in certain women's behavior that most men and many women deplore {womanish p e t u lance) — over against neutral or laudatory womanly ~ womanlike. To these may be added selfish 'egoistic', cf. G. weibisch, as against w e i b l i c h ; and, above all, kindisch,

as against k i n d l i c h . 5

(d) in names of sprites, devils, and other supernatural beings — chiefly those endowed with negative characteristics: devilish, elfish 'weird, spectral', fiendish, impish. Cf. G. teuflisch, over against göttlich. (e) in (mostly colloquial, familiar, intimate) derivatives from primary adjectives, to indicate an approximation to the quality at issue: longish 'fairly long' (as against standard lengthy, though the two words are not always interchangeable). One close-knit group refers to pale, diluted colors: bluish 'almost blue', grayish 'having a tinge of gray', reddish 'somewhat red, tinged with red', whitish 'tending to white', yellowish 'somewhat yellow, tending to yellow'. At this point bräunlich, gelbGerman and English part company; witness G. blaulich, lich, rötlich, schwärzlich. As is well known, the Romance languages have developed very elaborate systems for conveying this message, cf. Fr. blanchâtre, Sp. amarillento, verdoso

bleuâtre, azulado,

(beside tirante

jaunâtre, blanquecino, a amarillo,

noirâtre,

rougeâtre,

negruzco,

parduzco,

verdâtre; rojizo,

etc.).

If we keep in mind this semantic and grammatical gamut, and if we further remain aware of the many ethnic slurs and epithets that, human nature being what it is, have from time immemorial linked words like Jewish and Spanish to the remainder of the specimens collected, then the experiential matrix in which formations like apish, bearish, coltish must be embedded becomes at once clearly circumscribed. The adjectives in question are not -- at least, not primarily — relational, but evocative. They suggest resemblance, in the vast majority of cases comic, indeed farcical, similitude. While simian and ursine are pre­minently relational, as regards function, and learnèd, as regards

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YAKOV MALKIEL

style, apish and bearish are predominantly suggestive of a human being's (or, at rare intervals, of some other animal's) entertaining resemblance — in facial expression, habits, motions, and the like -- to the animal chosen as a frame of reference. From this state of affairs it follows that adjectives in -ish will be extracted from zoonyms principally under the following conditions: (a) A larger animal will be favored over a very small one: An ape, a bear, a boar, a goat, a wolf are far better candidates than a butterfly or a sardine; (b) An animal observably living in a certain isolation, or one that can be contextually individuated, will qualify more easily than a living being invariably seen in bands, swarms, litters, and the like. Contrast a wasp, which excites us as a single potentially dangerous enemy, with lice, who hit their victims in massive attacks: Hence waspish, but lousy. (c) Finally, the element of "fun" is almost obligatory. Sometimes a young, not yet full-grown, inexperienced animal -- like a colt -performs awkward, ill-calculated movements which are inherently laughterprovoking. In other contexts the animal left to itself, in its own habitat, behaves normally, but may act "funny" in captivity. A third, even more common possibility comes to mind: The prime ingredient of ludicrousness is rooted not in the animal's looks or acts, but in the associa­ tion of a given human quality (often, in our culture, a censurable and oft-derided one, such as stubbornness) with a conspicuous feature in the comportment of a familiar animal. Perusal of historically-slanted lexicographic sources does not materially alter the impression so far gained on the basis of modern usage. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary offers clues to such obso­ lete, rare, or ephemerous words as assish 'stupid' (1587), ealfish 'raw, untrained', camelish 'obstinate as a camel', oowish 'cowardly' (consecra­ ted by Shakespeare's use: "The oowish terror of his spirit".Lear IV.ii. 12), the afore-mentioned dovish (which had a short flowering between 1537 and 1546: ".doveyshe simplicitie, serpentlike wysdcm"), foxish (up to 1699) beside foxly 'crafty, cunning' (up to 1594), goosish 'silly', etc., none

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

353

of which in any way violates the conditions which we have laid down for maximum probability of a derivation in -ish from a zoonym. Such stray German examples as have come my way (say, ä f f i s e h and hündisch) give the impression of being fairly haphazard and fall short of yielding any solid block. 7. It is now incumbent upon us to isolate the suffix -y and to examine it not, as before, in the narrow context of animal names, but in its full latitude, in an effort to discover its semantic center of gravity. Both -y, in English, and its German opposite number ~ig are suffixes of exceptional range (and -ig is well known to have overstepped its original limitation to nominal stems and to have penetrated into verbal families, cf. wend-ig and the like); the nuclear formations, however, are words like glassy,

ioy,

steely,

stony,

woody,

woolly,

i.e.,

adjectives suggestive of (a) fabric ('consisting or made o f ) ; (b) resemblance (e.g. 'resembling or reminiscent of steel, as in color, strength, and hardness'); and (c) abundance ('abounding with woods, wooded'). The latter meaning is by no means marginal and often edges itself into central position; thus, wordy seldom means 'verbal, pertaining to or consisting of words', signifying normally 'verbose, characterized by or given to the use of many, or too many, words', an abundantial semantic streak even more clearly predominant in the abstract wordiness. The primitive entering into an alliance with -y need not designate a substance or fabric (cf. E. f l a s h - y , shad-y, sunny beside G. schattig, sonnig), but it seldom refers to a living being and, if it does, it may 60-pferdiger involve some peripheral use, either grammatically (G. ein Kraftwagen) or semantically (affig 'affected, ridiculous', backig 'recalcitrant', fuahsig werden 'to get red in the face'). One noteworthy exception is madig 'wormy', because it is both abundantial ('full of worms'; cf. the ambit of such Latin suffixes as -osus and -ulentus) and descriptive of the physical appearance of an object (say, a fruit), much like hairy,

porous, smooth,

G. madig and the rarer wurmig (beside wurm-

frässig, -stichig), on the one hand., and, on the other, E. wormy are indeed excellent illustrations of the original message the -ig/-y

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YAKOV MALKIEL

derivatives from zoonyms convey and of the image they evoke: batty,

(rare) eely,

lousy, snaky, spidery,

In saying

waspy, the speaker conjures

up -- at least at the point of departure of the development here visualized -- a cave full of bats, a riyer-bed crawling with eels, a tuft of hair overrun by lice, a stretch of terrain or a pit infested by snakes, a dark corner of the room abounding in spider webs, the bark of a tree inhabited by wasps. At this stage we are very far removed from the portrayal of human behavior comically reminiscent of that of some animal. The depositories of older lexical usage again supplement our field notes with all sorts of quaint, half-forgotten items: They teach us that crabby 'abounding in crabs' appears as early as 1622, ahead of 'crablike' and of 'crooked, perverse' (=crabbed); they draw our atten­ tion to fishful 'abounding in fish' as an erstwhile rival of fishy 'consisting of, abounding in fish' (of course, not of fishy 'like a fish in smell or taste', 'dull and expressionless'); they alert us to the chronological gap between froggy 'teeming with frogs' (1611) and froggy 'froglike' (1837). From the original meaning of lousy ('infested with lice') we reach most smoothly the slangy meaning of lousy with 'well-supplied with' (say, money), shortcutting the all too familiar side-lines 'mean, contemptible', 'wretchedly bad, miserable'. 8. Had our definition of the semantic cores of -ish and -y, with special reference to zoonymic primitives, exhausted the factors at work, there would obviously be no cases of overlap. The facts belie this supposition: There do, we recall, exist doublets -- as a rule, with partial differentiation of meaning: cattish ~ catty, waspish ~ waspy, in fact, there are on record a very few triplets, such as crab(b) -ish ~ -y/ — e d , dog(g)-ish — y ~ -ed. We must now try to identify the misssing links. There has at all times, outside the domain of animal names, existed a certain overlap between denominative adjectives in-ishand those in -y, a situation resulting in such incongruities as the listing, by the SOED, of beery alongside beerishness. Where rivalry set in, the -y

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

355

item ordinarily ousted its counterpart in - i s h ; thus, horny won out over hornish — the reason being that the semantic contour of -ish, with the passing of time, became increasingly neat (see above) and that horn no longer fitted the description of any group of primitives recon­ cilable with -ish. Viewing the "biographies" of derivational suffixes in terras of trajectories, one can safely state that - i s h , particularly in derivatives from zoonyms, reached its peak in the period 1450-1650, then practically came to a standstill. One arrives at this conclusion by studying ex­ perimental formations, most of them completely forgotten unless digni­ fied by, say, Shakespeare's usage: e.g., swannish was briefly toyed with in 1586, and owlish, which did strike root, appeared in 1611. One consequence of this chronological state of affairs was, I repeat, that some of the zoonyms absorbed at a fairly late date no longer produced satellites in - i s h , despite otherwise favorable conditions. Skunk-ish, from a primitive of Algonquian ancestry, is on record, but *sharkish apparently is not. Where isolated neologisms have emerged in our own time, the situation has been different: hawkish is not a derivative from hawk 'diurnal bird of prey', but from the same word figuratively used: 'proponent of a hard foreign policy, militarist', a stereotype univer­ sally understood in the sixties. Whereas a sheepish person is portrayed as acting 1ike a sheep, a d o v i s h , hawkish, or waspish person is a dove, hawk, or WASP, respectively (quite apart from the fact that wasp and WASP involve a pun). Over against this situation stands the fact that the suffix -y, in almost all of its functions, to this day seems to be in full bloom. Another factor in the secondary rapprochement between - i s h and -y was the gradual blurring of the original semantic frontiers -- a process conceivably presided over by morphological economy. In many instances the budget of the lexicon seems to have encouraged semantic extension of one derivative rather than the accumulation of several slightly differ­ entiated rival adjectives. Thus the initial meaning of snaky, on inter­ nal evidence, appears to have been 'abounding in snakes', but the word

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before long acquired the additional nuances of 'pertaining to a snake', 'snake-shaped, serpentine, sinuous','venomous, treacherous, insidious', (1532) proved abortive. There is a and the attempt to coin snakish strong presumption that eely* at the outset, meant 'teeming with eels'; but its recorded meaning, by 1655, was 'eel-like'. Given the lacunary character of all linguistic material, philological chronology does not invariably provide a dependable clue to the actual sequence of events, as it can be conjectured through reconstruction. It may be sheer acci­ dent that mousy 'as quiet as a mouse' is on record by 1812, while the meanings 'resembling a mouse' and 'infested with mice' are traceable to 1859 and 1871, respectively. The evidence fits our hypothesis more 'infested with rats' can be quoted snugly in the case of the rat: ratty from an 1865 text, whereas the meanings 'characteristic of a rat', 'wretched, mean, miserable', 'angry, irritated' seem to have appeared twenty to twenty-five years later. Somewhere along the evolutionary line a secondary semantic focus appears to have sprung into existence for the -y adjectives under survey. Either through the influence of racy words like crafty, sneaky, grouchy, grumpy, or through folk belief, which traditionally associates smallness of size with either wile or caprice (just as bigness of size frequently goes with clumsiness and stupidity), the -y series began to acquire new members semantically so colored, or old members started to adopt and develop these meanings, until they became fairly prominent. While b a t t y , in 1590, was still neutral ('belonging to a bat'), modern slang endows it with such connotations as 'insane, crazy, silly'. B i t c h y , unusual in its primary sense, enjoys immense popularity, on the informal level of discourse, as a colorful equivalent of 'spiteful, malicious', speak­ ing of a female. Catty 'quietly or slyly malicious, spiteful' (a catty gossip) is in such wide use that it has begun to trespass on the adjoin­ ing territories of cattish and c a t l i k e , to say nothing of feline. Crabby* we are for once privileged to document, by 1622 meant, as one would ex­ pect, 'abounding in crabs'; but at present its semantic center has shifted to 'grouchy, ill-natured, irritable', occasionally 'crooked,

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

357

perverse'. Crickety introduced the more pleasant element of fun and whim : 'like a cricket, especially in liveliness and sound'. This slangy overtone, alien to the -ish series for all its informality, has become an increasingly important secondary characteristic of the -y series and justifies some very bold and imaginative transfers of meaning, visible, for instance, in the history of lousy: 'mean, contemptible' [that was a lousy

thing

to do) and 'wretchedly bad, miserable' (I feel

lousy;

he did

a lousy job).8 In sum: If we take into account all these supervenient circum­ stances, and provided we agree to telescope formations favored, over four centuries, by different generations and used, within each generation, by diverse groups of speakers and writers, we come up with a not unim­ pressive inventory of -ish ~ -y doublets: cattish (rare) ~ catty (common); crabbish (obsolescent) ~ crabby (in full bloom) —

the relationship being complicated

by coexistent crabbed (not only 'hard-to-understand, intricate, difficult to decipher', but also 'contrary, obstinate, grouchy'); doggish (as, positively, in: doggish affection and, negatively, in; a doggish ['surly, mean'] temper, in either case with a built-in hint of a single, prototypical dog) ~ doggy (as in: doggy smell, with a collective overtone) -- but the contrast seems to be prac­ tically neutralized in doggish 'stylish, showy' ~ doggy 'preten­ tious, ostentatious'; foxish (obsolete and semantically impover­ ished: 'foxlike ') ~ foxy (in full bloom and semantically exuberant: 'fox-like','cunning, crafty, clever', 'discolored or foxed', 'yellow or reddish-brown', [arch.] 'having excessively warm tones, contain­ ing too much red'); obs. goosish 'like a goose' ~ goos(e)y (1857) 'like goose-flesh' (note the longer semantic distance in the case of the latter); peacockish 'like a peacock' ~ peacocky 'suggesting a peacock in walk, bearing, self-display, and showiness' (clearly supported by cocky); rammish (ME, incl. Chaucer, and mod. dial.) 'resembling a ram, having a disagreeable taste or smell, rank' (cf. Lat.

aprunus, caprunus, with olfactory overtones borrowed from

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YAKOV MALKIEL

-ugo) ~ rammy (1607 and mod. dial.) 'characteristic of, resembling, a ram'; sheepish (traceable to ME) ~ sheepy (sporadic); snakish 'snake—like' (1532) ~ snaky (semantically multifaceted, see above); waspish 'quick to resent a trifling affront, snappish, irascibly or petulantly spiteful' ~ waspy 'id.', 'resembling a wasp'.

9. There remains to be discussed a residue of semantic and etymo­ logical side-issues. Undeniably, an adjective in -ish or -y is more likely to branch off from a zoonym if that primitive already shows lively semantic developments in the direction of figurative use on the informal and, a fortiori, the slangy level of discourse. Thus, the bending of mulish toward the semantic goal of 'stubborn, obstinate, intractable' and the similar twisting of the triad hoggish, p i g g i s h , swinish ('greedy', 'filthy', 'stubborn', 'brutish, gross, sensual', 'selfish'), of puppyish ('vain, empty-headed, impertinent'), rattish (either 'wretched, mean, miserable' or 'angry, irritated'), sheepish (either 'meek, docile' or 'embarrassed, as by having done something wrong or foolish'), tig(e)rish (courageous, fiercely cruel, bloodthirsty, relentless'), wormy ('grovelling, low') is intimately related to the fact that one can, facetiously or vituperatively or poetically, refer to an individual — under unusual sets of circumstances, even in gruff direct address -- by means of mule, p i g , etc. But the connection remains loose; while one can contemptuously call a smallish, agile, grimacing person monkey* ape seldom if ever lends itself to a comparable use -- yet, on the level of adjectives, apish far outranks monkeyish. While one can hardly fancy anyone being derisively or jokingly called a o o l t , coltish is a fairly well established qualifier: 'not trained, undisciplined, unruly, wild', 'playful, frolicsome'. Conversely, despite the extensive racy use of jackal for 'vilain, scoundrel, rogue', 'person who performs menial and degrading tasks for another', of shark for 'voracious, piti­ less person' (cf. loan shark 'usurer'), and of weasel for 'cunning, sneaky person', no influential group of speakers seems to have felt any need for launching such potentially contagious adjectives as * j a c k a l ( l ) ish or *sharkish or *weaselish. Similarly, crickety 'lively' and Brit.

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

359

hedgehoggy 'difficult to get on with' (which Am. E., with its alterna­ tive use of porcupine, cannot match) do not necessarily presuppose any parallel, chronologically prior extension of meaning in cricket and hedgehog.

The second point of semantics is the, ordinarily, distinctly closer cohesion of the pair noun and -ish adj. than of the rival pair noun and -y adj., an observation which holds particularly true of mercurial slangy derivatives. Whereas ordinary speakers, with rare exceptions, will spot behind apish the reality or caricature of an ape, behind hoggish the image of a hog, and behind waspish the evocation of a wasp, they may find distinctly more tenuous the corresponding cross-connections between nouns and increasingly capricious -y offshoots. It is perhaps unrealistic to wonder, in the absence of any apparatus for elicitation of naive responses to artful questions, whether some native speakers have ceased to associate cocky 'conceited, arrogantly self-assertive' with cock 'rooster' -- despite the coexistence of cockeyed 'foolish, absurd' and cock-sure 'entirely, even excessively, confi­ 'to strike the pose of dent' (cf. the humorous Russian verb petusit'sja a rooster'). But surely fishy is an example in point: Even if it is true that, in the sense of 'dull and expressionless', it may echo the gastronomic contrast between (light) fish and (heavy, nourishing) meat, the meanings -- restricted to informal discourse -- 'improbable' (as a story), 'of questionable credibility or character' seem to relate not to the behavior of fish, but to gross exaggerations reputedly common among boastful fanciers of fishing. Then there is the uncertainty, authenticated by leading dictionaries, between /s/ and /z/ in the pro­ nunciation of mous(e)y; I regard it as probable that among some discri­ minating speakers the meanings 'of a smell relating to a mouse', 'mousecolored', 'infested with mice' continue to go with /s/, while the more innovative meanings ('stealthy', 'lacking in boldness or definition, timid') could very well coincide and interact with /z/. I have been prompted to expect this distribution from private information available to me about some educated Midwestern speakers' differentiated use of

360

YAKOV MALKIEL

lousy with /s/ or /z/, depending on the semantic (imagerial) proximity of louse. Such considerations lead us to the threshold of relevant etymologi­ cal problems. These do not involve the ultimate provenience of the primitives (e.g., the origin of giraffe or ocelot), but solely the firm­ ness or looseness of the link between primitives and derivatives -- a connection which may at first glance look misleadingly simple. In reality, all sorts of significant interferences and the surge of secon­ dary etymologies may obscure or blur the basic relationships. Thus ravenous , in its primary sense -- rare at present -- of 'rapacious, eager to obtain by violence' belongs to rapina 'depredation' and need not concern us in this context; but the likelihood of increasingly strong association with raven, coincident with the shift of the center of semantic gravity to 'voracious, eager for prey, devouring with rapa­ city' (similar to a wolf-like animal or a vulture-like bird of prey) makes ravenous all of a sudden relevant to the ornithonymist, reminding him of learnèd vulturous. (The morphophonemic vowel alternation is no hindrance to this transfer; cf. such pairs as fable — fabulous, saint — sanctity, table — tabulate.) It is uncertain whether toady 'obsequi­ ous sycophant, fawning flatterer' has any genetic link with toad -- if it had one, the derivative toadyish would represent the unique instance of concatenation of -y and - i s h , in this order; but given the ugliness of the amphibian at issue and the repulsiveness of the fulsome flatter­ er (at least, in our cultural frame), sporadic secondary association may very plausibly have ensued. Similarly, the noun (and verb) bully is unlikely to stem from bull, obviating any need for the analyst to contrast it with the genetically transparent bullish 'obstinate, stupid', (fig.) 'rising, or tending toward a rise, in prices'; also, coll. duck-y or -ie 'fine, excellent', Br. (slang) 'dear, sweetheart, darling', according to some authorities, is descended in the last analysis from Dutch docke 'doll', rather than from duck. But, surely, in both cases a measure of belated association with bull and duck did materialize in the end. Whatever its point of departure and subsequent itinerary,

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

361

ducky, transplanted into the lexical shape of duck, may have blocked a genuine -y satellite of duck, even though -- for the record -- drake, despite the lack of any such obstacle to its own growth, did not cast off any widely-used adjective in -y or -ish, either. Conceivably the single least diaphanous formation, from the etymological angle, is sluggish, because in addition to slug (ME slugge) 'snail having no shell', reportedly of Scandinavian parentage, there seem to have presided over its course slow (beside sloth, ME slowth) and slack, to say nothing of the total phonosymbolic impact of the sl- formations ( s l e n d e r , slim, slight, etc.). Hence the remarkable polysemy of sluggish: 'lacking in energy, lazy', 'moving slowly, having little motion', 'slow', 'slack'. We have presented here little more than a hasty sketch of certain divergent and convergent movements in the history of two Germanic de­ rivational suffixes, and we have fallen short of solving all problems -even those of our own making. Certain lacunae remain unfilled -- we cannot yet offer any satisfactory excuse for the speakers' failure to have devised satellite formations in -ish or -y for, say, hound, lamb, lizard, mole, stag, and whale. But we have substantially narrowed down the margin of the unknown -- and this is, after all, what histori­ cal linguistics, as the spatio-temporal discipline par excellence, can and should aspire to, and occasionally does, achieve. NOTES Here are some examples culled, almost at random, from Usakov's diction­ ary: belic* ja skurka 'piece of squirrel fur', itti cerepas'im sagom 'to walk at a turtle's speed' (whereas cerepaxovyj means 'made of turtle' [like a certain soup] or 'made of tortoise shell' [like a xarakter 'softness cigaret case or a frame for glasses]), golubinyj of a dove' (as a character trait), gusinaja koza 'goose flesh, goose pimples' (= G. G'dnsehaut, but Sp. came de gallina), gusinye lapki 'crow's-feet', komarinyj ukus 'mosquito bite', krysinaja nora 'rat's hole', kurinaja slepota 'purbliridness' , lebedinaja seja 'elongated, snow-white [lit. swan-like] woman's neck', lisij mex 'fox fur' besides lis*'i uxvatki 'manners of a fox', l'vinaja dolja 'lion's share', ljagusec'e kvakan'e 'frog's (or frog-like) croaking', medvez'ja usluga 'clumsy, unwelcome favor', murav'inyj spirt 'mixed liquid used in massaging', mysinaja mordocka lit. 'mouse's muzzle', fig. 'baby's

362

YAKOV MALKIEL

mouse-like face', osinoe gnezdo 'hornets' nest', petusinyj golos 'strident voice' [like a rooster's], pcelinyj mëd 'bee honey', p t i c ' e moloko 'fabulous, superfluous thing' (lit. 'bird's milk'), etc. Interestingly, these adjectives also enter into certain phytonyms (which have numerous Western counterparts): lisij xvost, l'vinaja past' (= l'vinyj zëv, petusij grebesok, etc. 2 For full exemplification see my three papers of the years 1950, 1956, and 1959-60. 3 Recalling a parallel prong of suffixai derivation, one may be left wondering why leopardess, lioness, pantheress, and tigress, according to the most reliable dictionaries, accompany leopard, lion, panther, and tiger, whereas jaguar lacks such a companion. The point is that, while the naturalist and today's layman may both feel tempted to pair off jaguars and leopards, the lexicon, as a result of its historical stratification, ordinarily reflects older thinking. The clinching circumstance is the fact that leopards, lions, panthers, and tigers were known, however imprecisely, to the ancients, and their names are noted in the classical languages, a detail not unimportant given the GraecoLatin parentage of -ess. Conversely, the jaguar, the coug(u)ar, the puma, and the che(e)tah are relative newcomers; in fact, with one ex­ ception they are New "World animals. Similar considerations may some­ times have prevailed on the occasion of adjectival mintage. 4 I have made use, for German, of H. Paul's excellent Wortbildungslehre §67; and, for English, of H. Koziol's Handbuch §§517-9, who supplies — and dates — numerous Middle and Early Modern English formations. 5 E. -ly = G. - l i c h refer almost entirely to persons, often in a eulo­ gistic (or, at least, a neutral) tone: kingly, princely, queenly; kaiserlich, königlich, etc. Isolated E. foxly had to be sacrificed to this end. E. and G. abound in -en adjectives derived from phyto­ nyms: birchen, flaxen, hempen, linen, oaken, wooden, though they are not limited to this category {golden, waxen). Neither suffix plays any major part in the families under survey in this paper. It is, of course, true that the semantic ambit of a few of these once strictly learned words (esp. canine and feline) has been slightly extended; thus we speak of an "elephantine humor", of a "vulturine critic"; serpentine is tantamount to 'shrewd, wily'. For full details see the excellent discussion by H. Paul (§68), who identifies the participle as the (expected) mediator between nominal and verbal stems and traces -ig to OHG -ag, -ig. This suffix has been frequently affixed to parts of the human and animal anatomy:

WHY AP-ISH BUT WORM-Y?

363

bärtig, bauchig, blutig, borstig, but refers also to plant life (blumig, buschig, dornig), to the landscape (bergig, felsig), to all kinds of elements and substances (feurig, giftig, lehmig), and even to character traits (unbändig). 8

On the semantic implications of wavering in the pronunciation of lousy and mous(e)y see below. I would place in the same category the collo­ quial use of antsy for 'nervous, restless': "Everybody is getting antsy" (The New Yorker, 10. IV.65, p.144), reminiscent of the Russian stereotyped phrase muraski begajut 'I'm shivering', and the even racier "to be goosey ['apprehensive'] about reformers", with a hint of goose pimples. (On some of the finer points of colloquial American English I owe bits of useful information — based on introspection — to Teresa A. Donovan, Leanna J. Gaskins, and Carol Simpson, as well as to Dr. Benjamin M. Woodbridge, Jr.) Rabbity derives its admixture of humor from such grotesque collocations as "a rabbity man" (The New Yorker, 14.IX.68, p. 199). Spidery is rarely appealed to in its pris­ tine sense of 'full of, infested by, spiders, or spider webs', but is used to good advantage for all kinds of humorous suggestions of bizarre geometry or artistry: "With his thin spidery line" (Time, 30.VIII.68, p. 38, in reference to a French painter); "[Washington D.C.'s]avenues make their spidery progress" (Look, 6.IV.65). 9 Space is unavailable for extensive quoting of my field notes and ex­ tracts of readings, but let it be briefly stated that contemporary journalistic prose — and the conversational style which it refracts ■— are interspersed with -ish and -y formations, which lend spice to comments. One readily finds examples of kittenish, monkeyish, snakish, tigerish, and even of vixenish (C. Barnes, N.Y.T. , 6.1.68). On the other hand, free-wheeling experimentation with politically-loaded words need not be limited to these two classes of adjectives; the domestic reverberations of the Vietnam War brought with them the whimsical adv. doveward '[moving] in the direction of the peace camp' and Drew Pearson's nursery-room binomial lovey-dovey, as against academically-flavored "cautiously dovish". Regard for economy of space further prevents me from assessing earlier pronouncements (including L. Bloomfield's pointed remark in Lang. 7.205f.); and from attempting to place these two particular mechanisms of wordformation within the total picture of suffixal derivatives from zoonyms (cameleer, cockerel, parrotism, pheasantry ~ swannery, to lionize, to chamois, etc.). But note the unrestricted potential availability of abstracts in -ness and of adverbs in -ly from practically all -ish/-y words: bitchiness, boorishly, etc. REFERENCES Koziol, Herbert. 1937. Handbuch der englischen Sammlung germanischer Lehr- und Eandbücher Carl Winter.

Wortbildungslehre. 1.21. Heidelberg:

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364

Malkiel, Yakov. 1950. The Latin Background of the Spanish Suffix '-uno'. Romance Philology 4:1.17-46, . 1956. Studies in Spanish and Portuguese Animal Names. Review 24.115-43, 207-31.

Hispanic

. 1959 [-60]. Nuevas aportaciones al estudio del sufijo '-uno'. Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispanica 13.241-90. Onions, C. T., ed. 1947. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on historical principles, 2 vols. 3d ed. (revised). Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. Paul, Hermann. 1920. Deutsche 1959.

Grammatik,

V: Wortbildungslehre. 5th ed.,

Urdang, Laurence, ed. 1968. The Random House Dictionary Language. College E d i t i o n . N.Y.: Random House. Usakov, D. N., B. M. Volin, et al. 1935-40. Tolkovyj jazyka. 4 vols. Moskva: OGIZ.

of the slovar'

English russkogo

BARTHOLOMAE'S LAW AND AN IE ROOT STRUCTURE CONSTRAINT D. GARY MILLER University of Florida

Everyone must agree that Professor Lehmann's two major works on Indo-European (1952/5, 1974) represent bold steps in scholarship. The first dared to examine a number of phonological claims about Indo-Euro­ pean and to extend the laryngeal theory in an attempt to explain various problems in the IE languages. The second has already launched a whole new era of work in Indo-European (and general linguistic) studies in the context of language typology. In the wake of these major ventures it is with some apology that I humbly offer the present paper to Professor Lehmann, in the hope that, in some small way, he may find it a bold step. Whether forward or backward remains to be determined. 1. Bartholomae's Law has had a long and involved history. When Bartholomae published his famous article in 1885, Indo-European scholars immediately set out to find more examples from other IE languages, among them Germanic (cf. Brugmann 1897:1.625). This alleged evidence has been attacked by Bennett (1966), pushing most of the evidence back into IndoIranian, and it is largely a matter of opinion whether Bartholomae's Law belonged to Indo-European or was an Indo-Iranian innovation. This paper will try to establish that Bartholomae's Law was an IE rule. Relevant here is the famous IE root structure constraint, as formu­ lated by Meillet (1964:173f) and Lehmann (1955:17f): tek deg * dhek

teg *deg dheg

*tegh degh dhegh

366

D. GARY MILLER

This constraint has attracted a good deal of attention among generativists, cf. Stanley (1967), Chomsky and Halle (1968:386f), Kim (1973: 413), etc. It is not the object of this paper to discuss the implica­ tions of the constraint for generative theory (on which see Miller 1977), but only to identify its origin with Bartholomae's Law. Naturally any discussion of this sort raises the issue of the 'voiced aspirates'. This again is not our concern. It is a serious is­ sue and has attracted much attention since Jakobson pointed out that no known natural language has voiced aspirates without voiceless aspirates (1958). Cf. also Martinet (1955:115), and Szemerényi (1967:88). That is, a language can have t/d/th, but not t/d/dh (unless is also has th). The status of the voiceless aspirates in Indo-European is still uncer­ tain. Hiersche's theory (1964) that the voiceless aspirates developed in combination with a sibilant (e.g. Skt. sthag- (c) 'cover' vs. Gk. stêgō 'cover tight, keep out', an equation rejected by Mayrhofer 3.523) and that initially they resulted from loss of s- mobile must be rejected on the grounds of phonetic implausibility. It is precisely after [s] where it is most natural for obstruents to be unaspirated (cf. Kim 1970 for discussion of the phonetics involved). It seems likely that IE had voiceless aspirates but their status was more like what Africanists call 'idiophones' than any significant part of the IE phonological system (pace Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1973 who claim the IE voiceless stops were (redundantly) aspirated; this is improbable for reasons that will be­ come clear in §8-12 below). The bulk of the voiceless aspirates in Indo-Iranian are explicable as innovations there (cf. Kurylowicz 1956:375-82). For additional dis­ cussion cf. Lehmann 1955, §11, and see below. 2. A recent attempt to deal with the famous typological problem of the IE voiced aspirates is by Hopper (1973). Hopper posits a system with t/t'/d, i.e. a glottalized stop in place of the traditional plain voiced stop (cf. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1972, 1973) and a partially voiced (murmured) stop in place of the traditional 'voiced aspirate', following Ladefoged's interpretation (1971:9, 96). Nevertheless, Lade-

BARTHOLOMAE'S LAW

367

toged s theory has not been unanimously accepted (cf. Halle 1973:427f), and since Kim has obtained substantially different results,2 I will con­ tinue to use the term 'voiced aspirate' until more conclusive information is available on these sounds. The Hopper/Gamkrelidze-Ivanov system explains very neatly the con­ straint against *deg (two voiced stops), since in reality it would be the typologically widespread constraint against two checked (glottalized) stops in the same root. It also justifies the (near) absence of the plain voiced series from inflectional affixes and the scarcity of IE *b, because [p] is frequently absent from languages with glottalized stops (cf. Gamkrelidze 1973), and Georgian has no inflectional affixes with a glottalic (cf. Hopper 1973). What neither Hopper's nor anyone else's analysis (e.g. Magnusson 1967; Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1972, 1973) explains to my satisfaction is the constraint against *tegh and *ghet (as traditionally formulated). Regardless of what the 'voiced aspirates' may have been and however the 'original' version of Bartholomae's Law (BL) was to be formulated (wheth­ er an assimilation to a voiced aspirate or whatever), these considera­ tions are basically irrelevant to my central claim that the operation of BL was responsible for this particular root constraint or, less cogently, that a 'surface phonetic constraint' (SPC) (cf. Shibatani 1973) motivated both BL and the IE root structure constraint. That this is a genuine morpheme structure constraint (MSC), in defense of which notion (contra Clayton 1974: ch. 3; 1976) see Kaye (1974) and cannot be an SPC, is clear from the fact that the constraint applies only to morphemes and not to whole words (cf. *gher+to- 'milk, butter' (Pokorny 446), *bhr+tí'(act of) carrying' (Pokorny 128), etc.). See Miller 1977. In fact, this is not a static constraint of the sort proposed by Hopper or Gam­ krelidze and Ivanov that two non-glottalized occlusives must agree in voicing, but is rather more process-like (in the sense of Stampe [e.g. 1973a; 1973b] and interacts with BL at boundaries. That BL should also operate across a string is completely natural in the sense that children make assimilations across strings (cf. Braine 1974:286).

368

D. GARY MILLER 3.

To establish our claim that BL is responsible for the IE root

structure constraint, it will be necessary first to examine BL and re­ construct it in Greek and elsewhere to demonstrate its IE appurtenance. Greek has traces of the same rule that Indo-Iranian has, though this is not immediately obvious from the synchronic aspirate assimilation rule which is the converse of BL, cf. grâphō 'I write' : aor. inf. pf. 3 sg. mid. gégraptai

grápsai,

'it is written'. There are a few well-known

anomalous derivations that are residues of an older set of rules, e.g. pâskho 'I suffer' : aor. êpathon, keúthō 'I hide' : kústhos

'cunt' (cf.

Lejeune, §64 n. 1) [the late form kusos 'id.' (Hesych. et al.) I take from kûsthos by cluster simplification]. Since pâskho is a derivative in -ske/o- (like bâsko [impv. only] (fig.) to bainō 'come, go'), the original derivation must have gone some­ thing like this:

/path+sko/ → *pâthskhō → pâshko.

The derivation of

kûsthos will be handled by the same aspirate transfer rule plus the in­ dependently motivated dental assibilation rule: *kut(h)stho-

→

kûsthos (cf. Schwyzer, 306f).

'lounging place' (from *legh+skā-

cf. lêkhos

Wackernagel 1895:38ff; Hirt 1927, §352; for the suffix -sko/a-, cf. diskos dikeln

/kuth+to-/

→

Compare also lêskhê 'couch, bed'; cf.

Schwyzer, 541; Frisk 2.108);

'quoit, dish' from *dik+sko-

'throw, cast' (cf. Schwyzer, 541; Lejeune, §54);

(282) argues against the assumption of a present *dlsko.

to

Chantraine The same trans­

fer rule has been exploited by Kurylowicz (1935:52, 1956:381) and Cowgill (1965:172f) to explain such Greek endings as 2 sg. -stha. A potential problem is the fact that any stop-s-stop sequence seems to end up the same way, cf. hephthós 'cooked' to hêpsō 'cook' (for ad­ ditional forms and discussion see Hiersche, 180f).

But it is possible

that hephthôs presupposes the aspiration before [s] that seems indicated by inscriptions, cf. Boeotian (Schw. 538: ca. 550/25 B.C. [Jeffery 92f, 95(10)]): êpemphsan,

phephúlakhso,

wânakhs,

but wânakti.

For more forms

and discussion see Meillet-Vendryes, §93; Hiersche, 177f; Lejeune, §61. The derivation of hephthôs , then, could have gone like this: /heps+to/ → *hephstó-

(by Stop Aspiration before [s]) → *hephsthô-

(by Aspi-

369

BARTHOLOMAE'S LAW

rate A s s i m i l a t i o n , i . e . BL) → heipht'hôs (by s-deletion) 1971:

[ c f . Panagl

57-60]. The difference between páskhō and hephthōs would be that dental

stop deletion before [s] applies before s-deletion has a chance to apply: /pá th+sko/ (1) (2) (3) (4)

Aspiration: BL: Dent. Stop Del.: s-Del.:

páth+skhō pâskho

/heps+tó/ hephs+tohephs+thóhephthós

I assume that Aspiration, if it is real, is a late rule and that BL was reordered after it to accomodate new.cases of C sC sequences. These same rules will independently account for the aspirate in words like (< attested in Myc. a.3--ka-sa-ma) 'spear', viz. → An alternative that is phonetically more plausible (especially since aspiration before [s] is uncertain) is to get the aspiration directly from 'expulsion' (aspiration) of the [s] (viz. → ; cf. Christol 1972: 72). This necessitates the following derivation (though considerably earlier since /threph+tó/ → threptós not *t(h)rephthós): h h h /heps+tó/ → *[hep tó-] → [hep t ó-]. I have no objection to this (cf. §4 below), but notice that pâskho will then have to be explained separately as displacement (on which notion see Kisseberth 1973) of un­ derlying aspiration on the surface (viz. /path+skō/ → [pa(t)skhō]). This is quite reasonable (quantitative metathesis also preserves an un­ derlying contrast by displacing it). The exact history of these forms is obscure but it seems reasonably clear that they presuppose an aspirate transfer substantially like BL in Indo-Iranian. 4. There may be a residue to show that BL once applied in Greek whether [s] intervened or not, exactly as in Indo-Iranian. I take ex­ ception to Benveniste (1935:190) on the relationship between Gk. ákhomai (pass. of akhê(u)ō 'grieve, vex') and ákhthomai 'be loaded'. Semantically, ákhthomai cannot be a 'stative' in *-dh-. It seems rather to be a denominal verb to an unattested *ákh-tho- with the same meaning as the neuter ákhthos 'burden, load'. A similar derivational rapport obtains between êkhthō 'I hate' and the neuter e-stem êkhthos 'hate' (for more

370

D. GARY MILLER

examples see Schwyzer, 511, 703). Now, what can *âkh-thotwo possibilities are a derivative in *-dho-

A suffix *~dho- is otherwise not used in deverbal deriva­

suming BL). tion, but -toákh(-omai)

be? The only

or *-to- (the latter as­

→

is well attested.

Therefore, a derivational process

/akh+to-/ (→ âkhtho-)

is right at home in Greek and pro­

vides a reasonable example of BL without intervening [s]. Another possible example is brókhthos

'throat', a derivative of

*brôkhō 'gulp down' (aor. ébroksa, aor. pass, partic, ana-brokhén 0d. 11.586, 12.240 'gulped back'; deriv. brókhos quite plausibly a derivative in -to-, posed that brôkhthos

contains a *-dho-

'noose').

The formation is

viz. /brokh+to-/.

It has been sup­

suffix, and Chantraine (1968) ad­

duces as evidence other parts of the body which allegedly contain the same suffix, e.g. gnáthos 'jaw', stethos 'breast', grónthos Specht, 253). However, grônthos

neuter and therefore must contain a *-dhdh+e/os-),

'fist' (cf.

is a late word for pugme, ststhos

is

root enlargement (viz. *stē-

and gnâthos (Hp., Att.-Ion.) coexists with gnathmós 'id.'

(Horn.) and is at best problematical. Admittedly gnathmôs is generally assumed to be built on gnâthos by analogy with laimós 'throat, gullet' and brekhmôs [bregmós, etc.) 'front part of the head' (cf. Chantraine, 230).

But, in light of the earlier attestations of gnathmôs it is equal­

ly probable that both are simply further enlargements of a *g(e)n-A-, roughly comparable to Lat. gena 'cheek', beside genu-inus 'of, belonging to the cheek', Gk. gên-u-s 'jaw', Ved. hán-u 'jaw-bone', etc. (cf. opthal-mós -l-

beside optil(l)-os,

[Benveniste 1935:48]).

etc. 'eye', with different enlargements of In spite of the common identification of

gnâthos with Lith. žándas 'cheek', Latv. zuôds 'chin' (*gone-dh-), the vocalism renders a direct equation difficult, and Balt. d is ambiguous, so it appears that there really is no compelling evidence for a *gna-dhoof any antiquity3. Moreover, *gnA+dho- might be expected to give *gnāthos in Greek rather than gnâthos (cf. tmēëtós < *tmE+tó- 'cut' (Beekes 1969: 221-4), thnātôs

'mortal'